//------------------------------// // Chap. 14 - Duplicating Problems // Story: Genealogy - (or the Mating Habits of Nocturnes Pegasi) // by Georg //------------------------------// Genealogy - (or The Mating Habits of Nocturnes Pegasi) Duplicating Problems The week seemed to pass as if in a dream for Pumpernickel. The task of copying each of the Books of Tradition from the two hundred and thirty five Nocturne families would have been a frightening thought without the unicorn Copy spell. Even to just copy one of them would involve over a year of hard work for a Night Pegasi who wanted to Traditionally set off on his own and start a family with their own Book of Tradition. That was probably the reason it had become Tradition so early after the Creation, so that families would stay together instead disintegrating into the rest of the population. Pumpernickel had thought about leaving the family himself during his disquieted teenaged years but by the time he had dug down a few inches into the Book, that urge to escape had quickly been overwhelmed by hoof-cramps and teenaged lethargy. The idea that a unicorn with a spell could accomplish in minutes what would have taken him months was a little daunting, but he would be willing to bet the aftermath of copying every single Book of Tradition would result in more than one dissatisfied Night Pegasus saving up his or her bits to simply buy their own copy. Luna probably did not realize just how much of the tree of Tradition she was bucking, and just what fruit was going to come raining down, but in his growing opinion, that tree had needed to be harvested and pruned for some time now. True to Luna’s word, at dawn the next day a pair of large carriages dropped down onto the library lawn and disgorged what seemed to be half of the unicorns in the castle’s Office of Correspondence, or as the Royal Guard liked to refer to it ‘The Office of Eternal Paperwork.’ A second set of wagons filled with supplies dropped in behind them, and as if that were a signal, one hyperactive purple unicorn armed with a draconic assistant and a checklist appeared and took charge. Five little fillies, four Royal Guards, three Elements of Harmony, two grouchy rich parents, and one Pumpernickel were all promptly drafted into Twilight Sparkle’s Army of Knowledge, a rather exotic and small brigade of stalwart soldiers acting as fire support for Princess Luna’s draftees. While the OoC set up in the only building in the city large enough for them all to work at the same time, Ponyville Town Hall, a steady stream of orders flowed from General Sparkle to her troops. Carts were hired, chests containing Books of Tradition were loaded, supplies flowed, checklists were checked, copies were made and doublechecked, and Pumpernickel was amazed. His assigned position seemed to be ‘Supervisor Responsible For Making Sure Nopony Disrespected The Books’ while his entire job turned out to be wandering among the ant-like organized chaos, nodding and looking suitably important. The Office of Correspondence routinely handled treaties and Very Important Ponies with Very Important Papers. He could find no flaw in the exacting way they conducted their workplace in the town hall: carefully laying out the contents of each chest, examining every paper before and after their copy spell, making certain the piles of copies that were being boxed up and sent to the Canterlot archives were indeed both accurate and had not accidently gotten any of the originals mixed with the copies. Even their lunch had a checklist: carrot juice, apple slices, salad, and a slice of apple pie with a mint sprig for dessert. When the first carriage filled with copies of Books took off for the Canterlot Archives, he used his new ‘authority’ to shoulder one of the drivers out of his harness and take his place. It felt good to get back up into the air with some weight across his shoulders, but not so good that he did not carefully ration his strength and overfly his fellow drivers. The Archives were an eye-opening sight, because what seemed to be such a huge task with massive piles of paper in the Golden Oaks Library turned into a tiny corner of boxes stored along a single shelf labeled ‘History: Night Pegasi’ wedged between ‘History: Night’ and ‘History: Northern Pony Tribes, Crystal Kingdom.’ If it were not for an exhaustive labeling system of the Archive’s shelves, he could have trotted right past the section and been lost for years among the towering well-organized piles. With a while to go before the return trip, he took to wandering the aisles of the history section and thinking. Books and papers on all sapient races throughout Equestria were packed and stacked on tall shelves throughout several large buildings. How much could one learn from them if you did nothing but read? Would you ever be able to recreate the feeling of a good daytime family sleeping heap, the joy of lining up with your fellow Royal Guard Cadets at graduation, or the chilling shock of separation as every other graduate went through the traditional bleaching except yourself? Did the Griffons ever have issues with older siblings, since they hatched out a half-dozen at a time? Did Minotaurs ever fall in love with broken females, or did they just cast them aside as they pursued suitable mates more able to swing a hammer and shield? The flight back only added to the questions crowding his mind. Was this how Princess Celestia felt when her sister returned from exile on the moon? To see someone you cared about in pain, and only able to add to that pain by comforting them was a cruelty beyond any reason. He carried his questions with him as he laid down to sleep in his lonely bed, but even the oblivion of slumber only added to their weight. As the week wore on and the busy process of archiving continued, his body recovered while his mind languished. His mane had just barely started to grow back in little frizzled patches, so at the suggestion of Rarity he made a quick trip to a little styling shop she frequented. One quick trim later, he felt as if he were in the Academy again, with the cold breeze on the back of his neck as a welcome reminder of his duty. Once cadets had graduated they were permitted to grow their manes back as long as they wished, but the Night Pegasi still in the active duty Guards Traditionally kept it all a half-hoof long, only letting it go once they retired. In addition, several of the weather team dropped by over the week to chat with Rainbow Dash and coincidently just happened to talk to Pumpernickel. Raindrops briefly apologized again for her uncontrolled assault and made some sort of mumbled offer, it was either an offer to spar in full pads, or something a little more bedroom oriented. The offer from Cloud Kicker was most certainly not an offer to spar. Fluttershy had even stopped by to check his healing progress, and to drop off a small bag filled with fishing stick splinters. The visit was a little strange; her experience with taking care of small creatures must have been why she kept patting him gently on the head while she checked his bandages, but being given a food pellet afterwards bordered on the plain weird. Although the pellet was tasty. His four fellow disgraced guards had taken to the week with entirely too much enthusiasm, and an entirely too literal view of Princess Luna’s commands. It had all started when Diamond Tiara had complained about the fetching and carrying she had been doing, and Silver Spoon had joined in. Before the two fillies knew what was going on, the guards had designated them ‘Princesses for the Week’, gave Silver Spoon a paper tiara, and began their ‘Princess Training Academy’. When the Cutie Mark Crusaders objected, they found themselves drafted as ‘Royal Steward’, ‘Appointment Secretary’, and ‘Guard Trainee’ while the Guards then proceeded to recreate the pageantry of Canterlot in small scale. He had to admit even he found it a little funny at times, as one or another of the ‘Princesses’ would scurry by with an assistant in tow, late for another ‘Royal Appointment.’ The two little brats had started quite enthusiastic about their new-found artifical status, but by the end of the week they had started to flag as the novelty wore off and their fictional responsibilities grew. It was a little frightening how well Scootaloo had plunged into the role of ‘Guard Trainee’ during the week. She darted about the Book duplication area just as sincere as the most ardent trainee, wearing a smaller version of the formal uniform he was wearing himself. It still looked wrong to have a uniform on her, but she was just a little filly. Maybe she would go on to someday join one of the various town guards, after all, he had heard they had female members. Not the Royal Guard. He very carefully placed the idea of armored mares on top of a pile of anxiety and pressed down firmly. This was one idea that he wanted to be nowhere near when Luna dropped it into the very tradition-bound Royal Guard. Nope, not my idea. No idea where Laminia or Princess Luna dug it up. I’m as surprised by it as you all are. Repeat and try to look sincere. As Pumpernickel continued their ‘Night Pegasus History School’ project at breakfast and lunch, he found himself warming to the little fillies bright energetic little faces, all filled with joy and curiosity about the history of the Nocturne. Their questions seemed to rotate around different facets of their personality: Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon preferred questions on fashion and status, their fathers seemed to have an unerring thirst for the details of the families millennia-old investments, several of which had attained legendary size. Apple Bloom asked about food, Sweetie Belle about music, and Scootaloo… Well, she seemed to have the idea that Night Guards fought dragons at dusk, titans at midnight, and trolls until the break of dawn. Whatever trolls were. The three Elements of Harmony reacted to ‘School’ differently than he expected. Rarity was ever the charming hostess, ensuring that the breakfast and lunch meetings were properly conducted. She had no end of questions about the Night Pegasi families involving the normal state of dress (nothing), their food preferences (anything on sale except fish products) and their status in the various communities (low). Applejack seemed remarkably uninterested in a career where most of the activity involved inactivity, i.e. standing around looking impressive. And Rainbow Dash… The less said about the hyperactive pegasus in a controlled environment filled with loose paper the better, except she seemed to be the source for all of the wild ideas from Scootaloo. The bustling activity helped keep his mind off Laminia, or at least he only looked at the Carousel Boutique a few dozen times a day, wondering just how well she was handling her work for Princess Luna. She had made it abundantly clear that she wanted nothing to do with him. If he was working with the Books, she would not come out of the boutique. He held out hopes that perhaps if he were to stay within the library, she would only hide in the boutique for a night or two, but soon came to the realization that she was perhaps serious this time. The resulting urge to wrap himself in his dark thoughts and retreat into the library for the whole week would have been very tempting, if not for his job as ‘teacher’ and an unexpected responsibility that kept him constantly on his hooves: Twilight Sparkle At first the hustle and bustle of the Night Pegasus Books of Tradition being bundled out of the library to the town hall, copied, and carefully stored was enough to keep the purple unicorn busy. But as the process ironed out into a well-oiled machine by the second day, a sense of ownership seemed to be bothering Twilight as ‘her’ Books streamed out of the library. She became moody at about the same time as Spike, and often he would catch them with exactly the same possessive look on their face as his fellow guards would pick up a chest and carry it away. She began to spot-check some of the Books before duplication, and leave a growing trail of little pieces of paper marked ‘make extra copy for library’ or ‘two copies please.’ And then one evening, he caught her reading through one of the foal’s stories in the Books. It was more instinct than Royal Guard training that made him grab the bucket of water when he smelled smoke, and a wild guess at the sound of grinding teeth that made him dump part of it on top of her smoldering head. After a brief discussion about the differences between youth literature and reality, and a sincere promise not to read any more ‘historical’ parts of the Books unsupervised, he let her return to her studies. After a few moments thought about the reaction of Princess Celstia’s personal protégé to the story, he added a note that the Royal Guard should have a rather large tub of ice water close at hoof when the Princess of the Sun were to read that particular story. Preferably swimming pool sized. Curiosity piqued, he waited until Twilight had gone to bed and carefully read through the story himself, comparing the differences with the same story he had read in his own family Book. It made for quite a… different approach to the subject, and encouraged him to spend the rest of the night checking every available Book containing that particular story. And that led him to make another trip around the Books, trying to figure out just which other stories had changed, vanished, or twisted themselves completely out of shape. More than one time as he checked stories, the desire arose for a slip of paper marked ‘erase from existence.’ He made a special point to apologize again to Twilight Sparkle at breakfast, as well as impress on Spike the importance of keeping his mentor calm and non-flammable while in a wooden tree filled with paper books that also included a sleeping Night Pegasus upstairs, who would prefer to live a long and miserable life instead of dying in an inferno like the heroine of the story. That story, Memiri and the Blazing Inferno, became a private obsession with him. As the various Books that went out to be copied, they all accumulated one or more ‘copy for Pumpernickel’ notes in that story. He reached the point where he could quote large sections of it by memory along with differences introduced as various family lines diverged, making their own copies of the Book along with their own little edits and typos. It was only as they reached the last twenty or so chests and the library floor started to seem almost empty by comparison that he realized his week was about over. Tomorrow he would go back to Canterlot, put on his armor, and return to his duty. The thought should have filled him with joy, but his mind kept going back to the story he had made up out of thin air in front of the Princess. He was indeed a Very Lonely Pegasus, even standing in the middle of the most important city in the world and surrounded by other ponies, he would still be completely alone. His hooves carried him numbly to the last chest, very first chest the library had received and began to sort through the contents. He marked the story for extra copies, and idly leafed through the rest of the papers on the very top of the chest before it finally soaked through his head that this was Laminia’s family Book. His own Rye family had a very cavalier attitude to the monthly family meeting notes, often just referenced as the date and a few words. Out of curiosity, he had looked himself up in his own family meeting minutes, and was only a little disappointed to find five entries: “Adopted colt.” “Brook sent to hospital with broken ribs.” “Named Pumpernickel on unanimous vote.” “Brook released from hospital, home.” “Pumpernickel graduated.” The Stratus family seemed to treat their weekly minutes as an exercise in novel writing. A hoof-thick sheaf of paper barely held the last ten years of of meetings, and they had even written on both sides of the paper, in a very small and tidy script. He flipped through the pages, looking in vain for Laminia’s name until a solid lump of ice seemed to form in his belly. I grew up my entire life known only as ‘the cripple’ to my family. A few pages flipped back and some more intensive examination later he found her. Or more accurately, found the rather exhaustive reports her family had on her activities. There were pages of reports from the private investigator, a few photos of her inside a series of seedy bars, receipts, and testimony. Apparently the family had confronted her at their meetings on a regular basis, her diatribe in return was almost unprintable. Despite his best interests, he found himself skimming through the reports until his stomach churned in disgust. The invective she sprayed at her adoptive father alone—his thoughts came to a crashing halt as he thought about the thin streak of blue in their manes that they shared, much as a real parent could pass on their colors to their own foals. He swallowed uncomfortably and flipped back farther until he found the entry for her adoption. Determining parentage was often more than a little strange, due to the way different pony types tended to just ‘pop’ up depending on ancestors several generations back. Generally the families in a city would make an attempt to find out if an existing family member had fathered a new Night Pegasus foal and discuss things back and forth before deciding which family should adopt them. It was one of the reasons he was glad he had not gone ‘window shopping’ the way many of the stallions in the family were rumoured to have spent a great deal of their youthful nighttime. He would have expected more discussion after an undesirable crippled filly had been brought in for adoption, but Slipstream from the Stratus family had almost immediately and without any discussion in the weekly minutes extended an invitation. It was almost a demand. No mention of her was made for years in the minutes, so he flipped forward through the pages, reading through the normal minutia of life one week at a time, trying to determine the reason for her pain and fearing he already knew. “Twilight Sparkle, your presence is requested and required at Princess Luna’s side.” The words slid off his back like water. He ignored the Guards who entered the library and made the announcement. They were of no consequence. He would feel better about his guilty research without the probability of a curious purple unicorn popping up over his shoulder at any moment anyway. Twilight made her exit with the Guards out of the library door and away from his perception without a fuss, leaving him to peruse the thick stack of minutes at his leisure. “Hey. Lumpy. Wake up. I’m pretty sure the Princess wants you over there too.” Pumpernickel looked up blearily through the bright afternoon sunlight blazing through the library windows nearly horizontally and glowered at the two Guards who remained standing by the library entrance with their tinted goggles pushed up on their foreheads. “I’m busy.” He leafed through a few more pages as if he were actually reading them while waiting for them to leave. Redoubtable scoffed and rolled his eyes. “Good grief, Lumpy. You’ve spent so much time in here, you’re going to get mistaken for one of the Day Guard. Isn’t that right, Sunny?” “Yep,” agreed Sunny Meadows happily. “Not enough time out in the moonlight, and we Nocturne get all cranky and pale. Doesn’t he look cranky and pale to you, Red?” “Oh yeah. You know, I hear if a pegasi spends too much time around books, they can start to moult.” Redoubtable held out his brilliant white wings and gave them a gentle flap, causing a few loose papers to go flying around the room and Pumpernickel to flatten down on top of the minutes and glower at him. “You bats don’t moult though, do you Sunny?” “Oh no.” Sunny Meadows spread out his own dark bat-like wings and gave them one slow flap, knocking a few more papers onto the floor. “We don’t moult. We get these little flaky patches of skin, they look a little like paper.” He peered with exaggerated intent at his own wings as if the mere presence of so much paper would cause them to suddenly flake. “Oh knock it off, you two. Go colt-cuddle somewhere if you’re that much in love with yourselves,” Pumpernickel snapped, turning his attention to the minutes with such intent they should have burst into flames at his gaze. “What’s wrong with him?” asked Sunny Meadows in a falsely-sympathetic voice. “He’s in love with your cousin, Laminia. You know, the one with the big—” “Ego. Yeah, I know that, I’m not blind, you know. It’s not that bright out, and I’ve got my shades. Hey, you’re looking through my family Book, aren’t you?” “It’s research,” mumbled Pumpernickel, slowly beginning to redden with embarrassment. “Find anything good about your marefriend?” asked Redoubtable. “I heard she got kicked out of her family and adopted by the Royal Seamstress.” He poked his head over Pumpernickel’s shoulder, causing him to move the minutes to the other side. “No! Now will you please just go—“ “Hey, I remember this part.” Sunny Meadows poked his head over Pumpernickel’s other shoulder and put a hoof down on the page. “It’s back when we were talking about moving the family to Fillydelphia.” “What?” Pumpernickel moved his hoof and glanced through the minutes. “Why’s that?” “Space. The old home just wasn’t big enough any more. We had young ones hanging out of every window, caused a lot of stress. Nopony wanted to sell us a house nearby, and we didn’t want to give up the old house. It’s—” “Traditional, yeah I could guess,” said Redoubtable. “So why Fillydelphia?” “A very nice offer from their city guard. We didn’t have many family in the Royal Guard at the time, and those that were had just about completed their first hitch. There was another family who was an offshoot from a few hundred years back willing to move into the old house, lots smaller, no more than a dozen with their kids. It seemed about the optimal time for us to move.” Sunny flipped a few pages forward. “Eventually the idea kind of faded when Lamby started to act up. She split the family up the middle so instead of two factions, we had four. Or five, or six, I kind of lost track on which groups wanted to do what with her. This was a couple years before Luna returned, and we even had one faction that wanted to—never mind.” Pumpernickel glanced down at the minutes and blurted out, “Our transformation is reversible?” “What?” Redoubtable craned his neck to look over Pumpernickel’s shoulder and read with wide eyes. “Can the Princess do that? I mean… why would you want to do that? Not that feathers are bad for wings I mean, but turn one of your into… one of us?” “It’s not really reversible,” said Sunny Meadows with an embarrassed frown as he traced down the page. “More like a full transformation going the other way. If it was just a spell, it could be dispelled. Princess Luna didn’t just cast a spell on the pegasi on the Night of Creation, she created three new races of ponies.” “Three?” asked Redoubtable as both Night Pegasi looked away from him. “What happened to the other—” “We don’t like to talk about it,” interrupted Sunny Meadows forcefully. “Please don’t spread it around.” The three guards read for a while before Pumpernickel spoke up. “They never told her. See, right here. Unanimous vote, and they didn’t even ask the Princess. I wonder if she would have been happier with feathers instead of…” He trailed off and wiped away a bit of facial moisture that could never be called a tear in present masculine company. “Naa. You ever look at her when she’s around Luna?” asked Redoubtable with a sniff, as if manly tears had somehow treacherously snuck into his nose. “She loves the Princesses more than anypony has a right to. Black or white or pink with purple stripes, doesn’t matter, her face would be right there next to the Princess.” “Oh yeah,” said Sunny Meadows. “You should have seen her face when the Pins adopted her. They were crying, she was crying, my family was crying. Well, most of them. Some were cheering. I think I may have had a bit of water in my eyes too. Probably allergies.” “So did your family go back to arguing about going to Fillydelphia then?” “Nope.” Sunny Meadows grinned. “By amazing coincidence, the owner of the house right next to ours got a tailoring job in Manehattan and our family bought the house outright a few days later. Took about a day to connect the two houses. Some of the family are still a little resentful about staying in Canterlot, but they’re coming around ever since Luna returned. Oh, and that reminds me. My cousin is buying ice cream for Princess Luna and some of the project workers. If we get there in time, we may just be able to get a few scoops ourselves. Provided you can still haul your plump rump into the air, after sitting around here like a lump.” “I don’t know,” said Redoubtable, interposing himself in the conversation and placing one hoof under his chin in a show of false consideration for the older Night Pegasus. “We young kids may just kick your old cart-hauling carcass around the sky. You may act all pretty waving your flank around in front of the Princess, but when it comes down to actual flying…” Pumpernickel tried to ignore them as he stuck a few ‘copy for Pumpernickel please’ notes into the minutes and letters before closing the chest lid with a thump. “How about the three of us, over to the reservoir, around Sweet Apple Acre’s lightning rod. Last one to touch Lickety Split’s front steps, buys.”