I just knelt there continuing to look at the princess. I honestly thought that seeing the others was a precursor to seeing her up close. That was barely the case. Or perhaps I should say that was exactly the case. Bah! Whatever.
Celestia was easily about five and a half feet tall and the horn on her head was about two and a half to three times bigger than Twilight’s horn. Her mane was shining with four different colors that just popped out at you. Celestia herself actually seemed to have a slight glow to her as well. Her white coat seemed to give a nice shine that was a little painful to the eyes with the darkness we were both in. Even her cutie mark actually seemed to waver a little like it was giving off heat. Finally, her wings looked larger than Rainbow Dash's which made me wonder if she could actually fly faster than her or if she could just stay aloft using her wings alone.
All in all, she was quite an impressive specimen to look at.
“It is very sweet of you to think that.”
I instantly knew what happened. It’s one of those things you know just by being immersed in scifi culture.
“So, you can read minds?”
“Only when I am concentrating on them alone. You were not saying anything so I took a peek.”
“Is it just thoughts, or can you see images as well?”
“It is only thoughts. Images would require scrying into your mind.”
“I see. So, why did you decide to come and see me now? Why didn’t you wait until Twilight was awake?”
“I had just finished my royal business for the day in Canterlot. Now was merely the first opportunity to come and see you myself.”
That makes sense. Celestia was always the one pony I had a hard time getting a handle on. Everyone else was sort of simplistic. Celestia, however, had been around for a minimum of one thousand years. That can give you a lot of depth to dive into.
I finally climbed to my feet and continued chatting with the princess.
“Alright, now that you’re here may I ask about your visit? I suppose you’re here to observe the strange being?”
“In a sense, yes. Unlike the other ponies, my sister and I have seen humans before.”
That was a bit surprising.
“You and your sister have seen humans before?”
“Indeed we have. You are, however, the first one to appear in almost three thousand years or so.”
My jaw almost dropped at that.
“You’ve been around for three thousand years?”
“I have been around for much longer than that.”
“Really? How long exactly?”
“I was born almost fourteen thousand years ago, and my sister was born a few hundred years after that.”
I think my brain nearly broke at hearing that.
“I would appreciate that you do not tell any of my little ponies about that.”
“Why not?” I asked with my voice creaking a little.
“It is not something we wish to discuss with them.”
“Yet, you told me this with little prompting. Am I missing something here?”
My voice was still creaking with disbelief.
“Humans were more frequent here in Equestria in the past. They were all mighty and noble beings. However, there were less and less females with every generation and unfortunately they died out. Many of their influences are still felt throughout Equestria to this day as a reminder of this.”
“That would explain a few things,” I pondered out loud. “So, you would trust me with this, and yet why don’t you wish to tell the other ponies about this?”
“That is because we do not wish for them to try to become alicorns themselves.”
“I think I might want to sit down for this one.”
I pivoted and sat back down on the couch, chair, whatever it was and placed my chin in my hand.
“You see, alicorns are not born as alicorns. We are born as normal ponies. Only those with rare special talents or with very high magic can become alicorns. These ponies are sought out and trained to see if their talent is strong enough to survive metamorphosis. Only one or two every thousand years are determined to be suitable for this task. I had almost thought that Princess Cadence would be the only one to come along this time.”
That made me think of Twilight.
“Twilight said she was your personal student. Does that mean you think she is capable of it?”
“The things she has done make me believe that she may be able to succeed. There are, however, more trials that she must overcome before I am certain.”
“I have no doubt in my mind that she is capable of doing it. I mean she’s helped me work with my magic fairly well so far.”
The princess gave me a quizzical look.
“I was told in Twilight’s letter that humans could not perform magic. Even the humans of old could not properly harness it.”
“Normally no, but for some reason I’m capable of doing it. It happened by accident the first time and now I’m trying to practice it so I can use it better. I’m not doing too bad a job at it either.”
“May I see this magic you can perform?”
“Of course you can. Let me try levitating something for you.”
I looked around and spotted a vase filled with flowers that were in the middle of the room. In hindsight, that seemed like an odd choice to have in a library. I pointed my hand at it and concentrated slightly. The flowers then glowed and each one rose out in turn and floated over to my hand. I then closed my hand, grabbing the flowers, and the glow ceased. I turned to give her the flowers.
“Here you go, Celestia. Some nice flowers for you.”
As I peered around the flowers that I foolishly made block my view from her, I noticed she had an expression that I wasn’t expecting to see. It looked like a mix of anger, confusion, and deep thought.
“It is not possible,” I heard her mumble.
“Are you alright? What’s not possible? I thought I did a pretty good job with that.”
She looked up and used her magic to levitate the flowers back to the vase. Then, she moved closer to me and stared intensely. It was a bit unnerving. I wanted to say something, but it felt like if I did she was going to do something that I didn’t like.
“That magic,” she said finally after a few minutes of this, “is not something you should be capable of using.”
I honestly couldn’t help from rolling my eyes.
“I think I covered that. Humans aren’t supposed to be able to use magic.”
“That is not what I mean. The magic you have should not be able to be controlled like this. It is chaos magic.”
“Chaos magic? Is that different from regular magic somehow?”
“Chaos magic is rarely found in nature and is not capable of being controlled by any creature with one exception. And that one exception is incased in stone right now.”
I looked at the tattoo on my hand. That was really odd. I have chaos magic? I thought the only thing capable of that was-
Then it hit me. It hit me hard and fast. The being in my room. The one that had seemed so familiar, but I couldn’t place it. The one the princess said was currently encased in stone.
It was Discord.
“So, you know who he is?”
I looked at the princess. Her expression was no longer mixed. It was just angry.
“That was the thing in my room. It was the thing that sent me here.”
“Maybe so, but you knew his name, and I didn’t tell it to you.”
What? I didn’t say that out loud. I thought it.
Oh wait.
“You read my mind again.”
“You have magic you shouldn’t be capable of using and you know Discord by name. There is one conclusion that I can draw from that,” she said as her horn started to glow.
“Well, uh, I don’t think it’s the right one, but, heh, I'll, uh, I’ll let you say what you think it is and then please don’t do anything rash. Please.”
“You are an ally of Discord and you wish to free him.”
“That is completely not true. I mean I know who he is, but there are a lot of people who know who he is.”
“And how would these people know who he is if you yourself said that you have never seen him before?”
This was not the best time for my story to come unraveling. Panic is not a good speech motivator.
“I can tell you, but I don’t want anyone else to hear. Can we speak somewhere that no ponies will hear us?”
“As you wish,” she said in a deep tone that really got under my skin.
A quick flash later and we were in a different place. It took me a few seconds to realize that we were in Canterlot Castle. The throne room to be exact. It was quite grand, but as I looked around I noticed how dark it was with nobody else in there. Neither the banners on the walls nor the flowers along the walls or the carpet stretching to the throne were popping out like I had thought them to do.
“Nopony will be able to hear you in this room. Now speak before I have you dealt with.”
“Alright, I will. Just be open okay?”
“Your time is lessening.”
“Okay, okay. First, yes I know Discord. There are a great many humans who know about Discord. There are also a great many humans who know about you. They don’t know about many of those, uh, things you told me yourself. They also know about your sister and the ponies who wield the Elements of Harmony and a lot of other things. They know and I know because we’ve seen them happen.”
Her expression changed to one of confusion, but her horn kept glowing. She then quickly regained her angry look.
“You have been spying on us?”
“It wasn’t spying! We were just watching you.”
“Watching us without our knowledge or consent is spying!”
“How were we supposed to know we needed your consent? We didn’t think you were real!”
“How can you spy on something when you think it is not real?”
There was no way around this. I had to spill.
“Because the people who were observing you thought that you were merely moving pictures.”
Celestia’s horn ceased glowing and her face was scrunched up with confusion. Boy did that look odd.
“Moving… pictures?”
“Yes, that’s right. Moving pictures. Those are basically pictures that someone draws on paper, and then keep drawing them over and over until they do an entire sequence. When you speed them up, it looks as if they are moving in real time. Then, if you add sound to those pictures, it looks as if they are the ones talking. When all of that is combined, you get a show of moving pictures. It can be used educationally or in an entertainment capacity.”
“Oh, so like a movie then,” she surmised.
Oh, right. I had forgotten about that. I saw that during the episode where they were trying to create that massive tornado in order to send up water to Clousdale.
“Yes, it’s sort of like that, only it isn’t catching real things happening. Instead, it’s like making things up and presenting them in a similar fashion.”
I looked at her as she absorbed this. Her posture wasn’t as aggressive as before, yet she looked as though if I tried anything she would be ready for it.
“So, if what you are saying is true, then you know a great many secrets.”
“I only know about this place from the time Nightmare Moon escaped to the time of the end of Princess Cadence’s wedding.”
That did bring me to a question that had been bugging me.
“By the way, what did happen to you when Nightmare Moon returned? It was rather vague about what happened to you.”
“I surrendered and let her capture me.”
...I did not expect her to answer me so candidly.
“What?”
“I knew that the only way to stop her was for Twilight to make herself some friends and for them to harness the Elements of Harmony. I needed them before to defeat my dear sister, and I knew that fighting her would be pointless. She would instead bring herself to the elements to stop them and thus help reveal their true nature.”
Wow. Now that is some impressive insight. Then again, she probably had decades to prepare for this so it was a great deal easier to plan.
“Actually, I was prepared to use the elements myself once more, until Twilight sent me her letter. I had been planning to send her off to make some friends anyway and this was a grand opportunity I couldn't pass up. I knew then that she would be able to wield them now instead of myself in a manner that would bring about a satisfying conclusion.”
Again with the mind reading. Although, I think I’m understanding this better.
“I don’t think you’ve stopped reading my mind since I’ve arrived in the castle. Am I right?”
“Indeed. I would not want to lower my guard to a potential threat. So long as you have that magic, then you are a threat.”
“Oh come on! It’s not like I’m the one who gave me this magic!”
“Perhaps. If your story is true then I may no longer consider you a threat.”
An idea popped into my head.
“What about that scrying spell you mentioned? You can use it on me to show you that I’m telling the truth.”
She furrowed her brow for a moment.
“It is too risky. I can control what I see when I look into a ponies mind. I know this because I have had many who were willing to let me practice this spell on them in order to perfect it.”
“Practice makes perfect. I was telling Twilight this. Perhaps you should tell her that. It will probably have more impact coming from you.”
“If I tell her that, then she will practice the same spell over and over again and she will never truly think it is perfect. By thinking that, she will never work on another spell again. However, we are getting off topic. I cannot attempt a scrying spell on you. I would not be able to control what I see.”
“Good point. There are things you do not want to see in there.”
“Although, where Discord is concerned I may not have another option. Chaos magic can make things unpredictable in more ways than you can believe.”
Heh. She just changed her mind on mind reading. Oh, her horn started to glow once more.
“Words of warning before you do this,” I said seriously.
She looks at me expectantly.
“What has been seen, cannot be unseen.”
“I do not understand what you are talking about.”
“You will soon enough.”
Her horn flared again and everything went white.