In Canterlot’s gardens, there is a fountain.
It is three metres tall and consists of three layers built entirely out of marble.
One of the towers’ moon-shaped tips is visible past the hedges. The ornate topiary is a much brighter green near the window that allows this view, and the parts that are brighter obscure the standard of the sun alongside it.
The first layer is decorated primarily by transcriptions of Xenophone’s descriptions of Luna on the east-facing hemicircle and Understudy Florican’s descriptions of Celestia facing the west. The former is in Ancient Ipparionic and the latter is in Classical Tarbian, and so the latter’s vowels can only be guessed at and have been correctly, though with a minor exception: the word for ‘carrying’ is transliterated as ‘burdened by’.
This is no fault of the transliterator: the tradition was to train the occupation’s teachers in the Misresephian dialect, not the classical, and while they were once homophones the meaning of the words have since changed.
The description of the wings is phonetic. There is a slight shift here—a little barb of a quill juts out, too small to be seen, though a foal once cut herself brushing past it—and it turns somewhat smoother and loopier. It turns back to transliteration at the horn.
The Ipparionic is perfect and unremarkable.
Its marble is unpolished, but there is no grime. Some moss has grown, but only around the edges of the east side, obscuring very little of interest but a dialogue on subjective morality. There is a very slight glow, mainly visible to pegasi looking closely, where the writing meets the moss. A studious unicorn looking closely would find that the passages are meant to glow when read, but would then criticise the piece’s enchanters for not generating Chariotkov radiation with an isotope possessing a shorter half-life.
A more studious unicorn would blame the text’s reader for being too loud.
Across its entire frame there are cracks. They go snaking from the west and stop just where the moss grows; the very tip of the furthest crack heralds beginning of the densest crop. The grass is not interrupted by this process, although a slight bit of cracked earth along the fountain’s rim refuses to be watered.
The second layer, held above the clear water by a single wide pole, is similarly ornamented. A single bit of it is missing: it is lying on the grass next to the fountain and the gap it creates lets a far greater amount of water cascade down it at once, in conjunction with the third layer’s similar defect.
The piece in the grass to the west is mostly charred and unintelligible, but what of it that can read can—and is, printed on a little bit of brass nearby half-buried in the grass like a tombstone—be translated from the Tarbian:
and the pink of her eyes betrays something other than benevolence but a deeply smiling intelligence
A small bloodstain lies wet on its side, covering a few more words, and it has for the last thousand years. Princess Celestia often jokes with her sister that she will use it if she ever needs a transfusion, and Luna glares at her for this every time. The piece from the upper layer is completely disintegrated.
The upper layer’s tip is rimmed with pure gold. The bit of marble jutting out of it and producing the ephemeral water from its tip is aluminium-plated. It is overcompensating slightly for the hole in an attempt to make up for unoccupied space, but its enchantment is holding admirably.
The fountain averages twenty visitors a month. There is a general uneasiness amongst its visitors, and they often leave quickly. It is not a very popular tourist spot, though certain Ashamites will include it in their pilgrimage; on Hajj, about a hundred or two hundred will pay their respects here.
The Royal Guard, unlike with the fountain, is very careful with their guard of the blood-smeared fragment. There is usually one standing under the shade provided by the topiary. He has developed a certain uneasiness about it, but he often notes aloud—presumably to himself—that the duty is short and pays extra.
He knows a little Otteroin; this is because, as he will tell anybody that looks at it for a while, there is an inscription in the language in a little rectangle in the middle of the middle layer, and he will gladly translate it for a visitor who looks too long:
The foundation of this great fountain laid by Otteroin unicorns, inscribed by the descendants of their originators of both West and East and presented to the goddess Celestia by the Otteroin ambassador in lieu of Emperor Florican (and here he will pause to note that this isn’t the same Florican who first wrote the western inscription) the courageous, the mighty, under the grace of Her will, in commemoration of the taking of rightful place at the head of one of the greatest bastions of the pony nation.
He will note that somepony has before tried to use his tendency to explicate this before so as to make a run for the stone, but he turned and ran just as he got past the embedded translation. He will shrug, pause to take a deep breath and return to his duties.
To its south, facing the opening in the topiary where most visitors enter, there is a steel plaque on a pedestal. It is leafed in gold and has four words on it at the top, two of which are names. Celestia would have preferred it to be five, but she did not commission the plaque. There are a few other words, as well.
They're simple ones.
They tell the fountain’s story for anyone too busy to look at it.