//------------------------------// // Chapter 4 - Research // Story: The Worth of Words // by StormyVenture //------------------------------// Elsewhere in Canterlot Twilight Sparkle trudged slowly along the road. The whole day's turmoil had left her very, very tired. As it was, she felt only a little better. She owed her parents an apology for her sudden departure, but she didn't really want to face her brother right now. He had stolen a happy life from her in a moment of drunken stupor and she found it hard to forgive him for that. It really was adding insult to injury to mess with a person like that, and not even when you were in a right state of mind. After what seemed an eternity, she reached her parent's home, though they weren't really her parents, she reminded herself, just her family – maybe. Pushing on the door and finding it open and unlocked, she snuck in quietly and dragged herself to her room, locking and magically sealing the door behind her. Unbeknownst to her, her arrival had not gone unnoticed. From the kitchen came the sound of two let out sighs. Night Light looked at his wife, pleadingly. "She's going to have to find out one of these days, dear.", he said softly. Twinkle looked at him with resentment. "Not from me, Night Light. Don't you even think about it either. Our daughter deserves an answer, yes, but not from us." She grimaced."She'll just have to find out the hard way, unless a certain someone decides to tell her first." Night Light sighed, he could see the anger and resentment that still seethed under his wife's skin. Despite her love for Twilight, her grudge against the Princess hadn't grown any colder over the years. If only things hadn't happened as they had, the world would be a better place. He wished she would just let it go, it wasn't helping her or Twilight and it wouldn't help Celestia, though perhaps she alone deserved the pain most. It still wasn't fair to treat a pony that way, even an immortal Alicorn. That night Twilight slept fitfully and dreamed strange dreams, she imagined all kinds of different parents for herself: pegasi, unicorns, earth ponies, even the princesses respectively, though she dismissed those as utter fantasy and unbelievably impossible. It was hard to imagine that her real parents could have loved her so little to have abandoned her or what other circumstance could have driven them to do so. In the morning, Twilight woke up, the sun already high in the sky. For a moment she was somewhat happy, until she remembered the day before. In a moment all the unhappiness and frustration returned. Sighing, she tried to shove it into the back of her mind. Leaving her room, unsealing the door in the progress, she took the stairs at a very sedate pace. Stepping into the kitchen she found her father, well, adoptive father, making breakfast. Hay sweetened with a little sugar. "Good morning, dad." Dad... It just sort of hung forlornly on the end of the sentence. The thing was it felt all wrong, now that she had some idea of the truth. "Good morning, dear." The words were no different than they had ever been, not really, but now there was a tension present that had not been evident before. After they had finished eating breakfast, Twilight brought up the big question. "I'm sorry, Dad, about yesterday, that is." "You don't have to be sorry Twilight. I don't know how we expected you to handle that news. Shining really shouldn't have said what he did." "So, who are my real parents, Dad." Night Light's smile dimmed considerably. "I wish I could tell you Twilight. Your mom doesn't want to tell you. Please be careful, Twilight, this is a very sensitive issue for her. I'm afraid you'll have to figure it out yourself, you may not like the truth very much." Twilight frowned. What could be the matter, clearly something was up. Her mother had always seemed to be a bright, upbeat pony. Now she wasn't certain, was it a mask, what was her mother hiding? What could there possibly be to do with Twilight's parentage that prompted that kind of reaction to it. Did something happen to her mom? She sighed resignedly. "Ok, dad." The word still felt strange to her, in light of her new found knowledge. "When I discover the truth, I want to hear the whole story. Please?" Night Light's brow creased in concern. "I don't know, Twilight, I just don't know." Twilight resolved to do some research. Where would she even begin though? The Canterlot Archives! Every pony’s birth and death ever recorded had to be marked down there somewhere. The rest of the day was spent by writing checklists and reading books concerning family and researching your background. Genealogy. The next morning she awoke, made breakfast quietly, and gathered her things. An hour and a half of fast walking later, she reached the Canterlot Archives. For a few moments she stood very still, short of breath, and admired the architecture. Clearly it had been inspired by the castle and later derivations of the style. In front of her an arch ten ponies high soared above the ground and to either side the building stretched several hundred feet and stood 5 stories high. Arched windows lined the sides and the corners were capped with towers. In the middle a cluster of linked towers were connected with white bridges spanning the distance between them. Collecting her thoughts, she trotted in through the doors and up to the main desk, but not before gasping at the shelves in the distance. This place dwarfed the palace library, but contained mostly records. Impressive, yes, boring, most definitely. Except perhaps if it contained the answers she sought... Twilight spoke up, "Excuse me." The mare at the desk looked up, "Can I help you, miss?" "Yes. I'm looking for birth and adoption records. I'm curious how common adoption is in Canterlot." The mare behind the desk scrutinized her for a second, "I bet it's pretty low, given the stigma associated with it. If you go left here, and take the back stairs up to the fifth floor, you should find what you're looking for." Stigma? Twilight didn't know there was anything particular anyone had against it, but then she should have guessed—there were a lot of snobby, uptight ponies in Canterlot. Walking away, Twilight wondered what she'd find. She hoped her birth parents weren't earth ponies. It was rare but possible and in that case she wouldn't be surprised at all that they abandoned her. That seemed extremely unlikely given her magical ability. Pegasi were slightly more plausible, but still far out. No, her parents were most likely unicorns. What kind of unicorn would abandon their child to be raised by another. Most nobility, even the lesser would keep their foal that was a unicorn, no matter how infirm, over any kind of non-unicorn foal if only to avoid societal embarrassment and being shunned. Up she climbed, the broad wide steps proceeding upwards in a wide spiral. There were a lot of steps because of the high ceilings, around 16 feet or so, and when she got there she was breathing heavily. Whew, that was a lot of exercise Twilight thought. At least I can scratch daily exercise off for today. Her heavier than usual breathing echoed a little in the vast empty space. There wasn't as much dust in here as in the Starswirl the Bearded wing of the palace library, but it was still pretty thick, even if it was thicker on the books than on the floor. Twilight walked some ways until she found an area with somewhat less dust. It was still dusty, but had evidently been visited in recent memory. The shelf was labeled 'Births' in neat and concise lettering, evidently the work of a unicorn. This shelf and the ones near it were filled with bound volumes, with think cloth grips, tooth marks evident, carefully marked by city and the year. Records – Canterlot AS 850, Records – Canterlot AS 865, Records – Canterlot AS 890 Records – Canterlot AS 915, Records – Canterlot AS 934, Records – Canterlot AS 957, Records – Canterlot AS 972, Records – Canterlot AS 987 There it was, an average year by comparison to it's varied neighbors, but it was the year of her birth nevertheless. Enveloping the book in her magic she tugged gently until the book slid off the shelf. Hefting the tome, for a tome it was despite it's relatively small size in comparison to some of it's immediate neighbors, she walked quietly to a table. Whisking the dust off both the table and the book with a simple cleaning spell, she put down the book. For several long moments she looked at it. It wasn't anything complicated, but she hoped it would bring some resolution to this matter. You could always find the answer to your questions in a book she thought, well, almost. Flipping through the book, she stopped briefly each time she found a pony she knew. Eventually she came to S. Sparkle, Twilight b. 2:15p may 17th, 987 RS. d. There she was. So, that was it, then. She glanced back at the book, and what she saw almost made her cry. father - Sparkle, Dusk Flame; Unicorn b. 951 RS d. 986 RS mother - not known, not known b. not known d Twilight's stomach felt queasy. She had been so cruel to her parents. Declaring how awful they were and how they weren't even her family. To find that she was actually related to them, somehow, left her feeling uncomfortable. Still, surely something was known about this mysterious member of the Sparkle clan. She couldn't ask around here. Her birth father hadn't even lived to see her, to know that she even existed. This thought left her numb. On the other hand, it seemed highly unusual for nothing about her mother to be recorded. Obviously something unusual was up. Perhaps it had been a momentary thing, but if her father never met her or knew of her, from where did they get the information? She knew her parents must be hiding something, but what were they hiding and why? There would be no answer from that quarter it seemed.