Twist couldn’t wait for class to be over.
Everytime Miss Cheerilee fidgeted in her seat or coughed, it sounded like an alarm going off in her head and she jerked upwards, eyes widening and smiling. Disappointment and anticipation soon set in each time, however, as she found her teacher continuously content with the state of abject silence in the classroom.
Twist had finished the exam long ago. The single piece of paper now lay face down on her desk, with a worn woodgrain pencil sitting beside it. The exam – the principle point of the day for the majority of the other ponies in the room with her – was little more than a footnote in the young filly’s mind. She’d blazed through it a kind of inattention that comes when the mind is preoccupied, and she didn’t leave herself time to doubt any of her answers. It didn’t even particularly concern her if they were wrong. The exam equated to a barrier to the end of the day, and, somehow, Twist had got it in her mind that if she just rushed through it, the day would be over.
A quick glance at the clock proved that false. It had seemingly not changed since the last time she looked at it. She quickly averted her eyes back down to the paper. Her eyes had wandered around the room so much that she feared that any second Cheerilee would bark her name and accuse her of cheating.
She’d never even considered it. As soon as she was done, she flipped the exam upside down and immediately moved on to other, more grand ambitions. The students around her continued to scribble away at their papers, the grind of graphite the only rhythm that echoed throughout the room. Slowly, as time wore on and the clock continued jerked forward in its circular procession, the other students finished. One by one, they turned their alabaster sheets over as they finished. Some snuggled into their folded limbs on top of their desk, others began doodling idly.
Twist couldn’t distract herself with things like that. The air of the classroom seemed stiff and inflexible, heavy with anticipation and distraction. She found it hard to breathe. This waiting was insufferable. She glanced back up to the clock. There wasn’t even that much time remaining in the school day. Surely Miss Cheerilee would relieve this tension soon. She had to.
She pushed her glasses back up to the bridge of her nose. They’d been close to slipping from her face as she stared wide eyed at the blank page. If there was a single merciful bone in her teacher’s body, she’d call an end to the class soon.
Twist had been distracted all day, ever since she walked into the classroom and saw something under Miss Cheerilee’s desk. It was a rectangle of thick, tawny paper, wrapped in a dark blue ribbon. Her heart started pounding furiously the second she saw it, even though she told herself to calm down for fear of disappointment. She had an idea – no, more a hope, really – of what was wrapped under the layers of papers. It was something she’d been anticipating for weeks. It made her wake up each morning with the passion and excitement of a filly waking up on her birthday. Her dreams were brimmed with whispers of it. So, as she stammered out a morning greeting to her teacher, she couldn’t keep her eyes off it. Now, now that it was obscured and sitting unused under her teacher’s desk, she couldn’t keep her mind off of it.
The pale veil of silence that constricted the room was suddenly shattered whenever Miss Cheerilee’s chair scraped against the floor. The noise was like lightning arcing through the classroom towards Twist, as loud as a cannonshot. The other students barely even seemed to pay it notice. Her eyes suddenly turned upwards, a mute frenzy in them. Her teacher languidly rose from her chair and set her hooves on the ground. Twist stared as Miss Cheerilee stretched and silently yawned. Her teacher scanned the classroom and smiled contentedly. Twist suddenly turned back to her desk, fearful that Miss Cheerilee would notice her staring.
After what seemed to be an hour, Miss Cheerilee began pacing around the room. Twist heard her make her rounds throughout the lines of desk, hearing each hoof-fall. She didn’t dare look back up, but each time Cheerilee’s hooves hit the ground, it sounded like she was stomping. Twist’s heart felt like it was racing, the only sounds she could focus on being it thumping excitedly in her chest and her teacher’s hoof-steps matching it.
Any second now. She couldn’t even bring herself to look at the clock.
Cheerilee whispered something indiscernible to another student somewhere behind her. Twist kept a mental note her location. She tried to calm herself down, but it was futile. She could only stare at the paper in front of her, the white page as homogeneous as her thought process right now.
Clack.
Clack.
Clack.
Miss Cheerilee was in her aisle. She was a few desks behind her, sounding like a hammerfall with each step. Her hooves were a ticking clock, improbably forming the countdown to Twist’s judgement.
Any second now.
Clack.
Clack.
Clack.
Twist could feel herself grow clammy and cold. Her coat felt wet with sweat. Her glasses slid down her nose.
Miss Cheerilee was right behind her. She couldn’t look.
Beside her. Her teacher was staring at her. The page was still blank. She wanted to blink, but couldn’t. Her tongue felt heavy and paralyzed in her mouth, and her throat was dry. She could only breathe through her nose, and she hoped it didn’t sound like wheezing.
“Twist,” Miss Cheerilee said. It was barely a whisper but, the foal beside Twist lifted his head from the desk and turned towards the conversation with tired eyes.
Twist slowly turned toward her teacher. The journey from the paper on her desk to her teacher’s eyes seemed endless, with a million things to distract her along the way. She found her teacher smiling. Her own lips quivered in nervousness. She tried to answer, but couldn’t find the words. They wouldn’t make their way through her cracked throat, in any case.
Today’s the day. There’s no doubt, now.
Twist stared at her teacher, her eyes wide in awe.
“Twist,” Miss Cheerilee said again. “You’re going to have to stay after class today. There’s something we need to discuss.”
Twist, again forced to silence, was unable to answer. She nodded diminutively, barely a flick of the head. Miss Cheerilee seemed satisfied, and walked slowly away. Time, which had seemed to halt to a standstill during her encounter, resumed its normal functions. The classroom suddenly came to life, all the things that Twist had ignored resuming their function. On the other side of her, she saw Diamond Tiara silently snickering at her, as she had overheard what her teacher had said.
For the first time since the exam begin, Twist smiled widely. Her limbs stopped twitching, and the next breath she took felt full of life and colour, and made her feel like she was floating. Her eyes were closed until the bell rang.
The other students meandered out of the classroom, dropping their exams on Miss Cheerilee’s desk. Twist delivered hers, but broke ranks with her classmates and returned to her desk. The classroom was soon emptied, all the other colts and fillies having concerns and activities outside of the walls of the school, but Twist could other think about one thing.
Cheerilee waved her students goodbye, then turned back to the classroom and focused on the one remaining.
“It’th here, ithn’t it, Mith Cheerilee?!” Twist blubbered out, unable to contain herself. Her desk felt like a cage and her hooves shook it in her fervor.
Cheerilee, with an amused smile, walked back to her desk without a word. She leaned under it, and emerged with the brown paper package hanging from her mouth, attached by the ribbon. Twist could barely stay still as her teacher walked up to her desk and gently set the bulky object onto her desk.
“Yes,” Miss Cheerilee finally replied. “It arrived late last night. A friend of mine from Canterlot delivered it. I knew how excited you were, but I feared if I gave it to you in the morning, I would distract you from your test.”
Twist wanted to tear into it immediately. Her hooves were twitching in greedy, grasping excitement. The protective cover made the object a facsimile of a present. To her, it was. This object surpassed anything she’d ever gotten for her birthday or any other holiday. This thin wrapping of brown paper was all that remained between her and her gift, now.
She had to temper this excitement. Twist knew that Cheerilee had gone to considerable lengths to get this for her, even though she would never complain about it. If she damaged it somehow, she would never be able to forgive herself.
Her hooves fumbled at the perfunctory ribbon and eventually unraveled it. She treated the paper gently, peeling it away layer by layer. She didn’t know if Cheerilee expected or wanted her to unwrap it here, but there was no way she could hold herself back after having waited all this time
Twist removed the final layer, and revealed the object underneath. The first thing Twist recognized was the smell – a dusty and old smell, like something you’d smell as you dig through your great grandmother’s attic and find all of her possession untouched for years. She loved it.
She ran a hoof over the cover of the book that now lay uncovered on her desk. No, book wasn’t the proper word to describe this. Tome would be more appropriate. It was an ancient object, and elaborately crafted, from a time whenever making books was an art form rather than a means.
The book was in remarkable condition considering its age, but the leather cover was still worn with age, eroded by a thousand other pony’s curious hooves demanding that it share its secrets. Just like she was doing now.
The name of the tome was beautifully stitched into the cover with strands of dyed gold. Myths and Legends of Equestria. Volume IV. The name, as generic as it was, held a power, and beckoned to a time whenever such simple titles were completely efficacious – when such words had the ability to sum up the nuances of the world. In reading it, Twist felt voices calling to her, and she felt a communion with ponies she couldn’t possibly know or understand. She felt much older than she was.
The book creaked loudly when she opened it, like the worn door to a forgotten room that housed generations of accumulated secrets and histories. The vellum pages were a light tan, black ink scribbled down on them in a handwriting that was familiar to the filly now reading it. The pages cracked when she touched them, and she feared they would split in half.
Her hooves ran over the page she was on. She could feel the indents. Feel where the pony who had penned this history had pressed down too hard with his quill, where he had jabbed the paper to place a period or when he was so consumed by excitement that his forceful scribbled gouged out sections of the parchment in front of him. Modern books lacked this tactility. The pages felt delicate and shy under her gaze.
Twist glanced upwards at her teacher. Her eyes were beginning to fill with tears. Tears of joy, and excitement. Tears of emotions that she was too young to understand, things that no modern pony possibly could. This book spoke to a part of her consciousness that was almost vestigial in modern ponies. It made some part of her mind quiver and echo. Each word was like a stone thrown down a well and the noises it made repeated cyclically in her mind. She was always waiting for the splash, and she could only read until she heard it.
Twist lifted herself from her desk, and walked toward her teacher. Miss Cheerilee was still standing there, watching her student take in a book with the kind of awe and excitement she’d never seen any other student exhibit, and perhaps had never even felt herself. Twist stared up at her, the only thing holding back tears at this point being shame. With a sudden lunge, she wrapped her limbs around her teacher.
“Thank you, Mith Cheerilee,” she said, her voice wet.
Miss Cheerilee was stunned by the sudden display of emotion from the usually calm and reserved student, and waited until Twist had detached herself before responding.
“T-that’s quite alright, Twist. I’m happy to help a student, if I’m able.” Cheerilee could feel her face getting warm. The words seemed hollow and distant when she uttered them, but Cheerilee was too shocked to say anything else. There wasn’t a time in memory whenever a student had developed a rapport with her that Twist had.
“Do you mind if I thtay here and read?” Twist asked. She sniffled, and tried to blink away the tears. “It’th really...quiet, here.”
Cheerilee was originally planning on leaving as soon as Twist departed for home. She glanced back at her desk. “Well...” she began, still feeling shaken from the affection shown from the filly in front of her, and for how much she felt the same. There was no way she could turn down such a earnest plea. “I suppose I have some papers to grade, in any case. We can stay here for a while.
Seeing Twist’s grin break through her teary face was all the reward Cheerilee needed.
There was no reason to begin at the start of the book, so Twist simply opened it to the middle and picked a random tale to begin. Just like the other volumes in the series, this was a collection of tales dating back from pre-Equestria, all gathered and transcribed by a single adventurous pony. The handwriting was frantic, but managed to be clear and precise at the same time. The language was antique and the phrasing sometimes confusing. There were some words that Twist didn’t even know. There was a sort of universality to the pages, though. Something that told Twist that, even if she couldn’t parse a sentence or dissect a paragraph, she could still nod her head and understand, for the pages spoke something that was true and right for all ponies.
This was a pony would spun the world into his quill, and was able to control it. The organization didn’t even deserve to be call that – the stories were haphazard and random, but somehow that only furthered their charm. Twist could open the book to any page and find something new and beautiful, something she’d never seen before. The books contained things that she’d only been able to hint at, and spoke truths that she’d barely been able to cognize. It contained names and histories that had become so familiar as to saturate public consciousness, and become simple abstract themes that were mentioned by politicians and public speakers in grandiose speeches. Here they were, though, elucidated and explained, bucking the notion that they could be boiled down to simple mentionings in the interest of self-promotion. The tales were like an old friend who’d stumbled into town and walked up to Twist, and who told her that all her dreams were true and wonderful.
There were Earth Pony myths, including a veritable bestiary of horrific and wonderful creatures that haunted the countrysides of their dreamscapes. There were tales of unicorns who conspired with dark spirits and struck vile pacts, only to pay for it in the end with their souls. There was a story that told of a young, beautiful pegasus who tethered the moon and the stars to his wings and spun around the cosmos, guiding the celestial bodies in their motions long before the Princesses took up the task. One day, maybe, she would see how all of these legends permeated existence, and echoed through time. For now, she rushed through the stories as fast as she dared. She felt dizzy and stunned from how high up she was – standing on the shoulders of giant ponies who held the world.
“Twist?” Miss Cheerilee called. Twist had no idea how long it had been. The room had grown darker – she was able to see that, at least. Time seemed to be nebulous, or at very least irrelevant. Only her teacher calling her name recalled her, and she glanced up at Miss Cheerilee.
“Yeth, Mith Cheerilee?” Twist said hesitantly. She was disappointed from the interruption, but she didn’t want to be rude.
“You...are planning on returning the other three volumes at some point, correct? The museum has been questioning me on their return,” said Cheerilee. The question was tempered with a delighted smile.
Immediately, Twist felt her face flush in embarrassment. She thought of the other volumes she had secured. They lived secured under her bed, as if they were being stored in an ancient athenaeum for their own protection. Just like in one of the legends she’d indulged herself in, she pretended herself their guardian. She was the protector of the knowledge they contained. Every night, when her parents came into the room to kiss on her on the forehead and wish her good night, her heart would race, and she could barely keep herself still. She didn’t want anyone else to discover the knowledge she kept secured under her bed. They were her dreams and her desires, scribbled by a pony long before she was born. She had to protect the secrets of those venerable scrolls from everyone.
When they had left, and when the moon was high in the night sky, she would retrieve one with a delicate and careful touch, and huddle with it under her covers. A lantern of fireflies illuminated her nocturnal sanctuary. She would read a legend or two, or sometimes just a few passages. Just enough to ensure that when she tucked the tome back under her bed and curled up to her pillow, that her dreams would dance with the fires of myth.
“Yeth, Mith Cheerilee,” Twist replied, subdued.
Cheerilee looked outside, where the sun was already setting. She had finished grading the papers an hour ago. There was no rush to return home, however. There was nothing that had to be done there, and when she turned back to Twist, she found her student already back in the book, her eyes glazed over and disconnected from the world.
As silently as she could managed, Cheerilee opened a desk drawer and pulled from it a novel that had sat there unused for months. Her appetite had returned. She looked back at her student, and she opened the book up to the first page.
She smiled and nodded, just so.