//------------------------------// // Chapter 4: Freedom to Party // Story: Eternal Requiem // by Apocryphal Frost //------------------------------// He was going to kill them. All of them. No, not just the Element bearers. That would be too small-minded for his current plans. Yes, plans. He had everything planned out. He would start by stealing the Elements of Harmony, leave their bearers half frozen in some ditch until they starved to death. And then finally storm Celestia's castle and leave her head on a pike for all to see and tremble at his unholy glory. And then he would wake up because he was nowhere near powerful enough to pull such a plan off. Oh sure, he was intelligent enough, but the best he could reasonably throw around at the moment was an ice spell or two. If he put enough force into the spell, he might even be able to hold an earth pony for little more than an hour. A single earth pony. There were two in his plan. Not to mention Twilight Sparkle, his enemy's protege. He would still kill all of them. Them as in the mob of ponies he could no longer ignore. The ponies who had no idea his utter contempt for them all. He had mostly kept to himself since his arrival in Ponyville. Even he knew the ponies he was traveling with found it strange that he did not speak to any of them for the rest of the train ride, unless they themselves brought him into the conversation. Thankfully for now they were content to leave it alone. And things would stay that way if he had any say in it. He was able to tell by their stares that they were curious. Curious as to why he had decided to follow whom he did. It was none of their business, as far as he was concerned. He had tried to ignore their stares and keep to himself, fiddling with Nightmare's fluffy ears, or monologue to himself. Even after being shown where he would be staying, a library inside of a living tree, he kept to himself. He was of course thrilled by this arrangement. A library! Somewhere he could sit alone by himself and not be approached by other people, er...ponies. Peace and quiet were the two things he desired the most now. His ultimate goal was, for the moment at least, unattainable. So he had assumed he could at least enjoy a bit of peace and quiet for the duration of his stay. After a thousand years of continual consciousness, three measly years would go by in the blink of an eye. Metaphorically speaking. He would spend this time doing something he never thought he would need to do, before he was sealed away. He would learn more battle oriented magic than his favorite 'freeze the object you are pointing at.' He had never really needed anything else before, if any enemy had reached him, he would have been completely screwed either way. As that meant all of the other defenses had fallen. All. Of. Them. So why was it that this peace he so desired was being callously trampled upon by the pink Element bearer named Pinkie Pie? Not even two full days since his arrival back in the town they had passed through on their way to...Camelot was it? Not even two full days and she had barged into his personal space, announced there was going to be a party, and when he refused to move so he could “Walk in and find out what kind of party it is!” she simply brought the party to him. The room was packed with ponies. Dancing ponies. Yelling ponies. Singing ponies. And worst of all, gawking ponies. Oh by Nightmare Moon's mane was he being gawked at. He could understand their interest of course. The student of their living goddess goes into the spooky forest, comes out with a strange statue, and then a creature that looks exactly like said statue takes up residence in her library? It was only made worse by the fact that he was, while not nearly as well-known as Nightmare Moon and Discord himself, featured in a prominent role in many a bedtime monster story. There was even music! Oh that tartaraus damn it all music. It was up-beat, happy, and most likely made with far too much sugar involved. And it was so loud that even if he were to freeze his own head solid out of desperation for peace, he would likely still hear it. He buried his face further into the book he was attempting to read, “Amazing Practical Uses For Ice Magic.” And he attempted to tune out all of the noise in the background. 'Though everypony involved in the experiment left with a bad case of frostbite, Ice Block, the subject of our experiment, reported that after diligent practice he found it much easier to cast snow based spells overall. Leading us to further believe that ice magic is not as complex as many ice specialized mages would have regular ponies believe.' Okay, yeah. He admitted to himself with some embarrassment. Even he sometimes fell into the pattern that many novice mages tended to make. Up-sell any aspects of your craft not completely understood by the general public. Ice based magic, or rather a mage who specialized solely in the colder kind of magic, was rather rare. If only because of how unpopular ice magic was compared to other such magic. Like fire. Fire based magic was extremely popular. And while his first instinct would probably be to start ranting about how it was because of how their princess had popularized the sun, and therefor fire, to the point of absurdity, even he had to admit that it probably wasn't like that at all. Ponies were more inclined to like fire and warmth over the freezing touch of ice. Humans were like that as well...probably anyway. It wasn't like he could ask any...The fact that he still could not remember why there were no humans in Equestria other than him still greatly worried him. But he didn't dwell on it too much. As far as he and the purple librarian knew of, there was no mention of any bipedal, nearly hairless apes in any of her books. Well, humans were mentioned in one book, but that had mostly been about himself. The rest had been small speculation about humans based on what ponies knew about him. And so it came with no small amount of disappointment to discover that ponies had-”Ah! Hey!” He was suddenly pulled to the center of the room by the object of his current hate. The pink Element bearer herself. “All of my hate.” He stated with an icy glare, before he turned his eyes back down to the book he was holding. The skirmish having flipped the pages to a later chapter. 'So as we have demonstrated, if you apply something that at the very least feels frozen to your horn before casting, you will have a much easier time focusing on casting ice-based magic.' Huh. Interesting. He briefly wondered that if he did such a thing to his fingers, the human's equivalent to a unicorn's horn, would it display the same results? Or maybe it wouldn't. He could already tell that it could have been the ice applied to the head of the unicorn in question that helped the spell along, thereby strength-and he was spinning. “Aw, don't be like that Icy! This is your party! Just relax and have fun!” She all but shouted into his ear. Somehow holding on to his arm as he spun wildly...If he threw up he was going to do his very best to aim at her. He could hear some of the ponies in the mob, the mob he was going to kill, start voicing their agreements with Pinkie, the bubbly pink Element bearer. “I apologize.” He spoke in a gentle voice, mostly because he was a bit nauseous, but also partly because he realized he actually was being a bit rude. “Aw, it's fine Icy!” God damned nicknames. He almost preferred being called “human” as a name...almost. “Now let's get started! If you want to play every game you're going to have to hurry! Duck duck goose is next! And then you have to play hide and go seek, and then you have to play pin the tail on the-” It was at this point he tuned her out. She was definitely the most friendly pony he had ever met. He didn't know if she already trusted him, or if she was simply like this with every creature she knew. Her friends certainly hadn't warmed up to him, they weren't unpleasant with him, but they didn't go out of there way to check on him, or talk to him...Either way the pink one, Pinkie Pie, was starting to both endear herself to him, and annoy him. Spotting something across the room, he silently slipped away from the babbling pink pony and made his way over. “Twilight Sparkle.” He called out to his current landlord. When she looked in his general direction, he raised a hand to draw her attention to himself. “If you can get me out of this...party, I swear by her eminence's dark crown that I will give a full detailed report on my time at my queen's side as a bonus to my other lectures.” She merely blinked before obviously stifling a laugh. “That won't be necessary actually.” She started, trotting over to him. “We already know pretty much everything there is to know about what happened back then. Sorry Eis.” He almost asked who the bloody hell Eis was, when he remembered that it was the name he had decided to give them. In an attempt to hide the fact that he did not remember...pretty much anything apart from his time under Nightmare Moon. Still, he did find it a bit odd that she was passing up a full detailed report over centuries old stories that had no doubt been twisted and warped by the passage of time, and the unreliability of ponies wanting to spice up a story to make it more interesting. He then found himself blindfolded and spun around a good number of times. Ah, looks like they were going to play pin the tail on the 'insert whatever the hell creature here.' He had seen many variations of this game in Equestria. From ponies, to donkeys, to gryphons, and even to dragons. “I swear by all that is dark and cold.” He rasped out, staggering a bit, his head spinning. “I will bring the wrath of a thousand wendigos upon you and your kin. Never again shall you enjoy a pleasant light snowfall as long as my vengeance still thirsts. Blizzards, blizzards for all of you!” He finished as he was handed the tail. He felt many hooves press against him from all sides, seemingly steering him to a different side of the room. “Blizzards!” He shouted, a fist raised in righteous anger as he was pushed away from the purple mare. It was several hours later that he was finally allowed to sit down again. After being forced through those childish games, he had been introduced to every pony at the party. Every. Pony. Most of them had already blended together into one big mess, though a few stood out in his mind, just because of how...interesting the meetings had gone. He was pushed in front of a...magenta? Magenta mare pony. Maybe a shade of purple. He couldn't be sure without a closer look. She had a darker mane, and she was the only one with cider at the party. “And this is Berry Punch!” He briefly wondered if the cider was alcoholic before being forced out of those thoughts at being pushed in front of another pony. “And this is Time Turner!” It was an average looking pony. Which in and of itself was unique. With a brown coat, and a slightly darker brown mane. He seemed surprised by the human's appearance, and he couldn't really blame him. He seemed to get over whatever it was that surprised him, and offered his hoof to shake. Before anyone could open their mouths to speak, he was pushed towards another pony. “And this is Big Macintosh!” It was a red earth pony. A huge earth pony. With an orange mane. He just stared back at the human with an indifferent expression on his face, before offering his hoof to shake. “And this is Time Turner!” What. He could have sworn it was the same pony as from before...Actually, it was. And if he recalled, same name too. Strange thing about it though, he offered his hoof to shake again, exactly as before. And didn't seem surprised to see him again. He briefly wondered if Pinkie had made a mistake before being pushed towards yet another pony. He sighed with frustration. He hadn't even gotten a look at any of their cutie marks. Another one still stood out in his mind, but he didn't remember much about them other than that they were a mint green unicorn mare, and seemed very enthusiastic to meet him. Very, very enthusiastic. Pinkie had to pull them apart to push him to the next pony, as she wouldn't let go of his hand. Turning his attention back to his book, he resolved to stop obsessing over every little detail he noticed. He needed to break that habit. It was a habit he had gained through that millennium alone with his own thoughts. He had been desperate enough to pass the time in some way that did not require any motion of any kind. And he couldn't sleep either, as whatever was keeping him from aging inside of his stony shell, had most likely kept him exactly as he was when he was sealed. And so he remained conscious. Or he was making up complete bullshit just to indulge his habit, as he was still totally doing it. Looking back down at his book, he started reading where he had left off the last time he had managed to sneak away from the party. “In this chapter of Amazing Practical Uses For Ice Magic, I will be discussing something that should not be read around foals of any age. Despite what I said in chapter 8, this part is not for anypony that has not become of age.” Oooh. Now they were talking. This chapter was specifically why he had chosen this particular book over others of a similar nature. Spells too dangerous to be taught to children, it had to contain a few tidbits of useful information. Softly slapping his own cheek, he resolved to try harder in his attempts to stop himself from starting another monologue, and turned his eyes back down to the book. He skimmed a few lines, and his eyes grew wider and wider at what he read. “If you apply spell number 3 from the diagram on page 350 to your mare's lower abdomen as you thrust in rhythm with spell number 5 applied to your...little...stallionhood, y-you can achieve a g-g-greater o-o-or-” He slammed the book shut as quickly as possible. He sat there in the corner of the party, his head down with his hair thankfully covering his now red face from view, for a few moments before rushing to his feet, and up the stairs of the library. He handed the book back to the pony whom had recommended it with a withering glare, and continued his path to the guest bedroom. He could hear Twilight's laughter as he closed the door behind him. Twilight levitated the book that had been offered to her off to the side, she couldn't hold in her laughter for very long, and attempted to hide it by reducing it to giggling, only for it to erupt into laughter as Eis opened the door to her guest bedroom. She felt a little bit guilty at having tricked him, but she just couldn't pass up the opportunity with the way he had worded his request. 'Is there a book in this library that can help me perform better?' “I shouldn't worry about it, maybe this will help him lighten up more.” She spoke quietly to herself. She had to do something to get him to open up more, the princess was counting on her. She had been given a very important mission after all. "I know this all seems very confusing, and I know you have many questions."  An affirmative "Yes!" was her response.  "As you have likely already guessed, he is not being punished for his actions when you and your friends freed him.  But I have good reason to keep him away from Canterlot for the time being." Before the Element bearers could ask what this was, the dark coated pony whom had escaped the human's notice stepped into the room.  Revealing herself to be the alicorn princess Luna. Twilight understood instantly. “This is a very delicate situation. One I am hoping we can all pull through and accomplish without too big an incident.” Her mentor continued solemnly. “Even if he were to forget about his past loyalties and goals, he is still human.” Twilight had heard very little about humanity in her studies, but from what she had learned, she could easily deduce what the princess was getting at. Humans were crafty, intelligent, and prideful. This human's actions a thousand years ago had only confirmed their legends as being accurate. “Humanity is the closest species on record to the god of chaos Discord.” Twilight started from memory. “Any connection between them is highly unlikely, but not impossible given what we have observed. Chaos is where humans thrive. They revel in it and bring it upon both themselves, and any species unlucky enough to get in their way. They were the old boogeypony. They were the harbingers of chaos.” She visibly flinched as she remembered the human's new friendship with one of the nurse's pets. Was this one truly like that? Even when he attempted to attack princess Celestia, he didn't...there was...He didn't at all seem like a harbinger of chaos. Princess Luna cleared her throat. “Though his own power is considerably weak, we do not know what the last remnant of mankind could do if he were to discover what hath...has happened to us.” Started the dark princess of the night. “Mine own memory has no doubt faded slightly in my time ban...away.” Princess Luna visibly grimaced as she changed the term to something more pleasant. “But we-...er, I, remember how much he truly devoted himself to that foolhardy cause. And how much he looked up to me...her.” She finally settled on what to call Nightmare Moon, before stepping back and letting her sister finish. “So you see Twilight, he must not be allowed to know of this until the time is right. We cannot risk such a calamity to befall Equestria. Were it not for the pitiful circumstances he now finds himself in, we would merely seal him away until an alternative measure could be put in place. That is no longer an option with what Discord revealed to us.” Discord had inadvertently, or perhaps intentionally just to mess with them, let the idea that creatures entombed in a magical stone prison were aware for the duration of their sentence, plant itself into their minds. “Had I gotten a more conclusive answer to the question now presented to us, I may have done just that.” Princess Celestia finished. “But princess,” Twilight interrupted for the first time since the beginning of the explanation. “If what you say is true, why not just ask him under your authority, if he was awake the whole time?” It truly didn't make sense to her, that her mentor would decline to do so for seemingly no reason. “He himself admitted his dislike of me before I began the questioning.” Celestia explained. And Twilight's mouth opened and closed a few times in an attempt to find something to say to that. Somepony who disliked Princess Celestia on a personal level? She had never thought such a thing were possible. She settled on “Shouldn't that have been more of a reason to use your authority?” To which her princess merely sighed. “If it were as simple as that, I would have done so.” She opened softly. “Under Nightmare Moon he held the title of 'Royal Tactical Adviser.' He was not granted this title lightly. His nature granted to him by merely being a human let him think in ways most creatures in Equestria would find horrible to even consider.” Ah, that did make sense. He was too weak to really do anything other than to be a cook, or a cleaner, or some other job like that in an army, but he had been intelligent enough to be an adviser. His naturally brutal nature as a human had likely been what had pushed him to being a royal tactical adviser. Not exactly needed as Nightmare Moon had been considerably more than intelligent enough to accomplish what she wished, his own brutal nature that no pony could accurately emulate was what pushed him to such a prestigious position. She opened her mouth to respond, only to close it again when Celestia started speaking again. “What you have seen of him is nothing compared to what he was like back then. He has shown more emotion in the few minutes I spoke to him than he did in that final battle where he literally lost everything precious to him. He has changed. To compare his current self to what he had been before would be like comparing a friendly pup to a timber wolf. This leads me to believe he may have very well been aware. His mind may be damaged.” Twilight could only stare as her mentor finished her explanation. The reason they had not just forced an answer out of him, a possible enemy of Equestria, was because it was not entirely the same person they knew. They didn't know what to expect of him. And so they needed a more subtle way of gaining the information. She almost thought about asking 'If he's so different now, why is he considered so much of a threat?' but never managed as Luna seemingly anticipated this. “Do not misunderstand. Back then he was as cold and deadly as reported in those stories that would later become legend. If he still possesses even a fraction of that ice cold, brutal mentality, he could cause more destruction and damage to Equestria that would be too big in exchange for the possibility of an answer to this question.” “What do you want me to do?” She asked, it all didn't add up when one considered that he was being sent to Ponyville. “All we want, my student, is for you to help nip this problem before it even starts. He has changed, and he is still changing. While I would highly encourage you to do so, you do not need to become friends with him, or even like him. But please keep an eye on him. Steer him away from information about Luna's return to my side. If all goes according to plan, everything can work out for the best if done this way. Can you do this Twilight Sparkle, my most faithful student?” Twilight swallowed nervously. To do this, she would likely also need to attempt to keep him from becoming like his old self. But that would most likely not be too hard, and it certainly would not be an impossible task, or even cut too much into her free time, if she was understanding the assignment correctly. She slowly nodded once, showing her agreement. “Yes...yes, I will do this princess.” She states as resolutely as she could manage. It was a white walled room with a small desk in one corner, a bed large enough to fit almost any guest a pony could have in the other, and a wooden chair he could easily move around. A bit bland for pony tastes, but as long as it had a bed and enough room for him to safely practice a few spells here and there, he would be content. He was currently sitting on his new bed, facing away from the wall it was set against. His hand was outstretched slightly away from himself with it's palm facing up. He chose his index finger as the focus for his spell, just like a unicorn's horn would be normally used. “As the book said, if a creature with more than one appendage that could be used for casting can focus it into less and less, I should be seeing some results if I keep this up. Though if I-” He went on to describe to himself how the book he had been tricked into reading had explained the concept in more detail. “And if I can keep the spell up for more than five minutes longer than I could normally, I should stop before I burn myself out, but with the direction the energy goes when used in an elemental spell I should be able to ignore that warning and accomplish much more than I originally plan-” He was suddenly interrupted by a knock at the door to his room. Suppressing a yawn, he glanced out of the small window to what would be his new prison for the next three years. It was more of a “house arrest” kind of arrangement though, so it was at least tolerable. The sun had long set, and it was at the very least an hour into this new night. He made a mental note to attempt to stay awake as long as possible. At least until dawn. His sleep cycle was out of whack, he would need to get used to sleeping during the day agai-and whomever was at his door was knocking again. With a sigh, he stood up and opened the door, half expecting it to be the pink one ready to drag him back to her party. It wasn't Pinkie. “Ah, Nightmare.” He bent down to pick up his newly acquired pet bunny rabbit. “How did you get away from the yellow one?” The yellow Element bearer, Shutter Flutter...or something, had wanted to get to know Nightmare and introduce her to her other animals. Nightmare made a bunch of gestures and pantomimed exactly what happened. Eis nodded throughout the whole thing. “I'm not so good with nature based magic, so I have no idea what you're saying.” He stated in a voice almost like a monotone. Nightmare simply slumped in his arms and smacked her forehead. “Did you eat dinner?” Nightmare took a moment more to brood, before nodding. The yellow one had fed her then. It would take another ten minutes, in which he simply played with Nightmare until she fell asleep and then went back to reading, before he would receive another knock at his door. “Who is knock knock knocking at my chamber door?” He questioned, though he felt that the quote was lost on whomever was on the other side...He may have messed it up somewhat as well. Some things were still a bit fuzzy in his memory. “Um...Eis? It's Twilight.” Came the hesitant reply, quite unsure what to make of his response to her knocking. “If you would please open the door, we can get started.” He briefly wondered what the bloody hell she was talking about, which was strange as he was pretty sure he wasn't British. And then it hit him, as part of his...rather lenient sentence now that he thought about it, he was required to share his own knowledge of humans with the rest of the world. Through the element of magic herself, and Celestia's personal student, Twilight Sparkle. He opened the door and let her in. “So we're starting already.” He stated, a bit annoyed at being interrupted for the umpteenth time that day. “Actually, I would have liked to start this morning, but Pinkie asked me to help plan for your party.” She didn't need to mention that her only part had been to let Pinkie inside her home, as that was when she had found out where it was to be held. “Please start at the beginning.” She added absentmindedly, already looking through her notes and references to what were no doubt legends on humans. He took a deep breath before leaning back in his seat “I am not going to sit here and explain to you every way we humans have theorized about our own beginning.” “Humans aren't entirely sure on how their...I mean your, species began?” She asked, obviously quite confused. He looked up at the white ceiling for a moment before deciding on how to answer. “Don't get me wrong, we are pretty sure on how we came to be, and how the world itself came to be.” And how what caused the world to come into existence happened, and what caused that as well. “Then what's the problem?” She asked, tilting her head in confusion. He only thought about it for a moment before answering. “Humanity, as a whole...we're quite the idiots.” He started with a bitter laugh, earning a surprised look from the lavender unicorn. He payed it no mind. “Oh sure, some of us like having knowledge, some of us strive to learn everything about everything we can possibly get our greedy little hands on, but as a species, most humans are generally very ignorant about many things.” Twilight opened her mouth to ask another question, before being silenced as Eis continues his ramblings. “Where I am from, if you were smart, you were the odd one out. The anomaly in the sea of data too stupid to recognize itself as nothing particularly special in the grand scheme of things.” He finished, with no attempt to hide his bitterness. “But I had heard that humans were quite intelligent and crafty.” She objected, thinking on what she had studied in her time under her mentor's care. Eis merely scoffed. “We are.” Realizing she thought him to be contradicting himself, he continued. “At least, the ones who really matter are.” She was becoming even more confused...With a sigh, he prepared to explain his stance in greater detail. “Do not misunderstand my intentions, I am not trying to paint my species as ignorant little animals picking at the dirt. As a species, we have long accomplished amazing feats yet to even be attempted here in Equestria. Yet to even be considered possible.” “So humans are...complex, then? Smart, yet willing to become ignorant?” Hm, she was more intelligent than he had been giving her credit for. He guessed she must have been Celestia's personal student for a reason. “That is what I am trying to say, yes.” He confirmed. Twilight consulted her notes before asking the first question she actually had prepared. “Can you give an example of something humans have accomplished that we have...yet to even consider possible?'” She finished, obviously somewhat annoyed at having her species written off as inferior in any way. He considered what he could tell her. The amazing ways they had found to produce food? The ways they had found to make food grow better? Their weaponry and the effects of the most deadly of them? No, it had to be something not just any unicorn or earth pony could do...He glanced out his window again, and watched the moon hanging high in the dark sky for a few long moments before smiling. “You see that up there?” He asked, pointing out the window. Twilight followed it to the moon, and looked back at Eis with yet another perplexed expression on her face. “The moon?” He nodded. She continued to stare at him, her stare slowly turning to one of annoyance. “What about it?” Eis narrowed his eyes slightly, and adopted small smile. “We've been there.” And now to see her reaction when she freaks out over- “So?” She asked, growing more annoyed by the minute. This was quickly turning into nonsense to her. “With the right spell, I myself might be able to send something to the moon. Not to mention what the princess-” She stopped cold, and almost smacked herself at her mistake, she had almost said 'princesses'. “-can do.” she finished. Ah, there it was. She thought he was referring to some magical way to the moon using human magic. He almost felt giddy at what he was going to get to do. “Without magic.” He stated simply. He watched in amusement as the annoyance drained from her face almost instantly. “What?” She asked, her voice wavering slightly. “I may have forgotten to mention this, but humans generally do not believe that magic exists. Absolutely none, as far as I know at least, was used in getting us to the moon.” “That's...that is...how?” She mumbled, Eis understood though. “Technology. Machinery. And we did the math correctly.” He answered simply, already dreading where these conversations would lead in the future. This was already incredibly boring, and he could already see him having to convince her that what he was saying was true on many of his future explanations on humanity's escapades. “Elaborate.” She all but commanded, in a tone he recognized as being similar to her mentor, Celestia. He could only rub the bridge of his nose to fight back a growing headache. “Alright, but I must warn you now, this was never my specialty. I am not as knowledgeable on the subject as you are going to want.” He warned crossly, she responded by just nodding, a quill and scroll already raised in front of her, ready to write down his every word. So his next words were likely going to go down into the book she was going to be writing on him. He raised a hand to stall any questions as he looked to the ceiling, trying to put the words into an acceptable order. “Homo Sapiens Sapiens is our scientific name. It means 'man wise wise'.” He started, he needed to give some back story on his species for any of this to make sense. Twilight was writing down each word as soon as he said it, and he was almost impressed by her writing speed. What was that called again? Words per minute? Whatever it was, she probably had an incredibly high one. “In many things the average human will choose to be ignorant, but we do have quite the number of scientists, and other incredibly intelligent and amazing people working to further expand our place in the universe. We have advanced technology to the point that describing them to you would amount to little more than “metal device that provides this basic and/or advanced function.” Until your society has something similar, you would not understand how they were made. I will give more information on these machines at a later date. Right now we're talking about the moon landing.” He continued, establishing humanity's scientific community as something that exists. “Little more than three decades before I myself was born, the scientists in a nation that had a rivalry with the one I was born in launched a massive machine made of metal called a spacecraft into on a mission to the moon. The science that went into making this spacecraft is more advanced than you could understand. And even if you could, I myself am not clear on the specifics on these machines. This is not my specialty.” He reminded. “This machine was the first one to be successful, and was named the 'Luna 2'. No association with a certain Nightmare Moon's past self you ponies made a holiday purely to tarnish the name of.” He clarified, earning a nervous chuckle from the pony interviewing him. Perhaps he was still a bit angry about the whole “Nightmare Night” thing. “It would be a decade before a human would actually walk on the moon.” He continued. “And this...is where my explanation ends.” He finished. Twilight dropped her quill in surprise. “Huh?” She asked after a long moment. He motioned for her to elaborate. “What do you mean? Is that all there is?” “The only notable thing I know about space travel outside of what I've told you is that we have put some things in orbit, and we have placed machines on planets and the moon to do...things.” He finished with a shrug. “Like I've explained, I don't actually know that much about this stuff. And I'm pretty sure what was intended to be an eternal sleep encased in stone has messed with my mind.” Twilight thought back on what princess Celestia explained about his true nature, and how his current self had been, in essence, watered down. “I understand, that particular method of punishment was probably not meant for mortals.” Being encased in stone was not a punishment that was handed out lightly. Discord himself only warranted such a punishment, after all. “Well, yeah. But what else could have been done? Kill him?” Twilight realized with no small measure of embarrassment that she had been thinking out loud. She thought on how best to answer his question. “It isn't known exactly how what the Elements of Harmony does is determined. The very first reliable recording of their effects was on Discord himself.” “And what else can they do?” He asked. “I don't know of every one of their uses off the top of my head, but the other most well known use was their purification of-” She only paused a moment to change her speech, disguising it as her trying to remember the name. “...an evil creature?” She gave a shrug to make it seem as if she could not personally remember. “Oh well, I guess I can look it up later. The library owned by the Element of Magic herself should have all I will need.” Twilight nodded in response, mentally making a note to double check that she had hidden all of the books featuring what happened when Nightmare Moon was freed. “So, do you have anything else to ask today?” He asked, hoping the answer was yes. Twilight looked over her notes again. “Actually, we've barely gotten started. I need to know everything you know after all.” Eis groaned, before nodding. “What can you tell me about human society?” Eis groaned again, and brought a hand up to rub the bridge of his nose, attempting to stave off a growing headache. This was going to be a long night. “Do you want the condensed version? Or the long-winded version?” He asked. Twilight's response was simple. “Both?” “Death, ignorance, sex, stupidity, and the smart people carrying everyone else through their efforts at understanding the universe.” He explained with a dismissive wave. “You don't have a very high opinion of your own species, do you?” Twilight asked, her tone indicating she just realized. “I have great respect for those who do not fall under the title of ignorant, stupid, and arrogant in their ignorance induced stupidity.” He explained. “Well, now for the the full explanation?” She asked, preparing to write. “Yeah, alright.” He picked up Nightmare and placed her on her pillow/bed, before sitting back down to start his no doubt long-winded explanation. “Alright, this story starts a long time ago on a little blue planet before the continents split...”