Archer
If there was one thing the filly was sure of, it's that she was tired of hearing about her cousin Scootaloo. Scootaloo was a pegasus in a family that was mostly earth ponies, and that made her special. Scootaloo was an only child as well as being the youngest in the extended family, and that made her special. Scootaloo did tricks on her scooter, and that made her special. She was sick of it!
Worst of all, the family always said how much she and Scootaloo were alike. It was a ridiculous idea. Scootaloo had an ugly orange coat and a tacky magenta mane. Her own coat and mane were in pleasing shades of blue; it was how she got her name, after all. Then there was the fact that Scootaloo was obsessed with getting a cutie mark, and she knew hers would come when the time was right. Also, Scootaloo was a few months younger than she was. They were nothing alike!
But despite all her frustrations with her cousin, she still might have been able to let all that slide if not for the fact that hardly anypony called her by her real name any more, and that was Scootaloo's fault. When they were much younger, her cousin hadn't been able to say her name properly; now she had a nickname that she hated and she couldn't escape.
“Can I help you find anything, Azure?” The new librarian was one of the few exceptions regarding use of her real name. The purple mare wasn't what you would expect from a Canterlot unicorn; she was actually nice and not a snob at all. Plus it was good to just have the library open again. It had been closed for a few weeks after the retirement of the old librarian, and going to the library was one of the things that Azure did to set herself apart from her cousin (who generally had to be dragged there).
“Yes, Miss Twilight, thank you. We discussed the post-Founding period in class recently, and I wanted to learn more. My teacher said you would have some stuff on my grade level.”
“Oh, yes, I know just the book! You know, the post-Founding period was a very interesting time. There was a new land to explore, and even though the pony tribes were at peace with each other, there were still some battles fought.” Twilight walked to some nearby shelves and started scanning the titles.
“One of the colts in my class said we even fought the minotaurs back then, but I don't think he really knew what he was talking about.”
Twilight looked back in approval. “You're right, that's actually just a legend. You can read the real story as soon as I find... here it is!” The unicorn floated a thick book to a table with her magic. “Was there anything else you wanted for now?”
“No, ma'am. Thanks again.” The young earth pony got comfortable and opened up the copy of Early Equestria in front of her. Not surprisingly, the librarian had some reading that she wanted to do as well, and Azure barely noticed when Twilight walked away.
Azure skipped the first few pages. Everypony knew the story of Equestria's founding, and she felt she was especially qualified on that topic since she had been Smart Cookie in the school's Hearth's Warming pageant last year. Even the first few years were fairly calm, with settlement, expansion, and uncontested exploration. There was lots of contact between the pony tribes, but still not a lot of mixing of the populations. Everything seemed fine until – There it was! – the first meeting between ponykind and minotaurs.
Pegasi still remained in the sky for the most part, and unicorns seemed to consider diplomacy with another species to be beneath them, so the initial contacts were between earth ponies and minotaurs. The ponies feared these new beings at first, and there was even a misunderstanding that ended in pies being thrown. Eventually, though, the two groups communicated, acceptance grew, and trade began. The young filly had never learned about any of this in school, and she was easily drawn into the narrative.
Back then, minotaurs were nomads, with the exception of some elders who chose permanent places to live and build labyrinths. They started to settle villages of their own to make it easier to trade with the pony population, and the earth ponies were happy to teach them the basics of agriculture. Both sides benefited, and it certainly didn't sound to Azure like the sort of situation that would lead to war.
The next section was titled “Dragon Migration”. Wait a second, what did dragons have to do with minotaurs? She read on to find that once pony land expanded far enough, dragon sightings were no longer rare and singular. One day, the migration began to fly overhead; a stream of dragons soared through the sky for unknown purposes, and the majority of them were either peaceful or just indifferent. Some, however, were territorial enough to feel they owned the land underneath their flight path. That first year, ponies fled while their houses and farms were burned. They later rebuilt, re-planted, and prepared. The second year, they fought back. More homes were destroyed and it looked like the ponies would have to retreat again... until the minotaurs came. Working together, the two races were actually able to drive off the hostile dragons.
Azure turned the page, and her mouth fell open. The entire page was filled with illustrations of minotaur weapons. The caption didn't say more than that, and the next page continued the history, so she didn't learn much more than the general appearances of these items. She was both disturbed and fascinated by them and couldn't stop looking. One group of drawings in particular drew her eye – she was sure she had seen something like them before. She checked the table of contents and the index to find out if the topic of weapons came up again, but had no luck. Nothing for it but to ask the librarian, then.
“Oh, yes, I know about those,” Twilight said, warming up for a mini-lecture. “There isn't a word in the Equestrian language for it, but minotaurs call the main section of it a bow. The bow uses flexible materials to propel a projectile called an arrow. Ponies never adopted it, of course; it can't be used with hooves, pegasus wings are too delicate to operate it, and unicorns don't gain any real advantage with it. We can get almost as much force from just throwing the projectile with our magic, and if you do use one, it's one more object to have to levitate. Ponies were able to adapt it to a more useable form called an across-bow, but that wasn't until much later.”
Azure remained puzzled. “But why does it look familiar to me? I never knew any of this.”
“To understand that, you have to realize how ponies felt about the bow warriors, who were called archers.” Twilight barely noticed the look of recognition on her visitor's face and continued talking. “They were impressed by the speed of the projectiles, and how often they hit their targets. More than that, they were grateful to the minotaurs who came to their aid. So much so,” she said, opening another book, “that it led to this.” She held a hoof over a page covered with pictograms. One of them was a stylized version of the weapon in question: an arc joined at the endpoints by a straight line, with another straight line perpendicular to it.
“That's pre-Celestian writing, isn't it?”
Twilight smiled. “Exactly. And this symbol was added to the written language after the victory against the dragons. Sometimes it just meant either bow or archer. Other times, depending on the context, it could mean 'swift' or 'to strike accurately' or even 'coming to the defense of another'. Like many words in the old writing system, it's still used in artwork to this day. You've probably seen it lots of times without realizing it.”
“That one symbol could mean all those different things?”
“Confusing, isn't it? That's why we switched to a system that represents sounds instead. Well, that and the number of symbols that had to be learned.”
Azure's eyes practically glowed. “I had no idea about any of this! I'm learning so much!”
That, of course, was music to the librarian's ears. “Glad I could help out, my little pony. Why don't we get that book checked out so you can take it with you?” The schoolfilly was very much in favor of this idea.
For the next few days, Azure spent almost all her free time buried in the book. She had thought the post-Founding era sounded interesting, but she didn't expect it to be exciting. The day after she finished it, she was eager for the school day to end – but not like Scootaloo was, never like Scootaloo – so she could return to the library and find more books like it.
She was almost to her destination when she spotted somepony else headed to the library as well. The purplish-gray unicorn filly sitting on the ground was obviously younger than Azure was, and her slight build made her seem even younger than that. Standing over her was a much older colt that Azure didn't recognize, an earth pony with both coat and mane in boring tan shades. Looking at the mess scattered around the filly, Azure realized that the colt had swept the filly's saddlebags off her back and scattered the books in them. The little unicorn began to cry, which made the bully laugh.
There was no way she was going to stand for that; without thinking, she charged toward the unpleasant adolescent. He could have easily seen her by turning his head just a little to the left, but he was too caught up in his cruelty. Once she got close to him, she stopped, whirled around, and aimed both of her back legs for his left side. She moved swiftly, and she struck accurately. The bully crumpled to the ground a couple of paces away, dazed. Azure turned again, facing him, putting the other filly behind her. The colt snapped back to awareness with a look of panic on his face; he quickly scrambled to his hooves and ran off. She turned once more and began gathering stray books.
The little unicorn wiped away the last of her tears and looked up at Azure through her blond mane. She simply said, “Thank you.”
“You're very welcome. I'm glad I was able to help. What's your name?”
“Oh, uh... everypony calls me Dinky, because I'm so small. What's yours?”
“My name is Azure... but you know what? You can call me Archer. Everypony does.”
“I really like your cutie mark, Archer.”
Azure – Archer – turned and looked at her flank. As far as she was concerned, it was perfect.