“You have done what? You have to be kidding me.”
There was no reasonable explanation to this, but as the famous Shercolt Heymls would have said: 'Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.' There were not many other choices for me right now other than trusting her information. It would require intensified testing of that statue and of that pony.
There she was standing, the inconspicuous pony, who declared to just have won over Discord, without even using any magical artifact. She was just standing there, looking at me, almost as if she was listening to my thoughts. When she saw my doubting stare, she looked away. I decided to take a closer look at Discord, who was stuck as a statue once again. For all his crimes, this was probably the right judgement. Who am I to judge that? I may be an Alicorn, I may be a Princess, I may be the Element of Magic, but still, does that give me the right to judge over other lifes? No, it doesn't.
Banishing somepony into a prision was about as much as I wanted to be able to judge. However, it had not been me banishing Discord. After saving myself and my friends from the continuous troubles by Discord's chaos, we had not been able to do much. Every day we had to defend against something else. Floods, fires, earthquakes, even a volcano once. Even with the help of my friends, these tasks were almost impossible.
Even before I had been able to have a closer look at the statue, Dream Whisper could not wait any longer.
“I hoped you could help me."
It was quite confusing to hear her asking for help.
“You are telling me, that you have just banished Discord with immeasurable amounts of magic – And you need my help?”
If what she had said was true, this was almost as if Pinkie Pie would have asked me about how to be funny.
“I may have the ability to use this much magic, but that doesn't mean, that I would know why... or how to control it. I have no idea, how that all works. Magic is no substitue for knowledge.”
For a moment I thought about just turning around and letting her behind. This was a little bit much for the moment. In the end, I decided to find out, what was happening to her. She could be a valuable source of knowledge in these times of spare research. My own curiosity had won once again.
“My hou... The library is just a little bit further.”
It was not strange to not live in the Ponyville library anymore, but I was a princess now, so it was not a residence, I could have possibly chosen.
She seemed to be thinking about it for a moment, then she asked:
“Who will watch him? Discord?”
I had already planned that out.
“Rainbow Dash is watching us from above right now. Even though Pinkie Pie may be good with costumes, you should be able to see her lurking right behind you.”
Dream Whisper turned around, just to get a full load of streamers and confetty blown into her face. Pinkie Pie used the moment of surprise to jump behind supplies of hay.
“Where is...? Okay, I think Discord is safe.”
Luckily she had not been too upset about Pinkie Pie's gesture.
“Let us go then.”
The book I needed was, hopefully, within the bookcase four on the top right. 'Mysterious magical diseases and cures.' under 'Magcial enhancements'. Probably in 'Magical artifacts' in the bookcase two on the lower right corner. That would be, if she had some special artifact with her, but it didn't seem like Dream Whisper was carrying anything. Maybe 'Strange sources of Magic' in bookcase five just in the middle, but that book was not really descriptive. We could use 'The Magical Compendium of Everything: Part 23 – Magic in Extremes.' to find out, where we could search. However, I didn't know, where I had left that one, but it should be easy enough to find. Maybe, just maybe 'Magic from other Dimensions', but I was quite sure, Dream Whisper would not have entered other dimensions. The door almost opened itself, it had been quite a while.
“SPIIIIKEE?!”
I screamed, until I realized, that Spike could not have been here already. He was probably still helping Fluttershy listing the bunny population. Time to search the books myself. We had 'Mysterious magical diseases and cures', 'Magical artifacts', 'Strange Sources of Magic' and 'The Magical Compendium of Everything: Part 23' – or was it 24? I think it was 23. “'Magic from other Dimensions' it is. Bookcase 7 in the middle of the 2nd row from the top. This book had always fascinated me as a small filly.“ What I didn't tell her was, that I actually had liked it more for the beautiful drawings, than the poor content. The other dimensions were mostly described very sparely. Anyway, it would be a good place to start. There were some strange things this book, for example: 'These devices actually create doors for some Dimensions.', 'The species once had been just monkeys, but with time, they had lost the fur and learned to walk upright.' and 'The inmeasurable size of the smalles possible object.' I decided to let Dream Whisper look through that old book and concentrate on the Magical Compendium myself.
“Here you go. I think, most interesting for you are pages twohundretfourtyfive to twohundretninetysix.”
She started knittering the pages, which made me want to get the book back immediately.
Although the Compandium really did not contain close to any information, it was still a good place to start, to give a general direction. Mostly interesting were the book suggestions for further reading. The book was actually quite discriptive of possible ways to strengthen your magic. The first couple of pages were about potions, then a couple about naturally growing plants. A couple about magical artifacts – They now had added the 'Alicorn Amulet' to this section - and a couple about summonings. The last couple of pages were the only pages that were even close to what could have happened to her. Maybe, if she could have told something more useful, it would have been an easier search. For example, how she had been able to banish discord exactly – Which spell had she used, where had she used it, when had she used it. She should just tell me, what was wrong with her.
“If you want to know it, I will tell you. Tell you, what exactly happened to me.”
I was quite surprised by that statement. Finally, she would reveal her secret. The curiosity grew inside me. I really wanted to know, what she had done.
“I have the talent to enter dreams, as you know.”
I nodded, no new information yet.
“When I am inside a dream, the dream becomes more real than before. Instead of waking up, the dreaming pony could actually die. It... It's a big burden.”
I felt a bad now, for judging her so fast. Maybe her special talent really had its disadvantages and she wasn't just one-sided. Then again, she had only brought chaos yet.
“When the dreamer believes in something, in the dream, that something is actually real. I call that dream logic. If you think of a pony circus inside of your dream, that pony circus will be there. However, when I make the whole dream more real, it actually affects everything inside the dream. When the dreamer thinks I had more magic, inside the dream I do. When however, I use magic inside my dream, it seems to get more and more real.”
I understood her problem immediately and expended beyond that thought.
“And when the dreamer thinks, you use enough magic, it creates an unstoppable effect. Somehow, that all carried through to reality, because too much magic was used.”
That was a possibility, I had not thought about yet. Her talent was breaking the laws of reality, because it all happened inside the irreal dream. Now she probably had problems with handling these extreme amounts of energy. I would have to tell it all to Luna, so she could do some experimenting on that.
“Thank you.”
I wanted to get it out there, because I realized, how hard her time must have been. Maybe, just maybe, we have been making a false picture of her all along.
Back to the last few pages in the Compendium. The first half page was about demonic creatures with immense power, like Discord or the Timberwolves, the page after that was a list of all known magical beings in Equestria, who were able to use more magic than regular unicorns. I found myself and was actually quite proud of that. Soon, she would have to be added too, but hopefully on the list of the good beings. The last page was about references to other books about this topic, finally. Three books had their names printed and under each book was a short summary of it's content.
“'The magic of luminescence.' - In this book you will not only learn about natural substances, that emit light, you will also learn, how the light in Equestria is created. How does the sun work? How does the moon shine without the sun? How does magic shine? Can magic be reflected like light? To all these questions, you will find answers in this book.”
Definitely not, what we were looking for. Despite that, I had read that book already anyway.
“'The world of shadows' – This book reveals some unknown truths about another world, undiscovered by most. Using old transcripts from thousands of years ago, Prof. Hoovstein, author of this incredible book, has managed to discover truths beyond our understanding.”
After reading those two titles loudly, Dream Whisper already interrupted me.
“I think it may be that one.”
Dream Whisper had to have some strange opinion about books, but I decided to give it a try.
“I don't think I have that book down here. Look around you, I have many many books in my library, about almost everything. However, if you are really sure, there are some books unpacked in boxes somewhere upstairs. They were saved from the Canterlot library. It's a shame, that there had not been enough time to save all books from the fire.”
Dream Whisper, without saying any other word, just stood up and went upstairs. I followed her, but only after neatly restoring the order in my house. Upstairs, I found Dream Whisper just cramming through the books, searching furiously. Although I was much more careful with the books, I joined the search. Even though she may have searched faster in her careless way, I was still the first pony to find the book. It was heavily damaged and I doubted, we would find anything useful in it. However, I wouldn't complain about it, because Dream Whisper had seemed quite sure, that we would find the answer in there. “Here we go.”
I opened the book, not willing to give a book in this state to anypony else. Especially not to anypony with that rude behavior towards books. The first pages were all been completely blackened by smut. Then, there were a couple of pages and the rest of the book was just completely missing. It had been hard enough for me to read the cover in the first place. I read the cover once agian, this time loudly.
“The world of shadows – Unrevealed truths”
Although I hated reading out loudly, giving a book like this to a pony, who cared for books like that, was even worse.
“Chapter 3: ” - Wow, we had to skip quite a lot already - “The ancient forces. Although Celestia is often believed to be the single most powerful being in Equestria, that is a common misconception. Ancient runes indicate immeasurable power, the ancient forces. The most powerful of our artifacts are often forged by, or even made out of the essence of these ancient forces. Deciphering the names of the ancient forces was impossible, since there was a single rune for every name. However, I could give them names depending on their character. There seemed to be only opposite characters for every force. That is why I divided the ancient forces into those two groups. On the one side, there are the forces trying to balance the world for harmony, on the other side, there are the forces trying to bring chaos to the world. It is told of an ongoing fight between those forces, each trying to reach the corresponding goal. However, no side will ever be able to win, because it is itself dependent on the other side.
How could harmony exist without chaos, how could chaos exist without harmony? The ancient forces seem to exist only in pairs and that is their problem. To defeat the counterpart would be to defeat themselves.
It seems as if there were long pauses between the fights of the ancients, which were only initiated again by... “
There was a big hole in the middle of the page.
“... and still they cannot undo...”
Another, smaller hole and a lot of ink spreak across the page.
“...seems to."
"As almost ... excludes ... this ... is a ...”
I was, to be honest, a bit confused by this book. That there were ancient cultures believing in ancient forces had always been known, but the thing about how they cannot exist without one another and how there were pauses in between these fights had been quite interesting. Here in Equestria we had a pause of 1000 years, until evil started coming back. It was a shame, that we could not read, what re-initiated the fights. There had to be a way to find it out. I thought about it for a minute, but then I had just the idea.
“I may know a pony, who could help us. It is a zebra mare called Zecora. She may or may not know something about these ancient forces. However, I suggest we at least try it. I will tell my friends, that we are going to go there this afternoon. I expect you to come.”