//------------------------------// // Present 5-Questions // Story: The Woes of Scorpan // by articunos bitch //------------------------------// Twilight gazed out on the field from the third-story balcony. She saw brush peppered by tall, thick trees. She guessed a forest fire had torn through the field a year ago; most of the standing trees had branches at their tops, but smaller ones were sprouting farther down. She heard the river—or, judging by the stone shoring up the banks, it could be a canal churning away below her. The bushes grew to the canal’s edge, completing her ideal garden: unattended, wild, and could not be claimed by any pony. She closed her eyes and listened to the canal run before remembering she had to search for clues. This castle was as mysterious as the one in the Everfree Forest, except it wasn’t overrun like that was. This room could have been vacated this morning. The windows were shut and well oiled. The scrolls on the desk were dry and crinkled cheerfully upon her touch. The closet held dozens of books. And, most notably, everything was written in Old Equestrian Script. That bothered her more than a door next to the closet. She discovered a flight of spiral stairs leading up to another door, and breathed a sigh of disappointment. It appeared to be a study with mostly empty bookshelves, a fireplace, and more comfortable chairs. Trotting back to the first office, she lifted a scroll off the desk and magically broke the seal, taking great care to unfurl it. Telekinetically lifting the other scrolls and laying them in an organized stack in the corner, she tried reading the ancient text. Celestia taught her a great deal about law and old writing. It took her a while, but Twilight realized she was looking at a receipt to a land deal between the City of Sumaria and “Mr. and Mrs. Devon Jarl”. The deed looked like it recorded the price, date, and signatures of a clerk and the couple. It struck her as odd that such a mundane document would be sealed like a letter. Twilight noticed how all the hoof/mouth writing was neat, precise, and consistent. Clearly, unicorns had written the deed, but she did not understand the three inky blotches by the signatures. Resealing it and setting it aside, she picked up another scroll and tried to decipher it. She felt the hours roll by, noting the shadows shifting from midday to evening. She had come across other legal documents. Many were filled with letters she didn’t recognize and words that meant nothing to her. A few she understood. She recognized Script, but it wasn’t easy to read. Reaching for another one, she heard Lyra calling her name. “I’m in here!” Twilight looked to the next scroll and noticed two seals: one closed and the other broken. It was the imprint of the broken one that dropped her jaw and drove her to the brink of madness. “Find anything interesting?” Lyra asked from the door to the hall. She grinned like a shark at the sight of the door next to the closet Twilight had left open. She gasped. “What have we here? A secret passageway?” Lyra heading up the stairs snapped Twilight from her stupor. She recognized that seal; she had received many letters bearing it before. The seal was made from a bronze-colored wax and showed the sun with eight rays swirling in a clockwise rotation, then twisting back as they reached their end. It was the seal of Princess Celestia. Taking a deep breath, she snapped open the other seal and unrolled the scroll. It looked like Celestia’s writing, but it was still a bit shaky, as if she still had to perfect Script. It looked like a thank-you letter, short and simple. Twilight caught the name ‘Equestria,’ which was written in a style similar to modern script. And it mentioned 'taking care of my sister,’ but she could not read context. Perhaps it was just another of many letters sent between the Princess and this castle. But that didn’t make much sense. There was a castle, and presumably a city out here the Princess spoke with regularly, but Celestia made no mention of it. What’s more was… Where was this city in the first place? She read nothing about it, ever in Equestrian or foreign history books. Was it possible the castle was moved here from somewhere else, and Sumaria changed its name? Moved from where? Changed to what? And why are there humans in their art? “Twilight! You ate your words before! Come do it again!” She turned to see Lyra standing in front of the hidden staircase, wagging her tail and smiling like a foal on Hearth’s Warming Day. She dashed back up to the office, letting Twilight follow behind. Ascending the steep incline, Twilight thought sticking to the edge would be easiest until she brushed her wing against the rough stone. Stepping into the study, she saw Lyra going out the open door to her right, across the hallway, and into a bedroom. She waved her over and disappeared deeper in the room. The bed reminded her of her own back in the library with its worn mattress and hoof-carved headboard. However, it sat much farther off the floor than her own, and it was bigger. She didn’t have much time to admire it, since Lyra was in the washroom, still waving her over. “Here, you gotta see this!” Stepping into the room, Twilight was pleased. It had a tub, toilet, and sink. She hadn’t washed her hooves properly since Appleoosa. Magical sanitation only felt right so many times. ”This is good Lyra. I need a bath tonight before bed.” It had been a looong time since she slept in a real bed, too. “Twilight, listen to this!” Lyra pulled a chain hanging down next to the toilet seat and heard the familiar rushing sound of water before it gurgled and filled the bowl again. “Did you hear that? Running water! In a thousand-year-old castle! We’ve struck gold here—“ Twilight covered Lyra’s mouth with a hoof. “No. We don’t know how old this place is.” Lyra stepped back and said, “I do. It was around before Luna’s Eclipse, and I can prove it! Out here, Twilight.” Lyra backed into the bedroom again and pointed to the nightstand next to the window. On it sat a picture frame. Twilight wrapped it in her magic and levitated it towards her, frowning at what it could be. And I thought Celestia’s seal was… wrong being here. Somehow through her shock, she held the picture in her magic until Lyra wrenched it from her and lay it on the bed. “Look familiar? I gotta say, he IS a looker. I wonder… how did they meet? Is she as black as she’s painted?” Lyra had smirked at Twilight too often in the past week, but she didn’t see it this time. The picture of the happy couple was burned into her memory: an impossible couple. A human—the same one they saw in the painting of husband and wife in the entrance hall—had a photograph of himself with someone who was not a human. Twilight recognized her right away. She had not changed a bit during her banishment. Twilight crept to the bed and looked closer at the black-and-white photo. A male human sat in a chair and held the right front hoof of an alicorn. Her mane floated in a breeze the same as it did when Twilight last saw her, but she smiled as if she was genuinely happy. Her fangs looked innocent in her herbivorous mouth of hers. She had draped a wing over his back and sat on her haunches. She had never seen Princess Luna look as serene as Nightmare Moon did in this moment. Twilight was lost in the picture and Lyra could not snap her out of it. Saying her name and waving a hoof in her face didn’t work, so she resorted to drastic measures. “Twilight, your cane’s been stolen!” She tried to hold back her giggles as Twilight dropped the picture onto the bed and looked around. “My cane? MY CANE!” “Welcome back. What happened? You zoned out pretty bad. You alright?” “Lyra...” Twilight looked at the picture again, mouth slightly agape, as confused as ever. “This isn’t right. She had no friends. No one loved her, no one cared, but she looks so happy.” “She looks in love to me. And how can you say no to that face? He’s got the cutest, tiny muzzle…” Her voice gained pitch as she went on. “But this is wrong. It’s not what happened! I found a letter from Celestia just downstairs, okay? She was saying something about taking care of her sister, and if it was to this human...” She shook her head and repositioned her hoof for balance. “If it was to this human, he failed. She tried bringing about eternal night. He didn’t take care of her. Or, even if he did, why are humans not in the history books?” Twilight started pacing around the room. “Humans? A castle out here? A happy, Faust-forbidden human loved Nightmare Moon! Lyra, this is insane! This can’t exist! Nothing here adds up! Celestia would tell me things like this. I trust her. Wouldn’t she trust me? If she knows something about history is wrong and she doesn’t fix it, doees that mean she’s allowing it to be rewritten? I trust her! We c—“ She was silenced by Lyra’s hoof, who refused to back away. “While you were reading someone else’s mail, I found the kitchens and pantries. There might be some booze down there, so let’s go see if we can get hammered. Worry about this in the morning, okay?” Twilight composed herself, nodded, and let Lyra lead the way. The kitchens were beyond a grand ballroom and through a set of double doors. Coal-burning stoves and ice boxes lined opposite walls with countertops filling the spaces in between. Twilight figured humans being able to stand on two legs needed less maneuvering room. She found it very claustrophobic and tried not to wiggle her rump in the aisles. Lyra led her to the back and opened a door with her hoof to another stairwell dropping beneath the ground. She noticed a sharp temperature drop, lit her horn, and looked around the pantry. There were few cobwebs, little dust, and no signs of structural instability. “How long has this place been abandoned, Lyra? The scrolls I found were sitting on a desk. They looked and sounded fresh.” Lyra turned a corner and gasped. “What?” Twilight exclaimed. “What did you find?” Lyra was on her hindlegs and leaning her forelegs against a barrel almost as wide as she was tall, which was lying on its side. She had her back to Twilight. She kissed the barrel and started cooing at it. “Who’s a big boy? You! You’re momma’s big boy! And momma’s gonna suckle you dry!” Twilight sighed and rolled her eyes hard enough for them to fall out of her head. “I’m gonna levitate this upstairs, Lyra. You get some glasses and we can drink. We’re eating the grass for dinner, though.” ** ** ** They ate in the study across from the bedroom, lighting the room with her glow stick. Lyra had picked enough grass for both of them, and Twilight binged herself on cranberry wine. She insisted they save their canned food for the return journey and eat grass until they left again. Lyra still didn’t want anypony to know exactly where they were or what they were doing, but Twilight talked her into sending a “we’re still alive and well” note back to Ponyville. Despite her over-dramatic reaction to a barrel of wine, Lyra had a few glasses and stuck to their refilling canteens of water. Twilight at some point burst in song: What is this thing in my mouth? It’s slippery and it’s slimy, Travelling down my slender, virgin-pink esophagus. Some black chick’s tongue. It’s such a new sensation. Twilight changed her pitch every so often, Lyra guessed it was to mimic a different voice. I got a mayonnaise momma on my licking hole… oh yeah, Foxxy’s gettin’ some. It’s really quite thrilling… That’s right now, you know… I think I taste a filling… And it’s solid gold. I never dreamed I’d be so willing… to let myself go… Tell me about it, I’m totally frenchin’ a racist ho! This black chick’s tongue. What a wonderful feeling. Damn, where’d dis bitch get her earrings? I’ve never had so much fun… As with this black… chick’s… tooongue. Falling to her haunches, Twilight held her empty glass and declared to the ceiling, “That is a song from one of my past lives, and it is the best song ever! I don’t know what a black chick is. Maybe Fluttershy will know!” Lyra, having grown much less comfortable during her song, was looking away. “Yeah… So… What did you learn from those letters you read earlier?” Twilight settled onto her back and spread her wings out, holding her glass with a hoof. “It’s all in Script. You read Script, Lyra? ‘Cause I don’t.” “I have a book to help translate Script. I thought you would have asked about it. Do you know what else I have?” Twilight stared at her before answering, “Sobriety!” Lyra sighed. “Yes. I also have toothbrushes, trowels, and a small mesh screen. I’ve been going around taking pictures of everything. You really shouldn’t have touched anything in the office, you know that! Those were old, old letters, and you broke the seals!” Twilight swayed her hooves, “Yeah, well, you… hic!... opened the wine!” “I did, and there’s much more where that came from. So, no more touching things until we photograph or document it, alright?” “Alright, Lyra. Don’t have to baby me.” "When we wake up, I'll finish taking pictures, and you translate for letters after photographing them." She laid her second camera in front of Twilight. "Got it?" Lyra collected her glow stick, went across the hall to lay on the already disturbed-bed, and closed her eyes. They had a big day tomorrow.