The government is not family, it isn't father, mother, or even friend. The government is force and violence in disguise, directed in such ways as to maintain a society, and it's the belief that the chain is strong, and the other end in their hands, what lets people sleep well at night. In Equestria that is knowledge rather than belief, given that Celestia is motherly even while she's getting mugged (though she was disguised as Miss Black at the time, so I had to contain my laughter), however...
Well, I gave Celestia and Luna some yarns which they use to remind me of my morality, and they braided the metaphorical fibers into twine with the responsibilities they threw at me. I am vulnerable to cute things, so I simply let them; it helps prevent the public's panic and gives me something to do to avoid madness. Win-win.
I imparted unto Twilight the fine art of crushing those who would dare attempt to believe they can get away with thinking that they could even consider taking advantage of her to further their sociopolitical games, mostly by means of using your clout as a hammer - Luna is fond of the Trixie approach, where she embarrasses her detractors, most often using their own selfish proposals twisted into incredibly humiliating (according to them) ways (helps prevent stressing her into 'do it my way or I'll blow you up' mode, which is how things used to be done back in the day, by the way). That, and mistreating a foal in presence of either diarch or myself is only slightly less stupid than priming a grenade and eating it; Celestia's mercy can be almost as cruel as mine, though she is even more thorough than I am.
Still won't save you (or me, for that matter) from navigating some mare's conversational minefield. The good news; thanks to Equestria's egalitarian society, stallions are allowed to have minefields of their own. The better news; I can change between the two nearly at will.
The bad news were that I was, at the time, the only stallion in the conversation.
Females are going to gang up on you, be they ponies or humans, more often than not. Thankfully, I could make use of the circumstances - many of which were in my favor - and all but one of the mares had a favorable disposition towards me - Bon-Bon being neutral.
"You see..." I began, twirling my hoof; Cinnamon and Dusty kept squirming under the attention (and my hold), but I wasn't going to let them slink away - I wanted friends, not furniture, dang it. "Back there... well, there are things we share, right? We perceive the world through our senses, we can learn, display abstract thought, wisdom, etcetera. It turns out, humans are the only ones like that back where I came from. The only ones."
Bon-Bon raised an eyebrow to this.
"Humans are omnivorous." Lyra supplied, making Bon-Bon connect the dots rather quickly.
"Wait, you ate meat?" She asked. Cinnamon blinked, looking towards the minty unicorn on the screen.
Dusty was starting to blush from having my foreleg around her. She is... receptive to affection; must be the Windigo thing reacting. I did turn into my larger form, mostly to get better reach from my legs, though that had the side-effect of slightly increasing the potency of the pheromones I had totally forgotten about after thinking of a way not to be affected myself.
Plus, I'm repeatedly told it's sexy.
"Well, I was already there; human, too, so I figured I should try it." Lyra began to explain. "There was a lecture on different cultures once - Griffons, actually. I managed to speak to princess Celestia, asking for her opinion... we had tea privately. The princess said that, if she were to become a Griffon for a day-"
"She would eat meat for that day." Twilight concluded, nodding with her eyes closed in remembrance. "She told me that, too. She said that she would do so to know."
"To understand." Lyra added, looking slightly upwards, as if she were in Celestia's presence while the princess spoke to her.
"And connect just a little closer still." Twilight concluded, clearly enjoying the warmth of the memory; private moments with Celestia are very fond memories to her.
"And you cook?" Fluttershy (finally speaking up) asked.
"Eh... a little. Mostly, I've only done really simple things, though I remember instructions. The particular recipe has a little more going into the patty than just meat; mustard, onions, tomatoes, coriander, ground garlic, black pepper... put into the blender and then mixed in. Nothing terribly complicated, and adds a touch of spice to the thing; fiddle with the quantities and you can make it stronger or just a hint."
"I liked it strong." Lyra commented.
"Huh... that's interesting." I said, eyes not really focused on anything.
"What happened?"
"I seem to be able to remember recipes I know I haven't read." I said, using a wing to scratch my head to avoid letting go of Dusty - though it tickled rather than scratch, and made a sound like a squeegee on glass. "I do know that they are the sort of things my mom's cookbooks and notebooks have, so mostly cakes, desserts and pastries... I seem to remember every book I've ever had access to."
And it extended to other things, too - including my grandfather's old record collection, despite me never ever having heard one, and despite most of them having been donated after he died. Years before this whole mess started.
Lyra, Octavia and Vinyl understandably loved it. The others liked it, too, but I doubt I have to explain why the three of them had Pinkie-size smiles.
Zebras liked the stories I had, though I don't personally know that many - I can only name four, although considering one of them is a mentor to me, and another a member of a royal herd and her parents, I'd better be able to remember their names.
Also, Twilight was giving me a rather worrisome look.
"Uhh..." I stammered a little and broke eye contact, while Twilight made the slowest, most drawn-out gasp ever - a slow inhalation of wonder, more accurately. "I'll work on organizing my memories some other time. Doctor said I should rest, you know..." I chuckled weakly, as did the others on my side of the screen. They were rather well-acquainted with Twilight's habits, and were right in the line of fire for that unsettling gaze, you see.
"I'll lend you a Tablet later." I then remembered that they wouldn't know what would that be. "It's a small device, essentially a computer designed to be as portable as possible while retaining as much functionality as it could fit. An expanded e-reader, you could say; their central function is storing books in electronic data format to let you read them wherever you please, however."
Twilight's eyes were now wide enough that you could fit a cantaloupe through her irises (I was tempted to do so), and she might have stopped breathing for a second or fifteen.
"How... many..." She breathed the words. You know, she could not be more awe-struck even if she were a normal human seeing Celestia in all her glory after a dull life without magic (or ponies).
A black rectangle popped into being in front of me, floating lazily. 'I' physically owned one, so maybe that counted for whatever the heck summons/conjures the blueprints/duplicates into existence.
"A cheap model can store a few hundreds of average-sized novels." I turned my attention to the one in front of me - big mistake. "If I can similarly bend the rules on storage as I do memory, this thing has as many books, pictures, and music as I do."
There was no sound, no warning. I lowered the plastic rectangle with my mind and raised my sight just in time to catch two purple rings, attached to two eyes, focused so strongly ahead that I could feel them trying to see through my skin.
Twilight Sparkle was inside the castle, and none of us know how she got there.
With a war cry of "BOOKS!" the purple menace flew towards me. Cinnamon and Dusty used the sudden slack in my grip to slip their heads away a fraction of a second before Twilight bowled me over. By instinct, I kept myself between her and the tablet, which meant that Twilight crawled all over me and, at one point, managed to get under one of my wings while I had it closed. She chased the seven-inch tablet by means of using my body, particularly my wings, as a springboard, jabbing me with her hooves all over.
Yes, I was losing a 'fight' against a pony less than half my size, but you do NOT get between Twilight and her books!
Plus, I'm like... pony Superman.
"Twilight! If you stop moving I'll lend it you later!" She stopped dead on her tracks. Lyra was laughing her life out, however. Twilight was clamped around my head. Her hooves were wrapped around my eyes in such a way that she was simultaneously a blindfold and a hat.
"Trixie, eat your heart out; I have The Greatest, Most Powerful Hat in all of Equestria." I deadpanned, making Fluttershy giggle, Lyra snort a laugh just as she was getting herself back under control, and Bon-Bon face-hoof. Meanwhile, Twilight was staring straight into the dark depths of the plastic screen floating in front of her, as if she could read the data if she concentrated hard enough.
I... I think she highjacked my communication magic and Displaced herself through it on sheer intent.
With my sight cut-off, I was once more in the land of blurry shapes and puffs of air escaping from somepony's lungs.
Still, I should mention that my wind and air magics are very, very good. It might look like fire is my go-to effect when human, but it's secondary to the more subtle air strengthening it like a bellows does a forge.
The air... air and wind are touch both fine and wild, presence and absence and the very limit between the two, a subtle touch and the sheer vastness of the sky. It is breath.
I am Aether.
Air is freedom, yet, breath is individual... I just need but to ask.
I allowed myself to relax - as much as I could with Twilight trying to cut off circulation to my brain, in any case. I could tell where everything was, at the least, and a vague idea of whenever or not it was a pony. Dusty felt a little different, but given that she's a pegasus and therefore has the same kind of magic by birth, it was to be expected.
Light... can be just as mind-altering as Dark; make no mistake, it is just as dangerous for mentality. The fortunate things is that Light is the element of determination and conviction, so those who gain it tend to stay the way they were more often than not. I simply used it as 'illumination', you could say; something to let me 'see' better.
Now the blobs were vaguely colored like the real deal.
"Oh my..." Fluttershy breathed.
"What the...?" Lyra boggled.
"My grandfather had quite a collection." I offered, not minding the tail wrapped around the base of my neck. "And I went to college; it had its own library."
Discord, I already told them I'm not in an amorous relationship with Twilight; so help me God, if you make lewd comments...
"That's what Vinyl's for, isn't she?"
I would smack you if it weren't so true.
"Then again, all of the lovelies around you have quite interesting private preferences, no?"
Including Topsy.
...
Huh, would you look at that. He fainted.
I think Twilight herself only kept from fainting because she didn't want to lose any time with that many books. I had quite a few suggestions.
"Twilight, do you have any preferences?" I asked.
"So... so many works of literature, the works of minds from a whole different world, so many ideas, so much knowledge..." She whispered, but, being right in between my ears, I heard just fine.
"Alright, she's in a book trance." I said, nodding. I guess only Twilight's eyes moved in order to keep the tablet in her sight. "Let us start with Edgar Allan Poe. It's a touch screen."
The device flickered to life and the document - a compilation of said author's works - appeared on the screen. Twilight adorably nosed the tablet to change the pages.
Little did I know that I had laid down the first brick in the building of a monster.
More specifically, Twilight's Tabletop RPG character.
Flowy, slime pony Waveblade (think more or less Spellblade). To be fair, everypony else, Celestia herself included, pushed her into making something outside of their expectations.
Naturally, not only was I the first one to goad her in that direction, I actually joined the insanity with Renard, French kitsune illusionist.
Cinnamon came back - making me think 'When did she even leave?' for a moment- with Celestia of all ponies in tow.
"What happened?" She asked, mildly anxious, since Cinnamon might have over-stated the weirdness of the situation.
"I am thinking of having a movie night, care to join?" I said, while Twilight turned only enough to point her muzzle a little towards the princess.
"I have a bounty from another world." Then she nosed to the next page. "I cannot let this opportunity pass."
"My Great and Powerful Hat seems to have no desire to leave, so that's a vote." I said, and I saw the little puffs of breath of Celestia's chuckles; they were pretty - she should laugh more.
"Oh! Can I bring Tootsie?" Lyra asked, and I wasn't about to say 'no'...
Oh, and don't bring up her father. He's... not around anymore; part of the risks of joining the guards.
"Fluttershy, could you get the others, please?" I asked, and she must have nodded, because I couldn't see or hear her response.
"I shall go get Luna." Celestia said, then turned around and happily cantered away. Celestia chose the movies - she's the boss, after all - and most of the ones she chooses whenever we do this are because Luna was interested in them.
"Heck, invite Blueblood." I blurted out at the last second, before the door closed. "Cinnamon, Duster, you're invited too."
It all started from that.