//------------------------------// // Talents That Shine in the Sky // Story: The Untold Past of the Royal Family // by PrinceoftheEclipse //------------------------------// Twilight had so much excitement running through her, she didn’t even notice when the food had been served. Right in front of her was her favorite breakfast; stuffed French toast with daffodils on top, and she was too distracted with the new book to notice. Was this book about Starswirl the Bearded? What role did he play in all this? These thoughts continued to go through her head as the other two princesses ate their breakfast. Princess Luna looked at her sister as if she was asking something. Celestia looked to Luna and simply nodded. Both grinned and Luna took in a deep breath while Celestia covered her ears. “TWILIGHT!” Luna yelled in her famous Canterlot voice. Twilight then fell out of her chair from the sudden force directed at her. Both the princesses tried not to laugh as Twilight quickly climbed back into her seat. “I’m ok, I’m ok,” Twilight called out. Finally out of her daze, she finally noticed her French toast sitting right in front of her. Normally, Twilight would eat with proper table manners, but with a greater hunger than when her “ticket master” day happened. She decided to toss table manners to the wind and started to wolf down her food. As Twilight was eating, Celestia began to think more about this whole thing with the books. Why had she never thought of her brother before this? Sure, it had been centuries since she had last seen him, but she would have at least thought about him. Luna was gone for a thousand years and she constantly thought about her. Why not Eclipse? Did she really forget about her own brother, the one who had saved both her and Luna’s lives? “Sister….sister…. Tia?” Luna called while waving her hoof in front of her sister’s face. Celestia instantly shook her head and came back to reality. “I’m ok, I’m ok, just deep in thought,” Celestia exclaimed. Luna’s only thoughts were, “Students do take after their teachers.” “Well while you two are eating, I think I shall read this volume,” Luna said with some excitement in her voice. “Celestia read the last two, tis only fair that I read one.” “Alright Luna, if you insist,” Celestia said taking a bite out of her banana pancakes. Twilight with magic passed the book to the Moon Princess, Luna took with much gratitude. The book was titled “The Hearth’s Warming Visitor.” Luna opened the book, a smile on her face as she began read. “It was snowing gently as we began to walk out into the castle’s courtyard….” As the royal siblings watched the snow fall when they made their way outside, all of them got the same mischievous thought; snowball fight. Unfortunately for Celestia, some ponies think faster than others. She was then hit in the back of her with average sized snowball. She instantly looked behind her to find Eclipse pointing his hoof at Luna. Luna was looking off into the distance, whistling like nothing had even happened. But neither Luna nor Celestia were prepared for what came next. A snowball nailed Luna in the face. Both Celestia and Luna looked at the one responsible for this. They saw Eclipse with a slightly mischievous look on his face. At this point Celestia wasn’t going to be left behind while they threw all the snowballs. She quickly retreated a few feet and began making her fort. To no surprise, she was done with her fort in 10 seconds flat. “I love magic,” Celestia thought as she finished making her fort. Being the eldest did have its advantages, especially when it came to magic. Celestia’s magic was greater than both Luna’s and Eclipse’s. Thanks to that she was able to make all her snowballs ready before her siblings had enough time to start on their forts. As Celestia began to bury her siblings in snowballs, both Luna and Eclipse looked at each other. They both got the same message; they had to team up if they were to stand a chance. As Luna put up a little force field for both of them, Eclipse began to work on their fort. He tried his best to make it look similar to Celestia’s, but he was only able to make one half the size of one. As he finished, both began to hide behind it and started making their own snowballs. The battle was so intense; both sides refused to let their guard down, and refused to surrender to the other. After what seemed like hours, both sides were so exhausted that they couldn’t throw one more snowball. All three of them collapsed to the ground and started to laugh from the pure enjoyment they just had. “Hey, do you want to build a snowman?” Eclipse asked his sisters with a smile on his face. Before they could answer, their mother came out. “Children, someone is here to see you,” the Queen said. The three young alicorns looked at each other with confused look on their faces. Someone was here to see them? Who could it possibly be? As their mother lead them down the halls, thoughts of who it could be possibly be ran through Luna’s mind. When they reached the throne room, they saw a tall and grey unicorn with a long, curly beard. He wore both a robe and a hat with stars and moons on them. And to top them off, they had bells on the borders of them. “Children I would like you to meet, Starswirl the Bearded,” Queen Lauren said gesturing her hoof to him. He bowed in response to her gesture, and then brought his attention to the three young alicorns. “Hello there young ones, what are your names?” the unicorn asked with a warm smile. Celestia stepped forward. “Um… I’m Princess Celestia, this is my sister; Princess Luna, and my brother; Prince Eclipse.” “A pleasure to meet all of you, now I would like to tell you what I’m doing here today. Every Hearth’s Warming Eve, your mother, the Queen invites me to visit the pegasi in Cloudsdale. The holidays are just special up there.” “Wonderful,’ Celestia exclaimed, ‘but how are you going to get up there when you don’t have wings?” “Oh I’m glad you asked, I almost forgot. Have you three ever heard of the spell that could give non-pegasus ponies wings?” Starswirl asked. “Oh yeah, I’ve heard of that one,” Luna said. “Good, do you know how to do the spell?” he asked curiously. “We do, but we’ve never had the chance to try it on another pony,” Eclipse explained. “That’s fine, what better time than now,” he said. He lead the ponies outside, none of the alicorns knew what he had planned exactly. He then had them all circle around him. As they circled around he examined each young alicorn for a good 5 min each. He was searching for the feeling of their magical signature. When he examined Celestia, he could feel the powerful and warm sun. When he saw Luna, he felt chills of both beauty and darkness. But when he came to Eclipse, he felt something strange. It felt very powerful and protective, also very big. He didn’t quite know what it meant; he just knew it was different than anything he had felt before. “Alright, Princess Celestia would you like to go first?” the old unicorn asked deciding to ignore Eclipse’s strange signature. Celestia took a deep breath, closed her eyes and started to concentrate. Her horn began to glow with a golden yellow aura. She shot a beam of light toward Starswirl, as she opened her eyes she was amazed. Starswirl had two large golden pegasus wings (kind of like angel wings) attached to his back. Celestia was so proud of her accomplished. “Well done, that’s very impressive,” exclaimed Starswirl. His horn started to glow with a light blue aura, burning down his wings so the others could try. “Alright Princess Luna, your turn,” he said looking at the moon princess. Luna was now excited after seeing her sister’s good job. She closed her, concentrated entirely on her horn, and then turned her concentration to Starswirl. As her horn began to glow, siblings watched in awe. Her horn began to produce small sparks of light, what would probably consider as stars. The dedication she was putting into this spell was marvelous. Eclipse watched his big sister and thought to himself, “Luna is such a natural.” A beam of blue light shot toward the old unicorn, when she was done she opened her eyes. Starswirl had two, midnight blue, pegasus wings that looked similar to those of a raven. They were slightly smaller than Celestia’s were, but what made up for it were what seemed to be stars within the wings. “Very nice, great job Princess,” Starswirl said with a proud smile on his face. Luna grinned with her accomplishment. And again, Starswirl burned his new wings so Eclipse could have the final go. “Ok, Prince Eclipse, after you go we’ll go up to Cloudsdale,” the unicorn said with a little hesitation. After feeling Eclipse’s magic signature, he felt a little nervous. Eclipse nodded to Starswirl, ready to give it all he had. Now Eclipse didn’t have a lot of magic experience, but after watching his sisters he felt confident. He started to concentrate on his horn, just as his sisters did. He tried his best to visualize the wings appearing on Starswirl. His horn began to glow with an orange glow, and then shot his beam of light. When he opened his eyes, he saw a bearded unicorn with orange average pegasus wings. Disappointment quickly fell upon his face; he knew he could do better than that. “Hey! That’s very good for a pony your age!” Starswirl said trying to cheer him up. And he was right; no average unicorn his age could create wings even that big. “No I can do better!” Eclipse yelled back, as he started to big the spell again. Starswirl decided to go with it, after all what harm could it do? Eclipse concentrated harder this time than he had ever before. He gritted his teeth, and his horn began to glow. But this time, the aura was larger and even though his eyes were closed; you could see his eyes were glowing. Everypony watched in awe as they watched the young prince’s magic starting to swirl around him. Starswirl noticed something about the alicorn’s teeth. Though they were clenched together, they began to sharpen themselves. Before he could say or think anything about it, a blast erupted from Eclipse’s horn aimed straight at him. Starswirl braised for impact, but felt nothing when it hit him. When he opened his eyes, he saw the young prince with a huge smile on his face. Then he turned to the princesses to see them with mouths wide open. As he looked behind him he saw two large, orange, bat-like wings attached to his back. These were just as large as Celestia’s were, debatably bigger. Starswirl couldn’t believe it. “Well, I must say this is very impressive,” said the bearded unicorn. As Queen Lauren looked at the wings, she knew she would have to explain to Starswirl about Eclipse’s “condition”. “Alright then, who’s ready to go to Cloudsdale,” Lauren asked deciding to change the subject a little. “We do!” her three children said in excitement. Starswirl decided that would be good, especially to take his mind off this little event. “Alright then, let’s go,” the Queen said with equal excitement. As they flew toward Cloudsdale, the Queen began to raise the moon as they got higher into the sky. All of a sudden a thought came to her mind before she decided to put the stars in the sky. She started flying closer to Luna. “Luna, sweetheart would you like to help me put the stars in the sky?” the Queen whispered. “Of course Mommy,” Luna answered with delight. The two stopped in midflight as the others flew on ahead. Luna began by lighting up her horn, trying to remember how the sky was supposed to look like. Stars started forming from Luna’s horn and placing themselves in the sky. After she was done she looked at the sky. The stars were perfect, but Luna expected her mother was responsible for it. But when she looked at her mother, the Queen had a soft smile of pride on her face. “Luna, I’m so proud of you right now,” Lauren said to her daughter. “Well, you helped me,” Luna stated. “No, I didn’t this was all your doing,” the Queen said proudly. “What!” Luna said as she turned her head to examine her work. As Queen Lauren watched her daughter in amazement, she thought to herself, “I think she did a better job than I did.” “Alright Luna, I believe we have kept the others waiting long enough,” Lauren said motioning towards Cloudsdale. Luna nodded and started flying with her mother. Lauren already knew her children were special, but they were also unique. And she knew that they would be great rulers of Equestria. Not to mention great protectors of this great country. “And that started not only our study sessions with Starswirl the Bearded, but also the beginning of Us bringing the night to Equestria,” Luna said as she finished the book. “I loved that day, that night was one of the most beautiful I’ve seen,” Celestia said complimenting her sister. She remembered that night almost perfectly, the stars were perfect that night and they shined brighter than they had in a while. Twilight was also in love with these stories. She loved hearing about their past, but even though it answered a lot of her questions; it created new ones to replace them. “Well, since we’re done with our breakfast, how bout we head back down to the archives,” Celestia said. “I think that would be great,” Twilight responded. She was more than eager to get back to that wonderful hidden library. As they started their way toward the archives, Celestia walked closer to her sister. “Luna in the past thousand years, did Eclipse ever cross your mind before today?” Celestia whispered. “Now that you mention it; no, I thought of you and mother every now and then. Eclipse never seemed to cross my thoughts,” Luna answered. Both looked at each other confused, neither one of them had thought of him until this point? What exactly did this mean? As they saw Twilight get farther from them both, they decided they would answer that question later. Hopefully one of these books would answer their question.