Ponywatching

by ThunderTempest


Prompt #476-Truth In Fiction

Sun Shade, though easily frightened, was at heart a curious pony. She liked to learn new things, especially things about the way the world used to be. She simply preferred to learn about them by reading, not through first-hoof experience. She had listened attentively to her mother’s bedtimes stories about the ‘Element Bearers’, and had committed the story of the six ponies who had saved Equestria to memory. Though their names had been lost to time, she could still remember how her mother had described them.

Naturally, her first stop after her encounter in the old forest town with the Old Witch was to run home and huddle under her bedcovers. Her next stop, though, was the library in Canterlot’s lower districts. She had never, ever heard of a pony with that thing on their head, or what looked like wings, of all things, attached to her side, let alone both.

“Hello, Sun Shade!” said the receptionist, “back for the next Crowned Princess novel? We’ve just got it in.”

“Actually, I wanted to look in the history section,” said Sun, glancing around. “We were in the forest the other day, and I heard something about the Old Witch. I wanted to see if I could find anything about her.”

“Of course, dearie. Come, I’ll take you over and we’ll see if we can find you a book that can help.”

----

Two hours later, and Sun Shade let her head thump against the open book. There was nothing in here about anything like what she had seen. Not even a single mention of ponies with pointy things on their heads, or ponies with wings, or anything. Sighing, Sun stacked the books into a neat pile, and wandered over to the fiction section to grab a copy of the newest Crowned Princess, the sixth in the series, checked it out, and headed home.

----

“My horn felt an unbelievable pressure as I caught the great star-beast before it could fall. It would do no good if the beast regained its senses now, and even as talented as I was, I wasn’t sure that I could stop an enraged Ursa in the middle of town. With my horn glowing with an intensity bright enough to force even me to close my eyes, I threw my head backward, and heaved.

Slowly, ever so slowly, the monster rose up above the street, and with another exertation of will, I levitated it away from the town. I could hear the buzzing of the ponies behind me, gasping in shock as the Ursa’s figure faded into the distance. Through my spell, I could feel the area where the Ursa made its home, and guided it into the cave. There, I sensed a simply massive presence, and not wanting to anger it, let the beast held in my magical grasp gently drop, where I felt that presence catch it. It was only then that I finally let my horn dim, and dig my hooves out of the divots in the earth that the sheer pressure from my horn had caused. I turned to face my friends, fearing how they would react. But on their faces, I could only see amazement and wonder. Even Prism, still hovering off the ground, gentle flaps of her wings keeping her aloft, could only express both her thanks and genuine wonder at my magical talent.”

Sun Shade smiled as she read the latest chapter in the Crowned Princess series. She really liked the main character, a pony like herself who didn’t have many friends, except for the fact that she had a horn.

Sun blinked. A horn? What was a horn, anyway? Sun Shade had read the term plenty of times in the books, but she didn’t think she’d ever seen what it actually looked like. Flicking back through the book, she found no real description of what it looked like. Then she remembered that the first book in the series had pictures.

****Time****

Opening the first book in the series, Sun was immediately greeted with a picture of the main character and her little assistant, Spike. On her first reading, Sun had just assumed that it was an illustration, but now her attention was on the pointy thing sticking out of the drawings’ forehead, parting her hair. It looked exactly like the one on the Old Witch. Sun remembered that ponies in the series with ‘horns’ were called ‘Unicorns’, so the Old Witch was maybe a unicorn. But unicorns didn’t have wings-those were for ‘pegasuses’.
Sun Shade looked at the neatly arranged books on her shelf, though specifically at the ones in the Crowned Princess series with a new light in her eyes, and began to read once more.

“My name is Twilight. I’m a unicorn, the supposedly normal librarian of a sleepy little town at the base of a mountain...”