The door slowly opened, giving a barely audible creak, as the lavender unicorn entered the archives and closed the door carefully. Her gem was already glowing, illuminating the bookshelves and her path. She tried to remember the path towards the spell sections first, finding it in mere minutes and smiling at her mysterious book still being in its place. She picked it up with her magic, sliding it out and holding near her head, and began to walk further, remembering the path to the history section.
However, before she could advance much further in her search, Twilight saw a small light of a candle around the corner. She remembered about the princess, and decided to go say hello first. She moved slowly between the shelves, from the cover of the books she could only guess it was the culinary section. She soon walked out into a spacious area that had several tables with a single candle on each. One of them was occupied.
The lunar princess was sitting with her back turned to the mare, her star-filled mane flowing independently and slowly just above her similar tail. She seemed to be looking at a book, though it didn't look like she was reading it, at least Twilight never heard any pages flipped. She slowly walked towards the princess, letting her gem's glow slowly die down.
"Hello, Princess!"
"Good evening, Twilight Sparkle. It hath been quite some time." Luna replied, not turning her gaze away from the book.
"Is... something wrong?" The lavender mare asked, getting a bit concerned about the princess's condition.
"We art.... well. Perhaps, puzzled...." She replied, following with a sigh. Something definitely didn't feel right, and it was starting to tug on Twilight's concerned harder.
"Puzzled? About what? Did you find something?" The questions in her mind started to spill out in a small rush, and it would have surely picked up if the princess wouldn't have raised her hoof in the mare's direction.
"Not much." The princess announces.
"Only one other book, an autobiography, mentioned this pony."
".....That's it? Why would there be so little information about her..." She asked out loud. The princess finally looked back at the unicorn.
"Let us not assume genders, Twilight Sparkle." While taken aback, the mare did see a point in Luna's statement. Starswirl the Bearded was one of the greatest ponies known in history, and he was a colt.
"My apologies, Princess Luna." Twilight said, looking at the ground for a few seconds before looking back at the lunar mare, who once again looked down on something in her front hooves.
"Could I please see these mentions of this magician?" She decided to use that term, since it was obvious it had to be a unicorn. It seemed like Luna had accepted that term and simply dragged what was in her hooves on a free spot on the table next to her. Twilight finally saw that it was a book, a pretty heavy looking one at that.
"This book was originally written to represent all the conflicts and trouble raising in Equestria, starting from.. our rebellion." Even with the pause, the princess seemed a bit less depressed when talking about it. Maybe the past months finally let her relax and accept what she had done.
"It was deemed far too big for the general public. While it was said the original would still be available for historians, it had disappeared, leaving only the rewritten, shorter work. But...." She paused again, looking at the pages of the book, Twilight using the opportunity to come closer and sitting in front of it to look for herself.
"...it seems to skip one event with a mere mention." With those words, she sighed with disappointment. The princess really looked like she wanted to know herself what happened.
The unicorn looked through the page, stopping on the date that was almost five hundred years ago. It told of a wicked wizard that used its magic to fool princess Celestia and cause havoc, yet there was no specific crime named. It was incredibly surreal, for a historian book to lack such details. It also briefly mentioned his knowledge in fire magic and how the princess defeated this imposter. There was no name, no description, no nothing! For such a crime like fooling the princess, the writer skipped over it like it was not important at all!
"This doesn't make any sense!" She finally almost yelled, looking at the book. She looked at the event before and after, and both had highly detailed descriptions, one of being a political debate while the other of a...
Twilight stopped to look closer at this one.
"Ban on all fire magic?" She asked, looking up at Luna who simply observed her.
"Yes, it was initiated after the previous incident." She said, not paying too much attention to it.
"But.... what does banning fire magic have to do with the wizard?" The lavender mare asked again.
"Mm.... while that is strange, we dost not think it is connected. Perhaps there was an accident in betwixt the two events?"
"Then... why wasn't it recorded?" Twilight looked over the banning event once more. She read before that there was a ban in history, but never thought it'd be close to the creator of the fire spells. Huh...
"Isn't there a reason for the ban? In it's own section?" The lunar princess finally caught up, looking a bit curious over it.
"N-no... I can't find it at least...." The lavender unicorn replied. It was true, through the entire event, there was no reason for the ban. It was lifted a hundred years after it was put, there were several meeting of the council with Celestia over it before the ban, and during the entire time, there seemed to be some shift in society.
"Twilight..." The mare looked over at the princess on the call, noticing concern in her voice.
"Now that thou pointed it out.... the other book starts to make a bit more sense..."
"Other book? The autobiography?" Twilight asked, puzzled by Luna's sudden statement.
"Yes...." She took out a second book from under her wing, a much smaller one. It was written by a pony named Prime Justice. Luna floated the book on the table and opened it with her magic, turning the pages until she stopped, going back a couple and looking over at Twilight.
"This pony. Prime. He did not once name what gatherings he attended. Yet, there is an interesting part about our mage."
She lent the book over to the unicorn, the magic's colour switching from blue to purple as she picked the book with her own levitation spell, and gently put it on top of the history book. She then began to read to herself the text, skipping over most of the discussions until something caught her eye.
**
I did not think of looking at the Princess until something seemed amiss. Her eyes. While her whole demeanor showed no signs, her eyes looked quite tired. Old, if I may allow to apply such description to our fair Princess. I did not give much thought to it, knowing what hath been done not long ago. However, she hath slipped something during another debate between general Spear and the newly appointed advisor Scrolls. They were debating on should there be a ban on fire and earth magic, the fields hardly touched at the time. Somepony said the spawn only knew two fields of magic, and the princess muttered something. I could only read her lips on the last word, three. Perhaps she knew better, after all, but decided not to show. I could hardly blame her, with these times.
**
The unicorn looked up from the book, confusion on her face.
"Fire and earth magic fields weren't yet analyzed?" She looked at the lunar princess, holding the point of what she read in the back of her head for this more confusing matter. The princess simply gave her a deadpan look.
"Apparently so." She simply answered. The mare didn't understand at first what was the problem until her gears started turning just a few times and realization dawned upon her.
"Oh! Oh, oh.... Right..... moon and.. and.... alright, very sorry...." She sheepishly smiled, feeling very unnerved at the situation she created for herself.
"Honestly, Twilight Sparkle. We would think of thou remembering such details easily." She huffed and then shook her head lightly, returning to her calm expression.
"But in all seriousness. We had asked our dear sister, yet she did not want to share much information regarding the incident." She said quietly. There was a pause, in which Twilight wanted to try understand what that meant, and then heard the lunar princess's voice.
"Instead, she showed us..."
Twilight's face grew confused, then for a split second excited, and returning back to a puzzled look.
"Wait... show you? A memory spell?" Luna's eyes met with the unicorn’s.
"No.... Show us the mage...."
...
Twilight's brain had literally stopped all thought process, letting the information sink in first. Celestia obviously knew much more about this incident then Luna, so it would be obvious to ask her for the moon princess. She did. Celestia told her something, but not much. Her mentor decided to show her something instead. She showed Luna the mage, -at this point, Twilight's brain re-doubled its working process-, which meant...
" THIS PONY'S STILL ALIVE?!"
The princess backed away from Twilight thanks to her sudden outburst. For a few seconds the lavender mare had been sitting with a blank stare, which Luna didn't take as a good sign, but now she at least knew her sister's pupil was fine and well, if not full of surprises. The moon princess tried to calm down, closing her eyes, holding a hoof to her chest and breathing deeply, not noticing how the unicorn was staring intently at her, disbelief sparking in her eyes.
"Y-yes, Twilight Sparkle. Please, refrain thyself from such unexpected outbursts, our heart's working condition is still to our liking." She sighed, slowly opening her eyes, noticing how the mare's look had not changed.
"B-b-but how?!" She asked, not as loud as before, which Luna was thankful for, turning her whole body completely to the princess.
"That would be hard for me to answer." The princess ominously replied. Twilight didn't catch her tone though, she was too busy trying to understand how could a pony live that long. Could a lifespan be prolonged? Could this mage be cursed with a petrification spell? Was there a blessing the princess could give to stop the natural process of aging? What?!
The growing headache from all these thoughts was starting to show, since the mare saw the princess becoming worried.
"Twilight Sparkle? Art thou alright?" The unicorn raised her front hooves to rub her temples from the growing headache.
"I don't think I will be..." She weakly replied, surprised at her own voice sounding so fragile. Since when was she so dramatic? Did Rarity influence her in any way?
"Perhaps thou need to rest. It is quite late. But please, promise us at least this much." The princess said, waiting for the mare to turn her head towards Luna before finishing.
"Do not tell our sister of the information we provided to thou."
That caught Twilight as odd. Why wouldn't she want Celestia to know about her finding? Did Luna tell her something she shouldn't have? But the growing amount of questions didn't help her growing headache so she simply nodded.
"Alright. I promise."
"Then let us escort thou to thine room." She said, standing up from her spot at the table and blowing out the nearly exhausted candle, her gem shining brightly while they walked through the shelves filled with books. Twilight didn't bother checking where they walked, her head was already full. The biggest and overwhelming thought still being the statement she screamed out earlier. She did, however, take notice of the opening door before her, the princess walking out and letting Twilight through. As she followed, she reflected on the thought one last time.
"This pony is still alive...."
The door slowly closed, giving a scarcely audible creak.