I had caught some sleep in my observatory bunk around 2 A.M., as about that time the Mane 6 and Princesses are fast asleep. I certainly knew Twilight was... Heh. Oh, great. I laughed at that. I'm awful... Well, Romans 3:23 says we've all fallen short of God's glory, so it seems I'm being consistent...
Thankfully, there's a sort of DVR function on one of the monitors, which I simply fast-forward to observe for anything eventful. Nothing unusal for Equestria that night, a dragon dispute here, an Ursa there, Discord causing mischief in the night... Yeah, he does that. How else is the guy gonna vent now that he's reformed? It's in his very nature to cause chaos, and I tend to enjoy his late-night antics, watching him try to wreak any kind of havoc upon the rules of his reality without waking anyone. Well, okay... Anypony. That's just too catchy of a quirk in their speech not to use.
I sat there, viewing last night's footage while sipping warm coffee, with a touch of chocolate mixed in. No other way to have it, I tell you.
Oh, this this should be good.
Discord appeared in Ponyville, seemingly from nowhere, sliding back a shower curtain and stepping out of the bathtub.
...Does the Spirit of Chaos seriously just shower all day?
He snapped the shower out of existence and apparated a towel, all the while snapping an inexplicable third hand's fingers. The nanodrones then panned over ponies asleep in their beds, and a couple of them burning the midnight oil. The sleeping ones had earplugs gently appear inside their ears.
The uhh, awake ones... Were turned into potted plants. I really hope they don't remember that.
Once everypony had been taken care of, and Discord was certain that every nook and cranny of his nonsensical body was dry, he popped on maestro's attire with a matching baton and handlebar moustache.
He began conducting everything, and I do mean everything as if it were the entire Canterlot Symphony! Chocolate milk geysers burst forth from the earth, in rhythmic patterns whilst Llamas burst into existence and began spitting into different sized brass spittoons ordered from smallest to largest! Banana trees sprouted in an instant, and the fruit unpeeled to begin singing operatically, in what I could swear was Latin! Meanwhile, Princess Celestia rolled over in her chambers. "Mmmm... Bananas..." she muttered dreamily in her sleep.
Hold on, why would the nanodrones think that was relevant? I'll have to bring those ones in for maintenance...
So many random objects were crammed into this, forming no sense of what could be called "music." All the while, Discord had a smile that was growing larger than his own face. Literally.
At some point, the nonsense seemed to reach a crescendo, Discord furiously waving innumerous appendages holding mostly batons, but I could swear I saw a rubber chicken with a red number two painted on flopping about the end of one. All at once, the "music" reached a peak and ended, everything popping back to whatever sense of normal reality had before it had been so rudely violated.
Discord then disappeared, and the nanodrones then showed him asleep in a tree branch. A rotating tree, to be precise, with Discord defying gravity whilst fast asleep.
I felt my right eye twitch. I hadn't taken a single sip of my coffee since I reached this part of the recording. In fact, it was near full. As entertaining as he is, for once he must've struck a nerve, because my hand involuntarily shut the recording monitor off, and I immediately found myself with an empty coffee mug I don't remember drinking.
I started the work day by tuning into Twilight's feed, thankfully just before she awoke. Alright, so I'm curious about what she'll do with what was my Bible of three years, okay? Sue me. As I reached into my mini-fridge freezer for a ham and cheese Hot Pocket, I heard her pipe up.
Ugh... What happened..? Oooh, what's this book! Spike! Spiiiiike! I found something new to read!
Heh. Or did it find you, Twilight?
I slid my office chair over to the microwave, and set the delicious sandwich on a paper plate and set the oven to the necessary two minutes, thirty seconds.
I then rolled back over to the monitor, and turned up the volume as Twilight picked up my old Bible and began to read the introduction.
"Why the Student Bible?" Twilight read the question at the top of the page aloud. I noticed her eyes glance to the left, and immediately I heard her squee with delight at the alphabetical ordering of every book in the Bible. I knew she'd love it!
"One, two, three..." she muttered. I figured this would take time.
Better check on my sandwhich... 30 seconds left on it. Ahh, should be fine. I yanked it out and took a bite... Yuck! Still cold! It's as lukewarm as the church in Laodicea!* Oh, well...
I rolled back over to the monitor, Twilight still counting under her breath.
"Sixty-one, sixty-two, sixty-three..." her voice quickened, and amplified slightly. "Sixty-four, sixty-five, sixty-six!!? AND ALL IN ONE VOLUME!? THERE. ARE. NO. WORDS."
D'aww. You're welcome, Twi.
She read further, at this point to herself and not aloud, with an occasional 'huh?' at terms that were foreign to her. Yeah... I should buy her some resources.
Twilight reached a wrinkled page, that said "Track 1: Introduction to the Bible" and to the right of that heading was a checklist that had all fourteen days checked off in ink.
"Somepony used this before me...? Well, that should've been obvious." she stated, while looking at the blue and purple post-it tabs organizing the individual books.
Blue for Old Testament, purple for New. At least I removed all the church bulletins I used for bookmarks. I sighed, realizing I was going to miss that Bible. Given to me by my parents while I still resented their authority and beliefs... Pain's a good teacher.
The unfortunate part of sending objects into these realms was, that you'd never get them back.
"Genesis means 'Beginnings', so let's start there."
Twilight Sparkle's horn lit up, flipping the pages, her eyes apparently scanning for a keyword. She didn't have to flip very far. She began reading chapter one aloud:
The Beginning
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.
6 And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” 7 So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. 8 God called the vault “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.
9 And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. 10 God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good.
11 Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. 12 The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.
14 And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. 16 God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. 17 God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, 18 to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.
20 And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.” 21 So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.” 23 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day.
24 And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so. 25 God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.
26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
27 So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
29 Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.
31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.
"Interesting..." said Twilight once she finished. Just then Spike ran into the room, thinking he'd overslept. "H-hey, Twilight! You have a council meeting with the girls today!"
"Oh, shoot!" Twilight teleported to the throne room, where everyone was gathered.
"Ready, girls? Sorry I'm late. Got myself dug into a book, like usual. Let's go over the minutes from the last meeting before we begin."
She tried to push what she had just read out of her mind, but she kept wondering about everything she read, secretly hoping to find out more that evening.
An alarm went off, signaling it was time for me to head to the morning meeting with the other Narrators. Time to go face more ridicule for having to observe these ponies. *sigh* At least I'm not the guy in the Twilight Saga department.
Since I can't have author's notes on top and bottom, here's where I'll place any references that weren't explained.
(*Revelation 3:14-22)