Part 12 - 18th. Day of the Ninth Month, Year 10 AE
Chapter 12 -18th. Day of the Ninth Month, Year 10 AE.
The following hoof full of days seemed to pass excruciatingly slowly, O diary, as we essentially camped out inside a house, living like vagabonds among our boxes of belongings. It did not seem meet to begin unpacking in earnest until dear Cookie and her family joined us, so that as one we could decide how our new found dwelling would be divided among us.
I was most impatient to return to my research on the confounded sky beacon, but I dared not begin in earnest lest I would be obliged to stop again and throw in a hoof at helping to set up our household once our erstwhile earth ponies arrived.
Thus, I mostly laid out in the fields around Paradise Estate with Crimson and his viol, passing the languid late summer days watching little Dawn caper and explore among the wildflowers. Well, in truth I did not lay so much as pace furrows in the ground and grump to all and sundry. (And thus the student becomes as her master. Mayhap I should stitch some bells upon my cassock.)
Sometimes poor, patient Pansy would be with us, sometimes not. As the time wore on my dear pegasus friend and I became increasingly vexed with one another, and it was all darling Crimson and sweet little Dawn could do to dull our edges as they scraped and sparked like the blades of my lady Queen's knights-destrier on the tourney field. When it became too much for her to bear, my long suffering friend would take herself off alone to brood. (And to punch the occasional hole in the wall with a fore hoof, which Powdermilk and Crimson are busy repairing even today as I pen this ere the cold weather approaches.)
I must own that when I feel stymied and out of my depth I get more than a little snide snippy snarly intemperate in my speech. Pansy, for her part, is well known for her patience and stoicism, tempered like steel over her long service under Commander Hurricane, but the lingering pain of her injury combined with its precluding her from taking a relaxing high altitude flight in the usual pegasus fashion made Pansy a bit less patient or stoic when dealing with my sass. [1]
Of course, my dear, long suffering friend wasn't always wandering afield to cool her temper. She was just as often in the company of the toothsome Yeomane Fletching, who seemed quite adept at finding reasons to stop by. He usually claimed that he'd been sent to "check up" on us at the behest of Captain Leaf or m'Lord Greensward. Uncannily, O diary, my liege and his chief warder's greatest interest appeared to be dear Pansy's general state of health and well being, which seemingly could only be ascertained through extensive private interviews as they walked the half-wild grounds of our estate, or lay holding hooves in the orchard.
Naturally, O diary, like a bored, vexatious fool I took it into my pointed head to needle her about it.
It all came to a boil at noontide one day, shortly after our pegasus warder had taken his leave with a promise to return later that afternoon. I off-hoofedly suggested that it would mayhap be more expedient for Fletching to perform a direct and thorough physical examination of our dear Pansy and report the results back to his lord and master, and went on to say I would be glad to write up his account into a report for my lady the Queen, the Chancellor in Mane Hat, and of course her Commander.
Pansy's face went so red we could have sent her aloft as a replacement for the Warming Heart had her wing not been healing. Her voice came as cold as the caves in which we all sheltered from the dread windegos, and in turn she off-hoofedly suggested that perhaps I would like to perform a direct and thorough examination of the top of the tallest tree in the orchard, and that while her broken wing precluded her carrying even a scrawny little nag like me to such a height, she would be more than glad to buck me up there were I to tee myself up upon my horn. [2] I replied that she was more than welcome to tee herself up on my horn. (Which when I think on it now makes me blush a bit at the ramifications of what I was saying. My dear mother would have whacked me with her broom for that sort of crass talk.)
Crimson, bless him, interjected with a hasty offer of more rarebit, which was something of a tactical error on his part because by then we were all becoming so heartily tired of rarebit that it only served to spark up our ire rather than cool it. (Among her many sterling qualities, Pansy is a most excellent cook, especially over an open fire like one would find in a warrior's camp in the field, but there is only so much one can do with the bread and cheese that made up the bulk of our stores.)
The next moment there was rarebit aloft, buffeted by wing and tossed by green sparkles in all directions (mostly in my poor husband's startled face), and Pansy and I had lunged across the table at one another. Of course, I am not what one would call a physical paragon by any stretch of the imagination, and Pansy is, of course, a seasoned pegasus warrior, and thus did I find myself in an unbreakable headlock hissing like a cat and vehemently refusing to say "uncle" whilst buffeting her about the face and ears with a tin flagon held in my magic while we rolled about the tabletop breaking stoneware and getting oily cheese and bread crumbs mashed into our coats.
A few moments beyond that we were enveloped in a golden magical aura and hoisted apart and into the air, each hanging like a kitten in her mother's mouth and blinking in surprise as little Dawn's strident bellow of "NO!" filled our ears. Stunned out of my fury, I babbled an entreaty to the poor dear to put us down, which was met with a louder "NO!" and a bit of shaking up and down for the both of us that was making me quite ready to part with the rarebit I had already partaken of.
She stamped her little hoof on the table with her sweet face screwed up in anger and her wings flared, her horn aglow with a beacon-like corona as she glared up at us with her rosy eyes and spoke to us in a child's voice that was as heavy with command as any dictum I'd heard from Commander Hurricane since the founding, or even from his resplendent majesty King Aurum when I was but a shy little filly among his humbler subjects. "Cwovah and Pansy be nice! Be caewful! No hurt! No yell! Be NICE!"[3] she said to us as we floated helpless in her incredibly strong yet somehow soothingly warm magical grasp.
Dawn seemed ready to shake us again for good measure when suddenly her ears perked up at the sound of a loud "Haloo!" from the courtyard. With equal suddenness her anger at our petty scuffle dissolved to an expression of glee as she shouted out Cookie's name and skipped from the room as the auras around Pansy and I flickered out and dropped us unceremoniously to the floor.
Crimson stood regarding us with his eyes narrowed and his lips a tight line as we lay groaning on the floor, then spun on his heel with a dismissive flick of his tail and said he was going to get a broom to clean up. Then silence, golden but perhaps a bit tarnished, as the happy sound of greetings and laughter sounded from outside.
Pansy and I lay facing one another for a while under the table. Presently, I inquired as to whether she was all right. She replied that her wing ached a little, but she was unharmed, and then asked after my health in turn. I replied that there was nought a bottle of brandy wouldn't fix. Then silence, followed by two grown mares who have been friends for over a decade and who should have known better than to let things get this out of hoof exchanging heartfelt apologies to one another for our behavior.
After helping each other to our hooves and brushing ourselves off, we trotted out to greet the third mare of our triune household and welcome her as civilly as we could manage. Now that we were all assembled the time for such petty squabbles was well past.
(Indeed I have spoken before of dear Smart Cookie's deft and trenchant wit, and we were now as two stripling page-colts jousting with green reeds against one of the grand war dukes of old arrayed in full plate barding and wielding a cold forged lance charged with lightning and tipped with a thrice enchanted diamond. In brief, O diary, we definitely didn't want to start anything like the sniping the two of us had been up to over the past few days with her around the house. In faith I do not think there would be enough left of us to fill a thimble if we did.)
We found our long awaited friend helping her twin daughters Sugar and Ginger down from the buckboard with the help of her thoughtful eldest colt Oatmeal, while her infant son Graham fussed in his basket demanding his turn to be brought down. Meanwhile, my dear Crimson was helping Cookie's huge, stolid snowbank of a husband Powdermilk unbuckle himself from the harness of his own huge wagon, trading twenty words for every one he got in return as was usual when the two of them spoke.
I could not help but marvel at how large the children had all gotten since last I'd seen them. (In truth, though, if the boys took after their father at all largeness was quite inevitable. Even the girls were a bit bigger than their age would warrant. Such is the way with earth ponies, it seems.)
Cookie turned with a start and smiled at us warmly as I sparked my horn to life and floated her youngest, basket and all, down to her waiting hooves to save her from having to climb up onto the wagon again. She looked thoroughly weary and was covered with a blanket of trail dust and grime, beneath which lay an accumulation of cuts, scuffs, and bruises from her long journey, and yet still she greeted us by remarking on our disheveled state, chiding us that we looked like unmade beds. In particular she fussed over Pansy's injured wing, demanding the full story once she'd had a moment to clean up and get "the lay of the land" as she often says when arriving at a new place for the first time, be it palace, parliament, public house, or peasant hut.
While we said our welcomes to dear Cookie, her children were sizing up little Dawn for the first time. My ears laid back flat and my blood froze in my veins as young Ginger, who takes more than a little after her mother, looked up at her and asked point blank whether Dawn was some sort of simpleton. [4][5] Mercifully it was a phrase that hadn't found its way into our wonder filly's vocabulary yet. And in truth she is much too young and innocent to conceive of what an insult even is.
Cookie rolled her eyes and gave her daughter a swat across the bottom with her tail, then asked the filly how many times had she explained that while Dawn Heart might look older than them she was younger than her baby brother Graham, and then added that Dawn was a quicker learner than Ginger seemed to be.
At that point, sweet natured Sugar, ever the peacemaker, suggested that she and her sister teach Dawn how to play hop score. This seemed to mollify her twin, and the three fillies galloped off to find a suitable stone to skip with their elder brother in tow to draw the court for them at his sister's urgent insistence. Crimson and Powdermilk went after the thundering herd of children at a nod from their wives to go keep an eye on them.
There then followed in quick succession Cookie washing herself off in our water lily choked pool, taking a moment to chat and have a bite to eat while she sat feeding little Graham, burping and changing the tiny foal, and then a brief tour of the house and grounds as he fell fast asleep in his basket atop her back once more. Then she returned to her wagon, tied on an apron and bound a kerchief upon her head, handed her son to Powdermilk to mind, and then set to work.
And when I say an earth pony sets to work, O diary, it is the same as aerated phlogiston vapors being set alight, although one might say it is even more explosive. It wasn't long before all of us were swept up in the brisk labor of unloading the wagons and moving things into rooms at Cookie's relentless direction. Even Fletching was ensnared upon his return, although he was soon delegated to assisting Pansy with moving boxes from room to room after I'd whispered a few choice bits of information in my earth pony compatriot's ear. (She was in gleeful agreement with me as to the juiciness of this particular development, and likened it to a sapling that needed to be carefully nurtured so that it might bear the best fruit in the fullness of time.)
By sunset, the kitchen had been almost completely set up and a salmagundi of diced peppers and potatoes was bubbling in a great cast iron pot over a blazing fire while the stallions finished tightening the ropes on everypony's beds in preparation for a good night's sleep. [6] We ate heartily and turned in early under our relentless taskmistress' orders, expecting an early start the next morning.
By the end of the next day all of our goods and luggage had been moved to their destined rooms with as much careful deliberation as the parliaments of learned peers mapped out our fair Equestria upon the founding.
The day after that most of our boxes had been unpacked and our rooms merely wanted organization. On the fourth day I was finally in position to set up my laboratory and study, with young Oatmeal's conscientious help in moving books and furniture. Crimson, Fletching, and Powdermilk were set to work dredging the pool, while Cookie threw herself into the sooty task of cleaning out the oven, leaving Pansy to mind the girls in the orchard. Meet it was indeed when the water was cleared of scum and lily pads, for we were in dire need of a bath by evening time. It was an evening of some celebration, as we splashed together under the gaze of the carved sea ponies and drank toasts to the founding of Paradise.
And now it is the fifth day since our earth pony cohabitants' arrival, and twelve days since my knave of a husband rolled me off his back in the courtyard. My work spaces have been set up to my satisfaction, and now I sit by soothing candle light at my writing desk once more, a small island of familiarity in our unfamiliar surroundings. Thus situated I pour the details of our journey to this our new home onto your waiting pages, O diary, as I collect my wide scattered thoughts and prepare myself to attack the problem of the diamond beacon tomorrow. All of the others have been shooed off to bed by Cookie, who gave me special dispensation to keep my own hours. (She was smiling when she said this, but I felt that she was not speaking the least bit in jest. Perhaps it was the faint sound of jingling bells I thought I may have heard that gave me that impression.)
My horn fizzles and my eyes grow weary, and a glance at the candle now pouring and dripping like a waxen waterfall from its sconce tells me that it has become later than even Cookie might countenance. I know not when I shall next return, as I fear I shall be spending all of my time with your siblings, my workbooks and laboratory journals.
I shall doubtless come crawling back into your waiting embrace when anything of note happens, or when I need merely to ease my mind in your confidences.
Thus do I bid you goodnight, O diary.
Translator's Hoofnotes:
[1] Lady Clover used a rather... vulgar choice of words here, pertaining to certain substances left behind by male cattle in the meadows where they live. Again in the interest of keeping the tone more suitable to an academic publication, I substituted a less offensive term, and pray both you my gentle reader and our esteemed authoress' forgiveness for a minor bit of bowdlerization.
[2] While "teeing up" might seem like an anachronistic term to the casual reader, and I will admit I used a more modern turn of the phrase in this translation for the sake of clarity, aficionados of the sport are well aware that the pegasi invented the game of golf during the late paleo-pony period, long before the unification. Allegedly the game originally used a large hailstone and a bronze war club meant for pacifying quaray eels.
Certain ancient chronicles note that Commander Hurricane was an avid player of the game and that Dame Pansy often served as her caddy. Other accounts, from pre-unification unicorn and earth pony records, assert that her cries of the ancient equivalent of "Fore!" and the answering thunder that followed were a well known signal for ground bound ponies to get under heavy cover as expediently as possible.
Translator's Mentor's Hoofnote:
[3] And after all these long centuries, and all the miles and miles of ink and acres and acres of paper containing the length and breadth of Equestrian law, this remains the most basic, central tenet of my rule. - P.C.
Translator's Hoofnote:
[4] Lady Ginger Cookie, as anypony who's studied history is well aware, went on to become one of Equestria's premiere diplomats and one of the Princesses' greatest, most eloquent supporters in the court of Queen Platinum's heir King Chromium. At the time of their meeting when she was but a precocious filly of five years, she definitely had more than a few rough edges that needed to be smoothed out.
Translator's Co-Sovereign & Mentor's Sister's Hoofnote:
[5] That is the very question I asked myself, O my illustrious sister, that one night I found you in the royal kitchens with your entire head stuck in a cake. - P.L. [7]
Translator's Hoofnote:
[6] In the days before box springs, the mattresses of pony beds were supported on a wooden framework atop crisscrossing grids of rope that needed to be periodically cinched up as they sagged over time under the weight of their occupants. This is the origin of the old phrase "Sleep tight."
Translator's Mentor's Hoofnote:
[7] Oh Woona, that was simply ages ago. We really should stop cluttering up Twilight's manuscript with superfluous anecdotes. -P.C.[8]
Translator's Co-Sovereign & Mentor's Sister's Hoofnote:
[8] That was last Friday. -P.L. [9]
Translator's Mentor's Hoofnote:
[9] Right... Well, we also had cause to ponder your mental acuity that time we found you in the gardens with your other end firmly wedged in a {excised by royal order} {un-excised by royal order} {re-excised by royal order under threat of night eternal} Oh all right, fine. Be that way, you hyper-annuated brat. -P.C. [10]
Publisher's Hoofnote:
[10] As far as we can tell the translator intended to follow this exchange with a hoofnote, but all we found on this draft of the manuscript was an indecipherable scrawl of ink after the relevant number and what appeared to be bite marks on the lower edge of the page. It would be helpful if we could get a clarification from Twilight Sparkle before we went to press. [11]
Translator's Hoofnote:
[11] Thank you. It's fine. Everything is fine. Really. I went to the spa in Ponyville (highly recommended) with my friends Fluttershy and Rarity after they got me down from the ceiling and I had a lovely massage and a soak in the hot tub and a pony pedi and I'm fully relaxed and in complete control of my emotions and all is right with the world. I'm just going to ignore those last few hoofnotes as if they're not even there and the reader should too and I know you're not going to cut out any of the Princesses' incessant malarkey so you can do what you like with them.
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3924659
Right now, apparently.
Who dafuq disliked this? It's all like: Ooh, a story with no dislikes... dislike! People these days.
Poor, poor Twilight…
Every time I see this story update, my heart performs a giddy little skip
I love your writing style to pieces.
Dat subtlety, tho. Honestly, this fic is so awesome that you could take half a year or more to update and I'd jump back in, just as eager as before.
Once again, OH GOD, THOSE HOOFNOTES!!!!
Edit: Why was I not following you before? Viciously Rectified.
Poor, poor twilight - I didn't think hoofnotes could drive somebody mad, but never doubt the power of TWO goddess's I guess.
4260913
She's fine. Really. Perfectly fine.
I can imagine the chuckle of being shaken about like a martini by an forceful celestia to be nice in retrospect.
Somehow, I feel that when that last hoofnote was written, Twilight wasn't as calm as she tried to convey. I almost believe that if you looked closely enough, you would see the hoofnote carved into the writing surface that had been underneath the paper.
So very happy that this fic is back!
You know to what I'm looking forward? Young Dawn's adventures with Cookie's twins as founder members of the very first chapter of the Cutie Mark Crusaders.
4261300 No, really?
Huh?
Wasn't releasing phlogiston into the air the very process of burning, thus aerated phlogiston equivalent to phlogisticated air and thus detrimental to combustion?
In other words: As phlogiston is technically negative oxygen, why would it burn?
Clover, you make my head hurt.
4261750
Well how else did Everfree get transformed from a regular forest into the den of madness it is currently?
As always, the hoofnotes are even better than the story!
Oh, Twilight. I'm amazed her sanity lasted long enough to finish the translation.
Also, the jousting metaphor was fantastic.
In any case, a very nice conclusion to this act of the story. I look forward to the next one.
Loved it, lol. Luna and Celestia's bickering is still hilarious, almost funnier than the rest of the story. Can't wait to see where it goes next ^_^
Starting early I see
fc07.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2010/320/d/0/vote_celestia_by_equestria_election-d32zii6.png
Also, the description of powdered milk makes me think of big macintosh, and if cookie is his wife, who I still imagine as applejack
Yeah not going there.
Good chapter!
Oh my god, those hoofnotes.
The publishers questioning the lack of hoofnotes after the extensive application of teeth, and the removal of Twilight from the cieling.
Also, Clover is now the Fresh Princess Of Bell Where?
Another exceptional chapter. I love Dawns reaction to the fighting and Celestia's agreement to it, even after such a long time.
Ah yes, finally an update! And a great chapter it was too! These characters are beginning to sound more and more familiar.
Although I do wish the translater would include quotes in the hoof notes. Can be a hassle reading back to find the correlating text that is being mentioned/explained.
4262567
This may be just me, but that sounds like quite an insult to the story itself. I would say that they certainly enhance the comedy aspect of it, but the story itself is beautifully written in an olden-day language that's so very rare to see these days, and more so written to this calibre.
4267133
Well, the story itself is brilliant, so the hoofnotes are EVEN better, as I noted...
-MMM-
4267147
I see.
It was just me, then. Carry on.
4266248
Try ctrl+f-ing the hoofnote number in the brackets and clicking up and down in the search bar. You can instantly flick back and forth between them.
4263252
I have that problem to, I keep thinking of the founders and the main cast of the story (Clover, Pansy, Cookie) as the main six. Even when their features are explained I see them as slight change from the mane six. For example Queen platinum I think of as a platinum / blonde version of Rarity.ROFL Saying that its pretty funny thinking about Fluttershy (Pansey) and Twilight (Clover) fighting each other.
SO glad you're still writing this!
4267151 ye that was my go to method but now I just try remembering the point marked, mainly because using the 'find on page' option on my phone that I usually read fimfic with is a hassle to use.
The one person who down voted this needs a wwe-style chairshot. xD
I GOT IT!!!! Clover is married to Crimson..... Tommy James- Crimson and Clover. ( over and over)
I GOT IT!!!! Clover is married to Crimson..... Tommy James- Crimson and Clover. ( over and over)
4328870
And over and over, apparently.
Bravo. You might not have been the first one to catch that one but you're definitely the first one to say anything. You win the No-prize!
So glad this updated! Now just do it over again, a few dozen more times......
4267151 I've always just highlighted the hoofnote I want to return to and then scrolling back up till I see the blue.
4329116 When next update ?
4694729
When I feel like writing more.
4735800
Equestria: Where all the mares are strong, all the stallions are good looking, and all the foals are above average.
Moar plz
come back to us we miss you
This is the single best retelling of Celestia and Luna's origin story of all. The story of the tribes always bothered me because why would Celestia and Luna have allowed their little ponies to stray so far? Of course if the Tribes predated her then who were her parents? Also what happened with the Hearth Warming's Eve spell? Not only do you wrap up all these bits of canon but all the characters are believable and compelling. I also like your version of Star Swirl, of course Star Swirl doesn't fix all the problems (he's the freaking Dumbledore / Gandalf so of course he has the power) but he JUST DOESN'T CARE ENOUGH! As they said in the show, he didn't "understand friendship." Then there's the "footnotes" (hoofnotes?) that are just BRILLIANT! In all honesty, it reminded me of reading Tolkien's "The Hobbit." Here's this tale of adventure and then a bunch of hilarious jokes that manage to ADD to the feeling of wonder without detracting from the adventure aspect (neither gets in the way of the other). Truly one of the best fics on the whole bloody site! Thank you for sharing it with us. I hope you add more to it, I'm truly intrigued to see how Luna enters the picture!
4267133
Hoofnotes are intrusive, you not the only 1 disliking their frequency. Think of them as bawdry entertainment for the masses during intermission of Shakespearean play.
However I can understand the Sisters' indiscretion. What we see as a venerable history, they see as laughing at baby photos.
Hope this story isn't dead.
4736723 Thank you for that wonderful Garrison Keillor reference
The next button appears to be broken...
Seriously though, I just love this story. The early scenes with Celestia really tugged my hearstrings for some reason, and that seldom happens.
Bravo, good sir!