Part 15 - 10th. Day of the Third Month, Year 11 AE
Chapter 15 -10th. Day of the Third Month, Year 11 AE.
It has been a long time, O diary, since I have had so glorious a day.
I am like a pressed flower that has by some magic regained the vibrancy and fragrance of a bloom in the field upon being removed from betwixt the pages of the book that had been used to flatten it.
Morning arrived on dainty hooves and fluttering wings of snowy white, as darling Crimson and I found ourselves pounced and then pranced upon by my dearest Dawn Heart, to a merry refrain of "Wadybugs Awake!" and glad exhortations to "Wake up, Cwovuh! Wake up, Cwimson!"
Defending the sovereign territory of our bed from this winsome invader, I let out a battle cry like a diving pegasus warrior and with a mighty heave overturned the dear filly onto her back. Striking like a quaray eel, I threw off my covers and went in for the tickle, blowing a veritable bushel of raspberries into her tummy to much squealing and flailing of legs and wings. [1]
While the routed besieger of Castle Clover gasped and giggled in my grasp, I looked up to see Cookie standing in the doorway to our bedroom with a wry smile on her face. With a chuckle she said it was high time that Crimson and I had our turn being awakened in this fashion.
With the probing mien of a magistrate questioning a scofflaw brought before the bench I asked my dear friend if she had put Dawn up to this, calling for order in the court with another raspberry to the belly. She merely laughed and beckoned me to come to the kitchen to help prepare breakfast.
I gave Dawn an earnest hug and bade her follow her co-conspirator to the kitchen while I performed my morning ablutions, telling the dear poppet I would be joining them shortly.
Arising, I gave my darling Crimson a peck on the cheek as he settled his head back upon the pillow for a few more leisurely moments abed, and then tarried a bit longer as he drew me into a less perfunctory kiss. Indeed, O diary, it had been far, far too long since I had had the time to be so wifely with my beloved. Far too long.
I threw open the shutters and gazed out the windows of our bedroom as I washed my face. Through the diamond shapes formed by the glazing I marked the long sought and finally realized blue diamond as it flickered dimly against the grey-white of a late winter sky. It seemed pale and ephemeral in the daylight, faded to near invisibility against a firmament lit by the stronger light of the sun.
Its true glory would always be at night, thought I, as I pondered it on this first day of its existence, but t'was meet, as the darkness by its very nature has more need for illumination. Those fearsome foes of pony kind who move against us in the shadows would see it and know we fear no longer.
Dawn once more intruded upon my woolgathering, having been sent by Cookie to hurry me along to the kitchen. I took the occasion to point out to her our newly wrought beacon in the sky above. Her rosy eyes lit up, as she stared up at it with a gasp of awe, her hooves upon the window sill.
Then she turned and hugged me. "I love her!" she said, before bounding from the room with a flutter of wings and rustle of little hooves on the dry reeds laying upon the floor. [2]
By the introspective light of a candle as I pen this days testament I must take a pause at this, O diary.
"I love her?"
"Her?"
Were I a simpleton I would pass that off as merely a giddy filly's careless misspeaking. Alas, the bliss of ignorance has always eluded me, and I do not rest easily in its comforting shadows.
Is this the inevitable result of this spell? Have we called forth a sister for our miracle child, who will alight among us in a decade's time? Or sooner? Or longer? There is much as yet unknown, that only time will tell in its fullness.
Welladay. Perhaps next time her excellency the Chancellor will be more easily dissuaded from demanding I hang a great purple horseshoe or something up among the lights of the heavens. Methinks I shan't press this issue for now with our nation's illustrious leaders. I shall take council with Cookie and Pansy, and otherwise we shall just have to wait and see.
Unconcerned by these possible omens from the mouths of babes, I hied myself to the kitchen and was soon swept up in the hustle and bustle of the household that I heretofore had been shut away from among my charts, tomes, and crystals.
I am an indifferent cook, having developed just enough skill to not starve or poison myself during my student years, but I had a marvelous time lending a hoof under Cookie's culinary command. Soon we all sat down to a hearty meal of wonderfully fluffy scrambled eggs, thick slices of rye toast spread with sweet honey-butter, and creamy porridge topped with more butter, spiced with nutmeg, and mixed in with raisins, crushed walnuts, and precious slices from our dwindling supply of the autumn's delectable harvest of apples.
While our breakfast was indeed celebratory, I also make note of it as the first time since breaking our all day fast on Hearth's Warming that I truly enjoyed a meal. Too often I had merely shoveled down a cold plateful of whatever Crimson or Cookie brought me in my cloistered study as I sat miserably poring thru my grimoires or rendering a parchment into a tangled, inky bird's nest of charts, glyphs, and equations.
Excused from cleanup duty ("For today." said Cookie with a gimlet eye and a half smile), I went outside with the foals to play in the snow that had freshly fallen in the night sometime after we had all finally gone to bed. I don't think I have ever had so marvelous a time since I was a tiny filly in the snow covered courtyard of my family's house in the old lands. It was many years, O diary, before those of us who lived through the terrible, endless winter before the founding of our fair land could take any pleasure from the sight of snow falling.
We rolled up a snowpony of prodigious size with the help of Dawn's burgeoning magic. It truly was a sight to see when Powdermilk came outside to check on us. Oh how we laughed when we saw him gazing stolidly up at our hoofwork, looking like a miniature copy of it. Methinks I saw a smile and heard a chuckle from him as he escorted us back inside for mulled cider and a bite to eat for midday.
Pansy returned in time to join us, having gotten up before the dawn (And before dear Dawn as well.) to join Fletching for early cloud clearance duties over Fort Everfree and parts East.
As we made a meal of Cookie's incomparable rarebit (A dish we all have forgiven and learned to love again since the tribulations of moving to our new home. In Cookie's hooves it is a sublimely hearty and satisfying lunch.) talk fell to planning for Pansy's upcoming nuptials.
Pegasi, it seems, are rather informal in their wedding traditions, with the gathering and temporary hosting of a widely flung and extensive roster of friends and relations being the greatest logistical challenge to undertake. Apparently, blood feuds lasting for generations have resulted from a failure to invite every last conceivable acquaintance to bear witness and feast afterward.
Dear Pansy said something about not having to worry about her mother's side of the family in that regard, but didn't elaborate further. Here is another thing said in passing that strikes me oddly upon putting it down upon your pages, O diary. I shan't pry, but it does make me curious.
As I lent a hoof cleaning up that delectable meal, with minimal protest and much thinly veiled approval from Cookie regarding my day's granted respite from such chores, my inestimable earth pony friend and housemate asked a most flattering favor of me.
Since, said she, I was free of my burden of recreating the warming heart, and since, she hoped, I was not so thoroughly sick of books that I wanted to wall off my study and library and forget they even existed, perhaps I would see fit to undertake the instruction of her children in "unicorn book learning" as she half-jokingly put it.
Cookie went on to explain that while foals of her tribe are taught such basic letters and numbers as they need to function in the marketplace or go on to learn a trade, any further education must be painstakingly sought after on one's own time and at one's own expense. She hoped it wasn't too much to ask, since we were all living together out here on the frontier, that I might share some of the knowledge contained in my vast store of books and scrolls, and give her sons and daughters a "leg up" to use her phrase. [3]
Of course I told her I would be both honored and immensely pleased to do so. The look of genuine gratitude on her face when I agreed was all the reward I would need for such a labor of love.
Well I know what such a thing would mean for her daughters and sons, and for her. As I have often remarked in your pages, O diary, my dear friend has revealed to me much of the depth and breadth of her knowledge, but with the telling gaps and inconsistencies of the self-educated.
Again I marvel at how this remarkable mare has taught herself rhetoric, civil law, mathematics, philosophy, at least five languages, and has gained a passing familiarity with classical poetry and the history of all three tribes, all acquired by the sweat of her brow in the precious intervals when the steady cadence of earth pony life allowed.
To have a patient guide through these thickets of information, who can impart context and clarity, that is the value of being taught, and the sacred duty of the teacher. I shall endeavor to do my best, hopefully with more kindness than the old grump ever mustered in my time under his tutelage.
Thinking upon it, I see further benefits to this arrangement. Dawn Heart will be in need of education in "unicorn book learning", and will probably benefit greatly from learning alongside Cookie's children.
Thinking upon the old grump, I must consult with him when next he comes jingling among us regarding our wonder filly's magical instruction. I make no pretensions to being as qualified as he is when it comes to teaching so prodigious a pupil, but if there is any way I can be of assistance I would gladly stand ready to do so.
I spent the afternoon cleaning and organizing my study, carefully filing the notes from the crafting of the beacon spell in anticipation of their being bound into more suitable tomes. Books needed shelving, dust needed sweeping, puddles of wax needed to be scraped from my desk so that it might be recast into candles. It was a most productive and salutary endeavor, another step on my return to normalcy, rather like that first bath and brush down after spending long days abed recuperating from an illness.
Then back to the kitchen, where I was swept up into the hurly burly of preparing our supper along with Pansy, Powdermilk, Crimson, and Cookie's girls. As I have already noted, O diary, before I entered my lady Queen (then Princess) Platinum's service and became accustomed to the castle staff taking care of me, I found cooking a tedious chore at the best of times. How different it is when a kitchen full of happy, chatting ponies shares in the tasks together.
Tonight's repast was a fine pie of leeks, turnips, and carrots stewed in red wine and baked in a crust, served with fried oatwurst and pickled cabbage. I rather suspect that Cookie has studied alchemy as well, for how else but magic might she turn the shriveled, late winter contents of our root cellar and the dwindling stocks of our pantry into such culinary gold?
Afterward we saw the sun down with music and word games by candlelight, putting the children to bed in waves to ease their passage from wakefulness to sleep with minimal protest. First little Graham is laid in his cradle, then Dawn and Cookie's girls (the most chaotic of the bedtimes, especially if Ginger is in one of her moods, so Cookie informs me), then young Oatmeal, who by virtue of his age and general good behavior is allowed to stay up for an entire extra hour longer than his siblings.
I spoke more to the young lad tonight than I have since we all moved in, back when he assisted me most ably in setting up my study and library. He's a thoughtful young fellow, as I have noted before, prone to long pauses as he carefully chooses his words. We spoke of the prospect of my teaching him, and I asked him what subjects he was most interested in learning. He informed me, after the expected pause for thinking, that he was keenly interested in geography and natural philosophy. [4]
I do recall his fascination with my collection of atlases when we installed my books in their new repository. At his mother's prompting I brought out my folio of maps from the old lands, and taught him the names of countries we'd abandoned to the encroaching ice and snow in the great migration before it was time for him to go to bed.
And that brings me to the present moment, as I sit in the glow of the embers in the main hall with quill and journal, listening to Cookie and Pansy quietly chat while my beloved Crimson plays a calming air on his viol and Powdermilk sits quietly and bestirs himself to answer with a nod or a monosyllable to his wife's periodic entreaties to stir the fire. I find I am filled with a warm feeling of contentment, surrounded by dear friends and at peace.
Cookie has just declared it is time for us all to be retiring, informing me that my special dispensation to stay up as late as I wished had ended when the blue diamond ascended. With a wry smile she told me I would need the sleep if I was to be ready for the break of Dawn tomorrow.
Thus I shall close, O diary. I met my darling Crimson's eye shortly after Cookie's final rap of a hoof on the floor, and all I shall say is that while I may now be under orders to go to bed, I won't necessarily be going to sleep anytime soon.
Good night.
Translator's Co-Sovereign & Mentor's Sister's Hoofnote:
[1] Indeed, 'tis quite true that Princess Celestia of Equestria, Sol Equus Invictus, Grand Protectress of the Realm and Regent of the Sun, is exceedingly ticklish, especially in the general area of her abdomen. I must commend my most dignified royal sibling on her bravery in allowing this chink in the royal armor, as it were, to be revealed. Especially now that she is tall enough for one of our subjects to reach this spot without even having to bend one's neck very far. I would gladly bestow a peerage upon the pony brave enough to try it. -P.L. [5]
Translator's Mentor's Hoofnote:
[2] And I still do, despite a marked tendency for excessive sass I'm seeing expressed in these extraneous hoofnotes, Woona. Are you trying to give poor Twilight another conniption? -P.C. [6]
Translator's Hoofnotes:
[3] Universal education for young ponies of all types was established roughly fifty years after the Royal Pony Sisters' defeat of Discord, initially established as a Ministry of the Crown under Princess Celestia's auspice, with schoolmasters and schoolmarms trained in Canterlot and installed in schoolhouses across Equestria under the supervision of a Minister of Education.
It was at this time that the early precursors of the Pegasi Flight Schools were also founded. Princess Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns was established much later, shortly after the beginning of Princess Luna's exile. The public school system as we know it now was reformed and organized into its current state roughly eighty years ago as of this writing.
Princess Celestia informs me that these initial forays into teaching all the foals of Equestria their "three R's", regardless of their social class or background, were very strongly influenced by her memories of learning at Lady Clover's hooves alongside Smart Cookie's children. Curricula and class sizes have changed, but the emphasis on group learning and a positive atmosphere of sharing knowledge guided by a patient, dedicated teacher is a tradition we have maintained. I have only to look at the wonderful work my friend Cheerilee does as Ponyville's schoolteacher to see Lady Clover's legacy still carrying our fair land into the future.
Hello, Cheerilee. I hope you enjoy this text and can use it to enhance your history classes. (Certain obnoxious interjections that I am still ignoring notwithstanding.) I bet you didn't realize the flowers that make up your cutie mark were perennials.
[4] This chapter is quite full of foreshadowing, isn't it? Students of history should be well aware of the daring exploits of Captain Oatmeal Raisin-Cookie, one of the founders of the Equestrian Rangers and the determined leader of the explorers who mapped upper Equestria and parts north on hoof. One particular text I recommend is his memoir: "'Oatmeal, Are You Crazy?' Being an Account of My Adventures on the Northern Frontier and the New Lands I Discovered Despite the Neigh Sayers"
Translator's Mentor's Hoofnote:
[5] One would have to be a brave pony indeed, with a predilection for enclosed spaces in exotic locales. -P.C. [7]
Translator's Co-Sovereign & Mentor's Sister's Hoofnotes:
[6] I'm merely attempting to provide a bit more context to this account, O sister beloved. You and I are living relics, after all. Like you, I have come to prefer emphasizing the "living" rather than the "relic" part of that. -P.L.
[7] I assure the readers it would be well worth it, for the sake of historical scholarship alone. I warrant the sound my sister makes when properly raspberried in her midsection has not been heard for untold centures. Surely your inquiring mind wants to know, Twilight Sparkle. Perhaps the next time we have you over to dedicate a stained glass window or something you might have an opportunity. -P.L. [8]
Translator's Hoofnotes:
[8] Such an inquiry would hardly be relevant, or particularly informative, especially in the medium of print. I would like to assure my esteemed mentor and immortal sovereign that I would never, ever succumb to such a ludicrous impulse. Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye! [9]
[9] And just to be clear in case my prior hoofnote caused any undue confusion at an apparent contradiction of intent, I am still ignoring these intrusions into my hoofnotes. [10]
Translator's Mentor's Hoofnote:
[10] Not to worry, my dear student. Even if you attempted such an inquiry, I've learned some fairly effective blocking maneuvers with my wings over the years, and my reflexes are still pretty good for a multi-centinarian. Rest assured my royal undercarriage shall remain safely un-rasberried. -P.C. [11]
Translator's Co-Sovereign & Mentor's Sister's Hoofnote:
[11] I know a challenge when I read one. We'll just see about that. -P.L. [12]
Translator's Mentor's Hoofnote:
[12] Bring it on, Princess Squawks Like a Plucked Phoenix When Goosed in the Brisket. -P.C. [13]
Translator's Co-Sovereign & Mentor's Sister's Hoofnote:
[13] Verily, 'tis most assuredly ON! -P.L. [14]
Translator's Hoofnotes:
[14] Still ignoring them. Still ignoring them. Still ignoring them. Still ignoring them.
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Squee. Hurray for more updates. This is another beautiful chapter as always. I love the idea of Luna and Celly getting caught up in tickle fights and I freely admit I almost spat my hot cocoa at Dawn's exclamation of "I love her!"
Oh, my goodness. You have absolutely no idea how hard you had me laughing over those adorable hoofnotes.
Especially those last few. Suddenly, I think that I'm thankful that's it's just me an my pooch here at home, or else I'd be getting some very strange looks from my sister and brother-in-law right now!
Awww. Cute!
Huzzah it continues! The "Hoofnotes" are delightful as always and I enjoy your take on the mythology and world building.
Yay! I've been wondering about an update and here it is......spell-bindingly wonderful as always. I love the life you put into each of these characters. The hoofnotes are just the icing on the cake, though...so much funny! Thank you so much! I'm enjoying this world building history lesson so very much. It is so wonderfully crafted. This should be added to the Canterlot Library.
I may have said this before, but if anything may cause Twilight to snap and go Nightmarish, it would be the footnotes authored by a certain pair of diarchs.
Very interesting that Dawn can recognize her future sister. I wonder how, and whether Celestia could even explain that.
Wonderful as always. Looking forward to more. And just how long were you sitting on that joke in footnote 4, anyway?
5646455
Long enough to hatch it properly.
And the No-Bull Prize in Joke Medicine goes to Warren Hutch, for his work on rehabilitating the fragile and ephemeral "Oatmeal Joke" into the hoariest of old saws.
Now I really want to read Oatmeals Memoir. I suspect he's intended to sound like Big Mac?
Now, I just want to know what it sounds like when somepony raspberries Princess Celestia.
5646622
It sounds like this:
What she sounds like when it happens, well, that's beyond my pay grade.
Uh oh.
5646788
Just ignore her...
Oh dear. Now we know what prank Pinkie Pie is going to pull off this years Fools Day.
And with it being Pinkie, there is no force in existance can stop her.
5646953
A judiciously extracted Pinkie Pie Promise would.
"Pinkie, I need you to Pinkie Pie Promise me that you'll never attempt to blow a raspberry into Princess Celestia's belly."
In all her years, and for all her love of words, Twilight Sparkle never imagined she would be compelled to string these particular words together in a sentence.
Heh, oatmeal...
Well, now I know the title of Pinkie's favorite history book.
All joking aside I do love your stories, Warren, and I'm glad to see more of your work, and your fascinating body of head-canon. Keep it up!
Another great chapter and as usual lots of laughs in the footnotes.
5646473
I don't get the oatmeal joke...
A day when the Book of Days updates is a good... day.
Pining for tiny Luna so hard.
5647438
Reference to something Pinkie said in the season one episode 'Ticket Master'.
S'only a matter of time, now...
Out of all the Celestia / Luna origin stories I've read, this is my favorite. I mean, 'born out of the very fires of friendship itself' ... It's just wonderful. Add to that fortuitous coincidences such as the color of Celestia's mane / the heart... I can only wish it'd become canon.
5647065
As Dash would say. Pinkie never attempts.
She succeeds.
Sometimes, I get the impression that Celestia and Luna never got beyond the 'squabbling siblings' stage!
Two things that I'm seeing here (well two things seen and one hoped for). Firstly, that Celestia must have had the most amzing upbringing - taught by the Founders of Equestria and, possibly, by Star Swirl himself. Secondly, something tells me something big and surprising is going to happen at Pansy's wedding. Is her mother someone important? Finally, I'm still hoping for Dawn and the younger Cookies to form the first ever chapter of the Cutie Mark Crusaders.
Warren, your triumph here is to get into Clover's head. Her voice speaks so clearly here as a fully-realised character. You can feel her emotions, her desires and her fears in every chapter.
5647923
The thing is though that Clover pushed herself into that corner.
Understand that Starswirl didn't know the answer and wasn't withholding it. That was Clover's frustration talking. Starswirl doesn't understand how friendship works, as they say in the show and as he himself admits. He was checking up on Clover, and very interested in what she was doing, but had no insights to give and lacked the social skills to be anything but an intrusion, and as the aloof maestro any flares of temper coming from his former pupil are viewed with chuckling bemusement.
As for his teaching Dawn magic, well Dawn needed to be taught.
In fact it could be argued that it was vital that she get her vast and potentially destructive power under control. If Clover was going to neglect that duty in favor of researching the beacon, then it's probably good that Starswirl was available to step in. 
Clover's friends and family were trying to be as supportive as they could. Clover was the one obsessively isolating herself from the life that was going on around her as she grappled with her research. How many times do you come back and try to include a person when you're repeatedly told "Go away, you're bothering me." and "I have no time for you now."? Is there a point were the attempts at inclusion are more of an intrusion than just leaving them be? I think it's a little bit of a grey area.
If you wanted to assign any blame it would be on the tribal leaders asking so much of Clover, and a little bit on Clover for not being sensible enough to say "No" to taking on two big jobs at once. (Although the excuse could be made that at the time of agreeing Clover had no idea how much she'd bitten off, nor did the leaders know exactly how much they were asking.)
I love this story. Every new chapter brings me great pleasure.
5649808
Anno Equestria
The founding was year 0.
Walking onBeing walked on by sunshine.Her, hahaha. It's not even going to be a surprise when Luna hatches out of that thing.
The seeds of education reform and widespread availability! I highly approve.
Alright Clover!
I think anyone who tries to tickle Celestia like that really does deserve a peerage.
I love it.
I wonder if Luna will be born as a baby like the Cake kids, or as a filly like Dawn was.
And I wonder what her given name would be.
Yeah, it's nice to see this story updating again. You know, ever since I started reading this, I thought it was interesting that Clover is essentially Celestia's mother in this setup. (With Crimson arguably qualifying as her father.)
(And if you're wondering, Mr. Hutch, I am the guy from DeviantArt that was asking what B.P.O.P. stood for.)
I will admit I have been out of the Equestria for a while but catching up on this story has really made my night. It is so deeply involving, and it really cheered me up. Thanks so much for writing it!
I can't believe it took me this many chapters to notice this, but Crimson and Clover? That's completely intentional, right?
5654732
Most of what I intend to do is intentional.
5654620
Thanks for reading!
Anytime anypony says one of my stories cheered them up it's extra awesome.
People have already covered many of the fun touches of this chapter, but let me add Twilight's little shout-out to Cheerilee... I enjoyed the whole discussion of the Equestrian education system, and name dropping the Ponyville schoolteacher in a prestigious history book was both a friendly gesture, and perhaps a sign that Celestia and Luna's attitude is rubbing off on Twilight some...
This remains a highly fun exploration of the show's backstory... Glad to see it continue!
5662908
I'll agree with this. And good old Cheerilee...
This story is one of the best things. Yes.
*Drops ded from ardorbudisease*
slowly he opened the door to the old house, the door creaking on rusty hinges , "Hello? I was reading this fic and Iwas wondering if some one was still here?"
5969263
Nope, nobody here. :-) Warren's been working other projects, I gather, but he still updates now and again.
Hey pssst... This story is on the top list of ones I've read and the one I'm most eager to get an update from. While I know you probably have other projects going on just wanted to let you know I would love to be able to read more. Ok thanks, continue on.
6516488
Before the word alicorn took on the extra duty of referring to a winged unicorn, it was the word for the horn of a unicorn.
Since Lady Clover's account was written before ponykind knew what a "wings & horn" alicorn was, I have her using its original, archaic definition.
There's no reason that the ponies wouldn't have undergone the same linguistic drift.
Wikipedia links.
Well, and that is the current end of things.
I have to say, so far I like those little tidbits of history interwoven with this story (I did not read the comments, but I wonder how many got the thing with the phlogiston).
The way the story is told is not my favorite way to experience a story, as it gets hard to immerse oneself in it, but it is still enjoyable (especially the hoofnotes. they do feel like real quibs Twilight needs to ignore to stay sane), and you still managed to stir my feelings.
So congratulations on that and keep on writing.
-L