They Never Knew

by SilverEyedWolf

Bringing Her Home

I looked up as Twilight entered the room, and I waved her over. The tailor had just been waking up when we knocked on her door, and she’d had a suit of my clothing that she’d finished last night. After I’d changed out of the loose, baggy things I’d been wearing, Celestia and I had retried to the library, waiting for Twilight to wake up.

“Why the library? Wouldn’t it make more sense to meet her at her room?” Celestia had laughed and pointed out where she had gone when she woke up yesterday.

And she’d been right. Twilight had walked into the library only ten minutes after Celestia and I had sat down, Celestia to a book of fairy tales, while I’d cracked open a book on magic theory, the same one Twilight had been reading yesterday.

Twilight smiled bashfully and walked over to us. Before she could speak, Celestia asked, “Have you eaten anything yet?” She stopped and shook her head, and Celestia sighed, shutting her book. “Come on then, let’s go get you something to eat. You really should take care of your body along with your mind, dear.” Twilight nodded, looking down at her feet.

I laughed and ruffled her hair. “Celestia just cares about you dear, she doesn’t want you accidentally hurting yourself.” She tried to scowl, but didn’t quite succeed as she was too busy looking pleased at the prospect of Celestia worrying about her. We walked out of the library and down the hall, back to the cafeteria Twilight and I’d eaten in yesterday.

“Besides, a full stomach helps bring out the full power of spells. Celestia can’t teach you if you’ve no energy, can she?”

“I suppose not…” said Twilight unhappily. Her face brightened and she asked “Does that mean I’ll be taught something today?” I shrugged and looked over to Celestia, who looked at us and started laughing quietly. “Sure, I’ll teach you some spells today. Food first, though. You can’t cast on an empty stomach.”

Twilight nodded and turned to the chef who served food from behind his counter. She ordered after me, and surprised the chef and I when she ordered the same things I did. Balancing a tray, I ported piles of eggs and bowls of porridge to a mostly clear table. Celestia moves behind me with her own modest piles of food, and Twilight behind her with a stack of toasted bread and our utensils.

I set our places and we all sit, bowing our head in respect to the sun that grew the food we ate, and to the animals we domesticated for food. We finished and picked up our spoons and forks. Twilight immediately dug into her eggs, eating as though she hadn’t had food for day. I smiled and put my hand over hers, pushing the fork away.

“Twilight,” Celestia said gently. “We have all day to spend together. Please don’t make yourself sick.” She flushed and nodded. I moved my hand from hers and she started eating again, still a little too fast but not shoveling her food anymore. I smiled and reached over to the tower of toast.

Even with my and Celestia’s slow enjoyment of our food, we were done within thirty minutes or so. Twilight gave up about halfway through her breakfast and handed the remnants over to me to finish. Celestia sat and smiled, waiting for Twilight to return to a comfortable state while I finished her food.

I wiped my mouth with a cloth napkin handed to me by the queen, and we all stand and leave the table with our dishes, much more manageable now without food. We turn them over to a busboy behind the counter and walk out into the hallway, Celestia lead us through a maze of hallways into a courtyard I recognized. We were lead through a door and onto a field I don’t recognize.

The green grass was cut to an even length over the entire field, and a shed stood on the edge of it. “This is mainly a field of training for new recruits, but we don’t really have any right now, so this will be our area for practical learning.” Twilight nervously adjusted her wand holster, straightening it on her hip. She asked, lowly, “Are you sure I should start with practical lessons? Shouldn’t there be a little… classroom study first?”

Celestia smiled and nodded. “Probably, but we both know that you’ve more than taken care of that. And besides, this will mostly be a testing of your skills so I can know what you know and where we should go from here.”

Twilight nodded and drew her wand, holding it at her side. Celestia mimed to me to do the same, and raised her own wand. “We’ll start with something small, levitation. We’ll just be moving different objects differing distances.” She pointed her wand at the field, and conjured a small round stone from the dirt. She waved her wand and duplicated the stone, making a copy of it from the stone itself. She lifted one over to Twilight and the copy over to me, setting them both at our feet.

Twilight immediately pointed her wand at the stone and flicks it upward, pulling the stone up to eye level. I pointed my wand at the stone and tried to concentrate, imagining my hand reaching down and picking up the stone. It slowly floats upward, coming to an unsteady rest at around the same level as Twilight’s. Celestia smiles and nods, putting out her hand and lowering it to tell us to let the stones rest.

While Twilight lightly returns the stone to its resting point, mine falls much more quickly and bounces a little when it lands, rolling away a little. Twilight grinned and I blushed, picking the stone back up with magic and placing it, gently this time, where it belonged.

Celestia smiled and pointed her wand at the stones, doubling their size. This continued until we had stones the size of my torso. Twilight was having difficulty keeping hers steady, and I was putting true effort into keeping my stone within a two meter radius. Celestia pointed her wand and the stones recombined and shrunk to its original size, then disappeared completely.

“Very well done, both of you.” Twilight wipes a little sweat from her forehead and I rub a small bruise on mine, hers from exertion and mine from a bit of cockiness unearned. “We’ll continue after we’ve had you two something to drink.” She tapped her wand and spoke into it, asking for someone to bring some water out to the training field.

We talk a little while waiting for the drink, Celestia and Twilight giving me pointers on steadiness and power (I’d gotten the bruise from putting too much strength into the stone and having it rocket skyward, my head unlucky enough to have gotten in the way).

After a guard had walked up with a small table and a large jug of water, and Celestia had shown us how to conjure our own glasses from the air, we tested our abilities at changing the existing world, shrinking and growing stones mostly. We dabbled a little in transformation, but neither of us was really ready to transform living things yet.

Celestia looked up into the sun. “It’s about noon, are you two ready for lunch?” Twilight nodded and said, “I almost wish I had finished that breakfast now, I’m famished.” Celestia nodded and gave Twilight a very serious look. “Remember that, remember how many calories magic consumes. Using magic is very nearly the same as using your own energy to do the same thing. Some people can do great things with magic, but they’re also very careful about eating before they attempt any great magic and making sure they don’t use too much at once.”

Twilight nodded gravely, but she was still glowing with all she’d done today. Teaching seemed to suit her, and she’d had almost as much fun helping Celestia instruct me as she’d had showing off for her teacher.

We ate quickly and retired to the library after our lunch, taking the afternoon to study some history and magic theory. Silent Scroll smiled and nodded at us, passing through our section, and I smiled back. She was putting books away at the time, but I saw her pull a book from a different section and walk over with it on the bottom of a stack of other books. As she passed she laid the book on the desk in front of me, walking on before I could ask her about it.

I stare down at a book entitled Speed Reading and More! How to use a Photographic Memory to your advantage. I smiled to myself, wondering if she was going to hand me a book on how to obtain a photographic memory. Twilight was busy listening to Celestia speak on the theories behind levitation and how it is achieved, and I snuck the book into a bag I’d taken to carrying around with me. I mouthed a thank you to Silent, who smiled back.

I spent the rest of the evening reading whatever caught my eye as Celestia and Twilight spoke at length on any subject Twilight had questions about, pulling in nearly every passerby for a brief discussion on whatever subjects they were pursuing. After hearing my stomach rumble Celestia smiled and held her hand up to the current lecturer, an elderly man speaking about biochemistry in living transformation spells. “Thank you very much for your time, but my young assistants are hungry. Would you like to join us for dinner?”

The scholar declined, and we left for the cafeteria again. “Do you always eat with the guards, milady?” Celestia nodded an affirmative to my question, saying, “I do usually, unless I’m in the garden or holding an event. If it’s good enough for my protectors, it must be good enough for me. Besides, it boosts morale to see your princess sit with you.”

I nodded, understanding how they felt.

We reached the cafeteria and ate slowly, Twilight yawning through the meal. We made our way to Celestia’s garden after we filled, and I napped while Twilight and Celestia went over the lessons of the day. It was night again when Twilight gently shook me awake, and I escorted her to her room. I found my way back into the garden, and found Celestia asleep in her chair.

I looked around the mostly empty garden and shivered, noting all the hiding spaces and dark spots. I took the shrunken sword from my wrist and attached it to my back again after I’d returned it to its original size. Celestia stirred and opened an eye, and I smiled at her and squeezed her hand.

She smiled and squeezed back, and returned to sleep. I smiled, happy that she already trusted me so much, and took a place beside her.

She woke up around an hour later to the smell of tea and small sandwiches set on a small table in front of her. I smiled at her and she back, then she sat straight up with a small look of panic on her face. “How long was I asleep?”

“Only an hour or so, Celestia.”

She sighed and nodded, reaching for a teapot. After she poured herself a cup, I drew my wand from my sword and pointed it at the liquid, returning the tea to warmth. I’d been practicing while she slept, and had only reduced one cup to ashes.

She smiled and sipped at the tea, then made a face. “Why does my tea taste like soot, Spike?”
I grimaced and smiled awkwardly. “I’m self-taught on this, I’m not really even sure what it is I’m doing.”

“Well, you seem to be heating the tea leaves in the brew, instead of the water itself. You just need to learn to differentiate a little, is all.” I hang my head a little and nod, pouring another cup for the princess. Watching her heat her own tea, I pour my own cup and peer into its amber depths.

I concentrated on the water itself, nothing but the liquid. I try once again, and I found the tea tasting much less like soot than Celestia’s had.

I smiled to myself and asked, “What was so important tonight, that you needed to be awake?”

A sad look drew upon her face, and a little shame. “Tonight’s a full moon. I… I look for her sometimes, on the face of the …”

My smile drops and I reach over, touching her lightly on the back of her hand. She smiled a little and sipped at her tea, looking up into the cloudless night. “I ask the Pegasi to try and keep the skies above Canterlot clear on this night. I’ve had a special telescope installed in a wing, one that lets me see very clearly the surface of the moon.”

“Have you seen her, walking around up there?”

She nodded, tears building rapidly in her eyes. With a sniff she closed her eyes, and when she opened them again they were much clearer. “I must bring her back. She is repentant, I know she is, but I don’t know if everyone will support my decision. There are stories still…”

I held up a hand. “Milady, what speak have you heard of dragons lately? Tales will be tales, and most will never dissipate until proven wrong. It doesn’t matter what others would think anyway. You believe that your sister’s debt is repaid, then return her.”

She smiled, and it seemed to me that she meant it more this time than before.

“You know, there’s this old tale, this legend foretelling her return a thousand years after her banishment. That’s not long from now…”

I smiled at her, the biggest grin I could summon. “I think the problem’s been solved for you, then. Who are we, to get in the way of prophecy?” The princess smiled, then stood and pulled me up into a hug. I blushed and hugged her back, then we split and she smiled widely at me.

“Come on Spike, let’s go get planning. My sister’s coming home, and we have to have everything set up for when she returns to me.”

We spent that night and the next five years planning for the return of Luna. Twilight still tutored under Celestia some days, but more often she was assigned a person to learn from for a week or so, until she mastered what it was she wanted to know. Her interests kept the topics varied, and she was well on her way to becoming a scholar of everything, well learned in all sciences. Her aptitude in the arts was a little weak, but with such a mind as hers it was no surprise.

I spent most days with her or Celestia, learning reading and writing to help the princess with her courtly duties. In our spare time she taught me more practical skills than she did Twilight, teaching me how to meditate to rest my mind and body more than sleep did, and how to concentrate on one thing to the point that the rest of the world fell away but still be aware of my surroundings.

During my nights however, I was trained by the members of Celestia’s guard. I learned survival skills like water purification and how to forage and hunt in the woods. I learned different aspects of swordplay from nearly every one of my teachers, and brawling from the regular guardsmen. Offensive spells came, and while I learned many lesser defensive spells, they were all very potent. Distastefully, I learned poisons and stealth killing from the assassins Dawnbreak and Shadowfall, though I enjoyed their company almost as much as I enjoyed Twilight’s.

“I know it seems honorless,” Shadowfall was telling me as she showed me the way to mix a powerful powdered herb. “But when it’s just you and this grenade against a legion trying to kill the princess, you’ll thank me.” I felt myself tense at the mention of Celestia in danger, and I complained no more.

Spitfire lived up to her promise, teaching me how to fly after the princess showed me how to summon my wings. It wasn’t painful, merely surprising when the large, leathery wings burst from my back, shredding my shirt. Spitfire had run her hands across the membranes between the large, light bones that made up my wings. It had sent chills chasing shivers up my spine, and I’d understood why she’d reacted so strongly when I’d felt her downy wings.

Mostly what I’d learned was speed, but she also taught me how to fight in the air, using daggers instead of the huge sword I’d taken to carrying around on my back. Twilight still thought it was only a bracelet, and I’d been very careful about not letting anyone beside the guard see me carry it around.

Celestia had talked with her personal guard about bringing back her sister, and while they all had fairly strong feelings on the matter, none had complained to the princess. She’d done a little studying into psychology, and quite a lot of searching the face of the moon.

Luna had recently become much more active, apparently sensing her return approaching. Celestia had gathered that while sorrowful, she was still very agitated. She hoped for peace quickly after calling her sister back, but it didn’t look very hopeful. So all of her guardsmen prepared in their own way. Many strategized with others, making series of back-up plans that stacked on top of each other.

I chose not to align myself to any of their plans, simply trying to prepare for any situation that may pop up and staying fluid. A few of them groused at me for being a wild card, an unknown, but they all understood. I allied myself more with the princess than with any of them, or even with Equestria. Most of them were the same way, just a little too old to be able to trust Celestia the way I did.

Comments

[General_Pinkie_Pie]

please read my fanfic!

[SilverEyedWolf]

2911705
Honey, I hate to point out that you don't have one...

[Dragon Blaze-X]

[General_Pinkie_Pie]

2911705>>2911712 oh, i forgot, i didn't post it yet. well nevermind :/