IX. Twilight's Journal Part 2
Lyra sat in bed as she levitated Twilight’s Journal in the air to read a few excerpts. The sun had just come up, and Scootaloo had gone to get some breakfast. The New Ponyville inn was furnished with two twin beds, and she had spread out her saddlebags and belongings across her own mattress after waking up.
She had been putting off reading more of the journal since there had always been more pressing matters. The recent discovery that several ponies had gone missing after apparently dying of natural causes would certainly come as a shock once they headed over to inform Mayor Mare. They would need to send a letter to canterlot soon to inform the Princesses too, but it could all wait until after breakfast.
Twilight’s Diary, Page 3
I haven’t had time to write a new entry for some time. Rarity says I’m still in shock. I teleported her out of the library and bolted the door.
I don’t need ponies telling me how I feel. How could they know what it is like to lose a brother, and find their sister dead in a pool of blood? How could they know what it is like for your parents to be wracked with grief, unable to offer any comfort?
And how could they know what it was like to be ignored by the one pony they’d looked up to their entire lives? The one pony I wanted more than anything to comfort me, too consumed by her own grief to do it.
It’s because she blames me. At the time, Luna cautioned me not to be silly with such notions, but Luna is naive. Celestia knows I could have gone with Shining. I could have visited Cadance a day sooner. I could have lived up to the pony she wanted me to be, and I didn’t.
I could have saved them all, and I failed Celestia.
Twilight’s Diary, Page 4
According to a book I read on dealing with grief, working with my hooves might help me begin to heal. I was skeptical at first, and bought a small modeling kit. But after a few hours I was able to sculpt and paint a decent replica of my library.
It is about the size of a doll’s house. As I was painting the tiny words onto the books and shelving them, I realized for the first time in weeks my mind was not wracked by guilt and grief. My friends even seem to approve, pestering me less, and saying I look ‘happy’ again when I work on the miniature replicas.
I think I will get some more, perhaps recreate the main street of Ponyville with them.
Twilight’s Diary, Page 5
If this ordeal has taught me anything it’s that my friends can’t understand my pain. They try to comfort me as if death is something every pony experiences.
But I won’t experience it.
I’m immortal now, and if this grief can render me so helpless now, what will I do when I’m a full fledged Princess? When Dash dies, or Rarity, or Applejack…
Will I comfort Apple Bloom with stories of what a great mare her sister was? When Apple Bloom grows up, will I attend her wedding, and watch as she marries some stallion and has children. Will I comfort them too?
If only I could make my friends immortal, then they would understand that eternity is just a long expanse of misery, of watching everything wither and die until the heat death of the universe.
They’d understand… if they were immortal?—
Twilight’s Diary Page 6
My friends have been constant distractions, wanting to comfort me while I’m trying to research. At least Spike knows me well enough to know when I’m busy studying.
Immortality.
Many ponies have attempted a spell to halt the aging process, some almost succeeded. None of them were an alicorn and the Princess of Magic.
If all my friends were immortal, we would never have to lose each other.
I’ve converted the basement into a workspace where I can study my formula and calculations. I believe the flaw when ponies like Starswirl attempted this research is they weren’t willing to sacrifice enough. They didn’t know my pain, and weren’t willing to go far enough…
My first theory is that if I can convert my friends to inanimate objects, they will cease to age. Of course, that would kill them, so first I have to separate their consciousness from their body… Maybe I could recapture it right at the moment of death?
I will need to research this lead, and stockpile the ingredients to begin clinical trials. I have other theories to test if this first one fails.
But the only way to know it works will be to test on a live pony. Somepony that nopony would miss. And once I begin, if it does work, I will have to move quickly. Who could I test it on, a pony that doesn’t have enough friends to be missed, but is naive enough to come over on short notice in secret? Maybe one that travels for work.
Perhaps the lyrist?
Lyra put a bookmark into the journal and closed it. She had felt empathy for Twilight, up until the end of the last page. The words stung, had Lyra really been chosen because she was meaningless enough to not be missed?
Twilight had always seemed unstable to Lyra. One moment she was in unfathomable pain and in need of just a single friend to comfort her. The next moment, Twilight would kill a pony as if they were just some toy in her scale model of Ponyville and not a living being.
The journal painted a grim picture of the mare’s war against her own grief so far. After taking a moment to gather herself, Lyra opened the journal again to see if the next entry would describe Twilight’s plan to kill her and turn her into a doll.
Instead, there were several complicated diagrams explaining the magical spells used to turn a pony into a doll. Lyra didn’t recognize most of the spells, but they were excellently annotated describing what they did and what pony had discovered them. With this, any pony with a talent for magic might be able to accomplish what Twilight had done.
The door shut and Lyra jumped up in surprise.
“Oh, I didn’t mean to startle you.” Scootaloo was carrying a tray with some bowls of oatmeal and fresh fruit balanced across her back and wings. “I got some breakfast for us.”
“Thanks,” Lyra replied. She closed the journal again
“Travel rations still making you nauseous?”
“Yeah, I suspect they're made of the same stuff as bricks.” She levitated the tray to an end table, then brought the oatmeal over to herself. It was strawberry and cream, and the fruit in it looked fresh.
Scootaloo had started eating her own breakfast and swallowed. “Yeah, I guess I’m just young enough to eat anything with impunity.”
The two ate quickly, having a busy day ahead. By the time Lyra was done, she saw Scootaloo sitting on the bed and meditating
Scootaloo had gotten a lot better at entering a trance quickly. As she controlled her breathing, she began to sense the aura of magic around her.
It was like looking at a world being animated on a canvas with oil paints. Everything was constantly being painted over and shifting, the wet paint never allowed to dry.
Lyra was nearby, sending out gentle swirls of a mint green energy. They mixed with the ambient magic in the air, which was a deep rich purple. As Lyra levitated an apple up to take a bite, Scootaloo could see the ripples happening before the apple moved. She knew before it happened that Lyra had cast the levitation spell.
Scootaloo found it a bit unsettling, if not beautiful, to observe the world in this state. The magic seemed to transcend time, existing in a constant state of harmony where every action caused a chain of reactions. Instead of having to wait to see the reaction — the apple being lifted to her mouth — Scootaloo could see the actions that preceded it. If she could maintain this focus while awake, she could dodge a spell before it was cast like her Sensei claimed to be able to do.
The inky black floorboards of the room had small wafts of yellow, pink, and orange energy coming through them. Downstairs two unicorn mares and a stallion were eating breakfast. Scootaloo got a subtle sense that one of them had a talent for potion making, and that another was agitated.
The room began to swirl frantically with a deep blue energy, a void appearing that seemed to suck all the color out of the entire room. She had never sensed something like this before, and without thinking had already rolled backward off the bed, grabbing her sword on the way. By the time Scootaloo’s hooves hit the ground, she had drawn the sword and grasped the hilt in her mouth.
Lyra didn’t seem to have noticed anything yet. Faint wisps of the swirling energy were still visible even after Scootaloo had opened her eyes, and she turned to look at the shimmering void of energy.
A second later, Luna appeared with a loud pop. Scootaloo saw a flash of magical current shoot out from Luna to Lyra, silvery like the moon. The connection seemed to be some sort of tracking spell that pulsed back a band of energy.
And then the trance state was gone. Scootaloo lowered the sword to the floor once she saw who it was, and her view into the hidden world of magic was gone. She made a mental note to thank Sensei some time for teaching her such a cool trick.
“Luna!” Lyra shouted, knocking her oatmeal off the bed.
“Lyra, Scootaloo, I’m glad I found you.” Luna walked between the bed, and gave Scootaloo a curious look. The pegasus didn’t seem at all surprised to see her.
Lyra nodded, “we have some news on Twilight.”
“Go ahead,” Luna answered.
“Well, we found that ponies have gone missing from the town, usually around the time of their deaths. They look like natural causes, but the bodies go missing as soon as the casket’s are closed, and before their burial.”
Luna sat down on the bed next to Lyra, and Scootaloo noticed a hint of sadness in her eyes. Her face was too neutral, as if she were in a poker game, but a small tear glistened at the corner of an eye.
“Lyra… Twilight is indeed alive and well, and she was in Canterlot.”
She gasped in surprise, “Really? Shouldn't you two have caught her if she got that close to the castle?”
Luna sighed, “Yes, but she has yet again surprised us. And she came for a reason. She… she took Soarin.”
Scootaloo looked back to Lyra who seemed to be frozen like a still life painting, but only for a moment. She could feel the anger flaring, and sense the magic building into her horn.
“What?!” Lyra tensed her muscles as she struggled to maintain composure. “How? Why? She wouldn’t…”
“I do not know why, I doubt she knew you were seeing Soarin. I put a tracking spell, and a backup, on him just in case because I knew he was important to you,” Luna explained.
“I’ll save him,” Lyra muttered to herself, though she sounded unconvinced.
Scootaloo jumped over her bed and with a couple flaps of her wings, landed next to Lyra and hugged her. “We’ll save him, I promise you.”
“She’ll have to let him go, she promised to let me live my life…” Lyra said to herself. “Or, I’ll make her. I’ll show her I’m not somepony in the background that nopony will miss.”
There was a brief flare of emotion that Scootaloo picked up on, something dark enough to make her release the hug and look at Luna. They could both sense for a brief moment as Lyra’s motivation to help her friend had wavered, replaced by a desire for revenge.
“Lyra, do not feed that anger. We will rescue Soarin and everypony that we can. If you rush in blindly for vengeance, like Celestia or I did, then you’ll likely leave empty hoofed.”
Luna leaned forward and nuzzled her, and Lyra seemed to calm down a bit. Scootaloo began to rub a hoof on Lyra’s back. “I guess we better get headed into the Everfree then, but how will we find her?”
There was a surge of magic as Luna lit up her horn and touched Lyra’s horn. “I have given you the spell I am using to track Soarin. He will be our secret weapon, as long as Twilight has him, this spell will guide you in his general direction.”
“I thought magic was chaotic in the Everfree,” Lyra stated. “Will this really help?”
“Yes and no. It can show you the direction, but not the distance. If you continue to follow it into the Everfree it should act as a compass and eventually, get you close.”
Lyra nodded and began to pack her saddlebags, shoving the journal and her belongings off the bed and back into them. “Well then I guess we’ve got our work cut out for us.”
Luna levitated a quill and some parchment out of a recess in the armored regalia she was wearing. “Take this. It has been enchanted so that anything you write on the parchment with this quill, will also be written on the matching parchment in my bedchambers. You can keep me updated during your search, and I can reply in kind.”
She took the quill and parchment and put it in her saddlebags. “Thank you.”
“One more thing, should you find yourself in dire straits, head for the Castle of the Two Sisters. It is enchanted to keep out the wild surges of magic in the Everfree. If you need to teleport in or out of the Everfree, it is the only safe place for a pony to do so.”
Scootaloo saw that Lyra was almost done packing, and went over to grab her own bags and sword. “Sounds like we’re all set then? One flank-kicking to be delivered to Twilight with all due haste.”
Lyra chuckled as she stood and put her gear on. “Yeah, unless there is anything else Luna?”
“No, I’d best get back to the castle before anypony does something rash. I’ll teleport over and tell Mayor Mare about the missing ponies so that you can head straight for the forest.”
“Thanks,” Lyra said. “We’ll be in touch.”
Luna got back to the castle about an hour later, walking into the throne room expecting to find Celestia holding court. There was a large crowd of petitioners gathered around. They were pushing forward towards the throne, only held back by the guards. Atop the throne sat Trixie, her mane disheveled.
“For the last time, Celestia and Luna are taking an impromptu decisive vacation! There’s nothing to worry about and they’ll be back soon.”
“But does this mean Twilight is back?”
“Are the Princesses dead?”
“Did you crown yourself the Great and Powerful ruler of Equestria?”
“Quick! Somepony contact the press, there’s been a coup!”
”Enough!” Luna shouted in the Royal Canterlot Voice. The entire room got quiet in an instant. The only sound heard was somepony dropping a pen and it clattering across the floor.
“When and where I choose to vacation is not your concern, now everypony get out. If I get even a whiff of those crazy theories in the tabloids then I’ll give the whole lot of you nightmares for a week!” Luna commanded.
The ponies shrank back, and started flowing out of the room. They were careful to stay far away from the angry princess.
By the time the room was empty and just Trixie and the guards remained, she went over to find out what happened. “Where is Celestia?”
“Oh thank goodness you’re here! Celestia took off when she realized you were gone and Twilight was back!”
Luna grit her teeth and felt the beginnings of a headache. “Where would she get an idea like that?”
Trixie smiled sheepishly. “Well, once I woke up, she asked where you’d gone, and I hadn’t come up with the lie about a vacation yet so…”
“So you told her I’d gone to check on Soarin and chase down Twilight?” Luna sighed. “Well you weren’t far off from the truth, and I should probably have told Celestia before I ran off.”
“Are we going to look for her?” Trixie asked.
“She’ll be fine, if she’s not back in a few hours I’ll have to go track her down. It is almost certain she is flying around the Everfree starting forest fires and otherwise venting her anger.”
Luna stared at Trixie for a moment as if expecting something. “Oh, sorry, did you want your seat back?”
She smirked. “Actually, I want a couple pots of coffee. You can keep the throne warm, and handle my noon appointment to plan this year’s grand galloping gala.”
“But… I’m just an apprentice,” Trixie complained.
“Yes.” Luna began walking towards the kitchens and shot back a look at her. “And I haven’t had to banish an apprentice to the moon in twelve hundred years… so you better pick a good theme for the gala.”
Trixie chuckled nervously as the Princess departed. “She’s gotta be joking, right?”
She looked over to the nearby pair of guards. They both shrugged.
“Right?”
Also LikedSimilarAuthor
- Kaidan · 93k words · 1,016 59 · 30k views
- BronyWriter · 22k words · 349 15 · 7.1k views
- BronyWriter · 65k words · 609 24 · 8.2k views
- Xx-Sniper_Masters-xX · 4.2k words · 21 3 · 682 views
- Kaidan · 55k words · 159 15 · 6.6k views
- Zubric · 3.2k words · 14 6 · 1.2k views
- Kaidan · 34k words · 1,083 48 · 13k views
Stats
Page generated in 0.025 seconds
Total duration
731 users online
781,997 hits today, 2,054,621 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
"Really? Should you two have caught her if she got that close to the castle?"
"Really? Shouldn't you two have caught her if she got that close to the castle?"?
Thanks for writing!
edit:
Oh, also, why is this "Ch. 9" instead of "IX."?
I just noticed this chapter title is the same as chapter 4
10985204
Oh yeah I should change it.
Nice recap chapter
it back yay
Maybe Twilight decided to send Spike to the Dragon Lands in a vacation so that he don't discover her evil plans?
This doesn’t bode well.
10985029
Forgot to say thanks for catching those mistakes for me.
10994902
No problem, and thanks. :)
Yeah i really like to know what happened to Spike
11004554
Ah that's why I'm trying to plan out chapters scene by scene instead of just broad strokes, there's so many characters it's too easy to realize I forgot to show what one of them has been up to... like Spike who I think hasn't been seen since the original story.
Didn't expect to see this getting updated, ever, to be completely honest. I haven't really done pony since this story was abandoned, coincidentally, so this was a sweet nostalgia rush.
I still like the concept, perhaps more than most of your other stories. One thing that still makes me feel uneasy to this day though is this whole ninja stuff. It just feels so cheesily out of place for the scope of the story. To me the interesting part was the premise itself and the exploration of mental issues. This chapter funnily enough does both things, giving some cool backgrounds from way back before the first story with the journals, but then also going into Sensei talk again like this is Matrix 2 and 3 forgetting what made the original story so damn good.
Don't have much to add. I do wanna say that I'm still eager to see this story get concluded sooner than later. But seeing how it's already been a quarter year since the last chapter, I'd say you pick up whatever motivation is left and get to the end. I'm kind of worried these three chapters were a one-time thing, which would honestly be tragic.
Alternatively, just PM me how the story ends lol
11113290
Yeah I did leave the sequel in a weird place, and never settled on trilogy plans either, so I decided to just finish the second story and give some closure. It is challenging trying to balance all the old plot threads. Maybe I should have considered a re-write or something. If you want to give more feedback on the story sometime let me know. If I did it again, I wouldn't have like 30 point of view characters and eight separate story arcs, that's for sure.
We could chat on discord or direct message if you want to help with the ending or just hear what it was going to be. I think within a few months I will have finished this story, if all goes very well.
Always so nice to see a long time favorite fic getting updates!
Omg pls update! I am obsessed!
Good to see some updates to this again after a long time. Hope to see more again soon.
Is this dead or isn't it I cant tell, I just discovered it and its so good, I'm left dying to know what is happening next-
I'm still waiting for more and I believe there will be.