Of the Past and its Mysteries

by Sb129

5.) The Lyre made of Stars

Chapter 5 (The Lyre made of Stars)

~A quiet night one week later~

Vega had gone to every library she could walk to, and still she only had about ten books and one scroll. “This scroll is definitely the oldest thing here...” She thought for a quick second, “Think I’ll read it first.” Walking into her room she lit one of her candles. |My parents are gone for the night; this will be the perfect time for their musical prodigy to read some ancient history, heh heh| As she walked into her room everything was cast in the soft glow of her golden magic and the warm yellows from the candle.

She set the candle on her small table and looked over to her bed, where she put all the books and the scroll. Focussing on the scroll she levitated it over to her. ‘Equus: The Story of Where Ponies Came From’, “This should surely have the oldest tales I could read.” She carefully untied the ribbon holding the scroll closed and opened it up to see what it held.
[#]
She was a little confused, the top half of the scroll was adorned with many small illustrations but was written in ancient runes. The bottom half contained modern equestrian and almost no pictures. “This sure is old, half of it is in ancient.” She lit her other candle to try and see the tiny runes better. Some had blended together, others had been worn away and others looked written over. She was very interested in what the old symbols meant, they only touched on this in school. Vega had seen some of the example runes on the board but the teacher said that it took years to learn because it was a dead language.

As she thought of the meaning behind the runes she noticed something else was amiss. There was a mended tear along the right side and a small piece missing as well. The tear was cutting through several lines of runes and the mend had almost wiped away those lines, but they were there. What's more is that the missing piece was part of a picture, now only the bottom of it was visible, along with the name. |Interesting, I wonder what picture that was? It’s just too bad I can’t read those runes for myself.|

Her unicorn horn glowed softly as she rolled the scroll to the portion with modern equestrian. She read the first line. “Equus is the place where every pony came from. Verily, all creatures originated from Equus and were brought to this land of Equestria by the Royal Sisters… Yeah I heard all this before.” She scanned through the lines of text until something caught her attention only several lines down. ‘The diarchy searched the stars to find a new home for all ponies and the other creatures alike to live in peace and harmony.’ She had never seen that word before, diarchy. She would have to look it up later, for now she kept reading.

‘After tirelessly searching for a new world, the royal sisters found a suitable world.’ |I have seen both Royal sisters, magus sisters and diarchy several time now. I guess they mean the same two sisters but why use different words all the time? | ‘Upon arriving in the new world, the eldest sister declared this land to be Equestria in honor of their old home. But this wasn't Equus and a problem plagued this new world. An evil race dominated this world, a race not of magic, harmony or peace. This race of non magic l o gin ere kn n o ly as h ans. …….’ “What? what race was it?” The letters on this section were all partially erased. Some letters or words were chipped away, some had ink spots on them but the rest were gone for good, as the same tear seemed to be in this section the same as the older one. The place where a picture may have been was burned away. Vega pulled the scroll as close to her face as possible to make something out. “Why? Who? Who would do this?” As the last word left her lips she saw some letters under the burned portion, they read ‘human’.
[#]

“Human? I thought they were just called man; well this scroll is older than those books, I suppose then, that I’ll call them humans to.” Just then she heard a noise from the front room. |They can’t be home yet, I still have all those to read.| She tried as fast as she could to hide the scroll and the books. Vega peered into the large room where the front door was and saw nopony. She sighed in relief, “Whew, knew they couldn’t be home this early. But I really should get prepared just in case they do.”

She walked over to her lyre, still in its case, and picked it up in her magic. She also laid some sheet music down on her bed. |I’ll just play this while reading so when they arrive, it’ll be as if I was only practicing all along..I could use some background music anyways.| With that she plucked the strings with her magic and picked up a new book to start reading.

The little minty green unicorn sat reading and playing for two hours but she still couldn’t find much of anything. All the mythology books gave the same stories when it came to humans, almost always giving the mere mention of them with a negative connotation. Books on legends had much more info on them but still nowhere near enough to prove anything. |I have three left, ‘Historical Oddities’ ,‘Places of Intrigue’ and ‘History of Stars and Constellations’.| Before she looked at the book she looked around the corner, just to make sure she was alone.

Vega opened the ‘Historical Oddities’ book and only quickly scanned through the pages for something out of place. She skipped entire sections that were dedicated to theories and debates about certain pony inventions and she also skipped anything related to magic. Because if there is one thing she knew about humans after these books, it’s that they had absolutely no magic. She didn’t know for sure if their machines used magic though, because they certainly did magical things. After skipping a whole other section on supposed wrongly dated events, she got to the section she wanted. |Strange and unexplainable artifacts, just what I wanted!|

With her lyre playing almost unconsciously she read every page looking for something to stand out. Most of the entries in the book talked about tools and fossils being found in the wrong era. But she wasn’t concerned with that, she wanted downright weird stuff. |Nails in rock, plows stuck in prehistoric rock, no no No. I need something even more out of the ordinary.| As if her plea was heard she flipped the page to see the next sections title of ‘Unconfirmed Artifacts’ and the main picture for this section was a coin that was unlike any she had seen. The info for it said that it was found in the deserts to the south. She flipped the page and saw numerous low quality pictures, some drawn ones and even newspaper clippings.

“Rainbow silvered disks found in a cave near the Everfree, maps that contain fictional nations found in Canterlot archives, mysterious books containing alien letters discovered in the southern desert. Wow, this is amazing, but what happened to all this stuff.” She flipped past a few pages and found the end of the book. This amazing section was only 3 pages long. Vega looked at some of the fine print on the sections first page and saw something written that didn’t make any sense. ‘These artifacts are not up for peer review and reside solely in the Royal archives.’ “The Royal archives? That doesn’t make any sense, they could at least put it in a museum or something.” She closed the book and thought for a moment. The only sound in the room came from her lyre. |There has to be more to this. The myths don’t line up with the legends, stories about them are sparse and while individual stories contradict narratives of other ones. The whole world these humans lived in, fictional or not, is way too detailed and consistent. Even writers these days don’t contain so much detail and consistency.|

She looked to her bed at the last two books, one very large, the other quite small. She decided on the larger one, just in case her parents took a little longer to get home. ‘Places of Intrigue’ it was much much older than she thought it was. She thought such a title would mean something along the lines of vacation spots or tourist destinations, but these were areas deemed intriguing by a well known explorer. His name was Indigo Spark, one of the first to explore the badlands, dragon territory and the vast deserts to the south. She looked closely at the dates. “Wow, this must be an original copy, it says it’s from about 400 years ago. Oo oo, maybe nothing will be missing then!”

She looked at the archaic tome on her desk in a new light as she searched for something about humans. Most of what was written were tellings of faraway lands coupled with some theories about them. Vega continued flipping through page after page that still turned up nothing relating to humans. But to her surprise about a third of the way into the book she finally found something of interest, a direct reference to humans.
[#]

[I am inclined to believe that none of these structures could have been made by either ponies, gryphons, dragons or diamond dogs. The precision is inline with crafts made by either gryphons or ponies, but the height would suit neither, as would this arid dry environment these are found in. Dragons could survive here because of the abundance of quartzite but these buildings are far too shallow and fragile to hold any. And though the height would be a near perfect match for a diamond dog, they lack both the precision and resources to actually build anything out here. Based on the petroglyphs upon cliffs rocks and hereto it would seem that likely the only other creature able to make such structures are the mythological humans.]

She looked up from the book and had the biggest grin on her face when she squealed “I knew it, I knew there had to be something more!” She quickly got back to reading. She was beyond captivated now, never before had she thirsted for more information on something than now.
‘-there was all sorts and types of this peculiar metal around 100 miles directly to the south. I had never laid eyes on a metal so resistant to most anything. And it’s shine was unbounded, it neither rusted nor tarnished in my tests and Celestia only knows how long this metal has been here. ‘ She paused for a second or two to think of where she had heard that term before. |Miles, I know for sure i heard of that before.| but Vega also was getting quite literally thirsty from all this excitement and discovery so she slowly got out of her chair and went to the kitchen for some water.

After her thirst was quenched she returned to read just a little bit more. She looked out the window and saw the pitch blackness of the night sky. There was a new moon tonight so it was especially dark. But she still wanted to read some, all the while she was playing her lyre.

‘Of course the most amazing thing I had ever seen was just up ahead, inside a mountain resembling a crater, but this did not resemble the many others in the area. There was a large door made of the same everlasting metal that led to a tall and somewhat narrow corridor. The legendary stories of this place were coming true yet. For even as I walked through the passage small lights of cold fire lit up as if to welcome me. Indeed it was not so long before a voice called out to welcome me to this museum. I began to, in vain, to begin conversation with the voice but it would only answer the simplest of questions and had no replies for much else. As I walked to the end of the hallway I saw a very large chamber with a spiraling staircase carved perfectly in the stone.’

Vega’s heart was beating heavily as she read on. ‘As I walked up the stone staircase there were exhibits just like any normal museum only these spoke of something foreign to me. It was called electricity. This electricity seemed to work in very similar ways to magic but was itself not magical in nature. Also of note, the machines in this place were all said in the legends to be created by humans, I can only conclude that humans had a mastery of the force called electricity in ways we will never know. ‘ |Electricity, sounds like a type of magic to me, a name like that certainly sounds like it would be arcane.| The young unicorn raised a hoof to scratch her head as she was thinking.

|But humans were said to use it, non magical humans. If that is so, maybe this other worldly magic is unreachable by us magic users| She found her place and continued. ‘If I was shocked at these machines and voices from nowhere I truly was not ready for the final exhibit. As I went up one step at a time I could see something monstrously large in the top of the cavern. There were many many large wheels. All of them were bigger than me, it was only a matter of how big. Not only that, but every single one was interconnected via teeth. If one moved, its neighbor would also. When I got to the top the voice spoke once more and said that this massive contraption had been built by their ancestors and was easily more than 1000 years old when they first found it.’ Vega couldn’t believe what she was reading.

The passage she read detailed such wonders that weren’t possible even today. Magicless cold fire, electricity, massive machines using wheels bigger than houses, it looked like there was nothing humans could not do. |How then, could they all be gone? if a magic-less creature could make such things then surely they survived somewhere. It’s no wonder they seem too fantastical to be real.| Just then she heard a familiar noise from the front room. Her parents were home, just as planned, she kept playing her lyre as she frantically bookmarked her place and shoved all the books under her bed. She heard them approaching the door when something caught her eye. |Oh no! That star book!| She looked from side to side before quickly dumping some sheet music on it.

Her mother walked into her room. “Sorry we’re late dear we had to stop by the market to get some items for dinner. How was school?” Vega shifted around on her bed, carefully avoiding books while trying to look natural. “Oh nothing special, just had an arithmetic test and I’m pretty sure I passed.” She was still sweating from the adrenaline boost. “That’s good to hear, perhaps you can tell us more when dinner is ready?” Her mother looked at her like she knew something. “Yeah, sure.” Her mother momentarily fixed her two tone white and pink mane before heading for the kitchen. Vega looked through the door to make sure she wouldn’t be surprised. All she saw was her mother making dinner and her father disappearing in their room.

The minty filly quickly checked the marked spot in the book she was reading and returned it to the underside of her bed. She also fished the star book out from her sheet music. Vega looked at the pile of music. |That will take some rearranging -sigh-| She looked back through her door again at the ornate clock in their living room. |Is it so late already? It’s always difficult to tell when you can’t see the moon.| Thinking of how much was left in that giant book she was reading, she decided it would be best to finish off the smaller book about stars before sleeping tonight. |After all, I only read a few pages and there is like, a thousand pages in that thing. Oh I almost forgot,| She dug through some of the sheet music to find what she was seeking. |I got this music from the library to, just in case they wondered why I went there. Anyway, let’s have a quick look at this book before dinner.|
[#]

‘History of Stars and Constellations’, she flipped to the table of contents, mostly interested in the oldest history. ‘Chapter 1: Constellation names dating from antiquity’ but chapter 9 was about the stars. “Guess those are the only chapters I really need to read then,” She said aloud. ‘Although Celestia defined the shapes and stories ages ago there exists names and legends about the stars that predate Celestia’s redefinition. Some of these names even live on in modern times as names for various creatures.-’ Vega’s interest was piqued, she skiped some pages to find the names that were associated with the constellations and found several she recognized right off the bat.
[#]

|I’ve heard of URSA majors before, but were they named after the stars? Or did they name the stars after them? And Draco, it doesn’t seem to have changed at all aside from the name, it’s still a dragon constellation.| The next page held something quite perplexing to Vega, it was an image of the great sky plow, only it used to be called Lyra. She looked closer and saw her name! “I’m named after a star?! Woooah!” “What was that honey?” Her mother asked from the other room. “N-nothing, just uhhh, stepped on something sharp, but I’m ok!” That seemed to suffice because her mom only answered back with an “Ok, dinner is almost ready so why don’t you come on in?” Vega looked back at the image in the book, the brightest star in the Lyra constellation was Vega. The constellation itself was originally a lyre, not a plow.

Vega was taken aback from this revelation and flipped the page over to see what else would await her. The next two pages held two more constellations that also had the brightest star’s name. Aquila with Altair and Cygnus with Deneb. It took less than a split second for Vega to realise that her parents names also were here, Altair and Deneb. The small filly had wondered at times why her families’ names were out of the ordinary compared to most ponies. Never in her wildest dreams did she think their names were actually ancient names for the stars and constellations. |I have to know, how did we inherit these names? How could our family have known such information?|

Vega knew what she had to do, she was going to ask her parents about the family name. Feeling very tight chested and nervous she made her way into the living room where her father was reading the paper. She could hear her mother in the kitchen getting their dinner ready. “Soo dad, I was kind of wondering something,” He put the paper down enough to see Vega as she spoke. “Why are our names so different from other ponies?” The adult dark green pony was taken by surprise with the question. He put the paper down all the way and asked “What was that?” Vega inquired again, “Why do we have such different names compared to others?” Her father thought for a second on a way to approach answering this question and called for Vega’s mother. “Can it wait until after dinner honey?” Deneb looked to her daughter, who shook her head no and replied, “I’m afraid not Altair.”

“Well then I shall be there in a few minutes while I finish up.” Deneb sat on the couch with Vega and started “So, you wanted to know why our names are different right?” She nodded her head yes. “Well, it begins on your mother’s side of the family, she can better explain it to you than I can. If you recall, my family has always been skilled in the art of making magical works of fire. That’s how I got my name, Star Works, but being married to your mother I took on some of her family traditions. One of those was having a family name. Her parents, your grandparents, have an old book filled with family traditions and stories.” Just then, Altair Heartstrings made her way into the living room, she was holding a family photo album in her telekinetic grasp.

“Perfect timing Altair, I see you even got the old family album.” The pink unicorn made her way over to the couch whilest subconsciously glancing at the kitchen. “I heard the two of you talking about our family traditions and figured that getting out the album would be a good tool to show you.” As she sat down she motioned for Vega to look at the cover. “This is the cover from the original album, it was too small to hold all of our growing family,” The cover was quite a bit smaller than the actual book-of-an-album it was attached to. It was also quite old and looked to be covered in glass. Altair opened up to the first page. It showed the names of a first few of the family.
[#]

There Vega saw them, more names that were in that star book. She saw Argo, Electra and Indus to name a few. Vega also noted how the last name of the family never changed, even if the talents were nothing of music. “Mom, why does everypony have the same last name? ‘Heartstrings’ doesn’t relate with some of our relatives’ talents?” Altair seemed to have expected this as she was not surprised in the least. “I myself asked the same of my mother once, this has to do with tradition. You will find that many ponies across Equestria have family oriented traditions of some sort, it’s just something that reminds you of your lineage.” Vega knew what her mother was talking about, many a historical record told of ponies practicing traditions since before they could remember. But all Vega could do was look at her mother and blink, to think that they had such old traditions.

Altair continued, “You see Vega, there is a book that has been handed down in our family for some 20 generations.” She flipped a couple of pages until she came to a picture of a pegasus with a dark green coat and a blue-white mane, this pegasus was holding an old book. “This is what the book looks like, it is with my parents right now. And in this picture it is with an aunt in our family from the year 330, her name was Lyra.” Vega couldn't help but think of that name and remember the ancient origin of it. “Maybe next time we visit your grandparents we can see the family book.” Vega perked up “Oh yes, that would be great!”, “Well that will be a splendid vacation when school is out, but for now, it is time for dinner.” She and Deneb got up and started making their way over to the dining room. Vega to got up and began walking over but her mind was full of thoughts.

Dinner went by normally enough, the two older ponies not reading too much into Vega’s curiosity of family traditions. They instead talked of work and occasionally asked Vega about school, congratulating her on her grades and telling her how she was going to be a professional musician. Vega knew the drill with such matters, smile and nod. She really didn’t want to tell her parents that she wanted to be a historian, though she herself couldn’t deny that she was good with a lyre. |I gotta read some more of that book before bedtime though| “That was a great meal mom, especially the rosebud desert, I’m going to practice some more and then go to sleep.” Her mother simply nodded and continued talking with Deneb about current events and other stuff Vega didn’t really care about.

|Back to my book| She grinned as she picked up her lyre and began playing a soft tune while getting the star book out from under her sheet music. She quickly found her place, for at least half an hour more she flipped through all the pages just to look at what things used to be called. She wondered why they changed in the first place. There didn’t seem to be a need to do so. As the night became older she became more sleepy. She momentarily remembered the larger book she had hid to read for later, but she was so tired she decided to read it tomorrow.

With her lyre still in her magical grip, still playing she walked over to the star book so she could see that one constellation one more time. That one constellation with its main star bearing her name, Lyra. Her eyes scanned the illustration of the stars themselves. then she wondered if she couldn’t see the Lyre in the stars for herself.

Her eyes took a few minutes to adjust to the darkness of a new moon night. And there it was, the 5 constituent stars arranged in a parallelogram with the brightest star above one corner of it. The constellation of Lyra. All the while her lyre playing changed to reflect her mood. Vega looked close at the bright star that was her namesake. Also in her vision was a bright reddish star that did not twinkle but she paid it no mind. What she did pay attention to was a light slowly yet suddenly appearing in her peripheral vision, it built up and flashed a bright yellow and began dying down. Vega searched almost in vain to find the source until she was met with her hind legs. There were five points of light on her leg in the shape of Lyra. Her adrenaline was rising fast as the minty green filly looked at the real constellation one more time and then back to her leg. By now the light decayed away enough to reveal an image to her, a golden lyre with one end turned upright, just like the Lyre in the Stars.

Author's Note:

----[#] Signifies that I want a picture to go there eventually----

Comments

[dargondarkfire]

so.... is there actually humans in this? or is this one of those stories that's tagged humans but there are no humans, just legends/stories of them?

[Sb129]

4532798
Don't you worry about that, they play a major role later, same as Twilight and the princesses

[verypeeved]

actually, dead languages can sometimes be easier to learn, as one of the most annoying things about language is it's constantly evolving. a dead language, on the other hand, is static and unchanging, thus making it far easier to learn as long as you can translate it.