Divine Jealousy and The Voice of Reason

by Jordan179

Chapter 16: A Trip To The Library

Luna's Tale

I could tell thee the tale of that journey, dear Twilight, that journey we made through a lost world in its last years of life, though none who lived then knew it. We, whose fault it would be to doom that world, did not yet suspect the role we would play. We were young and innocent, we two Avatars of forces far older than this planet ... in my case, older than the very existence of planets. Yet we knew naught of our earlier lives, and to us all the Earth was new, and wondrous discoveries around every wend of our way.

But the tale would be long if told properly, and it should be told properly. And we have not the time today. So I shall skip over all but the roughest outline, and leave the true tale to another day, when we may meet in more happiness.

I had long noticed that I could blend into shadows, and Dissy could move between the spaces of reality when he so desired. So we cloaked ourselves, and avoided the main road, and were unseen, even though the trackers from Paradise Estate searched for us frantically. Once we hid, giggling to one another, as we saw Wind Whistler swoop overhead, and I risked all by giving her a raspberry, unheard in the great gulfs of sky. Her keen mind had divined our path, but she could not match our raw power, which was another portent, had I the wit to see it plain before me.

We were, of course, causing great pain to our mothers, but we recked not of this, for we were children out on a grand adventure.

And it was a grand adventure. We saw wonders and mysteries and Dissy saved me from getting killed by a Dragon, and then I saved him from getting killed by the very same Dragon, and we were laughing and whooping with excitement as we fled with the woods burning behind us. It was the first time that we'd fought for real, fought for our lives, in these Incarnations, and it was a special and magical moment.

There were a coven of evil warlocks who dogged our trail, hoping to enslave us or slay us for the power we held. We took them as so many jesters provided for our entertainment. Dissy humilated them spectacularly, and I bit a couple of them. They annoyed us all the way into the Crystal City. I almost felt sorry for them at times. I think that at some point they ran into Wind Whistler, for I never heard of any of them ever again. Some may have lived by fleeing very fast.

And the Crystal City! Oh, Twilight, thou shouldst have seen it in its days of glory, those last years of the Old Empire, when all its future seemed bright. It was only nine-hundred and six-and-seventy years since the foundation of the city, Anno urbis conditae as they said in the Old Amareican, and as they told their years. The Crystal Palace was new then, towering a quarter-mile into the sky, the latest and greatest product of their newest art, a combination of crystallomantic magic and a technology they had drawn from the tomes they had saved from the Cataclysm, the art of nanotechnology. The Crystal-Imperials could make microscopic machines and use them to grow immensely pure crystalline matrices, channeling the Earth current itself to power them..

The art was made secret in the Age of Discord, and its principles forgotten. Rock farming is but its most rote and trivial application. It awaits rediscovery, among many mysteries hidden somewhere under the Imperial Library, in their Secret Vaults. Hidden by ... well, you met Him. Not even Lady Agatha knows where, and He never told Tourmaline. No, if I knew exactly where He hid them, I would have brought them to light by now. He probably warped them slightly out of our spacetime as he did with much else, and I have been too busy to investigate. Perhaps we shall try these vaults together, someday? It would be a grand adventure.

The Empire was then under the rule of Golden Mark, the greatest of its Imperators, who governed justly and wisely with the aid of his Great Council. He and the Good Imperators who had preceded him had brought law and science and a better way of life to every corner of their realm; and were in the process of restoring the rule of the Council which had preceded them and been shattered in the stress of the Coming of the Ice and the Wanderings of the Tribes, three and a half centuries ago. The people were prosperous and happy, and Harmony reigned -- even two children like us could see it as we walked the streets of the Crystal City, marveling at the multitudes.

We walked it in disguise. For me that was easy; I simply wore a short cloak and kept my wings folded, and everypony assumed that I was but an exceptionally-attractive little Unicorn. Dissy was more difficult, but a big shapeless cloak and some boots turned him into my slightly-deformed family servant, sent to escort me on a trip to family in the city. My accent was obviously foreign -- indeed impossible to identify, as it was a mixture of Old Ponylandish and an even older and purer Amareican than was spoken today in the Empire -- but there were many strange peoples who immigrated to or traded with the Empire, and we went unchallenged.

The streets swarmed with so many beings. There were Ponies from all over North Amareica, come to this then-center of the world to meet and trade and converse and simply marvel at the wonder that was The City.

There were the Crystal Ponies themselves, sparkling in the sunlight, the magics of their Kind rendering them almost translucent. Most were Earth Ponies, descended from members of the faculty of the University of the Western Beautiful Lake who fled into the wilderness with books, supplies and weapons when The Cataclysm ended the Age of Wonders. The elite were Unicorns, the result of a tribe who had allied with the scholars because they cherished both their knowledge and their skill at arms. After many wanderings they had founded Laketown, the settlement which became called the Crystal City and its realm the Crystal Empire for the reasons you well know.

The Crystal Ponies were then peaceful, prosperous and secure. Strong and well-disciplined legions defended their borders, principally their northern ones, from the barbarians who menaced their civilization. The great markets of the City served as a point of exchange for the wealth of North Amareica, and from this their merchants waxed rich, and the Imperial coffers swelled with silver and gold. It had been centuries since any enemy had penetrated to The City itself; and the Empire had long since adapted to the Coming of the Ice.

Warmed by their arts despite their northerly latitude, the Crystal City was balmy and comfortable, and the inhabitants went about clad in filmy silk garments, more for display than protection against inclement weather. They lived in luxury and grace, and if they were perhaps a little bit decadent, they were beautifully-so, and they had fought very hard for centuries to win the space of civilization in which they might choose to be. To my childish eyes, they were plainly and simply lovely.

There were many Crystal Ponies from elsewhere in the Empire, visiting their capital. The tough-as-nails Bay-Ponies of the far north, shaggy and silent. They were the ones who had stayed and survived the Coming of the Ice, they had heard the Windigoes howl and seen the great shapes of the Frost Giants moving on their northern horizons. On another journey I would see Iceguard, their great city-fort. They seemed out of place in the gay beauty of the Crystal City, and moved warily, as if they feared the Ice-Orcs or Snow-Griffons would attack at any moment. They bore ice-axes and picks strapped to their backs, and though peace-bonded looked as if they expected to have to use them.

There were Ponies from the Morgan Coast, led by leathery-skinned captains who had traveled up the Laurentian River. These were bold Ponies who dwelt on the Stormy Sea, and diced with their lives against those storms to bring forth fish from the seas. Their inland cousins felled the trees of the great pine forests, risking their own bodies in the dangerous occupation of lumberjacking. So many of them -- almost all stallions -- died young that the mares sometimes wed two to a stallion, and thus this was called a Morgan-Marriage, and still is today. Things have not changed that much in those trades in Morgan, though now it is Equestrian instead of Imperial, and more and more of the Ponies who live there work in safer occupations, thanks to the coming of this Age of Industry.

One day the fisherfolk shall have motorboats, equipped with radar and navigated by satellite reference; and the lumberjacks will use great machines to fell and tow the trees, and an age will have passed, not to return save as the curse of another Cataclysm. I shall not much regret the passage of that age, though I have seen the Morgan-lands as they were before the time of powered machinery, for I have also heard the new-made widows wail when a storm sank the fishing fleet of a coastal town.

Independent of the Empire then was the Island of Manehattan, and its hinterland of the Yoke, so named because those lands were well-plowed at a time when much was wilderness. This was then the Republic of Manehattan, home of the Sea-Pegasi, who were not some hybrid Kind but instead Pegasi who had turned their weather control talents to sailing across the Stormy Seas, and occasionally beyond, for they were an adventurous and brave people. At this time the Titan Towers of the Age of Wonders were almost fifteen centuries fallen -- Moondreamer knew those towers in her life, when they were seen as ordinary if beautiful buildings rather than objects of a time of myth, and so did you, dear friend, we shopped together more than once in Ancient Manehattan -- and the skyscrapers of today were almost two and a half millennia in the future. Manehattan then was mostly rural, its coasts beaded with harbor towns and its inland and surrounding islands devoted to farms.

The Manehattanites even then were jaunty and self-confident, wearing colorful and well-made clothes with a slightly alien cast, since they traded with the Dragons and Griffons and Onagers and Zebras. Yes, this was before there were general pacts with the first two of those races not to prey on Ponies. As I said, the Sea-Pegasi were bold captains, and their ocean-traders sailed with large crews and many weapons on board, ready to trade or to fight as events compelled. I call them Sea-Pegasi, but of course there were also Earth Ponies and Unicorns among their number. What they had in common was that their speech was rushed and strangely accented, and they looked at the inhabitants of the Crystal City with a sort of amused contempt, as if they were already the most important city on the continent, though at this time this was far from the truth. They were like this back in the Age of Wonders, too, even though all were slain or forced to flee that island by the Cataclysm, and hence were not their lineal ancestors. I think 'tis simply something about the island that encourages the attitude.

Pegasi strutted through the crowds. These all looked like warriors, even though many were not, and not one of them failed to wear a war-harness from which weapons depended. We could see the wires of the peace-bonds that secured the weapons to those harnesses, rendering them harmless. It was obvious that their owners were far from harmless; they moved with a beautiful deadly grace that reminded me of Wind Whistler at her exercises -- though, of course, she was far more beautiful, graceful -- and deadly -- than any of them.

They came from the cloud-castles and sky-fortresses, of which there were at that time many. The coming Age was to change that. Derecho would be fortunate in her possession of the Laputa-Stone, which would keep off the principal danger of that coming Age, and strong walls and valiant soldiers who would repel all the lesser threats, and so Derecho still drifts across the Northlands today -- though of course long since deserted. The lesser castles would all one by one fall, and their proud banners descend into darkness.

Clad in fur cloaks and hats were the Ponies of the far-western towns of the New-Speakers, who had emigrated around the Cruel Sea across the land-bridge that the seas had drained from four centuries ago, when the glaciers had grown in the North. They had brought with them little of the high culture of the Old Worlds, but they were a hearty and jolly folk, inured to great effort and suffering, yet retaining their good cheer, and they laughed and sang songs of joy. These were caravan-traders, glad to have reached The City at least and sell their cargoes of woods and furs from their homelands, and silks and spices from over the seas, from their ports where the Chi-Neighse traders came to call.

Those ports are all drowned now, and that people reduced to the one great city of Stalliongrad and its surrounding towns; such were the ravages of the Age to come. Yet their culture still lives, and indeed two mares from that city run a beauty spa in this very town in which we sit Enduring and tough are the Speaker-Ponies, and more than once their struggles have driven History. May they and their race long survive!

There were Earth Ponies, always encountered in organized groups, clad in cool cottons decorated in strictly geometrical symbols. They moved with a certain almost stiff reserve, as if their motions were controlled by patterns which must be followed to the letter, even in little matters such as how to place their hooves when they walked, or the manner in which they turned their heads, the angles of the jaws to their necks. The leader of each group wore an elaborate head-dress.

Far to the south, far to the south even of Dream Valley was their city. Past the Badlands, in what is now the Gulf Swamps, lay Lith, the teeming City of Stone, where Ponies lived lives of extreme order in a complex hierarchy under the direction of their Priestess-Queens. They had the Lawstone, a great sphere upon which were microscopically engraved patterns which their priests said held the answers to all the questions in the Universe. They were right, though not in the manner they imagined.

My Sister and I were to spend much time living among them in times to come. It was a safe haven during the coming millennium of darkness, and they treated us with great respect, though I found them dull and overly-rigid. Ah, my dearest friend, thou wouldst have found them dull and rigid too. Thou art indeed lawful by the standards of the society my Sister has shaped, but thou wouldst swiftly have become bored by the Ponies of Lith. I think Pinkie Pie might have driven them mad!

Though their Library might have proved a delight to thy well-ordered mind, even given that most of it is generations of tax records and maintenance reports. Some might even survive -- much of it was literally set in stone, even before ... but that is another story, and a sad one, for stodgy as they were, they were still good Ponies.

There were Ponies from other places. Ponies clad in colorful and elaborately decorated silks from far-off Chi-Neigh or Neigh-Pon, lands across the great Cruel Ocean far to the west. Two of the Neigh-Ponners, attended closely by grim-faced samurai, had scaly faces and leathery wings: ki-rin of their daimyo class. There was a small party of unicorns, hooded and robed in cottons and silks inscribed in strange sigils, and attended by less-elaborately clad Earth Ponies, who must have come from the fabled Heartspire, far to the southwest on our own continent.

And there were more than Ponies present. At one point we saw a a medium-sized Dragon (a large one would have had problems fitting into even that main street) attended by Ponies and Griffons who may have been his companions or servants, running errands for him. There were Ice Orcs who must have been from one of the more civilized tribes in the Crystal Mountains, come to the city bearing coffers of the flawless gems which grow on those heights. There was a small party of Zebras from the southlands of the Old Worlds.

And many more, more than I can describe in the time we have. The Crystal City was in its day of glory like Canterlot or Manehattan, a great metropolis on whose streets might be found any of the sapients of the whole world. A city that was already the center of our continent, which might have under the wise leadership of Imperators like Golden Mark become in time the center of a global dominion. Their technology was alien to that of the Age of Wonders, they had taken the first steps toward nanotechnological engineering and paradimensional energetics, but still had not regained the use of steam engines -- but they had never forgotten the dream, they had set their hooves back on the road to the stars.

Had the world of my childhood not ended, and ended so disastrously ... but regret is useless. We can only learn ... thou must learn ...

So disguise turned out to be the least of our problems. In that international and polyglot multitude, nopony paid any attention to two more strangers, to one bad little filly and her presumed servitor. I think if Dissy had gone naked, none would have realized what he really was. How could they? Even he did not yet know what he was, in truth.

Dissy had another problem, though. He'd been feeling increasingly ill as we approached the borders of the City, and his powers weakened as we crossed them. He said that it reminded him of the Rainbow, much weaker but widespread. It came from the heart of the City, from the Crystal Palace itself.

Thou hast, I am sure, guessed what beset my friend. For you know what sits between the great feet of the Crystal Palace, at the center of the plaza formed of their capacious arch, levitated by the interaction of its own paramagnetic field with that of the vast antenna that is the Crystal Palace.

The Crystal Heart.

Its own radiance is akin to that of the Rainbow of Harmony, whose direct presence Dissy could not bear. He was growing inside the Veil around Paradise Estate -- which was, of course, building up his resistance to the Rainbow's power -- but the Crystal Palace was built to broadcast the power of the Crystal Heart throughout the City, and -- more weakly -- the whole continent. The field could not petrify him, but its Law weakened the Chaos that was the source of his magic.

Dissy must have been very uncomfortable, perhaps in actual pain, as we walked the streets of that shining city. He complained of this once or twice, but I -- wrapped up in my own little-filly ego and purpose -- only asked him if he could continue, and when he said "Yes," paid it no further mind. He put up with the discomfort, of course, because he loved, and wished to protect me. I was, after all, his little sister.

It has occurred to me in after ages that Dissy was very vulnerable then. He was but a young colt, and though he was already the size of a stallion, and had teeth and claws, his magic was gone. He would have been defenseless against a mage, or a squadron of Imperial soldiers. Had the Imperator known what damage the adult Discord would do to the Empire -- to the whole world -- even an ethical Pony such as Golden Mark would have not hesitated to strike him down. Or at least hold him a helpless captive, his own power neutralized by the radiations of the Crystal Heart.

And, had the Imperials somehow acquired this knowledge, and acted upon it, I would have fought like a demon out of Tartarus to protect my Big Brother. Yes, Twilight, I think that even had I known What truly lurked behind Dissy, I would have fought for him.

I could do no less for one whom I loved. I do not know if I would choose any other course today. I am a simple Concept, and I do not let go of my friends.

I am overdramatic. The Imperator never knew that I had brought the doom of his nation to the heart of his power. Nor did Dissy yet know his own nature. We walked peacefully through the city's streets, felt its richly varied life hum around us, looked awestruck at the complex culture of that most beautiful metropolis in its last remaining scatters of years, before we were to wreak irreperable harm upon its friendly empire.

We did not know. I must remind myself of this to think of those years without too much pain. I did not intend their destruction. Still less did Dissy, who was only here to protect his beloved little sister from her own folly.

There was no confrontation, no violence, no disaster on this visit. I knew that if any Ponies had ever known the secret of my nature -- if there had ever in truth been real Alicorns, then that knowledge would be most likely to exist in one place on the whole continent of North Amareica.

The Great Library of the Crystal Empire.

It looked then much as thou hast seen it, at least externally. Like the Crystal Palace, the Great Library was one of the special macro-crystals grown by the Empire with their lost nano-technological arts, and it contains within each tiny lithic cell of its structure the blueprint for its form entire. Given energy -- the energy which radiates from the Crystal Heart -- and a small feedstock of silicon, carbon, oxygen and some trace elements, it will in time heal any hurt done to it short of being totally shattered. That is why the Library, and a few other buildings grown the same way, have endured over a millennium and a half of existence in their own timeline unworn -- they do not wear save by slow cancerous processes, and their pseudo-genetic matrix contains significant error-checking machinery, far more certain than those possessed by Ponies. They are marvels of science and sorcery, a fulfillment of one of the dreams of the Age of Wonders, whose secrets all Ponykind must one day learn, so that their sibling structures may grow in all our cities.

Within ... well, this was still the Early Empire. There were many books penned during the Middle and Late Empire which of course were not on its shelves. But there were many other books, including some inscribed on the imperishable titanium steel sheets that the University scholars had fabricated from 3D print-forges, which have since been lost. There were whole sections that my poor dear friend Crimson hid for all time, when he descended into his final madness. And many less special books which succumbed to the ravages of time.

We did not have copies of all these books at Paradise Estate. Wind Whistler was a bibliomaniac to rival even thyself, my dear one, but not even she could collect, store and maintain a library as vast as that of the Crystal Empire at the height of its glory. Here would be secrets held no where else in the world, including perhaps the secret of my true nature, and possibly even of Dissy's.

So it was with high hopes that Dissy and I mounted the great front steps of the Library. I wished I might doff my hooded cape and flutter in on my little wings; Dissy doubtless winced with each step, washed as he was in the hostile radiation of the Crystal Heart. But he followed me, moved by a pure love that a selfish young filly took as but her right and due.

As we stepped inside, we stood awestruck at the great expanse of shelves, the sheer numbers of tomes revealed within. Thou wert awed by it thyself when thous first spied it, and thou art the daughter of printers in a country that has had cheap printing for centuries. We did come from a world where only the most advanced societies had printing presses, and these slow and clumsy things compared to the steam presses of modern Equestria.

Three levels, each of them twice the height of a rearing Pony, and each of them with shelves stretching far into the wings, stuffed with books and codexes, pamphlets and scrolls, sheets and tablets, every sort of text imaginable to the Pony mind. And that was what was visible from the entry chamber. We knew that there were locked collections in side rooms, and store-rooms and vaults in basements and sub-basements below the main structure, spaces hewed into the living rock upon which the Library had been founded.

Wind Whistler had been here many a time, and she had told us tales of this place, tales we had but half-believed, for surely no archive so wondrous could exist in waking reality? But now we were here, and it was spread out before us, a feast of the mind beyond our wildest imagination! Even Dissy forgot his discomfort, or perhaps in viewing this treasure of the intellect he briefly harmonized more with the Heart, and hence took less harm from it.

What you saw still there was but a remnant: Crimson and Tourmaline were librarians, remember, and they hid the really good books from the feared Equestrian sack. They await our discovery, at some future date.

Thou droolest, dear friend. Feel no shame for this! I shared thine sentiments.

As we stood there uncertainly, a young librarian stepped up to us.

He was a tall, slim Crystal Unicorn colt, clad in a fine bluish-white silk tunic that went well with his whitish-blue coat and long flowing aquamarine mane, with a brooch that bore the mark of the Library. He was several years our senior, we guessed then, perhaps a dozen or so years of age -- I would have judged him older was not his flank still bare of Mark. He was lightly-built, but with an athletic musculature that was common to most of the Crystal Ponies: for they loved sports, and all social classes liked to compete in diverse games. Intelligent, deep blue eyes looked into my own, and I discerned a powerful mind behind his handsome face.

"Greetings, guests" he said in a formal but friendly tone. "Welcome to the Great Imperial Library of the Crystal City. How may I help you?"

I felt suddenly shy ... Twilight, thou dost regard me most strangely! I had very little experience of outsiders then, and he was beautiful and intelligent and older than me, yet still a child like myself at the time. Yes, of course I remember him well, how could I not? He was to be -- but that is another tale, and we have not the time for such digression.

In any event, I blushed a bit, and Dissy answered for me.

"This is the Lady Luna Selena Nyx, of a very high and noble race. I'm her servant, Dissy Oddparts," he said quite reasonably. "And who are you?" He managed to sound a little bit snobbish on that last part, as if he were a servant made proud by the importance of his mistress -- a nice touch.

The young librarian blinked in surprise as he regarded Dissy and realized, even through his concealing cloak, just how very strange appeared to be his anatomy. But he maintained his composure.

"I am Lore Diver, Junior Assistant Librarian of the Great Imperial Library, and born of Benzene Gens. Esteemed Lady Luna Selena Nyx," he continued, bowing to me. "I would be happy to help you find whaterver knowledge or diversion you seek herein."

I could not fault his manners! I instinctively returned his bow -- I was not dressed for a formal curtsey -- and regained my own dignity, such as it was at five years old. Being very much smarter than most Ponies helps somewhat, as I am sure thou hast noticed in thy own case -- but is no full substitute for experience and wisdom.

"I seek knowledge about Alicorns," I announced in my high childish treble. I had rehearsed this speech in my mind, and delivered it about as flawlessly as might be expected. "Winged unicorns."

He arched an eyebrow at me, then stroked his chin with one hoof as he stood in thought.

"I think we have some stories about that," he said at last. "Please do me the honor of following me, young Lady."

We stepped inside onto the main level, where stood the front desk and many passages between the shelves led off to the sides. As we did so I noticed that there was a middle-aged stallion behind that front desk. His coat was aquamarine, his mane dark green, and he had something about his features that reminded me of Lore Diver.

Lore Diver looked at the stallion, who smiled and nodded at the young librarian.

"These are the Esteemed Lady Luna Selena Nyx and her servant Dissy Oddparts, Esteemed Father," he said to the stallion. "They come from across the mountains to the south, looking for knowledge of Alicorns."

"Greetings, guests," said the stallion. "I am Lore Lover, the Head Librarian, and I am honored to meet you, Lady Luna." He bowed, and I once again returned the courtesy. "Shall I assume that you search for books appropriate to your age?"

I had never actually been in a formally-organized library before -- Wind Whistler's was more of a eccentrically-organized collection, with its owner serving as guardian and guide, who personally knew every resident of Paradise Estate save for us Sisters and Dissy with multi-millennial familiarity. I did not even realize how wonderful and special a thing it was that the Crystal Empire had such libraries, at least one in each of their towns of any size, though of course the satellite branches were tiny compared to this greatest one.

Remember, this was a world of barbarian tribes and wandering monsters, one in which beyond the borders of the Empire civilization only existed in scattered enclaves and principalities. And few of the enclaves and principalities and tribes had much time or effort available to devote to an organized system of learning, or maintain public libraries of any sort.

The Crystal Empire, however, had been founded by scholars -- by mares and stallions who knew the value of the written word, and its importance to future generations. They had always made it a priority, almost a sacred precept of their civilization, to preserve and disseminate knowledge. It had served them well over the centuries -- they had always had superior technology and organization to their foes. What was about to happen to them, to strip them of their provinces and reduce their once-proud empire to a ragged remnant of its former greatness, would not be their own fault.

And in Paradise Estate, there was little segregation of the ages where written knowledge was concerned. We three had not, of course, been the first ever foaled or raised on the Estate. There was a nursery and an attached schoolroom, with such books as children might appreciate on their shelves so that young ones might quench the thirsts of their minds. But when we wanted to know something that was not in those books, we went to one of the smarter adults -- Wind Whistler was our most frequent but far from our only teacher -- and asked them, And they would tell us, or give us a book on the topic.

So when I heard Lore Lover's question, I nodded -- obviously I wanted books "appropritate to my age," as indeed I wanted books appropriate to everything else about me. I did not even think twice about this.

It did not occur to me, fresh from a dramatic separation from my family and an epic journey across bandit- and monster-haunted wilderness, coming into a city more awesome than I could ever have imagined, into a library whose collection was over a thousand years old, that they would see me simply as an aristocratic little filly being escorted by her deformed servant. This did not occur to me, despite the fact that it was exactly of what my disguise had been intended to convince everypony.

In my defense, this was the first time I had attempted an infiltration. But the reality remained.

We were being sent to the Children's Section.

Author's Note:

The fabled ancient cities of Derecho, Lith and the Heartspire are the creations of Cold In Gardez, and may be found in Lost Cities. This interpretation of the appearance and manners of their inhabitants is my own.

Comments

[Unbridled Dolly]

Wasn't this a part of last chapter?

[Alex Warlorn]

Why did you replace it?

[devas]

Butts

[The Literary Lord]

Hey, why'd you replace this?

[Captain Wuzz]

Thou droolest, dear friend. Feel no shame for this! I shared your sentiments.

:D

AW YESSS Book nerds!

[Loeden]

Ee! Laputa reference! Ehehe. I don't know why I never delved into this particular story of yours before, all the delicious references to Cold's stuff and the phenomenal worldbuilding (or in some cases, blending different headcannons perfectly) thrills the hell out of me. Dis gud. Me like.

[Arkonfleight]

>We're on a time limit, I can't and won't tell the whole tale now
>Immediately spends half the chapter waxing purple about how big and shiny the city is
I mean, it works and I'm enjoying myself, but really, Luna?