The Long Twilight

by ultiville

Cutie Mark Chroniclers

"...an' so we're having reunion early," Applebloom finished, "an' my sis is asking everypony to bring all their old family stuff, like letters and diaries and pictures an' all that."

"Writing a book's okay I guess," Scootaloo said, "and getting a royal grant is totally cool, but listening to old ponies talk about their lives for days sounds really boring."

"Yeah," Sweetie Belle said, "we need to get our cutie marks writing a book about something interesting. I never could keep all the dates straight in history anyway."

Applebloom sighed and looked at the clubhouse floorboards. "Sweetie," she said, "I don't think Princess Twilight's gonna give us a royal grant to write a romance novel."

Sweetie blushed and glared at her. "I know that! But can't we do something else?"

"Yeah," Scootaloo said, "something cooler. Ooh, what about a biography? We could write about Rainbow Dash! We could just ask her to tell us her life story, then write it down."

"Yeah," Sweetie said, "then you could ask her out on a date while you're at it."

"H-hey now, she's like my big sister," Scootaloo said, finding it her turn to blush. "Besides, I thought you wanted to write about something interesting? What's more interesting than the first pony to do a Sonic Rainboom on command, Element of Loyalty, hero of Equestria--"

"Dreamy dream mare," Sweetie cut her off, making a kissy face and descending into fake-smooching noises.

"How 'bout a new Princess?" Applebloom asked, causing Sweetie and Scootaloo to stop advancing menacingly on each other and turn to face her instead.

"Huh? You mean Twilight?" Sweetie asked.

"Course I do! It's harder to get her not to talk your ear off than to get her to tell you stuff, and nopony's done that kind of book yet. We could even talk to our sisters about it, Scoots, since it's their story too."

Sweetie and Scootaloo blinked at her for a moment, then broke out in cheers.

"Hey, yeah AB, that's an awesome idea!" Scootaloo said.

"Yeah," Sweetie agreed, "royalty's a classic book subject, everypony knows that."

Applebloom looked sidelong at her. "Have you ever read a book about royalty in your life?"

"Oh yeah," Scootaloo said confidently, "I've seen plenty on her shelves: Princess of Passion, The Courtship of Platinum, Long Nights in Luna's Court--" Sweetie headbutted her, cutting her off. "What? It's true. Besides, I was paying you back for the kissy face."

Both looked at Applebloom, who nodded. "Sustained. But come on girls, let's go talk to Twilight!"

"Oh, right," Sweetie nearly bounced like Pinkie with renewed enthusiasm.

"Cutie Mark Crusader Biographers, yay," all three shouted in unison, then dashed off towards town, and the Castle of Friendship.

---

"Twilight? PRINCESS TWILIGHT," Scootaloo's shout echoed through the cavernous entryway of the castle, which seemed to be devoid of all life.

"I thought she was supposed to have guards," Applebloom said, "where is everypony?"

"Maybe they're doing a training exercise or something," Sweetie said, "or escorting her somewhere."

"Horseapples," Scootaloo said, "what should we do? We need to get her story or we can't start writing and earn our cutie marks!"

"That isn't a ladylike word, Scootaloo," Sweetie sounded, momentarily, very much like Rarity.

"I'm not a ladylike pony."

"Tell me about it."

"We'll need some, what does Miss Cherilee call it, context," Applebloom displayed her practiced ability to ignore her friends' squabbles, "and this castle's going to be in the book anyway. Let's check it out while we wait for her. I've never seen the inside."

"Oh, good idea, I bet it's really pretty upstairs where the light comes in through the crystal," Sweetie said.

Starting at the top, the trio spent quite some time exploring the castle. It wasn't so much that it was bigger than it looked on the outside, as that its massive size compared to Ponyville's other buildings made it nearly impossible to get any sense of scale at all. Most of the upper rooms were completely unfurnished and empty, and they weren't sure anypony, Twilight included, had actually set hoof in them. Sweetie was right, though: the crystalline architecture did sparkle dazzlingly in the midday sunlight.

"Wow," Scootaloo said, "I bet everypony in town could fit in here if they needed to."

"I guess it is a castle," Applebloom said, "didn't Miss Cherilee say they were made so people could hide in them in sieges, back when we did Mareval history?"

"I dunno," Sweetie said, "I was too busy doodling. That'd be spooky though. It looks pretty now, but imagine all those ponies hiding in here, surrounded by changelings or something, out in the dark..." she shivered.

"That'll never happen," Scootaloo leaned against her, "we've got the six awesomest mares in all of Equestria here. Nothing's going to lay siege while they're around."

"Or while we are," Applebloom stomped her hooves. The other two looked a her dubiously, but she pretended not to notice.

"These rooms are boring anyway," Scootaloo said, pressing a little closer to Sweetie, who was still shivering a little. "Let's see what's downstairs, in the part she actually uses."

The next few floors down were more inhabited, but no more exciting. Like Twilight's previous home, they seemed to consist primarily of paper and parchment: not only did they house all the books she'd rescued from the library's untimely destruction, but far more on top of that, gifts from the other Princesses and other well-wishers hoping to help make up for her loss. Applebloom was pretty sure a lot of them were rare or otherwise interesting, but equally sure Scootaloo wouldn't tolerate any investigation, and she wanted to check the rest of the place out in any case.

Next, they came upon the council room. This, at least, they found suitably impressive. While it lay in at the top section of the "trunk" of the treelike castle, and so featured outer walls too thick to let in much light, the center of the table lay under a shaft that appeared to extend all the way to the top, for a single beautifully purple-tinted beam of sunlight illuminated it. The table itself was a great round crystal affair that looked to have grown from the floor, and was surrounded by twelve grand chairs.

"Oh wow," Sweetie said, "this is just perfect."

"I wonder why there are so many chairs," Applebloom said, approaching the table. Eight of the thrones bore symbols at the top: six the familiar cutie marks of Twilight and her companions, plus one bearing a six-sided die and one a reptilian claw. Somepony - almost certainly a pedantic purple princess - had helpfully placed fancy engraved nameplates in front of all the chairs, indicating that the two unknown symbols stood for Discord and Spike. The four blank thrones were equally unlabeled.

"Huh, I wonder who these are for," Scootaloo said.

"Maybe even magic castles play it safe, and they're in case she makes new friends," Sweetie said.

"I bet three of 'em are for us," Scootaloo grinned, "and they're blank since we don't have our cutie marks yet. When we get them they'll show up here and we'll get to go on awesome friendship adventures too."

Applebloom laughed. "Let's get our marks first, huh?"

The trio moved on, glancing into the kitchens and functional rooms that filled the top of the trunk, and then the guard quarters and lookout perches that filled the lower trunk. They couldn't tell the purpose of a few of the mid-level rooms until Scootaloo dredged up the one part of history she actually paid attention to: warfare.

"Oh yeah, I remember this," she said, moving to a strange narrow opening in the wall, "these are spell slits, they're made so a unicorn can see and aim her horn out here, and shoot at attackers. They're angled so you can see a lot out of them, but it's really hard for anypony outside to see in, come look."

The others looked out, surprised at the range of vision they could get from the cleverly designed opening.

Finally, they found themselves back at the entryway. Still there was no sign of Twilight or her guards.

"Well girls, looks like this one's a bust," Sweetie said, "maybe we should talk to our sisters first."

"Hold on," Scootaloo said, "we haven't seen the dungeon yet. Castles always have super cool dungeons, it's like, a rule. I bet there are some stairs down somewhere."

"I dunno," Sweetie said, "I don't think Twilight's the kind of pony to have a creepy dungeon."

"Come on," Scootaloo said, trotting around the perimeter of the entryway, "at least help me look!"

"Uh, Scoots, there's a door right on the other side of this staircase," Applebloom said, tossing her head in that direction. It looked exactly like all the other doors in the castle; there was nothing especially ominous or dungeon-like about it.

"Oh."

Applebloom opened the door and the three fillies trooped down the stairs, Sweetie hanging nervously behind. What they found was more a basement than a dungeon, completely devoid of instruments of torture or imprisonment of all kinds, though it did contain a fair number of arcane devices of unclear purpose.

"Oooh," Sweetie said, "I remember some of this stuff from my magic lessons back in the library."

"What in Equestria is this?" Scootaloo trotted over to a giant machine, covered with wires. Something was attached to it that looked like a hat and, of course, there was a large ream of paper involved as well.

"I've got no idea," Applebloom said absently, eyes running over a treasure trove of potion-making beakers and ingredients.

"Wow, this is pretty. What's Twilight doing with a necklace?" Applebloom looked over to see Sweetie Belle standing in font of a red, black, and silver pendant on a similarly colored torc. The pendant itself bore a unicorn head and pegasus wings surrounding a blood-red gem.

"Sweetie, get away from that," Applebloom yelled as she saw Swetie take it up in her magic, "don't you remember? That's that creepy amulet Trixie was wearing when she took over town!"

Sweetie let the field drop, and the necklace fell back to its display. "Oh yeah, that's right. I forgot, somehow, when I saw it. I just thought it looked pretty." She considered the amulet again. "I guess it must have been a trick of the light or something, it's pretty ugly now that I look at it."

"Why doe she even have that thing?" Scootaloo's voice sounded as confident as usual, but Applebloom saw her glance nervously around the basement. She admitted to herself that the place had suddenly started to creep her out, as well. Did it always have so many dark corners?

"I dunno," she said, "but I think we've checked this place out pretty well, right girls?"

"Yeah," Sweetie said. All three began trotting towards the stairs, faster than perhaps was necessary. Applebloom saw Sweetie glance over her shoulder, a slight frown on her face, but none of the fillies said anything until they were safely out again in the midday sun.

"So I guess we'll start with our sisters, then?" Sweetie opened. "We already know how they all met, but I'm sure there are all sorts of interesting things they never told us."

"Sure," Applebloom said, "I'm sure Applejack has some pre-reunion chores she'll want my help with. It'll put her in a good mood to talk."

"Yeah, and I can go ask Rainbow Dash," Scootaloo said, "she should be finishing up with practice."

Sweetie puckered her lips a little at this, but everypony could tell her heart wasn't quite in it, and three slightly subdued fillies trotted off home, away from the empty castle.

Comments

[ultiville]

Adding things to groups is always so fraught. Obviously with the Romance tag on here there's going to be some romance involved, but it's a ways off, and I'm not sure I'd be doing anyone a service by spoiling pairings.

On the other hand, I suppose people might rather know now if there's some shipping in the future they can't stand. Anyone have strong thoughts one way or another?

[Theta KnightMare]

Sweetie Bell, you better not take that amulet!

Looking forward to more!

[ultiville]

Got most of a chapter written but it's not done yet and I really have to go to bed. Expect it within 24 hours or so. Thanks for reading.