"I don't know what to say Twilight," Princess Celestia said as she looked around the room in disbelief. "How did you even do this?"
Twilight grinned and rubbed her forehooves together eagerly, mentally translating her teacher's words as, "Please give me an extended lecture explaining every step in the process leading to this outcome in painful and excruciating detail."
"Well," she began. "As you know, seven hundred and forty-two years ago during the third uprising of Princess Luna's thestral loyalists (not counting Count Morning Star's attempted coup and subsequent alliance with the Diamond Dog Unterreich as the current scholarly consensus is that he was a secular opportunist) the Canterlot Library's gallery wing suffered a fire while you were conjuring solar flares to melt the now missing portion of the mountainside to flood the area occupied by their army of necromantically animated corpse constructs with lava to check their advance."
"Ah yes," Princess Celestia said absently. "The zomponies."
Twilight nodded. "Yes exactly, the..." Twilight's voice trailed off. "Wait, that's actually the correct term?"
"In the modern vernacular, as Luna would put it," Princess Celestia confirmed. "It is a linguistically correct translation of the word we used at the time."
One of Twilight's eyelids twitched. "But, I told Spike that was just, HOW DOES A BUCKING COMIC BOOK TRUMP AN ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ARCANE TERMINOLOGY FROM—"
"Twilight Sparkle!" Princess Celestia said with exactly the right crack of authority as Twilight began to hyperventilate. Twilight stopped talking and looked up at her.
"It's not important," Princess Celestia assured her in a tone of gentle reassurance. "Now, you were saying?"
Twilight took a slow, deep breath and nodded.
"Anyway, in the aftermath of the destruction of the," the twitch came back for a moment but Twilight forced herself to remain calm with an obvious effort, "the militarized necromantic constructs, it was presumed that a number of diarchy era artifacts had been destroyed before the fire could be brought under control."
"Yes Twilight," Princess Celestia said patiently, "I know. I was there and I was the first one to hear the damage reports."
Twilight felt an odd sense of deja vu but she dismissed it as unimportant. She continued.
"But during my research into the period I started finding an odd correlation when I went over the Guard reports on the Arsenic Lupine burglaries."
Twilight was surprised to hear a low growl come from the princess. She looked up to see her mentor clenching her teeth.
"Yes," Princess Celestia said in what definitely could not be called a snarl. Because Princess Celestia was wise and serene and controlled and would never do such a thing. "I remember that one. A frustrating creature if ever there was one. We never did discover who he was."
Twilight nodded eagerly. "And do you remember that one reporter who did all those columns and exposes about the investigation and was supposedly the only pony to interview the perpetrator?"
Celestia relaxed enough to give a rueful chuckle. "Yes I do. A clever sort that one. I always wished we could have lured him away from journalism and into—"
Celestia stopped short and her eyes went wide. "No," she breathed.
Twilight nodded again. The smile was back. "It was very subtle, but once I started looking into the subject everything fell into place."
Celestia did something Twilight had never seen her do before. She sputtered.
"But, that's not, we ran down every...HOW?!"
The last word came out in full Royal Canterlot Voice. Twilight took an involuntary step back and raised one hoof to fix her mane back into place before continuing.
"My psychological profile suggests that he deliberately set out to create a citywide sensation. When I ran down the document trail it turned out he also owned the paper through three or four cutouts."
"But the griffin feathers!" Celestia protested.
"He was a master of disguise, bar none," Twilight reminded her.
"The wards on the gallery!" Celestia insisted.
"I'm fairly sure he was also the curator," Twilight explained. "So you gave him the talismans to bypass the magical security yourself."
"How could he even carry it all out?!" the princess demanded, still refusing to believe she had been fooled so thoroughly for so long.
"Wasn't he also in charge of hiring and firing non-tenured staff?" Twilight reminded her. "I'm pretty sure most or all of the security ponies were part of his gang."
Princess Celestia stood totally still and unblinking for several minutes. Twilight sat and waited patiently. Finally the princess took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly. When she spoke again her voice was calm, controlled, even a bit amused.
"At least I can say that his biggest job boiled down to luck in the end." Princess Celestia said as she looked at the long lost objets d'art. "He never would have managed it without the fire, and me igniting part of the castle during the battle was a complete fluke."
Twilight scraped one of her hooves across the floor awkwardly. "Actually..." she said hesitantly, "I'm pretty sure he set the fire himself and used the battle as cover. I also found evidence that he's the one who leaked the rebel battle plans to you in the first place."
The ambient temperature abruptly shot up a couple dozen degrees as Celestia's mane and tail exploded into living flame. They burned first red, then blue and then finally became a white corona around her: the Princess of the Sun's anger made manifest. Twilight silently thanked her brother for teaching her his favorite shield spell as she activated it by reflex.
When it was over Celestia fell into an exhausted heap, panting and sweating. Twilight drew a bottle of cold apple cider out of her saddlebags and levitated it over to her. Celestia accepted it gratefully and took a swig.
Once the bottle was empty Celestia had relaxed enough to speak again. "You never did tell me how you got them back."
"Unlimited library and archive access," Twilight said smugly. "Best perk of being a princess. And also I'm friends with a really good treasure hunter now."
Princess Celestia sighed in exasperation as she reached over with her wing to pull Twilight in for a hug.
"I'm still not letting you declare yourself 'Princess of Books."
"Aww," Twilight whined.
lolololol
Cute.
LOLLOVE IT
Haha!
Mmm.
Nice drabble, I suppose. There's no c in objets d'art.
4976069 In French maybe. Who knows how it's spelled in Fancy?
4976149
I'm pretty sure "Fancy" was a pun on "Francais."
4976465
It was a joke. I fixed it
That was really fun.
*Grins* Beautifully done, Bravo.
Heh.
You ought to specify what exactly Twilight accomplished here. Even if it you save it for the end, a simple line about what was in the room would have made it a lot clearer. Other than that, I have only praise to give.
Major bonus points for the Lupin reference.
4979179 Yeah, I couldn't think of a good way to have Twilight or Celestia say "Wow, this thing in front of us that we both clearly recognize is *blank*" without messing up the flow. Though I suppose in retrospect I suppose it wouldn't be out of character for Twilight to say those exact words when in lecture mode.
If it helps I wrote it assuming Twilight had recovered long lost paintings, specifically paintings of great personal significance that reminded Celestia of happy times with Luna before the Nightmare Moon thing.
4979282
I don't think it should be dialogue, actually. In retrospect, I'd say that if this fic has a problem, it's that you rely too much on dialogue already. Even the parts that aren't dialogue focus entirely on Twilight and Celestia. They might as well be standing in an empty white space for as much as their surroundings affect the story.
Just have a line going: "Celestia couldn't believe her eyes. The room was full of paintings. Paintings she had thought she would never see again." Or something. Describe them, tell us what they mean to her. You seem like a good writer, I'm sure you can find the words.
Okay, see, that right there is some pretty important context that you really should include. See, I assumed it was just some artifacts of historical value and that Celestia was merely relieved to find they were safe. That they have personal sentimental value to Celestia changes this from "Twilight is showing off to impress her teacher" to "Twilight went out of her way to make Celestia happy." And that's kind of a huge difference.
4979685 Yeah, I should have done that. I wrote this story in under an hour and I have no fucking clue why it's so popular. I debated whether to even publish it
4979762
See, that's why I never half-ass my pony fics. I figure if I treat all of them as glorious masterpieces, I don't need to worry about getting featured for something I wrote on a whim while I was drunk.
4979991 That said, I would rather err on the side of not conveying the full background and context to a story than the reverse. I find excessive world building/exposition/backstory is a far more common problem, and much easier to fall into.
4980015
I'd say that a nice middle ground is always preferable to either extremes.
Besides, with a story at little over a thousand words, you have more reason to worry about saying too little than saying too much.
4980095 Yes, of course
This is a silly tale. But a good silly. I do agree it can use a line about -what- was found, because at first I thought sculpture, then paintings, and then lost manuscripts due to 'Princess of Books'
4980775 Of COURSE Twilight wants to call herself Princess of Books.
It was a reference to how much research she did to piece all of this together
4980884
Yep! I pieced that together, but the main point is the narrative structure makes it somewhat unclear!
'Tis be some good silly fun. Consider the story upvoted.
4980927
4980095
You know, I'm not a believer in rewriting a story after publishing it but this might warrant another chapter
I have sudden deja vu about MMMystery etc. and how Twilight did the WORKING deductions.
Princess of Detectives, maybe?
So where did she FIND THEM? If the thief has been dead for centuries, how did Celestia not FIND THEM?
That's when we learned that the sole reason Twilight hunted down the centuries-old stolen treasures was to earn the title of Princess of Books. Such disappointment.
4979991 How to get a billion likes from your pony fic in 10 easy steps!
1. Twiluna shipping
2. Make Celestia a stupid, mean tyrant.
3. Vamponies.. . lots of vamponies.
4. Humans randomly show up and are unstoppable by any means and have all da powers. Caveate: if Twiluna shipping (see step 1) is to be included, only Twilight and Luna/NMM will find the power to stop the humans, or join forces with them. In that case, they will take turns killing Celestia.
5. The end of the world stakes. Don't forget your plot MUST be as extreme in the stakes as possible!
6. Time travel. Screw continuity, you can rewrite time when it's convenient, unless that's how the wold is destroyed in concert with step 5.
7. All ponies are homosexual and bi. No straight characters. Heterosexual relationships will earn you instant dislikes.
8. Changelings. Lots and lots of changelings. It's even better if they also happen to be vampires (see step 3). They must also be victims of Tyrantlestia (see step 2).
9. Idiot-ball the shit out of everypony. Remember, only the villain can ever be competent. Good guys must be so stupid they can't even recognize themselves in a mirror.
10. Destroy the world. This follows the natural conclusion to step 5. Make as many ponies suffer in as graphic and melodramatic a way as possible. This will create FEELS which act as fertilizer for growing your like count.
And now you're ready to write the next great (god-damned awful) popular pony fic!
My eyes are now stuck on the screen. Help me!
This is quite brilliant!
Nicely done, bro.
~Skeeter The Lurker
Princess of Books.
But-But-But! Princess of Books is so fitting. She would be best Book Princess ever.
5112030
D: I know!
"Actually..." she said hesitantly, "I'm pretty sure he set the fire himself and used the battle as cover. I also found evidence that he's the one who leaked the rebel battle plans to you in the first place."
... why?
5810727
You haven't watched Lupin the Third have you? Either for fun, or because it benefited him. In this case, it was beneficial. Distraction, diversion.
4981095
DO IT.
Celestia may be planning on making Starlight Princess of Books.
9741188
A couple of months late, but:
HERESY!!!
Only Twilight Sparkle, premiere Bookpone, has the rightful claim to the Princess of Books!