Remember When

by Cheesey Microwave

The Book

"Your Highness, would you like some tea?"

"No, Rosemary. Knock it off."

"Yes, m'lady."

Celestia spun around, her lips curled into a fierce snarl. "You don't mean that. You've never meant it. You always have to come back and bother me! I don't want any tea, I will never want some tea, and if you bother me one more time-"

"I will be fired," the green mare calmly replied.

"Yes!"

"I know that, your Highness. I suspect your ability to read between the lines isn't as sharp as it once was." She put a hoof in her periwinkle mane and pulled out a letter. "In my family, it is considered a great shame to resign from a job concerning royalty and it's better to be fired, but I cannot stand you any longer. I know what it's like to lose a loved one, Celestia. I know it all too well. There's no reason for you to continue moping around."

Celestia stared at the letter blankly. "You're leaving."

Rosemary held the letter out to the snow white princess. "To be honest, my dear Ce-Ce, I'd love to come back when your moods stop fluctuating as often as a tree loses a leaf."

Celestia paused for a moment, then hung her head. "I suppose I'm overreacting a little bit, aren't I?"

"Truth be told, not at all, but this is how you are to act when no one is looking. Even if you have to get a mask, grin and bear it. Hoof, I'll make you a mask! Just get me some paper and colored ink!" Rosemary gave her princess a crooked smile and put the letter back in her mane. "I'll still come by every hour or so to offer tea. Even if I lose my job."

Celestia couldn't help smiling just a little bit. It had been thirty-two days and fifteen hours exactly since Luna had corrupted herself. The elder sister's mood had only worsened when she discovered how long the plan had been brewing in Luna's mind, and ever since she'd become introverted and harsh. When a visiting duke demanded she come and represent her ponies, she had demanded he lay his neck in the guillotine. Purely in jest, of course, but he had been offended nonetheless.

She pulled a brightly colored book off one of the shelves, its vibrant yellow binding old and cracked. It had apparently kept its color well, although the same could not be said for the material itself. Written in crude ink were the words "Please Don't: A Remedy for Parents Against Corporal Punishment".

She opened it, read a few biased paragraphs and tossed it aside. The alicorn pulled a different book, one with a strangely leathery cover, and opened it. To her horror, it was a book on necromancy. The particular page she had opened to was all about the many uses of blood extracted from a living pony. Disgusted, she burnt it until it was simply a pile of ashes.

Her entire afternoon repeated the same process: observe, open, taste and trash. Observe, open, taste and trash. Observe, open, taste and trash.

Observe, open, taste and what the what.

A rather small book with only the words "Helping Loved Ones" scrawled in a brownish liquid across the cover had a rather unusual spell. One that would bring a banishment time down by quite a few years, depending on the original time. A small chart, ranging in original times of one year to a quintillion, took up a whole page. Celestia searched for one million. Her heart sank; an asterisk warned the reader that "as one of the most common times, it requires so much more effort on both parts". The second most difficult time, five hundred years, required fifty letters to be sent, each containing one word, all of which spell out a meaningful and original sentence.

For a one-million-year banishment to become a one-thousand-year banishment, which was as low as it got, Celestia had to...

Had to...

Had to...

To the pony's alarm, the next page was missing. The page afterwards had already moved on the a banishment of ten million years.

She began a desperate and frantic search to find the missing sheet. Throwing books off of the shelves and onto the ground, shaking every book with slight gaps between pages, even bucking the walls to get any loose papers on the ground. Many fell, but none were the missing page.

She then searched the next section of the library: romantic fiction. Forced to gallop past grotesquely corny titles such as Hearts Of Glass Will be Shattered and Running With The Wild Romance, Celestia kicked extra hard to get the loose sheets out. Every single piece was simply a coupon for more cheesy novels.

A thought popped into her mind: had some fool thrown it away? She found every single basket and shook it as hard as possible, sorting through the used tissues and broken teacups(Celestia had a rather awful fit a couple of weeks ago) to find the yellowed paper she was so frantically searching for. A couple ripped pieces seemed promising, but they were both blank.

Celestia then turned to the librarians, showing them the book and asking if they knew where the page was. The newbie, a spindly old stallion who was almost as tall as Celestia, shook his head and suggested that "perhaps the head librarian had an idea, since she's got seniority."

Things hadn't been running smoothly among the library's staff as of late.

The head librarian, a somewhat young pegasus with stern cobalt eyes and an insanely frizzy pink mane, shook her head, glanced back at the book she was reading and snickered a little bit.

One of the volunteers from Celestia's new school, a filly with a dark brown mane and a creamy coat, pointed out to her that the piece was stuck in her mane and had been for a while.

The princess thanked her, then hastily returned to her little mess. She found the book, put the page back in, and began reading.

One must send letters containing fond foalhood memories to the banished. He must enchant the paper with any good luck charm he chooses. The banished must write back in the same fashion, omitting the good luck charm. This must be done until the casting of enchantment burns the paper to ashes. At that point, the spell will have taken place and the banishment, counting any time that has already passed, will only last one thousand years. This seems considerably easy compared to the warning, but most villains are banished for a million years and they rarely wish to correspond with somepony who tries to bring them back, as their ultimate intention(reformation) is quite obvious in most cases.

So many ponies have rejected the letters that I must include this warning: do not send another letter until you have received one in return. If you try to ignore that warning, the good luck charms will become bad luck and ultimately do more harm than good. While the pony will arrive within one hundred years instead of one thousand, their heart will be blackened and unsalvageable. If you accidentally send a letter before one is received, you must make every attempt to intercept the delivery before it is too late.

Celestia paused for a moment, then murmured to herself, "It couldn't hurt to give it a shot, could it?"

Author's Note:

If anypony has ideas for a foalhood memory, I'm all ears. Literally. Which made typing this incredibly difficult.

Comments

[randome284]

This is already looking interesting, too bad it's on hiatus. But that won't stop me from reading it. I can't wait to read the next chapter with Tia's first letter!