Shadow

by Dragonfire2lm

Chapter 1

Dust motes danced in the early morning light that streamed through the windows of one of Canterlot Castle’s oldest tower. The old wooden floor reflected the soft sunlight and added to the inviting warm glow the room possessed. Extravagant tapestries and banners made in honor of the diarchy bung on the worn marble walls and bookshelves piled high with old tomes and scrolls were neatly arranged around a seating area with tables and cushions.

The room’s entrance, two old wooden doors, glowed in a golden aura and creaked open as two ponies walked inside. Princess Twilight Sparkle entered first, her saddlebags jingled with the weight of inkwells and rustled with the sound of parchment as the newly ascended alicorn almost bounced in place with excitement. Behind her, Princess Celestia smiled warmly at her former pupil's infectious joy. There was a certain comforting silence in the air as Twilight stood in awe at the opportunity that stood before her.

"These are the books I was able to transfer to Canterlot after I banished Nightmare Moon," Princess Celestia explained as she moved to stand beside Twilight."Though many of the books left behind at the old castle are being recovered and restored, I thought this small collection of mine would aide you in your studies for the moment".

"This is amazing!" the purple alicorn exclaimed gleefully. "You have no idea how much trouble I've had doing my research into pre-Nightmare Moon history, with all the water damage and insects ruining many of the books I found at your old castle, I was afraid I'd have to ask you or Princess Luna for answers."

Twilight looked bashful when Celestia gave her a questioning look. "I didn't want to trouble you," she stated. "You're both busy and I wanted to make sure I could cite several sources before I showed you any findings".

"Luna and I would be more than happy to answer your questions twilight, but I can understand the value of learning under your own merits," the sun princess replied. "I'll leave you to it, just remember, if you come across any spells you don't understand or are unsure of its effect, make sure to ask either Luna or myself if it's safe to use."

"Don't worry princess; I'll make sure to seek your advice if something comes up."

***

Twilight removed her saddlebags and began to skin across the tittles of the books on the nearest shelf. Occasionally she would pick one up in her magic and floated it over to the slowly growing stack on a table. When she felt that she had a significant amount of texts, she opened up her saddlebag and withdrew an inkwell, a quill and several scrolls of blank parchment and placed them on the table. Finally, she pulled out a scroll bound in a plain grey ribbon and set it aside from the others. With a smile, she cantered over to the table, sat down on a cushion and after organizing her work space, she set to work. She opened up the bound scroll and skimmed through its contents.

Let's see... she thought. So far I've found several re-tellings and re-imaginings of the legend of nightmare moon and a few scattered reports bout Luna herself. Hopefully these books can fill in the blanks on how Celestia and Luna were treated a thousand years ago.

Ancient history was subject Twilight had always been fond of, while fables and ancient myths were aplenty in both ancient and modern literature, few historic records of Equestria and its long lived rulers seemed to surface. The tales of Starswirl the Bearded, as numerous as they were, often were a product of their time. Of monster slaying heroes and uplifting tales of bravery in a time when the common pony had more to worry about than an occasional beast escaping the everfree.

Her desire to know only increased when she discovered the magic of friendship. Her eyes were opened to the possibilities of old legends and ponytales being more than a way to frighten little ponies or to teach a moral to young fillies and colts. With each new threat Twilight and her friends took down, the more questions were raised about the stained glass windows that often accompanied their success. Scenes of times long past were only connected to a disjointed concept or half-remembered legend and she often wondered if the heroic efforts of her friends had put their all into performing would someday be reduced to a tall tale with only the princesses left to truly understand what had transpired. With those concerns at the forefront of her mind, she decided to enlist the help of her friends to see if history could provide any closure or peace of mind.

***

"Uh, Twilight?" Applejack asked as the mane six walked through the Everfree Forest. "Why are we heading to the Princesses old castle? I’m sure princess Celestia or Princess Luna could help you find what you're looking for".

"I know Applejack, but I've been thinking-" Twilight replied.

"Yeah, and?" Rainbow Dash interjected as she hovered above them. "You do egghead stuff all the time, and the princesses would know more than some dusty old library."

"That's the thing, I'm not just looking for things the princesses can answer for me," the purple pony princess stated. "This is a personal research project that's going to need source material from ponies other than Celestia or Luna. Facts, figures and even viewpoints from ponies that lived a thousand years ago could prove useful".

"Even so Twilight, couldn’t you ask them to send you the books you needed?" Rarity asked. "It would certainly be easier than walking all this way to their old castle"

"I agree with Rarity," Fluttershy added. "What if we run into a manticore, or a hydra, or a...dragon?"

"There's no need to be scared, we've been through this place lots of times!" Pinkie Pie chirped cheerfully. "Walking through the scary forest that's not-so-scary- anymore to help Twilight with her super secret project is just another nature hike, except you know, with monsters."

"If you say so..." the yellow pegasus replied.

"I really appreciate your help everypony," Twilight said. "With all of us working together, we might be able to find more information on what Equestria was like a thousand years ago".

"You're dragging us all the way out here for a history lesson..." Rainbow grumbled. "Boring..."

"I've noticed some gaps in my history books back in the library and I was hoping to fill in the blanks but I didn't want to bother the princesses," Twilight explained. "Plus it's only good study habits to have more than one piece of reference material for an article. I was going to write a report on my findings"

***

The result of that day was the smell of damp books that clung to her fur and barely anything new to add to her report. While her study session with her friends had indeed been fun, Twilight was disappointed with the state of disrepair that the old castles library had fallen into. She quickly wrote a letter to the princess explaining what she had tried to accomplish, which led to Celestia starting the process to save the information contained within those thousand year old books.

Hours later, Twilight sighed in tired relief and placed her quill in the inkpot. The wax candle she had beside her still burned brightly in the dimming light that signaled the approach of night. She closed the book she had been reading and sorted through her notes. The pile of scrolls were neatly rolled up and swept into her saddlebags. Just as she began to wrap the ribbon around her growing checklist of important points, she heard hoof steps approach that signaled the approach of a pony.

Author's Note:

Limited time to write means this is all I can do for now, I'll be working on the draft for the next chapter when I can. Let me know if you spot any typos i might have missed and let me know what you think of this in the comments.

Fun fact- everything, except for the paragraphs after the flashback, was written between 3am and 4am in the morning (cold medicine kept me awake..all night...) and the idea for this started off as a clopfic, but then i fleshed out the story and thought it would be better as a stand alone, non romance thing.

Enjoy my sleep deprived nonsense!

Edit- I tried to um...improve my shitty grammar....key word is 'tried'

Comments

[Titanium Blade]

This, actually, is pretty good! Aside from some glaring grammatical and spelling errors, courtesy of the early morning, this is a very good start to a potentially great story.
I Strongly recommend that you get a proofreader. Heck, I demand it, to make this story as great as possible.
I'll give it a thumb for now, and after you get it edited, it's going to the Random Supporters Association Featured quickly!

[Dragonfire2lm]

6067657
So after running this thing through microsoft spellcheck and reading it over it still has typos...well at least its better than my usual attempts....

welp looks like I'll have to go bug someone on the forums (hopefully I can find someone who won't mind random updates and stuff). Grammar errors are kinda a big issue in my fics, I am trying but yeah...I suck, add to sticky keys on a glitchy keyboard and the usual "I hope at least someone likes this pile of manure" thought process that happens when trying to proofread my own stuff...

Thanks for the comment, an updated version might take a while- I'm not on the computer very much, hence the 1000 word chapter.

[Randompig212]

I'm just going to say, for example...

"I agree with Rarity" Fluttershy added.

There should be a comma after Rarity. Most of the mistakes are like that, no spelling errors though. Good story so far, you got yourself a like

[Dragonfire2lm]

6068320 I've attempted to fix the grammar errors, took a while to find a guide with examples I could wrap my head around (not saying I'm stupid or anything, I just needed a quick guide to work with until I could get some proper help)

It's a shame really my favorite university courses were ones that revolved around thematic themes and anthropology, you know concepts and stuff, actually writing out stuff with correct grammar on the other hand....I can do decent essays, but that's all they are, decent and so are my fanfics.