Chapter 3: Academia and Absentmindedness
“Spike, come on. Wake up.” Twilight shook the young dragon again. His snoring didn’t stop, nor did his eyes so much as crack open. “You can’t be hibernating today! I need your help!”
But that’s what he appeared to be doing. She had been taking notes on his behaviors since he had been hatched. According to all the data she had gathered, he regularly went into micro-hibernations. Longer than sleep, and far deeper. Nothing short of a moat dunking—experimental sleep-response stimulus number three hundred and five—would wake him. The previous three hundred and four steps had done little more than aggravate her and confuse the guards.
Besides, all the lore she could dig up on other dragons indicated they slept for centuries on end. But that could be only older dragons. Maybe baby dragons had to work up to a century of sleep.
Certainly, Spike would never get enough nourishment if he slept that long in one go. She pulled out her notebook and made another notation, marking the time she noted him in a state of non-responsive sleep.
She made a few more notes on the subject, documenting the rate of respiration, his heartbeat, and the position he was sleeping in.
Throughout the scritching of quill on paper, Spike made no move other than to twitch a limb and curl his claws about an imaginary quill and write along with her on nothing. That brought a smile to her face. He was getting used to writing, at least. Maybe she ought to pull back on his lessons, though. Auto-sleep-writing might be a sign of discomfiture. She’d have to consult Princess Celestia at their next meeting.
Princess Celestia would know.
“Hmm.” Twilight twirled the feathered end of the quill against her chin. The question of the cake thief hadn’t been resolved over a good night’s sleep. Maybe the princess would have some insights. It was something to consider, even if her next meeting with her mentor wasn’t due for another…
Twilight flipped up the calendar. Nothing this month. Pursing her lips, she flipped to the next, and the next. It wasn’t marked. She checked her notebook again, breath coming faster and faster. She had to have written it down. She wrote down everything Princess Celestia told her.
Page after page, she found only notes on history, magical theory, alchemy… Nothing about her next meeting with Princess Celestia!
What if she hadn’t written it down? What if… What if she’d already missed it? Maybe it was even happening right now and Princess Celestia was wondering if she’d overslept. She could imagine it clearly.
“Where is she? That is quite unlike her. I hope this isn’t an indication of her slacking off.”
Then, the princess, her mentor, would make a tick mark on a tally sheet, cluck her tongue, and wonder if she had made the right choice after all. All the times Twilight had ever missed a question was tallied there, too. Too many. Too many mistakes, all of them because she hadn’t studied, or been on time.
“Well,” Princess Celestia would say, looking over the tally sheet, “another indicator. I shall have to speak with her about this trend.”
With a squeak, she snapped the notebook closed and called her books to her. They dove off shelves, from under her table, flying at her with blinding speed. She ducked, shifting their mad flight to smack haphazardly into her saddlebags as she dashed out the door.
A muffled thump sounded, and then two more in rapid succession as she closed the door. Sheepishly, she opened the door again, glancing around the dormitory hallway as she ushered the other three into what little free space remained.
The castle flashed by her, guards and servants giving her polite hellos she couldn’t possibly stop to return. It went against everything her parents had taught her about being polite, but what was she to do? She couldn’t stop and say hello to everypony who greeted her. She’d be constantly late. And one thing she could not do was be late for Princess Celestia.
Soon, she discovered that adrenaline only bolstered her speed so much before it wore away, leaving her shaking and staggering to a halt against the pillared entrance to the Royal Suite. The sitting room was just beyond the doors ahead, and the trio of ponies standing at attention barely gave her a second glance.
Two royal guards and Raven, Princess Celestia’s personal scribe, stood at the door, conversing quietly together. The older mare—well, Raven was only five years older than Twilight, but she was still older—made a note on the scroll floating in front of her, nodded to the two guards, and turned to leave.
Twilight became acutely aware of the fact that her coat was streaked with sweat from her run, and her mane must have appeared as a feather duster. She flushed, pushed aside the personal concern, and cleared her throat. “Excuse me, Raven?”
Raven glanced at her, then back at her scroll. “Good morning, Twilight Sparkle. How can I help you?”
“I was, er, wondering if… you knew if Princess Celestia had any appointments this morning?” Twilight swallowed the lump in her throat. “Because I just wanted to show her—” Think! Think! Thought escaped her. “Something. Uh. Something I came up with… er… last night.”
Raven rolled the scroll up and turned her attention more fully on Twilight. “The Princess has no scheduled meetings this early in the morning. She has requested that she have a moment of privacy.” Brown eyes swept over her, pausing at her mane, and sliding to her flanks. Raven’s cheek twitched.
“I, er, it’s kind of urgent. I had to run the whole way here.”
“I see.” Cheek still twitching, Raven unfurled the scroll again and reviewed the contents, tapping a hoof as she did so. “As it so happens, the Princess had allotted up to an hour of time for—” Raven coughed. “Expected unexpected events this morning.”
Twilight paused, staring. “How can you expect unexpected events?”
“By expecting the unexpected, of course.” The scribe gave her a tight smile, sighed, and ducked into the sitting room, leaving Twilight standing outside, smiling at the familiar guards stoically at attention.
Less than a minute passed before Raven came back. “I will never understand how she expects the unexpected with such precision.” Another long-suffering sigh came as Twilight flicked her tail. “Yes, she will see you now.” A tick, a check, a wave of a hoof at the guards, and Raven shooed her in.
Almost on the edge of the door, Twilight balked, seeing herself in the mirror just past the door. Her mane was worse than a feather duster. It was a used feather duster. Maybe taking that shortcut through the pantries hadn’t been such a great idea. Not when they got less attention or traffic than the cellars, but the pantries bypassed so much of the winding maze interior. She’d saved at least two minutes.
But the cobwebs in her mane, and the distressed looking daddy-long-legs clinging to her horn said maybe the two minutes wasn’t worth it. And what was that stain on her flank? It certainly wasn’t ink. And it had an oddly metallic smell. It took only a moment of leafing through her mental map of the castle to realize where she’d gone.
“Um…”
“Take a moment to clean yourself up. You look like you singlehoofedly cleaned the cellars.” The other mare’s flat, quiet tone belied the smile on her lips.
“No… I took a shortcut through the pantries.” And maybe one of the cellars. Or two. It had been hard to keep track in the dark. “You know, the ones over by the dormitory.” They connected the dormitory with the castle proper without going through any of the intervening hallways and corridors. Why they were unused, she didn’t know. Nor did she know why they had been disregarded for long enough to build up so much cruft, even with her occasional wanderings and explorations to stir it all up.
“Oh. I shall have the cleaning staff look into them.” Raven made a short notation on her scroll, and floated a brush over to Twilight. “Thank you.”
With that, the scribe closed the door and left Twilight to stare at herself in the mirror. The daddy long legs was still wrapped around the tip of her horn, his legs clutching each other. He was so light and delicate that she couldn’t feel him any more than she could feel the cobwebs in her mane.
A gentle spell unwrapped him, the gossamer weave of magic little more than a sparkle about his tiny limbs as she set him down on the floor, next to a tiny, itsy-bitsy crack. Before he crawled out of sight, she was sweeping the detritus and dust from her mane with curling branches of magic that still left too much webby gunk in between the strands of her mane. She paused before using the comb. It wasn’t marked with Raven’s inkpot and pen, but with a sunburst crest.
Something told her Princess Celestia wouldn’t expect her personal grooming brush to be used used to sweep so much gunk and cobwebs out of her mane and off her coat. It wasn’t proper to use regal items like that, but her mother would have screamed bloody murder at the sight of her if the incident with Shining Armor and the Toad Army were anything to go off of. She certainly wouldn’t appreciate Spider Army any more.
One more look at the mirror said another sweep with her magic wouldn’t do. Whatever else might happen, Princess Celestia was always a tidy mare, and kept everything in her personal space neat, orderly, and clean. It would never do to barge in, expectedly unexpected or not, looking as if she had run a race through a cave on her head. The comb was needed.
She brushed her mane free of the last, sticky bits of web, and turned the bristles to her coat. More cob, more web, and icky little black spots she didn’t want to think about fell away. She collected every last little speck in a growing ball of ick when she was done, and tucked the brush gently into her saddlebags. She would need to sterilize the brush before she could let the Princess use it again
The ball, she tossed into the crack after the spider. She had ruined its web after all. The least she could do was return the results of his labor. And probably the labor of his sire, and his sire before him, and before him… the ball wasn’t big, but it was many times the size of the spider’s body.
“Good morning, Twilight Sparkle.” Princess Celestia’s sunshine warm voice flowed from the chamber before she had even finished opening the door. Inside was the picture of tasteful opulence. She had been in Celestia’s private chambers before, often enough that the sight was no longer as overwhelming as it had been.
Goldenwood pillars stood silent sentinel all around the sitting room, each one carved with fanciful decorations ranging from the truly fantastic to more mundane scenes of ponies at play or work, all done in exquisite detail. Twilight had sat and stared at them in her youth, making up stories about the ponies depicted in them, stories that she would share with her journal later that night. Someday, she would find out if they were real ponies. Or had been real ponies.
The furniture matched the pillars in appearance. Long, goldenwood framed couches lay on either side of a sea-green rug, the stitching of which had not faded in all the years Twilight had seen it. Not even a little. Seaponies gallivanted about, their features done in such fine detail that she almost expected to fall into the ocean each time she stepped on it.
“Good morning, Princess.” Twilight bowed, her chin almost touching the rug, and rose when she felt a gentle, featherweight touch against her shoulder.
“What brings my prize pupil about so early?” Celestia asked gently as she came into the sitting room from her bedroom beyond, a place Twilight would never dare to venture. A muffin floated on a silver chased plate, honey glazed and still steaming, a dainty bite already taken from one edge. “Did you sleep well?” The other mare’s eyes twinkled. “I understand from some of the other students in the dorms that Spike takes to snoring. You know I would be happy to find the two of you separate rooms, if you wished.”
There was a test in that offer, Twilight knew. Everything was a test. Subtle or not. She gnawed on the answer, and her lower lip, staring at the muffin. It looked so familiar. The golden glaze on the top, the sweet, sweet blueberry batter scent filling the space between her and it.
Her stomach certainly remembered.
Grrr-grrgl.
Flushing, Twilight crossed her hooves together and averted her eyes. A muffin for ‘dinner’ wasn’t enough to eat, and she knew it, but it was so hard to find time to fit in everything else into her schedule. And there she was, contemplating solving a mystery that might stretch…
“Twilight Sparkle, have you not had breakfast yet?” Celestia floated the muffin over to her, lips pursed. “It is very, very important for a young mare of your age to eat properly.”
Dutifully, Twilight nibbled at the edge of the muffin. Celestia waved a hoof at her to finish, and pulled up a newspaper. A cup of tea popped into existence, followed shortly by another muffin. Both spells had the same silver shading as Raven’s magic, and a quick glance at the door confirmed Twilight’s suspicions.
They weren’t alone, precisely. But, she reminded herself, Princess Celestia was only very rarely alone. She was surrounded day in and day out by ponies of all stations. That she would take a little time in the morning to be there for her, if she needed her…
Swallowing the last, delicious bite of blueberry muffin, Twilight looked up to find her mentor watching her quietly over the edge of the newspaper.
“Are you feeling better?”
“Yes, Princess.”
“Good. What’s on your mind this morning?”
Twilight shook the cobwebs from her mind. “It’s about our morning meetings.” She shook her head again. “I, um…” It was rapidly becoming obvious that she hadn’t missed her scheduled appointment with her mentor. What would it seem like if she told her mentor that she had forgotten to write it down? Or worse, that she had, and misplaced it?
“I… was wondering what… we would be discussing at our next meeting. You know, this week.” She wished she had saved a piece of muffin to cover the quavery nature of the smile she tried to force.
Celestia blinked and cocked her head. “Oh? Did I not tell you at our last? I must not have. Silly me.” She smiled, her horn glowing bright gold. “It’s time for you to begin your independent studies. I’m sure I must have mentioned it at some point.”
“Independent studies?” The words rolled off Twilight’s tongue like rocks from a cliff. “But I haven’t even graduated yet! And the results from our finals haven’t come back yet! How do I know if I passed or not? How can I—”
“It’s not something everypony does,” Celestia broke in with a smile. “It’s often only the demesne of my personal students. However, other students seeking professorships at other schools, or a hoof up before they take more advanced courses elsewhere, may choose to do so of their own accord once they have graduated. For my personal students, it is a requirement of graduation.”
“Requirement?” Twilight repeated dully. She swallowed against the feeling of her heart climbing its way up her throat. “But what will I study? I haven’t even made a list of things I would be interested in!”
“Whatever you wish! That’s the wonder of it.” Celestia smiled over the rim of her teacup. “I have always been surprised by what my students in the past have come up with. I am especially eager to discover what you decide to study.”
“Magic,” Twilight said, lifting her head to meet Princess Celestia’s gaze. “I want to study magic.”
“Which area of magic would you wish to study? Magic by itself is such a large body of knowledge that I doubt any one pony could possibly—” Celestia broke off, cocking her head to one side. “You could even choose something else. I meant it when I said you could study whatever you wish. Anything, Twilight Sparkle.”
“Anything? Even… anything not directly related to magic?” With Celestia’s nod, a numbing jolt shot through her thoughts. Whatever she wished. The possibilities were endless. Twilight stroked her chin with a hoof and stared at the small plate. She levitated the few remaining crumbs from it, savoring each last bit. She needed a scroll. A dozen scrolls.
No, a graph. Scrolls and a graph! And charts. Pro and con lists. Maybe Cadance could help her decide. It had been years since she and her foalsitter had sat up late, each helping the other with homework. It could be a late night study session! She resisted, barely, clapping her hooves. “When do I have to decide?”
“By the summer solstice, I would like to have a course proposal from you. You get to decide what courses, even to design some of the material to fit your chosen topic.” Celestia raised a hoof when Twilight opened her mouth, forestalling the flood of questions bubbling up in her mind. “Or topics. I won’t limit you to just one, but I will expect the same depth of commitment to each that you choose. You will get to choose your instructors. It won’t be one on one all the time, of course, but you will have the opportunity to consult with them and they will grade your papers just like they do now.”
Through her mind raced every possible iteration of magical spell. From the intricate talents each unicorn possessed on their own, to the vaster array of magical schools of study like illusion, conjuration, evocation, and the even wider array of thaumaturgical studies ranging from alchemy to the poorly understood Zebra mystical arts and the vagaries of tarot, tea reading, and so many more. Twilight’s ears ticked back slightly more with each possibility adding more potential work, and ticked forward with the promise of learning more magic, more history… Just… More.
“Take your time to think about it, Twilight Sparkle. There may also be another area of study you wish to pursue as well. You need not decide now.” Her smile came back, as warm and confident as the sunrise. “Talk to your friends, and let them help you narrow your choices. Or broaden them. I will not deny you any course of study you choose. Now, it’s nearly time for court to begin, and I believe—”
“Your Highness,” Raven’s dry voice drifted into the room, followed by a gentle knock. “Your early morning appointment has arrived… early.”
“Unexpected, expected events?” Twilight asked.
“Quite.” Celestia smiled at her again, and vanished the two plates and her cup of tea. “Go see to your day, Twilight. I will talk with you again in a week. Say… Same day, about this same time?”
Twilight noted the date and time in her journal, circled it twice, underlined it three times and added four exclamation points. No way she would forget that.
It wasn’t until she got back to the dormitories, taking the roundabout corridors instead of her ‘shortcut’ that she realized she hadn’t asked Celestia about the Cake Thief story. Maybe, she decided, it was for the best. The Princess was certainly busy enough already.
Nor, she thought grumpily, when she found Spike still sleeping, had she remembered to ask about what the Princess knew of draconic sleeping habits and hibernations.
She sighed and started unpacking her saddlebags again. Maybe she was getting too used to Spike taking notes for her as part of his writing practice. That, she decided, would have to change. Maybe something else instead of notetaking.
Rely on something too much, and it became a crutch. It was a lesson she had learned again and again, but it always seemed so easy to slip back into needing to learn it again.
That was probably a test, too. She sighed and pulled out the last book and the brush from her saddlebags. Sable Sleuth stared back at her, black coat and white trench stark in the harsh, faded yellow light of a street lamp.
Trouble waited for her back at her office, on the corner of Nickel and Dime. Trouble always waited at that corner, it seemed. Some days, it was good for business, other days…
The mare stood back from the pool of light, scribbling hastily on a note she was leaving on Sable’s office door. A high class mare, her tail brushed and threaded with fine silver chain from which hung tiny bells in the shape of hearts. They should have been broken hearts.
“Sorry to disappoint,” Sable growled as she stalked past the mare, hooves resounding solidly on the wood planks. “You won’t be able to leave a message and run this time, Silver Heart.”
The mare flinched, dropping note and quill. “It’s not like that, Sable! I swear.”
Sable pulled the note up closer with a spell, read it, and crumpled it into a ball. “Sure seems that way to me. Isn’t it enough that you stole my fiance? Now you’re horning in on my business, too?”
“No! You don’t understand!” Silver Heart stepped into the light.
Sable saw it, then. Silver Heart’s right cheek was marked with a bright red line, and her eyes were reddened from crying.
“They took him, Sable! They took Gray Wind, and they tried to keep me quiet, but they didn’t count on me knowing about our old hidey hole. You know the one, where you and I used to play Mares and Mysteries? I waited as long as I dared, but they might have followed me! You have to save me!”
Great. Family always made things complicated. Especially a sister who wrapped everypony’s hearts around her hoof and made them ring to her tune. But… she was Sable’s sister. Family was family. “Who?”
Sable knew the answer before Silver Heart even opened her mouth.
“The Long Night,” Sable mouthed along with her sister.
The same criminal ring Sable suspected was behind the theft. And her sister was right in the middle of it. So was her ex-fiance, Gray Wind.
“Why am I doing this?” Sable opened the door with the right key, and waved a hoof inside. “Come in.”
Family made work complicated.
And, despite the warnings of her friends and her own common sense, she still loved Gray Wind. Love made everything complicated. Mixing the three together was a recipe for disaster, and she had just invited personification of all three ingredients into her kitchen.
Just another Tuesday.
Twilight looked up from the book at the end of the chapter, asking herself the same question. She knew why, of course. There must be somepony who knew why somepony was stealing cake. She just needed to focus on that. Sable’s sister and her ex-fiance were a distraction. She just needed to make sure…
She needed to make sure her checklist of things to do before the holidays was completed. Then she could put it aside and focus on solving the mystery.
Except for family and going home for the holidays. Where she couldn’t investigate.
She sighed. Family was always important. And unpredictable. Except for Shining Armor. Except when he was. Which was often.
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Very interesting so far - the slice-of-live touches of Twilight's life in the castle were nice to read.
The Sable Sleuth narrative as a side story would be nice (and why I imagine that Twlight will end using a Sable Sleuth costume until the end of this fic?
)
I'd read a Sable Sleuth pocket novel. Wait... ponies don't have pockets. Um... saddlebag novel?
6716145
More of those touches are coming! And not just around the castle.
6716667
If I do another story about Sable exclusively, it won't be the Noir Nadir - that's already in use in this story as sort of a mirror. But look for more Noir Nadir fun!
That should so be a meme from Game Of Ponies
ooooh....Travis Morgan has taught Celestia well, I see
Thank you for summarizing what I hate about stealth mentors in one simple passage.
splash