“May I borrow the happy couple for a minute?” Princess Celestia smiled at us, suddenly appearing at our table.
“Bruh?…” Cadance mumbled out, with her mouth full of cake. Shining Armor looked up from his own piece.
“Yes, Shining Armor, I need you both,” Celestia nodded to my brother. “This is urgent, your highness.”
Right. He’s a prince now. I’m not sure if a Princess of Equestria ever had a prince before. He probably has new responsibilities. I have no idea what kind, I should have researched that. Maybe Moondancer knows. Even Lyra knows a lot more history and ancient legends than I do.
I’m probably going to see my brother even less often, now…
Shining Armor and Cadance looked at each other and got up, trailing after Princess Celestia. “Don’t get too drunk without us, ladies,” Shining Armor grinned at me across his back.
“Anyway, the transformation hurts,” Lyra continued her story. “Big time hurts, I thought I was going to die. And walking on your hind legs full time feels completely different, the balance is off, you have so many tiny new muscles to think about, and all the organs are in slightly different places. If he didn’t have spells to rewire the brain, I wouldn’t be able to move at all. Most of them didn’t work, and he kept trying new ones until he found those that did, I never thought anything could cast spells so fast.”
Somewhere behind my back, I heard Princess Celestia whispering, “…honeymoon destination is going to have to change…”
I felt that nagging worry out of nowhere. It was so strong, that I actually lost my concentration. Lyra’s story is extremely interesting, but she will still be here tomorrow. Cadance and Shining Armor are leaving for their honeymoon on the overnight train, I have their trip itinerary and everything!
Cadance replied to Celestia with something barely intelligible.
I spent hours planning their trip, and everypony pitched in with ideas. It was supposed to be a grand tour across the entirety of Equestria…
“How does a crystal even cast spells?” Rarity wondered. Trust Rarity to be interested in a sapient gemstone and completely ignore the unprecedented transformation magic. “I could understand if it were enchanted with something complex, but even then, it’s impossible to enchant this many spells into a single gem, especially spells that don’t actually work.”
“…the Crystal Empire has returned…” Princess Celestia continued whispering.
“He’s not actually a crystal,” Lyra answered, “Some kind of extremely complex machine with atomic scale moving parts. Complex enough to really be sapient, if you can even believe that, although he doesn’t quite talk–”
“…your train is leaving in two hours…”
Full stop. I tuned Lyra out entirely to listen to the faint, haunting sound in my own head.
I had heard it before. That moment of clarity when I feel like I hear the voice of harmony itself. It doesn’t quite talk, and yet, I’m still sure I can hear it, a thin chime, a sparkle in the twilight, the moment when I suddenly understand everything.
I have heard it before, when Nightmare Moon shattered the Elements, in the voices of my friends. And now I’m hearing it in my memory. The last pieces just came in.
“It means a kingdom capable of ‘impervious’ static defense of the entire population.” … “The Crystal Empire has returned.” … “It’s an important part of your story, with three heartsongs to it.” … “But nopony thought that this would ever happen, because the Crystal Empire had the strongest protection of all: the Crystal Heart.” … “It should reappear within a month, if nothing prevents that.” … “But to do that, Luna and I would have to face the dragon.” … “It’s also his adventure.” … “…your train is leaving in two hours…”
It was like the chorus of all those voices speaking about things so different suddenly coalesced into one melody, that was started and ended in an instant.
But it was enough.
“Sorry, Lyra, I need to go,” I said, jumping up, not even listening for her response. I ran towards where the Princess and my brother and Cadance were standing.
“Princess,” I interrupted their whispering, “I’m going with them.”
“Really, Twilight?” Princess Celestia smiled at me. “Don’t you think this is taking sisterly love just a little bit far?…”
“Very funny, Princess,” I stomped. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have been listening in, but you were speaking a bit too loud. You’re sending them to the Crystal Empire, aren’t you?”
Princess Celestia raised an eyebrow and looked at me appraisingly. “I do have a mission that calls specifically for them, but this is nothing you need to concern yourself with, Twilight.”
“Crystal Empire is not a ship, or something else that could simply return, isn’t it,” I stated. “It is a city, a lost pony kingdom protected by the Crystal Heart.”
“How do you know that?” Celestia narrowed her eyes. “Very few ponies know that name.”
“I found a work mentioning it in the old castle library,” I replied.
The library that she directed me to. Did she plan for this? Was that journal part of my quest or not? With Princess Celestia, you never really know. The library that Luna sent Trixie to duel me for. Was this what Princess Luna really opposed? I don’t know her well enough to be sure.
I saw that momentary twitch of Celestia’s eyelids. I know that twitch. Here it comes…
“Absolutely not,” the Princess replied in a stern tone, with her enigmatic smile. I know that smile, too. I know that smile very well. I used to have nightmares about that smile. “I need you here, Twilight.”
“I must go with them, Princess,” I insisted.
“Oh?” the smile grew wider. “Care to explain your reasoning?”
I took a breath. Stand straight. Speak calmly and precisely. Omit nothing.
“Crystal Empire is supposed to have wielded some of the most advanced protective magic of the pre-classical era,” I started. “And yet, it vanished completely without a trace. It has reappeared, and this event was important enough, that you need to preempt the honeymoon and send Cadance and Shining Armor there immediately. The obvious conclusion is that whatever made it disappear despite the protective magic is now a concern, and requires a Princess of Equestria to counter. The Elements of Harmony would make a much better counter, or at least, backup, and we’re all here already.”
“The logic is mostly correct, but your data is incomplete,” Princess Celestia remarked. “You have only found a mention of the Crystal Empire. I have actually been there. Why exactly do you think that the Elements are even useful in this situation? The conclusion that you must go with them does not follow.”
“It’s… Not an entirely rational conclusion, Princess,” I admitted. “But I also know that both Cadance and Shining Armor are still suffering from magic exhaustion. They are recovering, but they’re still not entirely healthy. I…” I took a deeper breath. I never thought I would ever say something like this. “I feel you’re making a mistake. I can’t let you do this. I can’t lose my brother. I can’t lose my new sister-in-law. They’re… they’re my family. They’re my oldest friends. You don’t let your friends go on dangerous missions alone.”
While I was talking, behind Celestia’s back, I saw a plate with cake float in the familiar glow of my brother’s magic towards Cadance, who quietly took a bite without letting her eyes off me. Shining Armor himself was chewing on his lip. Haven’t I read somewhere, “Love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward together in the same direction?” Seems like I’m in that direction now.
“But they won’t be alone,” Celestia countered. “They will have a full train of Royal Guard with them.”
“This isn’t what I mean, Princess…” I replied, steeling myself for what I was about to say next. I actually did go crazy in those two weeks, didn’t I? “Do you remember the letter you sent me when I wrote to you about the prophecy of Nightmare Moon?”
In the corners of my vision, I saw a crowd starting to gather around us in a circle. My parents. Minuette and Twinkleshine. Lemon Hearts.
“Of course,” Celestia nodded. “I told you to go out and make some friends. And you can’t argue it did not work out perfectly.”
“That’s not what I’m going to argue,” I replied. “I can’t describe how grateful I am to you. You did what you had to do, and you guided me to some of the most wonderful experiences in my life. And yet…” I looked away, just to get that smile out of my head for a few seconds.
“Oh?” the Princess prompted, when the pause started feeling too long.
“And yet, I already had friends,” I stared back at her. “I know I didn’t treasure those friendships. I know I had no idea how to be a good friend. I’m still learning that. Probably will keep learning for the rest of my life. But by abandoning these ponies, I hurt them. I’m not trying to blame you for this, this is my own responsibility. But it happened because I allowed myself to use your judgment as an excuse. You only heard about my friends. But I have actually been there.”
“Not exactly something I expected to hear from my most faithful student,” Celestia remarked blankly.
I’m so getting banished for this. Or thrown in a dungeon. Or… or whatever. I don’t care anymore.
“Haven’t you taught me that I should think for myself?” I replied. “I would not be very faithful if I didn’t try.”
“You aren’t just thinking for yourself here, Twilight,” Celestia replied. “Sending the Elements means all six of you. Have you just decided for them that they, too, must go to the ends of the world?”
I bit my lip. “I’ve already made a decision for them, just a week ago. And I made a mistake, one that had consequences which still horrify me. But they’re still my friends, even after that. I just hope they will trust me again. But even if they don’t… I would go anyway.”
Suddenly, I heard flapping of the wings next to my ear, and a heavy stomp of four hooves. Looking beside me, I saw Rainbow Dash, who just landed so hard that she nearly cracked the pavement. She snapped a salute at the Princess. “I’m going,” she said. Just like that.
Applejack trotted up to stand on my other side. “Ah don’ see why you got to play these games, yer highness. Ya know what happens when you break Twilight, right? Well, ya know who gets to pick up tha pieces? I’d like mah friend sane, thank ye very much.”
Pinkie popped up next to us, her mane so full of confetti and glitter that she was leaving a trail. Even though she traveled in a straight line, the trail was still somehow tied into knots. “That was mean, princess!”
But Princess Celestia remained silent, never taking her eyes off me.
“Indeed,” Rarity added, joining the group, and making a proud pose. “I won’t deny that I would rather stay, but of course we’re all going. That would only be proper.”
A flash of green revealed Fluttershy, who was there beside me all along. The leaf pattern on her dress lit up brightly like her smile, and then shifted. I felt the targeting matrix in the gem on her flower hairpin readjust as she threw a stern glance towards the princess.
Princess Celestia’s eyelid twitched.
Spike tugged on the hem of my dress. “You’re not planning to go anywhere without your number one assistant, right?”
“No, Spike,” I smiled at him. “I’m pretty sure I’d be helpless without you.”
“So this is… is this what happens on a typical week?” Moondancer asked as she joined us. “Can I come too?”
“Of course,” I replied. “I have a feeling I’m going to need all the help I can get.”
“R-ready for Act Two!” Lyra proclaimed. She was leaning bodily into Bon-Bon, who just stood there supporting her with the most impenetrable face.
“Maybe you shouldn’t decide things like that when you’re drunk?” I wondered.
“Look, I’m not that drunk, Twilight,” Lyra replied. “I knew from the start that I’m not getting away with just one song.”
Bon-Bon rolled her eyes, but made no comment.
“Your highness,” Mary’s voice came from somewhere at the rear of our group, “I think it’s about time for you to back down. Before you need an extra train.”
I never even expected she would want to go.
“So you are all volunteering,” Celestia said, throwing a weary glance across our crowd.
“Looks like it, Princess,” I smiled sheepishly. “Did we… disappoint you?”
And suddenly, the enigmatic, impenetrable smile on her face turned into a triumphant grin. “On the contrary, Twilight. I’ll mark that as B minus,” she declared.
I felt my mane hairs twist their way out of the neatly arranged setup Rarity spent half an hour tuning to her satisfaction, as our crowd erupted in a murmur. This entire exchange, in full view of so many ponies, was… a test?!
“Now, seriously, yer highness, what did ah say about breaking my friend?” Applejack scowled at Celestia.
“Marked down for trying to skip ahead,” Celestia retorted, “I had to improvise. This is far from a situation I expected to present that test in.”
“That’s not what ah meant!”
“Sorry, Applejack, this was just a joke,” Celestia smiled at her. “Mostly.” She looked back at me. Then, at our entire crowd. “Everypony… Everyone who wishes to follow Twilight should assemble at the station. The train leaves as soon as the loading is finished, you have about an hour to pack. Dress warmly, if you can. If you are late or choose to reconsider, the train will leave without you.”
As everypony started dispersing, Celestia leaned in to tell me, “Follow me, Twilight, we don’t have much time.”
“For what, Princess?”
“A last minute magic lesson for my most faithful student.”
Wow. Celestia so needs to be smacked on the nose with a rolled up newspaper.
i.imgflip.com/hcwsh.jpg
7719281
That would fix more than a few things, wouldn't it. :)
7719284
I thought that too.
Sold.
Reminds me of Parting Words, in which Twilight had a similar reaction to Celestia's Crystal Empire gambit. Worked out quite well in the end in that one, let's see how Twilight's Army fares against Sombra this time. :)
And Moondancer joins the party!
*fweeeeet*
Well. This chapter marks an interesting departure indeed.
I loved this chapter. Celestia has been publicly called out on her poor teaching methods, and Twilight is bringing all her close friends. At this point I'm not even sure if Sombra has escaped from that crevasse yet. He's going to have a really bad time, unless Rika decides she wants to give him some advantage to make things more "exciting" for Mary.
There is that similarity. :) But the events that lead to this happening were different, and the progression will take them elsewhere, the trip to the Crystal Empire is just the point where these stories cross paths and do a brohoof, of sorts.
7719970 That'd be anathema to what Rika does though.
Rika doesn't directly change the events of stories herself. She sort of lets Mary shift events. The only reason the gave Grayswandir to Lyra was that it was both a legitimate storytelling role she could play (given she's been a magical girl for quite some time) but also because Mary basically straight-up told her to help. Everything else that's happened so far in the story has been for-want-of-a-horseshoe-nail style falling apart of situations. Something has changed, and so everything has changed.
Rika might enjoy watching Mary's response to Sombra showing up early, but forcing Sombra to show up early just to see Mary's response would be an actual deliberate act of evil, and Rika may be a being of eldritch horror - but she's horrifyingly good and terrifyingly hopeful.
7721722
She used to, mind you. There are hundreds of stories out there where she tried to do something herself.
Most of them aren’t nicer places to live for it. :)
7721722
7721755 Rika claims not to directly interfere in stories anymore. It's kind of a blurry line. I for example think Rika directly interfered when she used a conversation with Mary to spoil the surprise of the love blast to Fluttershy, since Rika knew doing so would change the ending of the "episode" of that story.
Hypothetical: Rika knows one changling infiltrator has snuck back into Canterlot, so she had a conversation with Mary about how Sombra is sitting in that crevasse, and a smart changling Queen would seek Sombra out to ally with him.
Rika lets the changling spy overhear this conversation because she wants to see Mary and Lyra driven to greater heights of heroism.
Has Rika directly interfered?
7721794
I think I'll leave you wondering for now. :)
EDIT: Well, there is one thing I will say: This version of Equestria has a shortage of idiot balls.
7721816
When people ask you why they should read your story, this is the perfect answer.
Re: the Author's Note: so now Twilight gets to save the whole six months?
7722776
/me counts.
A bit more than six months, actually... :)
7723537
Every language has words. In English, we say chair, but in Spanish, they say silla. There will be overlap in a lot of these words and grammar rules will be inferred from structure of words. There would have to be some way to explain even the most complicated concept in a way that someone could understand. I find it doubtful that any species could ever be so intelligent that it can surpass a computer in terms of memory and reasoning, and if a computer can make sense of something, there has to be a way to display that information in a sensible way.
7724701
Sure. Now… which language does the word “schadenfreude” belong to? How do you deal with languages which have no distinction between present and future tense? What about the phrase “time flies like arrow” in a world where a species of flies called “time flies” exists?
Why do you think the invisible idiot problem is still around after some forty years banging at it? :)
Even assuming you understand every word, this actually does not mean you understand what they mean. See hermeneutics. Text interpretation is heavily context dependent.
A species that is a computer in terms of memory and reasoning simply because it is originally a computer is perfectly normal. A species that therefore can use concepts that surpass temporal or spatial limits of a human brain is also normal. It is not at all helpful if a concept is displayed in a sensible way if it takes longer than your lifetime to read it.
Also, computers already use lots of information that cannot be displayed in a sensible way but still remains useful.
7728172
Since I'm at my computer, I can do that. The mobile site makes it impossible to actually hit "send" on a PM in all the cases I can find.
It is, however, easier to use the editing box to get things like quote tags.
7727906
I suspect I will be at a long diversion down your blogposts for a while; they are very useful and interesting analyses of canon [with properly graduated canon, even!]
With how fast you're responding to my comments, it flags them as read without me seeing them initially, because I've loaded the story since you replied, even if it doesn't display the particular comment because it's not in the same chapter. How best to describe that bug to report…hmm.
(Only caught these because I was looking at your blogs!)
7728190
I’m currently using Emacs + Edit with Emacs Chrome extension + my text processing script + some ELisp glue to edit comments.
Screw the editing box and the pony it rode in on. :)
(And yes, it works on mobile, save for the Chrome extension part and the fact that I need to send the data to a server to run pandoc on it, but that's trivial with ELisp.)
“Fimfiction can’t decide what a comment thread is.” probably.
This bug is unlikely to be fixed anytime soon, because of how story comments are organized in the first place – they are tied to specific chapters. If you delete a chapter and recreate it, all the comments attached to that chapter also get deleted. But at the same time, there’s a global comment feed on the story root which you can page through to the end. As a result, I suspect there’s no easy way to tell just where a comment got marked as read.
7729589
Actually, for all their similarities, Rika predates Madoka by a significant margin. The particular scenes in my endless scrapbook where Rika gets her Type III transformation were written in 2006. Madoka wasn’t around until 2011. :)
7730902
I tend to come by things from Odd sourcings.
7730908
A fanfic series including, among other things, a Starswirl-recipe-encoded missive. (This is not actually attested in the story, one has to figure that out, but I can't very well draw the parallel without pointing it out…) Didn't make my favorites list, so not amazing series, but enjoyable.
7730913
It would be interesting to find the actual fable if it did historically exist.
Oh. Pretty sure that nope, I didn’t read that. Canon does mention Star Swirl’s éclair recipe, though…
7730923
Tvtropes seems to dead-end it; the tale of the 47 ronin doesn't properly align with it.
7730917
Not when he's actually burning things it's not~ …okay, it's inconsistent with usual just-burned-things?
My take was that green = magic flame [cf. changelings] and red = plain, but…it's an Inconsistency in Canon for you to figure out. Another fan-hypothesis is that he's basically got an automatic safety on his fire that makes it a teleporter instead, and requires intentional de-activation, but that's inconsistent with the book and newspaper burnings.
7730938
Which was why I asked. :) Oh well.
The flame he breathes out in this one is green.
Unfortunately the number of cases in canon is too small to pick out a decent pattern. The limitations of dragonflame mail are particularly obscure…
7730992
Dark magic is… It's strongly-correlated, but not sufficient, for evil. Power based on anger and hatred is likely to be used for evil purposes. It's not impossible that it can be twisted to good, but it tends not to, because righteous fury is a small subset and is close to self-righteous fury…
7731012
Right.
But then, is a bottle ofourChampagne illegal in Equestria?It strikes me that at least some laws will not be able to catch it.[pre-post-edit: though not Equestria, because just lexically Prance ≠ France, thus a law in either will not include the other]
7731012
Pretty much what I'm saying. Mind Magic with intent to damage friendships and criminally negligent lack of feeling sorry?
7730994
Seems like the sort of thing Mary could be asking Twilight during a long train ride.
7731401
The joke/point being that chesswise those pieces were ships, tacking against the wind, until the Church complained about not being given any important piece on the chessboard, and got bishops.
Cadence is the 'shipper anyway. How much does she participate in Shiny's hobbies?
7732591
…but in Russian, there are ships on the chessboard. Only, they’re rooks. (“ладья́”) :)
Very little if any canonical indication of how they spend their spare time together. Shining Armor plays O&O with his school friends, and Twilight did play with him at least at some point, but we don’t know if Cadance ever participated. Cadance’s own hobbies are never detailed, not that I remember.
At the same time, she is never actually seen shipping, except in that one short scene during her introduction.
P.S. I do know that in their spare time, Kantai Collection girls ship.
7735993
Assuming I correctly parsed this sentence…
There are comic versions of episodes, if my memory serves me right, but they just recut show screenshots as this usually happens. Novelizations of the Equestria Girls movies are the only exception, and I didn’t read anything except Legends of Everfree yet. But in that one, the book contains important plot points that the movie omits, regarding the sundial. They are silly and bad plot points, but they are canon, for suitably small values of canon. It appears that the movie cut them for time, rather than the book tacked them on. :)
7738810
Most of them have interesting ideas despite the insipid, but usually only one or two, and typically accidentally. Even the Wonderbolt Academy Handbook, beside being completely borked by continually insisting that the Sonic Rainboom is a thing every Wonderbolt is taught to do (and implicitly, has always been taught to do) – which contradicts the screen canon way too hard – has one worthy idea: Airship-based earth pony paratroopers. But it’s a single illustration that clearly made it in by accident, and everything else about that book fails – both as an in-universe document and as a piece of out-of-universe motivational literature for little girls.
They all appear to have the same kind of faults: Writers go to work knowing less canon than we do, they feel ridiculously constrained by what they do know, but are afraid to interpret or extend it and instead use it for references as if they have to make sure their work is Just Like The Show. When they do gather the courage to write something original into a hole the show canon left for them, they more often than not come up with something asinine. Not to be confused with actual donkeys.
So it’s very hit or miss. Sometimes, though, as in the case of the Journal in particular, this is a quality that can itself be exploited in writing – but the Journal is pretty unique in that regard, and it can only really be done in a meta-heavy story. Like this one. :)
Not all of them. I did write up all of those I did, check my blog index for the interesting tidbits I fished out of them.
Honestly, I really appreciate how the show's done so much de-powering of Celestia over the years, because it really helped to discourage this annoying, annoying, annoying trend of Celestia being an omniscient genius planner. Seriously.
Rarity already helped Mary with one problem, I wonder if Sombra's crystals can help her eye problem?