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Flowers2,570 words
Notes on Necromancy1,535 words
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Contain2,100 words
Protect1,511 words
Ideas2,684 words
Calculated Risk3,327 words
Thinking Fast2,249 words

Ideas

"That probably could have been gone better." Bones stepped off the chariot and stretched, gritting his teeth as his bruises started acting up again. He noticed that the night guards were now glaring daggers at him.

Bones shook his head and attempted to placate the two dark stallions "I wasn't talking about your flying skills." He assured them.

They didn't seem to believe him entirely, but they at least stopped raking him with their eyes.

"So what were you talking about then?" Scarlet was already at the stables exit, waiting for him to catch up.

Bones noticed that her eyes glow seemed duller than usual, a detail that gnawed at him as he was reminded of all the magic she must have used the day before. "That whole thing."

She tilted her head "Really? I think it went pretty well considering."

"I was nearly trampled to death, and Applejack kicked me. You know she kicks things for a living? It shows." Bones stepped through the stable door and Scarlet fell in beside him, snickering. He shot her a disapproving look "You have a very interesting sense of humor."

She shrugged "You have to admit pushing the entire town into a murderous rage was a convenient way to get them all in range of the sleeping gas."

"I guess." He squinted his eyes from the mid afternoon glare. "Not really the safest option though. If they had broken through that shield they would have torn you limb from limb." They rounded a corner and began making their way towards the gardens.

She snorted and proclaimed with an air of confidence "They would have tried."

Bones smiled, but inwardly worried what exactly she meant by that. Scarlet was talented with most schools of magic, but he had trouble thinking of how she could defend herself from that horde without resorting to harming them. He decided to dismiss it as idle boasting.

Abruptly Bones realized he had left his cloak in the chariot, and stopped in his tracks.

Scarlet turned to face him. "Whats up?"

"I left my cloak in the chariot." He said.

"Oh. Why did you take it off in the first place?"

"I honestly have no Idea." He admitted, and turned around.

"Well, I'm going on ahead, I'll see you in The Archive, boss." She began to trot off towards the gardens.

He was about to reply with an appropriate jab when he heard the sound of someone approaching. He held his tongue expecting a servant or visitor, and so was surprised when Princess Luna stepped through one of the castles stone archways. Bones was briefly stunned by her splendor. He was used to Celestia's presence, but Luna's was in such stark contrast it caught him off guard. He managed to remember to bow politely; trying to spot Scarlet as he did so, but she was already gone.

Luna regarded him uninterestedly for a moment before recognizing Bones. "Oh, you are the one Celestia lent my chariot to yesterday." A frown crossed her face and she added "Without my permission."

"I do apologize for that, I assumed you had-" Bones began, but stopped when Luna held up a silver trimmed hoof. He found himself staring at her mane, which flowed magnificently even though there wasn't the slightest breeze.

"I don't blame you of course." She sighed irritably and looked up at the sun before giving Bones an appraising look. "I trust it was important, I know my sister holds you in high regard."

"It was." As Bones watched, he thought he could glimpse something of the night sky in Luna's stature. When he did, he began to feel the creeping unease he always felt when in Luna's presence for any amount of time. Her aura was genuinely off putting to anyone familiar with what it meant. Traces of the nightmare that had once shared her body still lingered in its edges, a taint that she wouldn't be rid of for years to come.

"I don't suppose you could enlighten me as to what you needed my chariot for?" Luna fished, and she straightened herself to her full height, radiating authority in the way only alicorns can.

To her credit it was a very impressive sight. The Princess of the Night in all her dark radiance was probably very intimidating to anypony who didn't have experience staring down demons. As it was however, Bones didn't so much as blink as he defied a ruler of Equestria. "Unfortunately no. Celestia gave me orders to not speak of it to anypony but her. My most sincere apologies princess." Given Luna's history, Celestia had elected to keep Bones's occupation a secret from her sister, at least until she was confident Luna was ready. It was a decision Bones disagreed with, but he supposed Celestia knew her sister much better than he did.

Luna narrowed her eyes. "She would say that wouldn't she?" She seemed to think something over briefly before coming to a decision. "I'm sure she wouldn't mind if I just heard it from you." There was a thrum of power in the air as Luna's eyes flashed .

Bones gasped as he felt Luna's consciousness brush against his. Instinctively his mind went into lock-down, blocking whatever attempt she had just made to intrude on his thoughts. He saw Luna's brow go up in surprise as she was rebuffed from his mind so forcibly. Bones recovered from the shock first. "No, I'm afraid she was very specific."

She ignored that, and a smile slowly spread across Luna's face as some realization dawned on her. "A royal adviser hm?" She stared at him knowingly.

"Just an adviser" Bones confirmed. Had Luna just attempted black magic on him?

"Of course." Luna chuckled and walked past him. "Farewell Pale Bones."

He watched her go, mulling over what had just happened and what it meant. He had always suspected Luna was a sorceress to some extent, but he never thought he would have his suspicions confirmed so blatantly. He had no idea what Luna had just tried to do, it didn't feel like mind control, and as far as he knew mind reading wasn't possible in such a direct way. Luna was ancient, so it was no surprise to him that she would be in control of powers he couldn't even recognize. He felt a small thrill as he pondered what kind of secrets she might be privy to that were long lost to time. He wondered if she would share some of them with him when The Archive was revealed to her. Then he considered the possibility that it already was revealed to her. In that tiny moment were Luna had full access to his mind, he felt a taste of her immovable will. Bones felt no doubt that she could have overpowered his defenses had she wished. He also had no idea if she had actually picked up anything in the short time their minds touched. He would have to discuss this with Celestia when she debriefed him tomorrow.

Bones blinked and tried to remember what he was doing before he encountered Luna, but it eluded him.

---

"No way." Scarlet was incredulous. "She actually tried to mind control you?"

"Not exactly mind control." Bones corrected "I have no idea what it was, could have been mind control or even mind reading. I shut it down before she could do anything though, I think."

"You think?" Scarlet said, leaning forward. The Archive's flickering green lantern light glinted off the curves of her silver mask.

He shrugged "Well how am I supposed to know? She could have picked up on something. I have no idea what she's capable of."

There was silence for a while.

"So Princess Luna is a sorceress." Scarlet said.

"Yup."

"That's crazy, and may or may not be terrifying to varying degrees."

"I agree. She's proven that she has no qualms about using her powers to get what she wants, but I don't really get the 'evil' vibe from her very much. Aside from the remnants of that Nightmare." Bones hissed the last word, and resisted the temptation to spit on the ground.

"I don't really think its something we need to worry about. She's Celestia's sister after all. I don't think she would let Luna roam around if she thought she was an evil sorceress." Scarlet was probably right.

"I'm still going to mention this to her tomorrow, and I'm not meeting Luna's eyes anymore."

"Both good ideas." Scarlet said, nodding.

More silence.

"You still owe me flowers you know." Scarlet seemed keen to collect on Bones's promise.

He grinned. "Yes, yes I do. We can go get some tomorrow after the debriefing, okay?"

"I'll hold you to it." Scarlet slid off her chair and disappeared into the stacks.

Bones looked down at 'Thatched Knee's Guide to Gargant's Ghouls' and grimaced at a particularly gruesome illustration of one of the beasts devouring an unidentifiable corpse. He had never heard of Gargant. From the books description it was a place, but as far as he knew it didn't exist. He suspected the book was either very old, or from some other plane of existence. The writer used weird words like 'everybody' and 'people'. He looked up from the book and began staring at one of the lanterns.

"You know Twilight claimed that time travel is actually possible?" He said absentmindedly.

"Ha!" Scarlet scoffed and she stepped back into view, carrying several fleshy tomes from the living books section.

"She even claimed to have done it herself." Bones watched her as she retrieved a small cage of small insects from the top of one of the bookcases.

"I'm sure she did." Scarlet began feeding small clumps of the writhing insects to the books, who made small mewling and growling noises as they snatched them from the air.

"Really though, she was explaining the theory to me, and through all the gibberish I'll be damned if it didn't actually start to make sense." Bones said, pressing his point.

Scarlet finished feeding the books and fixed the cage of bugs with an intense look.

"I'm serious. I think she might have been telling the truth." He said.

Scarlet levitated a small clump of the insects from the cage and made a deep inhaling sound, causing the poor creatures to wither and turn to dust.

Bones shivered as the wave of cold washed over him. He went to wrap his cloak around himself more tightly, then remembered for a second time that he had left it in the chariot. He scolded himself for his forgetfulness. "You should really warn me before you do that."

She giggled a little and replaced the lid on top of the cage. "That would be no fun."

Bones shook his head and smiled a little. "Anyway, I think we should give her the benefit of the doubt. Next time I see Twilight I'll ask her for more details."

"Ask me for what details?" Twilight asked, standing at The Archive's library entrance.

Bones stood up from his seat so fast he promptly lost his footing and fell over, hitting his head on the solid stone floor. "Owww!"

Scarlet began laughing uncontrollably.

Bones heard the sound of urgent hoofsteps, and Twilight's face came into his view as she stood over him.

"Are you okay? I didn't mean to startle you like that." She levitated him onto his hooves again. "Well, maybe I did, but not that much."

"Oh he's fine. They wouldn't call him 'Bones' if he didn't have a thick skull." Scarlet laughed even harder at her own joke. It seemed she was in one of her moods, and if she was surprised at Twilight's sudden appearance, she was too busy being in hysterics to show it.

Bones wobbled slightly "I think I'm okay. Just adding to my bruise collection." He shook himself to clear his head. "But what in Equestria are you doing here? How did you even get in?" He managed to shoot a glare at Scarlet, who attempted to stifle her laughter.

"Celestia told me." Twilight smiled and looked pleased with herself. "She told me all about what you do, and about this secret archive full of forbidden knowledge." She seemed close to salivating when she mentioned forbidden knowledge.

Bones looked at her searchingly. "She told you everything? Did she tell you about Scarlet?" This all seemed very sudden.

Twilight looked over at scarlet, who waved cheerfully. "Well, maybe not everything. She did mention that you would be explaining some things to me." She turned back to Bones.

He took on a thoughtful expression. "Right, well why don't you tell us what you know so far, so we can fill in the blanks."

Twilight looked uncertain. "Well, I know that you two fight dark magic practitioners, and wipe ponies memories so they don't remember what happened. She basically said that you protect Equestria from evil. She wasn't very specific though."

"Sounds like she told you next to nothing then." Scarlet said, she had finally stopped chortling.

Bones sighed "You're sure she said you were cleared to be told everything?"

Twilight nodded and revealed a sealed letter from somewhere. Bones took it from her and began reading.

Bones

After much deliberation I have decided that being candid with Twilight is the best option available. She has an insatiable curiosity for these matters, and I fear she will never be satisfied if things are not explained to her. I do worry about how the existence of The Archive will effect her mentally, but after years of knowing you and Scarlet I trust that if anypony knows how to keep sane its you two. I have explained the basics to her, but I'll be leaving the job of explaining the details in your more capable hooves. It is my hope that knowing these secrets will help her protect herself from the dark things that tend to gravitate towards her. She will still be staying in Ponyville, but she will have access to The Archive whenever she wishes. I will also expect you to teach her anything she requests help with with, however infrequent those requests might be. Her special talent is magic after all.

Princess Celestia

Bones finished reading at looked up at Twilight, who was watching him expectantly. "Alright, your obviously cleared. But are you sure you want to know this stuff? Its not exactly pleasant."

She nodded vehemently.

"Alright, then I'm not going to sugarcoat it for you. First thing you need to understand is that we don't just protect Equestria from black magic, we also use it. We are practitioners."

She was mildly shocked at this, and Bones could see her processing the implications in her head.

"We generally don't use our abilities on anypony except other sorcerers though. In order to combat the kind of magic they wield we have to understand it completely, which means we are perfectly capable of using it ourselves should the need arise. And this archive-" he gestured around him "-is where we learn our craft. The books contained here can teach you everything from shielding yourself from curses, to the exact procedure required to sacrifice part of your soul in exchange for demonic power, and even how to raise the dead."

Twilight just stared at him blank-faced.

"Sheesh boss, I would have put on a spooky record if I had known you were going to do that." Scarlet chuckled.

Bones ignored her.

After a few moments of stunned silence, Twilight finally spoke up with a question. "You can raise the dead?"

Bones grinned "Of course! In fact, its my special talent." He pointed towards Scarlet with a hoof. "Just ask my partner here."

Scarlet reached up and removed her silver mask, revealing the bleached white skull beneath. "Hi!" she said in the most friendly tone she could manage.

Twilight had been taking everything pretty well so far. But after staring at Scarlet's non-existent face and fully grasping what she was seeing, she decided that was an appropriate time to faint.

"Think I overdid it?" Scarlet asked, innocently.

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