• Published 19th Jun 2016
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Missing Pages & Scrawled Footnotes - Ice Star



Iceverse minifics. Little bits of world building, style experiments, character pieces, and such dumped in this anthology. Also, stuff I never finished and poems.

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Equestrian Demonology Technicalities [One Shot] (EqG)

Author's Note:

A little snippet with Equestria Girls shenanigans and lore-linking. Takes places sometime after season five and the third movie. Spoilers for: the first three EqG movies and Arc One.


Equestrian Demonology Technicalities

E/Slice of Life/Sunset Shimmer/Sci-Twi

First, Twilight Sparkle had to learn her lesson. Now she can teach it to someone else, namely Sunset Shimmer, who wants to know the answer to a very important question. If what she transformed into during the Fall Formal wasn’t a demon, what is?

Dear Princess Twilight,

Graduation is almost here, at least on this side of the mirror. Even though the human world schedules its school year almost like Equestria, it just isn’t the same. Growing up in Tall Tale and Canterlot didn’t stop the school years from being built around the harvest-times of the earth ponies. Here, every school calendar is practically the same, from Canterville to Crystal Prep, and Everton too. That gets boring ever so often. How is everything in Equestria? Have there been any more monsters in Ponyville or ancient evils awakening?

Speaking of ancient evils, there was a question I had for you. I don’t have anything to worry about, grade-wise. I’m used to breezing through all the classes here after being taught by somepony as difficult as Princess Celestia. Okay, except history. The history of this world is just too different from Equestria and it can be hard to keep everything that happens in them straight.

Anyway, I wanted to write to you about doing a side project. Just something to actually keep me busy while I help the rest of the girls with their projects. I was thinking about the Elements of Harmony, and just how fascinating they are. You’re so lucky to be able to experience and use them. Has anypony ever tried to study them before? When I was a filly, they were just an old mare’s tale and not even a common one. Blegh, this makes me sound way too old, but it has to be said: in my years, I only heard of them once or twice, and they were just a storybook whisper. Their six virtues weren’t in any books that were in the Archives when I was Princess Celestia’s Faithful Student.

They’re one of the most powerful artifacts in the world, and stand for everything that embodies light magic. Yet, they still had the power to transform me into an ugly she-demon. I don’t fully understand why they did that. How are the Elements of Harmony that stand for all that the gods want to protect able to do something so unexplainably dark? Is there anything in your library about that?

The idea hasn’t left my head for a while, and I wanted to know if you had anything to tell me about it.

Your Friend,

Sunset Shimmer

Dear Sunset,

I never thought about researching the Elements of Harmony before! Or, well, I have. It’s just that they don’t lend themselves to conventional research very well. Neither myself, Princess Celestia, or the rest of the girls know all of the Elements’ power and secrets. The Tree of Harmony’s spirit has never spoken to me, and it only appeared to me at the Battle of the Bands with you. I haven’t seen it since, nor have I seen the Rainbow of Light outside of the Cutie Map. Reticence isn’t normally a word I would describe a tree with, but the World Tree is the most enigmatic possible!

Forcing it to do anything won’t get me anywhere. I’m not sure Princess Celestia ever got very far with the tree either. She is very reluctant to ever address the matter, and I would never push it with her. Once, I had the chance to get my hooves on some papers that might have detailed extraordinary never-before-seen research into light magic, but that fell through…

I would love to help you with your project, Sunset! I’ve never thought about how the Element of Magic would be able to transform you the way it did. Other than The Elements of Harmony: I Reference Guide they had never come up anywhere else before. That is, aside from all the old histories you and I grew up with, where Princess Celestia was said to have defeated many enemies of Equestria all alone. In those stories, the Elements were at least mentioned.

But other than that? Well, I’m tapping my quill and only coming up with blanks. The Elements of Harmony were just… unknown before my friends and I awoke them again. Not a single book in Golden Oaks Library had any other books about them, and upon checking what I can of publishers’ records at the time, A Reference Guide had a limited amount of copies printed. Not only was it a limited edition when it was published centuries ago, but the book was also first distributed in a time when making them by hoof and horn was still common. My own copy reflects this. If you look closely, the way the Equestrian glyphs are written is characteristic of the kind used by unicorn scribes in the early Solar Millennium, before the one we use today become standardized.

Some of Golden Oak’s records survived Tirek’s attack and have been preserved at Ponyville’s Town Hall. If I go ask the Mayor-Mare, I’m sure she’ll be fine with letting me borrow them. Books were usually delivered to the library in batches based on similar topics. If I can find when The Elements of Harmony: A Reference Guide was delivered to Golden Oaks, I might be able to find some similar titles and order them again. If not, then I can always write to the nearest village. The Cutie Map says that would be Ghastly-Upon-Copse. I’m not sure if they would be big enough to have a library, but if they do, their book-cart deliveries would mimic Ponyville’s due to both being located along a similar Everfreeshire route.

If that doesn’t turn out to be the case, then Princess Celestia would know the answer!

Your Friend and Teacher,

Twilight Sparkle
P.S. Spike says hi! He wants to know how Other Twilight and Other Spike are doing. Could you please write to him about them? I need to work on organizing the entries in the journal some more.

P.P.S I would love to attend the graduation of you and the girls! Do you think we could arrange the date? If princess duties and portal shenanigans keep me from coming, we can always plan an after-party. I’m sure two Twilights planning will be better than one.

Dear Princess Twilight,

Of course, I’ll write to Spike! Just check below this entry and I’ll have one ready for him. I had no idea the library system in Equestria was so much more perilous than the one here. Then again, the last time I used a non-Canterlot library in Equestria was when I was eight years old. I wasn’t thinking about how the books got there. Please lemme know how your search goes! Unfortunately, I can’t do much to lend a hand (or hoof) on my end.

Your Friend,

Sunset Shimmer

P.S. I would love for you to attend my graduation! We’ll have to organize it another time, but I’m sure the girls will be thrilled.

Dear Sunset,

You won’t believe what I just found out. Ghastly-Upon-Copse has no record of ever getting a copy of A Reference Guide. Normally, this wouldn’t be a problem. Except I’m finding records of The Elements of Harmony: A Reference Guide being accounted for by the previous librarian of Golden Oaks, a mare by the name of Lily Lightly. The title appears in stock while I’m checking the partial records in Town Hall. What I can’t find is a shipping date for when the book arrived. This is extremely frustrating because at first, I thought it was likely lost. Books don’t suddenly appear in-stock without the librarian noting, and the title is not one that would have been just abandoned by a patron one day.

Instead, I wrote to the hamlet of Ghastly-Upon-Copse to see if they had a library. Unfortunately, I was right about them being too small for one. The town’s record-keeper was kind enough to send me the records of all the titles distributed by the book carts that traveled under the orders of the Equestrian Library Association. That’s when I hit my second dilemma. Unless it was brought in by an independent wagon (which is unlikely due to the nature of the title) there was no copy of The Elements of Harmony: A Reference Guide ever brought into town during the 990s - which was when the copy was accounted for by Lily Lightly.

I’m so sorry about this, Sunset! I’ll be writing to Princess Celestia immediately. Perhaps she knows something about Lily Lightly, demonology, and any titles about the Elements of Harmony.

Your Friend and Teacher,

Twilight Sparkle

Dear Princess Twilight,

Wow, it sounds like you have a real mystery on your hands hooves! Honestly, if you can’t find anything on the Elements of Harmony, I sure wouldn’t mind helping you solve a freaky library mystery. Even if my participation would be, well, remote, I think it would be the perfect distraction. Human high school has just never been intellectually stimulating like stuff was back in Equestria. Getting to the bottom of a real mystery (not that Rarity losing her nail polish is trivial) would have me at the edge of my seat.

Please write again soon. If you need me to, I’ll look into what I can and see if Lily Lightly had a human counterpart. I’ve found that the human side of the mirror complements our Equestrian more than I originally would have thought. Lily’s counterpart might hold a clue.

Your Friend,

Sunset Shimmer

...

Dear Sunset,

Princess Celestia has given me more impossible mysteries. Or, perhaps they’re not mysteries. A mystery is something that is solvable. This is an error of organization and something that was crudely laid to rest long before I had the opportunity to dig into it. Sweet Celestia, according to the Princess, Lily Lightly quit abruptly. The only documentation I was able to find about her is a reference to a deceased cousin and a death certificate for an absent pony (in this case, Lily) that was issued before I came to Ponyville. I had no idea there was so much trouble with the last librarian! Once I settled in, Princess Celestia never gave me any information about Lily other than her name. Before I came to Ponyville, I was told that managing the library was a community effort since a problem with the last librarian.

I guess Lily Lightly left quite a mess for me. Records from the Tower of the Faithful in Canterlot took a lot of sifting through. Thankfully, Moondancer was there to help. We found that there were only twenty-five copies of The Elements of Harmony: A Reference Guide accounted for in the last TWO HUNDRED YEARS! This includes my copy! The book is practically ENDANGERED!

There isn’t any record of any of these copies being shipped to Everfreeshire either. Most of them haven’t left the archival wings of large university libraries on the coasts. It really does seem like Ponyville’s copy of this book was deposited there purely by a happy (if frustrating) accident. When I asked Princess Celestia about the book’s presence, she said that this was the most likely reason behind its appearance too.

Even with Princess Celestia’s help, it turns out that works on the Elements of Harmony are next to non-existent. It’s just like one of my books back when I was living in the Tower of the Faithful said. For ‘Elements of Harmony’ you were just redirected to ‘Mare in the Moon’ because that was the story we all knew. The Elements of Harmony were just a footnote in it. They seem to be a footnote in the Canterlot Archives too. Princess Celestia admitted to me that she and Princess Luna never studied them. The closest there were to texts on the Elements themselves were a few scrolls dealing with when light magic was both more prevalent… and a lot more necessary.

I don’t mean to diminish the ability of formidable ponies with the ability to use light magic, like you, or a goddess like Princess Celestia. But good gods, from what there is written about the start of the Solar Millenium, the world was a much more dangerous place.

The scrolls don’t tell me anything specifically about transformations like yours, but there is a detail that I think will intrigue you. There are some passages about purity being required for using light magic, and it is distinctly not referring to magical energy. So few ponies can use light magic, and I know you wrote to me last month about how it can still be difficult… meanwhile, I’ve always found it to come so easily. What I see is that ponies who had this purity would cast light magic at monsters and other impurities in the world. As a result, anything or creature with magic cast upon it would grow deformed and pained if they lacked those qualities. Eventually, the light magic would both a) force the impure from any place sanctified because of its power and b) create a passive, repelling field.

Both sound like wholly fascinating things and line up with some of the abilities of the Elements of Harmony. Yes, this would have a fraction of the power and be on a much smaller scale. The source of these powers is also unclear in my reading - there are just references to a single source, all without explanation. I still think that is promising enough that it is worth mentioning.

Your Friend and Teacher,

Twilight Sparkle

Dear Princess Twilight,

I think we’re getting somewhere. I guess I can’t ask you to send precious, one-of-a-kind royal scrolls through the mirror. Thank you so much for putting all the effort you have into helping me, Twi. Even if Equestria is still so far away, learning about the world I left behind still helps me learn about myself in a really, really weird way.

I think that I suspected as much with the light magic. Dark magic is not very common in Equestria’s history, so I don’t think the purity being talked about is a purity of magic. There has to be something else that light magic can mess with, something that isn’t literally dark. I never had dark magic, and an Element of Harmony couldn’t have given it to me.

The only question that this hasn’t come close to answering is about the transformation itself. Why did it happen? What was I really? Would I have been on the same on the other side of the mirror portal? I’m not sure why an artifact of goodness and power would give me anything at all. We may not know all the mysteries of light magic, but if I could least fully understand what I was beyond how everyone felt about me, I think I can bring my project full circle.

Your Friend,

Sunset Shimmer

Dear Sunset,

I had to ask Princess Celestia more again. When I kept confusing her with the term ‘she-demon’ I knew something was up. I had to explain to her that I was talking about your Fall Formal transformation and the result. She said that what you became isn’t technically called a demon. They’re a separate creature, one that doesn’t fit the average pony’s generic use of it being any old monster too. I’m not sure where the Princess learned this from, but she did suggest that she had a better primary source, not the echoes of what demons are in old mare’s tales like you and I had.

You were only metaphorically a demon. Your transformation was bestowed by magic, and that fits the base idea ponies (and some other creatures) know about demons. So, they probably would have called you a demon on this side of the mirror too. What Princess Celestia was clear about was that when somepony is disconnected from the Elements of Harmony, the Elements will disable them and block them out. The only ways for a Bearer to become disconnected, according to Princess Celestia, are… fairly obvious. Death and disarray sever the connection.
I think that you triggered a similar response in the Spark of Magic. Princess Celestia thinks so too. What you did at the Fall Formal was only a fraction of what a real Bearer of the Spark would be able to channel - and what the united Elements of Harmony could do. I don’t know why the Elements of Harmony would have that built-in to them, but since they can’t be tested and so little sources chronicle them, I’m not sure there is anything more I can unearth about them.

All I can do is offer you the conclusion Princess Celestia and I came up with: you weren’t a demon. Instead, something within you managed to trigger something in the Spark of Magic that flooded you with overwhelming, corrupting magics at a fraction of what world-class Artifacts of Artifacts could do. Despite being presented with a huge taste of magic, you wrote to me before that you were still blocked off from the Element itself, and the kind of powers I can channel from it.

Sunset, it sounds like what you did was activate a very bizarre security system!

Your Friend and Teacher,

Twilight Sparkle

Dear Princess Twilight,

I never thought to view the Elements of Harmony as so complex. When I held your crown, I knew that it held power beyond my wildest dreams, but not that the Element itself was anything more than an artifact. Sometimes I wonder if I have been in this world too long, that I was able to hold that crown in my magic and think of it as something merely mortal. It’s something I wouldn’t know how to explain to the other girls. Magic is still something that is fun and different to them. None of them know what it is like to have something woven into your world just not exist one day, or that magic can be scarier than Midnight Sparkle.

When you wrote that the Elements of Harmony might have a ‘security system’ it almost made them sound alive. At least, alive in the same way you and I are. I never knew any spirits when I lived in Equestria. I didn’t even know anyone who wasn’t a pony. They just weren’t in the castle - and before that, my fillyhood neighborhood only had ponies. If the World Tree you’ve seen is really alive in some way, I’m not sure I would understand how.

Enough of my rambling, though. Thank you for all your help, Twi. It’s been invaluable. I think the other Twilight is going to be as glad as me to hear that she wasn’t a demon, either. At least, I don’t think she was. Her transformation wasn’t because of the Elements of Harmony, but it was similar enough to mine, wasn’t it?

Your Friend,
Sunset Shimmer

Dear Sunset,

I am so, so, so sorry! I should have made this as clear as possible right away. Your last letter was so horribly worried and I had been explaining too much, I forgot what mattered. My mirror-self has nothing to worry about with dark magic and demons. As long as she has been hit with the light magic on par with my world’s True Elements that you say she has. I had a bit of a scare myself there, since if she never had been… well, that would have been very nasty.

Your Friend and Teacher,

Twilight Sparkle

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