12. Wednesday's Child is Full of Whoa
Equestria : 1940
Wednesday 19 June - Canterlot, Equestria
“I turned my heart to know and to search out and to seek wisdom and the scheme of things, and to know the wickedness of folly and the foolishness that is madness.”
— Ecclesiastes 7:25
Morning dawned by the touch of a cold nose on Jon’s side, and a murmured, “Get up, sleepy. I got your new toothbrush.”
“Nightshade?” Jon scooted over at the insistent thrust of an equine nose as the tired batpony crawled into bed, pushing again and again until he fell out the other side of the bed with a thud. “Ouch.”
“Go out and play with your friends at the party,” she murmured, getting comfortable on Jon’s pillow.
“Oh, the party!” Jon staggered to his feet and moved to his luggage, getting a clean pair of boxer shorts first before even looking at what had changed during the night. His 35mm camera had been returned, along with a manila envelope full of developed photos that he really wondered if he would ever be able to show anybody. After thumbing through them for a moment, he determined that Schadenfreude had a future in photography if his career of being a complete and total pain in the ass ever fell through.
He sat a number of fresh 8mm film reels to one side and checked the motion picture camera for the party. Wherever Moondancer was being held in Germany, at least she would get a care package from her friends, and maybe let Twilight Sparkle reconnect with her old friends. It was a light at the end of the tunnel for his efforts to encourage friendship in Celestia’s student, and he only hoped the light was not an oncoming train.
“I found something!” Twilight Sparkle burst through the door with a happy cry, making Jon suddenly aware that he was once again nearly naked in the room. He grabbed for his trousers as Twilight galloped up to him with a book held firmly in her magic and a look of such intensity that she probably would not have noticed him stark naked and painted orange. “I found this edition of Signes, Symboles, and the Ende of Tymes in the library where it talks about the same cloud formations and volcanic eruptions we’re having! Do you know what this means?”
That I should get a lock for my door?
Continuing as soon as she had taken a breath, Twilight Sparkle babbled about stellar conjunctions and sub-thaumic compression of deep magma layers in such rapid Equestrian that she could have been talking in High Unicorn for all Jon could understand. It did give him the chance to put on his slacks and his tweed jacket, which smelled perfectly clean and smoke-free. His constant exposure to Equestrian immodesty almost led him to skip the jacket and go for a short-sleeved shirt, but since he was going to possibly be in the filming of the party, it probably would be best to be dressed.
At least both he and Twilight Sparkle were clean, and even Spike had a gleaming lustre to his scales that his lava soak must have encouraged.
“That’s all well and good,” managed Jon when Twilight stopped for breath, “but we have Moondancer’s party this morning, so maybe you can talk your other friends into—”
“There’s no time!” Twilight produced several more books out of her bag and riffled through the pages of one so fast it sounded like a ratchet, then shoved it against his face. “There! See?”
It appeared to be a dusty story about tidal pools and selenium deposits, which did not explain Twilight aggravation until she yanked the book back and pointed at the binding. “There are pages missing out of this book. It’s defaced!”
The lump under Jon’s bedcovers shifted, and Nightshade’s tired voice drifted out. “I’ll arrest whoever did it first thing this evening. Now can you two please take your conversation elsewhere? I’m tired, and need my sleep.”
Twilight Sparkle started responding, then paused with her mouth open and her eyes locked on Jon’s occupied bed. Ever so slowly, she turned to look at Jon, who was nearly done getting dressed, then back at the bed.
“Isn’t she your guard?” asked Spike, who had shaken off his early-morning yawns in exchange for a look of youthful curiosity.
“At night,” said Jon, which did not help. “Right now, I need to get Twilight—”
“We need to research this!” protested Twilight in nearly a squeak. “Somepony has been destroying books! And there may be something to deal with the volcanic eruptions in there too,” she added as if it were a trivial afterthought.
“It will wait until after the party with your friends,” assured Jon. “Spike, if you will please help me carry some of my camera equipment up to the party—”
“I need him to help me with the research,” snapped Twilight Sparkle while waving another pair of antiquated books at Jon. Under any normal circumstances, the prospect of browsing through ancient Equestrian books would have been irresistible. A thought about who had gone through the ancient books with a pair of scissors restrained him. “You can go to the party without us. This is more important!”
“But—” Jon found himself talking to thin air as Twilight Sparkle galloped away. “Friendship?” he finished far too late.
There was a rustling from the bed and Nightshade’s bleary eyes appeared at the edge of the sheets. She looked at him for a long moment, then vanished back into bed with a muttered, “I hate operational security.”
He managed to carry everything he needed to the party except Twilight.
As expected, the few unicorns who gathered for the celebration did not really miss her at all.
* * ✹ * *
“I should have organized them into a search party,” grumbled Jon as he trudged through the castle corridors, following the directions from one of the servants. “She blows off the party and vanishes, and all Lemon Hearts can say is ‘Well, that’s Twilight.’ And those are her friends.”
Canterlot had not simply grown up and out of the side of the mountain. The construction had taken stone out of the bowels of the mountain, and the remaining empty space thus created had been turned into storage. Just what kind of storage had been a continuing series of discoveries.
In addition to the artificial caverns of Celestia’s private bath he had found yesterday, today revealed locked private larders where cheese and wine were carefully nurtured along their flavorful path, as well as the famous Canterlot mushroom fields. There had also been quite a few corridors of personal storage units, which he should have expected. Unicorns liked ‘stuff’ to a degree that pegasi thought was a little odd (since they normally owned only what they could keep from falling through a cloud), and earth ponies thought ‘stuff’ was far too modern and breakable when the things they had inherited from their great-grandparents still functioned just fine.
Jon had skipped the door to the sewer system that handled Canterlot’s inevitable waste, piping it down the mountain to… wherever a bunch of magical treated sewage would be disposed, he supposed. That would wait until another day.
He squinted at the worn and faded sign that announced the Royal Archives, the only piece of wood he had seen since descending the stairs and wandering down the corridor. If it was supposed to indicate great age and care, the sign failed miserably. What paint had not faded into near illegibility had begun to peel nearly a century ago, and he was only able to puzzle out the Equestrian symbols by the fact that he was expecting them.
After passing through the library archives door, Jon found himself in a different sort of storage chamber, where trees went to die. Good trees who had lived knowledgeable lives, sacrificed for pony knowledge and been stashed in the event some unicorn might possibly want to learn an obscure spell. There were a few odd old ponies monitoring these dry forest clearings, dusting book bindings and ensuring their little groves did not wander away, and the Librarians (because he had to think of them capitalized) guided his path to the Deep Archives Storage where Twilight Sparkle had a lair.
Um… An apartment.
Although when Jon opened the door and looked inside the book-packed space, he could not help but think it was the domain of some ancient dragon who hoarded books instead of gold. At least he could see Spike’s influence in keeping the whole book-pile organized in the neat shelves. Twilight’s recent passage through them left a trail of empty gaps and a number of discarded books she had left behind during her search.
Following the obvious path, Jon picked up loose books and checked the titles before leaving them in short stacks, much like droppings. There were a lot of books deeper in, arrayed in dense shelves that made Jon’s fingers itch to hold onto just a few of them and read for a few hours. It must have been a heavenly home for Twilight Sparkle, and it appeared that being the Princess’ private pet pupil provided plentiful perks—
He stopped and read the cover of the bold blue book he had just picked up, then carefully refiled it on the ‘Appropriate Alliteration Athenaeum Annex’ shelf before continuing his search.
It was a little like some sort of wildlife reserve for endangered species of the literary world. There was a desk surrounded by little clusters of papyrus scrolls each with their ornate wooden umbilicus poking out, a massive book that had been carefully dissected into individual pages and was being examined under an dusty magnifying glass, a pile of stone tablets, several smudged chalkboards filled with intricate equations that seemed to move when he looked at them sideways, and far more things that he wanted to examine in greater detail. In any event, the apartment appeared larger on the inside, and somehow he doubted that all of the contents belonged inside this library instead of in the much larger library outside.
He could picture hesitant students sneaking into the dangerous den of unicornis discipuli princeps in order to retrieve one of her precious treasures, armed only with bookmarks and non-flammable illumination sources in the event they were attacked.
It did not seem such a silly thought when he turned a corner and looked at the book-fort that occupied much of the room.
Parapets of periodicals, walls of arcane tomes, supporting columns of compendiums, really the whole description wrote itself. Or somepony else had written it. It was Fort Book, an Equestrian outpost of literacy thrust into the barbaric lands and defended by the most gallant and brave of librarians. The only thing it was missing was a moat, and if Jon squinted at the blue books at the bottom of the embankment hard enough, he could read the titles like Equestrian Waterplants and River Morphology, so he supposed they could suffice in a pinch.
The fort was being guarded, or besieged perhaps, by a dragon who stood on the outside of the fort and picked up books as they were catapulted out of the interior. Spike shuttled his most recent pile of rejected books to one side away from the fort during a brief lull in Twilight’s tome tossing and gave Jon a careful look while still keeping an eye out for incoming missiles. “Party was a bust, huh?”
“I got some good footage of the cake,” said Jon. “Twinkleshine said she’d keep a couple slices in her office for you and Twilight if you get a chance to stop by. Once the film is developed, the gifts and such all are going out by pegasus post for the Atlantic Clipper to take to Lisbon, then however many stamps it will take to get to Telemark in Norway.” He shrugged. “The war goes on, but I suppose letters will still get through, even if the censors eat all the cookies.”
“So, it was a bust.” Spike eyed the fort, which had not spit out a used book in over a minute. “She’s going to be here for a week, if this is any indication. We could have at least taken a few hours to get cake. I haven’t met most of her friends in ages. Even Lyra.”
“Some of them are still around the castle for a while,” said Jon. “If I grab her by the tail and you hold her head up, we should be able to drag her back into civilization at least long enough for her to meet them.”
He did not think Twilight heard, but the slow motion of the book-drawbridge rising attracted Jon’s attention, giving him a very Twilight-like frown. Spike, on the other hand, just shook his head and started arranging books for the upcoming resheving.
“I’m warning you right now, Mister Walthers. The harder you pull to get her out of there, the harder she’ll fight.”
“Friends don’t let friends lock themselves away, like a princess in a tower,” he called out loud enough for Twilight to hear. “I’m going to lay siege to your fortification!”
A barrage of silence was his only response, along with a few thuds that might have been Twilight reinforcing the foundations of her castle with folios.
“Give it up,” hummed Spike as he sorted. “You’re trying to out-stubborn Twilight, and I can tell you, it can’t be done.”
“But—” The sound of a ratchet much like a catapult might make interrupted Jon’s planned rant, giving him a moment to reflect on the situation. “I’m in a castle, locked out of a castle inside the first castle, with a dragon advising me on how best to rescue the fair maiden locked inside.”
“Pretty much, yeah. Here, hold these.” Spike heaved a stack of books into his arms, which almost dropped Jon to the ground, then picked up a stack twice as tall. “She’s not going anywhere, so we might as well start reshelving. Do you need anything before we go, Twilight?”
A scroll flew out from the fort and bounced off Spike’s head. After he picked it up and unrolled it, Spike added, “She wants us to go get some more books.”
* * ✹ * *
One disadvantage of trying to work in a library run by unicorns was their opinion on ambient lighting. After all, light was the natural predator for paper, leaving Jon to follow Spike down the narrow passages and dusty corridors of the book catacombs while holding a flickering firefly lantern.
His source of illumination was just another way that Equestria was different from the outside world. The lanterns were all over the place, magical constructs with enchanted glass windows that let the captured lighting bugs put out more light than seemed possible, and a tiny food source with a few drops of nectar for them to snack on during their job.
Spike had no problem with the cave-like lighting, and happily chatted away while they navigated the underground corridors, much as if he was unused to being listened to during a conversation. Jon tried to listen, but he was constantly distracted by the surroundings. Thousand year old paper books in preservation spells. Two thousand year old books written on sheets of yellowing parchment. Three thousand year old books written in Hellenic script on Mycenaean papyri, perhaps. Collections of scrolls that looked as if they were written in Greek, with minor char marks on the ends that made him suspect they had been rescued from a library fire. Knotted ropes of some native tribes hanging on racks next to stacks of clay tablets.
After some time of poking around and carrying the books Spike passed him, Jon decided it was probably best if he did not touch anything for fear of it bursting into dust. What was worse, he could have sworn that one of the ancient librarians was stalking along behind them in the shadows with a fire extinguisher just in case the feral human were to strike two stones together to build a fire.
“Twilight didn’t have any stone tablets on her list, did she?” asked Jon while crossing a particularly dusty section of corridor that he suspected was cataloged as ‘Dust - Ancient Hyberian. Do not disturb.’
“Naa,” scoffed the little dragon while following along down the checklist to the next book in the search. “Those are all in the ark.”
He really wanted to ask, but since the Ark of the Covenant was lost somewhere, he might get an answer he did not want. Thankfully, stone tablets with missives from divine beings were not on Spike’s collection list, because Jon was staggering pretty hard by the time they got back to the apartment.
Only to find their excursion into the library depths was all for naught.
Twilight Sparkle paced back and forth in the narrow area in front of her fort, which was left open and unguarded behind her. “I was looking in all the wrong places! A foal’s book, of all things! Nightmare Moon was supposed to be a myth, but if all the clues are correct, the entire world could be in danger! Come on, Spike!”
Before Spike could put down his stack of books, Twilight’s magical aura grabbed him and the two of them were off like a shot, with a trail of discarded literature behind them. John dumped his own books and ran after his student, out into the maze of hallways that honeycombed the depths of the mountain. She chattered while running, but Jon could not understand a single word other than to use the noise to keep from losing her when they continued to descend. He was exceedingly glad not to have left the firefly lantern behind, since Twilight’s hornglow was soon the only other source of light in the growing gloom.
“Here it is!” she called out after skidding to a halt in front of a huge golden door. “The Arcaneum! Nightmare Moon is a legend who was imprisoned in the moon by a powerful artifact that was lost afterward, so we need to find another artifact to fight her! We just have to find the right one!”
“But—” Jon stopped in stunned amazement as Twilight Sparkle jammed her horn into the doors and recited a rapid lyrical phrase in Equestrian too quickly for him to catch, and the massive doors swung silently open to reveal…
..wonderful things.
It was like some huge museum was having an exhibit of priceless Equestrian artefacts, illuminated with magical golden torches all around the room and without any velvet ropes to hold back curious visitors. Precious metals and gems sparkled among racks of weapons standing in sparse array, each of them a treasure that would have driven any other student of Equestrian history into spasms of joy. Jon would rather have been anywhere else rather than following Twilight into the mysterious room while she rattled commands to her dragon.
“Spike! Take a letter! My dearest teacher. Oh, wait. Do you think that’s too personal for a threat of this magnitude? Should I use her title instead?”
Whatever else she said was lost to Jon as he stumbled forward, his eyes riveted on a huge suit of golden equine armor embossed with the rays of the sun and hanging on an armor stand that held it at his eye level. The sister armor to it should have rested on the bare metal frame to one side, but it was empty, and Jon had the dreadful feeling he knew where the owner of that dark armor was.
Still, it was a faint shadow to the sensation he felt when looking at the gigantic sword standing by itself to one side, engulfed in the faint flickers of silver fire.
“So He drove out the man,” whispered Jon, “and He placed an angel at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.”
“Send it, Spike!” Twilight came running up to Jon, waving a transparent staff in her magic. “Doctor Walthers, do you think this would be an effective tool to fight Nightmare Moon? It’s either the Crystal Scepter of Craylitch, or the Glass Staff of the Invisible Mages.” She smacked it several times against the stone floor before hefting it again. “Didn’t break, so it’s the Crystal Scepter. Well?”
“I think you're putting too much faith in a children’s book, Twilight.” Jon was feeling a little detached from reality while trying to imagine Celestia descending from the sky with this particular flaming sword in order to drive away the first pair of disobedient humans. It was entirely too easy to picture.
“But this could be the end of the world!” protested Twilight while waving the staff.
“Or it could just be a story,” countered Jon. “You broke into a vault of Princess Celestia’s precious artifacts because you read a children’s story!”
“Quite aptly said.” Princess Celestia’s soft words were unchanged from her normal tone of voice, although Jon could see the stress in the corners of her lips and the tight muscles in her cheeks. The princess stepped forward through the open vault door and stopped in front of Twilight Sparkle, who wilted in wide-eyed panic. “Mister Walthers. Spike. Please wait in my study. I wish to have words with my student.”
There was a flash of light, and Jon’s world turned upside-down.
- - ☾ - -
The wastebasket felt cool and reassuring in Jon’s relaxed grasp, and gave him an excuse not to sit on the comfortable couch where Spike was resting and kicking his bare heels. Celestia’s private study was everything that could possibly be expected for an immortal divine alicorn who ruled an entire principality filled with magic. Everywhere the eye rested there was a glowing gadget or whirring widget, shelves of arcane lore in ancient tomes chained down to prevent them from escaping, and things that never seemed to be the same thing when looked at twice. He had more time to look around now that he had finished spewing what little he had in his stomach. That didn’t help, because it only let him see how much of the vomit had wound up on the priceless carpet.
“It’s just Arabian,” said Spike, picking up on Jon’s frequent glances at the splatters. “A cleaning spell will take that right out, and even if it does stain, Princess Celestia must have a hundred of these in storage. I’d worry more about throwing up in a Ming dynasty vase.”
Jon looked down at the ceramic wastebasket with blue line drawings of dragons chasing each other inscribed around the middle, then looked back up at Spike. “Please tell me this isn’t…”
Spike nodded.
By the time Princess Celestia opened the door to her study and glided inside, Jon had taken his place next to Spike on the couch, although with his longer legs he could not entertain himself by kicking his heels. Much like misbehaving students watching the principal, both miscreants could not take their eyes off the huge form of the princess as she took a seat on the cushion behind her desk.
“First of all, Spike,” she said quite calmly. “I am not angry at you or Twilight, merely disappointed. I would have hoped you could somehow restrain my student’s tendency to take a wild idea and run with it, but I believe a fully grown dragon would have much the same difficulties. It is not your size. Doctor Walthers was caught up in the same hurricane to no avail.”
“I think the starting line for the Cincinnati Bengals would have problems slowing her down,” grumbled Spike.
“Their defense was fairly weak last year,” admitted Celestia. “Although I do not believe my student can pass or throw, despite her ability to plow through tackles and theses. Now, I’ve already given her a long lecture on the importance of getting close to her friends and listening to what they say, so please do not rub it in.”
“Me?” asked Spike. After a moment of looking Princess Celestia right in the eyes, he put his head down. “Yeah, I do that occasionally.”
“Very well.” Celestia’s horn glowed and the door to the corridor opened again. “Please head off to bed now, Spike. You have a long day ahead of you tomorrow, and you need your sleep.”
“Thank you.” Spike hopped off the couch and made it nearly to the open door before slowing down. Obviously upset, he added, “Please don’t be angry with Doctor Walthers.”
“I am not angry with Mister Walthers either,” said Celestia. “It would take considerably more than one of Twilight’s misconceptions in order to raise my ire. I merely want to spend time with him this evening to resolve a few issues that have been bothering me lately.”
“Oh. Okay.” Spike stopped at the doorway and looked back. “You mean like Doctor Walthers has been resolving issues with one of your guards?”
“Yes, exactly.” Celestia nodded as the door closed, then turned to Jon, upon which time the look of tense normality on her face shifted abruptly into flushed embarrassment, and she rose to her hooves with several rapid steps as if she were about to dart after the dragon. “Oh! Nightshade. Of course.”
Anything Jon could say would only make things worse, so naturally he could not keep his mouth shut. “I don’t think we have quite the same relationship, Princess. At least I hope not. Nightshade normally only talks to me when I’m naked.”
Despite his best efforts, Jon’s eyes swept upward to take into account the lack of the Unicornian Crown on the rumpled princess, as well as the missing Pegasus Peytral, thus making Princess Celestia about as naked as he had seen her outside of the baths, and thus most likely to have been roused directly from her bed to deal with Twilight’s panic fit. Thankfully, Celestia did not laugh at his obvious discomfort, but she did smile and settle back down next to Jon on an unstained portion of the carpet.
“Thank you, Doctor Walthers. You know, of all the humans I’ve dealt with over the years, I do believe that you are the most… comfortable I’ve been with.”
“Thank you, Your Highness,” said Jon while surreptitiously letting out his held breath. “I’ve found you to be quite comfortable too. Although not in the same way as Nightshade. Oh, God that came out wrong. We’re not sharing a bed. Well, we are sharing the bed I suppose since her work hours run counter to mine and it cuts down on her commute but I don’t want to share a bed with you and oh God what—”
The bottom of Princess Celestia’s bare hoof felt warm across his upper lip, a hefty chunk of equine weapony placed across his mouth as delicately as a butterfly might land on a flower, matching the quiet giggle she was sharing at his expense.
“Mister Walthers,” she started, “we’re not that kind of friend.”
Jon nodded, although the gentle pressure of the hoof remained.
“And when my sister returns, she’s not going to be that kind of friend for you either.”
Jon nodded much slower.
“Although when things all work out,” continued Celestia in a more serious tone of voice, “I believe I will introduce you to her as a friend. Would you like that, Mister Walthers?”
“Yes, I would,” said Jon once the sun princess removed her hoof. “So I take it you still have faith that your student will be able to free Luna?”
“Faith… is a poor description. I have confidence that my student will make the correct decisions, and that Harmony will emerge victorious.”
“And…have I helped?” It was strange how much Jon wanted the approval of the pony princess, much like something of Twilight Sparkle’s had rubbed off on him over the last week. Still, there had not been any rubbing the other way, because even though Jon had picked up more friends than he had ever expected, Twilight had possibly even lost ground in the friendship competition.
“You’ve helped,” said Celestia. “And if things do not turn out as I believe, I would appreciate it if you would continue to help as long as possible. Come, walk with me.”
The study had a back stairwell that ascended up the tower to a chamber far above the city. There was a broad balcony sweeping across most of one side of the bedroom, with curtains and sliding doors to maintain a certain sense of privacy in a city where pegasi treated open windows as an invitation to stop by and chat. Night spread out across the city now, leaving small flecks of light in the darkness both below and in occasional places in the scattered cloud cover overhead.
And true to his ongoing slide into the world of pony, the first thing Jon did when entering the divine sanctum of Princess Celestia’s bedroom was to look up at the ceiling and note where the plaster was slightly discolored from Wrong Way Corrigan’s crash. Naturally, his eyes took in all of the wall hangings and cloth drapes around the room afterward, a wealth of many nations that was heavy with gold and precious gems in exquisite patterns and yet perfectly mundane against the simple magnificence of her huge bed.
Which Jon suddenly realized was large enough for two.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” It took Jon a moment to find where Celestia had gone, because she was not in the bedroom any more. Instead, she was out on the balcony, looking up at the patchy clouds and beyond. Jon cautiously moved up behind her, well aware of the precipitous drop just a few steps away and his lack of wings.
“I see more stars. It’s a lot more… darker than Washington’s sky,” admitted Jon. “Less pollution. Discounting the cloud cover and the volcanoes, of course. Which seem to be ongoing. So…”
“Yes,” said Celestia, sounding very much like her immense age was weighing on her. “Soon. Very soon. And I will be powerless to assist my student in any way. Other than your example, of course.”
“I didn’t think I had much effect on Twilight, actually.” Jon took a deep breath and edged a little further forward, near the edge of the balcony. “Other than stressing her.”
“She looks up to you. She values your advice, and will do anything to please you. She may not relate to you well, but she doesn’t relate well to most ponies, even her brother.” Celestia heaved a deep, exhausted breath. “Even if she were a twin, I suspect she would find it difficult to relate to her counterpart.”
“Not quite. Twilight must learn how to relate to dissimilar peers,” said Jon. “She has a good start with Spike and yourself. She is not trying to change us to match her own personality, but accepting us for what we are.”
Celestia nodded. “When I spoke with her this evening, I was impressed with how much she was interested in what I thought of you. She’s gone from a general disdain for humans to acceptance in a few days. I think she’s starting to like you.”
“I…” Jon considered his words. “If I had met her at my work in Washington, I don’t think I would have struck up a friendship. It took your pressure to bring us together enough to stick.”
“Pressure.” Celestia bowed her head. “You may experience more pressure in the next few days than you wish, Mister Walthers.”
“It is for a good cause.” Jon stood there in silence, waiting for a response that seemed as if it would never come. After listening to the gentle breeze and the general silence from the sleeping city below, he eventually put forward, “I’m glad you think I’m helping Twilight. I really want her to make friends. She deserves to grow.”
“Growth and progress is part of what I stand for also.” Celestia straightened up and looked out into the dark city. “Let me strive every moment of my life to make myself better and better, to the best of my ability, that all may profit by it. Let me think of the right and lend all my assistance to those who need it, with no regard for anything but justice. Let me take what comes with a smile, without loss of courage. Let me be considerate of my country, of my fellow citizens and my associates in everything I say and do. Let me do right to all, and wrong no living creature.”
“That’s… very thoughtful, Your Highness.” Jon wanted to ask the next obvious question, but while he was trying to figure out just how to phrase it, Celestia’s horn lit up and Jon’s paperback copy of Doc Savage floated out of his leather satchel and over to her.
“Of course, Lester Dent said it first,” she admitted. “If only I had a Man of Bronze to send against my foes. He could solve all my problems in the span of a paperback book. Might I borrow this? I do not believe I will be able to sleep this evening, and I find that anything titled The Awful Egg piques my curiosity.” She flipped the paperback over and checked the back. “Dinosaurs. Interesting.”
Quashing an urge to inquire if Celestia knew about the prehistoric lizards first-hoof, Jon swallowed and asked, “Will there be anything more, Your Highness?”
“Far more than I would burden you with.” One wingtip gestured at the Royal Bedroom door. “Please, leave me, Jon. I wish to be alone for a time.”
“I could stay if you wish,” said Jon. “You sound like you could use a friend.”
“Would you tarry here and watch?” She turned just enough for Jon to see her inquisitive expression with one eyebrow quirked upwards. “I assure you I have no delusions about praying to have this cup taken from me. Go to your bed and rest so that you may face tomorrow.”
It was a very long and dark walk back to his suite.
- - ☾ - -
The glow of the lantern by his suite door was a welcome sight, making the weight of the world seem to lift off Jon’s shoulders. Both of his guards were standing straight and tall on either side of the light, thus ensuring that his bed was batpony-free and the bathtub most likely would not have little grey hairs in it this time.
The events of the day still weighed on him, as well as the future. It seemed as if he should be planning for Nightmare Moon’s return, although any plans he might make would be worthless the moment she arrived. With that in mind, he could understand Celestia not wanting to confirm Twilight Sparkle’s guess about Nightmare Moon, or even go so far as to confess about her sister Luna. Information like that could easily make a jumpy Twilight jump the wrong way, and wrap the student up into a panic fit that would make what she did this afternoon in the Arcaneum’s weapon vault look like chicken feed.
Jon spared a pat on the shoulder to each of his guards, who maintained their stiff and rigid examination of the empty corridor behind him with far greater intensity than expected, then he stepped inside the coolness of his suite and regarded the darkness. Not even Laminia was scurrying around, tending to the needs of the pony principality’s captive homo sapiens in its gilded cage.
Rather than just toss his clothes in a heap as he had been doing, Jon draped them across a chair for the night staff’s collection and cleaning, then proceeded naked over to the dresser and got out a pair of boxer shorts. A few minutes in the bathroom to brush his teeth and wash his face later, he emerged back into the bedroom and considered writing up this afternoon’s experiences in his journal, which had been tragically underappreciated in the last few days.
It was at that point he realized that the day was not over, due to the pony sized lump beneath the covers of his bed.
“Nightshade,” he whispered beneath his breath. It must have been another one of her days off, or nights more likely. She must have decided she wanted to talk some more, or she would not have been here. As a friend, it was his responsibility to spend valuable sleeping time comforting her, but only comforting, not any other bedtime activities she might have in mind.
Still, he had to wonder if she was serious about him, despite the differences in their species. Even if they had both been human, a week was not long enough to get to know each other before seeing if there was some sort of possibility for a longer-term term relationship, both physical and emotional. His own mis-matched parents, one Methodist and one Jewish… well, they had not admitted to how long they had known each other before establishing a longer-term relationship, and he had not asked.
There were very few pony/people couples in the world, and those pairings which existed stayed in the shadows, most probably for their own good. Still, without the possibility of unexpected foals from a human/pony relationship, college had a great deal more cross-cultural hanky-panky than he had expected. It seemed to be an excuse of youth, because once he graduated and went out in the world, the ponies he had met were almost exclusively older and married, with no interest in human hanky or panky.
Nightmare Moon was coming. There would be time to consider what his odd relationship with Nightshade would resemble after the world had been saved. For now, Jon considered the lump under his covers while preparing himself for a long conversation about Nightshade’s friend, Root Stock, and how she had been taken away before her time.
He turned down the lights to a low glow and slipped beneath the sheets, giving the furry shoulder he touched a gentle pat. “Hey,” said Jon in a low and hopefully conversation-enhancing tone of voice. “Sorry for keeping you waiting, but Princess Celestia took me up to her—” he mentally edited out the word ‘bedroom’ and substituted a much more reasonable word “—balcony to look at some stars and talk for awhile. Are you feeling okay?”
There was a motion beneath the covers that looked like a nod.
“I know you’re upset,” continued Jon, rubbing at Nightshade’s thin shoulders, far more slender and bony than he expected from the muscular guard. “If you just want to stay here and be held, that’s fine. Or we can talk.”
One hoof gently moved upwards from her curled up position until it touched him on the cheek, feeling unusually cold in the cool of the evening. His stomach muscles twitched when a tail down below brushed up against his sensitive thigh, then remained in place with a low tremor. Then Nightshade’s head began moving closer up under the sheet with her breath smelling like cinnamon and tooth powder, as if she had brushed her teeth carefully before crawling into his bed.
“Am I doing this right?” asked a husky female voice that was most certainly not Nightshade. “I mean Princess Celestia said I should get closer to you and learn the lessons you had been teaching to your other friends, but I didn’t know if just kissing is all she meant or if I’m supposed to engage in… other activities, which I will if you want and I can take notes during to make sure I’m doing it right but I’ve never done this with a human before and I want to make sure—”
Jon was frozen into immobility, which was probably a good thing because the door to his suite took that moment to swing open, revealing Princess Celestia standing in the doorway. A gentle nudge of her magic turned on the lights, and Twilight Sparkle emerged from under the covers to give her divine teacher a petrified look that Jon suspected was almost identical to the one he was giving Celestia.
Thankfully, Princess Celestia did not look angry. Not even in the least. She did have an expression of divine disappointment, however, and that was worse in some infinite way. Twilight Sparkle almost shriveled up beneath that gaze, cringing with her ears flat against her skull as she crawled out of the bed, dragging her tail and shuffling her hooves on her slow but inevitable path to the open doorway and her disapproving teacher. She vanished into the corridor without a word, but Celestia gave Jon one last look and spoke as if imposing judgement on a prisoner.
“Good night, Mister Walthers.”
Then the door silently closed, and Jon was left alone until the morning.
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Jon is so educational.
I wonder how Celestia knew to come looking for Twilight in Jon's bed, and does Celestia really think Jon would do the 8 legged horse (6 legged reverse centaur?) with her student after all that has happened?
Also, curse you for making it even later than before! I must've refreshed my feed like 30 times the past hour.
Well that went well.
Heavens above, what did the Princess say to her?!
Why is it that Twilight always gets the wrong idea/impression from a suggestion given to her. I certainly hope that Jon doesn’t get into trouble from Twilight’s misinterpretation of whatever Princess Celestia suggested to her.
"Appropriate Alliteration Athenaeum Annex" is actually assonance.
9288766 Because she knows Twilight, and she's working down her list of 'Horrible Misconceptions' from worst to best.
9288771 Sigh. And people will criticize me because my main POV character wound up in bed with Twilight Sparkle. Again.
9288776 (below, paraphrased)
9288828 Because Twilight.
I picture Celestia's lecture to Twilight, held in the vault of the Arcanum, would go something like this (which I didn't do because I want to hold the whole thing in Jon's POV):
"Twilight. I am most disappointed in you. Do you even remember what I requested when I first told you about your new teacher?"
Twilight hung her head. "You said he'd help me find friends. But--"
"And do you see any friends here?" asked Celestia, passing a hoof around in a circle at the sparkling/glowering/glowing/glittering artifacts.
"No, but--"
"You need to listen to your teacher, Twilight. Learn from his words and his example. You've been holding him at hoof's length ever since he got here, insulting his race and his religion. Get to know him, instead. Talk with him, not just at him."
Little Twilight just stood there for a long moment, with her head bowed almost to the ground until the spark of insight that Celestia expected happened. Then she stood up, blinked away the tears, and put on a wan smile. "Get to know him, right. Right. I... can do that. Are you... sure?"
Celestia smiled, imagining what it would be like when Luna returned and gave her that same timid expression that Twilight did so well. "Yes, Twilight. I'm positive."
And less than an hour later, as Celestia was settling down in her bed -- again -- a whiff of dragonfire brought a scroll dropping in front of her nose.
Again, Celestia could feel that warm smile of completion sweep over her as she scribed a return note to Twilight's loved companion.
The scroll trailed off with a blotch of ink as Celestia came to an abrupt realization. "Oh, no. Not the biblical definition of know, Twilight. Oh, no oh no--"
Which Lemon Hearts?
In any case, I certainly hope Celestia's assessment of Twilight's progress is accurate. It occurs to me that Tia may not be used to being wrong herself these days... though the ongoing war is certainly a reminder of her own fallibility.
The day of the Nightmare approaches. I truly don't know if Twilight will be ready.
(Also, Jon's doctorate seems dependent on Celestia's mood. Can't say I'm too surprised there.)
9288877 How appropriate.
9288883
Well, tug my whiskers.
Literally 100% chance a confused nazi functionary is going to end up pawing through the Saucy Batpone Photoshoot when Schaudenfreude adds it into the care package.
9288883
I was not criticizing you or the characters, well the characters that much. I was talking about how Twilight, who was completely in character, jumped to another extreme without think things through. She just made two major blunders in one day. Tomorrow is going to be her in a complete funk thinking that Celestia is not going to be her teacher anymore and send her back to “magic kindergarten”. My comment was ment to be somewhat tongue in cheek. The problem was probably on my end not fully explaining myself.
derpicdn.net/img/2012/7/31/63045/full.png
Well, if Twilight really wants a relationship like that, then I’m sure “Greenie” would be happy to check out her table of contents.
He’d have to get out of the armor and ditch the fake wings first, though.
Why does it seem appropriate that Jon is worried about throwing up on a Persian carpet so he throws up in a Ming Vase. At least the cleaning spell should work equally well on the vase
Oh yeah. Tooth powder was a thing back then!
On the plus side, at least Twilight knows how to clean herself up when asked. I wonder how much Nightshade was internally snickering at seeing Twi enter, Jon enter, Celestia enter, and then Celestia leaving with Twilight.
And it was nice that both guards got pats.
Oh, and Fort Book was magnificently overwrought.
9289095
It's the principle of the thing.
To summarize the situation so far...
vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/mlp/images/7/76/Rainbow_Dash_facehoof_S3E3.png/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/640?cb=20121118102340
9288883 Jon should have sent in Green Mountain ahead of him to take care of this.
9288723
ONE. TRACK. MINDS.
You're right, Celestia, you don't have faith. You have a complete delusion that this neurotic antisocial mess who's got her nose so far up your flank she can see out your mouth can save the world.
. You know, this whole setup could end up being pretty similar to canon if they'd just give up on Canterlot friends and send Twilight to Ponyville. We're even to the expected point of her keying in to the problem and starting to research instead of attending parties.
Probably not. Probably.
Huh, well, Twilight does like to make guesses and jump hard at them.
So that's where it ended up after getting shoved into the warehouse... hmmm, wherehouse, wearhouse, werehouse... I must remember to play with these homonyms in terrible pun form one day.
Best part, for me.
Alexandria?
It is probably clear with my current crop of stories (Pursuing Happiness and Untrotted Path) but I've always been enamoured with how you write Celly.
9288884
She seems to operate under Ridcully tactics here. Handing out letters and promotions left and right
9288985 Yep, hence the chapter in 'Naughty Bits' which I didn't dare post or link here.
9291569 9330729 A natural progression from Thou Shalt Not Eat of the Tree, of course.
9288884 Lemon Hearts, of course. It's quite obvious.
...interesting. What exactly is Celestia implying here? She obviously knew or knows of Jesus, so is she saying that Jesus was delusional?
Come now. She'd either treat it as a challenge to look into lockpicking, or she'd brute-force it.
Also, the door has a keyhole, so it has a lock. You simply don't have the key
Yea, you gotta be careful with those old books, Sometimes, there's magic leaking out and affecting the environment.
Ah, irony! Or... something along those lines anyway.
Ha!
Oh well now. That was his theory?
Oh shit. She stopped calling him "Doctor" Did he just officially fail his mission?
Shit, those two are not Nightshade and Greenie, are they?
Wait. Is this Twilight?
Yea, it's Twilight