16. New Place
Celestia barely had any personal effects that she was able to bring, so she got settled in pretty quickly. Her room was pretty much blown to bits, and most of her and Luna’s belongings had been lost. As such, what she took with her largely belonged to her parents, most prominently was every painting of Vibrant Colors she’d been able to get her hooves on. Atlas, of course, had no issue hanging those up on every available wall space, and they made the cave a little less drab, it helped that they looked beautiful and were made by his late friend.
Luna on the other hand, didn’t really care much at all. Everything was new and exciting to her, and she could be found exploring the cave system at her own leisure. Of course Atlas or Celestia were always keeping an eye on her, but as it turned out, the mischievous foal was actually quite the escape artist.
Atlas did his best to clean the place up from all the dust that’d accumulated during his absence. To his relief, most of his creations were still in working order, even though they hadn’t received any maintenance while he was away.
As for organizing food, Atlas didn’t really feel like going to Vanhoover for it. There wasn’t a real need for it anyway, since due to the chaos raging about, most food items seemed to have gained a mind of their own. As such, he could just go out into the forest and “hunt” for his food. Also, while he wasn’t completely sure of it, there seemed to be an abundance of food items near the cave, which might have been Discord trying to help him out at least a little.
“Dinner’s ready!” Atlas called out, having just finished cooking.
“Coming!” Celestia called back.
Since Celestia didn’t know too much about cooking, the task fell on Atlas. In the past, Discord conveniently took over that task, but now that Atlas actually had to cook, he’d come to find out that his skills had gotten rusty over time. Even though he was a chef back on Earth, ever since coming to Equus he’d barely ever even touched proper cooking utensils. It might be a good idea to sharpen the dulled skill, otherwise he wouldn’t be able to properly teach Celestia and Luna.
Celestia came out of her room with Luna on her back, sitting down in the chair that had unofficially been assigned to her. Atlas levitated Luna over to a specially crafted high-seat he had made for her, the blue unicorn giggling happily while floating through the air. Apparently, Luna already didn’t need to consume her mother's milk anymore, so anything mushy was pretty much fair game. As for milk, there was really no problem acquiring any, since the chocolaty goodness literally rained from the skies outside.
“Have you settled in nicely?” Atlas asked, attempting to strike up a conversation with Celestia while feeding Luna.
“I suppose,” Celestia answered uncommitted, spearing the potatoes on her plate with a fork held in her hoof.
Celestia couldn’t really cast any spells yet, since her father had mostly neglected her training, saying that there would still be enough time later on. Atlas couldn’t really agree on her father's opinion and planned to rectify this issue as soon as possible. Magic was an integral part of the life of a unicorn, after all.
“That’s good to hear,” Atlas commented. “If you need anything, just ask and I’ll see what I can do. I want you two to be as comfortable as possible.”
Celestia simply continued eating her food, her eyes trained on her plate as if the answer to everything was written on it. Atlas observed her while feeling somewhat helpless. He really wanted to help and comfort her, but he also didn’t want to be overbearing either. After all, they’d barely known each other for more than a few days now, so there was no way she actually trusted him yet.
Once more, Atlas came to the painful realization that he really couldn’t do much at this point. He’d just have to wait for Celestia to find her own way out of her slump while he supported her from the shadows.
At least Luna was happy. The little foal was munching happily on the mashed potatoes Atlas had made for her, her eyes full of life and curiosity. As he continued feeding her, the realization that he was in this for the long haul was starting to sink in.
Celestia and Luna were supposed to one day defeat Discord, but there was no way that mere children could take on such a mighty foe. That meant that Atlas would look after them until they reached an appropriate age, which might take up to twenty years. There was also the issue of them not being Alicorns right now, so he’d need to figure out how to make them ascend, something that had never happened before in this world.
Atlas gulped at the implications of the situation. He’d have to raise two fillies, while trying to figure out a way for them to ascend, which seemed almost impossible. And, more importantly, Discord would have to continue his reign of terror for a lot longer than they’d originally thought.
Atlas hoped from the bottom of his heart that this experience wouldn’t change him too much.
“Alright, come on, you can do it!” Atlas encouraged Luna, who was currently trying to walk all on her own.
Luna took a few clumsy steps trying to get to Atlas who was patiently waiting for her. He had noticed that she recently stopped crawling more and more, so he decided he might as well try and teach her how to properly walk on her small hooves. Celestia was sitting some distance away, silently watching as Luna slowly made her way over to Atlas.
The little blue foal almost tripped on her way, but was steadily gaining ground while apparently having the time of her life. Eventually she made it all the way to where Atlas was waiting with open arms and he immediately picked her up, giving her a big old hug.
“Great job, Luna!” Atlas happily exclaimed to the giggling foal. “I knew you could do it!”
While Atlas was busy showering the successful foal with praises, Celestia smiled for the first time in quite a while. She was proud of her sister growing up healthily, even if their parents were gone. And while she couldn’t quite forget about the reason they were gone, she at least felt some gratitude towards Atlas.
If he hadn’t been there, who knows where they would have ended up?
Atlas showed Celestia around his workshop with Luna riding on his back. The blue filly could walk on her own by now, even if a bit unsteady, yet she vastly preferred riding on Atlas’ back. A few months had passed since the two sisters had moved in with him and he felt like it was finally time to pick up his work again.
“Well, as you might have noticed there are quite a few workstations set up here,” Atlas explained as they walked into the main cave. “Keep in mind that this place was used by two ponies at one point, each of us used around four stations for various research projects.”
“Couldn’t you just have used one each?” Celestia asked in a confused voice.
“Honestly? I guess,” Atlas admitted. “But this way you could just separate the research projects without having to clean and set up your materials every time you want to do something different. You can save a lot of setup time this way.”
“Doesn’t that just mean you’re lazy?” Celestia retorted.
“That’s what it boils down to, yes,” Atlas chuckled.
“So what have you made here?” Celestia asked, curiously looking around at all the complex looking research papers.
“Well, mostly spells, or runes, more specifically,” Atlas said. “But, I also made that nifty lightswitch you like so much.”
“You made that?” Celestia asked in disbelief.
“Hey, I might be goofing off quite a bit when I’m with you guys, but I’m actually quite smart, you know?” Atlas defended himself with some mock attitude.
“Huh,” Celestia chirped. “Then what are these runes you mentioned?”
“Did I never show you any runes?”
“I don’t think so?” Celestia replied, unsure of herself.
“Well, we got a lot of catching up to do, because these babies, can do a lot.” Atlas replied happily.
“What are babies?” Celestia cocked her head.
“Ummm… another word for foals?”
“Why would you call whatever these runes are foals?” Celestia looked at Atlas like he had lost his goddamn marbles.
“Just… just forget about it…” Atlas replied, pinching his brow.
He had gotten so used to his peers either knowing what he was talking about, or ignoring his weird references when they came up, and he forgot that Celestia wouldn’t have that knowledge.
“Alright… Runes…” Atlas mumbled turning around and looking for a workspace that had some rune related stuff on it. “Over there!”
He led Celestia over to one of stations, setting Luna down on it with his magic. She curiously looked at the complete mess on the table, but otherwise was content just pawing at one of the many scrolls lying around.
“Alright, these are what runes look like,” Atlas said, levitating a paper with tons of runes scribbled on it up to her face.
“They look all weird and squiggly,” Celestia said. “And these things are supposed to be amazing?” She asked skeptically.
“More than you know,” Atlas confirmed with a smile. “They might look a little strange scribbled on there, but if arranged correctly, they can do pretty much everything a normal spell can, and more.”
“So why not use a normal spell instead?” Celestia asked, eyebrow cocked to the max.
“As I said, theoretically they can do much more precise things than a regular spell, if applied correctly,” Atlas said, slipping into teacher mode. “But what is more interesting concerning practical application, it can recreate a stable mana flow to reliably reproduce the effect of a spell every time it’s activated. Allowing unicorns of different affinities to cast spells that they normally couldn't, or power everyday applications for a prolonged time while replenishing themselves with the needed mana.”
Atlas finished off his mini-lecture, shooting Celestia a smile, which was still looking at the many runes in front of her.
“What?” Celestia made a face like she just had to sit through a history lesson that lasted four hours. “I didn’t understand more than half of that…”
Atlas’ smile dropped as he was reminded that Celestia was still a young filly. Of course she wouldn’t understand anything as complicated as proper rune applications. It would seem that Discord being somewhat of a genius had tilted his perceptions of children a bit.
“Don’t you have anything that… like… looks beautiful?” Celestia asked.
Atlas sighed inwardly. He’d expect a foal of her age to like explosions or something like that, but apparently being Vibrant’s child through and through, she seemed to appreciate the arts quite a bit more than what Atlas would consider cool.
“I have a spell that can make a colorful lightshow…” Atlas stated hopefully.
“That sounds interesting,” Celestia said, sounding quite a bit more enthusiastic.
“Alright, come with me, I’ll show you,” Atlas said, levitating Luna onto his back once more.
He led Celestia towards the cave that was used for large scale experiments, sitting down smack dab in the middle. Luna had crawled up on his head at this point, so there was no need to remove her. Celestia sat down in front of him, looking expectantly. Atlas nodded towards her, flipping the lightswitch that was near the entrance, casting them in complete darkness, causing Luna to giggle.
“You ready?” Atlas asked.
“Yes.”
“Alright then, here we go…”
Atlas had to take a moment and remember. The spell he was about to perform was little more than an elementary level illusion spell, but he hadn’t cast it in a long time and didn’t want to mess up. After a while his horn started to glow, and colorful lights started emanating from it, spreading out in all directions. Visually it was similar to a laser show back on earth, but with broader lasers and a lot calmer. He tried to visualise different scenarios with his spell, like a lake surrounded by a forest, a mountain range at sundown or a sunny day on a flowery field.
Celestia seemed gobsmacked, her mouth hanging open as she took in everything that was going on around her. Luna was still giggling, while investigating the origin of the funny colors spreading out around her, softly tapping Atlas’ horn a few times.
“This… is amazing,” Celestia said after a while of staring at the ever changing colors.
“Would you like to learn it?” Atlas asked cautiously.
“Would you really teach me?” Celestia asked, as if she was unsure of herself.
“If it’s within my power, I’ll teach you everything you want,” Atlas said with a smile on his face. “Of course, that includes this spell as well.”
“Then.. please…” Celestia said slowly. “Please teach me…”
“Sure, I’ll be glad to.”
Celestia looked into Atlas’ eyes for a while, before taking one last look around her, a smile slowly appearing on her face. At that moment Atlas renewed the promise he made to himself in his head. Whatever the cost, he’d protect that smile, and raise these two fillies to achieve great things one day.
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I can't remember what affinity gold magic was, if it was one at all... Are you going to have to assign your own colour magic to celestia? Looking forward for more!
Wonder when they'll ascend. Also, whoop whoop, it has updated!
cute baby luna
Tia is to Atlas as Twi is to Tia.
Many fun times ahead.
8541972
I would assume its solar magic.
More! More!
This is fun. I miss Vibrant though. Sucks she 'sploded.
I can still remember when Atlas first came to Equis,and man it has been a huge journey since then!
I'm still sad that Vibrant and her husband died....
8541972
8542074
I'm just making her gold(which is basically yellow) a shade of orange, so energy.
Another lovely update, very well written. Can't wait to see where this goes.
Thanks for the update!
YEAH!! Woo!! We art joyous!!
AWWWWWWWW Luna is so adorable and I love how you write Tia... Looking forwards to the next amazing chapter!!
I got to thinking... Is Atlas going to have to foster some hatred of Discord in the girls? I don't imagine he'll tell them that Discord was his son, let alone that he'd lie and say he turned evil.
8542306
Love the new chapter and did you figure out how many chapters this going to have yet?
8544642
apparently more than I thought it would... sigh...
Very touching.
well take your time you are doing great writing these chapters
8541994
Does that mean that Atlas is GRAND DAD
8544789
Yea, they like doing that a lot. I like the story so far keep up the good work.
Hnng *BOOM*,be still, my heart, which is now in a hundred pieces