But Wait...There's More!

by McPoodle

8: The Tale of the Shining Prince

But Wait...There’s More!

- 8: The Tale of the Shining Prince -

---

The group left the castle and had a quick lunch at a nearby cafe.

“Thank you all very much for letting me spend the day with you,” Vinyl Scratch said as they looked at their empty plates. “I have to go back to the Royal Library and do some research to help me on my quest. I could always ask one of the staff to help me, but I think discretion is preferable. Would any of you be willing to miss what I’m sure will be a great trip to the Imaginarium in order to accompany me?”

“Vinyl, dear,” Rarity told her, “we promised we’d go with you to the Imaginarium on Tuesday, and that is a promise we will stick with. We’ll take Rainbow to see some of Canterlot’s other sights instead. Now precisely what kind of help do you require?”

“Well I guess I could use whichever of you is the fastest reader,” replied Vinyl. “Now which of you would that be?”

“Twilight,” answered four ponies and one dragon in unison.

“Um, yeah, I guess that would be me,” Twilight said. “We only have a couple hours before closing, so we better head right over. Goodbye, everypony! Have fun!”

“I’ll come with you, Twilight,” said Spike.

“No, Vinyl and I will be fine. Go have fun with the others.”

“But finding stuff in libraries is what I do best!” the young dragon protested.

“I’ll take care of him for you,” Rarity volunteered.

“OK-if-you-insist-I-guess-I-can-leave-you-for-one-day-bye-Twilight!” Spike gushed out before rushing to Rarity’s side.

Twilight thought back on the role of Spike’s doppelganger in the Etheric play. The ‘Essence of Loyalty’? she asked herself good-naturedly. I think not!

“It was great seeing you again, dear,” Rarity told Vinyl, “and we’ll try to get you some good news before we meet again tomorrow. Now assuming that poor Mr. Wells doesn’t invite us back to the Executive Suite on Monday to take another crack at us, you’re officially invited to my apartment Monday night for a RIAT finale party.”

“Woohoo!” cried Pinkie Pie. “You can make it, Vinyl, can’t you? You’re the only one of us that knows how to play records and CDs with her horn, and if you can do that, surely you can play the etheric over it as well, right?”

“Well, I taught Twilight that spell as well, but I should be able to make it. Nopony would dare schedule a party against an episode of Explosions Are Awesome.”

---

Vinyl Scratch and Twilight Sparkle entered the Royal Library and headed straight for the public records and archive section. As they walked down the aisles with a pile of books magically suspended between them, Vinyl suddenly stopped and pointed. “I never knew there was a door down there,” she told the magician, quietly.

Twilight looked in the direction indicated. “That’s the door to the royal archives,” she said, walking around the DJ and heading towards it. “It has a silence spell on it, so nopony can overhear what goes on in there when it’s closed. Whoever’s in there now must have left it ajar by accident.” With a gentle push, she closed the door, cutting off the muffled conversation in the room beyond that Vinyl was trying in vain to overhear. All she knew was that one of the two ponies speaking was Princess Luna—the former Nightmare Moon, and for all that Vinyl knew, a ticking time bomb poised to revert at any provocation.

The closing of the portal revealed something else to Vinyl. “What’s covering the door?” she asked. “I heard some paper crinkling.”

Twilight stepped back. “It’s a rice paper poster, with a multi-colored Neighponese woodcut on it. Mid-68th Century, I’d say. Floating World School.”

“What does it depict?” Vinyl asked.

“The title of the piece is ‘Faith’,” said Twilight. “A pale white mare with a long black mane that reaches down to her fetlocks sits on a porch at the edge of a lake. She is wearing a lavender-colored robe, its decoration extremely ancient. Before her is a table with writing paper. A pen is lightly gripped between her teeth, but her attention is instead on her muse: a translucent Moon hanging above the water.”

Unnoticed by either pony, Princess Luna had emerged from the door and was listening in on their conversation. Because if there’s anypony that can, by sheer willpower, stand right next to you without you noticing, it would be a Princess of Equestria.

“It sounds famous,” said Vinyl. “Should I recognize it?”

“I suppose not,” said Twilight. “It hasn’t been taught in school for several centuries. The print depicts an event from the night of August 12th in the Year 6000, if the legend is to be believed. It is Lady Lavender, inspired by Luna to begin writing The Tale of the Shining Prince.”

“The Tale is one of the greatest of all novels, or so I’ve heard,” said Vinyl. “I tried listening to an audiobook of it once, but like many so-called classics, I couldn’t get past the first chapter.”

“It was Princess Luna’s favorite work of literature,” said Twilight. “It is said that it was the only piece of Pony civilization that she brought with her to the Moon.”

“A beautiful story,” said Vinyl, “but I doubt that it was true. Nightmare Moon wasn’t exactly one to go in for fine literature.”

Luna nodded sadly to herself.

The character of Nightmare Moon was not a subject that Twilight was comfortable discussing, so she simply took the books from Vinyl’s telekinetic control and moved them over to a nearby reading table, Luna following silently behind them.

“I’ve learned a bit about pony-alicorn relations as they are today, and as they were before the dawn of history,” Vinyl said as she took a seat. “What does The Tale of the Shining Prince have to say about the relationship a thousand years ago?”

“Hmm...” said Twilight, reviewing her knowledge of a book she read a very long time ago. “Well back then the title of ‘princess’ was largely symbolic. No pony was officially their subjects. Instead, Equestria was divided into dozens of kingdoms, dukedoms, and other political units that spent all their time feuding and maneuvering for power, while Equestria’s neighbors claimed large territories for themselves. Most ponies had little respect for these petty governments, and devoted their lives to serving Princess Celestia. They exalted her far above themselves, to the point where they referred to themselves only by demeaning titles and teasing nicknames, so that only Celestia would have the honor of being referred to by her given name. The Sun Princess was surrounded by an elaborate court ceremonial, so that she would always look upon only the most deserving of ponies.”

“How was ‘deserving’ defined?” asked Vinyl darkly.

“Mostly by breeding,” Twilight replied, confirming Vinyl’s suspicions.

“And Princess Luna?”

“Completely ignored. The most tragic character in the novel is Duchess Dishabille, a pegasus who wishes to devote herself to Princess Luna, despite having never seen her. She accustoms herself by degrees to the night and discovers its quiet joys. But her servants cannot stand this breach of court protocol, so they arrange a public humiliation so great that she leaves the court for her home, never to return.”

“What is the main plot?” Vinyl asked.

“The ‘Shining Prince’ is a paragon of virtue,” Twilight replied, “but his parents dishonored themselves shortly after his birth, so he is forbidden by the court to have anything to do with them. He is desperately in love with a divorced older countess named Wisteria, but their social stations are so far apart that they are not even permitted to look at each other, so he befriends her daughter Lady Lavender, who is similarly dishonored by an act of her father after the parents had separated. And yes, the fictional Lady Lavender is so obviously the author’s self-insertion that the author herself became known to posterity as Lady Lavender.

“After a lifetime of heroic deeds, the Shining Prince sacrifices himself to intercept an assassin’s dart meant for Princess Celestia. Touched, the Princess declares that his mark of shame has been erased, and informs Countess Wisteria and Lady Lavender that they are permitted to be with him in his last moments.”

“Wow,” said Vinyl. “That was a happier ending than I expected.”

“No, your instincts were correct,” said Twilight. “By what the author darkly declares to be a ‘miracle’, no pony in the court is able to hear Celestia’s wishes. Wisteria and Lavender are kept out of the castle until the prince has died alone and his body had been dumped into a ravine. The end.”

“Ouch!” Vinyl exclaimed. “Some author was bitter. So that was Luna’s favorite book a thousand years ago?”

“Consider the turn her life took soon afterwards,” Twilight said as diplomatically as possible.

“Point taken.” It occurred to Vinyl that Celestia’s subjects in that story controlled her life far more completely than she had ever controlled any pony’s life, then or since. In the aftermath of banishing Nightmare Moon, Celestia made herself a princess in deed as well as in name, and paradoxically by assuming direct control of all ponies, made them all freer than they had ever been under the petty tyrannies of the pre-Unification Era. It was another paradox that, by cracking the public facade and letting the public see her grief and regret over the banishment, the public came to trust Celestia enough to relax their use of ceremony to control her.

~ ~ ~

Twilight began organizing the books they had brought to the study table. They detailed the annual budget last year of every pony in Equestria with a title—this was necessary because, since being deprived of their lands eight hundred years ago, the sole source of their wealth came from the royal treasury. “Now,” said the magician as she opened the first of the large volumes, “we have the spending records of the nobility for last year. What next?”

Vinyl reached for one of the books, and listened to the sound of the pages as she flipped them. “It should be a simple matter to determine each noblepony’s hobbies from those figures. When I meet them, I simply share my interest in those hobbies, and gain their trust. Then I can tell them about the virtues of compact disk technology.”

“Vinyl!” Twilight cried, punctuating her disapproval by slamming the book shut. “I will not have you lie in order to get even with Prince Steadfast. That makes you no better than him!”

“But Twilight, I can’t do this without you!” Vinyl put a hoof to her head to think. “How about this: I have lots of hobbies. If there’s a noblepony out there that just so happens to be interested in something I just so happen to be interested in as well, then there can’t be anything wrong in communicating that fact! After all, these are public records!”

Well...” said Twilight, her reservations fading, “if you put it that way, I guess this is alright.”

---

With a silent snort of disapproval, Princess Luna returned to her research in the Royal Archives, making sure to close the door completely this time. She sat down at a desk covered by hundreds of yellowed and crinkled scrolls, carefully organized into piles by millennium, with a pen and parchment nearby to record notes. The Archive’s loyal researcher, a middle-aged pegasus, mutely stood guard over the scrolls, her eyes following their every telekinetically-controlled motion like a hawk.

A couple of hours after closing time, the candles in the room suddenly flickered and went out. Annoyed, Luna lit her horn and tried to continue her work.

“Luuuuunnnaaaaaa...” a deep ghostly voice thundered down the halls.

The princess grimaced and poured her attention into the scroll before her. Given this example, the researcher remained standing where she was, trying in vain to keep her four knees from knocking.

“LuuuuNNNNAAAA!” the voice repeated, closer now. A violent wind began to whip about the manes of the terrified researcher and the nonchalant princess, but strangely the effect was restricted to animate objects: the delicate scrolls didn’t move by even a hoofs-width.

A bright, pale-blue light suddenly burst into being at the other end of the archives, illuminating a disembodied head twice the height of a pony. The visage was ancient, male, and a totally alien species to the researcher. If there had been no princesses, if the many species of intelligent life on Equestria had no idea what manner of supreme being had created them, this might have been the visage they would have carved into the side of the biggest mountain on the planet to do it homage. “Return the scrolls!” the “Supreme Being” declared with the same voice as before. “Return...what you have stolen from me!” As it said this it began to float down the hallway towards the two ponies. The poor researcher made a mad dash for the door out of the Archives, only to find it was locked from the outside...which shouldn’t be possible, as she possessed the only key. Of course, given the current scenario, a locked door was practically inevitable, like suddenly discovering you’re wearing high heels while trying to flee from a cerberus in the Everfree Forest. The pegasus wheeled about to face her doom. To her consternation, Princess Luna was still reading. “P...p...p...pprinncessss....” she sputtered. The giant floating head was less than a pony-length away from the table, and getting closer by the second.

With a sigh, and without even looking up, Luna reached up one hoof and allowed the head’s lower lip to bump into it. “Cease this foolishness, Sister,” she growled.

In an instant, the candles snapped back to life, the phantom spotlight winked out, and the giant head shrunk down into that of Princess Celestia, with a body fading into existence below. The Sun Princess’ head was surrounded by a halo of iridescent curls.

“Rule, Bri...” the researcher began singing, before the stress finally became too much for her and she fainted.

“I have no idea why they keep doing that,” Celestia muttered to herself.

“Bored much?” Luna asked. She smiled inwardly at what appeared to be the successful use of a modern phrase. She then put her current scroll down and picked up another. She turned to count off the scroll on her trusty abacus, only to find it missing. By the dint of constant repetition, this scenario no longer surprised her—Celestia and Abacus had become mortal enemies over the past few months, and poor Abacus never won any of their fights.

“You missed another council meeting,” Celestia told her, “and considering I was the butt of the joke this time around, you would have liked it.”

“I am busy,” Luna said.

“You’re hiding,” Celestia clarified. “It’s time for you to go out in the world again.”

“Yes, Tia,” Luna said through lidded eyes. She had tried to win this particular fight before, and had managed to succeed as often as Abacus had. “Big Sister knows best.”

Comments

[MaxVive]

Seriously? Only four likes still? This story is solid, get your act together people and provide some thumbs up.