Chapter 7
Canterlot Castle. Twilight had been in the city almost her whole life and despite living in the shadow of the palace it was still, in a way, unreachable. She'd even built a scale representation of the Castle once (with as perfect accuracy as could be expected of an obsessive-compulsive unicorn using books as her construction medium) but it was only a model.
As she walked through the gates, Shining Armor at her side, Twilight was briefly annoyed to note that the courtyard wasn't quite as she'd modeled it. This would later result in a publishing house receiving several strongly-worded letters about the accuracy of their printed diagrams.
"Remember what I told you, Twily," Shining Armor said.
"I know, BBBFF. No going anywhere with strange ponies, no leaving the castle grounds, and if something happens I should tell the Royal Guards." Twilight rolled her eyes, adjusting the heavy saddlebags at her sides. She'd only been able to carry a half-dozen textbooks, and had to hope it was enough. There was no way Midnight was going to have any kind of reference on-hoof.
"Can't blame me for looking out for the cutest little sister I've got," Shining Armor smirked.
"That's a tautology, Shiny. I'm your only sister." Twilight frowned at him.
"Just because there's no competition doesn't mean you aren't cute." Shining Armor walked confidently into the hallways, Twilight following. After a few minutes of very self-assured trotting, he slowed and came to a stop at an intersection of two hallways.
"Hm..." Shining Armor looked one way, then the other.
"Are we lost?" Twilight asked. "I don't wanna be late!"
"We're not lost, exactly. I was taking us a faster way, but... I think this might actually not be where I thought I was going." Shining Armor smiled nervously. "It's fine. How hard can it be to find a library?"
"No," Twilight said, firmly.
"No?"
"That's what ponies always say before they get really, really lost. I read it in the Royal Guard survival manual." Twilight pointed. "There's somepony over there. Go ask them for directions."
"I have a great sense of direction," Shining Armor countered.
"What are you two doing in the servant's quarters?" Asked a very familiar voice.
Twilight turned around and found Princess Cadance smiling at her, a tray hovering at her side, grasped in her blue magic.
"Cadance!" Twilight yelled, happily, running over to her. "I haven't seen you in forever!"
"Has Shining Armor been getting you lost in the castle?" Cadance smiled.
"We're not lost," Shining Armor countered. "We're in the... servant's quarters."
"You only know that because I said it first," Cadance teased. "You're lucky. I was just grabbing some snacks for Midnight and Twilight's little study session."
"What kind of snacks?" Twilight asked.
"Sandwiches and some iced tea," Cadance said. "I know you two are going to end up forgetting to eat, so I wanted to get you something healthy."
"Could you take me to the library?" Twilight whispered. "I don't want Shiny to get lost again."
"Follow closely," Cadance warned. "It's a maze of twisty passages, all alike." She started walking, slowly enough for Twilight to keep pace with her. "Did you ever hear the story of the Phantom Maid?"
"Phantom Maid?" Twilight asked, eyes wide.
Cadance's voice dropped into the breathy, spooky tone that ponies always used for campfire stories. The effect was somewhat lost in brightly lit hallways instead of the dark woods, but thankfully her audience had a stellar imagination. "There was once a maid, a lazy pegasus who had gotten her job because of family connections than any personal merit. She kept getting in trouble for shirking her duties and napping in hidden corners of the castle where other maids couldn't find her."
"S-she'd just... abandon her work like that? For sleep?" Twilight was horrified at the very thought.
"That isn't the scary part, Twilight," Cadance said, raising her eyebrow and smiling in amusement.
"Yeah, but..." Twilight blushed. "Keep going."
Cadance cleared her throat. "The maid was on her final warning, and so Princess Celestia herself gave her an ultimatum - she had to clean all of the castle windows in a single night, or else she would be fired. Being fired by the Princess herself would mean she'd never have a decent job again, certainly not one as easy as the job she had, so she got to work."
"So the moral of the story is that you have to work hard or else-"
"She worked all through the day and long into the night," Cadance continued. "There were too many windows for anypony to clean them alone, and Princess Celestia knew it. She had intended for it to be a punishment, and to make her aware of how much harder ponies had to work if the maid wasn't helping. But the maid didn't know that, and pushed her body past its limits. When she finally finished, she crawled to one of her hidden napping places and fell into an eternal sleep."
Twilight gasped.
"They say," Cadance whispered. "That you can still hear her snoring to this very day, but nopony has ever found her."
Twilight screamed as Shining Armor snored loudly right behind her, the filly scrambling forwards in terror. Cadance turned to give Shining Armor a fake glare, but they quickly dissolved into giggles.
"That wasn't funny!" Twilight huffed, stopping in front of the huge double doors Cadance had led them to. "I thought I was gonna get eaten by a lazy ghost!"
"I've never seen you move that quickly," Shining Armor said.
"I was scared," Twilight pouted, waiting while Cadance opened the door. Twilight's fear melted away as she saw what was inside. She'd been to libraries before. Every single one in Canterlot, in fact, and even Manehattan's famously massive public library. Many of them had been larger than this, but none of them were as grand.
Instead of almost anonymous shelves of books, here the books were treated like art. The shelves were set into the walls, framed with scrollwork in pale wood and gold leaf. Between the larger shelves, a few books were displayed in glass cases, and at every corner was a stand with one or two tomes on display, open and revealing pages yellowing with age.
"This is amazing," Twilight whispered. The whole library was filled with the smell of old books, that soft, pleasant, smell that came with decaying paper holding the secrets of the ages.
"They should be waiting for us over here," Cadance said, taking Twilight through an open archway into another wing of the library, just as ornate as the first. Two ponies were seated at a low table within, one of them almost identical to Twilight save a golden manepin holding her bangs back and a pair of glasses. The other was much larger, almost glowing with ethereal light.
"Princess Celestia!" Twilight gasped, bowing.
"Now, now," Celestia said. "No need to stand on ceremony, my little pony."
Twilight stood up, blushing. She was relieved to see that she wasn't the only one, Shining Armor getting to his hooves behind her.
"Princess Celestia has kindly volunteered to watch you two for a bit," Cadance explained. "I've been helping Midnight's mother recover from an... accident."
"It wasn't an accident. It was a monster," Midnight corrected.
"I'm happy to help," Celestia said. "I'm very proud of both Cadance and Sunset Shimmer. If I have to make the sacrifice of cancelling a few meetings with the zoning board and postpone their monthly demands that I let them turn part of Canterlot Memorial Park into a commercial district, well, I'll somehow find a way to cope." She smiled serenely, without any hint of sarcasm.
She took the tray from Cadance, putting it in the center of the table.
"Are you sure you can handle things?" Shining Armor asked.
"I already handle all of Equestria every day. I'm sure these two fillies won't cause me any trouble."
Twilight sat at the table, staring at her hooves in silence. She wasn't sure what to do. She really wished she'd read a few etiquette guides, but Twilight hadn't expected to need them.
"Is something wrong?" Princess Celestia asked. Twilight blushed with embarrassment and looked up quickly.
"N-no, your, um, highness? Worshipfulness?" She wasn't even sure what was the right title to use.
"Just 'Princess'," Celestia said, smiling.
"I just don't, um. I don't really know what to say." Twilight looked away again. She knew she looked like an idiot. She felt like an idiot.
"Why don't we start with something simple?" Celestia said. "You can tell me what kind of sandwich you like."
"What kind did Cadance get?" Twilight asked, looking at the tray.
"It looks like watercress and daisy, cucumber and goat cheese, peanut butter and jelly, and, ah," Celestia hesitated. "Ham, presumably for you, Midnight."
"Ham?" Twilight asked, as Midnight grabbed one of the triangles and started eating it with relish. Not literal relish. It did seem to have mayonnaise, though.
"Try it," Midnight offered, levitating one in front of Twilight. "It's so good!"
"Um..." Twilight looked at Celestia. The alicorn sighed.
"It's something of an acquired taste," Celestia said. "It might be a better idea if you stick with something you're used to."
"If she likes it, I'll try it," Twilight said, firmly. "It can't be that bad."
She took the sandwich and sniffed at it. It smelled a little like cloves and cinnamon, and it looked like nothing she'd ever seen before - it was a pink she'd only associated with flower petals.
Twilight carefully bit into it, chewing it slowly. It was strange. There was a kind of odd, sweet savoriness that she'd never tasted, and the texture was rubbery and spongy. Maybe it was some kind of mushroom?
"Huh," Twilight said, thoughtfully, as she swallowed and took another bite. "What plant is this? Some kind of tuber?" If it had been boiled, it might explain some of the odd stringiness. Maybe boiled and then pan-fried?
"It's meat," Midnight explained. With both halves of the ham sandwich gone, she opted to grab a cucumber wedge.
Twilight stopped chewing, looking at the sandwich, her eyes going wide.
"You don't have to eat it, Twilight," Princess Celestia said, softly. "I don't have much of a taste for meat myself."
"N-no, it's okay," Twilight said. "I've eaten meat before. My mom has a pegasus friend that comes over and sometimes they cook fish."
"I've never had fish," Midnight said. "What's it like?"
"It's kind of weird," Twilight admitted. "It doesn't hold together really well, and just falls apart into these little flakes. I don't like it very much."
"The goat cheese is pretty good too," Midnight said. "If you don't wanna finish that half, I'll take it so it doesn't go to waste."
"Thanks," Twilight said, passing it over. She wasn't sure she could have finished it. Fish was one thing, but for all she knew, ham came from something she'd have as a pet, or a friend. Twilight made a mental note to investigate that later to make sure Midnight wasn't eating sentient creatures.
"While you're eating, why don't you tell me about your project?" Celestia suggested.
"We're doing a report on a famous spellcaster," Twilight said. "We eventually agreed on Princess Platinum."
"A very respectable choice," Celestia agreed. "She was an interesting mare."
"You knew her?" Twilight asked, blinking.
"Quite well, though we didn't become friends until well after the Hearth's Warming story you're familiar with." Celestia smiled distantly, her eyes unfocused. "It was a very different time. If it had been a more modern age, we would have-" She coughed. "Well, that's not terribly important."
"No, this is great!" Twilight smiled, opening her saddlebags and taking books out. "You can help verify some of the accuracy of these secondary sources!"
"You brought books to a library?" Midnight asked. "Twilight, that's kinda backwards."
"These books have been carefully curated by myself and my personal assistant," Twilight said, as she stacked the books into exact piles. "They have useful facts and a preliminary reading shows that they generally agree on key points. We can make a checklist of places where they differ..."
Midnight's gaze was unfocused as Twilight spent a further ten minutes explaining her plan to study. She lost track of what she was even proposing after the second Venn diagram.
"Better plan!" Midnight declared. "Instead of all that, we cast the spell! It doesn't matter how much research we do if we can't figure out how to cast the spell that goes along with it."
"But what about all these books?!" Twilight protested, gesturing at her pile.
"We can put them somewhere safe, and maybe..." Midnight considered. "Before we finish today we can go over the books here and you can help pick out more books? There have to be some that aren't in your list."
"I guess," Twilight sighed. "But when we meet at my house you have to read as much as I do."
"Deal!" Midnight held out her hoof. Twilight shook it firmly, still frowning. "So first we gotta get a doll so we can try making it walk around."
"I have Ms. Smartypants," Twilight suggested. She pulled a doll out of her saddlebags.
"That looks almost like..." Midnight stopped herself, and instead nodded. "We'll have to be really careful if we're using her, though." She didn't want to think about hurting the well-loved toy. The stuffed pony Twilight Velvet had gotten her for her first birthday was nearly the same, differing only in the color of the fabric.
"Yeah," Twilight agreed. "That's why I only test safe spells with Ms. Smartypants. She's a good lab assistant, and I can't afford to lose her."
"The come to life spell is relatively simple and safe," Princess Celestia said, taking a book from the shelf behind her without looking. "It's a very responsible choice."
She opened the book and put it down on the table between the two fillies.
"I think this is what you're looking for," she said.
Twilight moved over to look at the spell diagram. It was indeed relatively simple compared to some of the ones she'd seen.
"Oh wow..." Twilight flipped the page, and there was a subtly different diagram. "These are all variations on the same spell!"
"The first diagram is the core of the magic," Celestia explained. "The come to life spell can be altered to give the animated object different orders, like walking in a straight line, moving in a circle, and eventually more complex behaviors like cleaning or avoiding obstacles."
She turned a number of pages, revealing a much more complicated spell.
"All you should need is the one I showed you. It will make the doll stand up and follow simple orders."
"Thank you, Princess Celestia," Twilight said, bowing slightly.
"I'm always happy to help, Twilight," Celestia smiled.
Midnight looked over her shoulder, glancing at the diagram. "This looks easy." Her horn started to glow.
"What happened to being careful?!" Twilight demanded, grabbing Smarty Pants and shielding her with her hooves.
"I'm just feeling it out," Midnight said. "It's easier to learn a spell by casting it a couple times. I'm not gonna use it on your doll until we try it."
"But the spell requires a target!" Twilight yelled, pointing at a section of the diagram. "If you don't choose one, it'll-"
Midnight's horn started to glow with a hard light as the spell drained more magic out of her, like a static charge building as the magic tried to find a place to ground itself. Twilight's head started to pound, and she winced with the sudden, dull pain.
"Hold on, I'll-" Celestia started, before the spell snapped with the force of a thunderbolt. She blinked, looking around. "Well, it did something. All that energy doesn't just go away. Is your doll...?"
"No, she's not moving," Twilight frowned. "What did you do, Midnight?"
"W-well, I promised I wouldn't hurt Smarty Pants, so I pushed the magic that way." She pointed out the window. Celestia stood up and looked down. At the castle statue garden. Some of the statues were already climbing down from their plinths and wandering away.
"Oh no," Celestia breathed. There was one statue in particular that she was worried about, and she couldn't see it from here. "I need to go take care of this."
She vanished in a flash of light as she teleported away, leaving the two fillies alone.
"I'm in so much trouble," Midnight whispered.
"You shouldn't cast spells before you study them carefully and learn every part," Twilight admonished. "That's the first rule they taught us in magic kindergarten!"
"Mom always says that the rules of magic are more like guidelines," Midnight huffed. There was a heavy clatter behind them. Twilight and Midnight turned to see a half-scale statue of a pony in armor walking towards the door.
"There's one in here, too?" Midnight frowned.
"We should wait for Celestia to come back and deal with it," Twilight said.
"A real spellcaster fixes the problems they cause," Midnight declared. "We just have to put it back where it was."
"How are we supposed to do that?" Twilight asked.
"Don't worry, I have a plan," Midnight said, lowering her head and creeping closer to the walking statue. Twilight followed, wondering just what this plan was. "Just do exactly what I say," Midnight whispered.
Twilight nodded. They crept just a little closer.
"Get her!" Midnight yelled, pouncing at the statue. Her hooves closed on the air as the animated statue ran from her grip, bolting out the open door.
"What kind of plan was that?!" Twilight demanded. "'Get her!'"
"I was going on gut instinct and kinda panicked a little," Midnight admitted, brushing dust off of her coat as she picked herself off the ground. "We gotta try to catch it before it goes too far!"
"But Princess Celestia-"
"Don't worry, I live in the castle. It's not like we're gonna get-"
"Lost," Twilight repeated.
"A little," Midnight admitted. "But all we have to do is find a servant or a guard and ask them where to go."
"Every time you say something is simple it gets harder and harder," Twilight frowned. "Where are we?"
"If I knew where we were, we wouldn't be lost." Midnight rolled her eyes. "The castle's not that big, though. This is just a part I haven't been in before."
"If you're lost, you should stay in one place," Twilight said.
"That's only if you wanna be found. We don't wanna be found, we wanna get out of here ourselves before anyone knows we left." Midnight looked down the hallway. "Let's try retracing our steps again."
"When we did that before we walked past that creepy room with no lights anywhere three times before you admitted we were going in circles," Twilight said. "And I'm still pretty sure we went up stairs when we were supposed to go down."
"Then we'll just go down stairs next time we find them," Midnight shrugged, trotting down the hallway. Twilight groaned and followed her, more afraid of being lost and alone than being lost together with a pony she didn't really like.
They walked in silence, looking for anypony who could point them the right way.
"Do you think they're all helping catch the other statues?" Midnight asked, biting her lip. "There's usually tons of ponies around the castle."
"That would make sense. We're not where we're supposed to be because of the statues, so they're probably as out of place as everything else."
"Yeah," Midnight agreed. She looked around and spotted a door that she hadn't seen before. "We haven't tried going that way yet," she pointed towards the double doors.
"We can't get more lost than we are," Twilight sighed. The two fillies walked up to the doors and, working together, opened them, slipping inside.
"It's just somepony's bedroom," Midnight sighed.
"There could be somepony who can help," Twilight said, walking inside. "Hello? Is anypony here?"
The two walked through the suite, past a very large writing desk, and found a bed big enough to house a half-dozen ponies. Or, perhaps, one very large pony.
"I think this is Princess Celestia's bedroom," Midnight said, mystified. She looked around at the oversized furniture, hopping up onto the bed and almost instantly sinking through. "Help!"
Twilight nabbed her tail with telekinesis, pulling her free. "What happened?"
"Cloud bed," Midnight explained, glaring at the offending bedding. "You sink right through if you're not a pegasus. There are special sheets you can use, but I guess Princess Celestia doesn’t need them."
"There's a balcony over there," Twilight pointed. "If we get a view from the outside, maybe we can figure out which way to go."
"Good idea!" Midnight's horn flashed, and she dropped out of Twilight's grip. "I know the castle, so you stay here while I look."
She trotted out to the balcony and started looking around. Twilight, left alone, gravitated towards the familiar. In this case, a bookcase. Princess Celestia had a small bookcase next to her bed, and Twilight found herself more than a little curious as to what kind of books the Princess considered worthy of being so closely at hoof.
"I wonder if she reads my mom's books..." Twilight whispered, looking. Many of the books didn't have titles visible on the spine. Some were so worn that the letters there were little more than a few vague markings on the binding, others obviously left blank on purpose.
Twilight pulled one of the books out and glanced through it. She could feel the enchantment on the pages, the same spell that was on many old books that kept them being old books instead of rotting paper. Unlike almost any book she'd ever read, though, this one wasn't printed. It was hoof-written.
"Oh wow..." Twilight whispered, trying to read the text. It was extremely old, and after a moment to decipher what she was looking at, Twilight realized she was looking at a diary.
"This is a diary..." Twilight muttered. Her eyes went wide. "Princess Celestia's diary! I'll be thrown in a dungeon for reading this!"
"What's that?" Midnight asked, as she trotted into the room, grabbing the book. Twilight let her have it, letting go for fear of causing damage. "Oh neat! This has stuff about Princess Platinum!"
"It does?" Twilight asked, blinking.
"Yeah!" Midnight turned the page. "It's in that weird old Equestrian that uses 'f' instead of 's' but I think I can translate. 'We retired from the ball along with Platinum, the wine having stirred our blood..." She looked up. "What does that mean?"
"I donno. Keep reading. Maybe the context explains it."
"'We returned to Our chambers with her, and We will remember the rest of that night for ten thousand years hence, though We fear Luna had much to explain to the guests regards the cries of passion that so shook Our castle.'"
"Read a little more. Maybe we can use something in our report!"
"Twilight?" Celestia called. "Midnight?" She'd tracked their magic to her room with the help of the castle wards, though she couldn't imagine why they'd have gone there instead of simply waiting for her to return. Maybe they were afraid they'd be punished for the mishap.
Celestia opened the door, prepared to give her usual speech about how she wasn't angry and that this was a wonderful learning opportunity.
"No, I'm telling you, that doesn't make any sense," Twilight argued. "There aren't any flowers named after Princess Platinum, much less ones 'overflowing with sweet nectar'. It has to be some kinda metaphor."
"But it could have gone extinct-" Midnight argued, pointing to a passage in a book that Celestia was intimately familiar with. The book was immediately surrounded with a golden glow and snapped shut, nearly catching Midnight's hoof.
"Princess!" Twilight gasped, ears folding flat against her head. "We got lost and we didn't know what to do."
"It's fine, Twilight Sparkle, no harm done," Celestia said, her eye twitching only a little as she put the book away, making a mental note to put her journals somewhere more secure, like the sun.
"Princess, what did it mean when it said about Princess Platinum's preening skills? She didn't have wings and-"
Celestia cast a silence spell, Twilight's question ending abruptly even as her lips kept moving.
"Now how about-" Celestia started, before realizing she was silenced as well. She dismissed the field of silence before continuing. "How about we go talk about what you learned, and never talk about my journal ever again? It's private, and it's very rude to read another pony's diary."
"I took some notes, and-" Twilight held up a scroll.
Celestia snatched it and the paper instantly burned to ash.
"Very rude," Celestia repeated, still smiling. "Now let's go get something full of sugar. I feel rather drained after all that excitement." And she'd love to return the fillies to their parents with enough sweets in them to keep them bouncing off the walls.
"Yes, Princess," Midnight sighed, following Celestia as she turned to leave.
"Do you still have your copy of the notes?" Twilight whispered.
"Yeah," Midnight nodded. "I'll ask Cadance later. She knows about alicorn stuff."
The two nodded. There was no way that plan could go wrong.
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This was great!
Getting Midnight and Twilight together leads to great and interesting things happening. I can only imagine Cadance's face when they come to her with Midnight's copy of notes from Celestia's diary. And have to say, nice touch on the relationship between Celestia and Platinum - most things I've read had her as some kind of jealous, power hungry pony, but reading this and giving her more complexity beyond what was seen in the Hearth's Warming play was nice.
that plan will go very very wrong
Egghead time two - a prefect recipe for innocent disaster.
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wanna watch this disaster happen I have popcorn
They'll probably make more copies of the notes at home. Also, I don't think children should be reading something like this... All aboard the awkward train...?
I do like how Midnight actually listened to Sunset and is both compromising and avoiding topics that will cause trouble by, you know, watching out for trouble.
Good job, leading by example.
Nice Colossal Cave reference. :)
Hmmm, I don't know, it isn't like she wouldn't have access to (the publicly available areas of) the Royal Archives or anything...⸮
I know they're not exactly like this, but I can't help thinking "Famous Last Words Celestia".
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i'll bring the hard cider and tickets to sell
8948204
8948209
You two write "very very/extremely well" weird
Twily squared is a recipe for shenanigans cubed. I just hope they remember what they read there once they get old enough to actually understand it. It will be GLORIOUS
"What could possibly go wrong?"
I like it because I belive this could be them reading something sexual without realizing it and it is going to be akward for Celestia.
I kind of was nearly hoping Midnight tried to sneak away, but this was good too. I would like it if they manage to use that in their project.
That was magnificent.
Oh.... My God, those two basically found Celestia's personal version of "Fifty Shades of Grey"!
Oh my, poor Celestia! You'd think after a thousand years, she would know better than to tempt fate.
Tia and Platinum, sitting in a tree,
K-I-S-S-I-N-G!
In the words of a Cyan and rainbow colored Pegasus “AWESOME”!!!
Why can’t I favorite this twice I’m loving this.
One does have to wonder how a come to life spell would affect the spirit of chaos turned to stone.
oh god i wantg to see cadnace reaction to the notes
Huh, not using the orichalcum one Celestia gave her? I wonder why not. Edit: oh wait, Orichalcum is gold colored here. Heh, Twilight doesn't recognize it.
Also, I agree that giving this info to Cadance can only end well.
Trollestia strikes.
That whole scene was hilarious. My sides are getting quite the workout!
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Alternatively, the plan could go horribly right...
Wow. Someone is rather genre savvy.
And Celestia isn't. This'll be good.
Eep!
Oh, my.
Oh, and I noticed the CCA reference. I like references.
it was at this point i started laughing evily
Famous last words.
They would've BUCKED.
D I S C O R D
Oh my god they're reading a diary entry about Platinum and Celestia bucking and they don't even know
O H M Y G O D
Oh my GOD this CHAPTER
Famous last words Celly.
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Yeah....
9065585
Agreed.