Crystal Scholars

by spacekatherine

A Holiday

The Friendship Express, on the way to the Crystal Empire, Compartment B

Stygian hummed as he read the Daring Do novel in his hands. The brilliantly written adventure novel was surprisingly hand-picked by Rainbow Dash of all ponies, considering the number of times she told Twilight she was a book-horse. Then again, the Princess could be very persistent when she wanted her way. Especially in the context of books. Her crystal castle had a large, cavernous library stocked with many books, all arranged neatly by size, colour and subject. If the Princess was running out of books, she didn’t show it. Every day it seemed more and more books were delivered to her castle. Recently, she was quite interested in the subject of law, and had ordered a huge mountain of books on the subject. Stygian knew that Spike had fainted when he had seen the hoard of books, and that Twilight had to bring him to the hospital for a check-up just in case he was prone to heart-attacks and the like. This memory faded away as Stygian went back to the present.

The compartment was quite empty, with no other ponies with the exception of an elderly grandmare called Granny Smith. She was the famous pony who first started the legendary Apple Family Farm.

She mostly ignored him, as she was browsing through a magazine with a picture of a Cure-All tonic advertisement pasted on the front. As she flipped through every page, she muttered conspiratorally under her breath every few seconds. "Those cow dung brothers are up to it again." Stygian had absolutely no clue what she was muttering about, but suddenly, Granny Smith got a crazed look in her eye and grabbed Stygian by his newly made cloak. "What in Faust-" he was terribly confused. "DONT ever buy from those money-stealing brothers. EVER! You got that sonny?" She whispered hoarsely. She went back to her seat and acted as though nothing had happened.

"NEXT STOP, CRYSTAL EMPIRE!" The conductor yelled, and the bell rang. A few minutes went by, and soon a shimmering mass of buildings could be seen. They were all made of shining crystal in all colours. It was breathtaking. Stygian made a promise to visit Mistmane as soon as he arrived there.