Principal Investigator Twilight Sparkle
(♫)
In her newly-assembled office just off the main room of the Golden Oaks Library, Twilight Sparkle paced in an endless circle. Her horn aglow with a telekinetic field, she slid and twisted a pair of glass inkwells in a complicated pattern that wound up leaving them more or less where they had been originally.
“Spike, do you think it’s more imposing to have two quills next to my name plaque, or just one?”
Her assistant looked up from a thick hardbound catalog of thaumatological equipment he was currently examining. Much of what they’d originally planned to move down from the Observatory in Canterlot turned out not to be able to fit down the basement stairs, which meant it all had to be replaced with more portable models. “I don’t think it matters because I don’t think Forward’ll even be able to see them. She’s going to be sitting in front of you, facing the window, and your desk is going to be directly behind you.”
“Good point!” Twilight quickly floated both quills aside and began shifting the placard- commissioned from the same Canterlot specialty workshop that made them for Governors and Cabinet ministers- so that the embossed copper letters reading “DR. TWILIGHT SPARKLE” reflected the morning sun most effectively. It was only once she had it just about right, that she realized her meeting with Major Forward March was scheduled for ten o’clock and the sun would be coming from a noticeably different angle by then. She grabbed a sheaf of reasonably unimportant-looking paper and began working through the necessary astronomical calculations to compensate.
“What happens if Forward’s late?” she asked out loud. “Do I wait for her to apologize, or… what, exactly? What happens if she’s early? Do I make her wait?”
Calculation completed, she shuffled a few other reports and scientific articles into a different configuration. She didn’t want her desk to look messy, but she also wanted to avoid the appearance that she wasn’t doing anything. She was, in fact, doing a great deal, but Spike was annoyingly persistent about keeping her papers in their designated drawers and binders. Normally she appreciated the effort, but today called for a different approach.
“Also, Spike? Do you think you’d look more official working on something in the main room?” Her frantic circling paused just long enough for her to grab a nearby coffee cup in her telekinetic field and take a few quick sips. “Or do you think I have time to move your desk out by the door?
Spike closed his eyes, sucked in a deep breath, and set the catalog aside. “Twilight, it’s me. Forward March isn’t going to be impressed by me either way because Forward March’s known me since I was three. Forward’s known you for about as long, too. So stop shuffling all my stuff around, and just. Relax.”
A little too late, Twilight realized the scratch paper she had filled with her calculations had originally been an inventory of some kind. Spike’s neat claw-writing was still faintly visible in a few of the areas she hadn’t written directly over. “Look, Spike, I’m… I’m sorry.” She took a deep breath, a long drink of coffee, and set the now-ruined inventory aside. “I guess I just… I mean, this is the biggest thing I’ve ever been in charge of before, there’s other ponies working under me for the first time ever, and… I really want to do this right.”
Spike nodded, and slithered up one of the nearby stools so that he could look her right in the eye. “Listen, Twilight, I know this is like telling a rock it doesn’t need to roll downhill, but… you really don’t have to worry this much. You’re. Going. To. Do. Fine.”
The ocher pegasus with the short, dark-blue mane and more than her fair share of freckles leaned back on Twilight’s sofa, and took another sip of her tea. “… and, yeah, I think that’s about the size of it.”
Sitting across from her, the unicorn scholar nodded, and tapped a few lines on Forward’s reports with a quill. “Well, I for one think you’re taking exactly the right approach. They’re not exactly asking for round-the-clock room service and deep tissue massages here… I think it’s entirely appropriate to take some basic steps to focus on the Lunars’ comfort and entertainment. I think Celestia’s going to be extremely pleased with this.”
Forward laughed, and adjusted the collar of her Guard dress uniform. “Yeah, wow, that’s… actually that’s a huge relief hearing you of all ponies say that.”
Spike laughed right along with her, “Well, I did have a talk with her before you came here. Someone certainly had to.”
“Did she decide to reorganize all your papers again?” the Major chided.
“No!” Twilight shook her head, “Ok, well, maybe a little. One page can hardly matter, right?”
“I wasn’t even ever allowed to touch your papers!” Forward downed the remainder of her tea, “‘One page can hardly matter’, indeed!”
It was at about that point that Spike opted to sneak a look at the wall clock and gave a little hiss. “Forward, look, I hate to cut this short, but your train…”
“Oh, rut it, you’re right!” Forward scrambled about to gather her reportsand galloped for the door. “Hey, uhhh, say hi to Shining Armor for me the next time you see him, OK?” she yelled over her shoulder on her way out, narrowly avoiding a collision with another mare in Royal Guard armor waiting just outside.
(♫)
“Hey, Twilight Sparkle, right?” The newcomer asked, “I’ve been looking for you!” She tapped a hoof against her armor. “I’m Captain Marigold.”
Captain Marigold, appropriately enough, proved to be an incredibly yellow mare with an orange-tipped mane and extremely dark brown eyes. Although clearly an earth pony she was built like a pegasus, skinny and fast. Judging by the lines starting to form around her muzzle Twilight would have guessed that she was perhaps pushing 40- on the older end of what was generally reasonable for a Guard officer of her rank.
“Umm… right, yes…” Twilight said out loud, while internally she reviewed the next few days’ agendas and tried to find a place for this particular mare.
“I’ll be serving as your head of security and… military liaison?” Marigold prompted once a noticeable pause had developed.
“Yes! That’s right!” Shining Armor had long ago informed her that he'd assigned a downsized, independent company of Royal Guards to support her work in Ponyville. Now Twilight remembered he’d also said he’d promoted an experienced junior officer to command them. There was originally supposed to have been a corresponding chief scientist position as well, to be filled by one of the two Royal Academy faculty who had also signed on for the project. Twilight, however, had decided that it would be both easier and less political to simply manage the scientific side of the excavations herself, which would also keep both junior professors on relatively equal footing.
“Congratulations on your promotion, but the way,” was all Twilight said aloud. Back before Nightmare Moon’s return had left Ponyville under effective occupation by the re-awoken forces of the Lunar Republic, Marigold had still been a First Lieutenant.
Marigold shrugged, her polished gold armor shifting slightly. “I don’t see what was so impressive myself, you know,” she continued, “All I did was talk to those bat guys.”
“Well, if you hadn’t I don’t think any of this would be happening.”
“Yeah, about that…” the Captain shifted back into a position more similar to parade rest, “I just got back from talking with the construction team over at the Station. I think they’ve just about gotten everything set up… wanna head over and take a look around?”
It was only in the early 1020s that Ponyville had actually become Ponyville instead of just another nameless inn-and-wheelwright-and-general-store stopover. When that happened, the Equestrian Rail Service had decided- for reasons known only to itself- that the tiny little one-platform shunt which nowadays served perfectly well as Ponyville Station, was entirely insufficient. Instead construction began on a grand three-track enclosed station just south of Sweet Apple Acres. Construction then stopped the following year as soon as more sensible heads prevailed, leaving only a wrought-iron frame and brick exterior walls behind. Nopony had given the place much thought since then, save for the few generations of bored country teenagers who’d found it an ideal location to drink and smoke and get up to Starswirl knew what all else without supervision.
As a result, the Town Council had had no reservations at all about turning the structure over to the exclusive use of their guests from the Royal Academy. It had been checked for structural soundness, leaks had been patched, basic plumbing put in and many, many different sorts of refuse cleared out. Barracks for Captain Marigold’s company of Guards had been assembled first, then dormitories for the Academy staff who’d been unable to get a hold of other accommodations in Ponyville proper. Then had come storage, both for equipment they were bringing in and anything particularly valuable they might recover from the Everfree; workshops and laboratory space; and a neat little office for their small contingent of administrative clerks.
Twilight Sparkle gave a low whistle. When she’d last been here three weeks ago, they’d still been shoring up the ceiling and setting up the first interior walls. Her only regret was that the detachment of the famous Equestrian Army Engineering Corps that had made it all happen weren’t an official part of their expedition. Rather, the Engineers had originally been brought in to repair the not-insignificant damage Nightmare Moon’s forces had done during their occupation of Ponyville, and once their current job was done they’d be shipping back out to parts unknown.
The majority of the Station by volume had been given over to a small hangar bay. It was currently occupied by a tour group of schoolfillies and more than a few adults gawking at the compact little airship that sat on a wheeled takeoff sled in the middle. Twilight instantly recognized Rainbow Dash as well as Cheerilee, Ponyville’s industrious schoolteacher-and-councilmare.
“This right here’s the RES Lapwing,” explained a short, light-green unicorn in a Navy mechanic’s uniform with a grease-stained red bandana around her neck, “she’s a Black Swan class multifunction gunboat with a top speed of one hundred and fifty k-p-h. She carries a flying crew of three, plus two ground crew, and has a maximum range of a little under eighty-six hundred kilometers- but we’ve only got one set of pilots here and they gotta eat and sleep, so I don’t think we’ll be getting anywhere near that range.” The mechanic grinned, and swept her hoof towards the craft’s big sliding doors like a Las Pegasus stagehoof. “The main bay’s completely re-configurable: we can ship twenty-four hundred kilos of cargo and equipment, twenty fully-armed troops, or six one-oh-two millimeter breech-loading cannons on swivel mounts, with their crews!”
“How fast can they shoot, Missus Officer, sir?” asked a little brown-and-white colt with an incongruous Trottingham accent.
“Well, a good crew can fire off about ten rounds a minute. And just one of those can take the head off a full-grown roc half a klick upwind, if you know what you’re doing!”
“Miss Leafspring,” a vaguely familiar white unicorn filly asked, “do you think that means rocs are gonna be coming around here?”
“That’s Sergeant Leafspring, remember?” Cheerilee gently corrected her.
“Sergeant Leafspring, sir,” Rainbow Dash added.
“Aww, you don’t have to ‘sir’ me, I work for a living,” Leafspring chuckled. “And I figure we’ll mostly be using the Lapwing to assist those Academy eggheads for a good long while. Aerial recon, transporting equipment, maybe some close-in ground support. No rocs around here!”
The filly seemed visibly relieved by that, but if anything Rainbow Dash looked disappointed. She glided over to Leafspring and asked, “Hey, has this ship seen any action down South?”
“She’s a boat, not a ship,” Leafspring admonished, “And she’s new, but I’ve been down South for a few tours. My last assignment was anti-piracy down in Hippogriffia, actually, and I’d say we got into some kinda’ shooting pursuit… maybe once or twice a month?”
“Awww, cool! Is that just for fire support, or did you actually drop troops?”
As Rainbow Dash led the Sergeant back closer to the Lapwing’s cockpit, Cheerilee found herself attempting to keep her increasingly enthusiastic charges in line all by her lonesome. “Sergeant Leafspring, why don’t you explain for the class how the engines propel…”
If the mechanic had even heard, she gave no indication of it. “Yeah, a couple of times when we knew they had hostages we’d actually have to drop troops under enemy fire, and that’s when I started to figure out why they make these girls with the extra armor plating nowadays. Let me tell you… I know some of the pilots still complain about losing, what, a few k-p-h? But- Aww, shit!”
Twilight watched, aghast, as three of the most precocious students burrowed into the Lapwing’s cockpit like tiny entropic cruise missiles, and moments later there was a tooth-rattling crash as one of them dislodged an entire crate of explosive cannon shells.
That finally got Leafspring and Rainbow Dash’s attention.
“All right, show’s over,” the Navy mare called out, “Now kindly step away from my boat before somepony winds up getting seriously hurt!”
(♫)
“Carefully…carefully…” Twilight watched with some interest as Rarity coached a mixed group of Guards, Academy staff, and local pegasi through the removal of a massive hanging banner from its resting place in the Castle of the Two Sisters. “No, no, don’t fold it, it’s much too stiff, you’ll tear it! That’s gold thread, it’d be fragile even if it were new!”
Twilight turned back to Doctor Daycaller, the pony still at least nominally in charge of the proceedings. He was a somewhat pudgy gray unicorn with a thick, closely-curled brown mane, a thick, closely-curled brown beard, and thick, not-visibly-curled black glasses. He was young, quiet, new to the Royal Academy’s faculty, and entirely unassuming, which was exactly why Twilight had picked him to head up their operations on Castle Rock proper and its surrounding environs.
She pointed back to where Rarity was now informing one of the Ponyville pegasi- Thunderlane, or possibly Cloud Chaser, she didn’t have a good handle on names yet- of the difference between a tapestry, an arras, and a wall hanging. Spike had gone over to join them, somehow without Twilight noticing, and was now listening with rapt attention. “Is she… sanctioned to be out here?”
Daycaller just laughed nervously, and waved his hoof out over the sprawl of waxed canvas tents and big pony-sized crates that had taken over the Castle courtyard. “Well I’m not exactly going to… turn away qualified help right now, you know!” Twilight supposed he had a point: the Castle Rock outpost was extensive and there would simply never be enough Academy graduate students to meet the demand for their services.
Most of the inventory and categorization of artifacts was being done on-site. Everything was then being sent to the Station, but only the most interesting pieces were actually being kept there for further analysis. The rest ended up on a train, forwarded to Canterlot. Those were destined for the Academy’s significant vaults given over entirely to things that were too historical to be discarded, but of little practical worth. There might be some bidding for such pieces among the museums and private collectors once the serious work was over, though- and Spike had already factored that into their operation’s budget.
“We’ve basically cleared out Firefly’s camp by now,” Dr. Daycaller continued, “There are a few bodies still in holding that we aren’t sure how or where to repatriate, but they’ve been moved offsite to the town hospital- we’re lucky Firefly kept such copious records before he had to abandon Everfree!” In fact, the old general and his “Cabal” of ministers -the future government of Equestria, following the Lunar Rebellions- had even set up a small cemetery for Lunar war-dead in distant Frankpferd. That was where most of the bodies would eventually be heading. “But I’m afraid it’s going to be a lot slower going from here. The lower levels of this castle are an absolute maze, and many of the plans -those that have even survived- are, I suspect, not especially accurate. Even if they were, the last thing that happened here was for it to become the target of a full-scale siege. Where we expect to find a connecting passage, or a servant’s corridor, there’s more often than not a pile of rubble. Add to that the fact that many of the wooden components have dry-rotted into powder -and we are still trying to determine what factors preserved some elements while others decayed normally- and it all adds up to a very slow, painful process.”
That was actually about what Twilight had expected. She looked around again and saw Rarity disappear into a nearby tent as Spike made his way back over to their delegation.
“Have you found any outright booby-traps yet?” the dragon asked. The recently declassified notes of the Cabal’s leader, Paper Clip, had claimed such things existed, while most other First Century sources denied they were ever installed. That left both cause for caution, and another avenue by which to substantiate the old minister’s claims.
“Thus far, no, but we’re keeping our eyes open.”
“Good work, Doctor,” Twilight concluded, “But I don’t want you to get too bogged down focusing on just the Castle. I’m actually more interested in what you might find under the old Council Hall- I want to see if there were really prison cells underneath it,” that was another claim effectively unique to Paper Clip, “and especially if the Lunars might actually’ve opened them before they blew the place up.” Paper Clip doubted they had, but admitted that he himself was unsure. If he was wrong, that was another black mark removed from the history of the newly-returned Princess Luna.
“Yes, I think that makes sense. Umm, Councilmare?” He turned to one of the larger crates, which somepony had opened up and converted into a neat little office space for the gray pegasus who ran the administrative half of Ponyville’s weather team. “Do you think you can spare a few ponies to fly watch over that site while we’re clearing rubble? It should only take a day or two.”
Derpy Hooves nodded. “Should be able to, but that means we won’t be able to respond quite so fast if Doctor Twilight orders any sharp changes in the weather schedule.”
Twilight looked at Spike, then at Derpy. Then she grinned. “Wait a minute. You’re telling me that I get to make changes to the weather schedule?”
The Councilmare just nodded again. “I mean, within reason? We need permission from the Domimmuh… Domida… Do-min-ion Go-ver-nor in Canterlot if you want to keep it from raining more than fourteen days. I know that’s what everypony asks.”
“Huh. Can I make it rain all the time?”
Both Derpy and Dr. Daycaller cocked their heads and whinnied, confused.
“What? I like the rain. Keeps the merrymakers indoors where they can’t bother me. Helps me think.”
“Ummmm…” the Councilmare pulled a clipboard out of her saddlebags with one wing, peered at it intently for a second or two, then flipped it a hundred and eighty degrees and checked it again. “I think I can give you… five straight days?”
“Perfect.” Twilight noticed that more than a few of the workers had stopped what they were doing and following the conversation with growing dismay. Philistines.
“You won’t be saying that when we actually need to go out into the field and dig for things,” Spike warned.
“Spike, given the convoluted path airships have to follow just to land here, I don’t think falling rain can actually reach this deep into the Everfree.”
“And I don’t think Rainbow Dash’ll like actually rounding up that many rainclouds,” Derpy added.
Twilight’s ears folded back against her head. “Yeah… you’re probably right. We’ll keep our hooves off the weather schedule unless there’s a legitimate operational reason to change it, all right?”
She wasn’t certain, but she half-thought she saw Spike quietly mouth “thank you” to the Councilmare.
When Twilight had first explored the Lunar Cairn on Sweet Apple Acres back before Nightmare Moon’s return, it had been in a rather sorry state. It’d been forced open by the locals about a hundred and fifty years back, ruining whatever spell had preserved its original Lunar inhabitants. Then it had been looted, filled with litter, and finally the entrance was half-heartedly filled back in with a pile of boulders. In the three weeks since Twilight’s Academy compatriots had taken over the site, Ponyville’s later additions had been largely cleared out, and as much of the surrounding soil as was practicable excavated. Now, it looked like a proper structure, and the unfortunate Lunars inside had been reburied alongside their fellows in Frankpferd.
“So… what even do we have left to do here?” Spike asked.
Twilight looked to the second Academy professor currently assigned to her operation: Doctor Proper Verse, a tall, rail-thin, navy blue pegasus with a pale green mane cut even shorter and straighter than Twilight’s own. “Do you want to explain this, or should I?”
“Oh. Yes, yes, yes, right,” Verse paused, then continued all at once, “What we’re doing is we’re trying to get more information on how the Lunars’ preservation spell worked. There are Cairns that were opened properly an- and released their charges, and some that were opened much earlier by natural accidents, and we’re trying to identify, uhh, discrepancies between them that could form an identifiable pattern an… and help us model the underlying spell.”
Twilight nodded. “Exactly!”
It was about then that Applejack surfaced from one of the trenches, talking around the shovel in her mouth like an oversized hayseed. “Well, Ah wouldn’t say we’re done here yet either, ‘till them Riches give back all that Lunar gear they been’ holdin’ onto. Rarity’s already turned over all a’ hers.”
“Hmm.” As far as Twilight knew, that case was still grinding its way through the courts and likely would continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Just about their only solid victory had been an order for Filthy Rich to repatriate his grandfather’s “collection” of Lunar equipment on the grounds that it was vital to the work being performed by the Academy expedition. However, without a clear deadline attached the family had made excellent progress in dragging their hooves in appeals and counterarguments. That had probably already cost them far more in legal fees already than the horde itself could possibly be worth, but Twilight supposed it came down in the end to pride and principle. “You know, maybe I could have Captain Marigold and some of her troops come along with me the next time I pay them a visit.”
“Heh. Yeah,” Applejack nodded. “Hey, ya think I can come’n watch?”
“Probably not, but I’ll see what we can do.” Twilight turned back to Spike, who was now holding a scroll still glowing with a few lingering specks of green flame. “So, what’s next?”
“Actually… I think Princess Celestia wants to see you up in Canterlot. ‘At your earliest convenience’, it says…”
(♫)
The train ride up to Canterlot was just as Twilight had grown to expect- uneventful, and supremely comfortable. Thanks to the great city’s fondness for multiple train stations, great vaulted atria, and glass-walled bridges, it was commonly said that a well-to-do mare could travel from her manor in Foaledo all the way up to the receiving office of Princess Celestia herself without once setting hoof outside.
This was untrue.
There was in fact a full ring of exposed outdoor courtyard that cut off the Day Court, Exarchic Quarters, and Governors’ Forum from the entire rest of the city, for no reason that Twilight Sparkle had ever been able to discover.
In the films and comics aware of this quirk, if government meetings needed to be conducted during a rainstorm -which, rain being dramatic, was quite often- a double row of Royal Guard battlemages would take up position in that courtyard and project overlapping bubble shields for Celestia to walk beneath.
This was also untrue.
In reality, government meetings were never conducted while it was raining, because at the faintest whiff of important business the Canterlot Weather Brigade was sent out and any rain instantly stopped.
Today, however, the Royal Guard were indeed out in force, along with a good portion of the Canterlot Watch, because somehow word of Twilight’s arrival had made it into the rest of the city and that little ring of courtyard was absolutely packed with other ponies. Some cheered. Some booed. Some waved incomprehensible signs. Some brandished steno pads and shouted questions. One of that last group, a cream-colored pegasus in a truly horrible brown suit, somehow managed to push herself sufficiently free of the surrounding crowd to be able to take off. She rocketed over the wooden barricades keeping her earth pony and unicorn comrades at bay, and dived right for Twilight.
“Dr. Twilight! Dr. Twilight! Is it true that Princess Celestia plans to step down in light of what you’ve revealed about her mishandling of the Lunar Rebellions?”
The unicorn cocked her head, confused. She’d never heard of anything like that even being suggested before. “… No?”
“Dr. Sparkle, what’s your analysis of how the influx of twenty thousand Lunar ponies is going to affect the international trade balance?”
“There’s less than three hundred Lunars, and I haven’t the faintest idea.”
“Can you give us any information on the current whereabouts of the Elements of Harmony?”
She caught a glimpse of the emblem watermarked onto the mare’s steno pad. “Can I give Blitzfeed, of all the papers, any information on the Elements of Harmony? Yes. Will I? Absolutely not.”
Finally, a pair of burly unicorn Watch-stallions managed to wrap her in overlapping telekinetic fields. “Miss, you can’t fly here!” The one on the left said firmly.
“Well, I’m not flying now,” the reporter shouted, “I’m an Equestrian citizen, I know my rights!”
“That’s not how that works…” Twilight snapped, dashed the rest of the way to the government complex, and did not look back.
Her actual meeting was to be held in Princess Celestia’s private study- all oak bookshelves, gold velvet cushions, and sweet, merciful quiet. The Princess herself was, just as she had been the other times Twilight had come here, seated on the big leather desk chair facing the great bay windows. Somewhat less typically, there were two other ponies occupying the less imposing but equally comfortable armchairs in front of her.
One was Fancypants- former Mayor of Canterlot, former Governor of the Central Dominion, and former Minister of the Interior. He’d retired from that last position some years ago, of course, but his decades of public service seemed to have left him a close personal friend of absolutely everyone currently in power.
The other was Princess Mi Amore Cadenza. That was doubly unexpected- the last Twilight had heard, Cadance was still handling some kind of labor dispute up near the Frozen North.
The young scholar immediately backed away and reentered the room, this time loudly declaring “It’s not true. It’s bullshit! I did not hit her. I did naaat. Oh hai Cadance!”
“Oh hai Twailaait,” Cadance laughed. Celestia and Fancypants both managed to at least chuckle. This might’ve been an official meeting, but Twilight still saw no reason not to keep up tradition. They’d been greeting each other this way since Twilight had been twelve years old.
The scholar took another, unoccupied armchair and immediately a cup of strong hot tea floated over to her in Cadance’s blue hornglow. “So… I guess we can get right down to business; I know that all three of you are, yourselves, extremely busy ponies, and wouldn’t be able to come here to talk with me if it wasn’t important. What’s going on?”
“Perceptive as always, Twilight,” said Celestia, “Are you aware of the situation currently developing in the Parrot Isles?”
“Umm, vaguely?” Twilight answered, “I know it has something to do with the minotaurs being angry about something, but… the minotaurs are always angry about something.”
“To be just a smidgen more detailed,” Fancypants continued, “Minos has decided to annex several harpy-majority islands near its territorial waters. A confederacy of harpy chieftains has formed to oppose the minotaurs’ claims, and we believe it’s very likely everyone involved could come to blows over the affair.”
“That… sounds like a real mess, but… what am I supposed to do about it?” the unicorn scholar asked, taking another sip of tea.
“Well, nothing, directly” answered Princess Celestia, “I just wanted you to be aware that Cadance and I will traveling out to the Isles to try to restart talks- or, if that fails, take direct action to resolve the dispute.”
“Shin- Commander Shining Armor will also be accompanying us,” continued Cadance, “given the delicate nature of the whole region we wanted our expeditionary force under the direct supervision of a member of Equestrian High Command, and since most of the force is comprised of Guard units, he was the logical choice.”
“I think I’m starting to see the problem,” said Twilight, “That’s also everypony I’m supposed to be reporting to…”
“… and communication is going to be very erratic for most of our expedition, which could take a month or more.” Cadance finished.
“Now, none of us doubt your ability to continue your work without direct contacts here in the capitol,” Fancypants spoke up, “but we thought you would appreciate the heads-up.”
Twilight nodded.
“There’s also one other… small political complication, that’s developed,” continued Princess Cadance, “We’re confident we can handle everything up here, we just wanted to make especially sure you’re aware…”
“Three Cabinet Ministers are currently objecting to Luna’s promotion to Exarch, and we don’t currently know if we have enough votes in the Chamber of Governors to override them,” Fancypants finished.
“Oh. Wait, really?” Twilight asked.
Unlike most of the Known World, Equestria had no single document that anypony could point at and call “The Constitution”. Rather, its governance was based on a patchwork quilt of different Acts and administrative procedures that, through particular longevity and utility, had found themselves elevated to quasi-constitutional status. What was officially -and somewhat confusingly- titled the “Imperial Republic of Equestria” wasn’t built on some grand, sweeping statement of the aspirations of ponykind; it was built on flow charts and tables. Even Princess Celestia herself, it was said, didn’t fully understand the whole of it.
One peculiarity was the way in which the Republic conferred the powers of head of state. Princess Celestia was, in fact, a “Princess” at all only because she was an alicorn, and thus entitled to certain traditional modes of address dating all the way back to the Three Tribes period. Equestria had no legal recognition of nobility; rather, her authority as head of state came entirely from her position as Exarch.
That office could, and not infrequently had been, occupied by multiple ponies simultaneously who ruled by committee- indeed, the time Celestia had spent ruling alone totaled up to a little under fifty percent of the last millennium. Sometimes, she shared the Exarchy with ponies who were capable leaders in their own right; in a few cases when she was urgently needed somewhere else doing something else, she’d even stepped down. She was so recognizable not necessarily because her rule had been uninterrupted, but simply because she always came back in the end.
Thus, there was technically nothing new about the possibility of sharing her power with Princess Luna, save for the fact that the arrangement was being touted as something near permanent. Luna was immortal, and clearly had ambitions that Cadance and those who had come before her lacked. Once Luna was integrated into the Imperial Republic’s politics, she might not ever leave again.
Ordinarily, the confirmation of potential Exarchs -and, theoretically, the ouster of sitting ones, although in one thousand years that power had never been used- fell to a majority vote in the Equestrian Chamber of Governors. However, should a member of the Exarch’s own Cabinet- which was notoriously and at times pyrotechnically independent- find something about the candidate alarming to his or her specific area of expertise, there was also a sort of veto power available. One Cabinet Minister’s veto pushed the required vote among the Governors to two thirds; two Ministers pushed it to three quarters; and Twilight couldn’t even remember off the top of her head what three would do.
The scholar had always found that particular bylaw highly unusual, at least before she’d read Paper Clip’s notes. Now that she knew Equestria had begun with Princess Celestia effectively controlled by a self-described “Cabal” of her own ministers, even if those ministers’ purpose had been nothing but benevolent, it made a weird sort of sense.
“So… why are we forcing the issue?” she finally asked, “Does Luna really need to be Exarch right now, when she’s barely had time to learn how the modern world works?”
“Well, I did promise.” Celestia turned away from her guests and looked back out the windows. For the first time, Twilight realized just how many members of the crowd outside were waving portraits or drawings of Luna herself. “And, you might call it a political instinct more than anything else, but I really do think that now is the best time to move on this issue. Ponies are fascinated by Luna and the Lunars, thanks in no small part to your great work in documenting their struggles. If we let that enthusiasm fade, Luna may never- we may never have even this much of a chance again. Equestria, for all of its virtues, I’m afraid to say often has an unwarranted fear of change.” Her mouth turned up at the corners, ever so slightly. “And I suspect that, in the grand accounting of things, Luna’s outside perspective and unfamiliarity with the way things are… the way things have grown to be in the modern world, will be her single greatest asset as an Exarch.”
Twilight wasn’t quite sure how to respond to that. Finally, she turned to Fancypants. “So who exactly is objecting to Luna… among the Ministers, I mean”
“Ah. Yes.” The older stallion cleared his throat. “As we’d expected, the Ministry of Operations and Budget has lodged an objection, and the Ministers of Defense and Culture as well.”
“Are they in Canterlot right now?”
“Ermm… yes, I believe so?”
“Can I talk to them?”
(♫)
It wasn’t a formal hearing, so they didn’t make use of any of the formal hearing rooms, but even in a bland little windowless conference room on the fifth floor of the Day Court building, Twilight Sparkle was feeling more than a bit intimidated. After all, it was only a badly scratched pinewood table that separated her from what were, arguably, three of the most important ponies in Equestria next to Princess Celestia herself.
She understood the presence of Defense Minister Wind Rider well enough- the Manehattan Times had been right on the money when it described the former Wonderbolt’s entire political outlook as consisting of “a noun, a verb, and ‘risk to Equestria’s security’.” He was a light-blue pegasus with a carefully-combed gray mane. Although somewhat famous for wearing cold-weather combat gear to official functions, today he had -for whatever reason- opted for his old blue dress uniform. Budget and Operations Minister Harshwhinny sat beside him in a crisp, immaculately-pressed purple suit which nonetheless clashed horribly with her chestnut coat and short yellow mane. Her presence was similarly explicable, mostly on account of her legendary contempt for anything that even slightly altered the Government’s various accounts.
Rounding out the group was Culture Minister Firelight, a purple unicorn stallion with a somewhat long, somewhat unkempt mint-green mane. He was also wearing a proper suit, although the dark brown wool it was made of and the style in which it was cut, made it look to have been carefully preserved since at least the 1010s if not earlier. That was somewhat puzzling, since the pony inside it -while not by any means young- did not himself look nearly that old; rather, Twilight would have guessed him to be in his early seventies at the oldest, roughly the same age as Wind Rider. In fact, what he was even doing here was something of a puzzle as well. Amid sprawling outfits like Defense, Transportation, Health, and Operations, the Culture Ministry was something of a sleepy bureaucratic backwater. Their primary responsibilities involved funding and support for the arts, coordinating public festivals religious and secular, enforcing Equestria’s few obscenity laws for published media, and curating anything of particular historical importance. That last area did include some power to oversee archaeological sites, but even if Firelight had some problem with the way Twilight was excavating the Everfree that wouldn’t translate into a problem with Luna herself… would it?
There was a long silence as everypony stared at each other and shifted in their seats. Papers were shuffled, and then shuffled back again. The little enchanted wax-cylinder recorder at one end of the table whirred quietly to itself, and the transcriptionist sitting beside it tried his best to look unobtrusive. Somepony -it might’ve been Twilight herself, who could say?- went “ha-hem,” very quietly.
Then Minister Harshwhinny flipped open a thick manila folder in front of her and began speaking all at once. “Doctor Spar-kle, I’m afraid I just have some serious concerns about how an Exarch Luna might impact the Equestrian economy. What we’ve been able to piece together about her labor and commercial policies, points to a pony who made changes far out of line of accepted economics, even in her day, more or less on a whim. Reorganizing- dissolving, in some cases- entire professional organizations, tampering with the values of currency… I think I’d have more to criticize about her overall plans if I had any idea what her plans might’ve been. You… wouldn’t be able to shed some light on this, would you?”
“Well, of course a lot of Luna’s policies might seem strange to somepony from the present day. You have to remember that she lived in a very different era, where guilds existed primarily to fix prices, ‘hard currency’ was the watchword across most of the Known World, and structures like central banks simply didn’t exist. Obviously her earliest attempts to resolve those issues might seem… at best rudimentary, unpolished; and at worst downright strange to a modern observer. But if you look at Treasurer Escritoire’s reports from the years 98 and 99 CE, which I have copies of here, there’s only about ten pages-” Twilight reached telekinetically into the saddlebags she’d left beside her chair, extracted the relevant materials in a thin manila folder, and slid them across the table, “the connection between Luna’s original programs and the later reforms implemented at the beginning of the Second Century is pretty clear. Thus, I think it’s likely that Luna will be able to bring herself up to speed very quickly in this area, and certainly won’t be working to undo Celestia and the Cabal’s policies.”
To her credit, Harshwhinny actually did begin reading the documents, but before she was past the first page Wind Rider was already speaking.
“I’m also just a bit skeptical of how Luna would be able to transition into managing a world-spanning peacekeeping force when, again from what your archivists have been able to dig up, she previously had very little interaction with anypon- umm, anycreature outside of Equestrian borders… verging on isolationism.” Idly, Twilight wondered if -given what she herself had just learned about the impending conflict in the Parrot Isles- the Minister of Defense really had nothing better to do with his time at the moment.
She let her ears flip back against her skull. “Do you all know something I don’t? As far as I know, Celestia isn’t going anywhere. We’re not talking about Luna taking over, we’re talking about her doing the same thing Vetiver and Stovepipe’ve done. She might present some policies you disagree with, but that’s just how the government works. She won’t be in complete control of everything.”
Minister Firelight watched, sipped his tea, and said nothing.
“That might be the case,” Wind Rider continued, “But we are talking about a pony who raised an army in rebellion against Equestria and killed any number of innocent, non-combatant ponies- and some of that information comes from the sources that you cite. I’m aware that Exarchs receive security clearance automatically as a matter of procedure, but if that wasn’t the case I’m not sure I’d be comfortable authorizing access to military documents to a pony with a record like that!”
“What those sources explain,” Twilight shot back, “is that Luna didn’t kill those ponies, Nightmare Moon did. If you look at the archaeological record and the contemporary accounts by Cabal sources, you’ll see a sharp uptick in the number of civilian deaths right around early Sun’s Height, 97 CE. We’d estimate that was around fifty to seventy-five percent of the Lunar-inflicted civilian casualties over the whole Rebellion- before that, the fighting was actually cleaner than some portions of the Saddle Arabian Campaign.”
The Defense Minister’s mouth grew just a tiny bit narrower at that, which was very much why Twilight had brought it up. It was an open secret in Canterlot circles that Wind Rider idolized the architects of Equestria’s invasion of Abyssinia two hundred years ago, and stubbornly held onto the sentiment that Celestia should not have sought peace and instead ‘gone all the way to the Southern Sea’.
“Well,” he finally said, “that may be the case, but Luna and her forces also killed or maimed a huge number of pony soldiers!”
“As have you, Minister. ‘Peace through power,’ isn’t that how it goes?” Had this meeting been public, Twilight might’ve thought twice about being so blunt. But it wasn’t, so she did not. Wind Rider also had a reputation for appreciating “straight talk” from his deputies; Twilight supposed now she was going to determine whether or not that was true.
“Those were pirates and slavers, operating outside of Equestria’s borders,” the pegasus snapped, eyes narrowing and ears pivoting forward.
Apparently his tolerance for bluntness was greatly exaggerated. Or perhaps he simply didn’t extend the privilege of speaking plainly to anyone outside of his own department. Either way, Twilight figured that he was now losing a lot more credibility with whoever might be listening than she was. “I see, so it’s the Equestrian part that gives you problems,” she continued.
“Are you condoning the Lunar Rebellions?”
“Are you condoning the Council of Five Hundred? Because their soldiers, in a lot of cases, were just a gang of bandits in nicer uniforms. I’m condoning the act of rebellion against them, I suppose, and I’m condoning what came after. You’ll have to take the middle up with Nightmare Moon.”
It was not lost on Twilight that, as Wind Rider grew more and more sharp with her, the topic of Luna’s policy positions as opposed to Twilight Sparkle’s had receded ever further into the background.
Firelight continued to say nothing.
It was at about that point that Harshwhinny completed her studies of Twilight’s data and looked up. “Getting back on track…” she glared at Wind Rider, “I have some questions about how this whole ‘permanent night’ business was supposed to work. How would, for instance, a farmer know when it was time to wake up and feed her chickens, if ‘day’ no longer existed?”
“I believe the early Lunars sold their system as ‘you can wake up whenever you want to, go to sleep whenever you want to, and work whatever hours you want to’,” said Twilight, glad to be back on sound historical footing, “In practice, they seem to have wanted to implement what were for the time fairly rigid work schedules… what we’d call a ‘clock-in-clock-out’ shift system. This of course never advanced beyond the planning stages, and would’ve been pretty difficult to manage in an era when precision timekeeping wasn’t really available to the common pony, but impressive regardless when you consider-”
“What about the livestock?” Harshwhinny interjected. “Were cows and chickens expected to keep this kind of sched-ule, too?”
“Well, possibly, actually,” Twilight conceded, “You have to remember, this was an era where what we call druidic magic was just beginning to become a proper, codified science. Ponies on both sides of the political divide were incredibly optimistic that magical techniques providing an unparalleled level of control over the natural world were just around the corner…”
“Even if that was the case…” Wind Rider spoke up again, somewhat more levelly this time, “and as I understand it a lot of what those ponies promised still isn’t possible or practical now… the cost would be huge! And what would that mean for ponies already living hoof-to-mouth? Ordinary frontier farmers who never even heard of Luna’s rebellion until the sun and moon began duking it out in the sky?”
“I mean, well, yes,” Twilight said, “a lot of the Lunars’ original policies had some… substantial flaws, but… the point I’m trying to make here is that Exarch Luna isn’t going to try to recreate them! Something you could learn easily if you just asked her yourselves-”
“You’re correct, of course,” said Harshwhinny, and for just a moment Twilight thought she might actually be making headway, “any of these policy issues, individually, might not be fatal to an Exarchic candidate, especially one as close to Her Grace Celestia as we understand Luna to be,” the young scholar’s early optimism began to deflate as she realized that, although Celestia and Luna were both alicorns, Harshwhinny was notably applying the traditional honorifics to only one of them, “But overall, aren’t you worried about Luna’s… temperament? Hers simply weren’t policies put together with a great deal of… well, thought. I’d even go so far as to call them dangerously reckless, and Equestria does not need dangerously reckless leaders.”
“I think,” said Twilight, “that you’re reading a great deal into the actions of a pony who was, at the time, being slowly taken over by a hitherto-unknown entity that could at best only roughly approximate equine cognition and actively fed on her her jealousy… and… rage…”
Wind Rider smiled a toothpaste-ad smile, far too white and far too slick for his weatherbeaten muzzle. Twilight half-expected to spot fangs. “Do go on?”
“Oh, horse-apples,” The scholar muttered under her breath. She wondered if they’d planned this all along, ever since she’d requested the meeting. She wouldn’t put it past them.
“I think that is really the crux of the issue…” Twilight briefly looked around to see who had managed to slip into the conference room without her noticing, and then realized that the unfamiliar voice belonged to none other than Minister Firelight. “… and what I myself am most concerned about. Doctor Sparkle isn’t disputing that the Lunar Rebellions ended in a very… well, unsavory fashion. I don’t know how she could dispute such a thing. The historical record is extremely clear on that point, particularly when it comes to Luna personally. But we’re expected to believe a… a strange sort of historical revisionism where Luna and… I suppose what we’d call Nightmare Moon are actually two entirely different creatures.” Twilight noticed that Firelight didn’t even seem to be looking at her. More than anything, he seemed to be directly addressing the transcriptionist. "This kind of… of radical surgery on our heritage I think is very perilous to the fabric of Equestria, especially when it’s as blatantly politically motivated as this seems to be, and especially when there’s so little proper evidence for it.”
She was about to respond when the other unicorn reached into his own saddlebags and telekinetically extracted a thick, black, three-ring binder. He set it on the table with a definite thunk and cracked it open to a page marked with an orange sticky-note. “I’ve taken the liberty of having some of our own experts here at the Ministry of Culture review Doctor Sparkle’s findings. Much of it is, indeed, very solid scholarship, but frankly not that relevant to the issue at hoof. And when she decides to address issues relating to this… pet theory of hers, this Nightmare Moon business… well…” He began to read aloud, slowly and carefully:
“It is effectively impossible to confirm the existence of the Nightmare Moon entity to any reasonable degree of scientific certainty. While the anomalous matter identified in and around Tower 3 in the Castle site is certainly unusual, and the medical examinations of Princess Luna show signs of significant internal and external injuries, there are other confounding events. The Elements of Harmony and the means by which Luna was transported to the Circle of the Moon and back again are themselves poorly understood, and indeed have received comparatively little attention from H.G. Exarch Celestia’s supposed ‘investigative commission’. Until these alternative causes can be ruled out, and proper, positive evidence of an independent Nightmare Moon’s existence provided, the ‘possession’ theory remains without any real support. A simpler and more elegant explanation remains that Princess Luna suffers from a mundane psychological condition- possibly some form of dissociative personality disorder, schizophrenia, or alternatively atypical narcissistic personality disorder.”
Twilight leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. Then she tilted forward again and rested her hooves on the table.
Firelight looked at her, half wary and half just confused. “Well?”
“I think your ministry needs better analysts, Mister Firelight. Not only does this report ignore the clear psychomantic mana traces found in Luna’s system immediately after her return, but it also completely disregards how any information relates to any other information.” The Ministers looked at each other, and for the first time Twilight realized they looked concerned. You’re on my turf now, you sharks in expensive suits.
“Individually, yes, we could only classify the evidence I’ve presented as a collection of anomalies. They’re strange things that don’t fit, things we can’t explain. But that’s just the beginning of science. Nightmare Moon is… well, she’s still a theory. A hypothesis, actually. In a scientific context a theory means something slightly different. But she explains everything we currently know where your analyst has to find multiple different explanations- and not even very good ones. This isn’t a comic book, Minister, dissociative personality disorder doesn’t cause a pony to change shape, grow half a meter, and gain fangs.”
“Yes… about that. Your original report described this… Nightmare Moon entity as… some sort of a skin, something that was covering the actual Luna. We’re still waiting for an explanation as to how such a thin film could cause Luna to grow in height either. Rather, if you consider the use of illusion magic…”
Twilight sucked in a big barrelful of air and then slowly let it out again. “No, I don’t know how that would work. In fact, I might even go so far as to call my own report somewhat unreliable- it was dark, everything happened extremely quickly, and I was trying not to die at the time. But that doesn’t mean you get to pick details out of it that support your position and ignore the rest. Maybe there was more to Nightmare Moon than that skin. Maybe it did use illusions to make Luna appear taller; that doesn’t mean the entire creature is fake. We do know very little about it, but that doesn’t mean we have to… to give up. Just because I can’t answer all of your questions, now, doesn’t mean I won’t ever be able to.” She thought back over Paper Clip’s notes, and Celestia’s, and Luna’s own writings. “In fact, at the conclusion of my work in Ponyville I will produce for all of you, right here, unambiguous First Century corroboration of Nightmare Moon’s existence as a distinct entity. Would that satisfy your concerns, Minister?”
Firelight blinked a few times, looking for all the world like he’d just been rapped atop the muzzle by his schoolteacher. “I… suppose so?”
“Then if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to get started.” Twilight stood, grabbed her saddlebags, and trotted out of the conference room, and none of the stunned Ministers lifted a hoof to stop her.
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Well, I have to say that I am glad to see you finally have the second story in this series up and running. It took a while, but was definitely quite well worth the wait. Immensely adored the work that went into the exchanges, characterizations and future chapter set-up. Really loved seeing Spike calm Twilight down concerning her worries about that impending meeting, as well as the reflections on the work of the royal engineers, the check-ups with the rest of the Mane Six , Twilight making quick work of the press and the meeting with Fancypants and Cadance. Also really appreciated the importance in Celestia and Twilight's argument with the Ministry (including the early-bird cameos by characters who will play more important roles later in the series [and, yeah, I could kind of see where Twilight might remind Firelight at least a bit of his own daughter]).
Yeah. Makes a lot of sense to set this almost immediately after the previous story. And I can also understand making this at least slightly lighter in tone than the previous story (as you said, closer to a standard episode of Star Trek: the Next Generation) as, while this might have more action and greater detail than the canon series, it still isn't a dark series (which I really appreciate).
Definitely looking forward to more of this.
I'm just glad this thing's finally seen the light of day. More to come!
It always struck me as a bit sad that Celestia had apparently ruled by herself for over a thousand years - that would be enough to drive anyone mad. This way allows for her to take off to fight monsters, run a war/enforce the peace/generally have some time off.
Having a mishmash of written and unwritten rules, commentary, custom and general vagueness is how most governments work, plus as you've mentioned it means you can invoke the rule-of-cool and not be beholden to a previous plot point.
Selling historical artifacts! That's state sponsored Robbery! It's Evil, and it's all of tremendous historical value, including a single Pottery shard! How could they!
Harshwhinny seems complelty reasonable. The other two not so much. Especially the murder Wind Rider
I apologize for not mentioning this during the previous story but, many people would consider leather a plot hole given Cattle can talk. Perhaps.you overlooked this, or are removing Cattle from sapience in this au? I very much doubt this AU includes my own tweak that being more commonly aware of the nature of the divine, slightly less Fallen than humanity, and being instructed by God to manually operate nature over as broad an area as possible they have a casually pragmatic point of view on the treatment of "mortal remains". Without the soul the body is merely an empty shell. In my fanon Gustav's restaurant gets its deliveries (and many pounds of somewhat hastily but VERY precisely filled out paperwork to ensure no nefarious business) from hospitals and old-folk's homes. This even serves as a very minimalist form of life insurance especially for younger Ponies dying of accident.
So, to bring this back around, what IS the deal with leather here in your story?
Is this supposed to replace the sunshine dance, or be in addition to it with this being for more public circumstances or some such?