• Published 17th Sep 2022
  • 1,046 Views, 55 Comments

The Hoofmaid's Tail - GaPJaxie



A collection of short stories, based on ten prompts given to me by FiMFiction.

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Ancient Lore

A request by Fan of Most Everything:

Star Swirl reveals the disappointing truth about one of the great mysteries he left behind.

“At last,” Twilight proclaimed, lifting a hoof to the heavens, “with your help, I shall unravel the mystery of the Rainbow Tesseract! That artifact which for generations has defied the greatest minds of-”

“That’s a Rubic’s Cube,” Starswirl said, slowly taking a bite of his sandwich. Twilight wasn’t sure where he’d gotten it -- they were in the library together, and Spike hadn’t made sandwiches that morning. Perhaps he’d brought it with him. “Two Rubic’s Cubes, actually.”

“What? No. What?” Twilight hesitated. “It’s a tesseract. A four-dimensional object. It can’t be-”

“It’s two broken Rubic’s Cubes,” Starswirl said, gesturing at Twilight’s diagrams. “Somepony thought they were one object and, I don’t know, came up with the idea that the ‘extra’ pieces were extra because they’re supposed to be in some fourth dimension? But no, it’s just two regular old cubes. Rainbow colored because uh… well. Yes.”

“Oh,” Twilight paused, trying not to show her disappointment. Eventually, she put her books away. “Well, that’s fine. Instead, we shall unravel the mystery of Artemis, Lost Alicorn of the Moon, repudiated to be sister to Celestia and Luna, though-”

“Minotaurs find ‘Luna’ really hard to pronounce,” Starswirl said, “something about how their language pronounces u. So she asked them to call her Artemis. It’s like when a kirin says ‘call me Joe’ because Equestrians can’t pronounce their real name correctly. But no, it’s just her.”

“Ah,” Twilight drew in a long breath through gritted teeth. “Well that would make sense, wouldn’t it? Of course, that does make the intervening thousand years of temples, theology, cults, and prophesy feel a bit less important.”

“Religion was always dumb.” Starswirl shrugged, and took another bite of his sandwich.

“Fine. We’ll uncover the resting place of the One Ring of Power?”

“If you’re into archeology, sure. But it’s just a Ring of Mental Domination. That same spell your friend Starlight is so fond of?” He gestured vaguely. “It was a much bigger deal after it was just invented when unicorns didn’t have any defense against mind control. Now it’s -- I mean. It’s still neat.”

“The true origins of the Idol of Boreus?”

“It was just a fancy gold cup. I think a dragon goldsmith made it? But it wasn’t like, magic or anything. Honestly I don’t know why griffons made such a big deal of it.”

“Secret of pegasus flight?”

“They flap their wings real hard. Also magic. I’m not sure this one is even a secret.”

“Humans: Real or Myth?”

Starswirl made a face. “Obviously real, but not native to our dimension. You’ve seen them in the mirror portal. If you mean, was there ever a human civilization in Equestria, no.”

“Fine.” Twilight threw her hooves up. “Fine. Fine! Well, here’s one that you can’t possibly know the answer to, smarty-hooves, because most of this mystery happened while you were turned to stone. We will use your historical knowledge and my contemporary understanding of Equestria to finally provide a definitive view of the history of the Three Tribes. We will at long last answer the question -- why did the pony tribes come together so many times, only to split apart again, trapped in a seemingly endless cycle?”

“They came together,” Starswirl said, “and then unicorns did a bunch of like, super racist stuff?”

A long pause hung over them. “You know,” Starswirl said, “like trying to turn earth ponies into servants, or trapping the magic of all pony tribes in three crystals. Something like that?”

“Yeah,” Twilight sighed, taking a seat at the table beside him. “Yeah that’s probably it.”

Eventually, when the sounds of chewing distracted her, she asked: “That smells delicious. Where did you get it?”

“That, young wizard,” Starswirl boomed, “is a mystery the answer to which you will never know!”

“Oh you f-”