The Traveling Tutor and the Librarian
Though Miles Separate Us
The morning sun glittered in chromatic fragments through the huge window of the Royal castle suite, covering the floor in a pattern of brilliant reds and purples that gently reflected into the eyes of a certain green earth pony, who lacked a purple blanket to pull over his head.
“Meh. Late.” Green Grass gave a yawn and slid out from under the warm covers while trying not to think of what Twilight was doing at the moment. It was a little embarrassing to admit how well he had slept on the huge soft featherbed that took up so little floor space in the huge castle suite. A small fraction of his ego wanted to be able to confess to Twilight about long, sleepless nights awaiting the moment when he could look into her eyes again, but truthfully he had nearly dropped over unconscious before he could pull up the sheets.
Yesterday’s plans of staying at the family estate and preparing for his thesis presentation over the next few days had lasted all the way to the Canterlot train station, where he had been ‘greeted’ with all the fanfare the Fourth Estate could muster. Battalions of photographers, squadrons of stenographers, platoons of pegaratzi, along with every curious onlooker that could wander over to the train station had packed themselves into uncounted rows of flashbulbs and microphones to greet him like the opening brass section of the Canterlot Royal Symphony Orchestra performing ‘The Cannon Overture.’ He still had no idea how they knew⁽*⁾ to meet him there.
(*) A highly placed source in the government, extremely close to Princess Celestia. Closely related, in fact.
—
On the plus side, he had met Captain Shining Armor when Princess Celestia had sent an ‘honor guard’ to rescue him from the besieged train. Apparently Twilight’s brother felt he was worth speaking to despite his relationship with his baby sister; he had actually said “Follow me” and “Here we are” during the trip, which was at least cordial⁽¹⁾.
(1) Definition: Cordial - Fruit soaked in alcohol, sometimes on fire.
—
On the minus side, from the sound of the audience as they traveled he had been viewed alternately as “The Prince”, “That Noble Stallion”, and “Him? Are you sure?” Green Grass was still not certain if he should be flattered or insulted.
He mused about the concept during the trip to the castle, which had a notable pink sheen to it since the good Captain Shining Armor kept his shielding spell up nearly all the way there to keep the reporters and photographers away. Greenie’s own father had abandoned the capital city, fleeing to their winter resort in the Daylit Mountains and leaving the estate besieged by the flashbulb wielding barbarians. Certainly a few pots of boiling oil and a barrage or two of arrows would have thinned their ranks out, but the Princess had firmly put a hoof down⁽²⁾ and insisted on the security of the castle for his sorry green hide instead. He was grateful, but was not totally convinced this was the right way to persuade the mindless ink-stained wretches to dampen their glee about a mistaken marriage.
(2) The Royal Guard kept one pot of oil warmed up, just in case Princess Celestia changed her mind.
—
Still unsure why he had gotten out of bed, Green Grass trudged across the cold sunlit tile in the general direction of the bathroom while grousing, “Thought I left a wake-up call for before dawn.” There was a faint click of shoes on tile outside his hallway door which made him turn away from his bathroom trip, but the door swung silently open before he got there to reveal a guest who really reminded him just how badly he needed to use the bathroom, with the possibility of locking the door and staying in there for the whole week.
“H-hello, Princess Luna,” he managed to stammer out. “H-how may I be of—” His tongue dried up at the word ‘service,’ leaving him simply staring in frozen terror at the Princess of the Night.
“Hello, Lord Green Grass.” The Princess cocked her head as she looked over his body, resting her eyes uncomfortably long on his flank. “We thought it best to finally meet you in an informal setting, as our previous meetings were rather short. May I have a few minutes of your time this morning before your brother Graphite arrives to escort you to your thesis advisor’s meeting?”
“Yes,” he managed to croak through a dry throat while calculating just how many steps he had walked up yesterday, and if that long a fall would be fatal if he were to fling his body out the window.
“We shall not keep you long, for the night is late and I shall soon seek the comfort of my own bedchambers. Have you had time to meditate upon our last meeting?”
Green Grass nodded, the smell of lunar dust seemingly returning to tickle his nose.
“And what insights have you gained from our words?”
“I didn’t know there was going to be a test. I mean—” He looked up into those deep blue eyes and froze.
She’s so terribly lonely, and she fears that particular pain inflicted on others more than anything else in the world. Now she is even willing to sacrifice her own self to prevent that end. If she had returned from the moon and not had her sister to greet her, she would have shattered like glass. Alone. Friendless. Both of them only want—
“Love,” he said, blinking away tears. “Both you and your sister love all of us, and only want us to feel the same way. I was unwilling to allow love into my own heart, so how could I show it to others?”
Princess Luna simply remained standing in the doorway, unchanged and unchanging, as she most probably could have remained until Green Grass died of old age. “Close. Still, you show remarkable improvement. No screaming, no shouting, no throwing up.”
“Yet,” he muttered with clenched jaw.
“Very well. You may have Our permission to court Twilight Sparkle for now, provided we continue our discussions on a regular basis. Now get up. We have sent thy brother to your chambers to prepare you for your test. My sister’s student would be most vexed should you fail.”
“Get up?” Green Grass looked around the sunlit room in puzzlement as a faint blue glow formed near his rump unnoticed. “I thought—”
* * *
Green Grass took a sharp gasp of chilly air and groped futilely for his blankets, before sitting up in bed in his pitch-dark room and cursing quietly at the sharp pain in his rump. Somehow, and he suspected divine intervention, his warm comforter had slipped down onto the stone floor along with his pillows. With a grumble, he gingerly trotted across the icy cold floor over to the door of his suite and peeked outside.
“Pardon me, guard. Could you tell me— Waahgh!”
The huge Royal Guard stationed outside his door was not the polite orange-maned unicorn from last evening, but a rather fearsome-looking dark pegasus with folded bat-like wings and piercing golden eyes that were oval, like a predator.
“May I help you, sir?”
The dark pegasus seemed friendly, and not in the least interested in ripping his throat out and feasting on his bloody corpse. It took a bit of sleepy morning mental groping to gather his wits, but eventually Green Grass managed to ask, “You’re a nectarine, right? I mean nocturne. Night Pegasus. Luna’s guards! Right?” Green Grass grinned weakly.
A mixture of contempt and humor passed across the guard’s dark face, and he nodded. “Optio Pumpernickel of the Royal Guard, Night Division. Personal guard for Princess Luna. How might I help you, sir?”
“Oh, I was just… My brother is supposed to be coming over this morning, and I thought I’d check. Right. Nothing important, um, Optio. I don’t think I’ve ever met anypony named Optio before.”
The hefty guard flicked his wings in what Green Grass recognized as a sign of minor aggravation. “It’s a rank.”
“Oh. Come to think of it, I’ve never heard of that rank before either.”
The guard’s bat-like wings flicked again. “Princess Luna gave it to me.”
“Oh.” Green Grass thought for a moment, stalling for time while waiting for the sound of his brother. “Pumpernickel is a fairly rare name too.”
“I’m the only one in my family for the last two centuries. I’m trying to live up to it.” The guard’s tail twitched slightly against his charcoal-grey coat while in the back of Green Grass’ mind, a small fact clicked gently into place.
“The same Pumpernickel who was part of the diplomatic mission to the Griffon tribes of Pericorn Heights in the year 615 of the Griffon Era?” The only sign the guard was aware of his words was a flick of one ear, and finally a single word.
“Yes.”
Green Grass considered his words carefully. “How did he die?”
“Like a true Royal Guard. When the Griffons attacked, he held them off to let the diplomat escape. It didn’t work. They killed him. They killed all of them.” The guard turned partially with an ominous frown. “How do you know about him?”
“I don’t, really. He was just mentioned in my thesis research papers, and it struck me as odd.” The distant sound of shoes on tile made him grimace on the inside. His brother Graphite was always just late enough to cause problems, and this was no exception. “You know history does not show the diplomatic mission was attacked by the Griffons.”
“Then history is a liar, sir.” The guard returned to his immobile position.
That one loose fact sticking up awkwardly in the middle of his neatly aligned thesis bugged him despite the early hour. If it had been an hour later, or at least after several cups of coffee, he would have just shut his big trap and gone back to work, but he had to talk it out loud for his brain to make sense of the idea. “What kind of wild coincidence puts a guard in front of my door who just happens to know the one bit of information I have been trying to track down for half a year, the one bit that contrasts with Princess Celestia’s own accounts?”
“I don’t believe in coincidences when it comes to the Princesses, sir.”
“I wasn’t asking you,” growled Green Grass. “I was asking… the universe in general, I think.”
“Don’t think the universe is going to answer you, sir.”
“I hope not.” The clicking of hooves in the distance continued to draw nearer, although Graphite still had not arrived. “What in Tartarus am I supposed to do with this information?”
“Ignore it, sir.” The charcoal-grey coat of the Night Pegasus twitched as if a fly had landed on it. “I’m just a guard, she’s the Princess. A Princess.”
“Umph. Good point. Look, I’m going to leave my door open. When Graphite gets here, just chase him on in. I’ll be in the shower. And we never had this conversation, right?”
“What conversation? I’ve just been standing out here.”
* * *
♫ Oh, you gonna let it all hang out,
Fat bottomed mares, you make the rockin’ world go round! ♫
“Lord Green Grass, we have arrived to pick you up for your appointment.”
Green Grass bellowed over the sound of the shower in return. “Hey Graphy, what took you so long? Did you bring along some sweet young thing you found in the linen closet?”
An embarrassed pause ensued, ending with one of Graphite’s polite diplomatic coughs. “Not quite. How did you know I had somepony else out here?”
“Because you get all stuffy and formal when you have a date.” He turned off the shower and hopped out of the tub to briskly towel himself dry. “Or have you given up on dating and actually found somepony to tie the knot? Has the Griffon ambassador finally decided to make an honest stallion out of you, when he found out that little chick was with egg?” He grinned at his reflection in the mirror as his older brother spluttered in the other room.
It was a brotherly teasing long owed. The one time Graphite had brought the oldest daughter of the Griffon ambassador by the house, Green Grass had the misfortune to be far away and unable to tweak him for the occasion. Tossing a towel over his damp mane, he trotted out into the other room to get dressed for his appointment with the faculty advisor at dawn and tweak his brother some more. If Graphite’s new marefriend did not like it, she was free to turn her back.
♫ Oh, you gonna take me home tonight!
Oh, down beside that red fire—
Green Grass cut off abruptly as he walked out into his room to find Graphite in a petrified pose with Princess Luna at his side. At first Green Grass froze, then grinned and swept into a graceful bow. “Princess Luna, what a pleasure it is to see you again this… morning, isn’t it? Or is it still considered evening?”
“My moon has but an hour before it is to pass, and my sister’s sun to take its place. Morning would be appropriate.”
“Thank you, Your Highness.” Green Grass opened up his closet and began to put on his suit coat and hat. “Is there anything I might do for you this fine morning, Your Highness, or shall I simply call you my beautiful sister-in-law?”
Luna chortled quietly while Graphite seemed to have become locked in place, awaiting divine lightning. “The newspapers have been whipped to a fever pitch by my sister’s little prank. Truly it is a great pleasure to see her hoist by her own rather large petard in such a fashion.”
“Oh, fear not, My Princess fair. For I, Prince Consort Green Grass, have taken steps to alleviate this embarrassment to the crown. Before my departure from Ponyville, I did tread the steps of the Fourth Estate for an in-depth interview with the finest journalist who walks the hallowed halls of the press, a young reporter by the name of Sun Glimmer.”
“One of your students, M’Lord?” Dark sparkles danced in Luna’s eyes, much like Twilight when she was happy.
“Yes indeed. They ran an extra edition right before I left, and I brought a few dozen of them with me.” He rummaged among his suitcases and produced a copy of the Foal Free Press newspaper, which he presented to the princess across a foreleg much as he was giving her a ceremonial sword.
Luna scanned through the paper⁽³⁾ while Graphite continued to try gaining his brother’s attention, finally resorting to grabbing one leg with magic and dragging him into a corner of the room.
(3) Finding only three spelling errors, two grammar corrections, and an unneeded hyphen, much better than the score any of the Canterlot newspapers received.
—
“Are you insane?! How are you talking to the Princess this way? Why?!”
Green Grass chuckled at his brother, grabbing a tie and clipping it on his jacket before hefting the bags containing his thesis and supporting documentation⁽⁴⁾ onto his back.
(4) Substantially pruned from its original size, or he never would have been able to carry it without a wagon.
—
“Why, brother of mine, I’m in a second dream right now. The signs were all too plain, but I don’t want to wake up until Princess Luna is done with me. Might I have your permission to be awakened, My Princess?”
The bundle of newspapers floated up out of his luggage wrapped in an indigo aura before dividing themselves into two. Half dropped onto Green Grass’ back, and half floated behind the Princess.
“Yes, I believe we are done now. I shall depart so that you are not late to thy meeting. Oh, and by the way.” The Princess stopped in the doorway and a needle-sharp pain lanced through Green Grass’ rump, making him snap a glance backwards just in time to witness an indigo glow vanish, as if Luna had pinched him with her magic.
“See you tomorrow night,” she said while prancing out the door with a smile.
“I’m not asleep?” asked Green Grass in a panic.
Trolluna is best Woona. Also, I give Greenie props for trying to adapt to the madness that he is getting into, but he's acclimating a little too quickly for his own comfort. Heh.
So, what'd he tell his student? Nothing new, or a bunch of slander, seeing how far he can push Tia?
Dat tidbit at the end
Well this can't end well.
Pumpernickel! Yes!
Ooooo, and he even had the answer about the diplomats.
Luna clearly needs to start wearing "this is a dream" and "this is not a dream" signs, but then again I suppose that would ruin the fun.
Woot! Go Green Grass!
He always seems to grow a pair at the exact wrong time.
Yay! Pumpernickel made it into the story.
This was a good chapter, a nice and relaxing transition to what I assume will be madness.
Geeny, don't worry about it. Nightmare Moon would have turned you into giblets but Princess Luna is a fun prankster and would have taken your informality in the ways you intended rather than be offended.
Should be interesting to see what the spanner he's just thrown into the works will do to the rumour mill.
2000561
No no no, it would mean extra fun. (For Tia, once she switches the signs.)
Join in the other's cries of "Yay Pumpernickel. Hope you revisit that story line again.
I'm dreaming. I'm 'not' dreaming. LOL.
I have just one question. While he might have been dreaming, it would still have been Luna visiting him in the dream, and thus it would behoove him to treat her just as he would in the real world.
Of course I suppose he might not be aware of that little talent of hers and think it really was just a dream, dream.
suddenly makes me wonder about some of the reactions Luna might get in some of the dreams she visits.
i literally sqeed outloud when i read Pumpernickel's name...iv never done that before
Green Grass needs a top to tell what is and isn't a dream.
There he is.
Why are there no Luna emotes?
Dat Queen.
A batpony named devil fart. Nice.
Given
8860280 Fixing and correcting my footnotes in this chapter. Thanks.
2000561
Don't be silly. They would never ruin the fun. Trollestia and BEST PRINCESS would wear alternating signs and sometimes have the same sign but sometimes being a lie to keep ponies on their toes.
Luna enjoys the familiarity he treated her with.