Twilight has decided that there is nothing left for her to teach Starlight, and so the new graduate must face the unrelenting terror of finding a job, making new friends, and living life all on her own.
Starlight Glimmer is all set to graduate from her friendship tutelage under Twilight Sparkle. On the one hoof, that's great! She's finally been fully redeemed in her own eyes and the eyes of society. On the other hoof, there really aren't a lot of jobs for magical super-prodigies in a farming town, which means that whatever her future holds, she's probably going to have to leave Ponyville. Installed as a probationary member of faculty at Canter University, Starlight has to cope not only with leaving her old friends behind, but with a bevy of eccentric academics, magical experiments gone wrong, an underground plagiarism ring, and worst of all, students.
Starlight Glimmer sat back heavily in the armchair. Pillows flew from their places to pack themselves around her, and a blanket swaddled everything together. “I feel like a living bruise,” she said, lying back in the plush cocoon.
Twilight Sparkle, her longtime mentor, lounged on a chair across from her. “Don’t worry,” she said with a wave of her hoof. “This won’t take long. You can leave for bed once I’ve finished, but I didn’t think I ought to wait until morning to tell you this.”
Starlight cracked a grin, though Twilight couldn’t see it under the layers of fabric that enshrouded the mare. “Especially since I doubt that either of us will be up before noon.”
Twilight’s smile was wan, but earnest and full of laughter. “Let me begin with congratulations,” she said. “Your actions today in repelling King Aspen’s Everfree Army were incredible.”
Starlight made a faint ‘aw, shucks’ noise and attempted to wave away the praise. However, as she was swallowed by layers of blankets, this went completely unnoticed.
“Not only did you help re-organize Ponyville’s defenses after my original plans were lost, and keep the town safe while the other princesses and I were battling the walking trees, you managed to befriend the deer’s lead general.”
Starlight shrugged as best she could, accidentally sloughing off a pillow in the process. “She really didn’t agree with his Majesty’s ideas of expansion. Most of them don’t, you know. We should really look into—”
“We can’t depose him,” Twilight interrupted. “Believe me, I asked after the last time he tried expanding the forest boundaries. Apparently, he can’t leave the throne except by death or his own free will, and he doesn’t die unless somebody kills him in battle. He’s a nuisance and a tyrant, but we can’t just go around killing people we don’t like.”
“Of course,” Starlight agreed. “Still, maybe we could strongly hint that he read some books by, I dunno, one of the Renaissance equinists.”
“I’ll bring it up to the other princesses,” Twilight said. “We’re getting off topic. The important thing here is, you did something today that I doubt that anypony else could have done quite as well.”
Starlight struggled to sit up. “Wait, wait. Are you going to turn me into an alicorn?” she asked, eyes going wide. “All this, ‘I’m so proud,’ and the ‘doing things nopony else could,’ is this a lead-up to wings and super-strength?”
Twilight frowned slightly. “Um, no.”
Starlight sat back. “Oh.”
“I would,” Twilight added hastily. “I’d ascend you if I knew how. But I don’t. I kind of get the idea that the ascension, it comes from within, and Celestia was just a sort of guide or… I don’t know. But this is almost as good.”
Starlight considered this. She wasn’t sure what could be considered ‘almost as good’ as getting turned into an alicorn. But she trusted Twilight. “Okay,” she said cautiously. “I’m listening.”
Twilight beamed and pulled herself up from where she reclined. “Starlight Glimmer,” she said with solemn pride, “You have learned everything which I feel that I can teach you. You have excelled in your studies of both magic and friendship, and have exceeded all expectations that I, or anypony else, had set for you. Starlight Glimmer, I hereby declare that you are a Friendship Graduate!”
Starlight didn’t reply for a long while. Twilight nodded, still smiling proudly. “Speechless, I see? Yes, I guess I did kind of spring it on you. Don’t worry, we’ll have a proper ceremony later on, when you’ve recovered yourself. Oh, and I’ll have Pinkie plan you a party, as well.” She trotted jauntily away. “Congratulations, Starlight. You should feel very proud of yourself!”
She could not see, of course, that beneath the mountains of pillows and blankets, Starlight wore an expression of sheerest frozen horror.
***
The next day, at Sweet Apple Acres, she related the tale to Fluttershy and Applejack. “...I mean, it isn’t that I’m not grateful. I am! I really do appreciate all her mentoring, and I’m just… honored that she thinks that I’ve learned enough to graduate. But…”
“But ya don’t feel like you’ve earned it,” Applejack said, momentarily glancing up from where she was hammering nails into the hog pen. “Right. Well, we all feel like we ain’t good enough now an’ again—”
“Um, no,” Starlight said with a frown. “I’ve definitely learned enough to graduate friendship studies.”
“Oh,” said Applejack.
“Um, so do you feel like you’ve changed into something different or otherwise untrue to yourself?” Fluttershy tried, not looking away from her work uprooting invasive trees and grasses. “I have a story about—”
“No,” Starlight said again. “I’m happy with where I am in life. I’m a much better pony than I was, I’ve made up with my estranged foalhood friend, and I’ve helped save the world multiple times.”
“Oh,” said Fluttershy. “Oh, this one’s really rooted in…”
Starlight’s horn flashed and the tree shrunk to the size of a toothpick. “Better?”
“Much, yes.”
Applejack sighed. “Howzabout y’all jes’ tell us what’s eatin’ ya, Starlight? Ah’m sure we can help if ya jes’ explain what yer feelin’.”
The pink mare nodded, frowning. “I guess it’s just a matter of… where do I go from here? I can’t bum around in Twilight’s castle forever, can I? And there’s nowhere in Ponyville that really needs to hire a full-time high-level mage. So… I’m probably going to have to…” she trailed off.
Fluttershy cottoned on first. “Starlight! You’re going to— to leave Ponyville?”
Applejack dropped her hammer. “Say what now?”
The unicorn sucked in air through her teeth. “I don’t see much of a way that I can stay here,” she said after a long pause. “Ponies don’t usually stay in their college towns, you know?”
Applejack blinked. “Barkin’ up th’ wrong tree, there,” she observed. “Neither of us ever went. Farmin’ is a family business fer me, an’ Fluttershy—”
“I actually did go to college,” the pegasus murmured. “Veterinary medicine.”
“Oh. Well, Ah stand corrected.”
“I do see what you mean,” Fluttershy added. “About moving on. But I don’t know how well that transfers to this situation. Ponyville really isn’t a college town.”
“Didya try talkin’ ta Twi about all this?” Applejack asked. “Ah’m sure she’d help ya find a job.”
Starlight sighed. “Yeah. Sure, she found me some options. One is out in the freakin’ Crystal Empire, one is in Canterlot, one as a pony representative to Thorax’s hive slash researcher of changedling behaviors, and one is being an ambassador to Tenochtitl.”
“I don’t get it. None o’ them in Ponyville?”
“No,” Starlight sighed. “She says she wants me to be able to ‘move on’ into a new situation, use what I’ve learned to make a fresh start. I’ve already made a fresh start, here in Ponyville! This town, right here, is my fresh start! I don’t need another one! I don’t want another one!” She deflated. “But… she’s not wrong.”
Applejack cocked her head. “How’d’ya mean?”
“When I got here, the six of you were already determined to befriend me. Plus Spike, which makes seven, plus however much of Ponyville you convinced to help out with my education. I’m grateful, don’t get me wrong! I’m so glad that you helped me come so far, but at the same time, I really can’t help but feel like an experiment, you know?”
Fluttershy gnawed at her lower lip and muttered something else about being part of the college experience.
“I need to get out there and put my education into action,” Starlight said firmly. “That’s what Twilight thinks, and that’s just what I’ll do.”
Applejack nodded. “Well, Ah wish y’all the best,” she said. “Don’t ferget ta write, now.”
Starlight gave a high-pitched, nervous laugh. “Don’t say goodbye just yet!” she said. “I haven’t graduated officially just yet.”
Applejack laughed as well. “Sure thing, sugarcube.”
“So,” Fluttershy said. “Any idea which job you’ll be taking?”
Starlight chuckled. “C’mon, Fluttershy, I’m not gonna ruin the surprise…”
***
Starlight stared at a map of the world. Specifically, it was a Dymaxion map, her second-favorite projection. The first, obviously, was a globe, but that was harder to draw on. For a moment, she wished that she had gone with a poorer projection type, like Mercator or Gall-Peters. For another moment, she mentally slapped herself even for thinking of using a Gall-Peters projection. Then she turned back to the big red circles she’d drawn on the map, and she sighed. She went over the notes she had made yet again.
Crystal Empire
Pros:
Day’s train ride from Ponyville
Already have friends there (Sunburst, Princess Cadence, Shining Armor)
Get Brownie points for knowing Spike
Study Crystal Heart & other elements of a lost culture
Work closely with Sunburst
Cons:
Not as close as other places
Very cold
Am I ready to work closely w/ Sunburst?
Probably have to babysit terrifying magical nuke child
Total:
5/9 = 56%
Thorax’s Hive
Pros:
Already have friends there (Thorax, basically every other changeling)
As royal emissary, will probably get to see old friends often
Friendly crowd
Chance for lots of research into changeling culture/biology
Cons:
Far away from Ponyville
No indoor plumbing
Literally the only pony for miles, which is… awkward?
Very hot
Poor postal service, etc., see iii
Total:
4/9 = 44%
Tenochtitl
Pros:
Government-sponsored position, very stable
Will probably see Princesses and Elements regularly enough
Chance to make new friends
Cons:
Farthest from Ponyville
Very hot
Need to learn other languages. Fast.
I know nopony there
Total:
3/8 = 38%
Canterlot
Pros:
Nearest to Ponyville
Very urban, lots of amenities
Job includes free housing
Opportunity to make new friends
Lyra sometimes visits there? I know her, anyway, maybe she can show me around?
Working in academia
Shaping new generation
Already been published, so will probably be accepted
Cons:
I know nopony there
Everything is very expensive
Total:
8/10 = 80%
She sighed and slammed the list on the desk. The choice should have been obvious. Numbers don’t lie. Canterlot had the most going for it, and the lowest ratio of negatives to positives. But she kept coming back to the same point. If she went there, she would be alone in a city of fifty thousand souls. Perhaps even fifty-five thousand if you were generous enough to count the nobles.
The Crystal Empire seemed the most obvious choice with that in mind, but she would think of the cold-- or worse still, being forced to accelerate her relationship with Sunburst-- and a chill would run down her spine.
At the same time, she still wanted to keep talking to him, so the isolated changeling hive was right out, and Tenochtitl was barely any kind of option at all. She realized that it was quite dark now, and there was a pressure on her muzzle. She wasn’t sure exactly when she had slammed her head on the table, but decided that on the whole she wasn’t going to argue with her unconscious mind.
Moments after Starlight rang the bell, the front door slammed open. A cream-colored mare with a two-tone mane glared out at her. “Shush. I’m making a souffle.”
Starlight nodded. “Is Lyra in?” she whispered.
“What? Speak up!” Bonbon demanded.
“Lyra! Is she home?”
The confectioner grunted. “Basement. You’d better come in.”
Starlight nodded her thanks and trotted quickly past the irritable earth pony. The inside of the house was a sharp contrast to the owner’s demeanor-- it was decorated in bright, friendly shades of tan, white, and green. The wallpaper was comprised of wide, diagonal stripes of color. The hall was filled with pictures of smiling, cheerful ponies. The whole place, furthermore, smelled of vanilla and cinnamon. “Basement door is second on your right,” Bonbon instructed. “If you need anything, I’ll be in the kitchen, and if you even think of ruining my souffle, I know how to kill, maim, wound, or disable a pony with just a cup of cocoa powder.”
The confectioner’s face softened marginally. “Good girl. Here, have a chocolate.” She hoofed over an exquisite piece of candy.
“Auntie Bon!” a filly voice called from the kitchen. “The cheethe thauthe ith boiling over!”
“Start whisking it, Twist,” Bonbon called back. “I’ll be just a moment.” She turned back to Starlight. “Be careful not to startle Lyra. She tends to react badly. Anyway, if she yells, that’s the souffle done, and then I’ll have to destroy both of you.”
Upon seeing the other mare’s stiff posture and suddenly sweaty brow, Bonbon smirked. “Lighten up. I’m only joking.”
Starlight relaxed. “I’d only put you in the hospital.” Starlight stopped relaxing.
Bonbon chuckled to herself as she re-entered the kitchen. Starlight passed the door on tippy-hoof, scarcely even daring breathe. She pushed open the basement door and slipped down, leaving it just a little ajar behind her. “Hello?” she called quietly. “Lyra?
The basement was dark and claustrophobic. Starlight cast a light spell, illuminating the shadows with a flickering, greeny-blue glow. Boxes sat stacked all around, forming an underground labyrinth. No-- not boxes. Crates. Crates labeled things like ‘this way up’ or ‘fragile’ or, most worryingly of all, ‘specimen’. “Lyra?” Starlight called. Her voice had gone up a register. There was no reply, but Starlight thought she could hear sounds of movement from around the corner.
She made her way slowly to the turn in the corridor and peered around. What she saw nearly stopped her heart. A creature, only a little bigger than a pony, stared back at her, standing over a collapsed body. Its one eye burned bright yellow, and its hideous, mantis-like limbs reached for her. Starlight tried to scream, but it caught in her throat as she fell back.
“Oh. Hi, Starlight. What are you doing here?”
The creature reached up a hoof to push back its helmet. The glowing eye suddenly became a lit horn, and the insectile limbs resolved themselves as clawed metal hooks. The body on the floor was revealed to be…
“Lyra. Please tell me that isn’t a dead changeling.”
“It’s not a dead changeling.”
Starlight took a deep breath and let it out. “Okay, good.”
“It is a dead changeling, actually,” Lyra admitted. “He donated his body to science, though. It isn’t as though I killed him or anything.”
Starlight let out a sound like claws on a chalkboard. “Anyway,” Lyra said, oblivious. “What can I help you with? Parasprite infestation? Yeti attack?” She paused. “Or has Spike come down with a tummyache?”
“I, uh, no,” Starlight said, recovering herself. She couldn’t peel her eyes from the deceased changeling, though. “I, I have a job offering in Canterlot. Um, I can’t decide if I want to take it or not. I know you used to live there, so, uh.”
“What sort of job?”
“Um, academic. College of Magical Arts. Research and Development. Thingy.”
“Oh, wow! I work there too!”
“Wait.” Starlight looked around. “What? Then why--”
“Well, I work there officially,” Lyra clarified. “Professor of Cryptozoology, see. But I don’t have to actually be there, see?”
“...Don’t you?”
“Pfft, nah. Only reason I’d go there is to teach, and the grad students see to most of that.”
“Oh.” The cogs in Starlight’s head began to turn more rapidly. “So… you can work there and live in Ponyville… at the same time?”
Lyra shrugged. “Well, sure. I mean, if they make you a Chair, you’re expected to stay at the college, and most of them don’t really leave their offices, but, um, yeah.”
Starlight nodded. “Okay. Okay! Lyra, how soon could you show me around the city?”
The unicorn tapped her chin. “Hmm. It’ll take maybe three days to show you everything you really need to see… I think I can start Wednesday.”
“Wednesday is good,” Starlight agreed.
“Great! We’ll take the first train up.” Lyra beamed like a Romane Candle. “I can introduce you to all my friends, and show you all the sights, and visit the campus--” she broke off. “I’ll have to make you a survival kit,” she added. “Don’t worry, it’ll be done by the time we have to go.”
Starlight laughed. “A survival kit for the city. What’s that, a public transit map and a university ID? Good one, Lyra. See you Wednesday.” With one last glance at the changeling, she teleported out of the house.
Lyra opened her mouth to correct the other mare, but snapped it shut when it became clear she was alone. She looked down sadly at the exoskeleton on the floor. “I tried to warn her, Mr. Mandibles. Oh well, she’ll find out soon enough. Now, let’s see just what changes have been made to your insides, hm? Are they neon-colored too?” She slipped the mask back over her head and picked the prone form off the ground.
As she carried the deceased changeling over to her surgery, she wondered how Starlight would react to meeting her Canterlot friends. Would they get along? After all, she thought as she made an incision along the changeling’s lateral side, some of them could be just plain weird.
Starlight arrived at the train station dark and early Wednesday morning. Nopony looked entirely awake, and a few looked markedly surly. Starlight supposed that she wasn’t entirely surprised. How many ponies were actually capable of feeling any emotion besides regret and grogginess at… she checked her watch. Quarter to five in the morning. Great.
Starlight was feeling a little bleary-eyed herself, but she had drunk a big cup of coffee and cast Australis’ Alertness on herself, so she would probably be good until about noon. Where was Lyra, anyway? She’d said that they would be meeting here before the train left at six. Starlight felt that old familiar twinge of irritation at the back of her mind, like the twang of a guitar string tuning up.
She bit back her annoyance. That was the way towards questionable spellcasting and destroying Ponyville for the eighth time in five months. Lyra still had almost fifteen minutes to arrive, and while Starlight herself would never have cut things this close, she was willing to accept that other ponies did things differently and it would be a terrible mistake if we were all the same.
Starlight let out her breath in one long sigh. “Hi Starlight!”
The sigh ended in a strangled scream as Starlight spun around. Lyra, already bright of eye and bushy of tail grinned back at her with much, much too much good cheer for this disgusting hour. “Aren’t you excited? You’re going to see so much of Canterlot! I mean, you’ve probably already seen a lot of Canterlot. But probably you haven’t seen the parts that you’re going to see today! Isn’t that just the most exciting thing ever?”
Starlight blinked, frazzled. “Hrung.”
“I thought I should probably show you around some of the departments first,” Lyra continued. “I managed to get a few words with some old friends about some guided tours of their buildings and labs. We’ll have to eat lunch, of course, and I can’t let you leave campus without showing you the library! Actually, if Cross Reference is at the desk, we may not even have to go anywhere for lunch. They’ve always got a stash of lemon squares or chocolate cookies or something.”
“Urkl.”
“After that, well, life at CMA isn’t all tampering with forces beyond the ken of mortals. If you’re feeling up to it, I know this great little bar on campus where we can have dinner.”
“Gah… Lyra. How much coffee have you had so far today?”
“Coffee? Never touch the stuff. Too bitter, and anyway, Bonbon says that if I ever drank the stuff I’d probably go supernova or something. Dunno how a pony can go supernova, but whatever. So! I think that’s everything, we can be done and on the ten o’clock back to Ponyville.”
“Um, shouldn’t we talk to whoever’s in charge of hiring new professors at all?”
“Silly! Nothing’s set in stone yet. I thought this was just to get you introduced to the idea of going to work up there at all. Anyway, Archchancellor Pentacle is really very busy dealing with the students and staff and occasional assassination attempts and the budget, I couldn’t have made an appointment on such short notice.”
Starlight paused. “Say that middle thing again.”
“Staff?”
“No, the one after tha--”
She was cut off by the shrill whistle of the train. “Oops! I think that’s our cue,” Lyra said merrily, running for the nearest carriage. “C’mon!”
Starlight shook herself. She must have been hearing things. What kind of school had assassination attempts, anyway?
***
The train ride up was mostly uneventful. Lyra chattered on for the whole ride, but its constancy was strangely soothing, and Starlight fell into a doze not long after the train pulled out of the station. She only awoke when the carriage came to a sudden, screeching halt, sending her to the ground in a flurry of hooves and hair.
“Hwargh?” Starlight blinked awake, deeply and terribly confused.
Lyra hauled her back upright. “C’mon, Glimglam! We’re here! Gosh you sure are chatty this morning. I felt like I could hardly get a word in edgewise!”
Starlight stared through bleary eyes. “Coffeeeee,” she groaned. “Neeeeedee coooffeeee.”
“Oh, yup.” Lyra nodded. “Don’t worry about that. I know a place. You will love Queequeg's. They’re expensive, but they do these great little scones and…”
Starlight tuned out again. She did not like morning ponies. In the back of her head, she felt that old tension twanging some more.
She shook herself. That was the way towards questionable spellcasting and destroying Canterlot for the first time, and while that would be a change, it wouldn’t be a welcome one. Lyra was… energetic, like Pinkie Pie. And while Starlight felt that the day had no business starting up before nine o’clock, she was willing to accept that other ponies did things differently and it would be a terrible mistake if we were all the same. It would.
Therefore, Starlight allowed Lyra to lead her along the platform and into the station proper. Canterlot Central Station was a gorgeous piece of architecture, with soaring marble arches and stained glass windows, slender carved pillars spaced evenly along the gold-lined tiles of the floor, and ornate oaken doors leading into the city. Pity, then, that Starlight wasn't feeling in quite the right mood to admire the awe-inspiring designs of the station. As soon as she stepped into the cavernous atrium, she was driven by one force alone-- the faint but unmistakable smell of fresh coffee.
The two mares made their way through the vast marble hall to a small shop. Starlight had begun to drool from the mere presence of so much coffee. As they passed through into the cozy little shop, she began to tear up. How beautiful it was. How glorious. That bitter, earthy fragrance, the warmth, the caffeinated energy seeping into her bones through its mere proximity.
She staggered forwards out of Lyra’s grasp and stumbled to the counter. “Coffee,” she growled.
There was a stallion behind the counter. He was a bright-eyed, cream-colored pegasus with a deep green mane and a moustache that seemed to defy gravity. He beamed at her. Him, she could forgive for his early enthusiasm. Nopony could be sad working around this much coffee. “Certainly, ma’am. Would you like a frappuccino? A latte? An espresso? Perhaps a frappumochalateeny? Our special today is the blue raspberry whip triple-press. Or, you might enjoy our new Coffka: Metamorphosis!”
Starlight stared at him. “Coffee,” she repeated. “Black. No sugar. No milk. Coffee.”
His smile faded. “No sugar or milk?”
“No. Black coffee.”
“How about some cream? A shot of caramel?”
“No! Black coffee!”
“With dark chocolate!” the barista gabbled, desperate.
“Coffee coffee coffee!” Starlight wailed.
He glared. “Fine,” he spat. “If you don’t want your coffee to awaken your soul, then that’s your problem. What size? Medium, large, venti, grande, hyperbole--”
Starlight glared. “Big,” she snarled.
The barista upgraded from glaring to outright glowering. “Name?” he snapped.
“Starlight. Starlight Glimmer.”
Without another word, he pulled a large paper cup from the counter, juggling it between his wings. At the apex of one of its arcs, he spun and snatched it out of the air, scribbled something on the side, then artfully ran it beneath a pot of coffee. Then, the instant it was filled, he snapped on the lid and slid it down the counter. “Order up for Stoplight Gloaming.”
Starlight glared at him. Then, without another word, she picked up the piping hot cup and guzzled it. She slammed it back down. “Mm-mm. Delicious,” she said. “How much?”
The barista spat out a figure. Starlight went pale. “I’m sorry, I think you left the ‘square root of’ out of that little math problem.”
He named the figure again. Lyra hurried over. “Uh, hey, Latte. How ‘bout I apply my educator’s discount?”
“You aren’t paying for it,” the pegasus replied.
“Yeah, I am. My treat.”
Latte gave one last baleful glare to Starlight before turning to Lyra. “Alright, fine.” He named another figure which was still ludicrous to Starlight’s mind, but considerably lower than the original price.
Lyra shilled out the required bits, plus a sizeable tip. Starlight gave him a tip as well; don’t insult your customers’ taste in beverages to their face.
The barista returned by calling her a pleb and a philistine, and after a few minutes, Lyra was forced to escort the other unicorn from the shop. “Of all the nerve,” Starlight huffed. “I should report him to his manager.”
“Good luck with that,” Lyra replied. “He is the manager.”
Starlight chewed on that for awhile. “How?”
Lyra shrugged. “He’s the best barista around. Every move is poetry, he mixes every drink perfectly. But when you don’t let him show off, he gets huffy.”
“But he’s a jerk.”
“Doesn’t mean much in Canterlot,” Lyra said, pushing open the station doors. “Ponies don’t tend to care so much about getting polite service as much as they do about getting quality service.”
They started down the stone stairs. “What do you mean?” Starlight asked.
Lyra waffled for a moment. “They want,” she said at length, “an experience. Something they can tell all their friends about later. Something unusual.”
There was something wrong with that statement, and it took Starlight until the bottom of the steps to see what it was. “Hold on. If everypony has the exact same weird story, though, isn't it not weird anymore?”
“I guess, yeah,” Lyra admitted. “But it isn't like it's all anypony ever talks about. It's like talking about the weather, just small talk.”
Starlight frowned. “I hate small talk. It's so… I dunno.”
“Well, I guess that's true,” Lyra agreed. “It can be a little boring, I guess.”
“No, it’s not that. It’s just so banal.”
“Aren’t those synonyms?”
“Pointless, I mean. Nopony is saying anything that everypony else doesn’t already know.”
“That’s fair, I suppose. But it can be nice, and kind of useful for getting to know new ponies. I mean, how would you react if somepony came up and--”
She was cut off as a yellow mare with a bright blue mane came hurtling across the street towards them, leaving several cabs skidding to an abrupt halt. “Lyra! Lyra!” she shouted, exuberant. “The archchancellor’s just been assassinated!”
***
It is a regrettable tenet of academia that upward motion tended to be sluggish at best, and more often completely nonexistent. New ideas and new professorships are seldom granted when all the available positions aren’t so much filled as stuffed in with a plunger. Most of Canterlot University’s tenured staff were so old that students wondered if they’d written papers on Luna’s banishment in the same year that it had happened. Dead ponies’ horseshoes were often the only way that anypony could get ahead, and for some centuries, academics had taken that quite literally. It had been founded some three centuries before the birth of the bloodthirsty Tenochtitlan civilization known as the Asstecs, and some scholars supposed that its stones had seen at least as much blood. The life expectancy of a new archchancellor was about a year, perhaps two if they were particularly well-liked or good at self-defence. On the whole, there was enough blood spilled to write a scholarly treatise on the decline of scholasticism in the face of potential murder against the entire faculty.
When Celestia and Luna had come to power for the first time, scholastic reform was among their first acts together. It had been a tricky affair. It was no use trying to pass laws banning murder. Those already existed, and anyway, getting a magical scholar to observe the law of the land is less like trying to herd cats and more like trying to hold back a pride of lions with a toothpick and a feather. Instead, they made it possible for another type of assassination to occur; institutional. The Equestria Education Association had been founded to be a sort of court of peers for any ideas or professors whose time had come once and for all. On the whole, the magic-using community was rather disappointed that their era of magical murder was being discouraged. However, they were also in no small way comprised of complete nerds with several axes to grind. A new list of guidelines designed to help them rat out their peers was a sort of catnip, and soon even the biggest and toughest battle-mages were purring in the hooves of the diarchy. That was how it had continued through Luna’s banishment and return, and that was how it remained today.
Lyra explained all of this to Starlight, who stayed completely motionless the entire time. She didn’t really have a choice. As soon as she’d bolted, the other unicorn had conjured up the construct of a giant golden pair of hands, which had grabbed Starlight around the middle and hauled her bodily back to the group.
“So,” Starlight said. “Not actually a spate of murders.”
“Nope.”
Starlight nodded at the yellow mare. “Not a psychopath.”
Lyra hesitated. “She does not take delight from the death of others,” she said diplomatically.
Starlight frowned, but then shrugged. “Eh, like I’m much better. Okay, fine. Will you let me down now?”
“Promise not to freak out like that again?”
“Promise.”
“Alright.” Lyra unclasped her hands and let them fade to nothing. “So, with that out of the way, let me introduce to you my good friend, Lemon Hearts. Lemon, this is Starlight Glimmer, Twilight’s protege.”
“Ooh, neat!” Lemon extended a hoof and Starlight shook it. “I’m in the psychology department. I guess you’re the one I’m meant to show around my building?”
“That’s the plan!” Starlight paused, then glanced at Lyra. “That is the plan, right?”
Lyra grinned. “The general outline, yeah. I’m ready to get started if you two are.”
Starlight looked at Lemon’s wide, bright eyes. “Yeah, sure. Let’s get this show on the road.”
“Great! I can’t wait to show you my latest experiments.”
As they set off, something struck Starlight. “So, uh, what exactly the the old Archchancellor get ‘assassinated’ for?”
“Trying to petrify all the other senior faculty and steal their magic,” Lemon replied breezily.
Starlight stopped mid-trot.
Lyra sighed and summoned the hands again. “Well,” Starlight said slowly. “I suppose I’ve nearly ended the world twice this month alone, so I guess I can’t judge too harshly.”
Lyra smiled. The hands vanished. “So,” Starlight said. “What’s the new guy like?”
***
After the termination and incarceration of former Archchancellor Triumph, whose only lasting legacy would prove to be the sheer irony of his name, none of the senior faculty particularly wanted to step up to the plate. All of the most recent Archchancellors had met particularly sticky ends, even by CMA standards. Before Triumph, Archchancellor Silvermist had been converted into a fine red mist which the custodial staff were still working to remove. Before her, Archchancellor Warlock had wandered into the Deep Dimensions one fine sunny morning and had yet to return. Before them, Archchancellor Grimoire had been hauled before the EEA for attempting to replace the Underwater Basket-Weaving building into a student center. He had returned gibbering about how the end times would come in triplicate, with all appropriate forms filled out in blue or black ink and filed away in a grey binder.
All of this in the space of two years. The faculty would never be so gauche as to suggest that the position was cursed; certainly not! Curses did not exist, and there was no scientific backing for suggesting anything untoward about the position beyond a greater presence in the public eye. However, the recent events were enough to make even the most gung-ho ladder-climbers hesitate. Neither were they particularly fond of the idea of promoting any of their juniors to such an exalted position. The whiplash might affect their brains. Worse yet, they might think that they were now in charge, and that could by no means occur. But with all the professors ruled out, there simply was nopony left to fill the gap. Nopony, that is, until Professor Wyrd happened to recall a certain professor, retired from teaching some years ago, who might be persuaded to return to take the position. As soon as she said the name “Foxfire”, a vague picture began to form in the heads of all assembled. She had been adept at defensive spells and transmogrification. She had published a treatise on how an age-regression spell might be achieved without necessarily stealing years from another pony. Overall, a good and scholarly candidate, they all agreed. But there was one concern. Did she have a beard?
Professor Wyrd merely shrugged her withers. “If not, I’m sure she could grow one,” she said simply.
A great cheer went up at that. If nopony could remember her personality, or ever talking to her, what did that matter so long as she filled the position with gravitas and barbate grace? Of course, nopony stopped to wonder why exactly she had left the university to live out in the countryside, or if perhaps they had all made some concerted effort to forget her…
“So!” Lemon beamed at Starlight. “You think you might take a post here at CMA?”
“Uh, yes. In research and development.”
“Oh, you’re experimental.” Lemon nodded. “Nice, me too.”
“Uh, sure? I don’t know what that means.”
“You do experiments to further the understanding of a field,” Lemon said breezily. “There are also researchers, like Moondancer, or teachers, like Twinkleshine. Most ponies aren’t purely one thing or another, like Lyra is an experimental researcher.”
“Shouldn’t everypony strive to be all three?”
Lemon burst out laughing. “She’s serious,” Lyra said.
That was enough to sober the yellow mare. “Really? Uh, wow.”
Starlight frowned. “Well, shouldn’t that be true? It’s how Twilight works.”
“Twilight is an alicorn and Celestia’s personal student,” Lyra pointed out. “She’s a polymath with degrees in five or six different fields and phenomenal cosmic power, and she’s still massively stressed basically all the time.”
“I--” Starlight closed her mouth. “Okay, point taken.”
“I mean, you could do all three if you really wanted,” Lemon said. “It just wouldn’t leave you much time to do anything else.”
“...I guess that makes sense,” Starlight admitted. “But I really do want to teach, you know? Make a difference for the students and everything.”
The other two mares stopped dead in their tracks. “Students?”Lemon echoed. “Starlight, this is a college. We’re professors. We don’t deal with… them.”
“But isn’t that your job?”
“Pfft! No. Trust me, you want to keep as far away from the students as you can,” Lemon said. “Let the post-grads handle the teaching. Or you could be like Twinkleshine and make sure none of your lectures can be attended by anypony who hasn’t learned to walk through higher dimensions.”
“I-- but--” Starlight trailed off, confused.
“Oh, look, we’re here already,” Lemon said cheerfully, gesturing to a large brick building. “Welcome to the social sciences!”
***
Across campus, a mare glanced over her shoulder before hurrying into a dark alleyway. She was reasonably sure that she hadn’t been followed, and she’d cast a notice-me-not spell over herself, followed by a second notice-me-not spell over the first. Out there, she was Professor Emeritus Mathematica, Common Divisor. Back here, she was just another anonymous buyer, just another bit of grist in that monstrous machine in which she’d become so terribly enmeshed.
The narrow brick alley smelled of vodka and stale urine, the stink of broken dreams and despair. She wrinkled her nose. An Equuish-Lit major had been here, with plenty of friends. The rest of the stink-- the coffee grounds, the fermenting apple cores, the deceit-- she had grown used to that some years ago, back when she herself had been but a student. She had been desperate back then. Was she so desperate now? Or had she become addicted, trading out one stress for another? Celestia, how long could she keep this addiction a secret.
“Hey.”
The voice was a low growl. Common spun around on the spot. There was a hooded figure, dark and androgynous, leaning against a doorframe.
Common took a step back. “Who are you?”
“A seller to interested parties,” the figure replied. “Might you be one such?”
“You’re not Lobachevsky.”
“Lobachevsky couldn’t make it.”
“What do I call you?”
There was a moment’s hesitation. “Oracle. Call me Oracle, if you call me anything.”
She considered this for a moment, then stepped forward. “Alright. I take it you have what I need?”
Instead of replying, Oracle fished inside their voluminous cloak and produced a thick ream of paper, holding it up so that Common could see the front page. It said ‘A Treatise on Topological Changes of State and Simplification: How to Fill All those Holes in One’s Life’.
Below, there was a byline, but it had been scribbled over with red ink. Common reached out for it. “Where did you get it?” she asked, then pulled back suddenly. “That is, if you can tell me.”
“A friend of a friend got it to me, I do not know where it is originally from.” Oracle took the bag of bits that Common proffered. “I am Oracle. I see the future, not the past.”
“Really? What does the future hold?”
“Your trial.” Oracle whipped back their hood to reveal--
“The Dean of Academic Honesty?”
“That’s right!” Dean Bean growled. “And not just me, either!” They lit their horn, and the illusion spell that had been cast over the alleyway dropped. The Lecturer in Pre-Diarchic Runes, Jenny Ruiz, shook her head disapprovingly. The Chair of Lower Mathematics, Arithmetic “Two-Chairs” Mean, glowered at her over his sub sandwich. The Bursar, Hop Frog, was apparently playing with sock puppets. Common looked around in horror. “But I-- I didn’t-- not--”
“Save it for the Chancellor’s Board,” Two-Chairs boomed. “You were caught red-hooved, and no mistake!”
“You’ll be drummed off campus,” Dr. Ruiz said. “You will find no sympathy here.”
“I like ferrets!” the Bursar said happily as one sock puppet knocked the other one over the head.
Common Divisor was speechless. There was no denying it. She had plagiarized her last. “However,” said the Dean.
Jenny’s eyebrow rose. “However?” she repeated, her voice as thin and cold as a perfect mathematical plane placed in a vacuum.
“However,” the Dean repeated, “while there is no question that you are fired, effective as soon as the new Archchancellor arrives to finalize the paperwork, and that your work will be blacklisted from all reputable publishers…”
Common whimpered.
“We may be able to spin the story to the public a different way. Perhaps you came down with a bad case of Zero Stroke, or were attacked by an Ambiguous Puzuma. Perhaps you became trapped in a Mandelbrot fractal. However, before we do that, there is something we need from you, first.”
She hesitated. Her profession reputation was already in tatters, but perhaps she could salvage some small piece… “Name it.”
The Dean gave her a shark’s smile. “I’m given to understand that there is to be a high-profile deal occurring tomorrow night…”
***
The psychology building was a sprawling complex of clean white floors and walls that were an off-putting shade of puke green. “My office is this way,” Lemon said, nodding towards a corridor ahead. “We’ll go there later. I want to show you some of our latest research first.”
“Okay,” Starlight said. “I don't know much about psychology. All I know is that the brain is the most complex system known to pony.”
“Pah,” Lyra grumbled.
Starlight frowned. “Pah?” she repeated.
Lemon rolled her eyes. “Not this again…”
“What tells you that the brain is the most complex system?” Lyra demanded.
Starlight thought for a moment. “Um, research, science, neuroscience articles…”
“The brain,” Lyra continued as though Starlight hadn't spoken. “The brain tells you that it's the most complicated thing you can study. ‘Hi, I’m Jimmy Brain, and I'm sooo complicated. Science will never fully understand me. I'm the process of billions of years of evolution.’ It’s just so egocentric.”
There was silence for a moment. Then Lemon Hearts said, “From a technical viewpoint, the brain is the only thing that's ever named itself.”
“Whoa,” Starlight said, eyes widening. “Truly the most complex and beautiful thing.”
“I love brains.”
“My brain loves to think about brains!”
Lyra groaned and smacked her head against the wall. “You guys are doing this on purpose.”
“Yep,” Lemon said. “Your brain has worked out our brains’ plan to annoy you. Good job, Lyra’s brain!”
Lyra glared at them both, then blew a raspberry. “Fine, let's go see how you’re messing with ponies’ minds today,” she grumbled.
“Glad you agree!” Lemon said brightly. “First, to your left, we’re recreating the Stallionford Prison Experiment.”
Starlight nearly choked on her own spit. “You what?” she demanded. “Lemon, isn't that about the most unethical psychological experiment ever?”
“No, that dubious honor goes to the one where a psychiatrist gave babies phobias,” Lemon corrected. “Anyway, there were some unaccounted variables in the Stallionford experiment.”
“Like what?”
“Well, when they allowed a certain group of fratty students complete control over the punishments of another group of fratty students, they said they were examining the equine condition. Really, they were examining the condition of a bunch of crass fraternity stallions, most of whom were probably suffering sudden withdrawal from their drug of choice.”
“Oh,” said Starlight. “So here, you’re… what, what are you doing?”
Lemon motioned them both over to the window of one-way glass in the wall. Inside, they could see a group of ponies standing in taped-off “cells”, while others wandered through the areas between those cells. “We’ve made the trials open to a wider range of ages, genders, and social classes,” she said proudly. “We're getting much better results this time. For instance, the harshest punishments tend to come from upper class individuals in age range fifty to sixty-five.”
Starlight looked grey. “Lemon, I still don't think this is ethical,” she said.
“Probably not,” she admitted. “But it was approved by an ethics committee, and that's all they needed to go ahead. Anyway, let's go look at one of my projects instead.”
“So you aren’t part of…” Starlight waved a hoof at the room of 'prisoners'.
“Pff, nah. That stuff is messed up,” Lemon replied. “I’m more interested in more common erratic behavior.”
Starlight looked at her expectantly. “I mostly study lies,” Lemon expounded. “Why ponies lie, how often they do it, how well… and how to catch them at it.”
Lyra looked away from where she had been glaring at the wall. “It’s pretty cool stuff, I guess, but nopony in our friend group can get away with swiping the last fudge brownie without everypony knowing about it.”
Lemon ignored this. “Right now, I’m taking data from over a thousand liars of varying ages, genders, careers, races, and social classes rating their self-judged proficiency at lying; how often they do it and how well. Once I’ve finished getting all of that in a graph, I’m going to interview them to see how well they can actually lie.”
Starlight nodded. “Alright then. What do you hope to find out?”
“Whether the ability to lie correlates to age at all,” Lemon explained. “My hypothesis is that the older you get, the more practice you have at lying, so the more believable your lies are. But, as you get older, your brain tends to not work as well, and younger individuals tend to have more imagination, so maybe it varies inversely with age.”
“That sounds really interesting! One question, though.”
“Shoot.”
“How do you know that your subjects aren’t lying to you constantly?”
There was a long, dreadful silence. “Aaaanyway,” Lyra said, “Lemon, why don’t we show Starlight the beer room?”
Lemon brightened immediately. “Oh, yeah, that’ll be good for a laugh. C’mon, let’s go!” She took off at a quick trot, leaving the other two in the dust.
Lyra grinned. “You shouldn’t ask her stuff like that, Glim. She’s smart, but she tends to think herself into a corner. Lucky for you, I know how to distract her.”
***
The new archchancellor had arrived with little pomp or circumstance. She had walked straight up to the gates of the school, answered a porter’s question about whether she had any business there with a smack from her walking stick, and stomped in with all the self-confidence of a queen and all the grace of a mountain troll with its toe cut off.
The faculty didn’t even quite realize their new head had arrived until she called a general meeting to introduce herself, some half an hour after her arrival. When they first set eyes on her, none could fail to be pleased. She had a hat that didn’t point so much as it stabbed. Her deep green robes swirled around her like a thick potion of some mysterious origin. She was stout and brown with piercing amber eyes. She carried her knobbly old walking stick like a favored weapon, which it may well have been, And her beard-- sweet Celestia, where to begin with it? It was curly and white, with the barest hints of orange and red clinging on from her youth. It wound over her face and barely brushed the ground when she walked, wrapping itself around her legs and barrel like a climbing ivy. Professor Occam Occult of the Dead Philosopher’s Society turned green with envy at the very sight of it. Dr. Camera Obscura swore her own beard reached out as though yearning to entangle with its fellow and superior. More than a few thought that even the bust of Starswirl looked a little jealous.
They were in absolute awe of her. Then she opened her mouth. “Right,” she boomed. “Let’s get on with it. Names, departments, one interesting fact about yourself. I shall begin. I am Phosphor Foxfire. Until about six hours ago, I was the local witch of Bayard Moor, a position which has thankfully now been filled by my apprentice. Before that, I was the professor of transmogrification and alteration and head of the duelling association and now I appear to be running this monkey show. One interesting fact about me is that I once got drunk and summoned up Death themself for a bet. You next, going around widdershins-wise.”
There was a moment of silence before Professor Hobby-Horse could summon up the wherewithal to reply. Or, well, not quite silence-- the echoes from Archchancellor Foxfire’s proclamations had yet to fade. She may have carried a big stick, but she certainly didn’t speak softly. Just as unnervingly, her bright eyes fixed unblinkingly on whoever was speaking. It made the assembled feel as though they were actually being listened to. It was a new, rather uncomfortable feeling for many of them.
When the last of the professors present had finished speaking, Foxfire nodded once. “Right. Jolly good. Now, is there any old business that needs covered?”
Absolute silence. One creaky old professor rose up, a thin, sinister smile on his face. “Actually, there is one thing… Regarding the admittance of earth ponies, pegasi, and other non-unicorns to this school…”
“What, again?” Foxfire demanded. “You’ve been trying to push them out since before I retired the first time, Fractal Path. Before I was hired the first time, come to that, and if what I remember of my first meeting on this board is correct, probably before I was enrolled as a student.”
“Good work requires… perseverance,” Fractal hissed. “Now, to the first point--”
“No need for that,” Foxfire said shortly. “I’m sure we’re all familiar with the arguments. It’s been twenty years since I last sat here, and I can remember them all word-perfect.”
Fractal was taken aback for a moment, then scowled. “Proper protocol must be observed!”
Foxfire nodded. “True enough. All right then, I move that we skip the bloody lecture about ‘lesser beings’ and whatnot and move straight on to the vote.”
“Seconded!” somepony quickly said. “All in favor, say aye!”
A vast shout of ‘AYE!’ swept the room and took some moments to die away.
“Right, and against?”
“Neigh!”
“Neigh.”
“Motion carries, fourteen for and two against, the two being Fractal Path and Nocan Neighsay.”
Neighsay looked rather embarrassed. Fractal just looked outraged. “This is a travesty--”
“All in favor of casting out all non-unicorns from this august institution, say aye.”
“Aye!” Fractal retorted.
“All in favor of not doing that and instead casting this bloody stupid debate into some forlorn black hole some several light years away, say neigh.”
The “NEIGH” that followed was enough to shake the windows in their frames. Nocan Neighsay looked rather relieved.
“Right, that’s settled. No more talk of that, or you’ll get a censure.” She smiled. “Jolly good thing, too, else you’d be looking for a new Archchancellor.”
As everypony stared at her in alarm, she swept off her hat. She had no horn.
The beer room, as it turned out, wasn’t actually a bar. It just looked like one. This, Lemon quietly explained, was to put the subjects of the experiments at ease. The room’s purpose was to test out the effects of drunkenness on the mind-- or indeed, the effects of presumed drunkenness. Most of the drinks in here had been carefully formulated to mimic the taste of beer or wine or cider, but they were totally non-alcoholic. That was why Lemon liked coming here. She found the idea of ponies getting steadily more drunk on no alcohol at all completely hilarious.
Right now, though, the current experiment was using real alcohol. Starlight took a glass of cider from the scientist behind the counter and watched. The study was measuring whether ponies thought they were more attractive when drunk. Starlight wasn’t sure how that could be measured, but she was fairly certain, based on her own non-scientific observations, that drunk ponies usually thought they were better dancers.
“So,” Lemon said, sidling over to Starlight’s side. “What do you think?”
Starlight looked down at her glass and shrugged. “Not as good as Sweet Apple Acres,” she said.
“Not the cider, the school! What do you think of the school?”
“Oh.” Starlight thought about that. “It’s okay. I guess it’s a pretty good university. I mean, I haven’t been to many, but this one seems good.”
Lemon’s smile faded. “So, uh, do you think you might try and get the job? The one you came here for?”
Starlight knocked back her mug of cider before she answered. “I don’t really know,” she admitted. “All I’ve seen so far is one building, and it isn’t even the building I’d be working in. It’s too soon to tell.”
Lemon nodded. “Okay, that makes sense. You want another cider?”
“I shouldn’t,” Starlight said. “I want to be compos mentis for the whole tour, right?”
“Nah, come on,” Lyra scoffed, her mane festooned with tiny umbrellas. “This isn’t the alcoholololic stuff! It’s all fake, remememer?” She shoved her cocktail glass down the counter, where it joined about seven more. “But yerrite. We should keep goin’. C’mon, next stop is the natural sciences building.”
She rose from her stool and made for the door in an almost-straight line. Starlight looked at the psychologist behind the counter. “That wasn’t fake, was it?”
He smiled guiltily. “Oops?”
Lemon rubbed her chin. “Maybe we should consider seeing what happens when we serve ponies real alcohol and tell them it’s fake…”
Lyra smacked into the doorway and fell flat on her tail. She hiccupped, then started giggling madly.
The psychologist nodded. “I’ll see about talking to the ethics committee.”
“How exactly do you intend to get them to sign off on this?” Starlight demanded.
He raised an eyebrow. “I’ve got a lot of alcohol,” he said calmly. “Ethics tends to get a lot more relative when you can’t tell your plot from a pencil sharpener.”
“Okay, that sounds grossly unethical.”
“Does it? I’ll ask the committee about that, too.”
***
The natural sciences, aka natural philosophy, aka physics, had an entire block to itself. There was no apparent reason why this should be, as the building itself took up only a third of the area. Actually, it had a little bit more than a block to itself, if you counted distinctly empty spaces on the surrounding blocks. The nearest buildings even seemed to be leaning away from it. Starlight’s mind flashed to thoughts of blast radii and the benefits of keeping well away from certain hazardous materials…
No. She was being silly, surely. This was a school, after all. There had to be rules, safety standards, that kind of thing. There was no way that--
All the windows on the east side of the second floor blew out, followed quickly by a cloud of ash and an acrid stench. Lyra huffed and passed Lemon a stack of bits. “I was sure it would be the fourth floor,” she complained.
“Bet’s a bet,” Lemon said breezily, tucking the coins away.
It was at this point that both of them noticed that Starlight had fallen behind, stopped dead in her tracks as she stared up at the billowing smoke with mouth agape. Lemon looked at Lyra. “You didn’t warn her?”
“She lives with Twilight, I didn’t think I had to.”
“...Fair enough,” Lemon conceded. “Come on, Starlight! It’s just a little explosion! They happen all the time around here!”
“Not helpful,” Lyra muttered.
As if to prove Lyra wrong, Starlight relaxed slightly. “And everypony is okay in there?”
“Don’t worry about it. We’ve got state-of-the-art safety equipment, all the experiments are done behind glass, we’re good. There was only maybe one pony who was exposed to any meaningful level of radiation this year.”
Starlight tensed. “And what happened to them?”
Lemon pointed to a mare trotting in their direction down the road. “Here she comes now.”
The mare turned to enter the physics building and Starlight was able to see for the first time that she had two horns. She drew back in shock.
“Luckily, most of the damage was contained, or she really would be in a bad way,” Lyra said. “Instead, she’s just switched majors from energy dynamics to mad science, which is probably a more lucrative field these days anyway.”
“Is it?” Starlight asked, trotting forwards once more.
“Oh, yeah,” Lyra said, nodding. “I do it part-time, and it brings in tons of bits. If Bonnie didn’t have that whole thing about crumbling castles in the mountains, I’d do it professionally. I still had to join the union, though.”
“There’s a union?”
“Yeah, the Mad Wizards, Academics, Henchponies, And Heckraisers Association.”
Starlight took a moment to think that over. “Wait. You’re saying your organization is called MWAHAHA?”
“Well, we’re infamous for being overdramatic. But like I was saying, it’s a big deal. You wouldn’t believe the trend in babies being called Igor up near the Ovdred Mountains.”
Starlight blinked. “The Mountains… of Dread?”
“That’s their nickname, yeah. But anyway, you wanna go in? Minuette’s probably waiting for us.”
Starlight paused in the doorway and glanced up at the dissipating smoke. “She isn’t on the second floor, is she?”
“Minnie? Nah. She’s got a basement office.”
Another explosion rocked the building. This time, the smoke was green. Starlight shuddered. “All the better to be buried alive in,” she muttered, but she followed Lyra and Lemon in, regardless.
***
The meeting had settled down after the new Archchancellor’s revelation. It wasn’t unheard of to have a non-unicorn on the staff; after all, there were many kinds of magic, art, and science to be explored at the school, and unicorns were hardly the only ones who could study them. Even among the professors unicorns were not the rule, though they were quite common. There were even a number of non-pony professors, like Dr. Zucchini, the zebroid head of the herbology department, or Swift Arrow, a buffalo professor in the history department.
As a matter of fact, it was Jenny Ruiz, one of the few donkeys on staff, who raised the next point. “Archchancellor, there has been some information received about a notorious plagiarist ring.”
Archchancellor Foxfire looked at her. “Mm. Serious, is it?”
“All plagiarism is serious, Archchancellor.”
“Quite so, quite so. But what exactly do you want me to do about this ring? And what is this information you received, anyway?”
Dr. Ruiz nodded to the Dean of Academic Honesty, Green Bean, who stood. “My fellow scholars,” they began. “For too long has this institution been plagued by plagiarism. Those who reap the rewards of another’s labor must not go unpunished! If they are not caught, they will rise-- undeservedly-- to the top, the scum mixing with the cream until it is impossible to tell the one from the other! Allow me to speak plainly.”
“I wish you would,” the Archchancellor grumbled. “Kindly get on with it.”
The Dean glanced at her, startled, but continued with their speech. “Thanks to the work of the Committee for Honest Efforts in Academic Texts, two of the conspirators have already been uncovered. They were both rather low-level participants; one was merely a buyer, but was still able to provide us with the time and place of a major deal on a set of mathematics theses.”
The Lecturer in Linguistic Oddities, Dr. Emordnilap Palindrome raised his hoof, and the Dean nodded to recognize him. Dr. Palindrome rose timidly from his seat and coughed. “Your organization is known as “CHEAT”?” he queried.
The Dean went bright pink as the assembled broke into an uproar of laughter. The Archchancellor, though she was herself laughing, retained the propriety and presence of mind to bring her great wooden staff down on the table once or twice. “All right, all right, settle, you lot, settle.”
The Dean adjusted their spectacles. “Thank you, Archchancellor,” they said primly.
“We can all laugh at the silly name after they’ve finished their report,” the Archchancellor said with finality.
The Dean’s face fell. “...Yes. Thank you, Archchancellor,” they said. “At any rate, the time is this evening. The place is a public house on the west edge of the campus, known as the Oscillating Quark.”
“I’ve been there,” one of the assembled said. “Charming place, if a bit strange.”
“I went there back in my student days,” another mentioned. “Came out not knowing up from down.”
“Top of my list,” another agreed. “Bottoms up, eh?”
“If you’ve all quite finished!” the Dean cut in crossly. “Look. There are supposed to be some major plagiarists there, the worst sort of copycatting cheats. With your approval, Archchancellor, I would like to organize a ‘sting operation,’ as it were, on the meeting and capture the-- for lack of a better term-- ‘academics’ responsible.”
The Archchancellor frowned. “Hrm.”
The Dean paused. “‘Hrm,’ Archchancellor?”
“Well, I mean, what about all the other patrons in there?” she argued. “All the faculty who’ve gone out to have a nice evening and that? What will your sting operation do to keep them out of it?”
It was a good point. The Dean, however, had a trump card. “I’m given to understand that the majority of the bar’s patronage is student-based.”
“Oh,” the Archchancellor grunted. “Well, that’s fine then.”
The Dean beamed. "Excellent! I'll begin proceedings immediately.”
“Good. Now that’s settled, I move for a ten-minute recess to laugh at the irony of an anti-plagiarism organization known as CHEAT. Can I get a second?”
The only three who didn’t vote in favor of the motion were Dean Green Bean, Nocan Neighsay, and a quietly fuming Fractal Path.
***
As it turned out, the basement offices of the physics building were rather plush; it was a welcome break from the marble halls and ivory towers that comprised most of the campus. Down here, it was all shag carpeting, with beanbags sitting at all the tables, against the walls, in the middle of rooms, and even perched on top of doors. That last one was easily explained by pegasus professors. The one that really had Starlight scratching her head was the beanbag resting on the ceiling, apparently attached by nothing at all.
The further down they went, the clearer it was that they were descending into an ever-deepening den of geekery. Posters of Daring Do and Star Horse and Space Trek grew increasingly frequent on every floor. At one point, Starlight saw a poster of Harry Trotter that she found particularly interesting, and she wandered over to look. Almost immediately, a little window in the door shot open, and a pale grey stallion glared out at her. “What was Professor Snake’s middle name?” he demanded.
“I-- wha?”
“Ha! I knew it! Fake fan! Fakey-fake-faker fanpony! Fakety-fake-fake-fake!” he jeered. “Fakety-fakers can’t come into the Trot-head Real-Only Literary Lounge!”
While he laughed, Starlight peered into the room beyond. It was covered with lots of Harry Trotter merch, books, and very complex corkboards, but no other ponies. There was also a lot of dust in there.
“Don’t try to talk to the Gatekeepers,” Lyra advised from just behind Starlight. “It only makes them weirder.”
“Gatekeepers?” Starlight questioned, turning away from the still-raving stallion.
Lyra gestured to the door. “Gate.” She pointed at the stallion. “Keeper. For a given value of 'keeper' that means 'total loser'.”
“Gotcha.”
The rest of the way down to Minuette’s office passed largely without incident. She had no poster on her door. Instead, it was painted. It was a deep, pure shade of blue, with a little frosted window in the very center. There was a sign on it that read ‘Pull to Open.”
Lyra pushed the door open and they all filed inside.
Starlight’s first impression of Minuette was a series of quick, graceful motions. Her second impression was of a mare who has lost all patience with her latest project. “Come on,” the unicorn growled, continuing to hammer away at a silver hoofband with a crescent wrench. “Get-in-there-and-stay!”
“Hi, Minnie!” Lemon called.
Minuette paused in mid-swing. “Oh. Hello, girls.” She blinked. “This the newbie?”
“Uh, yes,” Starlight said. “Hey, this might be a weird question, but do you have a sister? Dentist in Ponyville?”
“No, why?” Minuette asked, setting the wrench down.
“No reason. You just look alike, that’s all.” Unnervingly alike, actually.
“So!” Lemon said brightly. “Getting any further on that time machine of yours?”
Minuette sighed and set the band aside. “No, not really.”
Starlight’s eyes bulged. “Hold up. Time machine? I mean, I’ve had some experience with time travel before-- magical, not scientific-- and it, uh, didn’t end well…”
“Well, this particular device isn’t that dangerous,” Minuette said sadly, pushing it forward. “All it does is travel at a rate of one second every second.”
There was a long silence. “So, it travels… like the rest of us?” Starlight asked hesitantly.
“Ah. No. This travels backwards by one second per second,” Minuette said, a faint note of pride entering her voice. Then she slumped forwards. “But because time is weird, it’s still stuck to the normal chronological progression, so from a practical viewpoint, you’ve just sort of stopped time.”
“That still sounds pretty cool,” Starlight said.
“Yeah. Thanks,” Minuette sighed. “There’s just not as much of a market for stopping the entire world in its tracks. Everypony wants to go back and see the pre-Harmonic era, or forward to when we’ll have flying trains and space stations.”
“Well, I can think of tons of uses for stopping time like that!” Starlight said. “Like, um.” She hesitated.
Minuette nodded. “Yep. It always seems cool at first, but then…”
“Wait, wait! For when you want to paint something, but it won’t stop moving around! Yes!”
“So I’ve invented the camera,” Minuette said, unenthused.
“...Oh. Right.” Starlight drooped.
Minuette sighed and shook herself. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be dragging you down like this. It’s really nice to meet you, Starlight.” She extended a hoof, and Starlight shook it.
“It’s nice to meet you, too, Minuette. Um, I guess you’re too busy for a tour…”
“Nah, I’ll be ready in a sec,” Minuette said, picking up the time machine and slipping it into her saddlebags. “I’ve been in here all morning, and I’m starting to get a little cabin-fever-y. I’d love to show you around…”
The Natural Sciences building was bustling with activity. Not work-related activity, necessarily, but activity nonetheless. Everywhere Starlight looked, there was motion-- pendulums swinging merrily away, hammers and feathers falling in perfect vacuums, even that rare beast electricity sprinting up and down on its coils. Apparently, the scientists were trying to control it enough to power homes from some centralized factory. Starlight wished them luck. Magic-powered generators had been a part of Equestrian civilization for hundreds of years, and it would take no small effort to restructure the infrastructure of the nation, even if they managed to harness the lightning.
There were a few other experiments that caught her eye. “Minuette.”
“Hm?”
“What are they doing with those cats?”
“The ones in the boxes? Seeing if they’re alive or dead. Or a living dead hybrid cat.”
One of the scientists opened the third box in the row, then stepped back in shock. “It’s gone! The cat has vanished!”
“So has this one!”
“They’re all gone!”
“We’re doomed! Doomed!”
The scientists in that lab all began running around in little circles, wailing and gnashing their teeth. “No,” said Starlight. “The ones over there.”
“Oh,” Minuette said, following Starlight’s pointing hoof. “They’re seeing if cats behave more like a liquid or a solid.”
One scientist held up a pitcher containing a cat. He then poured it out into a line of glasses. Somehow, impossibly, the cat managed to sit in every one of the glasses at the same time. “...Wow,” Starlight said, blinking. “That is… a thing that happened. But uh, what is the point exactly?”
All motion stopped. The eyes of every scientist were on Starlight. The ones who had been screaming and running in circles continued to scream and run in circles, but while quickly twisting their heads from side to side so as to stare continually at the unicorn. Somewhere, off in the distance, a cat hissed ominously.
“Uh…” Starlight said, nervously stepping back. “...That’s what an idiot would say! Science for science’s sake is the way of the future!”
The scientists relaxed and turned back to their experiments. The ones running in circles and screaming continued to do so, but with a gleam of pride and triumph in their eyes. The unseen cat purred, content.
“Really, though,” Starlight continued in an undertone as they passed by a pony watching as various individuals slipped on banana peels, “what is the point of all this? I just don’t get it. There are so many practical problems that physics could solve. Why are you measuring the coefficient of friction between banana peels and pony hooves?”
“You’d be surprised the sort of applications these ‘silly’ experiments can have,” Minuette said, a tad sharply. “Look over there.”
Starlight looked. A pair of stallions, one with a cutie mark of a curling wave and the other with a sort of ripple stood at a table, deep in discussion. “About a year ago, they published their findings on what happens when a unicorn walks while levitating a cup of coffee. That led to a change in the production of coffee cups, with a practical result of a seventeen-percent reduction in hospital visits due to hot coffee spills.
“And that mare over there--” she pointed to an orange earth pony watching the banana peel observer with mild interest. “She discovered that you can avoid slipping on ice by wearing socks.”
“Really?” Starlight looked interested. “That is useful. I wonder why I never heard that…”
“I expect that’s because it only works if the socks are dry,” Lemon put in. “And if you’re walking through snow and ice…”
“They don’t stay dry for long.” Starlight frowned. “That’s a little useless, then.”
Minuette looked slightly put out. “Well, for now it is. But you just wait until somepony invents waterproof socks!”
Lemon looked a bit thoughtful at that. “Gosh, that sounds like it would be a really hot bit of swimwear.”
Minuette went rather pink at that. “Lemon!” she hissed, scandalized.
“Have you done any research into why socks are meant to be so sexy?” Lyra asked. “That’s a piece of psychology I wouldn’t mind hearing.”
A passing astrophysicist observed Minuette’s face shifting from blue to red and took it as evidence that the universe was expanding. “Can we not have this conversation in front of my colleagues?” she squeaked.
There was a vague murmuring that most of Minuette’s colleagues agreed with Lyra, actually. “I never understood it myself,” Lemon admitted. “I mean, we’re wearing more clothes than we usually are in our daily lives.”
Minuette let out something between a wail and a sob, then tore out of the room, causing a gaggle of theoretical physicists to question the notion that light was the fastest thing in the universe.
***
In actual fact, light wasn’t the fastest thing in the universe. Not by a long chalk. Thought had it beaten; it might take over four years to travel to the star nearest Equestria’s own, but thought can get to Proxima Chiron, loop back around, and get back to your brain in the same instant you think of it. Nobility is also a strong contender. Nobles themselves are not, as a rule, very quick, being fat with the gains of an ill-spent life and far too much to drink. Titles, however, can pass from pony to pony even at the instant of death. However, even these two giants of the speed world come a distant second and third to the speed of rumor. Scarcely an hour had passed after the Archchancellor had adjourned the general meeting, and already the campus was abuzz with hot gossip about plagiarized papers, perilous plots, and perfidiously purloining professors. There was no mention of Common Divisor. The Dean of Academic Honesty had remained true to their title and kept their pledge to the disgraced mathematician.
The juicy goss flowing freely around campus could almost certainly never be traced back to its source by conventional means. And nopony would dare to accuse any of the senior professors in attendance at the meeting of spreading the rumors, not without some serious evidence to back up their claims.
Of course, all the professors knew exactly who was to blame. Still, even senior professors hesitated to confront their fellows on suspicion alone; even such an unpopular stallion as Fractal Path had the ability to make their enemies’ lives miserable, and he was more than petty and vengeful enough to do exactly that. From his office, Professor Path himself observed the students and professors passing below his window, a callous sneer on his lips. “It seems that my plan is proceeding exactly as I’d hoped,” he mused aloud. “Tell me, Nocan, are there any ponies on staff more brilliant than I?”
From his seat by the door, Dr. Neighsay sighed. “No,” he said sullenly. He didn’t honestly know why he was still friends with Fractal Path. He was an imbecile, a tribalist, and thoroughly convinced of his own genius to boot. Unfortunately, given Neighsay’s special talent for contradicting anything and everything asked of him, his coworkers weren’t exactly lining up around the block to invite him for drinks.
So, he was stuck with Fractal. The only one of his peers that actually seemed to want him around, if only to build up his own ego. The other unicorn turned away from the window, sharply tugging the blinds shut. “So, Neighsay. Do you know why I have begun this little spread of gossip?”
“No,” said Neighsay. This was quite true, though he could hazard a guess. “Was it--”
“To undermine that-- Foxfire’s-- authority!” Fractal thundered. “Who does she think she is, coming in here with her insulting ideas and hornless head?”
“I suspect she thinks she’s the new Archchancellor,” Nocan said, his voice like cloth on dry glass. “With a frankly magnificent beard.”
Fractal ran a hoof across his own trim beard, scowling at it. “I will not be disrespected, Neighsay.”
“No.”
“She does not know this university like I do!”
“No.”
“She does not have the same respect I do.”
“No. She has considerably more.”
“Shut up, Neighsay.”
“Shan’t.”
Fractal glowered. “Look. I intend to see that meddlesome hussy out on her backside before the week is out, and you will have no part in it.”
“No.” Nocan paused, then frowned. “Wait, what?”
“Ah, you do want a part to play after all! Excellent, I believe I may have a little job for you…”
Nocan groaned, but Fractal continued, undeterred. “There is to be a famous unicorn scholar arriving today to visit the university, one who has been vouched for by the Bearers of Harmony and even a Princess. You must arrange for that scholar to be at the Oscillating Quark in time for them to be affected by the Dean’s bust. The scandal will be immense, and force the Archchancellor to resign in disgrace. Is that the perfect plan or is that the perfect plan?”
Nocan went slightly crosseyed as he tried to parse how to disagree with that. While he was distracted, Fractal went on talking. “Then, you can testify against her at her hearing-- your brother is still a part of the EAA, correct? That should boost your credibility. Can you see any way that plan can fail?”
Nocan sighed. “No,” he grumbled, forced by his mark to lie through his teeth. “Who is this scholar, anyway?”
***
A stallion entered Canterlot Station’s most popular Queequeg’s Coffee Shop. Whole Latte knew that it wasn’t the largest, or the oldest Queequeg’s there. But when students really needed a pick-me-up during finals or after a full night of partying and getting drunk before their big exam, they would come to him and ask for a Whole Latte coffee. Latte knew most of CMA’s student and staff by heart, but this guy coming in? He was new in town. So, he put on his biggest, brightest smile under his trendy and stylish moustache.
“Good afternoon, sir! What can I get for you today? Can I interest you in our sixty-nine flavors of mochiatto? We carry them in sizes medium, large, grande, venti, centi, and infinito.”
The newcomer adjusted his spectacles and peered up at the menu. “I think I’ll have a latte e miele tea--”
Latte set his jaw. “Tea?”
The interloper looked startled. “Er, yes. If you’re out, I suppose I could--”
“It’s in stock,” Latte said frostily.
“Er, yes. Well, one of those and a chocolate biscuit, please.”
“Fine. Name?”
“Er, yes, it’s--”
“Not important. You’re the only pony who actually ordered tea. Celestia, you’re so pretentious with your damn leaf water. I bet you think all us coffee drinkers are helpless addicts huh?”
The interloper stumbled back, shocked. “No, not at all! I just--”
“Are you calling me a liar?”
“I-- no, but I would say that you seem to be the sort of person who jumps to a lot of conclusions.”
Latte slid the cup of cursed leaf liquid down the counter and the biscuit immediately after. He took perverse pleasure in watching the interloper grab at them desperately, forgetting that he had a horn. “Er, how much is that?”
Latte named a figure. The leaf-guzzling interloper went quite pale, but fished out the required bits. “Ha-have a nice day.”
“I hope you spill your tea into your lap.”
Some ponies really had no sense of decency, Latte reflected as he watched the interloper hurry out of the shop, cape flying out behind him.
Sunburst looked back, his tea and biscuit still clutched tightly in his magic. He had only been in Canterlot for ten minutes, and already he wanted to go back to the Crystal Empire. Nevertheless, he had work to do. So, he straightened his glasses, took a sip of his tea, and moved off towards the Canterlot Magical Academy.
The weather outside was cool and a bit overcast. A rainstorm was rolling in from the lowlands, and as the Canterlot weather team was perennially understaffed, the city would simply have to bear it. Minuette sat on a bench, head bowed, her mane rustling in the breeze. She heard hooves coming towards her. “Hey,”
It took her a moment to place the voice. “Oh. Hi, Starlight.”
“Um, can I sit down?”
Minuette scooched down the bench obligingly, and she felt the other mare settle down beside her. “I just wanted to say I’m--”
“I’m sorry.”
“...Sorry?”
“That I freaked out,” Minuette elaborated. “And ran away instead of showing you around the building.”
“Oh.” Starlight thought about this. “Well, I’m sorry we all made you freak out.”
“It’s alright,” Minuette said miserably.
“Minuette. It clearly is not. Does this happen often?”
“I--” she huffed. “Often enough that I don’t have many pals in the biology department. Or the chemistry department. Sweet Luna, the puns… Anyway, I just get uncomfortable talking about… that. Especially in public.”
Starlight repressed the urge to say, “Well, I’d guessed that.” That would be unhelpful. “Alright,” she said instead. “Do you want to talk about why you don't want to talk about it?”
Minuette hesitated, then shook her head. “It's kind of personal. I wouldn't be comfortable about sharing.”
Starlight frowned. This was not the reaction that she had hoped for. She told herself that Minuette had just met her. She told herself that good friendships took time to mature. She reminded herself that casting a spell to force Minuette to spill all of her darkest secrets would be a Very Bad Idea. Bad Starlight. Bad.
“Okay,” Starlight said instead. “Well, are you alright now?”
The blue mare hesitated, then nodded. “Let’s move on to the next part of the tour, alright?” Starlight said.
“Good idea.”
Both mares on the bench jumped. “Lyra! How long were you there?”
Lyra shrugged. “Only a couple seconds. But like I said, good plan, Starlight. This is clearly a mare in need of some lemon squares, and I know just where to get some…”
Minuette perked up at that. “Oh! We’re going to the library? Yes, please!”
“Your library has lemon squares?” Starlight asked.
“Well, not the library so much as the librarian. But Cross Reference is usually pretty good about sharing their secret sweets stash, especially if somepony’s been crying.”
“I haven’t been crying, actually,” Minuette pointed out.
Lyra frowned. “Hm. Well, try to bang your hoof on the way there, then. I don’t intend to miss out on lemon squares just because you can’t cry on command.”
“Are we making ponies cry?” Lemon Hearts asked, trotting up. “Can I help? I’ve been doing research into that. There’s this experiment to make babies associate a certain word with toys being taken away, and we’re trying to see if saying that word in their presence when they’ve gotten older still has the same effect.”
Silence fell. “And ponies say my hatred of psychology is irrational,” Lyra said.
***
Sunburst trotted through the main campus of the CMA. It was a gorgeous place. Classical styles of architecture merged with new materials, with brick-built turrets and steel doric columns butting up against marble plinths and enormous towers. It was completely erratic and disconnected, but somehow it seemed to work. Aside from the architecture, tall, willowy trees stood proud on islands of grass. Cute little squirrels and rabbits raced around the quad, apparently fearless of any larger mammal they happened to encounter. One had even run up Sunburst’s leg and perched on his head until he’d passed close enough to a tree for it to leap off.
In all senses, especially the literal, it was a magical place. There was only one small problem. Sunburst had no idea where he was. He was reasonably sure he had passed the biology building a little ways back. If not, he had no idea why it was under attack from a giant, glowing lizard. Unfortunately, he didn’t know where the biology building was relative to Dun Hall, so it made no practical difference. And as he heard the campus clock chime off in the distance, he was reminded painfully of the fact that he was due to give his talk on the emotional properties of crystal in forty minutes. He thought briefly that he might be able to navigate using the clock tower as a guide, but then remembered that the CMA’s famous clock tower was invisible and constantly teleporting, so that was out.
He considered asking a passing pony for assistance. He considered simply crawling into a hole and weeping with anxiety at the prospect of talking to a total stranger. But no. He had to be strong. Their highnesses, Princess Cadence and Prince Shining Armor, had personally asked him to be their emissary. They’d also each kissed him on the cheek, and the Prince had asked if he wanted to join his Ogres and Oubliettes campaign. So there was that to contend with as well. He couldn’t let his sovereign rulers who also apparently thought his goatee was ‘adorable’ and that his awkward babbling was ‘endearing’ and-- anyway, he couldn’t let them down!
So, he would have to ask directions. He swallowed back his fear and glanced around for a likely pony to ask. Her? No… no, she looked busy. A stallion like that would never give him the time of day. Those two donkeys were having a conversation, he shouldn’t interrupt…
“Excuse me?”
“AHH!” Sunburst spun around. A rust-colored unicorn stallion with a chest-length grey beard recoiled from his shout. Sunburst felt ashamed immediately. “Oh, gosh, I’m sorry, you just startled me,” he hastily apologized. “I hope I didn’t offend you at all.”
The stallion brushed himself off. “Not at all,” he said. “I only wanted to ask-- well, you looked a little lost.”
Sunburst let out a sigh of relief. “Yes, I am,” he agreed. “I’m a guest lecturer, and I’m due to speak on, well, that doesn’t matter right now.”
“No, go on,” the stallion said.
Sunburst gave a slight smile. “I’m talking about crystal, and how it can be used to store and amplify emotional ambiance. I’m something of an expert on the subject, I’ve been studying it in the Crystal Empire for about five years now.”
“Interesting,” said the stallion. “And where are you going to be giving this talk?”
“Dun Hall Auditorium. Could you tell me where that is from here?”
“No,” said the stallion. “But,” he added hastily as Sunburst’s face fell, “I’d be glad to show you.”
Sunburst smiled. “Thank you! That would be so helpful! Um, I’m Sunburst, by the way.”
The rust-colored stallion extended a hoof. “Neighsay. Nocan Neighsay.”
***
When Starlight stepped hoof into the library, her jaw popped open. “Dear Celestia,” she murmured, gazing around. “I didn’t think anypony could have more books than Twilight…”
That was just the tip of the iceberg. The shelves were packed tight with texts, scrolls, books, vellum sheets, clay tablets… if a medium could contain print information, chances were good that it was represented here. And she could see that the building stretched up for several floors, with a skylight illuminating the building with a warm, natural glow.
Of course, if one were to venture any distance into the stacks, the sunlight would cut out almost immediately, but it was the thought that counted. Anyway, there were more than enough magic-powered lamps to make up for the deficit, all of them flickering and guttering unpredictably and glowing in strange, indescribable colors never seen in nature, illuminating the inexplicably rattling chains that bound certain books to the shelves. It was quite a solid aesthetic for the library at a magic university to have, really.
“C’mon,” Lemon said, trotting across the atrium. “They should be at the reference desk.”
Starlight stumbled along afterwards, slightly dizzied at the sheer scale of the place, and drunk on the prospect of all that knowledge. What, she wondered, would this mysterious ‘they’ be like? A hooded figure, swathed in rune-covered bandages, only a single eye peering out through the shadows that clung to them? A great and powerful wix, all flowing cloak and bushy beard and fire-bright eyes? Perhaps they wouldn’t even be a pony-- instead, some sort of alien race, all extra dimensions and third eyes…
They came to the reference desk. Two ponies sat at tables nearby, ponies that Lyra had apparently arranged for them to meet, as they each closed their books and rose to their hooves as the party of ponies arrived. Starlight stuck out a hoof. “You must be the librarians with the lemon squares, right?”
The shorter of the two giggled. “Us? No. Though, given the amount of time Moondancer spends in here, she’s probably just as useful.”
The taller mare blushed slightly behind her thick, taped-together spectacles. “Well, I wouldn’t say that,” she muttered gruffly.
The shorter took Starlight’s hoof and shook it firmly. “I’m Twinkleshine, and this is Moondancer. She won’t shake your hoof because she doesn't like touching strangers, so I’ll do it for the both of us.”
“Oh. Um, alright, it’s nice to meet you both.” Starlight glanced up and down the old, oaken desk, covered in grimoires and inkpots and strange artefacts that-- okay, fine, she could guess what most of them were for. But still, they were really obscure. “Are the librarians here… invisible?”
“No,” Lyra sighed. “Shoot, I was sure it wasn’t time for their lunch break yet.”
“And so it isn’t!” somepony said from behind them.
Starlight turned around. An earth pony of indeterminate gender grinned back. Their glasses sat askew on their nose. Their red coat was shaggy and fluffy, and their violet mane was best described as flyaway. They wore a striped scarf that had clearly seen better days, looped loosely around the neck. Most importantly, they were carrying a tray of lemon squares on their back. “Hello,” they said warmly. “I’m Cross Reference, head researcher here.”
Starlight hesitated a moment, then stuck out her hoof. “Starlight Glimmer.”
The librarian smiled at her, then glanced at the others. “My, my, we’ve got a crowd today,” they said, appearing mildly amused. “Careful, ladies, or I might start thinking you’re here for my admittedly excellent baking rather than the grimoires and ancient and forbidden knowledge. Well, except you, Moondancer.”
The bespectacled mare looked up and smiled at them. “Got anything new for me today?” she asked.
They chuckled. “Nothing newer than two-hundred years old,” they replied, and both of them chuckled, as though sharing an old joke.
“So!” Lyra said brightly. “Can we have some lemon squares?”
Cross Reference chuckled. “Well, I believe it’ll be some time before the Head Librarian leaves her office,” they said with a wink. “We can get away with eating in the library just this once.”
Starlight looked around at the others. “Is there some joke I’m not getting?” she asked.
“The Head Librarian never leaves her office,” Minuette explained. “Never. Nopony has ever seen her. The only reason we know she exists is because of the notes she slips out from under her office door whenever she wants a change in policy, and the only reason we know she’s female is because she signs them Ms. Dllydfwxyyd.
Starlight took a moment, then laughed, shaking her head. “Wow. And you don’t know anything else about her?”
Silence fell. The gas lamps guttered out, and came flickering back on in an unnerving shade of brown, turning the play of light and shadow into sepia-toned film. Cross Reference opened their mouth wide, far wider than any pony’s mouth ever should.
The Head Librarian lives in an ebony wardrobe at the back of your cellar.
The Head Librarian’s birth was recorded in one of the earliest known cave paintings.
The Head Librarian speaks in guttural tones of the death of kings and card catalogs
The Head Librarian’s eyes are the death of stars, and her breath the leading cause of cancer in grizzly bears.
The Head Librarian will, on the last Monday of the world, as foretold in the Prophecy, rise up and devour half of the population of Canterlot, who will return the next day fine, but with a crippling fear of birds and a desire to invest more money in the dairy industry.
The Head Librarian is said to be wanted in seven dimensions, and unwanted in four more.
The Head Librarian is said to eat paperclips and the souls of those who never use bookmarks.
All we know for certain
Is that the Head Librarian’s Recommended Book this week is ‘Anne of Green Gables’.
The lights flared up in a blaze of octarine light, sending Starlight reeling. When she had finished blinking the spots and hideous visions out of her eyes, it was as though nothing had happened. Everypony stood in the same positions they had before the event, and not one of them appeared fazed. Cross Reference smiled at her. “Lemon square?” they suggested.
***
Dean Green Bean was brooding. They stared out over the campus, looking grim. “Somepony,” they said, “has been spilling secrets.”
Dr. Ruiz cleared her throat pointedly, and the Dean sighed. “Someone,” they rephrased, “has tipped the entire campus off to our plan for this evening, and I would like to know what we intend to do about it.”
Arithmetic Mean rubbed his chins thoughtfully. “We could check for any reservations there that were cancelled,” he suggested. “They’d’ve booked a private room for the exchange. Won’t go there now, will they?”
“Unless they’ve already thought of the fact that cancelling would look suspicious,” Dr. Ruiz disagreed. “We should look for anyone in a private room.”
“Hm,” said Dean Bean. “And what say you, Bursar?”
The Bursar looked up from where he was trying to balance the accounts on top of a pile of blocks. He gave a dazed smile. “How doth the little crocodile improve his shining tail?” he asked.
“Well said that man,” Bean said briskly. “We must be careful not to be so sharp we cut ourselves, you know. It’s possible that the deal will go on as planned. These criminals might think that with as widespread as the rumor is, we will let our plans fall through. Then, they’ll go on and do the exchange, and laugh at us in effigy, pointing and giggling at dolls that bear our features! Hmph! I won’t stand for it!”
Arithmetic Mean frowned. “And if they do change the place or time of the meeting?”
“Well, if that’s so, Two-Chairs, we’ll be in a bar either way,” the Dean snapped. “It’s the only lead we have, and I don’t intend to let it slip away. Oh, to think of it. A bunch of greasy, morally bankrupt plagiarists standing around and snickering at representations of our faces. The worst sort of sympathetic magic. Unsympathetic magic. Oh, it makes my spit curdle just thinking on it…” they fell back into a brooding silence.
Dr. Ruiz rolled her eyes. “Fine. I’m going to go grab lunch, if any of you want to join me.”
Arithmetic rose from his place on the couch with slow majesty and trotted out of the room with his colleague. Dean Bean stayed behind, brooding about a voodoo ballyhoo.
Cross Reference may have been a little odd, and possibly possessed by some ancient eldritch entity, but Starlight had to admit that the librarian knew how to make a good lemon square. “So,” she said, taking another from the plate. “What do you two do here?”
“I’m a lecturer,” Twinkleshine said brightly. “I’ve got a title and everything. Speaker in Higher Dimensions, that’s me.”
“Oh. Do your lectures tend to have big audiences?”
“Nah. I take my title seriously and only lecture in the higher dimensions themselves, so you can only attend if you can step up a few of those,” Twinkleshine said brightly. “Except, hardly anyone can, so it’s mostly just me talking to the Swimmers, and the Void Rats, and the Time Sheep, and sometimes whatever cats have escaped from the boxes in the physics building. There’s some really beautiful stuff up there, y’know?”
“I’ll have to check that out sometime,” Starlight said. “How ‘bout you, Moondancer?”
Moondancer shoved her glasses up her muzzle and shrugged. “I’m a scholar, so I mostly just sit in the library and do research for papers.”
“Oh, like a student,” Starlight said.
The sudden silence was stifling. “No,” Moondancer said. “Not like a student. Like a scholar. There’s a difference.”
Starlight wilted under the sheer force of the group’s combined stare. “Um… okay then! Uh, what are you studying right now?” She could tell by the way that the mare straightened up that she had asked a good question.
“I’ve just been reading an interesting treatise by…” Moondancer squinted at the cover. “Sans Marks.”
Starlight went as white as bone. “Oh,” she said weakly. “The, uh, the Equalist Manifesto, huh?”
Moondancer looked at her intently, interested. “You’ve read it? Frankly, I’m not completely convinced about the solution it presents, but--”
“Nope!” Starlight said quickly. “Never read it. I just know it by reputation. I had nothing to do with it, and Sans Marks is definitely not a pseudonym for anypony I know. Why would it be?”
Moondancer frowned deeply. Starlight gave her a plastic smile. “Lemon square?”
The frown melted away. “Sure. I’m probably about due for a snack break.”
“How long have you been in here?” Starlight asked.
Moondancer glanced around, as though gauging her surroundings. “Well, what time is it?”
“Ten past.”
Moondancer made a little ‘go on’ gesture with a hoof as she took a bite of the lemon square.
“Ten past one?”
The cream mare munched on the pastry. “And the date?”
Starlight flinched. “Maybe some questions are better left unanswered,” she mumbled.
***
Nocan shifted in his seat to try and get a little more comfortable on the hard wooden bleachers. It wasn’t as though he looked to be going anywhere. Sunburst had proven on his way over here that he could talk the ear off a marble statue on the subject of the weather alone. Once again, he cursed Fractal and his harebrained schemes. Did you ever see him taking any kind of role in his convoluted schemes? No you did not!
Well, it would certainly be an informative lecture, if nothing else. Little was known about the workings and properties of crystal constructs. Most of that information had been lost under the reign of Sombra. Even the most studious and dedicated geologists and rock farmers had barely scratched the surface of what legends claimed crystals were capable of. Some tales even claimed that souls could be preserved in them, entire lifetimes of memory and thought stored in a crystal small enough to wear around the neck. Imagine that. What exactly one would do with a stored soul, Nocan had no idea, though he did consider putting Fractal’s in a jar and giving it a few good shakes.
Oh, look. Sunburst was taking the stage. Good for him. Nocan forced himself to stop thinking about violence toward the most loathed professor on campus and start listening to the stallion speak.
“Uh, my fellow academics!” Sunburst began. Nocan shut his eyes tight, already praying for the end. Of the speech or of himself, either would be acceptable.
“The principles of crystal constructs have long been hidden from us. The reign of King Sombra left us with less than one percent of the estimated works on the subject.” Nocan sighed. This speech was going nowhere fast.
“But due to research carried out in the empire itself, an entirely new property has been uncovered.” Nocan’s eyes snapped open. Hello, he thought, what’s this?
“Scholars of crystal enchantment have known for centuries that crystal structures can be imbued with magical properties-- usually those based in strong emotions-- and used for ambient, nondirectional magic, in a manner not dissimilar to summoned spirits,” Sunburst continued. “For the first time, however, leading thaumaturgists have managed to successfully summon and bind a spirit inside a crystal.”
From his cape, the stallion pulled a dark green stone encased in a glass box. “In this crystal, a spirit of relaxation resides,” he said, setting the box on the podium before stepping away quickly. “The strength of the crystal’s affective properties increases several times over when--”
“Prove it!”
Sunburst stammered to a halt. “Sorry?”
A griffon rose, stocky in build with clipped grey feathers on his head. “I said,” he said, “prove it. It’s all very well to spout on about how your researchers have done six impossible things before breakfast, but I, for one, would like some evidence.”
“I’ll get to the math in a minute,” Sunburst said weakly.
“Math?” the griffon snorted. “Pah! Why don’t you take that rock out of its case, sonny, and put it to the real test?”
“I’m sorry, but that could prove a real hazard--”
The griffon, whom Nocan now recognized as Professor Graphite of the geology department, snorted expansively. “Typical.”
Sunburst set his jaw. “Well, alright then,” he said. “You’ll have your proof, then.”
In the instant before Sunburst opened the glass case, Nocan wondered about the effects of carrying around such a powerful relaxing artifact all day, particularly on a stallion who seemed to live life constantly on edge.
Then the case was open, and he just felt so warm and fuzzy.
“You are, of course, more than welcome to observe the effects of this crystal on myself and the audience,” Sunburst said. “If I may continue, this represents a great step forward in the application of traditionally nondirectional magics, such as those exhibited by earth ponies, donkeys, kangaroos, and other species who lack a biological function to naturally channel magic. It may also prove advantageous in the studies of crystals and spirits. A crystal could be made to channel non-emotional magics. Like time! Time is kind of an emotion, isn’t it? Like, you feel it, you experience it, but you don’t know how, right? And you can’t control it like thought. Maybe time is just our own perceptions.”
Murmurs of agreement from the audience. Encouraged, Sunburst continued. “Maybe, maybe we can travel in time just by thinking hard enough, right? You can change your mood by thinking about different stuff, so why not time?”
This sounded entirely reasonable to the audience, or at least the portion not busy staring at their hooves, taking off their spectacles and laughing, or making out with whoever they were sitting next to. “Let’s try it!” Sunburst said. “We’ll all think about time, really hard. And then, then, we can travel back in time and tell Starlight… tell Starlight…” He trailed off. “Dudes, look at that wall. Has that always been there?”
And thus, an entire lecture hall got stoned on spirits.
***
“Anyway,” Lyra said. “It’s getting kinda late. I had a few plans for dinner, if anypony’s hungry?”
Twinkleshine shrugged and smiled. “I could eat.”
“I could do with a drink,” Minuette sighed.
“Okay!” Lyra grinned. “I think our best bet is probably the Oscillating Quark.”
Moondancer started. “Are you joking?” she asked. “That’s a terrible idea!”
“What’s so bad about it?” Starlight asked. “Actually, what is it?”
“The Oscillating Quark?” Lemon replied. “It’s a great little bar on the south end of the campus.”
“The rough side of campus,” Moondancer grumbled. “There are students there.”
“Yeah, but they’re all smashed,” Lyra pointed out. “It’s like the one place where they’re actually tolerable. And there’s lots of professors there, too.”
Moondancer bit her lip. “I really don’t know, Starlight,” she said. “I mean, yes, you have been published, and you’re well-known enough to be allowed in, I just… don’t think this is quite your scene.”
Starlight scoffed. “Not my scene? Moondancer. Please. This is me we’re talking about, the actual student of the actual princess of friendship! I get along with people!”
Moondancer nodded, but still looked unconvinced.
***
Starlight stared at the facade of the club. “Is that…”
“An old ventilation duct converted into a bar? A bookshelf that has as much tequila on it as tomes? A Bad to the Gluon tattoo on the bouncer’s forehoof? Yes. Yes it is,” Moondancer nodded. “You know, it really isn’t too late to turn back.”
Starlight hesitated. Then, she grit her teeth and set her hooves. “Let’s go.”
The other unicorn sighed. “Fine. But there are some things you should know. Don’t look at Particle Accelerator Pete’s bad eye for too long. Order something alcoholic, but under no circumstances should you so much as sniff the house beer unless you really trust the biochem grad students. Never play pool against Professor Plutonium Rich, he looks all cool with his bongo drums and fun lectures on quantum mechanics, but he’ll eat you up and spit you out. And if you don’t want a brawl on your hooves, don’t even think about mentioning—” she glanced both ways before leaning in. “The DISMAL one,” she hissed.
“Why, what’s wrong with ec—” Starlight began. Moondancer shoved a hoof in the pink mare’s mouth.
“Don’t,” she said, glaring intently through her glasses. “Especially not if the Cossaccountants are in tonight.”
Not for the first time, Starlight wondered what she was getting into. The group of mares trotted up to the door before the bouncer, a muscular grey earth pony in a bowtie and sweater vest, held up a hoof. “Hold it,” he growled. He pointed to Lyra. “APA format of your last published work.”
She took a step forward. “Heartstrings, L. (5 B.A.T.) Baltimare Journal of Cryptozoology. Baltimare: Baltimare University Press.”
There was a moment’s silence as the bouncer checked a clipboard. He grunted and waved her in. The other mares followed the same procedure until it was Starlight’s turn. “E-er, Glimmer, S. (6 B.A.T.). Sociomancy Studies. Canterlot: Blue Mountain Press.”
It seemed to take him an age to find the relevant entry. “You’re clear,” he said at last.
Starlight nodded, still shaky, and trotted over to where her guides were waiting. “C’mon, girl!” Lyra said, bouncing on her hooves. “Let’s go get some food in us!”
Starlight’s experience with bars had been limited. The only one which she’d spent any amount of time in was Ponyville’s own tavern, the Stick and Carrot. Run by the able and unfazeable Berry Punch, the small town’s pub was cozy, featuring beautiful landscapes painted locally, clean and antique oak tables, and an atmosphere of quiet good cheer.
The Oscillating Quark seemed to be about as far away from that as it could be. It was an assault to the senses. If it wasn’t flickering neon, it was loudly cheering, or it stank of smoke, or it was stickier than it had any right to be. Most things were a combination of the above.
“Great, isn’t it?” Twinkleshine shouted.
Starlight jumped. That had been right in her ear! “I-- uh, I guess so!” she shouted back.
Looking around, her new friends seemed to have slipped right into the swing of things. The only one who seemed to be as miserable to be here as Starlight felt was Moondancer. She was standing stiffly at the bar, face as expressionless as a plank of wood. But as she watched, Twinkleshine took Moondancer’s hoof and pulled her in for a peck on the cheek. The bespectacled mare practically melted. She followed Twinkleshine to a booth, a doofy smile on her face.
Starlight followed them, and soon all six mares had gravitated to a single booth. At the booth behind them, she heard two stallions arguing about the best way to win at poker using mathematics. When Lyra asked what she wanted to drink, Starlight merely shook her head and indicated that she wasn’t thirsty. Her head was pounding. How could these mares actually be enjoying this? It was louder and more obnoxious than Trixie at her worst. She took the fried mozzarella sticks grudgingly, and swizzled them around the provided marinara sauce. It was stringy. Oh, well. At least dinner couldn’t get any worse.
Then she looked up, and saw him on the other side of the bar. They locked eyes for a moment. Sunburst opened his mouth to call out, but Starlight was already out of her seat and running, running, running away. She shoved open the door to the toilets and dove in. She had to get away.
She made a beeline for the nearest open stall. She slammed the door shut behind her and slumped against it. She couldn’t do it. She just couldn’t do it. She didn’t know these ponies. She didn’t know this place. There was no structure, no set lesson plan. She was floundering in a void of friendship and other, harder-to-define relationships that might or might not even exist. She just couldn’t do it.
Starlight wasn’t sure when she started crying, but she decided that she might as well keep going.
Sunburst wasn’t sure if the lecture had gone over well. He wasn’t sure about a lot of things, actually. For example, he had no idea how he had left Dun Hall, or when. He remained foggy on where his crystal sample had gone. He was completely stumped about why he, his new friend, and everything else that had been in the auditorium smelled of cheap soda and potato chips, and why he was feeling so hungry. He gestured to a nearby restaurant with a wide, lazy gesture. “You wanna get some food?” he asked, voice slurred. Was he perhaps drunk? He felt like it, a little.
Nocan shook his head. His eyes were tinged with red. “Not there. I got somewhere better in mind.”
“Alright.”
They walked on for a little while longer. Sunburst didn’t know how long. Time was weird. He should research that, he thought. Hadn’t he had some kind of idea about time earlier on? He didn’t remember it very clearly. He gestured to a nearby restaurant with a wide, lazy gesture. “Hey. You wanna get some food?” he asked, voice slurred. Was he perhaps drunk? He felt like it, a little.
Nocan shook his head. His eyes were tinged with red. “Not there. I got somewhere better in mind.”
“Alright.”
Eventually, they reached a bar. Nocan talked with the bouncer a little, about journals and visiting professors who’d already had a little much. Eventually, they were both allowed in. Sunburst reeled as the neon assaulted his eyes, and all of his other senses were assaulted by various other things that were very much not common in the Crystal Empire, and which his brain didn’t seem able to process well right now.
He turned his head away from the most blinding of the lights, blinking away the afterimage as best he could. And then, looking across the bar, he locked eyes with a mare. She looked familiar. Was that Starlight?
He blinked, and she was gone. “Hey,” he said.
Nocan grunted. He was scanning the bar for the right seat. “Hey!” Sunburst said, louder. Half the bar turned to look at him. Apparently he’d been louder than he’d thought.
“What?” Nocan asked, glowering at him.
“I, I, did you see a pink mare with, uh, purple mane, purple with like a, a cyan stripe down the middle?”
“No,” Nocan snapped. He had, actually. He cursed his cutie mark almost reflexively.
“Oh. I thought she was my friend, my friend Starlight Glimmer,” Sunburst explained. “She’s really good at magic. Like, just the best at magic. But she lives in Ponytown. Ponyplace. Pony, Ponyville. So she can’t be here. Right?”
“No, if she lives in Ponyville, I can’t imagine she’d be here,” Nocan replied. “Look, there’s one of my… coworkers. Let’s go sit with him.”
“Mmmkay,” Sunburst agreed. He cast one last glance at where he thought he’d seen Starlight. There were a lot of confused-looking mares there, but no Starlight. That made him a little sad. Then he looked away and forgot all about it.
***
Dean Green Bean trotted up to the Oscillating Quark, head held high. Behind them, Dr. Ruiz, Professor Mean, and the Bursar formed an intimidating posse. Well, as intimidating as any posse could be when one of your members is wearing a hat made primarily of potatoes, another is munching a bag of chips, and the third is even now working on her upcoming lecture.
The Dean lit their horn and attempted to open the door. This was quickly met with a smack on the horn from the bouncer. Dean Bean stumbled back, dazed. They quickly recovered, though. “Do you know who I am?” they snarled.
The bouncer gave them a slow once-over. This was followed by a significant pause and a very pointed blink. “No,” said the bouncer. “That’s the point.”
“I am the Dean of Academic Honesty, and I demand to be let in to search these premises!”
“Uh-huh.”
“Do you not believe me?”
“I need some ID first. APA citation of your last published work.”
The Dean fumed. “This is an outrage. Let me in. I have backup, you know. See how you fare four on one!”
The bouncer looked at the three other faculty members. The Chair was daintily cleaning the grease from around his mouth with a hankie, Dr. Ruiz was searching for a red pen, and the Bursar was looking up at the sky, naming the stars as they came out. “I think I’ll take the risk.”
The Dean looked ready to argue further, but Dr. Ruiz cut them off. “Ruiz, J. (6 B.A.T.) Manehattan Cultural Journal. Manehattan: Inkstain Press.”
The bouncer gestured her in. “Now,” he said, subtly flexing and making his ‘Bad to the Gluon’ tattoo dance, “how about you tell me what you’ve been working on recently?”
The Dean gave in with poor grace, and Chair Mean listed the Bursar’s most recent work as well. The bouncer checked his clipboard and nodded, allowing them all into the bar.
***
Lemon Hearts tried to avoid looking at the empty seat. She couldn’t. It was the naked singularity of awkward situations. “So… does she do this often?” she asked Lyra.
Lyra appeared distinctly uncomfortable. “I dunno. We aren’t that close, really, but…” she trailed off.
“One of us should probably go and talk to her,” Lemon said.
Nopony moved. At length, Moondancer rose. “I’ll go,” she said reluctantly. “I don’t think she likes it here, and I can commiserate with her.”
Twinkleshine huffed. “You don’t actually want to go, do you?”
“No,” Moondancer admitted. “The bathrooms here are disgusting.”
“Alright, I’ll go,” said Twinkleshine, rising. “You stay and eat, you’re wasting away.”
“No I’m not!”
“Moonie, I love you, but if I let you, you would sit at a corner in the library until there was nothing left but a dust-covered skeleton.”
“A well-read dust-covered skeleton.”
Twinkleshine scowled. “Eat your stuffed peppers, or I’m hiding your copy of Principia.”
“Fine," Moondancer grumbled, picking one up and taking a bite.
Twinkleshine trotted over to the bathroom, grumbling to herself about stupid book-horse marefriends with their darned adorable faces. She slung the door open and let it fall back behind her.
Moondancer was right. The bathrooms were indeed disgusting. Twinkleshine was pretty sure she could already hear somepony retching into the toilet, and it wasn’t even eight in the evening. She knocked on the first occupied stall she could. “Starlight? You in there?”
“No.”
Twinkleshine hummed. “Really? You sure?”
“...What do you want?”
“Well,” Twinkleshine began. Then she paused. “Look, could you open the door? This just feels really weird, talking to you like this.”
A moment’s hesitation. Then, the door swung open.
Starlight was not looking her best. Her eyes were red and raw. So was her nose. Pieces of her mane were clutched in her trembling hooves. Twinkleshine commented on none of this. Instead she smiled kindly. “Now, why don’t you tell me what’s bothering you?”
“Don’t know what to do,” Starlight said quietly. “Don’t have an assignment anymore. I can’t-- can I even make friends without an assignment? And-- And I don’t know any of you, and I don’t know this city, or I barely do, and I’m just-- I’m just lost.”
“Ah.” Twinkleshine nodded. “You know what I think?”
Starlight shook her head. “I think you’re a little homesick,” Twinkleshine said, matter-of-fact. “I know how hard it can be. I went through it myself when I moved here from Vanhoover.”
Starlight looked up askance. “Mind you, I was about seven at the time,” Twinkleshine mused. “Still, it’s no crime to miss the friends you’ve left behind, especially if they were very close friends, y’know?”
“They were the first friends I made in years,” Starlight said sadly, kicking a hoof back and forth. “They helped me out of… well, let’s just say I was in a bad place and leave it at that.”
Twinkleshine nodded. “I get you,” she said. “It’s hard to make new friends without feeling like you’re replacing the old ones, sometimes. But you’re not. You’re getting more friends, not exchanging them.”
“I… I know that,” Starlight said. “But they knew who I was, and I knew who they were, and they helped me get back to a place where I was a functional member of society, pretty much. And now I don’t really have that kind of guide, y’know?”
Twinkleshine chewed her lower lip. “I’ll be honest, I’ve never gone through anything like that,” she admitted.
Starlight looked down, ashamed.
“But,” Twinkleshine continued, “that doesn’t mean I can’t help you. I want to be your friend, Starlight. You seem pretty interesting and smart, and I’d like to get to know you better. I think the others all feel the same way. We’ll all help you, if you can just tell us how.”
There was a poignant pause. “I… thank you,” said Starlight, looking Twinkleshine in the eyes. “You have no idea… do you think we could all go somewhere a little quieter and just, I dunno, talk for a little while?”
Twinkleshine smiled. “I don’t think anypony would object to that. C’mon, let’s go out and--” she was cut off by an uproar from the bar.
“What the heck?”
Both mares made for the door at top speed.
***
Sunburst didn’t quite like this new stallion. There was something about him that the researcher just couldn’t put his hoof on. He had a nasty smile, and a beard that had seen better days, and he had wicked ears. Sunburst wasn’t sure how ears could be wicked, or what qualities would mark them out, but he was quite certain that this Professor Path’s ears would be mentioned in whatever paper was first published on the subject, possibly with an annotated illustration for guidance.
On the other hoof, Path was paying for his supper, so Sunburst wasn’t going to complain. “I was offered a post up in the Crystal Empire myself, you know,” the stallion was saying. “The princess said that it was a sin that my work was so underappreciated in Canterlot. I would have gone, but I could never stand the cold.”
“‘S pretty warm inside the city, actually,” Sunburst said, picking up another forkful of asparagus. “Not exactly a day in June, but it’s pretty okay most of the time.”
“Ah.” Path looked rather put out at that. “Have you ever met Princess Cadence?” he asked, leaning forward, eyes gleaming with interest.
Sunburst leaned back slightly. “Sure,” he said. “I’m sort of the royal babysitter, and she and Shining Armor are pretty much the only other experienced Ogres and Oubliettes players in, like, the whole empire. So we’re, we’re pretty close. They’ve both kissed me.” He paused. Leaned forward. “D’you play Ogres and Oubliettes?”
Path shifted back in his chair. “I regret,” he said frostily, “that my schedule is too tight for such pleasures.”
“Oh. Too bad,” Sunburst sighed, returning to his meal. “How about you, Nocan?”
“Never tried,” Nocan replied, munching on his own turnip casserole. “Never had anypony interested in playing with me.”
“Too bad,” Sunburst said again, shaking his head. “If you’re ever in the Empire, I’d be glad to set up a party with you.”
Fractal, sensing his opportunity, launched into another vain and almost totally fabricated story about his academic prowess. Nocan tuned him out instinctively, instead brooding on the fact that he’d built another wall to keep out a new potential friend. Curse his cutie mark. Curse his mouth. Curse his talent for shutting down anypony and anypony who might ever like him.
He barely noticed Fractal suddenly cut himself off. “Excuse me, I believe I just saw an old colleague walk by. I need you to watch my briefcase while I talk to him.”
Sunburst nodded, and Fractal left. Nocan continued to sulk. Wait a moment. Wait a moment! Was he actually--
Yes. There was Dean Bean, casting suspicious glares around the room. The investigators had arrived, and Nocan had been left with the bag of swag. Or rather, the briefcase full of probably incriminating papers.
He looked to Sunburst, still sitting there, eating his asparagus. He had a choice to make. Could he leave, take Sunburst with him, and leave the case there? Could he stay and take the fall as well? Could his reputation take that hit?
He rose, physically. He sunk, morally. He muttered something about going to the bathroom and left, teleporting away once he’d rounded a corner. He reappeared in the dank, smelly alleyway behind the bar. Fitting, he thought. Maybe I’ll just stand here for a little while. Or for the rest of my life. Either or.
***
The Dean scanned the restaurant, eyes peeled for any signs of shady dealing. They didn’t see any. They saw quite a lot of other goings-on. Quite a lot indeed. But of black-market academics, there was no sign.
Dr. Ruiz gave them a sharp nudge to the ribs. “Over there,” she hissed.
“Dr. Ruiz, kindly refrain from acts of physical--”
“The stallion in the cloak.”
The Dean frowned. “Which one?” they muttered.
“Orange, with spectacles and a ginger goatee.”
The Dean looked at her askance. “A cloak with spectacles and a goatee?”
Dr. Ruiz fixed them with a hard look. “An orange stallion,” she stressed, “who happens to have spectacles, a goatee, and a blue cloak. One who also happens to be sitting alone at a table for four?”
“He’s not,” the Dean said. “Look, there are two other plates there.”
Dr. Ruiz nodded. “Yes, but he’s got a briefcase as well, with papers sticking out. And I’ve never seen him on campus before.”
The Dean nodded. “Alright, keep an eye on him. I’ll check with Two-Chairs and the Bursar.”
“You really shouldn’t call him that.”
“What, ‘Bursar’? He hates being called ‘Froggy’, and it feels ridiculous to call him ‘Dr. Pills’ when he isn’t medically trained.”
“I meant--”
“We can work it out later. We’ve got a cheater to catch!”
Silently, Dr. Ruiz made a note to have Chase from HR talk to the Dean about appropriate nicknames.
***
“Well, gentlemen?” the Dean muttered, slipping into the booth shared by Arithmetic Mean and the Bursar. “See anypony?”
“Chap from Stalliongrad,” Mean replied. “Could be connected, given what we know of ‘Lobachevsky’. And the Bursar saw a mare-- what did you say about her, Bursar?”
The Bursar blinked once. He blinked again. And again and again until his eyes were strobing, open and shut, open and shut.
The Mare from Neighples has arrived here in town,
And all hope of salvation, tonight she will drown.
Her eyes are like gimlets, her dimples, how scary!
A single wrong move and it’s you she will bury.
For one thousand years, she was locked in her tomb,
But tonight she roams free, and it spells out our doom.
The Dean looked unimpressed. “Yes, but is she involved in plagiarism?”
The Bursar stopped blinking and shook his head ‘no’.
“Well, then, we can let the boffins in the Ancient Evils Department sort that one out,” they said dismissively. “Anything else?”
“Couple chaps in suits meeting somepony in that booth yonder,” the Chair said, gesturing with a fork. “Seems a bit suspish, to my mind.”
“Right. On my mark, we grab them all, and that orange stallion in blue, with the case. Ready?”
Both of them nodded. A glance at Dr. Ruiz confirmed that she too was ready and waiting. The Chair stood up. “Your attention please? I would like to move for a raid!”
“Seconded!” Dr. Ruiz shouted.
“All in favor?”
“Aye!”
“Aye!”
“Aye!”
“Aye-aye, cap'n!”
“Chair Mean?”
“Dean?”
“Never say that again.”
“Yes, Dean.”
“And take off that ridiculous sailor’s hat, it doesn’t suit you at all.”
The Chair removed his hat, rather sullenly, and shoved it into his jacket pocket. “Better. Now, GET ‘EM!”
Starlight stared, mouth agape, at the commotion. Her new friends all squished into the back of their shared booth, terrified, but they seemed to have been left more or less alone. Around the restaurant, though, protesting diners were hauled out into the streets. A pair of unicorns in suits there, a burly earth pony there, and there--
“Sunburst?” Starlight gasped.
Sunburst’s ear flicked, and he glanced around. The pony carrying him, a tall unicorn in a hoodie, gave him a shake. “That’s enough of that,” they admonished.
And then they were both out the door. “Two-Chairs, watch this door,” the same pony ordered. “I want to know if anypony leaves these premises.”
“Right,” a hefty green pegasus grumbled, settling himself in front of the door. “You’ll want me to keep a roomful of unicorns from teleporting away, somehow?.”
“Took the words right from my mouth,” the first pony said, lighting their horn. The building lit up with a ghostly green glow. “That should keep everypony in there secure for questioning.”
The pegasus nodded. “Right.” He watched the unicorn, the donkey, and the earth pony trot along, herding the patrons from the bar off into the night. Then, he turned back to the dead-silent bar, a scowl writ deep on his features.
The silence lasted for a few minutes. Then Starlight said, “What the HAY was that?” and the bar broke into general pandaemonium.
She and Twinkleshine shoved their way back to the others, who were huddled up in the booth, terrified. Moondancer pulled Twinkleshine close and hugged her tight, silent. “What just happened?” Lemon said, her voice high with fear and confusion.
Starlight took a few deep breaths. “I don’t know,” she said with forced calm. “But I saw my friend-- my oldest friend-- being dragged away.”
She stopped for a moment, lips tightening, horn igniting. “So I, for one, am going to find out.” She glared across the bar. “And I think I know just who to ask first.”
She stepped back out of the booth, silencing the bar. That she did this not by the sheer force of her presence and rather by sweeping half the patrons present out of her path ought to be irrelevant. The pegasus at the door stood up, glaring at her warningly. She stormed over. “Alright, that’s enough. What the actual rut is going on here?”
“Sit down,” he grumbled, spreading his wings menacingly.
Starlight gave what might have been a smile, for a very generous definition of the word. There were certainly teeth involved. “Attack me,” she said quietly, “and I promise you the entire bar will go nuts. How long do you think you can hold off all these ponies if they really want to leave?”
The Chair of Lower Mathematics glanced around the tavern, did some quick sums, and calculated the average time in seconds. He didn’t much like the sound of the answer, so he converted that to minutes. He chewed his tongue. “Alright, fine,” he growled, leaning in. “There’s been some sort of plot-- a scheme, that is to say. Some sort of plagiarism ring, trading underground articles before they’re published, and we were tipped off that they would be meeting here. Those ponies we hauled away were the most likely suspects present.”
Starlight’s lips pursed into a straight line. “I see,” she said. “And the rest of us? What are we, more suspects? Hostages, maybe?”
“Persons of interest, at the least,” the Chair replied. “Now would you please be a good suspect and go sit down?”
“Fine.” Starlight stormed away back to her booth.
The others looked at her expectantly, and she relayed what she’d been told. Lyra scowled thoughtfully. “I’d heard rumors about underground plagiarism. I’ve even been under suspicion once or twice myself, ‘cause of all the time I spend off-campus. But this… this is a whole new level.”
Lemon smacked the table. “I thought I recognized th one in the hoodie! They’re the Dean of Academic Honesty! They’re on the Ethics Committee!”
Moondancer eyed Starlight. “And your childhood friend is their prime suspect?”
“One of them, apparently,” Starlight agreed, having calmed herself to a low simmer. “Which is ridiculous. He’s the Royal Crystaller! He saved the Crystal Empire, and he’s Flurry Heart’s foalsitter.”
“None of which means he’s not also a plagiarist,” Minuette said.
She flinched under the force of Starlight’s glare. “But, uh, I guess you know him better than I do,” she backpedaled.
Starlight’s face softened. “Sorry! Sorry. I mean, you might be right. I don’t know everything about Sunburst. But I know this. He’s a good stallion. He’d never use anypony so callously as to steal their work.” She leaned in. “Also, he can’t lie to save his skin. Trust me, I’ve played cards with him, and he’s just the worst. Like, Trixie is really good at misdirection. Also probably she cheats, but I’ve never caught her at it. And Maud just has the world’s best poker face. So I’m basically the second-worst player at the table, right? But I tell you, compared to Sunburst, I’m a Las Pegasus card sharp. He stammers, and he twitches, and his eyes are just everywhere. Trust me, if he’d ever plagiarized anything, they would’ve caught him the next day. That’s assuming he didn’t turn himself in first.”
“Okay,” said Lyra. “So what’s our next move?”
“I-- wait, what?”
“Well, you want to get him out of this mess, right?”
“Well, uh, well, yeah.”
“And you can’t really do it by yourself, can you?”
“I don’t see why--”
“Could you do it without being caught or setting at least one building on fire?”
Silence. “I might,” Starlight rallied.
Lyra gave her a long, steady look. “I might have to resort to mind manipulation.” Starlight admitted.
“You don’t even know where they’ve taken him,” Lyra said.
“I…” she stopped. “You’re all willing to help me?”
A few glances were exchanged, but one by one, they all nodded.
“Oh,” said Starlight. “Thank you.”
“But like I was saying, what’s step one?” Lyra asked.
“Uh, getting out of this bar, I guess,” Starlight said. “I think that pony-- the Dean, you said? They put an anti-teleportation ward on the building, so we need to find an unguarded exit.”
“Or make an unguarded exit!” Minuette said brightly. “Make a study of combustion, if ya know what I mean.”
“I think that blowing a hole in the bar might draw more attention than we want,” Moondancer pointed out. “But you’re right. We do need another exit.” She looked at Twinkleshine expectantly.
“What?” Twinkleshine asked, frowning.
Minuette dipped her head, looking at her over her glasses. “Another exit, Twinkly?”
Twinkleshine’s eyes went wide. “Oh! Oh, yeah. That could work. That… should work. Everypony, grab onto the table and don’t let go until I say so.”
Starlight glanced around and saw the others doing as they were told. So, therefore, did she. Twinkleshine lit her horn. For a moment, Starlight couldn’t tell what she was doing. And then she saw that the booth, the floor, the walls, the whole bar was just fading away. A little piece of the ceiling plopped on her head and trickled down her muzzle.
“Okay,” Twinkleshine said. “You can let go, now.”
Starlight relaxed her grip and looked around. The world was an endless void, shot through with beams of light in every color. Beneath them, a great purple grid stretched out in all directions, utterly flat. Despite that, Starlight could see vast mountains of the same material off on the horizon. Of course, she thought. Twinkleshine is the Lecturer in Higher Dimensions. “What now?”
“We walk,” Twinkleshine said. “Out of the bar, into the streets, out of sight of our ‘guard’, and then settle back into our normal set of dimensions.”
“Oh, all right,” Starlight said. “The street was that way, right?”
“In our normal set of dimensions, yes,” Twinkleshine replied briskly. “Here, on the other hoof, not necessarily. I took us to one of the more easily understandable sets, where up is down and left is right and so on.”
“That’s easily understandable?”
“Compared to the ones where you’re drawn intractably through space instead of time, or where orange and purple are directions, yes. Yes it is.”
“Oh.”
“I say we go that way anyway,” Lemon said. “We’ll end up in the back alley behind the bar. Nopony will be there to see us suddenly appear.”
“Alright, sounds good. Onwards,” Twinkleshine said, slipping out of her seat.
The ground was… something. Starlight didn’t quite have the words to describe it. ‘Spongy’ was almost there, but it didn’t quite define the ethereal, almost gaseous sensation of the ‘earth’ beneath her hooves, or the strange but not uncomfortable warmth emanating up from below..
The air was off as well. There was a faint smell in in. Not an unpleasant one, actually. It smelled like the seaside, but sugary where it should have been salty. Indeed, she could almost hear the crash of waves against rocks. The mountains never seemed to get any larger or farther away, no matter how long they walked. “Hey, Twinkleshine?”
“Hm?”
“How long have we been walking?”
“Half an hour, maybe?”
“Right. An how far have we gone?”
“In practical terms, about twelve meters. We’re nearly there!”
“How did it take us half an hour to walk twelve meters?”
“Time and space don’t line up nicely between dimensions,” Twinkleshine said simply. “When we come out, only about three seconds will have passed.” She frowned. “Seconds… or months. Always get those two mixed up.”
“WHAT?”
“She’s kidding,” Moondancer said. “Speaking as somepony who’s had to get extremely used to her sense of… let’s call it humor, trust me. She’s kidding.”
“You’re too kind,” Twinkleshine replied, smirking. “C’mon, we’re over halfway there.”
A collective groan rose from the group as they slogged onward.
***
About twenty minutes later, Twinkleshine lit her horn again. “You might want to sit down,’ she warned. “Reentry can make a lot of ponies feel nauseous.”
Starlight watched as the pale lights and vibrant lines faded into the shadows of a dark alley, felt the soft ground harden into cobblestones. More urgently, she felt her tummy starting to get a little wobbly, and she half-sat, half-fell backwards to the street. And then, it all stopped.
Starlight looked up. They were clearly not back in the usual universe yet. She could still see the lights and void, and if she squinted, even the mountains. “What’s wrong?” she asked. “We’re not stuck, are--”
“Sh!” Lemon hissed. She pointed down one end of the alley. “There’s somepony back here with us,” she whispered.
“What?” Starlight yelped. She covered her mouth. “What?” she hissed. “Who would be back here at this time of night?”
“Probably just a drunk,” Lyra said.
Moondancer craned her neck to get a better look. “I don’t think so. He’s just standing there. Sighing. And he’s not even wobbling, so he can’t be as drunk as all that, certainly not enough to miss the six of us trotting past…”
Starlight followed Moondancer’s gaze, and her eyes went wide. “Hold on. I’ve seen that guy before!”
Nocan wallowed in pessimism’s mire for awhile. He felt like a wad of chewing gum that had stuck itself to somepony’s hoof, the lowest of the low. He glared balefully at his cutie mark, a red circle with a line through the middle. He had gotten it in debate club, where he had been famous for refuting the arguments of his opponents. He could never prove it, but he felt sure that a bitter rival had cursed his mark so that it consumed his every waking moment, turning his life into a waking nightmare of refusals and regrets.
As it turned out, Moondancer was wrong. He was so absorbed in his self-pity that he completely ignored the sudden appearance of six mares in the alley behind him, failed to register the clatter of the trash bins, and tuned out the muted conversation of the slightly-higher-dimensional-than-usual beings behind him right up until somepony shouted, “Lyra, attack!” and he was tackled unceremoniously to the ground by a mint-green unicorn.
When his vision stopped swimming, he found himself surrounded by a crowd of angry unicorn mares. “If you’re going to kill me, please make it fast,” he said, shutting his eyes.
“We aren’t going to kill you,” one of them said, shocked.
“Are you sure you want to tell him that now?” the tall, yellow one asked. “He might be more willing to cooperate if he thinks he’ll die otherwise. Current studies--”
“Celestia’s tits, Lemon! Not now!” the green one-- Lyra?-- said, stomping the ground.
“So… you’ll listen to me talk about psychology later?” Lemon replied, grinning widely.
Lyra looked like she was going to explode, but a short, bespectacled mare stepped between them. “Girls. Not now,” she said sternly.
The pink one stared at Lemon and Lyra for a few seconds more, deeply concerned, but she then turned her attention back to Nocan. “...No, we’re not here to kill you,” she said firmly. “We want information. You were with Sunburst when he arrived at the bar, weren’t you?”
“No.”
That obviously wrong-hoofed her. “Yes you were, I saw you! You were even wearing that same cloak!”
“No, I wasn’t.”
“...So you admit you were in the bar with Sunburst, but wearing a different cloak?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Hold it,” said the white mare. “I recognize this guy. He’s Professor Nocan Neighsay, but most ponies around here know him as Nocan the Contrarian. You won’t get anything out of him, his cutie mark won’t let him do anything but disagree with everything.”
“...Won’t it?” the pink mare asked. She eyed him thoughtfully. “How do you feel about that?”
“Awful. I hate it. Nopony gets along with me, and the closest thing I have to a friend is a raging egomaniac who uses me to inflate his already grossly exaggerated self-worth.”
Starlight nodded. “So, how do you respond to open-ended questions?”
“I can answer them normally.”
“So if I were to ask you what you knew about Sunburst…”
Nocan’s heart leapt. He had, at long last, a chance for redemption. A chance to fix what he had done wrong. A chance--
“Nocan?”
Right. First he had to actually talk. “Then I could tell you everything. And I will.”