While her new life in Ponyville has bought Twilight Sparkle some measure of peace, a mysterious letter will send the Diamond Dog hurtling back to Canterlot and a whole host of problems, both from the distant past and murky future.
"It's not about why we create, but what our creations do that matters." - Unknown
Twilight Sparkle is many things, an inventor, a polymath, a noble, and a Diamond Dog. While her new life in Ponyville hasn't always been the easiest, with her friends and fellow Element Bearers she has found some measure of peace.
Peace that is about to be broken.
Canterlot calls, and with it comes a whole host of problems, both from the distant past and murky future.
It wasn't for their aesthetic appeal. She could appreciate a well-formed chassis like any creature, but it was merely that: appreciation. Nor was it their (lack of) scintillating conversation. The steady click-clack of steel on steel was soothing, even enough to cause the lavender bicce some drowsiness on her current journey, but it wasn't love. No, it was what the things represented.
Coal burning, water churning, wheels turning. A marvel of mechanical engineering, the fusion of metallurgy, mathematics, physics, thermodynamics... The list never ended. Yet the results were always the same. Ever present, ever constant.
Such were the fruits of science. Cold and logical, it held a certain appeal that Twilight gravitated towards. Magic had its attractions of course, but she found it emotive, reactive, and, above all else, judgemental.
The Griffons had a saying: “a dead pony is better than an angry pony”. It seemed more of a grisly comment on interspecies relations than an actual proverb. That is until one remembered Griffons were excellent record keepers, and had survived the brief, tyrannical reign of Nightmare Moon.
No, there was a purity to the scientific arts. A purity that she intended to save.
As she loped from her private carriage with suitcase in hand, the eighteen-year-old Diamond Dog paused on the wooden platform's edge. It had been only eight months since that fateful departure to oversee the Summer Sun Celebration in Ponyville and her ensuing relocation to the sleepy town, yet those eight months practically felt like a lifetime away. Something unaccountably 'fresh' abounded within Canterlot. If familiarity bred contempt then distance had most definitely made her heart grow fonder, and she drank it all in with abandon while making a beeline to the platform's exit.
But even through her rose-tinted glasses, Twilight noted a problem.
The Canterlot train station was impressive, no doubt stood in Twilight's mind over that. By every conceivable metric, it eclipsed Ponyville's rustic counterpart. Designed by renowned architect Rose Stem, built with the latest top-of-the-line materials, and equipped with a safety record that her new home could do well to emulate. Yet Ponyville had one distinct advantage.
It was small.
Twilight rapidly gained a new degree of appreciation for this fact as the massive throng of equines buzzing hither and thither dimmed suddenly. While not silent per-say, the crowd's ever-present roar of noise had died to little more than a concerned murmur, and she knew that all eyes, even those she couldn't see, were on her.
Ponies were naturally skittish creatures, unnerved by all things new and unfamiliar. Travel didn't help the matter: stepping into a swarm of foreign faces in the big city could be daunting even at the best of times. Having a rarely seen predator species, double your height, looming nearby? As sad as it was, she appreciated the lack of screaming.
It all fit neatly in her head. Logical. Understandable. A sterile puzzle of psychology fully assembled. Yet the real world was messy, and right now an oil slick of emotions washed over her. Knowing why they felt the way they did didn't stop the pain, but she supposed it blunted it somewhat. Made the tears a future Twilight problem rather than a present Twilight problem.
It wasn't the dress though! She'd been adamant to Rarity about that. It was plainly obvious to any right-minded creature that her dress was made of pig leather no-
"E-Excuse me?"
She followed the voice, her head dropping at a glacial rate. There were a few different possibilities available, but statistically speaking she knew the answer before their eyes even met. It was always the same, her personal scientific method having been perfected years ago.
A colt. A pegasus to be exact, forest green with threadbare saddlebags and the look of a creature seconds away from vomiting.
Ignoring the dry ovation running through her mind, Twilight observed her latest example of colthood bravery, distinctly aware of a growing tension brewing in the now silent crowd. Everyone had been told the stories, Equestria practically grew up on them. She could almost read their minds right now. 'Will the thing do it?' 'Will anyone stop the monster?' They never asked themselves why their children were intentionally walking towards a thing, a creaturethey’d spent years telling them was dangerous. No, that'd require self-reflection and-
She sighed. Life had been easier when she was a puppy. No one expected the worst from a tiny bundle of fluff.
Slowly, mouth closed ("Showing teeth is a sign of aggression" - Bellicose Body Behaviour by Simple Minds) she knelt, her knees bending with an oh-so-subtle crack that told the bicce Applejack was right, at least when it came to getting fresh air more often.
"Hey there," Twilight said, now half her height yet still towering over the youth. "Can I help you with anything little guy?"
Despite using the 'reserved' voice her mother had spent months teaching, a light tone that conveyed as much warmth as she could eke out, it was still impossible to stop the young pegasi shaking like a leaf. Then again her dulcet tones had been decried as "Detrot garage band at best" by her her singing teacher in the distant past.
"A-Are y-y-you L-lady Sp-Sp-Sp-" the tiny colt stuttered, falling over each word.
She nodded slowly, having learnt through experience that sudden movements could make those who were jumpy become... unsettled. "Yes, I am Lady Sparkle. How can I help you?"
Twilight would later realise how soft eight months in Ponyville had made her. She wasn't a cynical creature by nature, but her life hadn't exactly been one of simplicity when dealing with anyone outside the royal family. Her existence wasn't a shameful secret though, Celestia's love was as obvious as the sun in her sky.. Yet Equestrian society had interesting ways of ensuring her identity was obscured or altered. She was the "Renaissance Mare" after all, not the "Renaissance Bicce".
She didn't register the unusual nature of this meeting until it was all too late. Her heart freezing as the foal drew forth a stylised copper sun amulet from his saddlebags, its dull metal barely reflecting the days light.
"No, no, no, no! Not one of them, not now!"
The crowd watched in a mixture of confusion and apprehension as their assumed victim attempted a formal bow. It was sloppy and lacking grace, not unexpected in a colt, but still odd to see. Despite his earlier anxiety, a significant sense of calm seemed to wash over him as he intently store a hole within each floorboard, proffering the amulet before Twilight with utmost reverence, eyes averted.
"I beg thee, bless this icon in the name of your mother, the life bringer-"
It was nigh instantaneous, the potential mob recoiling in a mixture of disgust and irritation. Whatever macabre interest the crowd had taken in the youth's fate had departed, this wasn't a horror story now. It was something worse, a sermon.
"Damn Celestites are everywhere these days," a voice emerged from the grumbling horde, ponies bleeding away in dribs and drabs now that their free show had ended.
"-she who ends the night, star queen, lady of light, slayer of the night devil-"
"Hey, that's my aunt!" Twilight snapped.
The Pegasus paused and mumbled something that sounded awfully close to "Orthodox miss" before continuing in his praises to her mother.
Later, in private, she'd admonish herself. Not registering the unusual circumstances that a foal, even one in her city, that one place where she was at least somewhat recognisable, could pin down her identity at a glance? That was nothing but amateur hour for someone sheltered from the public eye as herself. For now though Twilight let her eyes glaze over, the colt's prayer both tediously long and gratingly familiar.
Each friendship lesson may have seemed inconsequential, yet cumulatively they were definitely having an effect. Previously she'd have been...annoyed? Yes, annoyed. Definitely annoyed with the rigmarole. Now she was still annoyed, but had learnt that it wasn't good to express it. Patience and acceptance of others' differences were necessary. Even if they were ridiculous claptrap.
"-and in her name, let light shine on us all!" the colt squeaked, a mixture of fear and enthusiasm doing its best to imitate zeal she suspected he encountered daily.
"Let light shine on us all," replied Twilight, her voice deadpan. She tapped the bronze sun icon he held in shaking hooves with a claw, her spark of added magenta energy bringing a flourish to the routine that the little one would no doubt crow over for days.
She may have *looked* like a monster, but she didn't have to act like one.
In theory, Twilight was supposed to take an air chariot immediately after departing the train.
It wasn't a direct instruction, more ancient protocol developed on the hoof for any theoretical royal child. It had taken some time to discover, the original writing being in old Ponish and mentioning a pigs' bladder for as-of-yet unknown reasons. Yet the Captain of the Guard -“Solar Captain” she reminded herself, Aunt Luna's personal soldiery may have been hypothetical at that moment, but it still existed on paper- was even more of a stickler to the rules than herself.
With great difficulty, followed by mental gymnastics that would make Rainbow Dash proud, she'd reasoned walking to be an acceptable alternative. She certainly had the stamina to make it to her destination. It was just an hour away with her longer-than-average strides, which blew the wind out of “Ye shall be presentable and well rested”. While “Vagabonds and the ill-mannered” were still as much a concern one thousand years later, any creature foolish enough to try and rob her would quickly gain a masterclass on how hard Canterlot's exceedingly expensive marble-paved roads could be. It was one hundred and fifty on the Nickers hardness value. She'd tested it herself.
Either way, she’d been walking. In the city. Surrounded by ponies. Ponies who weren't always familiar with the capital or its residents. When the inevitable occurred, it wasn't particularly upsetting, just… wearisome.
“This is all rather unnecessary, you know?” she grumbled, marching in perfect lockstep with the quartet of spear-armed Solar Guards forming a square about her person.
The one to her front left, a rather dour looking specimen by all accounts, glanced in Twilight's direction with that signature stolid look all members of the guard, whether royal or otherwise, were infamous for. He and his compatriots had arrived roughly halfway through her journey and adamantly refused to leave ‘for her own protection’. Never mind that she was tall enough to see over their spears and could bend the darn things into a pretzel if so desired. ‘Protection’ was a two-way street though, for her and from her. This game had become increasingly familiar.
“Just doing our duty, your highness,” he said, rote and parade ground perfect. All except for one thing.
Ignoring Rarity’s imagined chagrin and borrowing far too much from a certain rainbow-maned friend's mischievousness, the bicce calmly reached across to tug lightly at her speaker's spear tip. Just a light touch, enough to avoid cutting her paw in the process. The effect wasn’t instant, but it certainly got his attention.
“You’re new to the Solar Guard, aren’t you?” she queried as they began the long trek up what locals colloquially dubbed ‘Royal Road’ to Canterlot Castle itself.
He seemed ready to say something, but caught himself just as his mouth opened. Instead the snow white pegasus , identical to his squadmates, opted for a noncommittal grunt and that gratingly familiar silence his comrades had been merrily engaging in.
“Ah yes, definitely new,” a genuine smile spread across her face. It was quite uncommon until recently, something not coached from an etiquette book or born out of nerves. “I can tell, you see, you did a good job, but there was one mistake.”
Continuing the uphill climb, she began humming a tune that had been lazily residing in her memory, one of Applejack's perhaps? The rhythm certainly had a ‘country’ air to it, that feel of home, hearth and family. All things that certainly meant a lot to the bicce. After a lifetime around them, even the royal guards had begun to blur the line between ‘associates’ and ‘family’. This was why it felt a tad mean in her mind to let this new guard stew, but she had a good idea how they ticked, and especially what worked when dealing with them.
Of course, boiling this frog, so to speak, also meant battling with her own innate need to lecture as they continued on the uphill climb. Being an 'egghead' had its own struggles sometimes.
Passing by the distant form of Her Royal Highnesses Most Favoured Gardener, one Hayseed Greenhooves, whom she waved to cordially despite him being quite absorbed in his hedge trimming, Twilight felt the barest tap on her leg. It was distinctly metallic, and most definitely coming from her left. The toothy smile returned once more.
“Hook, line, and sinker.”
Easing her tune down, she 'naturally' began to make chit-chat. It was with a slow, easy-going conversational tone she’d learnt at the universities debate clubs, neither confrontational nor with the eagerness she usually applied when it came to relaying new information.
“Did you know I had a celestite approach me today? Quite young, barely a colt even. He wanted me to bless a soul star. I was surprised actually, he called me Lady Sparkle. Most of the young ones who… well, who know who I am just assume I’m a Princess because of my mother." She chuckled, "Our ruling class is rather odd, is it not? No Queens, two Princesses, one Prince distantly related and the monarch's only child is an Earl. No wonder the Griffons hate dealing with us.”
The following silence should have been awkward, the kind that makes a pony’s anxiety start eating itself alive. Something that the more 'free thinking' guards could use when it was time to shake down those less compliant with their Diarchies rule even. Yet for Twilight it was a grand ovation, smugness skyrocketing with the barely perceptible "Thank you" hidden amongst her 'chatty' guards' unexpected coughing fit as they made their way across the outer gatehouse's lowered drawbridge and into the castle proper. Each step opening a world of nostalgia the bicce barely realised she had.
Small was not a word often used when it came to palaces or ancient architecture. Size often reflected wealth, with Gregar the Great nearly bankrupting all his accumulated imperial conquests thanks to an obscenely ostentatious nest, for example. Yet it was something that Twilight often found herself thinking when it came to the courtyard.
It certainly wasn't a practical place, the land was ill suited to all but pleasurable activities, and its size eliminated any possibility of military use. Not to mention any force required to adequately fight off whatever lunatic was willing to attack her mother would total more than four times the cubic volume of the entire greenery.
No, the flower laden courtyard in a way reflected Equestria. Gay, spirited, and seemingly defenceless; yet its true owners didn't need to threaten or cajole. Their mere presence was enough to evoke the respect, and appropriate wariness, required from rivals. The whole castle emanated that same energy, like ‘fine china owned by a pair of grizzly bears', as a particularly republican-minded school friend of hers once said.
It may have been a tourist trap to some, a gaudy historical tax write off to others, even the holiest of buildings for those few who worshipped her mother as a deity. To Twilight though it had one, and only one, purpose.
Theatre, novels, and tawdry 'bit amusements' made out the life of nobility as one of uninterrupted leisure, royalty especially. Endless days of nothing but play, with rivers of wine and honeyed feasts available at the merest suggestion. Often their greatest difficulties were overly melodramatic love triangles, week-long balls, or some inane affair between the social classes.
If questioned on the subject, Twilight would be sorely tempted to use a rather impolite word she'd learnt within Ponyville’s one, and only, tavern.
Her mother wasn't an idle showpiece, or some courtier's puppet, but rather the opposite. Blessed with an unhealthy work ethic not too dissimilar from Applejack's ceaseless drive, there had been times in the past when she frankly grew worried. A rigid cut-off point existed, naturally, of both Celestia and her government's design. Family came first, though the more sobering prospect of an exhausted Princess in control of their local star was a bigger concern, at least for those stallions in grey suits that made up her ministry.
Wine? The odd snifter was consumed at events for social reasons, but Twilight honestly couldn't remember a time where she had casually uncorked a bottle. Not even to accompany a meal. Thinking back, she'd never seen her consume any fluids save for tea and water.
The honey notion…well on that she’d admit a passing resemblance, at least cursory.
Whether it was part and parcel of being an alicorn, or merely a sweet tooth that dwarfed an average pony, the facts were thus. Her mother consumed an inordinate amount of desserts. Bushels of bananas, crates of crepes, stacks of soufflés. All these and more were devoured in a single day, ‘sacrificed to fuel the eternal sun’ as one prominent celestite claimed during public discussions over royal finances. At one point Celestia's government had even clandestinely approached her, their plan being to float the notion of a sugar-syrup diet before the monarch's genius daughter and hope for the best.
It had worked as well as expected, ie: terribly. Yet there was a surprisingly useful knock-on effect, with numerous tea rooms suddenly gaining an influx of a new sugar substitute, twice as sweet and marginally less fattening. That had been patent number seventeen, the licensing of which led to a tidy sum arriving in her account regularly. A necessity when experiments, both magical and scientific, tended to be rather resource intensive. Not to mention Pinkie proofing the lab.
All this had taught Twilight was that fiction, especially when it came to the upper echelons of society, tended to take a rather liberal attitude to reality. Yes, there were the layabouts. Her cousin's rather eclectic social circle drew them in like honey to flies, but every day certainly wasn't a banquet, and night not a gaudy display of wigs and fans.
Despite this, there was a single, microscopic, grain of truth amongst the ostentatious tales that infested every bookstore in Equestria.
Meeting royalty was never easy.
The first port of call for her was Canterlot Castles' gatehouse. Despite being their sovereign's daughter, there were certain requirements for unannounced visits. A simple letter was sadly insufficient. This, therefore, required a meeting with her... ‘favourite’ Solar Guard. The kind of 'favourite' where little and infrequent was all the better for one's self. Calling him a "guard" was a disservice though: honestly, that implied danger, romance, and high drama! Who else but he could make paint-drying seem like an action-packed sport?
As she entered the stallion's austere office however, Twilight gained a rather new and different view of the pony in question.
"Captain Armour?"
"Lady. Sparkle."
Despite 'Stick-In-The-Mud Shiny' being as fun as a late fee, which she held responsible for the dreadful uptake in public library services, even with her stunted sense of social obligations it was clear to see when a moment had gone too far to make light of.
The burly Solar Guard Captain, a renowned hero of Canterlot and a pristine model for all aspiring guard cadets, was sitting behind his desk smothered in lipstick stains. Not only that, but the proud and noble helm of office, worn by every Captain for the last five hundred years, had suffered a ferocious dent, the burnished steel looking significantly worse for wear. Even in such a state, however, Shining Armour emitted an air of rigid, by-the-book, competency. From a mane cut flat enough you could land pegasi on it, down to his desk's pristine neatness.
“Are you…" the bicce began, pausing to close his office door behind her with an inelegant kick. “Are you ok, Captain Armour?”
Ignoring her question, the stallion mechanically reached below his work surface, a resounding click heralding forth both a tumbler and bottle of amber liquid. After a disastrous introduction, Twilight's relationship with alcohol effectively ceased to exist. Yet even so, if the way her sensitive nose wrinkled at that pungent smell was any indicator, the grizzled Captain had rather cheap tastes in alcohol.
Shuffling, she felt a distinct sense of discomfort. The stallion's dead-eye stare was one thing, but his familiarity with this little routine added a rather sour note to the proceedings.
“I-I don't think you’re supposed to consume al-”
“Do you understand love at all, Lady Sparkle?” asked a warped recreation of Captain Armours' voice.
It always set her teeth on edge, just one of many reasons she disliked the Captain. Not the fairest way to review him of course, but it wasn’t exactly fair his presence caused her ears pain either. Mechanically speaking though it was fascinating, his ‘new’ voice currently consisted of little more than a tinny sound emanating from magically induced horn vibrations. As for the flesh… well, his mouth was locked into a trademark frown, while he itched at the second trademark of Solar Captain Shining Armour. An ugly red mess of scars, the vicious remembrance crawling all over his throat.
“Well, not on a personal level,” Twilight answered. “However, I know high levels of dopamine and a related hormone, norepinephrine, are released during attraction. These chemicals make us giddy, energetic, and euphoric, even leading to decreased appetite and insomnia – which means you actually can be so in love that you can't eat and can't sleep.” She grinned innocently. “Isn’t that fascinating?”
If the rate at which Captain Armour began emptying the bottle suggested anything to the bicce, it was that her answer had been less than appreciated.
“Just… just go, Twilight. Kibitz was informed as soon as the complaints from Canterlot came in. He'll be waiting for you in the tea room.”
Feeling that frequent and uncomfortable sensation of being woefully out of her depth in all matters social, she wrestled between what seemed logical versus what appeared pleasant. In all honesty, it still puzzled her late in the night. She was a genius, there was no arguing about that fact. Despite this, though, the merest suggestion of interpersonal etiquette seemed to entrap her. Yes, there had been a period when she had scoffed at it all, but the Summer Sun celebration changed that, more than she could have ever imagined. Friendship and its associated elements were new and fascinating, yet they eluded her beyond anything she’d encountered in her storied academic career.
“Thank you, Captain Armour," she fidgeted, paws interlacing and de-lacing slowly. "If you- that is, if you need anything, I’d be happy to help to… well, to the best of my ability... ?” She tested, her hesitant smile on show despite the deep reservations within.
A snort, distorted and scratchy, punctuated the moment he abandoned his tumbler altogether.
“If you want to do some good, convince that witch of mine to sign the divorce papers.”
Yes. Friendship was a confusing thing indeed.
Like most her age, Twilight Sparkle considered herself a mature, independent, young creature. She could stand on her own two feet, stare into the harsh world’s piercing gaze, and utter those most terrifying of words for a parent of any teenager: "I'm an adult".
This fully explains why, upon entering the plush drawing room, she dropped her suitcase and flung herself at the silent statue that was Princess Celestia's scheduling advisor. Despite their rather significant size difference, her embrace held a degree of tenderness in its awkwardness. More than anything, it was an attempt at restraint from squeezing out whatever life the wizened old pony had left in his body.
"Uncle Kibby!"
"Lady…Sparkle…I can't-" The octogenarian unicorn wheezed, eyes bulging as his ribs began to make an ominous creaking sound.
It was an accident. She knew it was an accident. It was always an accident. Accidents happened. A lot. Especially around her.
Following the routine apologies, he brushed himself off, taking familiar care with his jacket cuffs –“They’re the first things to go on a gentle-creature’s coat Lady Sparkle,” she remembered him lecturing one night many years ago – tied the thinning mane – that she knew he was secretly proud of retaining in his advanced years – back into its customary ponytail her excited hug had somehow loosened, and shot the teenager a reserved, expectant look.
“How does a lady introduce herself?” Kibitz said, eyes narrowing above his pince-nez.
Twilight withered under the sharp gaze, her shoulders slumping. “Do we have to Uncle Kibby? It was a long train ride and-”
“How does a lady introduce herself?” He repeated, his tone firm, even, and steady.
Huffing, she extended her arms to either side, paws scraping against the surrounding furniture. It was a recurring problem in rooms designed more for your average pony rather than a creature as large as herself. Even here in the more multicultural tea room, host to every diplomat able to squeeze inside, she felt like an oversized fool.
“A lady is met with quiet and grace,” the rhyme began, her legs slowly lowering in time with the rhythm. Within seconds though her thighs began protesting, each moment threatening a cramp, until slowly… slowly… one knee touched the Saddle Arabian carpet. “With back exposed and floor to face,” squeaked Twilight after a few awkward seconds, head bowed until an ear flopped lazily into the leather concertina that her skirt had bunched into.
“Good! Good!” The elderly stallion cheered, stomping his approval with a genteel tap of hooves on the floor. “We feared your time away from Canterlot would erode the good manners we spent many long hours teaching you Lady Sparkle; I’ll inform Rigid Poise as soon as possible. I’m sure it will improve her less-than-stellar day.”
‘Rigid Poise’ raised a particularly uncomfortable set of memories from the sea of her mindscape. A grey mare loomed large, whipcord thin, with a distressing way of pronouncing her name that haunted more puppyhood nightmares than she cared to admit. The mare hadn’t been cruel, cruelty would have ended in a one-way trip to any stellar object of Twilight's choice. No, she was focused. Nothing got in her way when etiquette was involved, not age, species, or injury. She suspected if motivated enough the old bag would force a corpse to curtsey.
"Yes, this will certainly cheer up Miss Poise," Kibitz continued, his face curling into the look of those who knew a little bit too much yet desperately wanted to tell all. "Between you and I Lady Sparkle," he whispered, despite the room being empty, "I fear the poor mare's current assignment may be beyond even her prodigious skills."
Pausing for dramatic effect within a conversation was something Twilight had great familiarity with. She didn’t like it, but was most definitely familiar with it. So when Kibitz indulged it didn’t engender her attention, rather the opposite. Rarity already drained her tolerance for theatrics daily; she didn't need gossipy old stallions adding to the problem.
"It's Princess Luna you see-"
Her mind blanked out Kibitz's voice, it blanked out everything in fact but the increasing ache within her lower body and a vision of this oncoming disaster. Aunt Luna. Rigid Poise was going to teach Aunt Luna modern etiquette. The pony who still called her subjects 'serfs', who thought pepper was a 'wild and exotic spice', and who once offered to personally execute the loser in a mild defamation suit.
She almost felt bad for the old mare.
Almost.
“I still think this is silly, Uncle Kibitz,” the undignified heap that was Twilight Sparkle muttered as she came back to reality. Her screaming muscles relenting moments after his back was turned, “Why can’t I just bow like the Minotaurs?”
Unlike the majority of females she interacted with, weight was never much of a concern in the bicce's life. While losing a few pounds for vague aesthetic reasons was certainly possible, the little podge on her frame did no real harm. Attaching a number was different, however, that brought to reality certain comparisons she’d rather ignore. So Twilight settled for “Three-hundred pounds… ish” when pressed. All bone and muscle of course.
Understandably then, it was quite shocking to feel her elderly caretaker heave her upright, not by corona, but by hoof. His grey eyes, soft and tender normally, had a flinty quality to them now.
“You are a member of the royal family, Twilight Sparkle,” he declared, his voice crisp and clear as freshly cut glass. “Yes, the guttersnipes in Solar Court may deem you a poor fit, but words on ink mean little to those with true breeding such as myself, which, may I remind you, comes from one's actions, not blood.” He pointed a gamboge hoof at her. “Good etiquette is part of that.”
The tears weren’t unfamiliar, she’d been crying a lot lately. The events surrounding him had punched a hole through her emotional core that was only just starting to scab over. If the young celestite from Canterlot train station had been a filly she’d probably have broken down then and there. Yet these tears? These felt… nice?
Her thoughts tumbled over and over like a great, monstrous whirlpool, intense enough that she didn’t register the older stallion, a figure of soft yet stern authority throughout Twilight’s life, fussing about like a mother hen. His silken handkerchief, wrapped in a flickering green aura, dabbed lightly at her eyes as he weakly escorted Twilight to the oversized chairs reserved for foreign dignitaries. All the while he continued to mumble out those words of sympathy used by stallions awkwardly inexperienced when it came to comforting the deeply distressed.
"T-Thank you, thank you Uncle Kibi-" she sputtered, only to be cut off by a square of silk pressing firmly on her snout.
"Blow." It was a command, with the telltale look of a parent who would not relent until their child had acquiesced.
Rigid Poise had taught Twilight many things. How to move gracefully, nigh perfect elocution, and even the elusive purpose of that fork with two prongs omnipresent at every upper-class dining event. What she couldn't teach, however, was to blow one's snout and not make a scene.
"Feel better now?" Kibitz said moments later, eyeing his soaked and dripping rag with the curious horror one has when seeing a particularly bizarre accident.
"Much."
As he settled himself into a more equine-friendly chair, she pretended to ignore his less-than-discrete shudder when the soiled kerchief was hesitantly placed back within its usual pocket. The stain would thankfully be an easy clean, yet she knew it hurt the old stallion deeply. Protocol was worth the pain in his mind, she knew, and it often crossed her mind how far he’d ever taken such an ideology.
Such macabre notions were banished the moment Kibitz clapped his hooves together. It was a routine Twilight was familiar with, one that indicated refreshments were incoming, hot, fresh and presumably caffeinated.
"Let's have some tea, eh? A spot of char never hurts the spirit as far as I'm concerned."
With eyes now dry, a tiny smile crept onto her face. Uncle Kibitz was much like her mother in a way, the rock that weathered any storm, unchanging in the face of time and tide. Even if he seemed much smaller now, so…thin. Despite this, as the old retainer fussed with a copper speaking tube installed in the room's wall, Twilight just couldn't help herself.
"Uncle Kibby?"
"- four sugars, yes, I said four! Her highness's daughter is visiting," Kibitz blustered; a harried pony on the tube's other end presumably cringing at their verbal drubbing.
Awaiting the routine, if delayed, response, she noticed his full attention was on her now. Considering the ‘unseemly’ lounging she’d decided to partake in, it was obvious to the bicce her future consisted of words being spoken, but not quite yet. Tea was still on offer, and good etiquette always ensured tea came before trouble.
“Yes, Lady Sparkle?”
"Why is it called 'good breeding' if it's unrelated to bloodlines? Surely that defeats the point of the phrase?" she asked, the never-ending curiosity that had begun their relationship still burning to this day.
Blinking, he slowly returned to the tube, a barely perceptible sigh escaping his lips, "Excuse me fellows, could you add a few biscuits to the tray? I suspect we'll need them…"
An ancient donkey philosopher had once said 'To attain wisdom, one must be daring'. It was something Twilight took to heart; though she acknowledged one could dare too much. Especially when said philosopher, in a full forum of his peers, insisted his particular theorem on the nature of circles was singularly and objectively correct.
The donkey's death was purportedly long, confusing, and hideously brutal. All the things a young girl enjoyed in a good read. Grasping this ideal with two paws, she delved into risky territory.
"I think the chocolate one's better for dunking."
The gasp said all she needed to know, yet Kibitz decided to add his two bits-worth in any way. "Dunking? Dunking?! Such barbarism," the last word was spoken with the tone of one who'd just witnessed a cannibalistic rite. "I'll have you know, Lady Sparkle, that the fissured surface of a plain fouga makes it a superior biscuit in all forms of teatime. Dunking, snacking, and otherwise!"
Two cups of tea later, hers more milk than brew, and she felt strong enough to ask the question. The one that hundreds of ponies begged, bribed, and pleaded for on a daily basis with the palace staff.
“Can I see my mother?”
Moustache twitching, he lowered the cup with exact grace, his corona control a pristine example to all and sundry. Unlike herself, Kibitz never had the joys of Rigid Poise's tutelage, somehow learning the thousand and one arts of 'good breeding' on his lonesome. Twilight occasionally wondered if he'd been born like this. A tiny foal, all stuffy and serious. Or had he been some vicious urchin? A ragamuffin who'd lucked his way into high society?
She'd have to ask him one of these days. A thought that, on reflection, astounded her. They’d lived together for years, but it had never once crossed her mind to ask Kibitz about his past. She knew more about her friends of eight months than a pony that was practically blood!
“It is… unfortunate Lady Sparkle, but her Highness is regrettably embroiled in matters of state right now." A frown tugged at his features, wrinkles gaining ever so temporary siblings, "Delicate matters at that, I might add. We can’t have a repeat of ‘The Gustave Incident’ now, can we?"
Heat flushed Twilight's cheeks, her final fouga crumbling in a clenched paw. “...Oops?”
Despite the abundance of cleaning staff littered throughout her home of seventeen years, she duly began the arduous process of crumb collection fastidiously instilled by the pony opposite. Even if the spray had been impressive enough to render it a task more suited to a brush.
“I refuse to apologise for offering a nation, one we are on good terms with to this day, a method for recovering an incredibly important artefact related to their heritage," she grumbled on hands and knees, a monogrammed paper napkin from the earlier-delivered tea tray consuming each oaty shard.
"If I remember correctly, your device nearly suffocated the Griffon Regent," he said, very well aware of the moment in particular. Twilight knew that for a fact, it wasn't often a pony had the opportunity to perform CPR on a griffon. Let alone the leader of an entire nation.
Hissing as she rose, aches and pains beginning to reassert themselves after her recent bout of increased exertion, Twilight knew her next action. No matter how plush the carpet was, it couldn’t alleviate her abuse of a perfectly good body. Extended study sessions were cancelled for the time being, she decided, knowing that what began as an intended three hours had a runaway habit of turning into ten. It'd be a challenge, but one she’d rise to.
"How was I supposed to know his chain of office was from the same period as the idol?" She groused, absent-mindedly pocketing the sullied napkin before stretching her, twinging back and rolling each oversized shoulder. “He only fell unconscious for three minutes. That’s not even enough time for brain damage to begin!”
“Indeed,” Kibitz replied dryly, rising from his seat with a slow dignified air and taking his charge in hoof. “Now, while her highness may be indisposed, I am always available to offer help, as are Miss Inkwell and Captain Armour.”
“What about Bluey? Or Aunt-”
Twilight had sketched pony anatomy before, both during her on-again-off-again artistic phases and when studying medicine as a down time activity. The shifting of equine musculature held a certain intriguing quality to it, one that had been useful in coming to terms with her own radically different form. Despite this, it was a uniquely uncomfortable sight watching Kibitz body stiffen, each muscle locking in place at the mere mention of those names.
“We’ve no need of that reprobate you call a cousin,Lady Sparkle. As for Princess Luna, she is also indisposed. Albeit with a charlatan whose quackery-” he bit his tongue, a deep snort saying what he felt unable, “-let us just say she is seeing Mister Storm and leave it at that, shall we?”
Ignoring the pointed jabs, Twilight rolled her eyes, familiar with the older stallion's complaints. “Bluey’s fine Uncle Kibby, he just…” she sighed, already aware of what twists and turns this oft-repeated conversation would take, “... does things his own way.”
“The lads a licentious swell! Strutting about town every day with some mare or another!” he spat, all the while looking like his tea had contained rather irritable wasps. “The fool wouldn’t know the meaning of duty if it bit him on his tail.”
“Uncle Kibby…”
It was a tone she reserved for these kinds of conversations, a drawn-out rumble that was more warning than anything. ‘Continue at your peril’ if you knew her well enough to translate it.
“As for work, well, that says it all.” he continued, ignorant to the minefield his complaints had sent him into, “A fashion magazine. A magazine! He could at least enshrine his empty-headed notions in proper literature, not some glossy claptrap unfit even for toilet paper...”
Internally sighing, she attempted to tune him out, trying to be patient with the older stallion and letting the familiar sights soothe her. The room may have been designed for political appointments, but much like every home, it had happy memories. Days gone by, hide and seek with her mother, tea parties over books. It was lovely, but it was also struggling to stand out against her ‘Uncle’ and his venomous tongue. All too soon, though, Kibitz had gathered more than enough rope to hang himself, and with her tolerance emptied, she pulled the gallows lever.
"Uncle Kibby!"
With Twilight, the term 'bark' took on a whole new meaning. One that sent the stallion's glasses askew.
"Blueblood may not be the ideal example of royalty, but how can you tear him down in good conscious while praising me?” A dinner plate-sized palm slapped her chest for emphasis, “A creature with more education than half this city, yet who works in a public library! Who barely had any friends outside of her studies or home until recently!” She gnawed on her lower lip, voice wobbling, “I'm disappointed in you Uncle Kibby. You and Mother always told me it’s our differences that make us special.”
The stallion went silent, his eyes downcast as he fiddled with the pince-nez now inhabiting his moustache in a rather tangled lodging agreement. Whatever vim and vigour had been empowering Kibbitz appeared to disintegrate, leaving only a tired, withered, pony standing before his 'niece'.
It felt like an age before he finally spoke once more, each word uttered slowly, and with due care put to them. Not the diplomacy of those trying to hide bile beneath social niceties, but the grinding, inexorable difficulty of saying the beleaguered truth.
“I…suppose so,” he forced out, a sigh following after. “I apologise for my behaviour, Lady Sparkle. It’s just something about that lad. He ‘gets right up my nose’, as the maids say.”
A smile that had unsettled the newer servants spread its way across Twilight's face. Some suggested it was the plethora of razor-sharp fangs that sent shivers down their spines. Pinkie Pie had a rather more novel suggestion, it was a precursor to the much feared ‘Twilighting’.
She’d been rather put out by the term at first in all honesty, but it had grown on her. What didn’t was the groans of her friends when, to them, it either signalled an anxiety-driven rush or the joys of some madcap science project. Now, though, it was the slightly smug sense of knowing better than a parental figure.
“As for Doctor Storm, Auntie Luna says he’s doing a world of good for her. At least, her last letter certainly did,” She added, her tone implying that this was the final word on the matter.
An unnaturally tense silence followed, the two finding nowhere to go, yet stuck in some kind of impasse. That awful quagmire place where the conversation ended, but goodbyes can’t quite begin.
“…you've changed Lady Sparkle.” Kibitz eventually said, shattering the quiet as he looked at Twilight with new, unfamiliar eyes.
While his words lacked any malice, they still gave Twilight a feeling of sombre discomfort. As if something had been lost that day, small and precious. Refusing to let the notion gain root though, she strode towards her earlier discarded suitcase, work being the greatest cleanser of a troubled mind in the bicces experience.
“So, let's get down to business,” She hummed with false bravado, placing the pig-leather-clad luggage on a table that had seen trade negotiations, peace treaties and even the odd political marriage. “While Raven’s expertise in all things epistolary would be useful here, I think it’s important to get the facts straight with somecreature I can trust. Someone who’ll understand the sensitive nature of what I’m about to show them.”
A single click was followed by the biices dramatic flourish, her case’s long-held treasure on display for all and sundry within a tightly gripped paw.
“Those are-” Kibitz coughed into a hoof, “-your, ah, unmentionables, Lady Sparkle,”
“Hehe, so they are…”
Swiftly ramming voluminous white fabric back into her suitcase and cringing inside all the while, she eventually, this time with more caution, pulled forth a folder full of documents. It wasn’t particularly thick, yet the weight of its contents had dragged her from Ponyville and up the Canterhorn.
“I gathered the evidence-”
That had been a poor choice of words on her part, she realised, watching the elderly stallion bristle like a hedgehog. Even the tips of his moustache seemingly gained new lustre.
“Easy there, Uncle Kibby,” the bicce said, raising a paw. “I can’t have you jumping to the wrong conclusions just yet.” She certainly couldn’t afford Captain Armours' involvement either. He’d just slow their whole process down.
Ignoring the incensed mumbling, Twilight carefully laid out several sheets of paper across the remaining table space. “Two days ago, I received a series of hectographic copies in the mail. While it’s not unusual, those tend to come directly from my private correspondence. Scientists, professors, the occasional art critic. What made it more unusual were two things.” She raised a single digit. “Firstly, the letter had no point of return. Not an impossibility, but certainly odd.” Another finger rose, the black nail polish on it notably chipped, "Secondly, the copies. They’re the records of my final project at Maresachussets Institute of Technology.”
“What was that one again, Lady Sparkle?" Kibitz said, stroking his moustache as if it would kick-start a brain cell or two. “I’m afraid my memory is faltering somewhat. I distinctly remember the false legs and your steam engine modification, but other than that I’m drawing little.”
“The term is ‘prosthesis’ Uncle Kibby, and it’s no surprise you don’t remember the project.” She pointed at the lone photograph amongst the sheets. Within the faded image stood a metallic tube, roughly the size and diameter of a chimney, its end adorned with a glassy-looking spiral. “I never sold the patent.”
“Why ever not?” he asked, horn aglow, gently handling the image with care while trying to parse the seemingly innocuous device's function.
Twilight leaned calmly on the table, content for a nanosecond, before the reality of her actions kicked in and she hopped away. While indeed ‘home’, her time in Ponyville had taught the bicce to be wary of anything wooden and weight bearing. Her life was fun like that.
“I didn’t feel the project was sustainable outside a theoretical prototype.” she hurriedly said, getting her bearings once more. “Just showing we could do it was enough for the grade,” a light shrug followed, “I mean, who needs a stallion portable drill that can cut through solid rock in seconds-”
Boggle wasn’t quite the word for Kibitz expression, but it fit close enough, “Celestia's Beard!”
“-you didn’t let me finish Uncle Kibby, and do you always curse in mother's non-existent parts?” A wry grin found its way to Twilight's face before fading, “Anyway, yes, the drill was powerful. Incredibly so. But you’d need a unicorn to use it and a spare fifty thousand bits on hand at all times,”
“Fifty tho-that’s more than a team of miners make in a year!”
“Yes, that’s on a commercial level though,” Twilight said, eyes roving over copies of her scribblings. “Proper materials, frequent drill bit changes. What we cobbled together worked…but if the Professor asked for another demonstration, I’m pretty sure we’d have burnt the building down.” she giggled uncomfortably, scratching behind an ear, “I’d rather not have that happen twice.”
She watched as Kibitz rifled through the papers, knowing that despite his sterling reputation, most of her documents would be beyond him. It wasn’t arrogance, merely that his areas of expertise didn’t fall within crystal harmonics, magi-tech applications and metallurgy. Though curiously, it did include horology. Not that it mattered, she noted, watching as his nose wrinkled at their tacky touch. This was about the present, not the past.
“Ugh, I do so hate hectographs. Nasty jelly business.” He placed the papers back haphazardly, trying his best to avoid touching them more than necessary. “Still, it is rather bizarre that some unknown party has copies of your notes, Lady Sparkle,” an eyebrow twitched, “Surely there’s a law against that?”
“Yes, which makes the next thing all the more unsettling.”
The folder was opened once more, lavender paws gently pulling the intended document out as if its touch were acidic. Despite that, the contents weren’t hard to see, even in the dull yellow glow of the room's lighting. A similar picture to the prior one, the key differences were two-fold. Twilight now inhabited the picture, standing awkwardly before the drill in a lab coat and safety goggles, the elastic wrapped ungainly around her skull. The second difference was rather obvious. Painted in bold, red letters across the image, were the words “Merchant of Death” and “Their blood is on your paws”.
“Ah,”
“Yes," she replied, her jaw set and tone icy. "My feelings exactly.”
