The Book of Ages

The Book of Ages

By Skye Silverwing

Prologue: Comet’s Introduction.

Twilight Sparkle shifted her wings slightly as she wandered through the endless hallways lined with shelves loaded with books to nearly the point of bursting. The newly raised Princess was happy to have finally acquired the time that she would need to take a closer look at the Chrystal Empire’s Great Library without the press of a dire search for information or looming threat of doom, but now that she was here, the sheer enormity of the library left her aimlessly wandering the halls, just looking for a place to start.

She passed through yet another vaulted corridor and a high archway into another huge room easily fifty times the size of her library back home in Ponyville. Even the Great Library in Canterlot could not compare to the enormity of this. She headed down a flight of stairs and around a corner, eyes scanning the neatly arrayed stacks for anything to tell her where to begin.

Then she saw it. There, in a shadowed corner (something unusual in a structure made of crystal) stood a door, which, if its state was any indication, had likely not been opened in hundreds of years, even before the Crystal Empire’s thousand year disappearance.

Approaching the door, Twilight pushed it open with her magic, revealing a long, strangely dark passageway. As she made her way along the passage, there was no sound, save for that of her own hooves as they clopped along through a thick layer of dust that had remained undisturbed for countless years.

At the end of the long passage, stood another door, and beyond that door lay a cramped and almost claustrophobic room filled with ancient knowledge. There, on a stand in the center of the back wall, sat a book older than any book Twilight had ever seen. Its cover, bound in sturdy wood wrapped in a sturdy fabric of some kind, declared it to be simply “The Book of Ages”.

Twilight stared at the book for a long moment before using her magic to lift it carefully off of its platform, knowing that if she handled it wrong, it could very well crumble to dust, and the knowledge within lost forever. She had to read it, though, for where better to begin than the oldest book of all?

Setting the book carefully on a table in the middle of the room, Twilight sat down and carefully opened it to the introduction, and by the light of her horn, she began to read.

.o0o. .o0o. .o0o. .o0o. .o0o.

My name is Comet Stargaze.

It is my last duty, as the Archivist the Crystal Empire, to take down and report the truth of our beginnings before Time can obscure it forever. Memories become stories, stories become history, history becomes legend, and legend fades to myth, until even the myth is lost forever.

It is my wish that the truth of our arrival here be passed on into the future generations, so that we can learn from our past and become stronger for it. For this reason, I am using spells long forbidden under the light of Celestia’s Sun to pierce the veil of time and give accurate measure of the distant past and the trials faced long ago. I hope that the good that this will do out ways my transgressions and serves to enlighten the ponies of the future to avoid the darker paths we have tread.

Princess, I hope you can forgive me.

.o0o. .o0o. .o0o. .o0o. .o0o.

Twilight stared at the book with no small amount of awe. The soft spoken words the author had written resonated with her, and she wondered what kind of a stallion he was.

The last line almost seemed directed at her, as opposed to Princess Celestia, or the Princess that would have ruled the Chrystal Empire at the time, though, of course, that was impossible.

This book would prove very informative, she decided, carefully placing it in a special box she had acquired to store and transport the oldest of books. It had taken her too long to find this book, and she had many responsibilities to get back to. She calmly picked up the box and made her way out, and into the light of day once again.