Secret Histories
Part Two
Two sunsets later, a unicorn and a griffon were making their way from the library to Sugarcube Corner to meet up with Pinkie Pie.
“I didn’t know you had an interest in human languages,” said Twilight Sparkle.
Gilda took the two books she had just checked out and tucked them under one wing. “There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” she said coolly. “I’ve already taught myself English and Russian as part of a little project I’m working on. These should be a fairly good start for Chinese, although I was hoping you’d have Raise the Red Lantern.”
“The film?” asked Twilight. “I put in a request for it from a couple of human libraries six months ago, but it hasn’t come in. In fact,” she said, closing one eye as she concentrated, “there are about thirty or so films I’ve asked for that haven’t come in. I put a viewing station in the library at my own expense, but so far, all I’m getting from human librarians are children’s movies! It’s almost like they think we ponies can’t handle the R-rated material!”
Gilda had a massive coughing fit to cover up her honest reaction to that remark.
“Are you—?”
“Fine!” Gilda exclaimed. “I’m fine.”
Twilight looked at her oddly, then shrugged. “So anyway, you said you wanted those books for a project?”
“Yeah,” said the griffon. “You didn’t think I was in Canterlot for fun, did you? I’m looking for investors in a company I’m looking to start. The griffons are...” —Gilda frowned— “...well, they don’t see the potential in humans yet, but they will.”
Twilight stopped walking as she took this in. As far as she knew, no griffon wanted anything to do with humans since their arrival, being more concerned with...whatever it was that griffons obsessed about. With a slight toss of her head, she trotted to catch up with Gilda. “You don’t need to go to all this trouble to learn all these languages, you know,” she said. “After all, the humans and Pr. Valerian have perfected the Full Immersion machine for teaching English and Equine to any sapient creature. It’s very inexpensive and—”
The griffon suddenly turned on her and put one pointed claw in her chest fur. “Look, Miss Sparkle,” she told her, “I don’t trust that Full Immersion machine any further than one of you ponies could throw it.”
“Oh it’s perfectly safe!” Twilight assured her.
“Have you used it?” Gilda asked.
“Well...no, but—”
“Ha!” the griffon exclaimed. “I knew it.”
Twilight used her magic to calmly push the talon aside. “That’s just because I enjoy the challenge of teaching myself something new,” she answered. “It has nothing whatsoever to do with any fear of side effects.”
“Oh, you have every reason to be fearful of side effects, Miss Sparkle,” Gilda assured her. “I’ve done my research. That machine puts a copy of the language skills of one particular pony in your head, does it not? Some pony that volunteered to be surrounded by humans by months as they taught her English, and after that your dragon professor copied part of her brain into a gem. Am I missing anything so far?”
“No, you are remarkably well-informed,” said Twilight, pleasantly surprised after some of the stupid rumors she had heard as to how the machine worked. “So what are you afraid of?”
“I have some misapprehensions that more than just language is being passed over,” Gilda asserted.
Twilight raised an eyebrow. “Like what?”
“You know who this volunteer pony is, don’t you?” asked Gilda, accusingly.
“Maybe I do,” Twilight replied defensively.
“Then tell me if any of this sounds familiar,” said Gilda. “Based on what I’ve seen of the ponies who’ve been through Full Immersion, she is obsessed with humans.”
Twilight smiled. “Ah, you’re confusing correlation with causation. The ponies who were the first to try out Full Immersion were of course interested in humans, so it would be false to say the machine caused their interest.”
“Stop muddying the issue with your fancy statistics!” snapped Gilda. “Second point, based on the humans that have been through Full Immersion: this pony is also obsessed with you.”
“Me?” asked Twilight, growing a little bit nervous.
“Yes, you. And don’t blame that one on that cartoon those humans cooked up after your biography—”
“My very unauthorized biography,” an annoyed Twilight added.
“—After your unauthorized biography got published on Earth,” said Gilda. “This particular brand of ‘crazy’ comes straight from that volunteer pony, I’m sure of it. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s been moving from town to town to keep up with you.”
“Oh, that’s just ridiculous!” the unicorn exclaimed.
“Is it? Is it? And third and most damning, whose records sell more among Full Immersion patients than anybody else?”
Twilight thought for a few seconds before she realized the answer. “Ha!” she exclaimed. “The top-selling artist is not a pony at all, but Michael Levy, a human performer of the l—”
Gilda grinned in triumph as Twilight suddenly froze.
“I...I think I might need to look into this matter tomorrow,” the shaken unicorn said to herself.
A couple blocks away, Applejack joined Fluttershy and Rarity at Sugarcube Corner.
“Applejack!” Rarity exclaimed in surprise. “I did not expect that you would have the time to spare to meet us tonight.”
Applejack smiled. “Oh, I couldn’t miss this,” she said. “It was at one of these get-togethers that I first met Pinkie Pie, and it was at another one where I convinced her to stay in Ponyville for good. Besides, these shows of hers are not to be missed.”
Rarity sniffed indignantly. “Well, I’ve never been to one, and I’ve known Pinkie almost as long as you have!”
“You might want to ask your parents about that, Sugar,” Applejack said coldly. “They always changed the subject whenever ‘Madame Pinkie’ was being talked about. ‘Pinkie the Baker’ was just fine, but ‘Pinkie the Melonie [1]’...that was another matter entirely.”
Translator’s Note #1: You know, I really shouldn’t be making any comments on this story at all under the circumstances, but I can’t help but point out the derivation of that term. You see, in ancient times it was thought that a tribe of camels had been exiled by their kind for sheltering the Royal Pony Sisters during the Age of Chaos, since the camels had been created by Discord. That legend has been thoroughly debunked in the centuries since (starting with the camels’ clear proof of their own existence before the Age of Chaos), but somehow a truncated version of the name “Camelonian” has been attached to the nomadic Grasnari tribe (and those imitating their lifestyle) ever since.
“Well, they’re not going to stop me this time!” Rarity vowed. “I’ve heard what goes on at a séance, and let’s just say I’ll be ready with the second question once this ‘Emperor Noffony’ business is resolved.”
Applejack stared at Rarity cooly. “Rare, I’m just going to say this once, based on a personal experience I don’t care to recount: Don’t ask no question of a spirit unless you’re sure you want the answer.”
Rarity said nothing, merely pursing her lips together in thought.
Meanwhile Fluttershy, having overheard this conversation, got even quieter than normal, as she pondered what sort of question she might ask.
At that moment, Twilight and Gilda entered the town square at the same time as Rainbow Dash came in for a landing. The griffon froze in place as soon as she was able to see the building the other ponies were gathered around. Twilight chuckled to herself as she continued on ahead, remembering how seeing Sugar Cube Corner at night for the first time had taken her breath away.
“You’ll notice that at least I had sense enough not to mention a word of this séance business where Scootaloo could hear it,” Rainbow Dash bragged to Twilight.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Twilight asked, looking around her. It was only then that she spotted Spike, who had been sneaking a block behind her the entire time. “Spike!” she exclaimed. “What are you doing following me?”
She waited until the baby dragon caught up with her.
“Well,” he said sheepishly, turning one of his feet back and forth on the paving stone, “this is going to be a séance, right?”
“Who told you that I was going to a séance tonight?” asked Twilight. A second’s thought brought her the answer.
“Pinkie Pie,” she said dully, and then started in shock when everypony else in the square said the same thing at the exact same second. “Why do you want to go to a séance?” she asked the dragon accusingly.
“Well,” Spike answered with hesitation, ‘I was thinking that I could learn how they work, so maybe someday, well...well, I am a dragon, and you’re a pony, and I know which books you’ve been studying when you think I’m asleep...”
Twilight gasped softly to herself, then quickly took Spike aside for a quiet conversation.
~ ~ ~
Rainbow Dash cautiously approached Gilda, who was still rooted to the spot. Her eyes were glued to the top of the chimney on the pastry-inspired building, where puffs of steam were slowly emerging, a visible sign that the Cakes were baking a variety of sweet breads in preparation for tomorrow morning.
“Mommy, why is it so warm in here?” the little griffon asked. She was colored the same as Gilda, right down to the flame-shaped eye mask, but her tiny wings were twisted into unusable knots on her back, the result of a birth defect.
“This is the part of the Bakery where we prepare the bone meal, Grizelda,” answered Sky Shock carefully. Her eyes were on anything but her daughter. “Griffons can’t live on the same diet that ponies do, so we use supplements, like bone meal, to take up the slack. This oven is the one used exclusively by the royal family.”
“Aren’t we in the royal family?” asked little Grizelda, putting on airs.
This was Gilda’s very first memory, although, strictly speaking, it wasn’t actually hers, since the events she was currently reliving originally happened to another griffon twenty-five decades ago.
“Hey, Gilda, are you alright?” Rainbow asked, waving a hoof in front of Gilda’s glazed eyes.
“Mommy, this game isn’t funny anymore!” Grizelda shouted. “Please let me out of the box. Mommy? Mommy?”
She couldn’t be sure, but she thought she could hear the sounds of paws scampering away and a faint sobbing.
Rainbow glanced over her shoulder at the smoking chimney and suddenly remembered the sort of things that triggered Gilda’s mysterious “attacks”. She tried to shove the griffon so that she was looking anywhere other than at that chimney, but she wouldn’t budge. Finally with a grunt she succeeded in lifting Gilda bodily and turning her around. She then started shaking her in mid-air to break her out of it. “Gilda! Gilda!” she cried.
“MO...!” The griffon’s eyes suddenly focused as she snapped her beak shut. She looked at the ground, and then back up at Rainbow Dash. With an annoyed snap of her wings, she broke free of the pegasus’s grip and returned to her paws and claws.
“So are we all here yet?” she asked in an annoyed tone. She acted like nothing unusual had happened, and her eyes promised retribution to anypony who dared to challenge that assertion.
Rainbow rolled her eyes, being quite used to this act from Junior Flight Camp. “Just waiting on Pinkie Pie,” she said as she landed beside her. “And Twilight and Spike have gone off for some kind of pow-wow.”
Gilda glanced in the direction Rainbow Dash was pointing. “What’s their problem?” she asked.
Rainbow Dash told her what had happened, ending with, “I wish I knew what the hay they were up to.”
Gilda had an utterly impassive expression on her face, one that both eagles and griffons were masters of. “Rainbow, you do know about how we absorbed the Orange Tribe more than two hundred years ago, right?” she asked quietly.
The pegasus scrunched up her features to think for a second. “Oh, that’s that thing were you treat some dragons just like they’re griffons, right? Like you’ve got griffons raising dragons from the moment they hatch.”
“That’s right,” the griffon replied. “And dragons live a lot longer than griffons. Or ponies.”
“Yeah, but I don’t...oh. Ohhhhhh,” said Rainbow with a grimace. “I never really thought about that. Poor Spike.”
“Now don’t take this the wrong way about your friend,” Gilda said, “but I always thought that using séances for that reason, was kinda creepy.”
“It’s alright,” Rainbow Dash said with a sigh. “It is creepy. And also very, very Twilight Sparkle.”
Twilight and Spike had by then broken up their huddle, and were now joining the others. “I’ve, uh, decided that Spike can stay with us,” she told them, “for this exhibition of an esoteric form of magic that comes easier to dragons than to ponies. And it’s a skill I think Spike could definitely have a use for. Not that I would know anything about it! After all, Princess Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns in no way, shape or form endorses the practice of divination magic.”
“Which is why you have that secret stash of books in the basement,” said Madame Pinkie, who had walked into the square behind her.
“Which is why I have that secret stash of...hey!” Twilight turned on the pink pony. “Pinkie,” she asked, “you are going to be conducting this séance in a manner that is safe for the presence of minors, aren’t you?”
Pinkie Pie raised an eyebrow accusingly.
“Err...Madame Pinkie?” Twilight said, correcting herself.
“Well of course, my little babushka!” exclaimed Pinkie Pie, looking as serious as she ever got on most days. She was wearing the typical garb of a Melonie: a long scarf wrapped around her neck and a turban with an ostrich feather on her head. “I was apprenticed to Momma Fortuna herself! Unfortunately, the whole ‘never settle down’ rule didn’t work out when she wanted to leave Ponyville, or maybe fortunately, because that’s how I got into pastry.”
“Alright, Madam Pinkie,” said Applejack, “isn’t it about time to get this little show of yours started?”
Madame Pinkie rushed in front of her as she started to head for the front door of Sugarcube Corner. “Oh, we can’t have the séance in there,” she explained, “not after what happened last time.”
“What happened last time?” asked Applejack.
“Um...nothing!” exclaimed Madame Pinkie.
Applejack narrowed one eye and gave her an accusing stare. “Absolutely nothing, or mostly nothing?”
“Um...B!” Madame Pinkie answered. “But it wasn’t that bad! The Cakes totally over-reacted when they saw Sweetie Belle’s head facing the wrong way.”
“What?!” exclaimed Rarity, pushing to get around Applejack.
“It went back the right way, honest!” Madame Pinkie protested. “And Sweetie Belle even learned about a new register to her voice even lower than Flutterguy’s—that’s got to be useful for her future singing career!”
Fluttershy eeped in embarrassment at being reminded of her Poison Joke affliction.
Rarity meanwhile looked back for a second to make sure that Applejack had her mane in her teeth before fruitlessly charging forward at full speed, exclaiming, “I’ll destroy her!”
Madame Pinkie leapt behind Twilight. “You will?” she asked fearfully.
Rarity instantly stopped, retrieved her tail, and examined it for damages before answering. “No, of course I won’t, Dear,” she said. “Sweetie Belle survived the experience without trauma, or I would have been aware of it. However,” she said with a narrowing of the eyes and lowering of her voice, “if anything had happened...”
“Eep!” exclaimed Pinkie Pie, jumping up a few feet before falling back down again, her fall slowed by a tiny pink parasol.
“Enough with the antics!” exclaimed Gilda, who had been rolling her eyes nearly nonstop throughout this exchange. “If we’re not doing it here, where are we doing it?”
“I’ve got a place set up next to Carousel Boutique,” replied Madame Pinkie. “Everypony, follow me.” She looked back for a second, then winced slightly at the two individuals she had left out of her pronoun. “I mean everypony and everyffony and everygony...follow me!”
“It’s everydrake,” muttered Spike under his breath, mentally putting “everygony” on his list of “Words That Are Way, Way, Way Too Girly.”
Pinkie led the others to a large circus-like tent located behind Carousel Boutique, tinted in the pony’s characteristic color. It must have been made of something more interesting than burlap, however, because when the entrance flap was closed, the interior became pitch black.
The darkness was broken a moment later as Fluttershy released several fireflies from a light-tight container in her saddlebags to gather near the top of the tent. The sickly green illumination they provided was dim, but usable.
Madame Pinkie, Twilight and Spike proceeded to a small table at the center of the tent. There, Pinkie produced a bowling ball bag, from which she retrieved a large crystal ball and stand. She pushed first the table, and then the stand around a bit with her nose until they were situated just right, as the unicorn and dragon watched in silence. She then picked up a stick from the ground with her mouth and used it to inscribe lines and figures into the dirt.
“Ah!” Twilight quietly exclaimed to her assistant. “She’s using the traditional Melonie summoning procedure. The outer lines inscribe the limits of the space the spirit will be allowed to roam.”
“A mystic barrier?” Spike asked. “Are we expecting trouble?”
“No,” said Pinkie, releasing the stick from her mouth so that it rested against an upraised hoof, “but certain things can set them off, and when that happens, they really can’t control themselves. That reminds me: Gilda, you better not have eaten anything funny for dinner tonight!”
“Don’t worry,” the griffon’s voice grumbled from the other side of the tent, “I had to skip dinner to get here from Canterlot after work. If you don’t mind, though, I think I’ll stay here in the back.”
Spike quickly excused himself from Twilight’s side and waddled over to where Gilda was sitting back with forelegs crossed.
“Hey,” the dragon said shyly. “My name’s Spike. We didn’t exactly get introduced the last time.”
Gilda pretended to look down at Spike for a few seconds. “Hey,” she finally said. “I’m...just call me ‘Gilda’, OK?” She held out one claw curled into a fist.
Recognizing the ultimate sign of coolness, Spike nonchalantly matched the gesture, and the two fist-bumped.
“So, Gilda,” Spike said cautiously, “I was wondering...?”
“Yes, Spike?” Gilda said, one eyebrow raised.
“If spirit summoning is easy for dragons, and not so hard for ponies, what’s it like for griffons?”
Gilda grimaced. “Hard,” she answered. “Really, really hard. You don’t want to know the stuff we griffons have to do to summon a spirit.”
“Oh,” said Spike, and the conversation stalled.
“Spike!” the voice of Twilight intruded. “Madame Pinkie’s just getting to the good part!”
“I, uh, gotta go,” Spike said, shyly scratching one claw between two plates on his neck.
“Yeah,” Gilda said coolly as the dragon retreated. “You do that.”
She turned away with a smirk, only to find herself face to face with Fluttershy. Now it was Gilda’s turn to feel awkward.
“Hey, uh, Flutterfly—”
“Fluttershy,” the yellow pegasus interrupted in a barely audible voice.
“Err, yes, Fluttershy. I just wanted to apologize about what I did to you the last time I was in Ponyville. It was a jerk move, and you really didn’t deserve it.”
“Um...alright,” Fluttershy said cautiously.
“So...um...are we cool?”
Fluttershy tilted her head sideways as she processed the question.
Gilda’s eyelids nearly went into seizures as she repressed an epic eye roll.
Fluttershy’s head snapped suddenly back into an upright position. “Sure!” she exclaimed, louder than she expected. “Of course I forgive you, Gilda,” she added more quietly.
The griffon’s face fidgeted for a few seconds, before a claw was reluctantly offered and a head was turned half away. “Shake?” she added nervously.
Fluttershy produced a hoof, and the shake was quickly concluded.
“Well I’m glad that’s over with,” Gilda muttered to herself as she watched Fluttershy walk away. She turned to face the other way, only to find herself face to face with Rainbow Dash, a big grin on her face. “Hey! Don’t sneak up on me like that!” she exclaimed.
“You know for a carnivore, you sure say ‘hey’ a lot!” the pegasus said in a snarky tone.
Gilda suddenly felt a touch of hippophobia from all the ponies crowding around her in the suddenly too-little tent. “Hey, let’s get this show on the road, here!” she exclaimed.
“Hey, you’re right!” exclaimed Pinkie from several ponylengths away. “Gilda does say ‘hey’ all the time!”
“Every...body gather ‘round!” Madame Pinkie exclaimed after finishing her preparations. “But stay outside the line—I don’t wanna have to redraw that!”
The others did as they told, as Twilight and Spike joined them.
“Now hold hooves...or pointy appendages,” Pinkie instructed.
Rarity looked reluctantly at the griffon to her left, who was busy rubbing one muddy fist against her chest feathers. “Do we hafta?” she whined.
“Yes, you ‘hafta’,” Twilight said sternly. “It reinforces the containment spell.”
“Very well,” Rarity said, offering up one pristine white hoof up to the sacrifice of a thorough cleaning later tonight, followed by the promise of a hooficure tomorrow.
“So who will you be summoning, Madame Pinkie?” Twilight asked.
“She’s a surprise!” Pinkie replied. She had to stop herself from bouncing up and down in excitement.
“But she is on the Mortal Plane, right?” Twilight asked cautiously. “Because if you’re trying to summon from beyond that, it gets kind of...”
“‘Kind of’ what?” asked Rainbow Dash, after it became obvious that Twilight was not going to finish her sentence.
“Kind of like what happens when a griffon summons a spirit.” Twilight said softly.
Rainbow Dash turned green at this statement, thereby revealing that she did know the details that Gilda didn’t wish to provide.
“Don’t worry!” Pinkie exclaimed. “She’s where she’s supposed to be. And I’ve summoned her before, lots of times. So, is Question Time over?”
Twilight looked around her to confirmation. “Yes, I think you can begin now, Pinkie.”
Pinkie gave her “the look.”
Twilight blinked. “Madame Pinkie.”
“OK!” Pinkie chirped. Her voice then dropped an octave as she began her incantation in the Melonie tongue, waving her hooves in elaborate passes over the crystal ball and causing weird shadows to be cast on the walls of the tent. “Opre!” she exclaimed at the end. “Opre!”
Suddenly a piercing yellow light shot upward from the crystal, scattering the fireflies and making the rest of the room that much dimmer.
The light resolved itself into the enormous head of a white alicorn with closed eyes, its mane replaced with a sheet of writhing flames. “WHO DARES TO SUMMON THE BANEFUL BANSHEE OF BALLYFORE?” she cried out in an echoing deep voice. “FOR YOUR INSOLENCE, I WILL INFLICT A TICKLE ATTACK UPON YOU, THE LIKES OF WHICH...” As she was saying this, the demon horse opened her bright red eyes, which is what caused her to stop. “Oh,” she said in a normal voice. In an instant, the head shrunk down to that of a unicorn foal, her fiery mane became blonde hair, and her eyes turned into normal blue ones. “I see you have company,” she observed, in a completely conversational tone of voice.
“Blue Belle!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed. “That was a good one!”
“Did I scare you?” the see-through head asked eagerly.
“No, but you got pretty close!”
The head pouted.
“I hope this doesn’t come across as presumptuous, My Lady,” said Rarity in her most-genteel manner, “but which Blue Belle are you? Or...were you, as the case might be.”
“IX,” answered Blue Belle, her attention still focused on the pink pony.
Both Rarity and Twilight’s eyes lit up at the same time. “It is quite an honor to meet a legend such as yourself!” Rarity said with a bow. It wasn’t as complete a bow as she would wish, since she still had her pasterns linked with her neighbors’.
“Lady Blue Belle IX was a renowned champion of Princess Celestia,” Twilight explained to the others, “saving Equestria through her diplomacy on multiple occasions.”
“I’m also your ancestor,” noted Blue Belle. “Most ponies would have said that first.”
“Yes,” sighed Twilight. “Well I would have gotten to that eventually, Great-Great-Great-Great-Grandmother.” To the inquiring looks of the other ponies, she answered, “She married a male Sparkle, and for...personal reasons, allowed my family to gain legal custody of their daughter after his death.” Turning back to the floating head, she asked, “So why are you so young? The time of your greatest triumphs was well into your marehood.”
Blue Belle smiled, finally taking in the other ponies in the tent. “You see me as I was in the years of my greatest happiness,” she explained. “I am glad to see that my reputation is so widely known.”
“Indeed!” Rarity exclaimed. “Your life has always been an inspiration to me. I have a painting of your grief over the death of your beloved first husband—”
“Ah, well that was a private moment,” Blue Belle interrupted uncomfortably.
“—and another depicting your clandestine second marriage for love, against the direct order of the Princess!” As she contemplated this scene, Rarity wrapped her forelimbs about her barrel and swooned.
Safety or no, a pony simply had to have the occasional moment for drama! Rarity hoped that by getting her hooves back in place before her neighbors noticed that she had at least observed the spirit of the “not letting go” rule.
“I...I...I did no such thing!” the spirit protested weakly against the accusation of true love. “My second marriage was to the pony ambassador to the Diamond Dogs, Sir Purse Strings. We had the blessing of the Princess and everything!”
“Oh, you didn’t expect a juicy deception like that to remain a secret after your deaths, did you?” Rarity asked coquettishly. “The title and new name came after the fact. In truth, he was but a common thief, and he stole your heart! How romantic!” And she swooned once again.
“Has nopony any sense of privacy in this modern age?” cried Blue Belle.
“Is it true?” asked a shocked Twilight. “A marriage against the Princess’ orders? And Rarity, I noticed this time.”
“Drat,” cursed Rarity, holding her hooves out once more.
“Well...” the spirit grinned mischievously. “Yes, it’s true. You should have seen the look on Princess Celestia’s face when I told her! Completely blew her Delegation Operation to pieces!”
“You knew about the Delegation Operation?” asked Twilight in even more shock, putting hooves to her face.
(“Ha, who’s breaking the circle now?” chided Rarity.)
“Oh, I knew the maneuvers, Bearer of the Element of Magic,” the floating head said smugly, “but I had no idea of their purpose until a liberated Princess Luna resumed her link to the Spirit Realm. Do not fret, though. All that would have really changed in the end is that one of you would have ended up with higher cheekbones than you currently possess and to be honest, they were not a very attractive feature.”
There were certain topics of conversation that the five Bearers who were not Twilight Sparkle had long since learned were off limits to polite inquiry, as doing so had a negative effect on one’s sanity score. Almost anything Pinkie Pie was at the top of that list, but a close second was “the Delegation Operation”, i.e. the reason why the five best exemplars in all of Equestria of the qualities of Honesty, Loyalty, Laughter, Kindness and Generosity should all just happen to be living in Ponyville on the day when the greatest unicorn magician in Equestria and the avatar of Darkness Eternal should both come for a visit. This despite the fact that some of them owed their residence in Ponyville to some extremely unlikely circumstances.
“So you know who we are,” Applejack said cautiously.
“Oh, Pinkie Pie here has told me all sorts of interesting things about you all, Applejack, Twilight Sparkle, Rarity, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy. Amongst which, I imagine, were a number of even more interesting things that are true only to herself.”
“That reminds me, why are you letting Pinkie Pie summon you like this?” Twilight asked. A moment later, she realized her error. “Oh! I’m sorry, you don’t have to answer that. I forgot how close that gets to the sorts of things you spirits are not permitted to tell the living.”
“It’s alright,” Blue Belle said with an indulgent smile. “I’ve been spending the centuries, off and on, consulting for my Blueblood descendants. I’ve decided to visit Pinkie Pie here because the current Prince is entirely too good at his job, and because...” She and Pinkie shared a significant look. “...Because she amuses me.” She hoped that this half-truth would be enough to keep anypony from asking awkward questions.
Then Pinkie winked broadly at her, entirely ruining the effect.
“So,” Blue Belle said, “have you merely brought your friends over to introduce us or—”
“We came here to ask you about Emperor [REDACTED]!” Pinkie exclaimed.
“WHO?!?!” the demon Blue Belle roared, her flame mane pushing against the boundaries of the containment spell and significantly increasing the temperature inside the tent.
“She means Noffony I,” Gilda commented sarcastically. “Weren’t you like, a contemporary of him or something?”
“Oh. Him.” Blue Belle said, reverting to normal. “What do you want to know?” As she was waiting for the others to recover from her latest transformation, she turned around to face Pinkie. “How many times have I told you—?” she hissed.
“Oh, that was the thing I was supposed to remember to never ever tell anypony ever?” Pinkie asked innocently. “I guess I forgot.”
Blue Belle facehooved, thereby proving that she could summon up a hoof to go along with her disembodied head when it was convenient to her.
“Pinkie here claims that Noffony was a pony,” Gilda explained, “but since you met him, surely you know better. Right?”
Blue Belle did a bit of a double take. “Excuse me,” she said, “but who are you?”
“Me?” the griffon said in mock-shock, before pulling herself up into a military posture. “I am Grizelda V of the Emerald Sky pride.” With a smirk she added, “Bearer of the Element of Awesome.”
“Oh, you wish,” muttered Rainbow Dash to herself.
“G...Grizelda?” Blue Belle asked in bewilderment. “You, you look just like her! There’s a portrait in your family’s hunting lodge.”
“Yeah, I know,” Gilda said quietly. “It happens every other generation or so. We all get named Grizelda. It’s so we never forget.”
“‘Forget’ what?” asked Rainbow Dash.
Gilda blinked as she fought down another flashback to her former life. “Forget something so awful that I hope you ponies never have to know anything like it,” she said, fixing the pegasus with a steely glare. She refused to say anything further.
Unseen by the rest, Blue Belle nodded firmly in agreement.
“So, uh, Noffony I,” Twilight said, breaking the tension in the tent. “Pony, or griffon?”
Blue Belle sighed. “Noffony I was a ‘griffon’. End of discussion.”
“There, see?” Gilda said in satisfaction, before doing a double-take. “Wait, did I hear you put quotes around the word—”
“I SAID, END OF DISCUSSION!” bellowed the fire demon, smoke billowing out her nostrils with every angry snort.
Applejack glanced several times between Blue Belle’s enraged fire form and Twilight Sparkle. “Twi?” she asked softly.
“Um, yes?” replied Twilight.
“Have you ever considered the possibility that all this divination magic you’ve been studying might have some kind of negative side effects?”
Twilight furrowed her brow. “Negative side effects? Like what?”
Applejack looked back at Blue Belle, who once again resembled a normal unicorn. “Uh...never mind.”
“So,” asked Blue Belle, “any other questions?”
“Lady Belle,” Rarity said, putting the utmost care into her tone to convey the proper level of respect, “This is Rarity, as I’m sure you know. I was wondering if, by any chance, you might have pursued the study of genealogy during your centuries on Equestria? It was, if I remember correctly, a popular pastime during your lifetime.”
The unicorn head grinned slightly. “It is a good deal more than a hobby for me,” she told them. “I find it an excellent tool for rooting out ponies that could potentially be useful allies, or possible future enemies, of the Blueblood clan. I have a thesis I have developed in the past couple of generations that I may try to have published sometime, about the ways that the parents’ cutie marks affect the cutie mark of the child.”
“Oh I thought that the effect was studied and found to be insignificant,” said Twilight.
“It depends on some complicating factors,” explained Blue Belle. “Under the right circumstances, it can have as much as one in five chance in determining if the mark will be closely related to one or the other parent’s marks.”
“Oh, how fascinating!” exclaimed Rarity. “And would you happen to know my ancestry?”
Blue Belle chuckled. “You’re not descended from a thief, handsome or otherwise, if that’s what you’re wondering. Although perhaps that depends on your definition of ‘theft’. I’ve observed that when a noble robs from the poor, it is rarely called by that name.”
“A...a noble?” Rarity exclaimed giddily. “Are you implying that I was descended from nobility?”
The other ponies unconsciously made room for the near-future arrival of Rarity’s fainting couch.
Rarity fanned herself with one hoof as Blue Belle smiled indulgently. (By this point, the “holding hooves” rule had decayed into little more than a suggestion.) “I can’t believe that I was descended from...wait, hold on,” the fashionista said, interrupting herself. “What did they do? Perhaps I don’t want to be descended from nobility if they shamed themselves!”
“I warned you, Sugarcube,” said Applejack.
“I don’t have to tell you anything else if you don’t want me to,” said Blue Belle, a flicker of red beginning to alight behind her eyes.
Twilight began to get suspicious of the fact that the spirit was spending all of her time glancing back and forth between Rarity and herself with a wicked grin on her face. What is she implying? she thought to herself.
“No, no, that wouldn’t be right,” Rarity said after some consideration. “Ignorance is most certainly not the answer. If there’s something to atone for, then I will do what is required. So I ask you, dear Lady, with full recognition of the consequences, that you tell me what crime it is that you are insinuating my ancestor was responsible for. What, precisely, was stolen?”
“Oh not much,” answered Blue Belle, grinning nastily, “at least in the estimation of the pony responsible. Just wages...freedom...permanent disability...”
“Permanent disability!” exclaimed Rarity.
“Oh, but don’t worry!” Blue Belle replied with a cruel tone in her voice. “These were not pony lives ground to nothing in the gem mines of Trottingham province. Merely Diamond Dog lives. And how much are they worth?”
Rarity gasped in shock. “I’ve been treating them so awfully!” she exclaimed. “Stealing gems from their rightful land! How could I be so heartless as to treat those noble creatures as abysmally as my cold noble ancestor! I’m a monster!” And, having reached this conclusion, she then fainted into her designated chaise lounge.
“Rarity, you were entirely in the right,” said Twilight, resting a hoof on her shoulder. “My research showed that those Diamond Dogs were squatters, who stole land that rightfully belongs to the Crown for public use. You are definitely not stealing from them!”
Rarity looked warily up at Twilight. “Correct me if I’m wrong,” she asked, “but you did say the source of my gems was public, not private land, yes?”
“Well...yes,” Twilight said reluctantly, “and technically, that does make you a thief—”
“I knew it!” Rarity cried, burying her head in a pillow to sob.
“But you just have to get a permit!” the mage insisted. “This is nothing on the scale of your ancestor, who...” Twilight’s eyes went wide, as her brilliant analytical mind suddenly put together the clues left by Blue Belle together with her family history. “Nightingale!” she suddenly cried, leaping backward a couple ponylengths, as if the pony on the couch had suddenly transformed into a poisonous snake.
“‘Nightingale’?” Rarity asked, sitting up, her tears of a moment before forgotten.
“Twilight,” Applejack asked, “what exactly did the last Nightingale do that was so awful that she abandoned her name?”
“She got rich running a gem mine in Trottingham province,” Twilight explained, “but then it was revealed that her profits were entirely due to her enslavement of the Diamond Dogs her mother had paid to emigrate to Equestria.” She turned her back on Rarity as she struggled to deal with deciding how she felt about this revelation.
Applejack whistled. “Rarity Nightingale,” she said, trying the name out for size. “I don’t know if I can get used to calling you that.”
“Twilight,” Rarity said, getting up off of her couch and approaching the other unicorn. “Twilight, darling, I do hope that this hasn’t changed matters between us. We are still friends, right? You yourself said the other day that your family’s animosity towards mine was entirely irrational.”
“Yes, that’s right,” Twilight replied, turning to face her. “I certainly bear no ill-will, especially since the family resentment really boils down to the fact that your ancestors were the innocent cause of our family deception to be revealed. But I shudder to think what would happen if my family ever finds out.”
“Well I’m afraid they are going to find out, sooner or later,” Rarity said, quietly but firmly. “I shall not be proclaiming the truth from the rooftops, but I will not deny it if asked of me. I shall continue to pursue my destiny of becoming a top fashion designer, but now I will be doing it at least in part so that I can work to repay the Diamond Dogs for the wrongs of the past. Even the squatters that you tell me are in the wrong, are probably in that position because of what my ancestors did to their ancestors. I will right this wrong, on this I swear...as a noble. Even if I do not deserve the title in name, I will strive to be worthy of it in deed!”
“Bravo!” exclaimed Blue Belle. “I was always fond of the Nightingales in my own lifetime. They were peasants in that time as well, but nevertheless among the noblest ponies I ever knew, regardless of birth.”
“And besides,” Spike reminded Twilight, “the Nightingales are the closest living desendants of Star Swirl the Bearded.”
“That’s right!” Twilight exclaimed, as excited now as Rarity had been upon first learning of her ancestor’s nobility. “I had always hoped to find a descendant with a secret history of their own about Star Swirl!”
“I’m sorry to disappoint you,” Rarity said, “but you know far more about my new-found ancestor than I do.”
“But there’s Blue Belle’s theory about qualities inheirited down family lines!” exclaimed Twilight. She seemed to be vibrating in place. It reminded the others of Pinkie Pie, before one of her episodes.
“You know what sort of magic I possess,” Rarity said carefully, trying to reign in Twilight’s growing mania. “It is sufficient for my purposes, but nothing really grand. I’ve certainly tried numerous times to slow down or reverse time in order to get an order in before a deadline, but I’ve never succeeded.”
“Oh, temporal magic was only one of the areas that Star Swirl specialized in,” said Twilight. “He was known among his contemporaries for the extreme care and delicacy of his spell work, something that you also excel at! Why didn’t I see the connection before?”
“Rarity...” Applejack warned.
“I’m trying to calm her down,” Rarity replied, “but nothing is working!”
“We could bonk her on the head with a clown hammer,” Pinkie Pie suggested brightly. “That always works on me!”
“Hey wait a second!” exclaimed Rainbow Dash, pointing a hood accusingly at Blue Belle. “You’re doing this deliberately!”
“Doing what?” Blue Belle asked innocently.
“Driving us apart, that’s what! And making Twilight crazy.”
“That’s implying that any of you ponies are ever sane in the first place,” observed Gilda dryly.
“You’re wrong, Rainbow Dash,” Blue Belle replied, ignoring the griffon. “Rarity brought this on herself with her question. And Sparkles are always high-strung. Although I’ve observed that it’s gotten worse over the generations instead of better, a negative side-effect of selecting spouses for their attention to detail.”
“I’m OK, I’m OK!” Twilight insisted, although the continued dilation of her pupils suggested otherwise. “As an adult mare, Rarity, your magical abilities are fixed, so there’s no need to stress over anything worrisome like examining you right now for magical residue. Now your sister on the other hoof, well surely she’s old enough now for some magical training, training I’d be more than willing to provide—”
“Watch it, Sparkle,” Rarity growled.
Blue Belle sighed wistfully. “Ah, this reminds me of my fights with Zody. Such fun!”
“You better watch your mouth, Missy,” warned Rainbow Dash.
“Who wants to hear exactly how Rarity’s greedy ancestor was taken down?” the spirit asked in a loud voice.
“Ooo! I do! I do!” cried Pinkie Pie, her obligatory box of popcorn at the ready.
“It was a sensational exposé by the greatest reporter of all time, Firefly II,” said Blue Belle, her eyes fixed on Rainbow Dash.
The pegasus in question desperately tried to act like the name meant absolutely nothing to her.
That meant that the first reaction came from Pinkie instead, or rather from her box of popcorn: it spontaneously combusted.
“Her?!” Pinkie Pie asked incredulously. “You mean that jerk ruined Rarity’s life too?”
“Hey, don’t be calling Two a jerk!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed. “She’s, like, the only one of my ancestors who wasn’t a jerk.”
And then she realized what she said, and put her hooves over her mouth, but it was too late.
Twilight Sparkle gasped. “You’re a Firefly? The Hall of Heroes must have a half-dozen portraits of your ancestors! Why have you never told us this before?”
“Because they’re worse than your family, Twilight!” the pegasus exclaimed. “They want to control every single moment of your life. What you eat, who’s allowed to be your friend—” (she looked at Fluttershy) “—who’s not allowed to be your friend—” (she looked at at Gilda) “—and exactly who you’re going to be when you grow up. My generation already had their soldier, so no fancy flying allowed for me! ‘Fire Boom, get back to your meteorology,’ they’d say, or ‘Fire Boom, stop flying so much.’ I had to run away from home to become my own pony!”
“And to come up with a new name, it appears,” Rarity commented.
“But you did become a meteorologist,” Fluttershy pointed out.
Nopony heard her.
“You really should apologize!” Pinkie exclaimed, pointing a hoof at Rainbow Dash.
“Apologize? For what?”
“For what...she...with...I can’t tell you!” Pinkie exclaimed in frustration.
“So how am I supposed to apologize, then?” Rainbow asked indignantly.
“Yes, you really should apologize for your ancestor’s boorish behavior,” said Rarity, already adopting the upraised muzzle of a noble without realizing it.
“Hey, my ancestor was just telling the truth,” Rainbow retorted. “Your ancestor was the one who should have been watching her back.”
“And your ancestor should have remembered her place as a commoner, and refrained from telling tales!” Rarity said with a toss of her head.
Rainbow zoomed over and hovered in Rarity’s face. “Say that again! I dare you to say that again!” she cried.
“Girls, I don’t think we should be breaking the circle,” Fluttershy said quietly.
“And your ancestor used passive aggression to bully every pony around her!” Blue Belle said to Fluttershy. As she said this, the flickers in her eyes burst into full flames.
The pale yellow pegasus shrank. “Oh, dear! Do I do that?”
An incensed Gilda stepped between the two. “Hey!” she exclaimed. “Pick on somebody who’s willing to fight back!”
“Watch it, squirt, or I’ll tell the others how the original Grizelda provided the spark that ignited the Griffish Revolution,” Blue Belle threatened.
“You wouldn’t!” Gilda cried out in fear.
Blue Belle laughed as her eyes turned completely red. “Ah, this is so delicious! I won’t have to feed again for years!”
Twilight suddenly suspected that the wild rumours that made spirits a close relative of windigos might not be far off of the mark. “Applejack, we have to do something!” she pleaded to the always level-headed mare next to her.
“I’m on it, Twi,” the cowpony said as she pushed back her hat. “Hey, Blue Belle! What do you know about my family’s founder?”
“The founder of the great Apple family?” the spirit of Blue Belle asked, her fur glowing with power and her voice echoing. “She was nothing but a thief, who considered everypony a mark to be exploited.”
“Yup. I know it, and I’m proud of it,” Applejack said, puffing out her chest.
“What?!” everybody else in the room exclaimed.
All the shouting, all the accusations, all the hatred, suddenly was replaced with confusion.
“Why in Celestia’s name would you be proud to be descended from a thief?” Rarity asked, channeling the spirit of the room.
“Well just think about it,” Applejack explained, “Mallus started as a pickpocket, and look at us today! She had to steal her food, and now her descendants feed half of Equestria! How can you not be proud of a story like that? And Mallus herself started it all. She was caught after stealing from the Princess—”
“Hold on!” cried Twilight, teleporting the one hoofswidth necessary to get into Applejack’s face. (What? The moment required drama, as Rarity would say.) “Your ancestor stole...from Princess Celestia?”
“Yup!” Applejack bragged. “I never heard of no other pony who got away with doing that! Not that I condone stealing, of course,” she quickly added. “But if you’re gonna do the wrong thing, might as well go all out, am I right?”
“Wow, that Mallus sounds like my kind of pony!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed.
“But she did eventually get caught?” Twilight asked, hoping desperately for proof that her rock-solid belief in her mentor’s infallibility had not just crumbled around her hooves.
“Oh of course,” explained Applejack. “And she was sentenced to plant appleseeds all across Equestria by Chancellor Leap Frog [2], which she did so well that her children got into apples for a living.”
Translator’s Note #2: Oh, that’s cute. “Leap” because of “voltige”, and “Frog” because of Fisby. I was wondering what sort of trace he might have left in Pony memory...
“Well, that’s not the reaction I was expecting,” Blue Belle said, as her features returned to normal. “Oh!” she then exclaimed. “I lost control of myself, didn’t I? I’m so dreadfully sorry about that.”
“Oh, I forgive you,” said Fluttershy. “We got to find out that our ancestors all had an effect on each other’s lives. Except for mine, that is, who was just a bully...”
Blue Belle bowed her head. “I’m sorry for giving you the wrong impression, Fluttershy. Your ancestor was sort of a bully, the same way I was a bully through most of my life—a bully for good, somepony who only pushed around those who tried to make life miserable for everypony else. I worked closely with her, and so did Morningstar and Eveningstar Sparkle.”
“My ancestors knew Fluttershy’s?” Twilight asked eagerly. “What was that ancestor’s name?”
“Butterbold Fluffykins,” Blue Belle said with a smile.
“Ha!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed, “With a name like that, I believe it!”
“I never knew anything about my family, other than what Mother told me,” Fluttershy confessed. “And she didn’t like her relatives enough to tell me anything.”
“Well that’s because...” Rainbow Dash began, before stopping herself. “Yeah, I’m not surprised.”
Fluttershy turned to face her. “And aren’t you glad you don’t have to keep your family a secret anymore?”
“Well I dunno,” Rainbow said cautiously. “Are any of you planning on treating me differently because of my family?”
“Wait, you don’t want us to treat you like you’re great because you’re a Firefly?” Pinkie Pie asked.
“No, I want to be recognized for what I do, not them,” Rainbow replied.
“OK, I’m going to make a note to myself,” Pinkie said, pulling her notepad and pencil out of her mane. “Treat Dashie the same despite her family, but treat Rarity like royalty because of her family.”
“Pinkamena Diane Pie!” Rarity exclaimed. “I did not say that I wished to be treated any differently for being discovered to be a member of the illustrious and once-powerful Nightingale Clan—although it would be nice.” She added this last part in a much quieter tone.
The other ponies gave her a disparaging look. (Gilda did as well, but this was indistinguishable from the way she looked at any pony she was not friends with, so it was hard to tell. Spike remained silent, which was his only defense against awkward girly moments in general.)
“Oh, you know I was only joking!” Rarity added, entirely too eagerly. “I suppose I’ll need to research the family’s crest.”
“Chequy sable and gules, a needle argent embedded bendy,” Twilight answered automatically, thereby revealing that heraldry was yet another subject she was conversant in.
“A silver needle on...black and red?” Rarity said, translating the blazon into Equine. “How gauche! I simply must get that properly coordinated.”
Secret Histories
Part Three and Credits
The Roman once told the Princesses a story: The king of the gods, Jupiter, had a horrific headache, so bad that he felt like he had somebody else stuffed into his head. The god Vulcan, taking this complaint literally, split open Jupiter’s head with an axe, and out of the wound sprang the goddess Minerva, fully adult and armed with shield and spear!
Lying in her bed and facing the rising sun, Princess Celestia felt like Twilight Sparkle was trying to burst out of her forehead.
She tried to sit up from her bed.
This was a mistake.
With a moan, the Princess lowered her head back down, only for it to crumple a scroll that had been lying next to her head all this time.
With her eyes still closed, she called out for her steward. “Snowy? Are you there?”
“Yes, I am here!” a unicorn mare called out as she raced to the side of the royal bed.
“Quieter,” Celestia said, nearly begging.
“Yes, Your Highness,” Snowy Slopes said apologetically. “Are you alright? I have never seen you like this.”
Celestia sighed, her eyes still shut. “That is because you are unacquainted with my sister’s penchant for intoxicating beverages, and how very persuasive she can be. Where is she?”
Without being instructed, Snowy immediately walked over to the drapes, which she shut. Unfortunately, Princess Celestia normally liked sunlight in her room, and so the thin drapes were not very effective. “Princess Luna is currently ‘bar-hopping’ with a human,” she reported on her return. “The guards are still trying to find them.”
“Well at least she remembered to raise the sun for me,” said Celestia. “It’s a pity that my hangover cure can’t work on the one who casts it.”
“I’m afraid I don’t know that spell,” said Snowy. “Shall I retrieve a unicorn mage who can cast it for you?”
“Don’t bother,” replied Celestia. “The spell is merely the ability that makes earth ponies so resistant to getting drunk in the first place, channeled through a horn. And with Cadence running her own kingdom...”
“I’ll send some more guards after Princess Luna.”
“No...ow,” said Princess Celestia, as she first shook her head, and then found that this made the pain even worse. “I was foalish enough to do this to myself, so I shall take the punishment like a mare.” Slowly she forced her eyes to open. It felt like they had been coated in sand like one of Pinkie Pie’s sugar cookies. She looked upon the concerned face of the middle-aged unicorn before her. “Postpone my pre-lunch meetings and cut out all meals today to compensate,” she said.
“All meals!” the white unicorn gasped.
“You do know that I don’t really need to eat, right?” the Princess asked playfully.
“Yes, of course,” the steward said abashedly.
Slowly, the alicorn rose to her haunches and passed the rolled up scroll to Snowy by hoof. “Now,” she said, “while I am waiting for the throbbing behind my eyeballs to diminish, could you please read me the letter that my student has sent me? I’ll just make the headache worse if I read it myself. Oh, and I trust that you will remain discreet about any personal details that might be contained within?”
“Of...course, Your Highness,” Snowy Slopes said, as she used her telekinesis to unroll the several sheets of paper before her. With a clearing of her throat, she began to read out loud:
Dear ~~Princess~~ Celestia,
“She crossed out the ‘princess’!” Snowy exclaimed. “And then added the note, ‘(Sorry, force of habit)’!”
Celestia chuckled slightly. “Yes, we are trying out a change in our professional relationship. Strictly in private, of course. Twilight would never fail to use the correct salutation in public.”
“Of...of course,” Snowy said once again, before resuming her reading:
In an earlier letter, I informed you of how I learned that the bond I had with my friends in Ponyville dated back to far before we had met each other, to the moment when we all gained our cutie marks.
Well now I have learned that not just ourselves, but our six families, have been linked together by at least as much as a quarter of a millennium! This news will of course come as a complete surprise to you. Coincidentally, “a quarter of a millennium” is the exact span of time since Eveningstar’s pioneering work on star migration.
Celestia burst out laughing at that point, which confused her steward to no end. “Ha-ha-ha-ha...ow.” She gently rubbed one temple with a hoof. “Someday I will learn to stop underestimating my students. Continue on.”
Snowy Slopes had meanwhile been reading ahead, and what she saw made her feel weak to her knees. She had always suspected that her mistress played the “Long Game”, but to see it spelled out so explicitly...
“Snowy,” the Princess addressed her, suddenly serious. “I told you I trust you. I see no reason why I should keep these sort of things from you. Please, keep reading.”
Snowy nodded silently before continuing.
Now that everything’s out in the open—and believe me, the safe parts of this will become public knowledge—I feel that it’s time to take care of a matter I have avoided for too long. Namely, my family. Celestia, you know that I would share everything in my heart with you, but for once, this is a private matter. I just wanted you to know before I begin writing to Prince Shining Armor. With his support, I hope to begin instituting some changes.
“Good for her!” exclaimed the Princess.
I have asked the others affected by these revelations to provide their own friendship reports after my own, starting with the one among us who hasn’t written one before, so with that I will sign off.
Your Friend,
Twilight Sparkle
“Oh!” exclaimed Snowy. “She has a P.S.:”
P.S. I have recently learned that some humans have a governmental agency in place with the purpose of testing new inventions and drugs to make sure that they do not have unintended side effects. This sounds like something that can be effectively applied to our government as well. If this idea appeals to you, might I suggest that Full Immersion be the first item to be studied by this agency? I of course have full faith in the technique which I myself convinced you to release to the public, but I wouldn’t mind having a second opinion.
“Make a note to have that notion raised in the Senate,” Celestia said with a frown. “I have learned to recognize Twilight Sparkle’s ‘damage control mode’ when I hear it, and never to ignore it.”
Once that was done, Snowy continued with the second part of the letter:
Dear Celestia, Princess of Equestria and Raiser of the Sun,
The Princess and her steward shared a look of understanding. Only one species regularly used that particular greeting.
Snowy scanned down to the end of the section. “It’s from ‘Grizelda V of the Emerald Sky Pride’,” she told Celestia.
“Ah, Gilda,” the alicorn said with a nod. “The others have encountered her before, although not under the best of circumstances. Wait,” she suddenly realized, “if that group is all suddenly sharing their family histories...”
From the pale look on her mistress’ face, Snowy decided that she needed to get through this letter as fast as possible.
To answer your first, last and only question: No, they don’t know. I’d never tell them something like that, no matter what any pony might say about me.
Since I had no other secrets worth sharing, let me instead tell you about a business proposition that you would consider yourself lucky to get in on the ground floor.
“Th...the nerve of that griffon!” Snowy exclaimed. “There’s a note by Twilight afterwards—shall I skip ahead to that?”
“No, I think not,” said Celestia. “The letters are all in the same script, yes?”
“Yes, Your Highness,” confirmed Snowy Fields.
“That means that they were all dictated to Twilight’s assistant, who I trust to have cut out anything that would be a waste of my time. In addition, Twilight herself probably heard the letter being dictated as well. At the very least, they thought it would amuse me.”
“Very well,” said Snowy.
What I would like to offer is the services of me and my fellow griffons as official bodyguards of the Cross-Worlds Portal. My team will be trained in both human and pony customs. For ponies, we will offer protection in the dangerous habitats of Earth. And for humans, we will offer our expertise in pony politics and the fact that they can talk to us about sports, movies, food, or a thousand other subjects that put those namby-pamby ponies into full-on panic mode.
Snowy rolled her eyes as she continued:
Think about it, Princess. You know full well what we griffons are really like, but do you ever see us acting like that in Equestria? Well, even if you do, my griffons won’t be like that. We’re the closest thing this world had to humans before the real things showed their flat little faces, and I think that makes us the perfect beings to go between you, and them.
What do you think? If you’d like to shower me with a million bits, I can be found at the Sparkle Family Museum in Canterlot.
Later,
Gilda
“Have the Bureau bring up to date the file I ordered back when Gilda crossed the Bearers’ paths the last time,” Celestia ordered. “I don’t want to commit one way or the other on this rather intriguing offer until I’m sure that Grizelda’s truly done her homework on this matter.”
“Yes, Your Highness,” said Snowy, already writing out the missive.
~ ~ ~
“So, what did Twilight write after Gilda’s letter?” asked the Princess.
“‘Sorry about that’,” Snowy read, “‘but I had no idea that Gilda was going to pull a trick like sneaking a sales pitch into her letter to you. I’ll leave it in anyway, since it actually appears to have some merit, but I am imposing a strict five minute time limit on each letter from now on. They will be written by Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Fluttershy, Applejack and Pinkie Pie, in that order, and as soon as Pinkie’s time is up, Spike will send the letter to you, regardless of what anypony says. In this way I hope to prevent any other sorts of funny business,’ Signed, Twilight Sparkle.”
~ ~ ~
Dear Princess Celestia,
I’ll get this done real quick: I’m a Firefly, and I moved to Ponyville from Cloudsdale to keep the rest of my busybody family out of my mane.
I suppose I should go and visit them sometime.
I am only going to write this once, and then it’s back to “Rainbow Dash”, OK?
Sincerely Yours,
Fire Boom IV, Seventh Daughter of Firefly VI
~ ~ ~
Dear Princess Celestia,
All my life I have sought for a proper ending to strive for, a “happily ever after” to follow my struggle to be recognized.
Tonight I discovered that the ending I sought was mine all along. I am a noblepony, but the name that I have inherited is tainted with shame.
You see, I am a Nightingale, and the Nightingales have never atoned for the shameful acts that led them to abandon that name two centuries ago.
I accept the name with pride, regardless of stigma. If anypony asks, I will not deny what I am. If you choose to proclaim my identity, I will accept it humbly. But, if I were allowed to arrange events to my liking, then I would much prefer to wipe the stain upon my escutcheon before I would deign to reveal said escutcheon for the world to comment upon.
[At this point, Rarity convinced me to extend her allotted time. After all, the revelations affected her more than anypony, so I only thought it right. — Twilight]
[Also, it took five minutes just figuring out how to spell ‘escutcheon’. — Spike]
My fame as a designer is based upon my use of jewels in my designs, and those jewels nearly exclusively have come from the Lesser Badlands to the north of Ponyville, an area occupied by Diamond Dog squatters, squatters that I am convinced are the descendants of the Diamond Dogs my ancestors wronged making their fortune.
Technically, they are on that land illegally, doubly so as that territory is crown property. But in every decent sense, a home of some sort is their right, a right my ancestors stole from them. If you will give me the time, I would like to make them legal citizens of Equestria. I am currently looking to find private lands to their liking that I will purchase and give to them, so I beg of you, please do not prosecute or expel them from their current burrows until I can do this. I hope you do not feel that I am imposing upon you with these requests, but I feel that this is a debt that I must repay.
I realize that with a name as long-abandoned as “Nightingale” that I would have a place on the social ladder perhaps even lower than that granted to me as a designer for the aristocracy. That is no matter to me. I have been given a new mission in life, and I will not rest until the name of “Nightingale” has earned the right to be treated as well as any other noble name.
Most Humbly Yours,
Rarity, Nightingale in Deed if Not Yet in Fact
“I don’t think that plan will work out the way she thinks,” Snowy cautiously stated. “Just because her attitude towards some vagrants has changed, does not mean that theirs has changed commensurately.”
“Probably not,” answered the Princess. “But it will make for a good learning experience for a would-be noble.”
“Your Highness...” the steward added hesitantly.
“Yes, Snowy?” Celestia replied.
“The rumors are rather vague, but there is a tale in my family that I too am a Nightingale.”
“Well!” Celestia exclaimed with a smile. “In that case, I suggest you get in contact with your long-lost relative, and only afterwards offer your advice on the Diamond Dog issue.”
“Yes,” Snowy said with a small smile, “I just might do that. What should I do about Rarity’s unstated request?”
“‘Unstated’?” Celestia asked, before figuring it out. “Oh yes. Have Professor Stein draft a measure to put the Lesser Badlands up for a public auction, with a preference given to a purchaser willing to buy the entire territory as a single unit. I’m sure he’ll tell me if I’m showing any undue favoritism by including that request, and how best to fix things so that I can get what I want without looking like I’m bashing any hooves.
“Next letter!”
~ ~ ~
Dear. Princess. Celestia.
Um.
I’ll ask my mother about my ancestor Butterbold, and see what else she knows about my forebears.
Sincerely,
Fluttershy...Fluffykins?
“‘Wheatstraw’,” the Princess corrected. “Legally, their name is Wheatstraw.”
~ ~ ~
Dear Celestia,
“Another one without ‘Princess’,” noted Snowy.
“Oh Applejack went for ‘The Frog Princess’ like a tadpole takes to a swimming pool,” Celestia said with a grin.
When her steward gave her a look of utter incomprehension at her choice of simile, she quickly waved a hoof at her. “Carry on, carry on.”
We Apples have always kept a close eye on our history. In a way, it’s sort of like my Element: we take the good and the bad.
So I didn’t learn anything tonight from Blue Belle that I didn’t already know—
“Blue Belle!” Celestia interrupted. “So that’s how they learned.”
“I don’t recall any Blue Belles,” said Snowy. “At least, none in the current generation.”
“She’s a spirit, several centuries old,” the Princess explained. “I haven’t spoken with her in...oh I’d say at least seventy years. In fact, request an appointment with Prince Blueblood—I simply must have a chat with her at his convenience. Perhaps between the two of us, we can finally talk some sense into her descendant. He’s taking the ‘family burden’ far too seriously.”
“Yes, Your Highness,” Snowy said as she made the note, pretending to understand what her mistress was talking about. She then continued from where she left off in Applejack’s letter:
—but I was reminded that my friends are part of my family, and I shouldn’t be so nervous about letting them look through the Apple Family Photo Album.
In fact, I sort of consider you part of the family, seeing as you were nice enough to grant my great-grandparents the deed to the spot you had picked out for your own eventual family reunion—
Snowy looked up from the letter at her sovereign.
“Never underestimate the talents of an Apple,” Celestia told her solemnly, before breaking into a smile. “Not even their diplomacy.”
“Yes, Your Highness,” said Snowy.
—so if you could find a spot in your schedule for the fifth of next month, perhaps I could show you all the kind of ancestors I had over a traditional Apple Family lunch.
Your grateful subject,
Applejack
“If Princess Luna is willing to cover for you, I think I can arrange for you to attend that get-together,” Snowy reported after checking the datebook that never left her side.
“Oh, Luna will have to come with me, I’m afraid,” said Celestia with mock seriousness. “It’s a ‘family reunion’, after all.”
“Of course,” Snowy said with a sigh. “I’ll do my best.”
“Thank you, Snowy,” Celestia said with a slight dip of her head.
~ ~ ~
So anyway—
“‘So anyway’?!” Snowy exclaimed. “Now here I must draw the line. What kind of—”
“It’s Pinkie Pie,” Celestia said with a shrug. “As near as I can figure, she considers everything she’s ever sent to me to be just parts of one big long letter. I received precisely one ‘Dear Princess Celestia’ from her, and I don’t expect a ‘Sincerely Yours’ until she’s on her deathbed, which I hope is a very, very long time from now.”
“I...see,” said Snowy, before returning to the beginning of Pinkie’s message with some trepidation.
So anyway, Blue Belle’s a friend of mine from my days with Madame Fortuna, and she’s told me all sorts of things about me and my family that I never knew before, and that’s why everypony (and Gilda, and Spike) went to my séance, because nobody believed me when I told them something Blue Belle told me, and you know what, I wasn’t actually supposed to tell that thing to anypony, so forget that I told you that, OK?
“I think Pinkie Pie’s words are giving me a hangover just by reading them,” Snowy declared before resuming her narration.
It turns out that spirits eat yelling for breakfast—not very nutritious if you ask me—and that’s when all the family secrets Blue Belle had been hoarding all spilled out, but Applejack turned the secrets on her like a boss and, hold on, Spike just got a cramp in his claw from writing too fast.
As I was saying—what was I saying? Twilight says my time’s running out. I didn’t tell any of them that I was actually a [REDACTED] and [REDACTED! REDACTED! OH SWEET CELESTIA SO VERY REDACTED!!!] Wait, no, Spike, don’t sent tha
~ ~ ~
And that’s how the letter ended, cut off in mid-sentence. Most of that last paragraph was not read out loud by Snowy, whose brain had froze up at the very first [REDACTED], but by Celestia, who had snatched away the letter with her magic, headache or no headache.
“Ugh! Pinkie Pie!” the Princess yelled out in frustration. This was not to say that the Princess had not harbored certain suspicions. There was a reason after all why she had not requested that Twilight’s unsatisfying friendship report about her friend’s possible powers of precognition have a follow up. But now that she knew, there were certain procedures that had to be followed. Poor Snowy would need to have the last five minutes of her memory wiped. And the Bearers (other than Pinkie) would have to lose practically a whole day by this point, assuming they were all within a twenty-ponylength radius of Pinkie at her typical volume level; closed doors had proved completely useless in the past at blocking that voice when she wasn’t trying to keep a secret. And then she’d have to blast herself, after leaving a suitably convoluted explanation to her sister to block herself from investigating when she realized what had happened to her...
And then the logical part of Celestia’s mind—which more and more over the centuries came to resemble the voice of the human philosopher Voltaire—reminded her not only that dragon brains were notoriously hard to influence magically, but also that the Elements, and therefore their bearers, were enchanted against memory-rewriting spells because of that one time when Discord had tried to turn Luna against her while still frozen in stone.
With a sigh, Celestia lightly tapped her hooves together right next to Snowy Slopes’ ear.
“I’ll never tell another pony for as long as I live, I swear by your nonexistent beard!” the unicorn suddenly exclaimed.
“Alright, very big to-do list,” Celestia told her after pointedly ignoring her outburst. “First, get Pr. Stein in here to start the process of getting a certain no-longer applicable order overturned. I predict he’ll tell me it’s not going to happen. We’re going to make it happen anyway, but I predict it will take about a year to pull off.
“Second, get me a copy of Royal Order 1895 so I can send it to Pinkie Pie so she knows precisely what she did wrong, while I draft a letter instructing her to reduce the damage and emphasizing that I trust her to do the right thing. I hope I’m not making a mistake.
“And third, cancel everything else for today and tell Luna that she’s in charge, by magic bullhorn if necessary. May the Fates pity anypony foalish enough to interrupt me before tomorrow.”
“What will you be doing?” asked Snowy fearfully.
“I,” Princess Celestia announced, for the first time in living memory, “am going back to bed. Today is officially shot.”
T H E _ E N D
Credits & Acknowledgements
First and foremost, a big thank you to GBScientist, whose comment in Chapter 32 of “The Best of All Possible Worlds” inspired this whole story. Also a shout-out to my editor, EricKilla.
My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic is property of Hasbro, and the artistic creation of Mrs. Lauren Faust and the team at Studio B. The characters of Twilight Sparkle, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Applejack, Fluttershy, Queen Chrysalis, Prince Blueblood, Opal, Star Swirl and the Viscous Smooze (First Generation), Princesses Celestia and Luna (fka Nightmare Moon), Gilda, Daring Do, Scootaloo, Spike, the Cakes, Sweetie Belle, Shining Armor and Princess Cadence, The Diamond Dogs and Firefly (also First Generation) are all the creations of that august company, as well as the locations of Equestria, Canterlot, Princess Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns, Appleloosa, Manehattan, Ponyville, Sugarcube Corner, Carousel Boutique and Trottingham, the concepts of the Elements of Harmony and Poison Joke, and the occasions of Hearth’s Warming Eve, the Grand Galloping Gala and Nightmare Night, and all of them are being used without their permission. All that belongs to me are Blue Belle, Morningstar, Eveningstar, Fellstaff, Cogs and Zody Sparkle, Sky Shock, Grizelda (the First), Duke Thunderwing, Butterbold, Mallus, Princess Fisby, the Nightingales and the Orange Clan of dragons, Royal Order 1895, and the events of the Diamond Dog and Griffish Revolutions from my earlier story “The Best of All Possible Worlds”, plus Spot the Wonder Changeling, Stirling the White, Nebulosity, Noffony I [modeled after Napoleon I], Pr. Valerian, the technique/machine known as Full Immersion, Sir Purse Strings (who may or may not be the same as the “Best of All Possible Worlds” character Cut Strings), the Delegation Operation (although half of the fandom already had the idea before me), Gilda’s full name in this fic and her placement in the Emerald Sky Pride. And Baaarney’s Scarf Emporium—you can have control of that concept when you pull it out of my rigor-morted fingers.
“Essential Saltes” is from The Case of Charles Dexter Ward by H. P. Lovecraft (1927).
The fan characterization of Lyra Heartstrings is in this story, if you know where to look.
The unauthorized biography of Twilight Sparkle was called Friendship Is Magic: The Adventures of a Unicorn and Her Friends in Equestria (Foal Free Press, 2010). The independent web animation series that was adapted from that book is called simply Friendship Is Magic, and is currently building up to its third season. I hear we might even get to see Princess Luna again!
The term “Melonie” is derived from “Camel” in the same way as “Gypsy” is derived from “Egypt”. Gypsies refer to themselves as “Romani”, and the Romani word for horse is “grasnari”. “Opre” is their word for “arise”.
Momma Fortuna is from the novel The Last Unicorn, by Peter S. Beagle (1968).
The demonic character of Thrakkorzog, voiced by the immortal Jim Cummings, first appeared in The Tick animated series in the episode “The Tick vs. the Uncommon Cold” (1994, written by Henry Gilroy and directed by Art Vitello), although I hear the name more recently showed up in a work of parody. “But McPoodle,” you ask, “why are you telling us about Thrakkorzog, when s/he wasn’t even mentioned in this story?” Are you sure about that?
Ballyfore is a town in Northern Ireland, and therefore a good place to find a baneful banshee.
Raise the Red Lantern is a 1991 film in Mandarin Chinese directed by Zhang Yimou.
And finally, Princess Celestia’s steward Snowy Slopes was borrowed from Abelidoth’s story “Celestia’s Teeth”.
Secret Histories
Translation Assisted by McPoodle
Part One
It was another wonderful Hearth’s Warming Eve in Canterlot. Chestnuts were roasting over open fires, traditional carols were being sung at every corner, and there was a two-for-one sale at Baaarney’s Scarf Emporium.
Which meant of course that Twilight Sparkle, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Applejack and Fluttershy were all inside picking out accessories.
As an inevitable corollary, Spike was at Donut Joe’s. Twilight Sparkle secretly wished she could join him.
~ ~ ~
“I certainly wouldn’t want to be considered mean-spirited on this of all days,” said Rarity as she held up scarf after scarf against an unwilling Applejack’s coat with her magic, “but I think that there is a certain price that one must be willing to pay for security. This is a time for family, and I for one would like to be sure that the family that is visiting is my family, and not some wretched changelings come to feast on my emotions! Is that so much to ask?”
“Well,” drawled Applejack, “since you are askin’ me, maybe I oughta turn around and ask you why you’re painting those changelings all with the same brush? Queen Chrysalis’ approach was all wrong, but in the end she was just lookin’ out for her family. It seems ta me that if a changeling was willing to drop her disguise, I might be willing to give her the benefit of the doubt.”
“But they feed on love!” Rarity protested.
“So? We ponies kinda do the same thing, just not so literal-like. I honestly don’t know sometimes how I would have made it through half of the hard stuff I’ve been through in this short life of mine without the love of my family. If a changeling can live off the love we ponies can freely give, and no more, then sure, why not trust ‘em?”
“Wow,” commented Rainbow Dash. “I don’t know if I could ever do that.”
Applejack shrugged. “Well like I said, it’s part and parcel of being in a family: you got your ups, and you got your downs. We Apples have our share of bad seeds, and the best way ta make them grow up into good Apples is to give them love.”
“Even if they never get any better?” Dash asked darkly.
“Well, that’s what I believe,” countered the farm pony. “I’m certainly not trying to tell any of you what to do. What do you think, Twi?”
“Hmm?” asked the purple unicorn, her attention focused out the shop’s window and across the street to a neighboring bookstore.
Applejack sighed. “Never mind.”
Just then, Twilight Sparkle’s view of glorious unread books was blocked by a tall thin form. Twilight’s eyes wandered up, and up, and up, to terminate in a round pink face surrounded by the hood of a parka. It was a human, an increasingly common sight in Equestria following the opening of the Cross-Worlds Portal a year ago. The human’s eyes got wider, and wider, and wider, as he stared fiercely at the shrinking purple unicorn. Then he pointed, and yelled something, and a dozen humans started to congregate around him.
“Um...girls...” Twilight said nervously. “I think it’s time we might want to think about—”
The door of the shop burst open with a bang. “It’s them!” an excited human woman exclaimed. “Twilight Sparkle and the Elements of Harmony! I need all your signatures! And fur samples! And bite marks on my naked body! And—”
“RUN!” screamed Twilight, turning tail and dashing for the rear exit of the store.
A seemingly endless stream of human Twilight Sparkle fans followed close behind.
The humans tried to keep up with the fleeing ponies, but Twilight was a past master of fleeing insane crowds, and by keeping close behind her, the six were soon a full block ahead of their pursuers. Unfortunately, the intensely cold weather was quickly sapping their strength.
“In here!” Twilight exclaimed, turning sharply and barging through the elaborately carved door of a private residence.
The others stopped for a moment to see a sign set up outside the door printed in a curlicue font. Most of it was hard to make out, but the presence of opening and closing hours made it clear that this place was in fact open to the public, so they quickly followed Twilight past a pair of scowling earth pony guards into the house. The oblivious crowd raced past a few seconds later.
Pinkie Pie sneezed suddenly on passing though. “What was that anyway?” she asked, pointing behind her.
The others turned around. Faintly visible between the two guards was a pale pink force field.
“See those?” Twilight said as she pointed out the strange hats on both guards’ heads. Atop each hat was a large six-sided crystal. “Those crystals emit a modified version of the shield spell created by my brother,” she explained. “It breaks the illusions of anypony who walks through it.”
“Oh, I think I read about that in the latest issue of Modern Millinery magazine,” commented Rarity. “The crystals necessary are too rare on Equestria, so the humans mass-produce them, and then unicorns imbue them with their magic.”
“Yes,” said Twilight, “with the recent security failures at the Portal, the humans now need those hats just as much as we do.”
“And I do believe Twilight counts as one on my side of the changeling argument,” the white unicorn said smugly.
“What?” asked Twilight.
“Where are we?” asked Fluttershy, changing the subject.
Twilight looked around her and then sighed. “Ugh, not this place,” she said.
“Twilight, I am surprised at you!” Rarity exclaimed. “Is this not Sparkle Hall, ancestral home of your family for more than a thousand years?”
“It’s not ours anymore,” Twilight answered. Her tone lacked any of the disappointment Rarity expected. “We lost it centuries ago, so now it’s just a tourist attraction.”
“Well,” said Fluttershy quietly, “since we might be stuck here for a while waiting out the humans, why don’t we take the tour?”
Twilight opened her mouth to say something, then stopped and sighed. “Sure, why not?” she asked in a defeated tone. “But let me make one thing clear while it’s still fresh on my mind: I do not think of us as ‘Twilight Sparkle and the Elements of Harmony’. The humans seem to have this thing for taking the most-visible talent in any team and inflating their head with undeserved praise until they delude themselves into thinking that they would be better off solo, but I don’t think that at all! We’re a team of equals! I’ve never given you the impression that I thought I was better than you, right?”
“No, you’ve never pulled the ‘Great and Powerful’ act on us, Twi,” Applejack assured her.
“Well, there was that one time—” began Pinkie Pie, causing Twilight to wince.
“Never, Pinkie,” interrupted Applejack. “Now let’s see about this tour business.”
~ ~ ~
The earth pony led her friends to the end of a fairly long line of tourists (none of them humans, thankfully), all of them waiting for the next tour.
This also made them a captive audience for the pony who was addressing the crowd in tones of arrogant majesty—none other than Prince Blueblood.
“—And when we opened the door, we encountered a frightful sight,” the prince was saying. “Ponies trapped in cages, ponies locked in closets, two ponies fighting each other to a standstill. ‘Which of you is the changeling?’ I asked. ‘He is!’ ‘No, she is!’ they cried, each of them accusing the other. ‘I am the changeling,’ one of them insisted, ‘but something’s gone wrong with my magic, and I can’t turn back into my hideous bug-like form!’ So I cast the Dispel Illusion spell, and what did I find? Why that none of those ponies were changelings! They had all nearly killed each other in their suspicion and fear. We set up a detection field in the front doorway, and they lived in peace and security for as long as that house stood!”
“Which was how long?” prompted a little white unicorn with a smirk.
“Quiet, Nephew,” said the prince.
“I think you should answer the colt’s question,” said a stern Appleloosan mare.
“Ah, well...it burned down a week later,” Blueblood said reluctantly.
“What?!” the crowd exclaimed as one.
“Yes, well the detector went on the fritz, and falsely labeled the beloved daughter of the family as a changeling, the same one who had earlier insisted that she was a changeling to end the family’s strife. As a result, pony attacked pony once again, a lamp was accidentally knocked over, and soon the entire house was aflame. Spot, the family dog, bravely ran into the house again and again to save each member of the family. Sadly, he died of smoke inhalation, but I am happy to tell you that all of the ponies survived, and used this experience to bury their distrust for each other forever more!
“The lesson to be drawn from this is, of course, to always be sure who among you is a changeling, and to exile every single changeling you find! It’s the only way to be safe!
“Now, are there any more questions about the dreaded Changeling Menace?”
The white colt from before raised his hoof.
“Any questions from anypony else?” Blueblood desperately asked.
A Manehattanite stallion raised a hoof.
“Yes, what is your question?” Blueblood asked gratefully.
“You told us earlier that somepony in that house was definitely a changeling. So, who was it?”
“Uhh...” Blueblood stalled, sweat breaking out on his brow. “Anypony else have a question?”
He was answered by an angry glare from everypony.
“Well, um, you see...” the prince said, his voice getting smaller and smaller, “the fact of the matter is...that the changeling was...Spot the dog.”
“Spot!” exclaimed the Appleloosan. “The same dog that saved the family’s lives twice before?”
“...Yes,” Prince Blueblood answered reluctantly.
“The same dog that was starving to death the entire time the family was fighting? The same dog that mysteriously cured the daughter of her consumption?”
“Yeah, well we think that changelings might be able to transform love into some rather remarkable magic, but that’s only a theory and besides, Spot never revealed himself to the family as a changeling!”
“Well considering the abhorrent behavior of that family, I don’t think I would reveal myself under the circumstances either!” exclaimed Rarity, surprising herself.
Luckily for her, she was far enough away from the prince that they could not make eye contact. It helped that the self-absorbed jerk had utterly forgotten about her existence a mere ten minutes after she had so epically humiliated him at the Grand Galloping Gala.
“Look, let me boil it down for you peasants,” the prince said with a snarl. “Changelings are different, so they must be evil. They have secrets, which must be exposed. I mean, nopony really expects the right to keep their own privacy in this day and age, right? Right?” He looked around to see that all of the ponies had turned their backs and were now ignoring him. All except for his nephew. For reasons that no other pony understood, Blueblood nodded in satisfaction at this development.
“Uncle, why are you such an idiot?” the younger unicorn asked.
The prince smiled mysteriously. “I’ll tell you when you’re older.”
~ ~ ~
“Well, does that put you on my side of the ‘changeling question’ now, Sug?” Applejack asked Rarity smugly.
“I don’t know,” said Rarity vaguely. “I have to think about it.”
“If Opal is a changeling living off of love, she’s doing it all wrong,” joked Rainbow Dash.
“Well, that line looks reeeeaaallly long,” said Pinkie Pie. “How about if you give us a tour, Twilight?”
“Oh, that sounds like a splendid idea!” exclaimed Rarity, pulling herself out of her funk. “I’m sure you can tell us all kinds of things not on the standard tour!”
“Well, I don’t know...” Twilight answered. “My family is not exactly a favorite topic of conversation for me.”
“Really?” asked Rarity. “I’ve always wanted to know more about my family history, but I was never able to find anything. It seems that my forebears were stolid shopkeepers back to the Beginning of Time, none of them doing anything of dramatic interest. But you’re a Sparkle, Twilight! Your ancestors’ names are included in history books. They saved Equestria! Some of them, if the legends are to be believed, nearly doomed Equestria. It’s the kind of family history I could only dream of having myself. I would love to hear you tell us your favorite of your family’s stories, but of course it’s up to you. I would never dream of pressing you on something as personal as this.”
Twilight thought about this for a few seconds. “Alright,” she said with sudden determination. “I’ll tell you the secret history of the Sparkle family. You see, the Sparkles—”
She was interrupted by Rarity putting a hoof on her shoulder with a concerned look. “Twilight! Revealing the Sparkle Secret History was not what I had in mind! Those sort of things are not to be shared with just anypony!”
Twilight looked around her into the faces of the other ponies around her. “You five are not ‘just anypony’,” she said gravely, “you are the best friends I could ever have. You’re also closer to me than most of my extended family. Now of course I trust you to keep this stuff to yourselves, but you deserve to know more about me. Or do we want a repeat of that whole ‘what do you mean, you have a brother’ business?”
“It’s your choice, Twi,” said Applejack.
“And I’m choosing to tell you. Come on!”
A few pony-lengths away, an off-duty tour guide saw a group of six ponies peeling off from the others to take a private tour. She was in her rights to stop them right there, but once she realized who they were, she decided to follow at a discrete distance up the stairs to the second floor.
“This is Star Swirl the Bearded vanquishing the Viscous Smooze,” said Twilight, pointing reluctantly at the first painting in what was a veritable Hall of Portraits. “It’s the one everypony uses in the textbooks.”
“Oh is that what he looks like?” Pinkie Pie asked, leaning in close. It was hard to tell if she was examining the pony, or the monster. “So what’s he doing in here?”
“Well the story we tell outsiders is that he was a teacher of our family’s forebear, Sterling the White,” said Twilight, nervously rubbing one hoof against another. “Only there’s no real proof that Sterling ever existed. No, the real reason the Sparkles started the hall with this painting was because they spread the lie that they were Star Swirl’s direct descendants and chosen inheritors of his legacy. Eventually they forgot that it was a lie, and came to believe in it.”
“I kinda thought you were Star Swirl’s descendant, given how much you talked about him last Nightmare Night,” noted Applejack.
“No,” replied Twilight, “I’m just fascinated in him because of all of his accomplishments, and because of the funny hoofnotes he liked to sneak into his spells.”
“Did Star Swirl have any descendants?” asked Rarity.
“Not directly,” said Twilight. “But he had a brother named Nebulosity, and he had descendants. Even as Sterling’s descendants proclaimed to all that they were Star Swirl’s heirs, Nebulosity’s descendants forgot their forebear, but in their quiet nobility and unselfish use of their magical ability, proved themselves by deed instead of name.” Twilight’s head was bowed, as she considered the relative worths of the two families. “Those descendants, known as the Nightingale Clan, were eventually forced by circumstances into becoming servants at the Royal Palace, the frequent victims of the Sparkle Family’s scorn.”
“Oh that sounds dreadfully unfair!” the fashion pony exclaimed.
“Twilight, why is this really nasty looking eternal flame thingee called ‘The Nightingale Clan’?” asked Pinkie Pie. She had wandered half-way across the large floor of the gallery to find it. The flame, magically spending eternity consuming the black sculpture of a bird in agony, was incredibly violent, but utterly devoid of heat.
Twilight sighed. “That flame represents the deep hatred the Sparkles felt towards the Nightingales once Equestria discovered the truth. In fact, that truth forever marked the Sparkles, and transformed them into the minor nobility that they are today.”
“And what about the Nightingales?” asked a timid Fluttershy. “Did the Sparkles...burn them in revenge for their humiliation?”
“The Nightingales disappeared from the face of Equestria less than a generation after their triumph,” Twilight said sadly. “It was said that they were even worse with their pride than the Sparkles once they knew the truth of their ancestry. Accordingly, when their awful secrets were exposed, the shame was so great that they all abandoned the name ‘Nightingale’, and became peasants as they had been before.
“It’s a shame, really,” she said, looking pensively at the flame. “If the line hadn’t died out, there would exist ponies in this world carrying the legacy of the greatest unicorn to have ever lived. What kind of magic might they command that is unavailable to any other pony? What secrets might they know of the great Star Swirl?”
With a shake of her head, Twilight Sparkle came back to her senses, and decided to resume the tour. “I appear to have gotten ahead of myself, with all of that talk of the ‘Fall of the House of Sparkle’. Let me get back to their rise.” She began to walk down the hall, past nearly a dozen portraits of near-identical doppelgangers of Star Swirl. “These are supposedly Sterling the White’s descendants in the generations before Discord. Since pretty much no...sane...artistic works survived His reign of terror, these were all painted in the first and second generations of the Classical Era.”
The group continued, Pinkie Pie bouncing over to join the others, as the paintings of bearded stallions became a series of family portraits. The majority of them consisted of a wife, a husband, and a daughter or two, sometimes with an elder or younger generation added. Looking ahead, the other ponies could see a second transition coming up, from elaborate oil paintings to simple sketches, and from gold jewelry and fine brocade to the simplicity of wearing nothing at all. This was the period of dominance, but they were rapidly approaching the “Fall of the House of Sparkle”.
“You’ve got a small family,” Rainbow Dash noted of the paintings.
“Yes, we didn’t have much in the way of siblings in this period, as it always tended to lead to political ramifications,” Twilight said sadly. “During this time, my family were the first or second most-powerful in Equestria, with the Bluebloods as our eternal rivals. It was a pretty friendly rivalry, for the most part.”
“I heard of some pretty epic shouting matches between your two families, Twilight,” Rarity said carefully, hoping not to offend.
The group had stopped only two generations before the Fall, beside the rare case of a family portrait with more than one matriarch: two adult sisters with their cutie-age sons and the elder sister’s husband. The little gold nameplate at the bottom read “Morningstar, Fellstaff, and Cognizant Sparkle; Eveningstar and Zodiacal Light Sparkle. 6760.”
Twilight smiled. “That was just for show. By around—” (her wandering eye caught on the gold plate) “—6760, they had divided control of Equestria between them. The Bluebloods held the political power, and the Sparkles held the magical power.”
“That’s it?” Dash asked incredulously. “Two unicorn families to control the whole of Equestria? What about the pegasi and earth ponies?”
“Well,” Twilight said delicately, “things were different then. Control was centralized in Canterlot, and Canterlot was—and still is—a largely unicorn city. I’m not saying it’s right, it’s just the way things were.”
“Did your family see Princess Celestia a lot?” Applejack asked quietly.
“Yes, they certainly did.”
“Well then perhaps you might know why the Princess allowed this sort of injustice to continue?” Applejack continued in a dangerous tone.
“Well, uh, I...she was rather preoccupied,” Twilight said, taken aback. “It took many long centuries to rebuild pony civilization after Discord. And then of course there was Nightmare Moon’s rebellion in 6014. You’ve all seen how much the Sisters care for each other. Princess Celestia was quite devastated by being forced to banish her own sister to the Moon. For a long time, she thought that the banishment was permanent, and that Princess Luna would never be freed of her curse.”
“Well even so,” Applejack insisted, pointing at the painting’s nameplate, “6760 is a long time after all of that. I remember my history teacher droning on and on about those years being a ‘Golden Age of Art and Magic’. With the only ponies making that art and magic history being unicorns.”
“Well,” countered Twilight, “there were also the foreign distractions: the Second and Third Triangular Crises, the dragon invasion of 6503, the Diamond Dog Revolution and especially the Griffish Revolution.” Somehow she managed to count all of those off on two hooves.
“And don’t forget Emperor [REDACTED]!” said Pinkie Pie in excitement. “He nearly conquered Equestria.”
“What?! Who’s Emperor [REDACTED]?” Twilight asked.
“The Griffon Emperor, silly!” replied Pinkie Pie. “He took over during the Revolution, and brought down his enemies with a never-ending rain of cupcakes!”
“Pinkie Pie, I’m sorry to correct you, but your history’s wrong,” insisted Twilight. “The Griffon Emperor you’re thinking of was Noffony I, and he was, wellll...a griffon!”
“No, he wasn’t! He was a pony!”
“He was a griffon!”
“Pony!”
“He was a griffon,” warned a gruff voice at the other end of the room, “and I’ll deck any pony who dares to say otherwise.”
The ponies turned, to see a griffon with the blue vest of a tour guide, her back to them as she was apparently engrossed in warming her claws before the monument to Sparkle hatred for Nightingales.
“Gilda?!” a shocked Rainbow Dash asked.
The griffon clicked her beak in irritation. “I suppose you call that name out to every she-griffon you run into. Turns out in this case, you’re right.” Gilda looked over her shoulder to fix them with her most surly gaze.
Rainbow glared fiercely at her, and was tensing herself up—whether to scream or attack, not even she knew for certain. But she managed to stop herself with the thought of what her friends would think, and settled instead into a false pose of “being cool.” “So,” she said facetiously, “what are you doing as a guide? Isn’t this job—?”
“Lame?” guessed Gilda as she turned to face them. “Absolutely. Didn’t have a choice, though. I knocked some ceremonial cauldron over on a fly-over, and I was forced to get a job here to pay for it.”
“Wait, the southwest tower fire was your doing?” asked Rarity. “That was my suite!”
Gilda smirked. “Yeah. Those dresses burned real good!”
“Why you...!”
With a calm nonchalance, Applejack fulfilled her primary job duty to her fellow Bearers, by grabbing a fellow pony’s tail and keeping her from doing something she would later regret.
“It’s interesting that you would get a job here,” Twilight observed. “Usually they want their docents to come in with an interest in Sparkle Family history. I would have taken you as more of a delivery griffon.”
Gilda drew herself up to her full height. “Miss Sparkle, you will find that I am a little smarter than I look. Not all of us jock-types are brainless, you know. Sometimes that part’s all just an act.”
Twilight wondered why the griffon was staring at Rainbow Dash while she was saying that.
“And are you a budding historian under your ‘act’, Gilda?” Rarity asked doubtfully. “A real-life Daring Do?”
Gilda snorted in derision, which for a beaked creature was quite an accomplishment. “I don’t have to study history, ponies, because my family makes history. We’ve been politicians and diplomats since the days of Duke Thunderwing. Go ask Rainbow, if you don’t believe me.”
The pegasus in question started drawing circles on the floor with one hoof. “I wasn’t really paying attention, as a matter of fact.”
“How come I’m not surprised?” Gilda said dryly.
“That one griffon friend of yours who turned a forest fire into a fire cyclone before dumping it into Lake Constance was pretty cool, though.”
Gilda squeezed the top of her beak with one claw in frustration. “That wasn’t a friend, that was my father! And he’s the chief fireffony for all of Griffonica.”
“Wait, I thought it was ‘Griffonia’?” asked Pinkie Pie.
“‘Griffonia’ before the Revolution, ‘Griffonica’ afterwards,” answered Gilda automatically in her “tour guide” voice. “Strictly speaking, it’s the Griffish Republic, but I haven’t met a pony yet who really gets what a republic is.”
“So if your ancestors were so important, I bet one of them must have served under Noffony,” said Twilight. “In that case, why does he have that name? Doesn’t it mean the same as ‘nopony’?”
“He called himself ‘Noffony’ because he considered himself an ordinary servant of the republic, and therefore replaceable,” Gilda said proudly. “Of course, he was way off in thinking that. He thought that any griffon could be emperor—”
“Or any pony,” added Pinkie.
Gilda face-palmed. “How many times do I have to tell you, the second-greatest figure in griffon history was not a pony!”
“I can prove he was a pony!” exclaimed Pinkie Pie.
In Twilight Sparkle’s mind, Pinkie’s pronouncement launched a fierce battle between Curiosity and Dread, punctuated by a mental image of the two ponifications in a foreign cemetery beside an unearthed grave, involved in an occult ritual involving “essential saltes” and a particularly nasty spell.
As usual for Twilight, Curiosity won out. “How?” she asked.
“Like this!” Pinkie cried out, pulling a hoof out from behind her back to reveal...nothing. “Oh, that’s right, all the emergency crystal balls are stashed back in Ponyville!” She dug the hoof into her mane for a second to remove a notepad and pencil. “Note to self,” she muttered as she carried out her words, “ball-proof Canterlot. Pronto.” Putting the objects back where she got them, she looked back up at the others. “I can do it tonight. Or maybe tomorrow. Depends on which house the Moon is in.”
“How?” Twilight insisted.
“You’ll see!” Pinkie answered in a sing-song voice.
“I gotta go back to the House of Horrors?” Gilda asked in dread.
She was of course referring to Sugarcube Corner.
