A New Era

A New Era

Story 7

Chapter 5: New Developments

By: SleeplessScribe

Light was just starting to come through the library windows as I closed my twenty-fifth book. I was so wrapped up in my reading that I didn’t even realize I wasn’t alone until the steaming mug was set beside me.

“You’ve been up since last night. Figured you could use a pick me up.”

Nova and I were asked to stay at the castle while the others went home and got their affairs in order. “Thanks, Nova. I don’t understand how you can even sleep. Not only have we been given a massive role to fulfill, but you just learned that the family you’ve lived with for nineteen years isn’t actually related to you.”

He sat down beside me and took a sip of his own coffee. “My time at the academy taught me that worry and panic are the fastest ways to bring about your own undoing. I do have a lot on my mind, but I’m just trying not to let it bother me too much. You’d be surprised how much of my time last night was spent tossing and turning as opposed to actually sleeping.”

I let out a sigh and sipped at my drink. “Has Princess Luna said anything to you about magic yet?”

Nova just shrugged. “I was kind of hoping you’d be able to help me with that. The princess told me she wanted to focus on improving my offensive capabilities right now, but if I’m going to have a horn for the rest of my life, I’d at least like to learn how to levitate objects.”

“I’d love to, but I still have a lot of material to go through.” In fact, I was already eight pages into my next book.

He set his hoof under the front cover and lifted it. “A Brief History of the Empire, volume XIII. Geeze, Twi, what are you trying to get out of this?”

Before even trying to reply, I lightly swatted his hoof away. “I need to learn as much as I can as fast as I can about Equestria’s politics and traditions. I also need to read up on what mistakes we made so I can avoid repeating them.”

My friend rolled his eyes. “You really need to lighten up.” He paused for a moment, taking in a deep breath through his nose. “Do you smell that?”

I shook my head without taking my eyes off the pages. Nova continued his dog-like sniffing, and eventually he got so close to me that I could feel his breath.

“Found it! You smell good, Twilight.”

“Excuse me? Hey!”

He pressed his muzzle against me and continued sniffing. “You smell really good.”

“Nova, you’re in my personal space!” Within moments, my irritation turned to laughter as he moved down to my neck. “Stop! That tickles! Haha! Nova, cut it out!”

He finally sat back up after leaving me laughing on the floor. Once I calmed down and sat up, he started sniffing the air again, so I gave him a gentle push. “What was that about?”

“Isn’t it nice to forget about your problems for a little bit?” He leaned back and grinned, tempting me to smack him in the stomach.

“I guess you’re right. That was kind of funny.”

He smiled, opened his wing, and put it around me. “Look Twi, I know this is something you really want to get done, but you need to relax. You’re right; this is a lot for me to take in, but I know a way for both of us to ease the stress, at least for a little bit.

Over the years, I learned that my ears twitched whenever someone or something caught my attention. I wouldn’t have been surprised if Nova noticed them the minute he finished speaking.

“Oh? What would that be?”

“Well, it’s pretty obvious we’ll be spending quite a long time together, and despite the time we’ve already spent together, I still don’t know you as well as I’d like. It’s still pretty early, but I know a nice little café not too far from here. If you’d like, I could treat you to some breakfast and real coffee.”

I stared at him with a smirk on my face. “You just want a reason to ask me out, don’t you?”

Nova’s face turned a shade to match the red in his mane. “W-What? No, no, it’s not like that, I just—”

Getting him all flustered like that was actually really fun. “Oh please, you don’t think I’ve read a book or two on the subject out of curiosity? This is a perfect example of one of the 628 ways a stallion will ask a mare out on a date, commonly referred to as the ‘coffee offer’.”

The look on his face was enough to make even a royal guard laugh. “Sure, fine, yeah. I’m asking you out. Twilight, if my intentions were to subtly ask if you wanted to try dating me, I’d have just said it. Don’t you remember that I already did? I asked you out once, and you said you’d think about it, and decided the next day that we could go out as friends.”

My ears fell flat as my slight superiority complex dissolved into dust. “Oh yeah. Guess I just wasn’t thinking about it.”

“Hey now, don’t give me that look!” He leaned forward and nudged my shoulder. “Come on, Twilight. Breakfast, my treat. We can sit down, talk about some stuff, and get our minds off our ‘eternal destinies’ and whatnot. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: you need to loosen up a little. Stressing yourself out all the time is going to get you nowhere.”

I let out a long sigh and slowly closed the book. “Fine. If I do this, will you refrain from interrupting me again?”

He rolled his eyes, but his smile told me he couldn’t have been too irritated. “No promises, but I’ll try.”

Nova held his hoof out to me, and a small smile crossed my muzzle as I took a hold of it. “Good enough for me.”

He wasn’t lying when he said it wasn’t that far away. From the castle courtyard, it was just a short trip to the city square and a minute or two of walking down the left road. Despite it being so early, there were still plenty of ponies out and about, and none of them seemed to think that we wouldn’t notice them giving us odd looks and whispering to one another. I could only imagine what kinds of assumptions they were making, but I was brought back to earth by a nudge on the shoulder.

“Ignore it. I’ve learned that when ponies start doing that when smiling, at least you know they’re not saying anything bad.”

Nova opened the door to a small building that bore a strong resemblance to a countryside cottage. It seemed rather… out of place, considering the usual style Canterlot architecture normally followed, but the minute I walked in, the appearance became the last thing on my mind. The aroma of honey, freshly baked bread, and cinnamon filled the air as we entered the little café, and my reaction got a small chuckle out of Nova.

“This place has you already, doesn’t it? Evergreen does good work.”

“Did someone say my name?” A colt popped up from behind the counter ahead of us. It was like looking at a topiary: Everything but the colt’s eyes was a shade of green. “Oh, hey there Nova! Haven’t seen you in a whi—” He froze mid-sentence and stared at us. Evergreen turned to me and bowed quickly before addressing Nova again. “Knowledge of Princess Twilight is common at this point, but since when were you an Alicorn, Nova?”

He just looked away and groaned a little. “Eh… it’s a long story.”

Evergreen grinned and leaned against the counter. “That’s fine! I’ve got plenty of time to hear about this!”

Nova let out a sigh. “Can we please not talk about it?”

“Heck no! Dude, you’re basically a prince now. That’s big news!”

I stepped between them and kept my eyes on Evergreen. “I think you need to respect him. Like you said, he is a prince now, and if he says he doesn’t want to talk about something, then you shouldn’t egg him on.”

Evergreen’s ears fell flat. “Yeah, you’re right. I’m sorry… anyways, what can I get you two? I haven’t gotten much done, but I’m sure I have most of the stuff you can order ready.”

He nudged his head back a little, drawing my attention to the menus on the wall. Behind the counter he had two large lists on either side of the door. One was titled “Drinks” and the other “Treats”, and each had the items one could order on the left side and that item’s price on the right side. I was actually caught slightly off guard; this place had a bigger selection than Sugar Cube Corner did!

After perusing all my options, I found a combo that I just couldn’t resist. “I’ll take a small cherry cake with a green tea, please.”

I hadn’t really paid much attention, but seeing him reach up and grab a notepad made me realize why this place seemed so different from the rest of Canterlot: Evergreen was an earth pony. It didn’t really matter, but it was an interesting little fact.

He started scribbling on the notepad and turned to Nova. “Got it. And for you, Nova?”

Nova tapped his chin a few times before shrugging. “The usual.”

Evergreen nodded and jotted that down as well. “Gotcha. Cream and two sugars, right?”

“That’s it. Oh, one thing though: can I get the pie without whipped cream this time?”

He blinked once and slowly nodded. “Sure… oh, and don’t worry about paying. I could never ask for payment from the royalty!”

Before either of us had a chance to respond, Evergreen turned and went through the door behind the counter. Nova, however, didn’t seem to have a problem with his friend’s statement. “Really? Well, thanks Evergreen! That’s nice of you!” He then turned to me, jumping a little when he saw my glare. “What?”

After grabbing hold of him, I pulled him over to one of the booths near the corner. I lowered my voice, but my irritation was still pretty blatant. “Nova! I know you did not just accept a free gift for no reason!”

His ears flattened as he turned towards the counter. “Why? What’s the problem?”

“I am not comfortable accepting gifts like that, and you shouldn’t be either! Just because we’re royalty now does not me we should get unfair privileges. Everypony else has to pay for their meals, so we should too. Now get over there and let him know you don’t want any special treatment!”

Nova rolled his eyes, which made me want to smack him. “Don’t roll your eyes at me! You’re doing a very poor job of winning me over.”

His own eyes widened for a moment. “I know Evergreen better than you do. He isn’t going to just let me pay him.”

“You’re a prince now. It may not be official, but you still are, so make him take the money!”

I noticed him shake a bit as he made his way back to the counter and set the money on it. “Evergreen! I’m paying whether you like it or not! It’s not fair that you give us free stuff just because we’re royalty.”

He poked his head out before walking through the door with our entire order in tow. “Haha, that’s funny. No, I said it’s on the house, so you keep your money.”

Nova turned to me, but I just nodded and waved my hooves forward. After seeing this, he sighed and turned back to his friend. “Look, it’s not fair. There’s a reason I didn’t want to make a big deal out of becoming an Alicorn in the first place, so do not treat me any differently than you would if I was still just a pegasus. Take the money.”

“Alright, if you say so. Enjoy your breakfast.”

I picked up both mugs and both plates with my magic. There was a glass door at the side of the café, and I could see tables out there under an awning. I smiled at Evergreen as I headed towards the door. “Thank you very much.”

He smiled and waved to us. “It’s no problem at all, Prin—I mean Twilight.”

Nova followed me out and froze as he approached the table I had chosen. “Twi! Check out that view!”

From where we were, we could look out and see quite a bit of the land below. I even spotted my library. “It’s funny… views like this seemed so mundane before I moved to Ponyville. Now it’s like I’m seeing it for the first time again.”

My friend sat down and took a sip of his coffee. “Yeah, how did you end up in Ponyville? I don’t think I’ve heard that story yet.”

“Well, Princess Celestia had been my magic teacher for a very long while. She saw fit to send me to Ponyville one year not only to oversee preparations for the Summer Sun Celebration, but also to make friends. Back then, I thought friendship was a foolish concept. Ironically enough, it was only with the help of my friends that Nightmare Moon was changed back into Princess Luna.”

“Hmm.” He took a bite out of his chocolate pie and looked out at the landscape again. “So you are your friends are indirectly linked to my current… situation.”

“I guess so.” As I sipped my tea, a thought crossed my mind that nearly made me jump. “You know, I have something to ask you.”

“I’m all ears.”

“When you first came here, you said you never visited your sister because you were busy training. Well, why now? And why couldn’t you take time out of your schedule to see her on holidays? I’m sure she would have enjoyed a visit from her brother on Hearth’s Warming.”

He closed his eyes and turned to me. After a long sigh, he opened them and I saw something in them I never thought I’d see Nova Dash display.

Regret.

“I’m not as great a brother as Rainbow’s behavior might make you think. Back when we still lived in Cloudsdale, Rainbow dropped out of Junior Speedsters Flight Camp just before I graduated. Mom and Dad scolded her, but we got into a big fight. It was one of those arguments that ended with an ‘I hate you’ and tears. Rather than apologizing and trying to make up with her, I just got angry and stormed off to pursue my own future. Instead of staying home, I lived on campus when I attended Cloudsdale’s Academy for Advanced Pegasi, and I was so wrapped up with my racing career after my time there that I never even thought about seeing her. Luckily for me, she found it in her heart to forgive me when I finally wrote a letter to her.”

I couldn’t help but feel just a little sorry for him. “I know how you feel. My brother and I got into a fight so bad that he actually forbid me from coming to his wedding. Granted, his ‘bride’ turned out to be an imposter, like I had thought, but I was still crushed when it happened. What prompted you to write to her?”

Whether he did it to avoid talking about it or because he actually wanted some, I was forced to wait until he had finished chugging his drink. “My accident with Spitfire. When I was in the hospital, the only visitors I got were my parents. That made me realize how alone I really was. By just leaving my sister to her own devices instead of trying to help her, it was almost as if I had disowned her. It made me realize how much I missed her, but I didn’t have the confidence to face her, so for a time we just exchanged letters. It wasn’t until that same day I met you that I finally was able to look at her again.”

I raised my brow at him and smirked. “You without confidence? That sounds impossible to me.”

He slowly shook his head. “Twilight, this isn’t a joke. The most precious pony in my life told me she hated me. I know she was young, but it still stung. A lot.”

“Oh, I don’t doubt it. Thanks for telling me that. I… I’m sure it couldn’t have been an easy thing to remind yourself of.”

“It’s fine. You deserve to know.” He set the mug and plate aside once both were empty. “Twilight… what do you think about all of this? Just, me being an Alicorn now, the princesses having a traitorous brother, me being adopted, all that stuff. Can you even give a general opinion?”

It took a little bit of thought, but I did come up with something decent to say. “Well, it certainly caught me off guard. Even with all I know about Equestria’s history, nothing I ever read even hinted at any lost kingdoms or attempted coups. Then again, I don’t think there are any books that date earlier than 2,000 years or so. The princess said that Decay tried to take over at least 6,000 years ago. What are your thoughts?”

Nova turned back to the landscape again, scratching the back of his head. “Having to give up my passion wasn’t easy. But I’m thankful as well. I’m just going to be blunt: I like you, Twilight. A lot. It’s nice to spend time with you, even if we are spending that time preparing for a possible battle.”

My ears twitched as I finished off my coffee. “Speaking of, didn’t you say you wanted to learn a levitation spell?”

“It would certainly make a lot of things much easier.”

I couldn’t help but smile as I lifted his mug up with my magic. “It’s not actually that hard. Magic is all about concentration and visualization. Most spells don’t require much beyond that unless you’re trying to cast adept or higher level magic. To be honest… it’s kind of hard to put into words, seeing as how casting spells has become second nature to me. I’m sure you’d have just as hard a time explaining flight to me.”

That got a chuckle out of him. “Yeah, trying to tell you how to fly would not be easy. The best I could tell you is ‘flap both wings at the same time’, which wouldn’t help at all. So, what, I just concentrate and imagine making this plate float, and it will make the plate float?”

I just nodded. “I know it sounds silly, but that’s how basic magic works."

He actually shook his head. “Silly? No, that’s awesome! It’s like telekinesis or something.”

“Well… I guess so. Just try it. I know it sounds confusing, but once you start doing it, simple magic won’t be that hard to get down.”

“Yeah, I get you. Well, here goes nothing.”

The faces Nova made as he stared at the plate brought me very close to laughing. There was no doubt in my mind he misunderstood what I meant by “concentrate”, but I was too busy trying to keep a straight face to correct him.

After a few minutes, I spotted a faint glow on the tip of his horn. Unfortunately, his attempt ended with a loud pop and a cloud of smoke. When it cleared, Nova was on the ground and rubbing his head. “Ouch… I’m going to assume I didn’t do it.”

“Sadly, no. We need to work on that a lot more.”

He managed to pick himself up, though it took a moment before he was able to stand straight up. “Gotcha!” Nova turned to the plate again, but was met with the same results. Luckily he didn’t get knocked down this time, but he was obviously dazed. “Ugh, this date has taken a poor turn.”

My ears twitched and I couldn’t help but smirk. “Aha! You were asking me out!”

Nova started chuckling as he regained his bearings. “I like how you’re acting like this is some ground breaking event. It’s like I’m the first guy to ever ask you on a date.”

I could feel my face heating up a bit. Now I was finding it hard to look at him, and I started tapping my front hooves together. “Well… to be honest, you kind of are. I mean, there was a guy that asked me to a dance, but that was on the other side of the mirror. You really are the first stallion to outright ask me on a real date.”

He came up to me and gently tapped my muzzle. “You know why that is, Twi? You need to get out more. All your friends, including me, are proof that you can be really outspoken around those you know, but I haven’t really seen you say much beyond a ‘hello’ and the occasional ‘how are you’ with most ponies. You’re nice enough, I’m sure if you had put more effort into socialization you’d probably already have a coltfriend by now.”

My face only got hotter, and I’m sure by this point it was red. “Right… I doubt it. Finding romance has never been a big priority of mine, but I’ve never had much faith in it anyway. Nearly all of the books I read on dating had personality profile charts, and the ones that matched me best were always near the bottom for most likely to find romance.”

Nova blew a loud raspberry and started laughing. “Okay, Twilight, seriously, I know you really enjoy reading, and I myself acknowledge the amount of knowledge you can gain from books, but there are some things you just can’t trust a book to tell you. I can tell you right now that that personality stuff is gaaaaarbage!”

I was beginning to wonder if he was doing all of this for the express purpose of embarrassing me. If he was, it was working very well. “I can’t believe I’m getting a lecture from you of all ponies.”

That did nothing to stop his laughter. “Hey, I can’t help it if I’m more social than you. Listen, Twilight, it may not be my place to say this, but… you need to get some street smarts, especially when it comes to dating. I want to help you, so how about this: when we get back to the castle and find out what the princesses have in store for us, we sit down and make a schedule of some kind.”

A sneeze interrupted him, but I wasn’t given any chance to respond. “Excuse me. You know, we could sort out everything we want to do, and maybe set aside some time just to do things together. We don’t have to call them ‘dates’, and we don’t have to be ‘dating’. We’re just two friends hanging out. Besides, being stuck in the castle all the time is not my idea of fun. I realize this is something we have to do, but nopony said we couldn’t still do things we enjoy, and I enjoy doing stuff with you.”

I was sure my face was still a little red, but the heat was starting to fade away. “Do you really mean that?”

“Yeah! You may not think that I’d have any interest in the things you like, but you’re a pretty cool pony. You’re not as awesome as me, of course, but for a…” He turned away from me and cleared his throat. “Diligent and near perfect student, you’re nowhere near as boring as my sister had me believe.”

As nice as these things were to hear, I had to admit, I was getting very confused. “Nova, I really don’t understand you. We’re on near opposite ends of the spectrum, yet you seem very interested in everything I do. Why is that?”

All he did was shrug. “Don’t base your beliefs of me off of Rainbow. I enjoy a good book every now and again, and I do research things… when they’re relevant. See, I may not be as big on academics as you, but I do realize the benefits of knowledge. To me it feels like you seek knowledge simply because you enjoy learning about all kinds of things. As for me, I seek knowledge for the benefits.”

“I’m not sure I follow completely.”

Nova sat down again and motioned for me to do the same. “Alright, here’s an example: You’ve seen how fast my sister has become through sheer hard work and dedication.” He looked around a few times before continuing. “Don’t tell a soul that I said this, but I believe the only reason I’m faster than her is because I’ve done my homework. Rainbow and I both have the power, but I’d like to think I have better technique. You’d be surprised how much science there is in racing. I did a lot of reading and research to learn every possible thing I could about improving flight performance.”

He took a quick breath and lifted himself into the air, folding all four of his legs underneath of him and lowering his head. “Like this, for example. The way you position your body has a big impact on your speed. Heck, what my uniform is made out of makes a big difference. It’s not just with racing, either; I do all I can to learn things that help me in many different ways. Speaking of which, I guarantee there’s a few books in the royal library that would help me understand the basic concepts of magic.”

“Oh, I know there are. If you’d like, I’ll show you around, seeing as how I’ve been through it many times.”

“I’d appreciate that. The castle is still like a maze to me.”

The trip back to the castle took no time at all, but we were surprised to find neither of the princesses waiting for us. Asking around got us nowhere, as we were only told that they weren’t here, but the guards assured us they were safe. It was apparent we weren’t going to get any more information, so we just went on our way to the library.

“Where do you think we should start, Twi?”

I looked at him and slowly shook my head. “Sorry, Nova, but since we’re back here, I’m going to continue my studies from this morning. Don’t worry, though. The library is divided into wings, and each wing has a pretty obvious name. It shouldn’t be a problem finding books on basic magic.”

He rolled his eyes and nudged my shoulder as I opened the library door. “Oh come on, Twi. You’re really still on that? How can you expect to learn anything if you cram like that? I mean, really, twenty-five books in one night? You need to take a break.”

Nova jumped a little as I turned around and started poking his chest. “Look, Nova, I need to learn as much as I can in a small amount of time. The more I know, the less likely I’ll be to make a huge mistake.”

He let out a sigh and turned away. Even though we were going separate ways, he still saw fit to talk. “I highly doubt Celestia or Luna haven’t already planned this out. They sounded like they knew when the ascension would take place, and I can’t see them not setting aside time to prepare us for governmental responsibilities. Think about it, Twilight, they’re leaving all of Equestria in our care! Do you really believe they’ll just drop that on us?”

There was no reason for him to be raising his voice like he was, and to be honest, it caught me a little off guard. I lowered my ears and turned away from him, but for some reason I could no longer focus on the book I had left open earlier.

After a short pause, stopped pretending to look at the books on theoretical physics and turned to me. “I’m sorry, Twi. I shouldn’t have yelled at you like that. I… I’m just as stressed out by this as you are, and I’m just trying to relax. Not to sound rude, but you constantly bringing up that we’re going to have a metric ton of stuff pushed onto our shoulders soon just… it’s not helping. Still, I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve that.”

That was apparently enough to at least make me raise my ears again. However, I still didn’t look at him, even when I spoke. “I understand. We’re both a little on edge. I guess I just have a different way of coping with it than you do. Look, for now, let’s just do what we came here to do while we wait for the princesses.”

“Right. I’ll see what I can find. Uh… again, Twi, I’m sorry.”

“Uh huh.” Now that things had calmed down a little, I was able to focus on my reading again. Sometimes I even amazed myself with how fast I could read. Before I knew it, I had gone through the last five volumes of A Brief History of the Empire.

“Twilight! Come look!” There was still a decent stack of unread books before me, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t just a little curious. When I turned around to peek on the other side of the bookshelf, Nova was right in my face sporting a huge grin. “I did it! I did it!”

I tilted my head. “Did what?”

He grabbed a hold of me and pulled me over to the nearby table. The two books on the left of and open one, compared to the six on the right, were what made me realize just how fast of a reader I was. Nova sat me down on the opposite side of his books before sitting across from me.

“Watch this.”

Nova leaned over the book and stared at it. The tip of his horn began to shine a little brighter than this morning, and he was already doing marginally better than this morning simply because he hadn’t blown himself up yet. He began to shake a little, and I couldn’t help but smile as his efforts reminded me of the days when I first started studying magic.

Back then, simply flipping a page without touching it was a big thing for me, so I understood his excitement when the glowing page before him turned over. It left him panting once he had done it, but he was smiling too.

“I’ll probably never be able to do the things you can, but it’s a start, right? If I keep practicing, I might be able to lift the whole book by this afternoon!”

To be honest, his enthusiasm was kind of cute, for lack of a better word. “I’m sure you will, just keep at it.”

He chuckled and dove back into his book. As I made my way back to my own desk and sat down, I began thinking more and more about what Nova had said earlier. It got so bad that I could no longer focus on my current book. Out of curiosity, I poked my head around the corner to see how Nova was doing. He was trying to flip each page using his magic, but he looked more like he had just run for five miles without stopping. Well… that probably would’ve been easy for him, but my point still stands.

Trying to focus on my own reading became near impossible. Not only was I thinking about what Nova had told me, but I also started to think about our friends. I really couldn’t imagine how they felt having to go home and tell others that they wouldn’t be there for a while. The fact that Canterlot was my home didn’t make that any easier, either.

The point Nova had tried to make was that Celestia and Luna wouldn’t just drop this burden on us without making sure we were ready. What I was truly doubtful of now was whether or not we would be told all there was to tell about Terrario, El Dorbronco, and the Elements. I knew the princesses had their reasons for hiding things, but I felt the same way about our current situation as I did about what we’d be faced with in the future, and I wanted to know everything I could.

If there was one place that might have even a smidgen of information regarding those subjects, it would be the archives created by someone with direct experience.

With a new goal in mind, I headed towards the Starswirl the Bearded wing and made a vow to read through every single book, journal, and scrap book it had.