Sam was excited. He could scarcely contain himself! After all, this was the first day of his new life and his new job, or, at least, so he felt. He had moved into his new apartment three days ago, and he had unpacked his meager few possessions already. But today! Today! Today was the day where he stepped out and began his new life. He had been more than ecstatic when his application at the museum had been accepted, and even though it had taken some convincing from his family, they had understood when he told them that he would be leaving home. They were concerned for him going so far away, but he was an adult, and his new job’s pay would be enough to keep him comfortable. And, he promised, he would come visit every Christmas.

So it was that he hummed along with the music blasting forth from his ear buds, downed his morning tea, then made his way through the living room and out his apartment door.

Canterlot. This was his new home now. Ever since the portal between the alien world of Equestria and his own home world of Earth had been opened, Sam had been utterly fascinated with the new sapient species called ponies. He had been in his first year of college then, studying history at Duke University in North Carolina when the portal opened. Like many, he thought the whole thing a hoax. Then it had gone on for a week. Then three weeks. Then a month, and suddenly everyone knew, beyond all doubt, that Earth had made contact with another species.

Earth then spent a short period of time that newscasters and late-night ‘news’ television shows had called ‘pony fever’, and Sam was among the many people to feel the tug of curiosity pull him toward this new species. When Duke began classes on pony culture and history, Sam had leapt at it like a starving tiger pouncing on a pig so fat it could not run away. Sam was among the first humans to earn his doctorates in pony studies, but even though Sam was not the top in his class, he WAS, however, the first one to start applying for jobs within the new world. It was this preemptive strike that had landed him an acceptance letter from Dusty Tome, the curator of the Royal Archives of the Canterlot Museum of History.

It took all of five minutes for Sam to make his way from his apartment complex, recently renovated to more easily accommodate human inhabitants, and hop onto one of the large wagons that functioned, Sam supposed, much like a city bus as it ferried at least a dozen pony occupants and, including himself, five humans. Even though he was fairly chubby for a human, he found that there was enough space for him to fit without inconveniencing anypony or anyone else, and he was glad for that. Within another five minutes, Sam had hopped off of the bus, walked a block, and soon found himself before the grand stairwell that led to the main entrance of the museum.

He paused for a moment, then rached a hand into his pocket to fish out a pocket watch. Much like coffee, Sam disliked wrist watches; in fact, he disliked having tight things on his wrist at all, but he managed to at least make his long-sleeved suit shirt comfortable by having bought one that was loose on his wrists.

“Ten minutes early,” he muttered to himself. Oh well. Better early than late, he always said, and began to climb up the stairs.

The main entranceway was like any other museum on Earth; large, imposing, and hinting at a neo-classical style of architecture with towering pillars, marble-floor, domed ceiling, and the sheer scale of the place. He stood there, admiring the architecture, which, as he recognized it from his studies, the style was mostly pegasus in origin, which bore a style not at all dissimilar from the Romans, save that the pegasi built their structures from clouds and the Romans had used concrete.

His thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a tugging on his sleeve, and Sam blinked as he looked down to see a gray unicorn mare with a white mane tied back in a bun tugging on his sleeve with a shining white glow of magic on his arm. She spoke something, and Sam, for the briefest of moments was confused why he did not hear anything from her when her lips moved.

Then he remembered his ear buds.

“Oh!” He said, pulling the little things out of his ears, grinning sheepishly down at the mare. “My apologies.”

“That song must be quite lovely if you were so lost in it,” the mare said with a kindly grin.

Sam felt himself blush. “Oh, no, not really… I was-“ he began, but suddenly stopped as he say that same white glow envelope his ear buds and levitate them over to the mare’s head.

“Oh, is it Mozart? I must admit, I have a soft spot for some of Earth’s classical compossors!”

Sam opened his mouth to protest, eyes wide, and his hand reaching out to quickly take the buds back. Mozart? No, this was FAR from Mozart! He had to stop her, he had to warn her!

Sam was too slow. The ear buds popped in, and the mare’s blue eyes quickly shot open wide as the thunderous roar of heavy metal blasted into her ears. The bass guitar thrummed, the drums beat like a stampede, and the singer roared on about the battle between Thor, the norse god of thunder, doing battle with his nemesis, Jörmungandr.

The blush came then. A deep, embarrassed blush creeping over the humans cheeks as the unicorn slowly poped the ear buds out of her ear. She levitated them back over to Sam, who took them, fished out the music player from his pocket, and turned it all off.

“Well, that was… different,” she said, rubbing one of her ears with a hoof. “I suppose that’s what I get for just listening in like that. Anyway, I’m Dusty Tome, and you must be Sam. Welcome to the Canterlot Museum of History.”

Sam, scratching his short dark-brown hair nervously, suddenly felt like an ass, and not the Equestrian kind, either. Great, he told himself, your first day here, and your boss just found you listening to heavy metal. Smooth. She probably thinks you’re a typical, violent human now.

“Er, yes, I’m Sam. I, er, I’m sorry about that. It’s just that I was noticing how much ancient pegasi architecture isn’t too different from-“

“-From Earth’s Roman and Greek styles!” Dusty Tome finished, her eyes brightening and her lips spreading in a wide smile. “I know! I was excited about that, when I started doing reading on Human history. Oh, you have no idea how glad I am to meet someone else who noticed the same thing!”

And just like that, Sam’s previous nervousness was gone, and the incident involving his music forgotten.

“I know! And it’s just amazing how similar various cultural styles and even our languages are!”

Their conversation carried on like that for a good thirty minutes, both of them excitedly making comparisons between Earth, Equestria, and the many different nations, kingdoms and empires in architecture, music, language, culture, and economics. More than one time the other would finish speaking for the other, and neither seemed to mind it, but only became more excited that the other was on the same frequency as themselves. The whole time, Dusty Tome gave Sam a tour of the museum, mostly showing him around the work areas in the back that were restricted to museum employees only, but also taking the time to display various exhibits and the general layout of the museum.

Finally, there was a pause in their conversation, and Sam stopped for a moment, rubbing his chin and looking around. “Did I just spend the last half-hour geeking out with my boss about the parallels and similarities of two different alien worlds?”

Dusty Tome pretended to think about that for a moment, her eyes rolling back as she gave a small giggle, “You know… I think we just did!”

“I think I’m going to like it here,” Sam said with a grin, then decided it was best to go ahead and get down to business. “Anyway, it is a pleasure to work with you here in the museum.” He said.

“And it’s a pleasure to have you aboard,” Dusty Tome replied. “Well, I suppose we’ve spent enough time being pleasant. I do have an assignment for you, currently. Right this way, please.”

Sam followed her to a room that had no wall decorations, but instead the walls were lined with books. Reference material, he assumed. The room was decorated only with a single potted plant in the corner, a large table with a few lamps, and several chairs, one of which did not look like it belonged in that it was larger and seemed designed specifically for a human to sit on. Two other ponies were sat in the room, both unicorns, one male and one female. They both had a slightly off-white coat and black manes, and Sam had the distinct impression that they were twins.

“Sam,” Dusty Tone said, gesturing toward the two ponies with a hoof, “these are Ink Pot and Quill Scratch, twins,“ (Aha! Sam thought in triumph, “and they’ll also be working with you on your current assignment.”

“Hey there!” The stallion (Ink Pot? No, probably Quill Scratch) said, waving a hoof and beaming a friendly grin. “It’s good to have you aboard!”

“Oh, and he’s cute, too!” the mare (Quill Scratch?) said, giving Sam a sultry look that made him blush and shift a bit. This did not go unnoticed by the mare, who clapped her forhooves together in mischievous delight. “And he’s bashful! How adorable! Dusty, ol’ gal, you really know how to pick ‘em!”

“Don’t let her get to you,” the stallion said with a roll of his eyes, “she flirts with every stallion that has a pulse. The only two she hasn’t teased are me and our father.”

“Just so long as it doesn’t distract you from your task. Oh, speaking of…” Dusty said, nodding at a cardboard box on the table.

“Oh, yes!” the mare said, then used her magic to open the box and levitate a dozen ancient-looking books and half a dozen wreaths of parchment which seemed to be only roughly organized so far. “You came just in time!”

“Indeed,” the stallion continued, smiling brightly, “we received this from a generous pony, a Lady Crystal Azure.”

“She’s a resident here in Canterlot, a descendant of one of the old noble families here,” the mare interjected, though the stallion did not seem to mind. Probably, Sam mused, one of those rare traits he often read about that only a pair of twins possessed.

“She was performing some renovations in her home, an old manner house that dates back to at least before the Nightmare Moon incident.”

Sam nodded. He knew something of the Nightmare Moon incident, a time when the two Princesses of Equestria, Celestia and Luna, had quarreled. Luna had become jealous of the Celestia, who’s daylight was loved by the ponies of the world as they laughed and played and worked and lived their life in its brilliance. Which left Luna alone in her starry nights, while ponies slept, and many ponies feared the darkness and the sounds of nocturnal beasts. Strangely, not too much was recorded of this period, only that the Princesses had quarreled, Luna became the evil Nightmare Moon, forced the sun to stay up, and Celestia had used six magical artifacts known as the Elements of Harmony (of which were now in the posession of six mares, known also as the Elements of Harmony) to banish Nightmare Moon to, well, the moon. After that, Celestia had gone into seclusion and Equestria had decended once more into ‘the bad old days’, times of political strife, religious persecutions, and even stallions being stripped of their rights until they were regarded as property meant for certain tasks unfit for mares and for breeding, much as Earth had viewed its women in the Middle Ages.

Oddly enough, not much was known of the Nightmare Moon incident, and there seemed to be few documents recording events that had transpired during that time. It was also a touchy subject for the Princesses, who preferred not to stir up bad memories, and, because they were the Princesses, nopony dared press the subject.

“And from what we can gather,” Dusty Tome said, floating a book over to Sam, who gingerly took it out of her telekinetic grip, “a worker was knocking down a section of wall, and he found a hollow spot in the wall that was stuffed full of these books. That was four days ago, and the Lady was kind enough to donate the manuscripts to the Museum, seeing no use for them. Her only request,” she said with a slight roll of her eye, one that over-exaggerated how corny she thought he next words would be, “were that, if these turn out to be important, we call them the Azure Texts.”

“Anyway,” the mare, whom Sam now confirmed was Ink Pot due to the cutie mark of her namesake on her flank, continued, “we haven’t gone over them thoroughly, but we believe that these documents are all from the same period as the Nightmare Moon incident.”

“And they need to be gone over, read, translated, organized, categorized, disorganized, organized again, re-red, debated over, re-re-read, and only then do we finally write down our findings and see to it that they are published,” Quill Scratch said with a small smile.

Sam felt his hairs stand on the back of his neck. His timing could not have been more perfect. His new job, and he was going to open it up by being one of the first scholars to read these long-lost books.

The human never could keep a straight face, and he did not even bother to try as he grinned like a child told that Christmas was now going to be celebrated all day, every day, forever, and that he could eat his favorite food, stay up late, watch cartoons, play video games, ride the dog like a horse, and throw things in the house as much as he liked. That is, to say, he grinned like an idiot.

He looked down to the book he held in his hands, and, running a hand over it gently, his fingertips brushed over the strange emblem that consisted of the book’s cover. It was all leather-bound, and the leather had been manipulated so that it was raised at certain points so that it formed a picture. The picture, strangely enough, was of a sword, it’s point downward, and he could tell this because, behind the sword, or, perhaps, surrounding the blade, was a wreath of flames, it’s tongues flickering upward above the sword’s pommel.

“I… don’t know what to say!” Sam said, making his way over to the chair clearly designed for him. He placed the book down, then sat, his fingers gently running over the leather. “I mean… a dozen or so books from the Nightmare Moon incident… this could prove to hold an absolute treasure trove of knowledge!” He opened the book slowly, turning the first blank page until he looked at the first page. With writing.

“Don’t get your hopes up,” Ink Pot said, shaking her head as she admired the humans enthusiasm. “It could just be a book of tax records or some other dull old text.”

“No…” Sam said, and his voice was quiet. He looked up, and saw their confused looks, but he ignored them for a moment, reaching over to slide a second book over to him. He checked that one, then quickly examined a third. His eyes were wide in surprise, and he looked up at them, wide eyed with excitement. “You guys… I don’t know about the rest… but these three here! These are journals!”

Author's Note

Hello, everyone, and welcome to Dark Age of Canterlot. This prologue is vastly different from the main story itself, and, honestly, is a last-minute addition to the story; it was not until I was wrapping up Chapter 1 that I got the idea for a human scholar working at a pony museum that has unearthed and is reading/translating documents that give insight into the whole rising of Nightmare Moon. There were some slight changes as time went by, but overall I am fine with the prologue; despite being slightly rushed, I do not anticipate writing a story based on these scholars or their interactions as they go about their work.

Anyway, I always welcome constructive criticism, comments, and generally being worshipped as the glorious author that I am. So feel free to shower me with praises! XD

Oh, and bonus points to whoever can guess the song I alluded to in this prologue.