Chapter 1: The Battered Tome
She backed into the shadows, doing her best to stay out of the light that brightened the center of the corridor. Up ahead, four changelings crouched in an open chamber, their backs to each other. They had felt the presence too, and were on high alert, making sure that nothing could creep up on them. "I can take them," Twilight thought. "I just need to distract them somehow.". And although a plan had already begun to take shape in her mind, she would not need it. A grey, sparkling smoke began to roll into the chamber, coming from the corridors that branched off the chamber. Before the changelings could react, the smoke was swirling around them, quickly obscuring Twilight's view of the creatures. From deep within the roiling vortex there was a white pulse and a deep "boom" noise, causing Twilight to jump. The smoke quickly massed in the air above the center of the chamber, taking on the loose form of a grey stallion. And while much of the smoke had remained on the ground, making the room difficult to see through, enough had risen into the air to reveal that where four changelings once stood, there was now four stone statues, each frozen with a look of shock on their faces. The stallion in the air turned his head and faced towards Twilight, and with a deep voice that seemed to emanate from all around her, he spoke,
"Well well well. Look what we have here."......
-two days earlier-
Twilight felt like a kindergardener again, looking up at the towering shelves in awe. This wasn't the first time she had been in the royal archives, nor was it the second, or even the 70th. It didn't matter to her though, there was more knowledge stored here than anypony could absorb in a lifetime, not that it would stop her from trying. Every time she walked through the massive oak doors, no matter how many times she had seen it before, the sight still took her breath away. Shelves 30 times the height of a pony, and hundreds of times as long. She gawked at the spectacle a few more seconds, and would have continued to do so for hours, had a small, slightly whiny voice at her side not drawn her from her trance.
"C'mon Twilight, you know we don't have all day. We need to be out of here to meet the girls out by the donut shop in a few hours." Spike said as he did his best to rouse the lavender alicorn. He was used to this after all, but there has been several instances where, despite his best efforts, he could not break the trance his caretaker had fallen into. Luckily, fate was smiling on him that day, and it didn't take much more to bring Twilight from her stupor.
"Sorry Spike. You know how much this place amazes me." She said, shaking her head and trying to think of something else to take her mind off the collection of knowledge that lay before her. She caught on to a few words her assistant had spoken, remembering why she was here in the first place. She and her five friends had been invited to Canterlot for a few days, as it had been a year since they defeated discord with the Elements of Harmony. While they no longer possessed the mystic objects, they were still the guests of honor at the party celebrating the release of Equestria from the mad ruler. Discord may have been reformed, but that didn't stop anypony from celebrating the anniversary of his defeat, least of all Pinkie Pie. The six had split up to see various sights around the equine capital, with Twilight sparing no time rushing down to the massive library. This was always her favorite part of the castle, and as a filly had spent countless hours sitting in the massive hall with a pile of books several times her size stacked next to her. She hadn't been in the archives in quite a while, and was even more delighted when she spotted the reference list sitting on a large table near the entryway. The book was massive, tens of thousands of pages long, and listed the way the library was organized by subject, as well as where to look if you wanted to find one of a particular type. Twilight had spent several hours at a time in her youth sitting by this book alone, committing large passages of it to memory. And although that had been years ago, she could still list the exact shelf positioning of every book by Starswirl the Bearded simply off the top of her head. Wasting no time, Twilight rushed to a more secluded wing of the library, with Spike doing his best to keep up. Locating the correct shelf, Twilight sat down, closed her eyes, and reached out with her magic. Without even grabbing hold of anything, she could sense the power that was practically dripping from the spells located in the nearby volumes. It was a feeling she hadn't known in years, and the memories of her childhood brought a small smile to her face.
Spike watched, wide eyed as the violet haze spread across the nearby shelves. Even though he lived with Twilight, he sometimes forgot how much magic she truly contained, and couldn't help being impressed by the tendrils of power that now probed the books. but something caught his eye; a few of the wispy strands had begun to mass and sharpen near one end of the bookcase, with more magic following close behind. Looking at Twilight in bewilderment, he saw not the puzzled look the he expected to be on her face, but instead saw a quickly growing grin.
"I see whats happening," Spike thought, recognizing the look. "She's found a book she hasn't read yet.". It was true, Twilight had sensed a magic not familiar to her. She quickly tried to yank the book from the shelves with her magic, but found it tricky to grab ahold of. No, not tricky; impossible was a more correct word for it. No matter what she tried, it was like the book was repelling her power, preventing magic from affecting it. Puzzled, her curiosity got the best of her. She had to know what information warranted such protections. Flapping her wings to get to the high shelf, she gently grabbed hold of the tome, noticing a tiny spark a energy jumping between her hoof and the leather spine, like a charge of static electricity. gliding back down and settling at one of the tables, the bewildered look on her and Spike's face only grew as they took in the battered manuscript.
It was a thin volume, no more than a hundred pages. But it was the cover and binding that caught Twilight's attention. The book seemed as if it had been dragged through several battlefields, before taking a swim in a volcano. The front was charred in places, slashed by what looked like a knife in others, and, despite the temperate climate kept up in the library, a few spots were even frozen solid, covered in ice that refused to melt. All of this surrounded a rough "S" that was engraved into the cover, looking like somepony had tried to scrape the letter into the cover with some awkward tool like a chisel. All in all, the book looked like it defied every law of science and common logic simply by existing, and was pleased with the fact that it did so. When she tried to open the battered tome, a small flash of light came from the side where the pages opened up. Looking for the source of the glow, she saw that a small, night-blue lock had appeared, sealing the covers together and preventing Twilight from opening the book. Some ponies would take this as a warning to put the book away; others would have grown frustrated at the tome's blatant defiance. But Twilight, on the other hand, only grew more curious. Setting the book down, she began to scan over it with her magic, attempting to see if any spells had been cast on it. Instead of finding a few simple incantations as she expected, she was almost knocked out of her chair by the incredible menagerie of arcane runes, hexes, blessings, and possibly a few curses that had placed apon the weathered manuscript. Amongst these spells, she could feel the ward that had prevented her from grabbing the book off the shelf and the locking spell that had clearly just taken effect. The placement of the spells was strange, almost poetic even, as different castings leaned on one another, using the others to make themselves stronger. Whoever had placed such a variety of magic on the tome in such a precise and advanced way was clearly a master at his craft, and the level of complexity was so great that not even Twilight had a hope of cracking it open. Even as she was thinking these words to herself however, she decided to give deciphering the locks a try, and began to probe further, trying to find a chink in the armor. This was a decision she almost immediately regretted however, as the spells griped ahold of Twilight's mind, and began to probe right back. After a few seconds, the magic gave off a almost... disappointed pulse of emotion, and pushed her away before retracting back to the confines of the tome.
"C'mon Spike. lets go ask one of the librarians where this... thing is from." Twilight said as she began to gallop away, holding both Spike and the mysterious piece of literature in her magic. Relying on her knowledge of the library layout, the duo rushed through the massive shelves coming to a skid at the front desk. Apon arrival, Twilight wasted no time slamming the book on the table and asking what the tome was and what it contained.
"To be honest, I've never seen this particular piece before." The grey mare said confusedly, after picking up and examining the mysterious slab of paper and leather. "Im sorry, but theres no information I can give you, besides that this book is probably a fake knock-off of a relic or something of that sort."
"What makes you say that?" Twilight asked, somehow managing a more confused tone than the old librarian.
"Look on the back cover. The royal seal is imprinted there, although there are a few stars put throughout the design that are not normally put there. My guess would be that the seal is forged to make the book seem valuable, but the counterfeiter didn't do their research properly and included the extra stars by mistake."
Twilight thanked the librarian for her help and trotted over to a table, doing her best to resist face-hoofing right then and there for not noticing the seal in her preliminary examination of the book. Apon sitting down and flipping the book, she saw what the librarian had mentioned, the sun and moon that made up the royal seal. Twilight also noticed that, like the old mare had pointed out, there were several stars surrounding the crest, as well as a larger one in the center of the whole design.
"What do you think it means?" Spike asked. Even though he was still a toddler in dragon terms, living with Twilight meant you learnt quickly, and he was as much as an expert in the field of identifying, caring for, and classifying books as she was as a result. "I've never seen anything like it before."
"I don't know Spike. But the royal seal doesn't appear on books unless they are associated with royal affairs. And I find it hard to believe such powerful magic would be placed on a counterfeit. Why would somepony put so much extra effort into something that was fake anyway? It just doesn't add up. In the case this is book is genuine, the seal means the princesses would know about it, and I'm in better a position than anypony to be asking them questions."
Chapter 2: A Bit of Backstory
It was early afternoon, and Celestia was on her daily walk through canterlot. After a long morning of running the more bureaucratic side of her empire, the only way the sun princess could find to unwind was to walk. Where to, it didn't really matter, as long as she ended up outside and away from the ponies that demanded everything be put down on paper and signed in triplicate. Today, she found herself wandering the statue gardens, idly reflecting on how the gardeners had continued to keep up an impeccable standard for how the landscaping was done. It was because of this need to relax and escape from other ponies that she did not notice the purple alicorn's presence until Twilight had moved right up next to her.
"Princess Celestia?" Twilight said in a quiet voice, knowing how deep her former mentor would be into her thoughts. Although she still jumped slightly at the unexpected voice, Celestia replied in a warm tone,
"Twilight Sparkle. What brings you to the gardens today?"
"I had a question about this particular book. I found it in the archives, but the librarians don't recognize it and I can't get it open. do you know anything about it?" Celestia glanced over to the tome that levitated next to Twilight, and on first glance didn't see anything special. It just seemed like another old book, similar to the others that her former student had always managed to find. However, something tugged at the back of her mind. Some old, repressed memories that had almost been completely forgotten. Looking over the beaten cover again, Celestia caught sight of the "S" carved into the old leather and began to sense a familiar magic. Then, all at once, the memories began to flood back, forcing their way to the front of her mind and turning her blood cold. Although she did her best to suppress flood of emotion and keep her features normal, Celestia couldn't keep the hair on the back of her neck from standing up and some of her feathers from bristling.
"Im sorry, but I can't say I recognize it either."
Twilight, however, was not one to give up so easily. In the years that she had spent with the immortal alicorn, Twilight had learned the ways that her mentor responded physically to different emotions. In truth, she could learn the body language of most ponies in a matter of days, which was a feat she was most proud of. However, Celestia had spent over a thousand years learning to keep up an incredible facade of stoic, detached feeling that was required for every ruler to have in times of stress. It was because of this it had taken Twilight so long to learn the tells that betrayed Celestia's emotions, and she knew from her look that the princess was trying to keep her face steady. She could see that her mentor was holding something back, but there was more than that. Twilight thought she could see a hint of fear, no, terror in the white alicorn's body language. Normally, she would have left the situation right then and there, or at least had tried to make the princess more comfortable before requesting information that caused her such distress. But this was different. This was to do with books. Twilight loved everything about books, and that plus her ravenous curiosity just made it so she couldn't simply walk away. Going against everything that the logical part of her mind to her to do, Twilight retorted,
"No. You're hiding something. I don't want to sound self centered, but you can trust me. If this is something dangerous, it is safe to tell me why." Partilly stunned by her student's quick and demanding response, Celestia tried to reason out of the situation.
"There really is nothing I can tell yo-"
"Don't give me that, I can see it in your face. You recognize this book. This thing terrifies you. You can tell me why, can't you?" It was at this moment that the logical part of Twilight's mind decided to grow a spine and stand up to the emotional piece that had just taken control, realizing too late what she had said. In an attempt to salvage the situation, Twilight's logical side decided to shut up entirely, leaving the words hanging in the air. However, it appeared the burst of overconfidence that she had just displayed did the trick, as she could now see a feeling of resignation across Celestia's face.
"No, you're right. You are royalty now, after all. I suppose you should be privy to at least some of the kingdom's secrets. I just... wish this particular one didn't have to be included in that list." the white alicorn said with a sigh, almost whispering the last few words. "But this is no place to be discussing confidential matters. Lets head to the tower, where we can talk in private."
The two princesses quickly flapped up to the upper towers in the castle's main keep, where Celestia's bedchambers were found. Settling down in the same chamber that had been used to house the elements of harmony, Celestia somewhat reluctantly began to tell her story. "This book was created by the most powerful unicorn I have ever met, and it would be greatly disappointing to both me and him if there was a pony who ever managed to overtake him as that position."
"Who was this pony? Starswirl?" asked Twilight, naming off the most accomplished magician she could think of.
"Believe me, this unicorn puts even Starswirl the Bearded's immense power to shame. You wouldn't have read of him, or heard any stories of him either."
"Why not?" Asked the lavender mare, finding it hard to believe that a pony of such immense power would go undocumented.
"He goes unheard-of because he asked it to be that way, and for what he has done for us it was the least me and luna could do to respect his wishes." Celestia replied, seeing the confusion on Twilight's face hit an even greater level. "This pony has gone by several names, but the one I know him by is Stellarum. That brother of mine was powerful indeed, beyond anypony that I have ever seen at the very least." It was at this point the confusion had accumulated so much it was almost pouring off of Twilight's face. But at the word brother in the last sentence, this look of incredible confusion turned to one of being entirely dumbstruck, with her mouth hanging wide open.
"B-b-brother?" the purple alicorn stammered out, being able to say nothing else, at least not coherently.
"Yes, you heard right, me and Luna have a older sibling. This book was created by him, or at least the magic inside was. I'm relatively sure he stole the actual binding and paper from a friend." She said this with a small laugh, as the happy memories came into view. But just as quickly as it came, the warm nostalgia left her face to be replaced with a dark, slightly sad look as she remembered what exactly the book's appearance had meant.
"Does this mean he, Stellarum, is an alicorn too?" Twilight managed to say, her mind at least slightly less boggled than it had been moments ago.
"Yes, but the situation is a bit... complex." Celestia replied, taking a moment to find the correct word to use. "You see, me and Luna were born as alicorns, and it is because of this that we are immortal. While he is our brother, he became an alicorn the same way you and cadence did, through a magical realization and ascension. The most interesting part however, was that he wasn't born as a unicorn or a pegasus. Stellarum was an earth pony, at least until his transformation."
"But, if he was an earth pony, how could he do magic and learn enough to become an alicorn?" Twilight asked. At this point, she had managed to recover slightly, and there were a few hundred questions grasping at the front of her mind. This one in particular was just shoved out of the fray in the right direction to be asked first.
"I suppose it is a more advanced topic, I wouldn't expect you to understand it. All ponies have magic, at least in some form. In unborn ponies, sometimes genetics causes the magic to manifest itself in a few different ways. For unicorns, the ambient power forms a horn, which just allows much more steady and easy access to the magic stored inside it's bearer. In pegasi, their magic forms wings, allowing flight. And while earth ponies do not have anything to represent their magic, that is only physically. If an earth pony that is particularly bright and observant can pay close enough attention, they will find they are capable of preforming spells as well, just not nearly with the same ease as a unicorn. Stellarum, on the other hand, was more powerful than most unicorns even before he became an alicorn. He gained his transformation not through the discovery of the meaning of a particular field of magic, such as love or friendship in yours and Cadence's cases, but through the base understanding of how magic worked in general, and how to shape it to the way he needed.
"When me and my sister were born, my brother took this not as a reason to grow jealous or discouraged, but as a unique opportunity to observe how particularly powerful magic grew and developed in the long-run. He filled hundreds of notebooks and made countless sketches and formulas just on what he could gather by feeling how ambient magic behaved around us two." Through all of this rambling, Celestia had slowly grown happier and more comfortable. Telling somepony these secrets made her feel lighter, as if she had been forcefully keeping all of this back and was only now able to release it. This feeling once again left however, as she entered the part in her story she had not wanted to tell the most. "When Discord first appeared, me and Luna were around your age. Stellarum was a fully grown stallion at this point, and still an earth pony. While this was before the draconequus had taken the throne, he was still seen as a threat and entire armies had been called up to go to war with the spirit of disharmony. My brother, who had always been relatively patriotic, was quick to join the fray. It was then, during battle with an army of monsters that Discord had summoned, that Stellarum had his transformation." Celestia began to tear up slightly, and it was clear she was doing her best to keep her voice steady.
"Most of his squad had either been gravely wounded or killed, and those who were left more or less unharmed were doing their best to tend to the ones that hadn't been do fortunate. My brother was not one of these. He had been badly injured, his armor nothing but a pile of shredded metal from all the cuts and stabs that had been sent his way. His fellow soldiers had done their best to keep him safe, giving him a cot to lie on in the trenches that they were trapped in. But despite their best efforts, he refused to stay down, insisting on going out to keep fighting. When they refused and threatened to use a sedation spell on him, he teleported past them and limped onto the battlefield. There, casting defensive spells and doing his best to hold off wave after wave, he finally realized that he couldn't hold off an entire army forever. And so, in an attempt to save his comrades, he used the last of his strength to teleport what was left of his squad back to base, where they would be safe. There was no time to expand the spell to include himself in it's effect, and this was a fact he knew full and well, but he was willing to sacrifice himself to save others. And as the next wave approached to finish him off, the realization hit. Even as powerful as he was, there was no way he could normally teleport so many ponies such a distance. From this, his brain which refused to stop thinking realized magic that was closely linked to emotion was much more powerful than magic linked to desire, especially if it was being used in a defensive manner. It was this sudden understanding that caused his ascension, and he went through the same transformation process that you did.
"He acted different from that day on. When he returned home, barely surviving, he had concealed his transformation with a shape shifting spell similar to the one that Luna uses." Celestia had to choke out these words, with tears almost actively running down her face. "He still studied us, but it was never the same. It seemed like he was looking at us in desperation to understand rather than in curiosity. While our parents didn't notice because he was able to keep these types of feelings hidden fairly well, Luna and I could see a difference. It was a slight change, but still, with somepony who was so brilliant, seeing battle effect him in such a way was almost like losing him entirely." These last words were accompanied by a single tear that splashed against the floor from underneath Celestia's mane as she was hanging her head low by this point in her story. Twilight was about to make a move, to speak some comforting words, but her mentor was in full speed and she wasn't about to stop there. "He was a war hero, for not only saving his squad that day, but for going back into battle and making the difference in the war. He and the rest of the men and women that fought alongside him were able to push back Discord's forces, and he even had the power to directly stand up and fight back the chaos magic with his own. He would have had books, stories, and countless other things made after him, making sure he would live on forever in memory, but he made sure as few ponies as possible knew of his involvement in the operation and asked those that did know to keep it a secret. Why he wanted to remain unknown I do not know, but he succeeded. The calm in the battle that followed was enough to allow me and Luna to find the elements of harmony and overthrow Discord once and for all. After the job was done, Stellarum moved into hiding, and gave us this book. He asked us to place it in the royal archives, and that if it was ever to appear, it was because he had sensed something was amiss and would use this as a type of distress beacon that would lead us to him." Celestia finished with a small sniffle, only now noticing that Twilight had moved up beside her. In a quiet voice, the lavender alicorn asked, "You mean he never told you where he was hiding?"
"N-no." She stammered in reply. "Stellarum had told us he would remain in solitude until the world needed him. The only way to ensure that he remained unknown was to tell no pony where he would be going, not even us."
"So what does me finding this book mean?" Twilight asked, only now really beginning to realize the vast array of things that the tome's appearance could be representing.
"I do not know. The way he spoke of this book, it seemed like an atlas or map, not a messaging system. I have a feeling he wants us to go find him and talk to him personally."
"Well, won't that be good? you haven't seen him in over a thousand years if what you tell me is true." Then, a thought hit Twilight. "Wait... if he wasn't born and alicorn, then how could he have possibly lived so long?"
"Mine and Luna's immortality is derived from how much magic we possess. We can hold and control so much raw energy that it rejuvenates our bodies constantly. While he wasn't born with the trait, after becoming an alicorn it didn't take long for him to reach the levels of power required to achieve functional immortality." Celestia replied, reciting exactly what the very same brother had told her over a millennia ago.
"Ah, I see. but still, won't seeing him be nice?" Twilight replied, the logical part of her mind slightly happier that she could walk away from this with at least a little bit of knowledge that she could apply in her studies.
"I-I-I fear what I find." Celestia just barely managed to stammer out, and it was then the emotional wall she had built began to crumble, her tears flowing freely. "I have not seen him in so long, and theres no telling how much he could have changed in that time. He could be exactly the same, I could have the brother I once knew back, or, though I shudder at the thought, he could have gone completely insane. If the worse is true and he really has lost his mind, then there is nothing we can do but try to get through to him. He is more powerful than both me and Luna combined, and that much strength should not be at the control of a mind that has lost all of it's normal faculties." Celestia began to rush through these words, automatically assuming the worst and fearing for the safety of not only the entirety of equestria, but the basically the whole planet. While some villains would like nothing more than to tear the world apart, this particular pony had the capabilities to actually do just that and then some.
"So... what happens now? Are you going to open the book?" Twilight asked, unknowingly assuming the therapist voice that she had used a stark few times in the past.
"Opening this tome would almost be as dangerous as leaving it closed. Almost, being the key word there. While I fear what I will find, If my brother senses that something is amiss, that is a warning to be taken with the utmost seriousness." With these words, the white alicorn gingerly levitated the old tome and began to gently probe it's surface as a feeling of nostalgia crept up on her. This was the last thing her brother had done, the last gift he had given. Tears began to swell up in her eyes again, but the sadness was immediately squashed by the magic that resided in the book surged through her mind, just as it had done to Twilight earlier. But, instead of not finding what it was looking for and giving off a sense of genuine disappointment, the stored power seemed to recognize Celestia and felt joyful as it released an incredible surge of magic into the air. This new influx of energy would have several consequences for the town of Canterlot, ranging from overloading and destroying experiments in the castle laboratories to causing intense migraines for almost all of the unicorns that were in the area. And although being at the epicenter of such a blast would have caused any normal unicorn to be incapacitated for weeks from the experience, Twilight's heightened magical power was able to piggyback on the wave, causing her mystical sense to be magnified a thousand fold and allowing her to feel the power emanating from every living thing within thousands of miles of the capital city. Despite being almost overloaded by the millions of magical signatures that now flowed through her, Twilight was able to feel a particularly strong signal that had stopped moving and began to rush to the castle at speeds even Rainbow Dash would be envious of. Before she could probe further however, the mystical wave subsided, cutting off her heightened mystic sense. Looking back to Celestia as her vision cleared, Twilight saw that her mentor had been unaffected by the magical pulse and instead seemed happy, with yet another wave of fresh tears brimming.
