The learning curve

POV L.Cpl Ben Beal

When Ben had come to see Princess Celestia, he had thought she would be adorned with gold, considering the way that everything ever created that was to do with the the Sun was made of, or included gold.

But no. Celestia was similarly adorned to Luna. Except surprise, surprise... She was wearing gold. He was beginning to wonder, as the conversation had gone on, if anyone ever got damaged eyesight from all the intense reflections that bounced of gold objects, everywhere you look.

As the conversation had started, they had mostly talked about names, lives and other bits of small talk. He was beginning to like her. Normally he had a grudge against politicians, but Equestria's leaders seemed ok. Not like the fancy boy idiots that ran Britain.

When he explained this to her, she mostly just nodded and smiled. So far she seemed very reasonable. Taking in everything you say, and adjusting herself to create a sort of temporary personality to speak to you with. Rather than being a stuck up bitch like Rarity. God, he was going to hate Rarity.

After they had finished all the small talk, Celestia showed them over to a boardroom. It had tall windows running up its side, much like the rest of the palace. Except these weren't stained glass ones. The central table ran all the way down the room and looked like it could host at least forty people. Maybe fifty with a stretch.

The wood was finely cut and finished. He wouldn't have been surprised if it had been years in the making, it was an exceptional piece. Almost artwork within itself. They walked over to the far end and pulled out some chairs.

"This is a nice boardroom you have, Celestia." He said with a curious look.

"It is. It took the designers months to finalise the drawing work. And another just to finish the building. That's not including the furnishings."

Looking around, he saw several plaques and expensive looking artwork dotting the walls. Most were paintings of democratic events. One ore two were perspectives of the room.

There were red and gold drapes, hanging down from the huge ten-foot windows on the left side. And Similar drapes on the other side that were coloured blue and black, with small amounts of white. He guessed these were representative of the regal sisters being the whole day/night goddesses.

Ben decide to bring this point up.

"What's with the whole day/night cycle here? It's very different from my home world."

"Me and my sister Luna raise the sun and moon at dusk and dawn using magic."

Ben smiled. It grew into a grin and he could barely contain his laughter. He let out a few smirks.

"Is something funny Mr.Beal?"

"Not funny but just very unbelievable."

"And why is that?"

"I can understand how you could move the moon, but the sun? No way, that's not possible."

Celestia cocked her head and smiled curiously.

"Is that so? What makes you believe this?"

Ben prepared for a scientific lecture. He enjoyed these.

"The moon(if it is similar to my homes moon), is comprised of mainly rock, iron and nickel. It is geographically 'dead', meaning its basically just a big piece of floating rock and metal in space. The sun however is much more complicated. The sun gets its energy from a process called 'Nuclear Fusion'. Which is the binding of atomic nuclei using high amounts of energy. Nuclear Fusion creates incredibly high amounts of energy in return, in the form of a Nuclear explosion which releases stupendous amounts of heat and other forms of radiation. Imagine this happening thousands upon thousands of times per second, and you have a star. The sun is billions of times more massive than the moon, and even more so in size. It would take trillions of times more energy to move the sun compared to the moon. It would be impossible to move it artificially.

Ben finished his 'short' lecture to a round of silence from the ponies. They looked at him dumbfounded, with their jaws almost touching the table they sat at. Celestia however just continued smiling.

"Tell me, Mr.Beal. How much scientific knowledge has your civilisation obtained?"

"Dangerous amounts."

"And how much of it applies on this world?"

Ben thought about that question for a while. And when he put his mind to it, science seemed a little strange here. For example, the moon was either absolutely huge, or it was incredibly close to the world. If either of these were true, the tidal forces between the two objects would tear them apart. Life would never have evolved in Equestria.

And the way the sun and moon 'helixed' around the same path would imply that they moved in a funnel shape. The world being at the bottom of the funnel, the sun being at the widest point and furthest away from the world, and the moon being in between. But that would also imply them living on 'Terry Pratchetts: Disk World'.

This made absolutely no sense whatsoever to him. There was however another way of explaining it. Maybe the world is the largest object in the system. And sun and moon were orbiting the planet instead.

This seemed a bit more plausible than the other theory, but there were still some things left unanswered. How would a star so small be able to sustain itself?

After a large amount of pondering, Ben gave in.

"I- I guess you're right. Not much from my old world still applies here. Your majesty, I'm sorry for questioning you. Please forgive me."

Celestia smiled and laughed.

"Oh it's fine. It was more of an inquiry than a challenge anyway. Lets change the subject. Twilight here, tells me you have... 'Means' of causing injury to creatures. Am I correct?"

Ben shuffled on his seat, anxiously.

"Yes, I do."

Celestia raised an eyebrow to this.

"May I ask how you came into possession of such items?"

"I am a cadet, your majesty. A soldier in training. When I... Died, my weapons and armour were taken with me."

"You died? How so?"

"I was shot by soldiers of my own country. I- I'm sorry princess but... I don't feel comfortable with sharing the reasons for this with you at the moment."

Celestia looked at him with suspicious eyes that tried to look further into him. Almost as if they were reaching into his brain, trying to pry the answer from his mind by herself.

"I see. And I'm guessing you keep something on you for personal protection, hmm?"

Ben remained silent. He returned her stare with his own. The tension lasted only for a few seconds before he broke the gaze and nodded. He looked over at Twilight, who did not look happy at all. She looked like she was going to make a move on him herself and take his weapons of him. He was so busy deflecting Twilights angry eyes, that he didn't notice Fluttershy slip out of the room. He glanced over to where she had been sitting only to see an empty chair. Poor thing probably got close to a heart attack.

Celestia then made the least expected comment she could have made at that point.

"Good."

Twilight almost exploded.

"WHAT!"

Celestia gestured for her too calm down, and she struck a devilish glare at him.

"Show me the weapons."

Ben unzipped his jacket and unclipped the bayonet from its sheath. Laying out on the table, he returned to his belt to remove the pistol from its holster. As he lifted it up, he noticed Celestia was examining the blade.

"Celestia, he brought weapons into the Royal palace! What if he had attacked you? How is that 'good'?"

Celestia smiled at her former student.

"He brought self protection with him. If I had been placed in an unknown world on my own, I would want some form of protection. Mr.Beal thought forward and prepared himself for the worst. It may not be an optimistic descision, but it was a smart one. I can assure you though, that you will come under no harm from me, my little ponies, or my guard. In the future you can leave the weapons at home."

"Thank you for understanding, princess."

"No worries. Bringing self protection out and about is up to you. But if you do, please be sure it is concealed. The don't want anypony getting the wrong idea now, do we."

"Cirtainly not, your majesty."

She gave him back the large knife and he put everything away again.

"Anyway, I believe Twilight wanted to make you her bodyguard for special occasions. Am I correct?"

Twilight took the reigns for me in the conversation.

"Yes, I did."

"Well I approve. But you must have a royal security badge before we can call you officially a guard. If you would come with me, and we will see to it that we can get you a guard badge for your attire."

Following them out, she led the two of them into the main chamber. Ben had to squint to allow his eyes to readjust to the blinding light. Fluttershy was hiding behind the wall, shivering slightly. Realising that no one had been hurt, she took a deep breath and joined the little convoy as the headed out the overly large doors that seperated the palace from Canterlot. Two Royal guards walked with us, one either side.

They were lead down the steps, and into a high class section of the city. This part of the city had all its residents wearing fine clothing, even though they had natural coats anyway. The residents talked in a proper accent and used posh standard English.

Oh, joy. An entire section of Canterlot full of Rarity's.

Most of them shouted greetings at the two princesses and waved at them. They also seemed pretty intrigued about what Ben was. Every now and again, he'd receive the same two questions;

What are you?

Where are you from?

As if he didn't dislike socialising already without the questioning. He was glad to get them over with and get moving again.

Eventually, they arrived at an expensive embroiderers shop. They walked inside, the bell ringing to tell the owner to pay attention to the door, and sure enough a pony came running.

"Yes, yes I'm on may way!"

As the mare turned the corner, she gasped and gave her mane a quick check over.

"Oh! Good morning Princesses! What may I do for for you?"

"Good morning to you too, Sapphire. I would like a specialised badge created from a design I have."

She nodded at Twilight, and a paper design was presented. It looked much like the gold emblem the Royal Guard wore, except this design had Twilight Sparkles Cutie mark on a shield, and it said 'Bodyguard' underneath it.

The embroider took one look at it and her eyes jumped back to Celestia.

"Of course, your majesty. When do you want it completed by?"

Twilight stepped forward.

"By Monday, next week. Think you can do that?"

"Of course! Thank you for giving me the honour! I'll get to it right away! Goodbye!"

The sudden quiet as the mare jogged back around the corner of her shop was deafening.

"Well she was eager to take the task."

Celestia nodded.

"That was Sapphire Needle. She is our new private embroidery artist. She only got given the place a week ago. She can get a little excited when I give her jobs in pony."

"Aye, I hear you."

Walking back to the palace without being interrupted was not going to happen. Ben made it clear to a few ponies that he would be grateful if they tell their friends to stop asking questions. They obliged, but probably only because the princesses were there. Over wise, he would have bet that they would have told their friends to pester him, for fun.

When they arrived back at the palace, Twilight, Fluttershy and Ben gave their farewells to Celestia and talked amongst themselves. Twilight offered to show Ben around bit he declined. He had a meeting to attend to and he would walk back to Ponyville.

Twilight went back to the train station with Fluttershy and he stayed behind. He walked up to a pair of guards and asked if they could let him take a look around.

"At the end of the corridor, up the tower stairs, five storeys."

Ben smiled as the guards lifted their spears and let him through. The corridor was a bit better than the main chamber for being blinding. An emaculate red and blue carpet spread all the way down the corridor. Several doors were placed on the right hand side, heading of to unknown places every ten metres or so. The doors were made from the same spectacular wood that the boardroom table was. He didn't know what wood it was, but he liked it.

He could hear muffled voices through the doors. None were audible but he was curious about what lay behind them. Probably storerooms or art showcases. Coming up to a door in the middle of the corridor that had 'Library' written on a plaque embedded into its surface backed up that theory.

At the end of the corridor, a spiral staircase rose up before him. As he climbed he pondered the phrase 'spiral staircase'. It wasn't even a spiral. A spiral is when the twist starts of at a wide point, and tightens as it moves. This shape however, was 'Helixical'. A twist that has a constant diameter wherever it moves.

The 'Helixical Staircase' rose around a central column, that had a ribbon lining its surface. The decorators here seem to have gone out of their way to make every single part of this place look amazing. And they had done their job beautifully.

At the top of the staircase was a small opening that had another, larger staircase leading back to the main building. And a set of decorated doors that had Luna's cutie mark expertly painted on one side.

Walking up to the door felt a little dramatic. With no one around it was also a little eire. He stopped in front of the doors and paused. Do they knock here? Only one way to find out.

He clenched his hand into a fist, tapped the door with reasonable strength and waited.

He heard hoof steps increasing in proximity on the other side. A clunk was heard and one of the doors rotated open.

On the other side was Luna. She was just as beautiful in the daylight as she was in the gentle moonlight. Her flowing starry mane drooped to the floor, and those infinite eyes stared back at him. Just looking at her made Ben feel calm and relaxed.

"Thou may come in."