An Introduction To New Students and Discoveries

Twilight Sparkle sighed as she sat in the Canterlot throne room, filling in for Princess Celestia and Princess Luna while they attended to events near the borders of Equestria that were demanding their attention. Twilight didn't realize how much effort had to into regularly moving the sun and the moon until that first time she was away from the princesses, fortunately for her it was just for a few days and once the celestial bodies had reached their zenith she had few hours to relax and get something to help renew her strength. It had been almost 7 years since her ascension to alicorn and she was starting to feel the pressure. Her friends were far too busy with their lives now to come and cheer her up, it had been that way for almost 7 months now. The princesses had been gone for 2 weeks and the only sort of solace Twilight had in recent days was Spike's continual daily reports followed by asking how she was holding up.

Rarity's Canterlot boutique had blossomed into one of the city's premier fashion centers just 3 years ago, so now Rarity had her hooves full just meeting orders most days and was loving every minute of it for the most part; Pinkie Pie's Party Palace in Canterlot was a great place to plan parties for young ponies or surprise parties for ponies of any age, at this point Pinkie was starting feel her physical age and overly sweet centered diet catch up with her; Rainbow Dash was busy with her new Wonderbolt duties, this included the Jr Wonderbolt Academy which is intended to teach young pegasi what qualities a Wonderbolt should have, which was an idea she had validated only a year after she had made it to being an authentic Wonderbolt; Applejack was busier with her new duties at Sweet Apple Acres, and like Pinkie was starting to feel her age and lifestyle catch up to her; Fluttershy was also busy with a whole menagerie of new animals that were previously not seen in Ponyville's area until recently, and she was also busy trying get a complex built to house them in addition to a facility dedicated to providing them with medical care. Twilight was delighted with the prospect of actually having free time again, since the princesses were supposed to return later that very week. However what was really lifting Twilight's spirits was that again to catch up on what they all missed.after being free from her duties as a stand in for the princesses was that she and all her friends would be meeting in Ponyville

It had been about an hour after Spike's daily report that said Luna was returning, so you can imagine Twilight's surprise when later that very day Celestia and Luna arrived with an electric green pegasus and a pair of unicorns that looked about the age Twilight had been when she had started learning from Celestia. “Twilight,” said Princess Celestia in the loving care filled voice that Twilight always remembered her having when nopony was threatened with her blue, green, violet and pink flowing mane seeming to stop its motion for moment for emphasis, “this is Storm Walker and his sisters Dream Step and Eclipse Touch.”

Twilight gave the princesses a quizzical look as Luna said in a voice that mirrored Twilight's confusion, “I'm just as confused as you, my sister bumped into them a few days ago and asked them to accompany us to Canterlot.”

“When we met Princess Celestia I informed her of our situation,” said the electric green pegasus in a dignified respecting voice while giving a graceful bow, “My name is Storm Walker and these are my younger sisters, please forgive them for their uneasiness they are a bit insecure at the moment. The white unicorn filly is Dream Step and the black unicorn is Eclipse Touch, be polite girls.”

“Yes brother,” said the pure white unicorn filly with a black mane and tail with a streak of emerald through the mane and tail and indigo colored eyes next to the pegasus and with a strong hint of concern in her voice said, “my name is Dream Step, it is nice to meet you, the princesses of Equestria. I have read what I can in our old home nation, there was very little available in the libraries I was allowed access to.”

“Your turn now sweetie,” said Storm Walker turning to the black unicorn filly with emerald eyes and a white mane and tail with indigo streaks in them, who also appeared to have pair of saddlebags that were noticeably to be too big for her and appeared to be weighted by whatever was in them.

“My name is Eclipse Touch,” said the black unicorn filly with a sense of uncertainty and shyness that reminded Twilight of the first time she met Fluttershy, “I'm Dream Step's twin, we both were born with rare abilities, please don't hate us.”

“Hate you,” said Twilight with a strong concern in her voice, “why would we hate you? You've done nothing wrong as far as I know.”

“We had brother take us away from our overbearing mother,” said the twins in unison with a strong hint of fear.

“Maybe you should start at the beginning,” said Luna and Twilight in unison while turning their attention to Storm Walker, at which point Twilight noticed the violet lightning bolts in his sky blue mane and that his cutie mark was 3 shields that each had one of the 3 kinds of pony on them and the shields bunched close together.

“Okay,” said Storm Walker, “we come from a nation called Bridleton, it is ruled by unicorn nobles who have very elitist views of how ponies should be, the ruler of the land is king Artanus the sixty-seventh. Our parents are named Great Spell and Great Seal and our Grandmother is named Grand Charm, but her personality is from that, and trust me when I say that as bad as any of your Canterlot nobles are ours makes their elitism look like foals playing 'my kingdom'. In the nation of Bridleton unicorns have all the political power, every other kind of pony is just a lesser caste. I myself am seen as a shame on the lineage because of over a hundred generations of pure unicorns a pegasus was born, you can imagine how an elitist family of unicorns took that. We have an older sister named Sunshine Bottle, she's a unicorn who has the power to fill others with a sense of false joy or happiness and when the spell wears off you feel emptiness where the false joy or happiness was and...”

At this point Pinkie Pie popped up seemingly out of nowhere, startling the fillies with her abrupt appearance and saying in her disapproving voice, “ooh, she sounds like a pony that doesn't know what fun is,” then turning her direction towards Storm Walker in a more chipper voice that Twilight knew she usually used when meeting new ponies, “how are you this fine day my name's Pinkie Pie and you are? No wait let me guess... You are one very confused pony.”

“Um yes,” said Storm Walker with a little confusion, “how did you get here unnoticed?”

“Oh, Pinkie does that sort of thing all the time,” said Twilight with a hint of amusement in her voice and then in a bit more serious voice said, “Pinkie I think you might have scared the fillies a bit.”

“I know how to fix that,” said Pinkie with a big grin before hopping over to Dream Step and Eclipse Touch and then pulling 2 lollipops almost size of their heads out her mane and handing them to the 2 fillies who took them in their hooves and stared at them not sure what to do with the treats. “You lick and eat them however you want, silly fillies,” said Pinkie immediately noticing their confusion.

“Speaking of those fillies,” said Princess Celestia, “Twilight and Luna will each be instructing them as mentors,” both Twilight and Luna looked at each other with a sense of confused understanding, “Luna was banished to the moon for a thousand years because of the events that caused her transformation into Nightmare Moon and attempt to remove me from the power structure forcefully,” Celestia continued after the 2 had stared at each other for over a minute, “she needs to rediscover what her best teaching method is and how to interact with students before we begin plans for her own academy of magic,” at this Luna's eyes brightened to the point they literally had a soft glow for a few seconds, “and you Twilight have always been a seeker of knowledge since before the first day you caught my eye, it is through teaching that some of our greatest lessons can be learned. Luna will be the mentor to Dream Step since she has the natural ability to dream walk. I am quite well aware that Luna is an avid dream walker, I am also well aware of when she helped Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo and Apple Bloom while they were still trying achieve their cutie marks and that she helped them get over some of their troubles within the dream world,” at this Luna blushed with enough embarrassment and adoration to make the cheeks of her black furred face become a deep violet, “as for Eclipse Touch,” continued Princess Celestia, “she has the ability to cancel out all forms of magic they have in their native land, I am hoping that should Discord pop in on you while you are in the midst of training her that the ability will act as a deterrent while you teach her how to get her magic under control.”

“I would be honored,” said Twilight with bow, “I helped tutor Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo while they were trying to achieve their cutie marks. I am looking forward to being a mentor to somepony and maybe with a little luck I may have the honor of presenting my own star pupil.” Twilight then looked over to see the twins embracing each other in a hug that said they didn't want to be separated, the seriousness of their embrace was almost lost in the goofy hug Pinkie Pie was giving them a few second later while telling them the proper way to hold a lollipop, at all times.

“Don't worry,” said Princess Celestia, “you are not being separated, merely placed in the care of 2 different and highly capable ponies. You will still be able to talk with each other in letters and notes with the aid of Spike, Twilight's highly capable assistant,” at this point Spike walked in and the eyes of the 2 fillies filled with both awe and fear. Spike had grown a bit over the years and the beginnings of wings were just starting grow of his back just a short distance from his shoulder blades and form their almost iconic structure.

“Dragons disappeared from Bridleton after the original Artanus disappeared,” said Storm Walker, “as a scare tactic many ponies in our former nation tell young foals that if they don't behave and follow the rules of our society then a dragon will come and take them away to place where they will use their ancient magic's to make us part of their hoard.”

At this Spike just laughed and said in his now comforting and deepening voice, “I've grown up with Twilight my entire life, I'm a friend to ponies and I don't take kindly to others treating my friends badly.”

“I'm going to be living with miss Twilight and that dragon,” said Eclipse with a sense of fear in her voice.

“Yup, silly filly,” said Pinkie Pie setting the twins down and handing chocolate eggs the size of her hoof that were held in her mane to the twins before skipping over to Spike and pulling a large ruby with a big crack going down its face and passing it to him while saying, “Rarity says you can have all the flawed and cracked gems she's been finding lately, she says she's been having them shipped back to Twilight's castle in Ponyville and this is the first one that she found and thought you might want to get some idea of what you'll be getting into.” With a quick inspection of the gemstone Spike took a nibble out of it and told Pinkie to pass his thanks on to Rarity before taking big bites out of the cracked gem and swallowing it then licking the dust of the gem off his lips and claws to which Pinkie and Twilight gave very obvious chuckles.

After their little chuckle Twilight said, “Pinkie what are you doing here? We're supposed to meet up with everypony in Ponyville in a few days, although I am happy to see you.”

“Fluer Dis Lee's colt, Tri-club, had his third birthaversary 4 hours ago and the party just ended a few minutes ago, the party wasn't as fun as I thought it would be, so I decided to stop by the castle and say hi to you,” said Pinkie with a smile that said she disapproved of Fluer's idea of how a party planning pony should be. After saying that Pinkie hopped over to Eclipse Touch and said, “you are just going to love being with Twilight, she practically lives in the library of her new castle so you'll have plenty of books to read. And you'll have so many wonderful adventures with other fillies and colts at the Ponyville school.”

Eclipse Touch's eyes went wide with awe before she timidly said, “the town has a school for all ponies. I don't deserve such treatment, when mother finally finds us and finds out that I was with ponies that are not unicorns then everypony will be in trouble.”

“I know your brother said that the unicorns of your parent nation are extremely elitist,” said Twilight in a comforting voice, “but why would your family care about the atmosphere of your school or what kind of ponies you tried to make friends with?”

“Because our mother and grandmother believe that only a unicorn should be taught by unicorns, that only unicorns should form affiliations with other unicorns and that unicorns must always be surrounded by unicorns,” said Storm Walker with contempt, “it's one thing to hear about, but maybe it would be best if you actually saw our experiences with our family by observing through some of our memories, that way you could make a more informed decision. And when the rest of our family finds us you can compare their memories with the corresponding memories you observed from us.”

“That sounds like a excellent idea,” said Princess Celestia, “but I regret to inform you that we have no memory spells that would allow for such things, I personally archived and remembered every spell in Equestria's oldest libraries and have been kept apprised of all new spells that have been introduced and created in the nation. None are of the level or finesse you are suggesting.”

Eclipse Touch beckoned Twilight over, this was a surprise to which both Storm Walker and Dream Step, and whispered something that only Twilight seemed to hear and Twilight showed so much joy she did a little happy dance. After a few seconds of doing her happy dance Twilight lifted a noticeably heavy red leather bound book from Eclipse's right saddlebag causing the bags to fall over the black filly's left side and give a loud thump that indicated that another book of some kind was still in the saddlebags, and to which Storm Walker gasped in seeing it before he said, “you took the Tome of Mind Magics from the family's personal collection, Eclipse this will expedite the punishment from our mother and her drive to find us quickly as possible.”

“I know, but I just thought we should get it away from that place that never really felt like home,” said Eclipse Touch in a timidly informative voice and then said, “in the other bag is the big book called Ancient Curses and Hexes, I really didn't want grandmother looking through it for possible punishments when she discovered we were no longer at that dreadful place they kept telling us was our home,” after saying all this the little black unicorn pawed at the floor in a manner that indicated she was unsure and very nervous.

During this time Twilight had been leafing through the pages of the book showing that she was disapproving of most the spells despite them being very new to her before stopping at the page that Eclipse Touch had whispered to her, “she actually memorized where a memory experience observation spell was despite only leafing through it once,” said Twilight with a note of surprise and pride, “page 746 'passive memory experience', I have a feeling that our lessons are going to be more interesting than I was anticipating, it'll take me and the princesses time to memorize the spell so I suggest we leave this book in the capable hooves of Princess Celestia while Princess Luna and I help get these 2 fillies situated in our homes. And check on the progress made tomorrow, I want to come back and copy this spell when I have proper materials to do so.”

“An excellent suggestion, Princess Twilight,” said Luna as she carefully curled one of her wings around Dream Step in a comforting manner.

“Might I suggest you take the train back to Ponyville Twilight,” said Princess Celestia, “Eclipse Touch's innate ability is still quite unstable and it could cause problems for you when you try to teleport yourself and her back to Ponyville.”

“Of course Princess Celestia,” said Twilight, “it will also allow me to show Eclipse some of Ponyville and maybe if we're lucky I can introduce to the rest of my friends. Maybe meeting Fluttershy will help Eclipse relax a little, I know Applejack would love to explain a few things to her, Rainbow Dash has been so busy with the Wonderbolts recently I'm not sure if we'll really be able to see her, and Rarity's been pretty busy as well. We all planned for freeing up our schedules on the same day months ago so hopefully we'll all be in Ponyville on the same day so we can really do things like we used to.”

“It does seem you and your friends have been seeing less of each other as of late,” said Princess Luna looking over at Pinkie Pie as the pink mare hopped out the doors that left the castle, “but I'm sure that you and your friends will be able to get together and go about adventures like you used to,” she said as she guided Dream Step to the part of the castle that was designated for the night princess's primary use.

“I'm just glad I don't have your duties of guiding the sun or the moon for a while,” said Twilight as she picked up the Eclipse Touch's saddlebags, noticing how old and worn they looked, and flipping open the bag formerly on the filly's left side to pull out a tome that was as thick as the red one in a pristine forest green leather binding. Open the tome up to the title page she read aloud Ancient Curses and Hexes for when a standard punishment spell isn't quite enough, now that's just horrid. Eclipse Touch was right to confiscate this book from her grandmother, a book like this is rare and needs to be preserved, but it also needs to be put somewhere so secure that nopony with enough brains to be able to read it and stupid enough to try out the spells can get their hooves on it.”

“I agree,” said Princess Celestia, “that is why I am having that tome covertly, and expediently, sent to the spell vault archives in Story Tree. I believe I may know the right pony for the job as well. You, Twilight, need to help your new student become acclimated with her new home for the time she is here. As for you Storm Walker,” said the princess turning her attention once more to the lightning green pegasus, “we will have you train as one of Canterlot's royal guards, and should you pass the tests placed before you then you can be in an excellent position to better safeguard the twins.”

“I don't think I've ever heard of Story Tree before, and I've never found it on any map of Equestria,” said Twilight while putting a reassuring hoof over the right shoulder of a very nervous looking Eclipse Touch, whom also seemed to visibly relax from the gesture much to the surprise of her siblings, “what is so special about it.”

“The settlement itself gets its name from a massive tree in the center of the town,” said Luna with hint of wonder to her voice, “before Discord began his rule over Equestria the story tree, as the residents called it, was a place to tell stories of any kind without the fear of being judged on their quality or content. When Discord spread his magic over the town he made it so that anypony that told or listened to a story near to the tree had to experience that story until it was concluded. After we managed to best Discord the magic on the tree remained, the ponies of the town quickly forgot about that after turning the tree itself in an archive and so only the keeper of the archive remembers, and has tremendous fear of reading any the tales that are amassed in the library anywhere near the tree for fear of getting caught in a story and having to complete it just so that they can do something as simple as take a walk outside. I hear the current archivist at the tree is afraid to sleep in or near the tree out of fear of being trapped in a dream. The archive itself sits above the great spell vault, and the tree acts as an effective security system because all anypony has to do to stop an intruder from advancing to the point of finding the hidden entrance that leads to the spell vault is start telling a story. As to why you haven't found it on any map, the reason is simple. Celestia and I agreed to keep the town marked only on our personal maps of Equestria in chambers that are only accessible to us, that and the town's population seems to always be around half that of Ponyville so in all regards it is considered too small of a settlement to be marked on a map.”

“That's incredible,” said Twilight, “but Eclipse Touch, Spike and I have to get back to Ponyville so that she can get settled in and I can start writing up a beginner's lesson plan so as to assess her strengths and weakness in the art of spell craft.”

“Good luck to you Princess Twilight,” said Luna as she guided Dream Step to her personal section of the castle and Celestia began going over the spell.

“Be careful,” said Eclipse Touch as she trotted with Twilight and Spike to doors that lead outside the castle, “if you aren't strong of mind the book can influence your decisions. According to the story of the book that Grandmother told us the will of the crafter of the book is embedded in the book itself and all who read of it must fight off his influence.”

“What is that pony's name,” inquired Twilight stopping just short of the door.

“Nalsher, the Grand,” said Eclipse Touch, “a misguided student of Myrraldin, the unicorn that instructed the original Artanus in the ways that lead to his greatness.”

“How is you weren't influenced by him when you leafed through the book,” inquired Princess Celestia looking up from the book as it floated in front of her with the aid of her magic.

“My power to cancel out magic is seen as unstable because of my inability to control it,” said Eclipse Touch, “but it has only activated whenever I or somepony standing uncomfortably close to me was in trouble of being affected by a spell.”

“Then it's more of a defense mechanism,” said Twilight returning the black filly to her side and swinging the doors open with her magic and guiding the Filly to the Canterlot train station, “you will be perfectly safe with me and Spike,” said Twilight as she they approached the station and she bought 3 tickets for the three o' clock express to Ponyville, “and once you start feeling a little more comfortable at the castle I'll begin your lessons, even if your family comes and requests we return you to their custody I will not if you feel unconformable being with them. Doesn't matter if it's days, weeks, months or years, I will see to it that you, my student, are in an environment that promotes your magical skills in a constructive manner.” At that the train pulled in and a very bored sounding mare with a city drawl that told Twilight she was from Manehattan announced that this train was the express to Ponyville. Twilight ushered her new charge onto the train as Spike followed close behind with the luggage that Twilight had brought with her to Canterlot. Smiling to herself as she boarded the train and presented her tickets to the conductor pony she lead Spike and Eclipse to the seats the tickets had indicated. Spike sat across from the 2 ponies with the luggage secured next to him, Twilight sat directly across from Spike and Eclipse was curled up like as a sleepy little bundle next to Twilight.

“That's right little Filly, you just rest. You've had a long trip, and when you wake up we can begin learning about your magic,” said Twilight as she gently petted the black filly's white mane with the care and attentiveness with a gentle smile she remembered her mother had done when she was at that age and Princess Celestia had in her early days as the Princess's student. Twilight had a feeling that the days to come were going to prove enlightening for both her and Eclipse.

here

Author's Note

Back to the old format, and sorry for the inconvenient to everyone. As an added bonus I'm going to also upload the Google doc version, for the first 4 chapters anyway, for those of you who don't mind the format, also it will let me more effectively get to writing mistakes that are pointed out. For those of you who are new welcome, also this is my first MLP fanfic so I want you to be honest with me in the comments. In other words I want constructive criticism, not just a thumbs down if .you can spare the time. If you don't like the story tell me why, if you like it try to explain why you you like it. Just a thumbs up up or down won't tell me why you like or dislike the story, it just give a quantified number of people that like or dislike the story.