Celestia watched over her student, Twilight, while she where pouring her young mind over her newest task. A very advanced piece of mathematics, a formula for direct applications for thaumaturgy, in other words how to calculate the necessary power to alter reality to your will… she of course didn’t expect Twilight to solve it, or even apply it, she just wanted her to learn the theory behind it. It would be practical later on, both in her regular classes and in their private session.

Nochee-wo’s words rung in her head.

[i}’Your student is going to succeed…’ She looked at the small filly in front of her, flipping through books, jotting down notes on whatever scrap of paper she still had left. Taking down notes on articles, names of books, and page numbers for future reference. Was the stallion right, had she finally found the one? It was a question she had always asked quietly to herself. Had she made the right choice to drop Sunset, a promising and talented filly, but was too… prideful. She hadn’t laid down bonds with her classmates, and she wore the title of ‘Celestia’s personal student’ like a badge, as if she was somehow better than her peers… She was talented, powerful even, and had a passion for learning, she was still young, it could have been a phase that she could’ve ground out of her with the years to come.

But then from nowhere, this purple little pony had done the impossible, she had hatched a dragon’s egg, and in the relapse of the out of control spell had grown the little baby dragon into a giant, even amongst dragon kind.

She had dropped Sunset without hesitation, she had abandoned a little filly for another, she couldn’t teach both, she did not have the time, neither with the duties of her position, and the careful guidance she needed to employ to nurture forth a new bearer for the element of magic… splitting that time up in two was too time consuming.

Twilight was an intelligent child, but she was far too focused on her studies. She didn’t talk much in our outside of classes with other fillies outside of the class topic. She didn’t play with others as much as she would have liked her to do.

Was he right, or was he playing with her fears? The spells she had had on him had told her no, he was not lying, but even if he was right, who was to tell if it was going to be? It was so long ago she had her prophetic dream, she simply could not remember what had been said, what colours the element bearers were, she only remembered the date with enough clarity to know when. She could only hope she was fulfilling her part in bringing her sister back, and one single step could ruin it all.

Eight years… eight more years…

It was amazing how much a bit of soap, and water did for one’s own ego. I also saw the effect it had on everyone else. Many of the ponies I passed actually bowed, some more hesitant than others. But like the tan snob from yesterday, my likeness to Celestia, intimidated them into respect.

I never imagined simply walking around through empty corridors, only occasionally passing another pony, would be so entertaining. While I held no love for art, it was interesting to study the different artworks and the occasional nice view out a window. At least it helped pass the time.

I absently wondered where Celestia had gone off to. Was she tending to her duties to the crown, or was she relaxing somewhere? Heck she could be doing both for all I knew!

Rounding another corner I was brought to a stop. In front of me two large double doors stood wide open. Inside rows upon rows of roof high bookcases, stacked with innumerable books, was visible.

Hesitating only for a moment, I walked in. The doors was wide open after all. This must be some sort of library, or archive. The library was circular, with an aisle running around the wall supporting two stacked galleries. Oblong passages were inset into the walls. Every wall was covered with filled bookcases, scrolls as well as hard covered books was stacked and crammed into whatever space the archivist could find. I could see an alcove or two dotting the far wall. No space was wasted as the aisles between the bookcases was narrow, just wide enough for me to move freely, if barely.

A small desk sat against the wall next to the wall. A blue unicorn, with yellow blonde mane sat comfortably behind it, a book resting against his stomach as he read a particularly big book that I could not help but call a tome. His glasses riding low on his muzzle.

The pony gave a sudden startle when I entered, the tome falling out of his hooves, caught at the last second by the unicorn’s magic. Stunned to actually get a visitor. Then he saw me, and his face contorted into the most hilarious twist of incredulity and shock.

I couldn’t help the snort that wrenched out of my throat and promptly went on my way to explore the room.

“What in Celestia’s name…” Happy Hoof murmured as he watched the orange pony disappear amongst the shelves.

“Our new guest, haven’t you heard?” Happy gave yet another startle when the Guard made himself known. The guards bigger and older partner followed the even taller pony behind the shelves.

“What?!” He knew he was isolated in his little corner of the palace, but to have missed… THIS!

“I do not know the details, but the Captain stormed into the council meeting, reporting to her about,” he nodded towards the shelf their charge had disappeared behind. ”She wasted no time to leave the meeting. It has been a lot of rumours about who he is.”

“And you don’t?” Happy asked, still trying to comprehend how he’d missed hearing about this.

“Nope not a clue.”

Happy was even more surprised after hearing that.

“No clue?”

“The Princess has taken to meeting him daily, two or three times a day. Often sharing a meal and a private chat,” the Brown eyed guard said. “His striking resemblance to the princesses, has a lot of ponies talking, some have even implied there’s something more…”

Happy’s eyes widened when he caught on to what the guard was implying.

“No, that can’t… that can’t be true.”

“I do not know, but there definitely is something going on that Celestia does not want ponies to know.” The guard smiled as he made to catch up to his charge, leaving Happy wrap his head around just what he has been told.

Books, books and more books. Not surprising at all really, libraries tended to have a lot of them. There were a few scrolls lying in bundles here and there, but otherwise, books. The chicken scratch-like letters where unfamiliar, though one or two looked like ‘N’s and ‘M’s, saw a few ‘E’s but most where just different sharp angled lines. A few, mostly scrolls, had a more flowing scripts but still undecipherable and strange… not to mention I couldn’t read cursive even in my own language.

I did not dare try and open, much less pick up, one of these texts at least with my current dexterity… or lack there off.

I looked up at my horn. Magic would have been very handy right now, unlike his wings he did not have a clue how to use it… how did you use a piece of hard keratin to summon or whatever one needed to do to bring forth magic? Not that he had tried anything more or overt than a thought or two. Would be embarrassing if he blew out one of my walls down or changed every colour in the room into neon pink by accident. Who know what disasters he could do, just the memory of what the Cake daughter could do with her semi accidental bursts of magic. And alicorn magic is in and of itself much more powerful than a foal’s. Whatever I could do would blow up in my face, or worse others.

Whatever understanding I had with Celestia would certainly be thrown out the window if I, for any reason, actually hurt someone.

Staring intently at the spine of another book, at the gold lettering. I grew a bit frustrated. Spoken language was plain old English but the alphabet was completely different. I just hoped the written rules were the same, then at least it was just about learning a new dictionary. So a dictionary, with pictures, a lot of pictures would be a good start… and an interesting book to read.

From the corner of my eye I saw Big Coin, now joined by Brown, looking at me suspiciously. Looking back at the book I could imagine the reason. It was not a particularly thick or tall book, but it was old, and compared to most books, leather bound, it had signs of wear and tear, but otherwise looked like any other book.

For all I knew I could have been studying the equestrian equivalent of a book describing the three unforgivable curses and how to use them, or an old tome describing how to dress and cook a pony…

I cranked my neck back up, trying to keep a neutral face as I continued down the aisle.

“Big Coin, is there a picture dictionary somewhere?” I asked over my shoulder.

I saw the pony look at me passively, as if he was judging my inquiry.

“Tell Tale,” was all the well-built pony said. Brown immediately left, going back towards the librarian. I guess I finally learned his name.

I spent another few minutes just wandering about, trying and failing to discern any differences, like what subjects the current aisle was about. The whole bottom floor only had plain books, and scrolls, no pictures, or details that could clue me into it. Heck, for all I knew the whole place was sorted by their alphabet, and it could be by book name or author… maybe both or neither, might be chronological if someone was dedicated… or bored enough.

Tell Tale came back, a quite large collection of thick hardcover books in tow, held in his magic. He floated them out to me as if he expected me to take them off his hooves. I only stared into the guards eyes giving it my all to give him an incredulously look.

I could feel the annoyance in his eyes twitching just a smidge from his guard persona. He lowered the tomes down on his back.

Now there was only to find a book to translate, and I knew just the thing. I remembered the first episode of the show. Why not read the old fable of the two pony princesses? That same book must have also had a few other stories I could entertain myself with.

The sun had long since set behind the horizon; the lamp in my room lit itself when the room started to darken.

Time had run past me quicker than I thought as I hoofed my way through the surprisingly detailed picture dictionary. It had taken him a fair bit of time to work his way through the first page of the ‘fable’ book. A simple authors foreword’s page. Nothing too exciting, as it said the book was a collection of myths, legends and other fairy-tale like stories, adapted for ‘modern’ times.

Probably meant they were censored for a younger audience, less heavy worded and archaic.

I could not really get more than a vague translation as the written pony language was symbolic instead of phonetic. It made sense, because of how hard it must be to write without thumbs, why write out whole phonetic sentences when two to three letter words was enough. It did however change the overall structure of the sentence structure, it was truly a ‘write with broad strokes’ thing. It was the reason why I had a problem getting an exact meaning out of what I read. A rough transcription was all I could manage.

I was currently trying to find out the title of the first tale, trying to find the right string of symbols wasn’t hard but it took a lot of time.

I was brought out of my work by a knock on my door. It was starting to become routine by now.

“Doors open!” I shouted not looking up from the dictionary, I was starting to close in on my target, I could feel it.

The door barely creaked as it opened and an unfamiliar voice spoke.

“The Princess asks of you.”

“Alright.” I sighed.

I rose to my hooves and deigned to be led down a storey into a very familiar dining room.

“I see the bath did you good.” I was greeted by Celestia, seated at the end of the large dining table. The room bathed in golden light from the numerous chandeliers and candle holders around the walls. But all I could focus on was how lonely a figure she made in the large space.

“Yes.” I nodded. It felt good to feel groomed; it had after all made wonders on my self-esteem.

I took my time walking to my seat, taking the opportunity to take a closer look at the mare. Not a hair was out of place, her posture as regal as… well regal could be. A well-practiced look that was only possible due to her age. While Sweet Mane had looked old, Celestia was practically youthful in her appearance. It was only her eyes that betrayed her, they held a depth that nothing but experience could give.

“How have your day been?” I extended the curtesy as I took my seat.

I caught the slight raise of her eyebrow, a mere second before it disappeared in a smile, almost pleased.

“It has been well,” she answered, a bit less than I had hoped for. “I hear you have made yourself busy?”

I was not surprised that she knew about my attempt at learning how to read ‘equestrian’, she seemed to keep close tabs on me.

“Yeah, pony script is a fair bit different from my own.”

“Oh, how so,” she asked, “you seem to speak it well enough?”

“My own is phonetic not symbolic.”

“Syllabary, and you are not entirely right. Written equestrian began as pictographic and with its spread it was simplified for more common and ease of use. Modern equestrian uses syllabary word structure, with a combination of phonetic runes. Each pencil stroke represents a phonetic sound.” Celestia iterated, this was not the first time she had explained this it appeared. It was reasonable expectation too, she is a teacher slash mentor to I don’t know how many ponies… Twilight at least.

“Ah. I, I see.”

Nobody could call me a studied person, a lot of technicalities went over my head. I didn’t know what Syllabary meant but I went with it. She knew what I meant and could explain it better than me, it was good enough for me. There was no need to be bogged down endless prompts to explicate.

“I wonder however, what is a hue-man,” came the next question. “You were right that I would not find any mention of them among my collection.”

“Um,” How would I explain this so she would understand?

“A minotaur is not too far from how we look…” I began but paused to think how to explain. “flat faced, very little hair except for a thick… mane on top of our head. No tail and our legs are not digitigrade but… fla-plantigrade!”

I watched the slightly curious look she got as she obviously tried to picture a human with my mishmashed description. It was hard to describe humans when… well, no animal, even apes did not look too much like us. How did you describe a human face? Our ears? Without giving a distorted image. In a world where snouts was the norm… oh yeah didn’t Tirek have a very human face?

“Our faces are flat very much like Tirek’s… minus the horns.”

She flinched at that. It was interesting how schooled her face actually was. I only caught the small minute changes in it but they were as good as wholesale reactions. Me reminding her that I knew of Tirek probably did not help considering how well she took it the first time.

“I, see.” She simply spoke, her voice not betraying what her face had.

“In my world we are related to apes.” I added.

“Related?” She raised an eyebrow at me. “How do you mean related?”

“On an evolutionary standpoint we are… cousins.”

She settled to just stare incomprehensible at me; as if I had grown a second head.

“I still do not know what you mean. What does ‘evolutionary’ mean, and how does it make you related?”

“Um, well humans are a species of apes. We shared a common ancestor a few million years back.” I tried to explain. “But now we are so far removed that there’s very little superficial likeness’.”

Celestia seemed to try and comprehend what I had tried to say. Did ponies not know about evolution, or was equestrian simply… more biblical in its creation? Did ponies and other creatures just pop into existence one day?

“It is an interesting concept.” She mumbled out loud. “Nevermind.

“We have to discuss your future.” Celestia suddenly changed the subject.

“Okay?” I asked, quirking my own brow to enhance my questioning tone.

“Ponies as started to notice you, or more adequately, they have confirmed that the stallion behind the rumours exist,” she sighed impotently. “And that you are an alicorn has not helped quell those rumours either. I have come to the decision that you will start take a larger role in this debacle.”

I reeled back in surprise. This was a complete one-eighty from her previous attitude.

“W-What do you suppose?”

“That we will make you presentable. To get you out there and stop the rumour-mills from spinning whatever tale fits their fancy, to give them an actual pony that will ground those insidious rumours and finally remove the sensational air this has caused.” She spoke; I could feel the irate tone behind her serene façade. Whatever one could say she was not happy with the current situation.

“For two whole days now I have had very few moments of peace. Every magazine and newspaper has this rumour on the headline, and are filled with articles about our supposed relationship. And speculations on the future of Equestria, and a thousand and one other articles I would rather not go into.

“You getting out there will sooner or later show the truth to my little ponies.”

I nodded, understanding where she was coming from. What those two young mares in the bath proved her point. They jumped to the juiciest conclusion at even the slightest word that just about hinted at a more involved relationship between us two… I could not help but to chuckle, if they only knew the truth they would probably not giggle as much.

“You find this funny?” She all but bit out. Letting her calm act erode.

“No,” I said and cleared my throat.

She nodded, letting on a pleased smile.

“Then firstly, I need to teach you how to use that horn of yours…”

Author's Note

Bon apetite