Chapter Two - A Minority History Book

"Wait! What did you mean by that?! Princess Celestia! Wait!" yelled Twilight as she was trying hard to catch up with the big princess, Celestia' s 'normal' step is far wider than anypony else...as long as she walks in her normal, comfortable pace.

so she's been slowing down for me all the time? That's how fast she normally walks?

"Is the history I learned from the books not real? How could that..."Twilight asked yet another question as she can finally tag along behind.

"No, Twilight, Of course not..." Celestia glanced back at her and said, "Otherwise it would mean I'm making up stories and lying in historybooks ,which is totally unacceptable," concluded so as she turn her head back forward, as if disgusted by this very thought.

"Things you know DID actually happened, Twilight, I assure you." Celestia pat herself in the chest, "It's just that they are more like...an overview, a form of simplified summary of those harsh years, that unrelentingly long winter..." slight tremble in her voice was noticeable.

"But...why? you mean there's details left out? Why is that?" Twilight questioned with confusion.
"Because we have to." Celestia didn't even hesitate, "It hadn't been this way at first, but these...'details' you're referring to,
was simply too disturbing, inconveniently uncomfortable and heart-breaking," sighed Celestia, "Our pony citizens didn't even want to
be reminded of their sufferings back then, few even dare to watch it...so we moved those materials out, kept them elsewhere."
They arrived at the library. "Which I will show you now. Since you've asked, then it's my responsibility to let you know."
She paused in front of the library door, Luna is already here, waiting for the two.

"Sister, we only have 45 minutes, that's the best bargain I could get us." Luna reported with anxiety, "The librarian was...well, stubborn."
"It's okay, long enough for Twilight, I think," Celestia affirmed, "Our librarians being brick-headed is just normal...no offense, Twilight."
"Let's get started then" Luna leaded on as she opened the door, "Thankfully there was only 3 ponies when I brought up the demand."
They entered, and the three walked all the way into the library lobby, until Celestia and Luna stopped. "So? What do we do now?"
"To the secret chamber display room." Celestia replied to Twilight as Luna preparing some form of spell between them.
"You don't expect to find some hidden info on any of these shelves, do you? If that's possible, you won't even come visit me today."

With that claim from Celestia, Luna began unleashing her magic, "Stay still and close to me. " said so as her horn raised up and glowed.
"Eth － Inv － Ent" !! Luna chanted this strange spell, a whirl of wind gust correspondingly appeared and surrounded them.
But Twilight felt not chill, but an afloat sensation, down her spine and to the whole body, as the magical pale-blue wind blew through her.
"Wha...What's happening? I've never heard a spell like that!" Twilight slightly panicked because she find herself floating up slowly...

And they somehow WENT THROUGH THE CEILING while this occurred...which made Twilight feel even more nervous.
"We need to get into temporary spiritual forms to get into the chamber, that's where we store the book." Celestia explained,
"The spell you just heard is the abbreviate of Ethereal Invisible Entry," Luna added, "I invented it, you can try to learn it if you want~"
"Right...spiritual form...no wonder I feel like a ghost..."Twilight mumbled inspecting her semitransparent self. Can't even touch hooves.
Then their heads surfaced out of some floor. Apparently they're here.the chamber...for what? Twilight wonders inside herself.

"That's it, we can change back now." Luna undo the spell exactly when their feet all get out of the floor, perfect timing.
Twilight looked around and observed the place a bit, and shivered...out of the uncomfortable fact that there's no way out.
"This room IS a chamber, isn't it?...I mean there's no door, not even a window, nothing! Just...six stone walls." Twilight felt trapped.
"Yes and we're so sorry about having to make it this way, the walls are cast with ventilation spells so breathe in ease." said Luna.
Celestia lighted up some magic spheres afloat, sending them to corners for illumination, and now they can see better.

It's actually kind of a empty room, with only three bookshelves on three walls each, a glass showcase in the center of the room,
and lastly, a crystal ball secured on the floor with a base, it's so tall that its globe centre roughly leveled with Twilight's eyes.
"Is that...is that what I think it is? A Palantir??" Twilight couldn't help but ask, "No it's just a memory storage globe."answered Celestia.
"Oh...stupid me I guess,"Twilight facehooved herself. what am i thinking?! all Palantirs were destroyed long times ago!! I knew that...
"Still, you might have the chance to use it later, if you chooses to, now come here." Celestia and Luna walked toward the showcase.

Twilight followed them to the showcase, seeing nothing but small piles of books inside. Through the glass it is visible that there's about
20~30 books in total. And, though they don't all look exactly alike, their size, thickness and dustiness are pretty much the same.
"The number of books here, Twilight, represents how many ponies have had the same inquiry as yours. " Luna muttered aside.
"Oh~that's some relief! knowing I'm not the only pony...wait," Twilight paused at a second thought of this, "you mean...EVER??"
"Only 24 ponies ever came in here in all these 1,000 years? Yes." Celestia replied firmly. "Counting you in, that makes it 25 until today."
"By the way, the last one was Cadence, if you want to know." Luna whispered to Twilight's ear once again, and shocked her again...

Celestia then opened the case, take out one of the books, cleaned off dust on it, then handed it to Twilight. Gazing at its cover a bit, she saw:

"The War Against the Winter － If only we had stood up earlier"recited Twilight the book's title, a bit difficult for there's much peeling on it.
"...authored by...you two & Starswirl the Bearded??" She looked at the other two alicorns in disbelief, "...And there was a war ?!?!"

Luna: "Of course there was war going on... ponies were starving & frozen to death, in massive numbers, how can a war not happening?"
"But we were lucky though, the actual war wasn't really between the 3 tribes, it was something else." Luna rolled her eyes a bit.
Celestia: "At the beginning this is only between the three of us, since we had spent so many years to finish it. " her sigh so unignorable.
"By the time we thought it's finally time to publish it," sigh yet again, "It was too late... Long after peace and harmony back to us."
"After all, who would want to believe that Pegasus, Earth ponies and Unicorns had been once on the brink of civil war, way after
THE FIRE OF FRIENDSHIP has brought us together so closely for so many years??" Celestia shut her eyes and shook her head.

Luna:"Twilight, you must understand, we ponies are naturally peace-loving races," she turned around and face Twilight straight,
"For too long we had been avoiding all those cruelty and brutality happened in this... 'tragedy' that ended the last era."
Celestia:"And the crowds...all our surviving subjects, were equally unwilling to remember this," said so as she pointed to the book,
"pretty much just like we never had the chance to tell the whole story to the public, since...well, maybe Equestria' s founding."

Twilight could not speak even a word, it took her a long while to catch up on all these info, and all the doubt following.
"But, what went wrong? I don't understand... how can publishing a book possibly be anywhere bad?" Of course she can't, she loves books.
"In the first year we published it and introduced it to the public libraries, schools and all sorts of historical festivals,"Luna paused a bit to
recall, "foals and fillies were having thrice as much nightmares, almost exhausting me to the bones, that's how I remembered it~"
"And it wasn't any better for the adults either," Celestia continued, "Many came to the old castle to seek my consolation, teachers and
parents complaining about difficulty to guide kids through this, and a whole lot of surviving poor old veterans' PTSD triggered."

"So yeah...pretty much every single aspect you can think of, went wrong big time." Celestia said so with much frustration, sitting down.
"That's how failed this book was, a little lesson for you young princess," Luna sadly agreed, "if we don't face our dark past right away, everybody will forget about it so quickly, that we won't have any chance to get them brave enough to remember it again." she also sat.
"We learned this the hard way." Admitted Celestia, "So we retracted all the copies back, obliterated them all and never print any again."
"But we kept the original drafts and compiled them, that's one copy for each author and thus 3 books, only for collection."

Twilight: "...And let me guess, that was how you decided to use copy numbers to represents how many willing to know all these?"
"Clever observation, Twilight." Celestia gave her a nod, "I and Luna had an consensus with Starswirl before he must left us, that is,
just like you having the right to know all this, our subjects also have the right 'not to know' all this horror. " She sighed yet again.
"Not to mention it was mostly our fault," added Luna, "We procrastinated too long... for such important stuff. Can't blame anypony else."
"Sad as it is, but this dilemma will only stiffen itself as time flies by, Starswirl had warned us about this...and it's true." Celestia murmured.

"Just...HOW DARK IS THIS BOOK REALLY ?!" Twilight stopped their depressing conversation with her raised volume.
Actually Twilight was a bit angry at this point, all the question she asked had only fed back more ... confusion.

Celestia: "Why don't you see it yourself? But of course not here, we only have like...20 minutes left. Just take the book home."
Luna: "But remember Twilight, the tracking method we mentioned still applies," Luna reminded her, "How many books here represents
how many ponies have known the truth, and thus..." "I have to transcribe it down and return with another copy, am I right?" said Twi.
"Yes, and with your name as a 'copiste' on it, just for documentary purpose. " Luna pointed out, "at the last page of your copy."
"See ~ she's smart, I told you 45 minutes is well enough." Celestia said so and got up, seemingly ready to leave. But not so for Twilight.

She opened the book for some brief view on contents or outlines thingy, only to see the dedication page first.

＂This book is dedicated to Razor Flare, Barklin Timbercoat and Aelion Flamewing, the three front line generals who united us to fight our real enemy. ＂

Celestia and Luna almost instantly froze and stop anything they were doing upon hearing Twilight reading those names out loud.
"Who are they? I've never heard of these names...Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, were they some friends of yours??"
The two princesses exchanged a look, a very subtle look, as if silently saying "How should we tell her???" and they both act weird...
"We'll tell you later...but first let's get out, running out of time already." With the perfect excuse to brush Twilight off , Celestia put off the light and urged Luna to cast them off the room. Eth － Inv － Exi !! and everything back to silence.

Author's Note

Sorry for the cliffhanging, but too many words for this ch already :o

All comments and critics are welcomed

CH3. won't be so much dialogue heavy.