Faster Than You Know

“This book again?” Cloverheart asked her son as the aforementioned tome was placed in her waiting hooves. “Chance, dear, isn’t there anything else you’d like to read? Your father has given you so many books.”

The young earth colt stamped his teal forehooves impatiently against the covers of his bed. “I like this book,” he whined.

“You could very well read it yourself with how much you like it,” Cloverheart said, not unkindly. “You’ve heard it so many times I’d be shocked if you hadn’t memorized it word for word.”

Chance stared as his mother placed the book on top of his comforter, the six pointed magenta start embellished on the cover reflecting in his large golden eyes. “I can read it?”

“Sure you can, sugar cube,” Cloverheart nickered. “Why don’t you tell your old mother a bedtime story tonight.”

Obligingly, Chance opened the book, eyes scanning words he could not yet read but already knew by heart. “The Elements of Harmony,” he said aloud, trying to sound at least half as sure in his tone as his mother did upon previous readings. His light green coat fluffed up a bit with nerves as he once more set his gaze upon the words he knew only by sound. His mother climbed up onto the bed beside him, tucking her hooves beneath her and moving a stray lock of teal hair from her sons eyes with her nose as she encouraged him to continue. Chance cleared his throat.

“Once, there were six Elements of Harmony. At first, they existed as mere stones, physical symbols of light and hope in Equestria’s darkest times. But in reality, they lived within the hearts of the land’s citizens. Earth ponies, pegasi, and unicorns alike all were capable of carrying an Element within their heart. And it was Princess Twilight Sparkle who learned how to master and use these Elements to protect Equestria. Loyalty, Honesty, Generosity, Kindness, and Laughter all came together under her watchful eye, and she sat their bearers upon crystal thrones encircling a round table. Because the Princess’s element was that of Magic, of Friendship, without the other five bearers at her side her element meant nothing. So it was that the Princess’s gift of immortal life soon became her curse. Perhaps if she had lost all her friends to time, she might have dealt with her grief a little better. But alas, the beginning of the Princess’s reign in Ponyville was tainted with the first embers of the Great Gryphon War. Though she and her friends did their best to use their elements to protect Ponyville, and in turn all of Equestria, war was not something that the Magic of Friendship was able to mend. While the Princess did not age, her loyal, kind, honest, generous, and fun loving friends did, and found themselves worn thin by the costs of war, and one by one left their Thrones empty until only the Princess herself sat at the table. Though Princess Celestia herself did her best to reassure her former student that the Thrones would one day again be occupied, as the years passed, taking her former mentor with them, Princess Twilight too began to grow weary, though not of body as her friends had, but of heart. On the day that Twilight outlived her own daughter, she left her throne, the last of six to stand empty, and closed her castle doors forever.”

Chance recited it all without flipping a page, though as he drew off he turned a few with his hooves, if only to look at the paintings of the crystal interiors of what other ponies imagined the abandoned castle to hold within it. “When the war was over,” he continued, eyes fixated upon a picture of a snow blanketed land, “The Princess’s niece waited her aunt’s return, and set the Crystal Empire’s heart aglow in the center of the kingdom’s square to guide the lost Princess home. A pony only need look to the north to see its shining white beacon, a symbol of hope and courage and love that withstands time itself. We look to it, everypony, in our darkest hours, and pray that its light will one day return the Lost Princess to us, and open up the palace in Ponyville so that new hooves can find their ways to the table and the barren thrones that call to the elements within all our hearts.”

His hooves lingered on the image of the round table surrounded by six empty thrones. “How many years has it been, mom?” he asked as though the question could reach through the pages and pictures and dust the time off the crystal seats.

“More than you or I could count even if we stayed up all night,” Cloverheart murmured against the back of her foal’s ear. He giggled as she blew a raspberry into his mane. “Which is why you must sleep,”

“I don’t want to sleep,” Chance yawned. “I want to find the Lost Princess.”

Cloverheart closed the book with a gentle hoof, replacing it on the shelf before she tucked the covers up around the young colt. “There will be time enough for that all your life, Chance,” she said gently. “But it’ll be much easier to find the Princess on a good night’s sleep and a few more years to at least learn how to read.”

Chance yawned but snuggled down into the covers obligingly. “Alright. I’ll learn lots of stuff, not just reading. I’ll learn so much that the Princess will have to come home, just because she’ll be impressed by how smart I am. Math, history, writing, baking, sports, I’ll learn it all.”

“I’m sure you will.”

He turned on his side, ears pricked as he faced the lone window in his room that sat in the wall opposite the bed. In the soft glisten of the moonlight, he could just make out the distant, cold spires of the Castle of Friendship. “I’ll bring her home,” he said resolutely, his voice mellowing out into deep breaths as his eyes drooped closed.

Cloverheart shook her head and crossed the room to pull the curtains closed, her own eyes lingering on the spires that towered over their little town. She stared for a moment, transfixed by the beauty the castle had once been, and her hoof lingered on the curtain rod an extra heartbeat before she dropped back onto all fours. There was no harm in dreams, she decided as the moonlight bathed her sleeping foal’s green pelt with refractoring crystal light. No, there certainly wasn’t any harm in letting her son spend his nights dreaming the same dream all ponies had for over a thousand years. And perhaps in his lifetime, it would be more than just a dream.