It was a funny little habit that raised more than a few eyebrows of the newer staff, the studying of etymology for pleasure; of course, if one would consider the duration and evolution of languages and were willing to take a few liberties by bringing to life those aspects, for one of her age it ceases to be a labor and instead becomes closer to a masquerade, where old friends wear new masks.
Yet another instance in which Twilight had taken after her teacher, Celestia supposed.
This sort of analysis honestly wasn’t too dissimilar to what her little sister did, trying to make up a thousand years worth of advancements, from literary classics to filmography to music, in the span of a few months; the only difference, as far as Celestia could tell, was the specificity of the examination, a trait she was lax to admit carried over to both sister’s work lives.
Her little sister had always been a bit more . . . big picture, and tended to not quite sweat the smaller details; the fourteen different arrangements of stars over the course of the last month was a testament to that fact.
I think she was up to the Romantics, a stray thought seemed to engrave upon her mind before she flicked it out of her head with a shake.
Meanwhile, she could spot the twisted meaning of a word from twenty paces and, more often than not, had found herself cheerfully exploiting this particular knack whilst wading through the vast seas of minutiae that constituted legal drudgery. That being said, her capacity to see how all those little parts interacted had deteriorated into what the generously truthful might call ‘utter trash,’ if some of her more recent forays into conflict were any indication.
But enough of that. Today the word was ‘History’, and it thrummed with a sort of honest vivacity that few of the aristocratic types she interacted with could hope to imitate. It was like a pony with a thousand pasts, but, unbelievably, all of them were simultaneously true.
A yawn, suffocated by something, echoed through the room even as various tomes were cracked open to spill forth knowledge.
Perhaps an hour passed before Celestia broke her out of her admittedly cursory study, if only because restraint was something to be practiced; a trait, admittedly, she wished she could elucidate her student on, but who was she to judge others for their minor foibles?
Another garbled yawn, and she finds that while, as a princess, she isn’t the sort to criticize her subjects for their flaws, as a sister she is quite capable of pointing out the myriad reasons to not fall asleep on a book; furthermore, a rapidly more flustered voice in her mind observes, one should not be drooling on. . . is that a first edition?
A great many scientists (and probably quite a few guards, servants, and an assorted assembly of random Canterlot inhabitants as well) would have cheerfully traded beloved worldly possessions simply to witness the seemingly impossible rotational speed generated by what should have been a basic torque spell as it physically propelled the moon princess upwards, snoring all the while, even as an aura of magic snatched the half-drenched book from its location atop a pillow and hurled it to the ground. Then, a great deal more gently, the aura caught the smaller princess and set her where she originally lay; not that it’s too different from dunking her in water, the older princess thought to herself wanly as the pillow softly squelched under the weight.
Finally, Celestia glanced at the cover of the book she had so heroically saved. A mildly irritated moment passed as she contemplated putting it right back where she had found it.
Didn’t even get the name right, an errant thought pointed out with more than an edge of bitterness, before she squashed it with logic. After all, if the story is entirely inaccurate, then, surely, the individuals who are within it should be as inaccurate or fictional as well? She tossed the idea around for a few moments, testing it, before she nodded and said aloud, “That’s not going to work.” Then, “Wake up, sister; the sun sets soon.”
In the harsh chill of the ever-present white light she was very nearly invisible, as was all else that dared enter the blizzard; but for the steadily growing pillar of black stone and the gentle red flicker of candlelight that emanated from the windows, there would have been no direction, and, for the two guards flanking her and walking together in the sort of step that proceeds frostbite, no hope of survival. For the first time in three hundred years, she felt the grasp of mortal desperation, but paired with it was an unsettling irritation that caused her nigh-indestructible molars to grind against one another; to ask for assistance from an exile, even if it wasn’t for herself, was a disgrace, as her sister would no doubt remind her of.
Luna’s gone, murmurs a thoughts she quickly shakes out of her head, even though it causes the saddlebag filled with frozen letters to crackle slightly. And yet, not quite removed swiftly enough; a chill spreads, albeit tenuously, to her chest, and it is enough to tell her that this is the echo of an Old Winter. To have allowed the original courier on this journey would have been to send them to their death, she was now certain.
She redoubles her pace even as her wings stretch out, fighting the wind to half-carry and half-guide her two guards closer to her.
It is with a brutality not seen in three centuries that she carves a swathe through the multitude of wards a Celestia three decades younger had put in place, roughly slams her shoulder against the door of the tower, and when that fails to open the ancient gate, smashes it inwards with only the tinkling of ice and a departing blast of heat to herald her arrival.
The wind howls as the Alicorn immediately locked eyes with a withered yet proud looking unicorn, who, if the book and cup of tea beside him are any indication, had been reading prior to her arrival; it is a short-lived challenge, however, as his gaze flicks downwards at the two shivering guards and he let out a sigh of . . . honestly, she isn’t even sure if it could be called consternation, as it has a great deal too much poorly hidden delight in it for that conclusion to make sense.
“Honest Cup,” she says, half in greeting, half in warning.
“Your majesty, I’ve not, mhm, got a tub for two, but I’ll see if I can make do. If you can, mhm, heat some snow or ice, maybe that’ll suffice,” he mumbles half to himself and half to her; she nods shortly in reply, and the old unicorn trots over to a set of downward sloping stairs even as she seals the entrance against the chill, scoops a nebulous lump of intruding snow with her magic, and begins converting it to water with sheer magical will.
In a quiet portion of her mind that is still operating on cold logic, she is simultaneously reassured and disturbed at the stallion’s cutie mark. On one hand, he literally has a pony skull and crossbones for a cutie mark. On the other. . .
She spends a moment trying to justify her initial feeling of reassurance only to conclude that it was entirely unfathomable. She glances at the book he had been reading to try and stifle the ‘worst case scenario’ her imagination is already cooking up.
“Zebra literature?” she says aloud, the bemusement clear on her voice.
“Supposedly, mhm, the rhyming does the mind good, at least for learning languages and such,” the stallion replies, as his wavering magic struggles to carry a stone bowl that looks to be twice his own size, at least. He pauses, breathing heavily when he finally manages to push it vaguely underneath the lump of now steaming water the princess has contained in her magic, and mumbles, “Darn it. Been, mhm, trying to rhyme everything I say for the last few days.”
“Oh?” She replies, as she gently sloshes the water into the bowl; briefly, she sends a tendril of magic to peel the armor off her guards, but the old stallion vigorously shaking his head causes her to halt for a moment.
“May have, mhm, frozen onto them. Storms are colder than they ought to be when they get like this, but, eh, it happens. Something to do, mhm, with the fragmented magic of the Wendigos, perhaps. Dunno if you wanna have them nicknamed Patchy and, mhm, something-something-pithy-remark, but I suggest we dump ‘em in, as is.”
“C-c-can’t,” mutters the Pegasus guard (Cirrus Shield supplies one of Celestia's tangential thoughts helpfully), even as lumps of ice literally crackle off her wing-feathers in sheets, “M-might m-mess up the armor. M-make it rust.”
“Mhm, thankfully you’re not allowed to make decisions right now,” replies Honest Cup cheerfully, even as he turns to Celestia and whispers, conspiratorially, “Snow madness, messes with their brains something fierce. Just dump them in the water. The armor’ll rust, but, eh, better that then losing the wings. Or other bits,” he concluded darkly, as he gestured towards the other, younger, stallion unicorn who seemed dead set on not ruining his armor.
For not the first time in her life, and for what she was suspecting wouldn’t be the last, Celestia grasped two softly pleading ponies and gently dropped them into the water.
She hadn’t expected the screaming.
Clearly, neither had Cup.
Author's Note
Honest Cup
Frank (en) Stein
A bad pun? Perhaps.
Next time, the reason Honest Cup is in exile is revealed and magical theories are discussed.
“Ah, twas a name and age change, a personality alteration and. . . verily, I am beginning to feel as if there is nothing that quite matches from the book.”
“Believe me, once you witness a thousand years of cultural self-indoctrination, you will find yourself pleased by the dramatic difference between the so-called ‘ideal’ narrative and reality. Allow me to guess, as far as the book is concerned; does part of it essentially boil down to ‘don’t try to create life, that is the domain of princesses’?”
“Verily, sister.”
“Figures. The Romantics were many things, brave and beautiful ponies by and large, but historians they most certainly were not. Always either missed or willfully ignored the truly important things. But, ah, that’s the risk you run when you reference nature as inherently harmonious.”
“’Truly important things’? I’m curious, Sister; what do you consider important?”
“My family,” the immediate answer, and one that was deemed worthy of a closeness that bordered on embrace. “My friends and students,” the next answer, and one that was nearly met with rolled eyes from how obvious it was. “And a warm bed and food,” was the last answer, and for a moment Luna stared at her sister with a befuddled expression before a small laugh escaped her lips and she nodded in understanding.
After all, in a vast and chilly cosmos, where stars explode into unimaginable heat and the expanding vacuum of space sups upon the lifeblood of the universe, where everything stands in staunch apathy of continued life, why shouldn’t a bed and food, so infinitely rare in comparison to that-which-is-not, be considered amongst the most rare and beatific of things? And yet in spite of this, an average subject can look upon the priceless comforts that blanket the impossibly luxurious world and somehow grow weary of it without even realizing how all of it, everything that has ever been touched or tasted, rests upon the delicate skin of a planet that spins in stark defiance of all the flames or ice that have been and ever will be.
“I really think you would’ve liked him, Luna.”
In time, storms die. Thankfully, so too do the screams of bloody murder that Cirrus Shield the Pegasus and Sugar Lash the Unicorn (who happens to be quite embarrassed of his name, a tangential thought reminds Celestia).
It really was quite a different scene from what she had originally been anticipating: surely, there was to be a magical duel of epic proportions? Perhaps the tower would explode like a firecracker, or a pillar of flame capable of being seen for miles around, or, barring that, a bit of a nose bleed and a few seconds of an overly creative palette as two minds duked it out for supremacy?
Instead, she is privy to two of her guards unconsciously snuggling closer together for warmth under a patchwork blanket while she sups from a cup of tea she hadn’t even thought to check, all provided by somepony she had exiled and, last she was aware, literally has a cutie mark reserved for most poisons.
It is quite good tea, though. She shifts at the thought, discomforted; the crackle of defrosting letters reverberates through the air like the breaking of bones before she remembers why, exactly, she journeyed here in the first place.
“Oh, yes, your correspondence traveled alongside me; evidently, your once-student Starry Trail wanted a bit of critique on her theory of Unbound Thauma-Neutrality. When she talked with me, the general thesis seemed to rely upon the idea of Magic being a fundamentally unlimited resource. She’s been, ah, displeased with the rest of the Academy, as they’ve been blindly supporting the concept.”
“Oh? Did she, mhm, try the trick where she starts discussing the fundamental superiority of a carnivorous diet in the middle of one of her papers?”
“Abundantly.”
“Mhm. Shame, that’d be my first bit of advice. Though, interesting theory. Very much a Starry Trail sort of idea. Infinite magic, eh? I suppose the Loyal Opposition is championing a different notion, your majesty?”
“Cup, the position of ‘Loyal Opposition’ was eradicated thirty years ago.”
“Oh? Mhm, brain isn’t quite where it used to be. How’d that happen, your majesty?”
“Evidently, the last individual to hold the position championed something nopony else quite approved of." Then, as if an afterthought, she added, "Or, at least, anypony with a bit of sense.”
“Hm. And thirty years ago, eh? Funny. That’d just about mark the time I was-”
“Yes, Foe Cup.”
A more sensible mind may have taken a pause there at her tone; unfortunately for Honest Cup, the same lack of 'common sense' that had made him quite superb at his job a few decades ago isn't the easiest thing banish, and so it is that he quite cheerfully replied with, “I suppose we’re all still a bit upset about the advocacy on studying the nature of Fear, and how it relates to Magic?”
“Cup.”
“Your majesty?”
“I will not have you discussing the study of Dark Magic. Not now, not here, not ever.”
“Mhm, and I’ve yet to do so, your majesty. Fear, magic, the manipulation of fear with magic, and Fear Magic itself are all distinct from-”
“Foe Cup, cease.”
“Mhm, your majesty.”
Silence, save for the rustling of papers as Honest Cup glanced through the somewhat abridged paper, setting aside what looked to be a few letters filled to the brim with seeds and a now sadly wilting dandelion in his hunger for knowledge. A few hours passed, and, quietly, punctuated by only the shuffling of papers and the alarmed shout from her eventually awakened guards when they found themselves in each others' hooves, Celestia moved the heavens.
Then. . .
“Ahem, shame Starry Trail is half wrong,” Honest Cup murmurs half to himself, before picking up her now empty mug and humming away happily, content to leave his observations there; he is halted, however, as a regal hoof beckons for him to continue. “Magic is unlimited, yes, I can’t contest, mhm, that. Not after reading this, at least. But, ah, here. She uses the word ‘infinite’. That, mhm, doesn’t quite seem right.”
“Elaborate.”
“Simple enough; magic, mhm, is more akin to an emotion than anything else.”
“Go on.”
“Can’t, your majesty.”
Cirrus Shield, for her part, has the foresight to murmur something that sounds vaguely like “Oh crap,” even as Sugar Lash looks between the Princess and the older Unicorn with no slight amount of bewilderment.
“Can’t or won’t?” Celestia asks Honest Cup, the words taking on a slight edge.
“Both; under a royal declaration to cease any discussion that seems to be headed towards dark magic, your majesty. Mhm, can’t for my life remember when I got it, though.”
“Honest Cup, if you do not cease with the games, so help me I will-”
“Your Majesty?” And with those two words from Cirrus Shield, the anger goes out like a drowned flame. For not the last time, she remembers the nature of her guards; the word ‘guard’ was true, yes, but could just as easily be substituted for ‘warden,’ for the intention was not to prevent harm from reaching her, but inhibit it from spilling out unnecessarily.
“Foe Cup, I am apologetic-” only years of working with nobility could grant a voice the capacity to ascribe ‘apologetic’ the definition of ‘apoplectic,’ “-but the day has been long and I have a great many things left to do; you are hereby relieved of any royal burdens that would inhibit you from speaking freely, but I must demand that you speak freely.”
“Mhm, thank you, Princess Celestia. Where was I?”
“Magic is evidently an emotion,” and but for the snort of decisive derision behind her from Sugar Lash (who, Celestia was becoming more aware of by the minute, was almost certainly not hired for his intelligence), the idea was treated with all the respect and care of an armed explosive.
“Mhm, magic is akin to an emotion, aye. Your Majesty, I can tell one of your guards thinks this is just the blathering of an old mad-stallion who lives alone in a tower surrounded by more wards than most prisons. Of course, that’s his business; I’m not in the occupation of eradicating ignorance anymore, as you’re likely aware.”
“Hey-”
“Foe Cup, sometime today would render whatever you have to say far more salient,” Celestia says, cutting off Sugar Lash before he could make a remark that would warrant demotion.
“Very well. When is, mhm, a pony at their mightiest? Not most controlled, not most capable of magic; I mean strongest?” Honest Cup asks, his eyes glittering; Celestia would have sworn before an assembly of the most perceptive and wary dragons that she could see a thousand lessons from a job he loved passing before his eyes again. Then the crown twitches and she remembers her duties.
“I’m not a foal, Foe Cup. Cease with the nonsense and simply state what you have to say.”
“Princess, raiser of the sun, eradicator of evil shadows, and all the various titles besides, please, mhm. Answer the question; it has bearing.”
“When they’re overcome with emotio-” then a pause, followed by an, “Oh.”
“Indeed, your majesty. And ponies today haven’t experienced quite the same depth of emotions ponies of yesteryears have; of course, some just have more of a knack, mhm, than others at their magic. But, mhm, compare the historical example of just Bow Dye ‘Khan’; prior to her rise in history, most records say she was of comparable strength to the average mare of her build, or perhaps just slightly above that.”
“And then she lost her family to the Griffon Empire’s incursion.”
“Indeed, and she was renowned thereafter for possessing the strength to crack mountains. Now, mhm, relying upon historical veracity isn’t exactly an ideal method of evidence, but she is hardly the first or the last individual to suddenly grow mighty from her traumatic episode.”
“Indeed, but, as you’ve said already, that sort of history isn’t exactly provable.”
“Which is why, mhm, I now recall the magic of infants. What a world this is, when young. And then age sets in, alongside an absurd self-imposed dampening of emotions, and for a while we wane in power, at least in comparison to the abundance of youth. Perhaps it returns for some, but for most, we will never be quite so vivacious as we are when the world is an adventure.”
“So you say, Foe Cup. But I fail to see how this applies to your, now repealed, restriction. Explain.”
“The fear response, your majesty. It arbitrarily increases the physical capacity of all types of ponies through some scientific biological process we still aren’t quite certain of last I heard, but magic isn’t quite purely biological; why, then, is it temporarily augmented as well? Simply, because fear has become part of the fuel for the, mhm, ritual, be it an incantation or weather manipulation or even greater strength. And Fear, Princess Celestia, is unreasonably efficient at inducing magical self-improvement; it’s only equaled by, of all things, Love. I mean, surely that’s why you compel all potential students to demonstrate their prowess before an audience; that’s very nearly the greatest fear one can reasonably have in today’s, mhm, age.”
Celestia didn’t quite like the implications that this conversation was heading towards. And so it was that she grabbed the discussion by the horns and wrenched it to the side, asking, somewhat tangentially, “And you’re saying that emotion is unlimited, but not infinite?”
“Mhm, indeed, your majesty.”
“How so?”
“Typically with death, your majesty. Emotions, I’m imagining, are quite difficult to maintain in the hereafter, at least in any recordable degree. The depths or heights one can feel, I wager, border or even surpass all that is and may be. But the length those can be felt, well, not quite so much.”
“Even for those immortal?”
“Everything dies, your majesty. Perhaps not by age, but, mhm, with a long enough time table, accidents will occur.”
Silence again, except for the mutter of guards as Cirrus Shield tried, desperately, to translate the conversation into something Sugar Lash could appreciate. But even they paused in speech to look, almost pointedly, at Honest Cup’s cutie-mark; skull and crossbones, bold as brass and as cheerful as burnt iron.
After a moment, Honest Cup cleared his throat and added, “To be fair, you did ask somepony who held a position to explicitly disagree with the status quo, and who possesses, mhm, with or without his consent, a knowledge of fear that I anticipate would cause most ponies to go quite bald.”
“Foe Cup, you are bald.”
“Aha, mhm, see; the difference is that I chose to go bald.”
And at this, Celestia politely laughs. But business can never wait, not while a kingdom runs in the background towards inevitable disaster.
“Honest Cup, you have my audience, and it is because of the respect I had for your position that compels me to respond thusly; I will not be allowing experiments on Dark Magic. Is there anything else you would ask of me?”
“Mhm, may I study Fear Magic with your blessing, then, your highness?”
“Foe Cup, I’m not a fool; do not test my patience with wordplay and lingual manipulation. I can only ask, in the face of such blind stubbornness and self-endangerment, what in the world could possibly be compelling you to study such a field of dangerous magic?” There is no possession or otherworldly influence as far as she can deduce. But what he speaks of is madness.
“Magic is a part of the soul, mhm, your majesty, and fear is clearly a major part of it whether we chose to admit it or not.”
“You wish to study the soul?” An absurdity, of course; a self-aware consciousness, perhaps, she could be convinced of on the best of days, when she felt something approaching pride in her ‘Noble’ subjects. But on most days, she can only convince herself that the meat of the body is compelled to motion by the barest of twinges of electrical force. The soul, as it is often described, cannot exist. This much she knew.
“Quite, mhm, quite so, your majesty. In a roundabout manner, of course.”
“Roundabout?”
“I wish to try my hoof at creating life.”
And here her laughter could not be contained.
“Honest Cup, I haven’t heard such a merry joke in many years. Thank you, at the very least, for that.”
“Mhm, and you are welcome, your highness. Except, unfortunately for the spirit of comedy, it wasn’t a joke.”
Another lull in the conversation.
“Cup. Foe Cup. Honest Cup. Have you gone senile?”
“I should hope not, your majesty; I quite like having possession of my faculties.”
“Foe Cup, bringing things to life, at least beyond a mere semblance of awareness, is utterly impossible. A mad dream; it is, frankly, something that cannot be done. Please, for your sake, cease with this absurdity and reconnect with your family and loved ones.”
“I’ve outlived, mhm, the family I care to have, your majesty; same with most of the loved ones, the ones that were willing to speak with me after my, mhm, exile, at any rate. And I fail to see how this is absurd; Stallions and Mares have progeny in the form of Colts and Fillies, often, mhm, heh, by accident. Why, then, should it be impossible for a doddering old fool?”
“Because it’s hardly the same thing at all!” And the mask of patience has cracked and a blazing maelstrom of irritation, undirected and fueled by a thousand idiotic meetings with nobility and useless council members, spills everywhere.
“Ah. I now see, your majesty, that my belief is quite, mhm, false and impossible. Ah, oh, yes, speaking of impossible, I needed to have your eyes for something.”
And the guards go rigid. “Was that a threat?” says Cirrus Shield, seeming to balk at the idea of using force against so ancient a pony.
“I hope not; I don’t want to be the one to tackle the geezer,” replies Sugar Lash, who, Celestia is now certain, is going to get quite a talking-to when the three of them return to the castle.
“Should we. . . detain him?” Cirrus Shield asks, seeming to test the words in her mouth and finding that, no, actually, all the technical language in the world doesn’t detract from the fact that they were honestly considering the possibility of tackling a senior citizen.
Truly, something to write home to mom and dad, Celestia thinks to herself wryly, keeping an eye on her guards whilst keeping her other on Cup, who seems absolutely enthralled with the inane conversation taking place before him.
“Look at his hooves; I don’t think we can make the bonds that small,” Sugar Lash says as Honest Cup helpfully presents one of his forelegs with all the pomp of an ostentatious trader displaying his goods.
“Look, I’m not taking the fool down. It’d break every bone in his body!”
And it's at this point that Celestia is certain that her guards have no idea of the audience they’ve captured; Honest Cup honestly doesn’t look to happy to be called a fool, but he’s still smiling like a foal at the events taking place before him. It must be like a theatre for him, Celestia ponders.
“Well, neither am I!” And at this point, communication breaks down and series of smacking noises emanate from the two enfeebled guards as they weakly contest who shall take responsibility of what Honest Cup has written down, Celestia sees from the corner of her eye, as ‘Suplexing the elderly’.
A moment passes as Honest Cup and Celestia simply watch Equestria’s finest duke it out like a couple of schoolfoals. Then, with a snort of uncontainable laughter, Honest Cup turns to Celestia.
“Not literally, mhm, of course, your highness. What sort of fool would require princess eyes as a reagent? A fool who doesn’t much wish to have a completed, mhm, spell, that’s who. Also one who doesn’t consider the likelihood of becoming perforated and char-broiled. Could your majesty look over something for me, is what I mean?”
“I . . . suppose I can afford a moment, Foe Cup,” Celestia replies, almost certain that the absurdity of the scene she is still in the process of witnessing has chopped a good hundred years of a particular prisoner’s petrification, even from so great a distance.
They descend into a basement. Then a Sub-basement. Then something that may, at one point, have been a sub-sub-basement, but for the fact that a great deal of excavation has clearly taken place and there are perhaps fourteen levels worth of basement to go through, along with a small pulley system for ascension or descent.
“What is it you wanted me to see, Honest Cup?”
“Mhm, your highness, do you recall the story of Star-Swirl the Bearded’s observation on infantile magic?”
“Foe Cup, cease with the games and tell me why you wanted me to come down here; there is no ward here that could entrap a bug, much less a princess, so clearly you aren’t trying your hoof at regicide, but I am getting very irritated at the consistent sidestepping you have attempted thus far. I spend my time working with Nobles; deceit doesn’t suit you.”
“Quite, mhm, so, your majesty. That was the last question, to be fair, but, mhm, it has been a day with altogether too many of them, I, mhm, suppose. Star-Swirl said that, of course, the magic of children is utterly impossible as it defies most thaumological rules we were, and are, aware of. I think he put it most succinctly when he, mhm, said-”
“-‘The ignorance they have at the impossibility of their actions is precisely what allows them to do said actions in the first place,’ when you finally extract it from all the expletives, yes, yes, I was there. What does that have to do with what you want to show me, Foe Cup?”
“Ah, well, I wanted you to meet my child.”
Then, a moment later, and far more wryly as the shock of silence seemed to echo through the tower, “I appear to be very much in touch with my inner ignoramus, if Star-Swirl is correct.”
Author's Note
I quite like Celestia. She's a good 'straight-man' for a lot of comedic situations, and has enough of a sense of humor to not go Tyrant when such a joke arises.
