The Different Prince

I was actually getting interested in archaeology, thanks to a certain book series my wetnurse Bonbon read to me. Though, less the story more the idea that some ancient civilizations just left around doomsday weapon for anyone to come along and trigger. Seriously, magic was OP in the universe.

Now that news was out, I was able to indulge my interests outside of the palace. The very first place I went to was a museum. Though, since the attack was only a month or so ago, she insisted on extra security for me. And rented out the entire museum for the day for me.

Anyway, I stood in front of a display of old armor from the Pre-Equestrian era. Stallion armor to clarify. Lots of spikes, especially around the throat. Supposedly those were wilder times before the taming of the wildernesses, and protection was needed against savage beasts. My armor was still in the process of creation, but I prayed it was nowhere as heavy as these suits looked.

As mother was busy in court, I was with Bonbon and Lyra, as well as their stud, Sunburst. Pound was there as well, he was carrying our money and raingear, supposedly it would rain later today. Sunburst was tagging along because he needed the exercise, according to his mares. He did tend to keep him stuffed in areas full of books.

Sometimes I wondered if his mother raised him on a bed of paper. Who was his mother anyway? Surely ponies kept records of those sorts of things.

Bonbon and Lyra had left their children in the care of a nanny, not wanting to risk them running around or getting lost in a building full of precious artifacts.

I turned to another display. It was a fossilized skull with the worn remains of a spear through it. Underneath read a short description about how it was once a beast created by Discord.

"Who was Discord," I asked, not looking away.

"Who is, Discord," Lyra said in a correcting way. "He's... well... the embodiment of chaos. A strange magical chimera that caused much trouble before a pony learned to tame him. Somewhat. He's still a troublesome thing."

"He's like a snake-goat-dragon-something-else, hard to describe, Gold," Bonbon added. "It's best if you steer clear of him when Fluttershy isn't around. Loves causing mischief."

"You make it sound like he's intelligent," I commented.

Lyra shook her head. "No... just he just feeds off of chaos magic. Has to cause chaos in order to feed himself with the chaos generated."

I nodded. "Are there more?"

"I hope not. He caused much trouble some years before you were born."

"I see." I shrugged and moved on to another room of the museum. More skulls, with the rest of the skeleton attached. I looked up to see one of my pegasus guards sitting atop of one of the displays, looking about for trouble. They were everywhere and touching everything like you shouldn't at a museum. I did my best to ignore them.

Not so much dinosaurs as the skeletons of prehistoric mammals that towered over modern beasts. Ponies skeletons stood beside them for comparison. Most of them seemed to have died during an ice age. Though there was one that drew my attention.

It was a pony skeleton, kind of. But twelve times larger than the average mare. I was reading that off the display, not just making up a number. From the skeleton, namely the wide hips and more curved skull, they knew it was a female, but it walked on all fours like a male. Apparently their was some speculation that it was not an intelligent species, or even a pony at all. Just resembled one.

Beside it was an artists display showing it covered in scales and bright feathers. How unimaginative. If you're going to make up colors and textures, at least try not to make it look like it got run over by a drag show.

"Oof, could you imagine is mares did walk on all fours?" Lyra asked as she looked at it, unimpressed. "How would we do anything? How would we be able to use tools? We'd be stuck in caves forever."

"Welcome to the club," I snorted in good humor. She patted my shoulder.

"Well, if it's all we knew, I bet we'd look at bipedal skeletons and wonder the same thing." She had a point. For a lot of things, it was all a matter of perspective.

I eventually walked away and looked at the over displays. Lots of fossilized shells and fish. Even a whole sea pony. A deep sea pony. Apparently had a lantern lure on its head to attract prey. Rarely came out of their trenches. Yeah, with teeth like that it'd scare even dragons.

After a long minute I eventually came around to the giant not-pony skeleton again. The Twisted Bridge Mystery, it was a labeled. Mystery indeed. The dusty old thing wasn't even in the brochure. Guess no one was really interested in the old gal. Kind of like me. One of a kind. But, she didn't seem to matter much. She was the dustiest display I had seen all day, it made me feel sorry for her.

I'd have used my magic to clean away the dust, but I didn't want to harm her by accident. I let her rest when I moved onto the next room.

"You really seemed drawn to that fossil," Bonbon commented from beside me.

I shrugged. "The museum doesn't seem to take good care of her."

"Doesn't seem to take care of who?" a mare appeared around a corner. The curator, we'd met her when we came in. She was a green unicorn, in a starched suit with a pair horn-rimmed glasses.

I explained the skeleton in the fossil room.

"Oh, that thing?" she asked with a regretful sigh. "My grandmother purchased it from a sideshow three decades ago. An obvious sideshow hoax. Don't really know why I keep it around. Just hoping it rots away, I suppose. Celestia knows how many times I've tried to sell it off. I'm half tempted to just toss the thing in the garbage."

I was rather horrified. "You want to get rid of her?"

"Absolutely, the thing is a travesty to sceince," she stated.

Long story short, I now have a skeleton in my closet I want Twilight to look at.