Some things weigh heavier on the conscience than others. I know this from my moon rising and setting on the world countless times. I know how my actions have shaped the people around me, and how they have failed to do so. The echoes of my decisions rippling far and wide have defined my kingdom. In many ways, it has also defined me. The choices I've made and what I have done have largely stopped mattering in my long absence from the earth. Soon though, they are due to matter once again.
So much has changed since I was the one making decisions. So many things that seem lost in the sands of time; things that I have held strongly in my mind even in these thousand years. The memories that have weighed on my heart and mind alike. Nobody was around for those memories besides my sister. We are the sole living vessels for antiquity to our subjects. In many ways, we run away from our past. In a scant few, we revel in the history books that we originate from.
In my heart, I was seized by a horrible sensation one morning. Like a boulder laid atop my chest, the emotion wrung the wind out of me and left me panicked. My waking dreams were haunting me once more. Keeping me up far into the day. In the spaces of idle thought, those memories that haunted the dark corners of my mind had been creeping back. Like a thousand undying echoes of the past whispering faintly into my ears, haunting my heart.
I roused from bed, eager to occupy my mind with anything that could save me from these thoughts. Intrusive and undeniable, they gave chase. My hooves led me to my desk. There had to be something to help me. This wasn't the first time I had been gripped by these feelings. Inevitable as gravity itself, it would not be the last. My mind raced for what to do. Escape from these mental shackles was all I desired. No amount of wine and gourmet food could save me from it. They sped my mind in its race to escape these thoughts, but my endurance was limited. The ghosts of my past would always return.
Spending my days in study was likewise, futile. The first spare moment to grace me would be tainted with a poison that would leave me in the same spot I currently was. To run away from this was a task akin to a titan pushing a boulder up an endless hill. All my effort and progress was nothing, as the first moment of weakness would send me rolling back to the bottom.
My sister wasn't one to talk about these things. I couldn't trust her to properly hold audience with me about these matters. She would brush them off with the same consolations-- as she always did. Consolation wasn't what I wanted. The shackles chaining these emotions to me weren't to be broken by forgiveness. I needed someone to be honest with me. Someone that would be honest about their feelings for the past which I would describe to them, and the actions taken by both me and my sister.
My mind reached out and clung to one pony... the most logical choice in my mind. Someone that most in my position most likely would never turn to about such a matter. I wasn't looking for anyone that would be unoffended by the past however. I was looking for someone that would tell me how they truly felt.
Foregoing sleep, I ordered for my company to be escorted to me post-haste. By noon they arrived in Canterlot and were escorted to me. A tap at my door signaled their presence. Using my magic to relocate myself instantly, I opened the double set of doors to reveal an orange farmhand. She did not wear her typical hat in such a formal situation, though I did not expect her to treat it formally. She was worthy of standing in my presence in her casual attire in my mind given her standing.
"Ah, Applejack, please come in. It is quite late for me... however I am more than happy to welcome you."
She strode into my tower abode with a look of interest written on her face. Her green eyes flicked to the bookshelves, and the map of the stars emblazoned on the ceiling. Then the intricately patterned carpet beneath our hooves. The doors shut on their own behind her, and I made sure to slide the door bar across to ensure our privacy.
My horn glowed softly, drawing the shutters and curtains tight over the windows. The candles on the circular coffee table were lit at the center of the room. I had a seat on the couch on one side of it, while motioning for Applejack to have a seat opposite me.
"Anytime, Princess Luna. I heard this was urgent though. What in particulars am I going to be doing for you? I don't know how much I can help but I sure as well can try."
In my mind, I had pictured her perhaps questioning this situation. It made sense after all. However I instead shook my head and replied to her questioning in a matter-of-fact tone. Keeping a lid on it until she had made herself comfortable.
"This is not a matter that can be solved by... how to say, direct action on either of our parts. Instead this is only something that can be solved through a discussion I wish to have with you. If you would like to have a seat, I could fetch some tea with my magic, and we could begin. It will be a lengthy talk. I'm not sure what state our friendship will be in afterwards either."
The mare blinked, her eyes fixated on me as she seated herself. A tea kettle appeared between us. I took the time to let my words sink into the air. It would properly set the tone. What was to follow wasn't casual conversation. Heavier in its subject than even the usual things talked about in the courtrooms in the castle. To break the long pause between us, she spoke.
"That... sounds like it's certainly something important Princess Luna. Are you sure that you'd be okay talking about it with me? Whatever it might be."
With a nod I set our teacups down on our respective sides of the coffee table. This was a conversation that had to take place between me and her. I had made up my mind on this.
"I trust you with this Applejack. I do request you keep it a secret however. I treasure your input as the Element of Honesty. You may address me without my royal titles for the duration of this visit, as well."
For a moment I could see the hesitation on the humble mare's face. However she replied after a pause.
"Of course Luna. This'll stay between us. Whatever it is."
There was a small release of tension from my body. Those were just the words I wanted to hear before we got started with all of this. Surely soon she would not be of the mind to properly be addressing me as royalty anyways. It would help somewhat... though it was but a small help. Steeling my nerves, I began.
"In that case, Applejack, I want to talk to you about the past. About things that happened a long time ago. Long before you were born, and long before anyone you know was born. In ages past. Specifically about how things used to be. About how things are, as well. About the history of Canterlot, and how it came to be. About myself... and my own past actions."
Long ago there was a sentiment in my mind. In every magical creature's mind, about those not gifted with the ability to perform magic. An inherent feeling of being something greater. A higher being that was set apart from those incapable. Unicorns and alicorns could lift far beyond our body weight with hardly any mental training. Catch fast flying objects flung towards us with little difficulty. Handle machinations that required dexterity far beyond the capabilities of hooves. Other equines were practically crippled by comparison in capability.
In our minds, this sentiment made sense. It enabled us a sensation that we were the rightful bearers of a power that we could bend to our will and shape the world around us. It was our burden to do so, for no other equines could. We forged ahead in studying magic, the mind, physics, mathematics, and the deepest secrets the world had to offer us. It was a glorious time for us. In our arrogance we believed ourselves the rightful rulers of everything.
Nobody in those times trusted a unicorn besides those that had been around one. There was a deep seated suspicion of magic. Nobody trusted those that wielded it due to a very inconvenient... and harshly true fact. Nobody could be trusted to use their magic in an ethical way. The rights of others was something that was sang from the rooftops to most at those times, but in practice it was more a suggestion. A vague and non-binding suggestion. A small magical glow around a unicorn's horn was enough to send most ponies running away, and leave them wondering what had been done to them weeks after.
There was a feedback loop. Ponies did not trust unicorns for fear of their autonomy being violated. Unicorns felt the only way to properly get anyone to comply was to do so. Scholars of magic figured it as the cost of being gifted with greater power. That we would naturally be mistrusted with such things, as after all they did not understand what it was like to be a unicorn. To wield magic itself, to have our ideas of culture and way of life, was to have magic. Every bit of our lives was defined by it. Our progress, our supposed enlightenment, it all hinged on magic. It was our right to use it as we saw fit. We were forged in magic and nobody could stop us from using our gift to shape the world with it.
Quietly over the years, using magic upon non-unicorns became acceptable. It started with things such as law enforcement. Pacifying a lawbreaker via magic became normal. Soon enough things such as debt repayment could be magically be forced to occur, it did not have to happen on the indebted party's terms. They could be compelled to do so, even if it crippled them financially. Soon altercations could be defused with magic with immunity granted to the one performing the defusal. Pacifying and removing the agency of the conflicting parties was completely warranted according to the law.
Unicorns, naturally being precluded to most mental tampering with minimal effort, were effectively immune to these things. These legal points only effected earth ponies and pegasi. These measures slowly, over time, became the cultural norm to use magic on them for a multitude of things. It was fine in the eyes of the unicorns, which viewed the other equines as resistant to basic reason otherwise. The last nail was put into the coffin of the other races' dignities one late summer. An amendment to Equestrian law was passed in Canterlot, and the entire kingdom. This decree, penned by none other than myself, effectively gave most unicorns in a position of authority over a non-unicorn a legal excuse to exercise magic on their subordinates to ensure ruliness and cooperation.
Students, the indebted, hired workers, assistants, foals, and more were all legally allowed to have magic exercised upon them 'within reason' as the very vague law stated. To state that this statute was abused was truly to make a mole-hill out of a mountain. A long seventy years passed with this mandate in effect. It bred the most paranoid and fearful parties that the kingdom had ever seen. Over time the innumerable abuses of this were swept under the rug, but they were scarcely forgotten despite the best efforts of those that benefitted the most from the arrangements. For naturally within unicorn society there were regretful parties, who began to feel the situation particularly unpleasant.
It was only a lifetime later that at last it all came to a head. A unicorn scholar was caught duplicating her memories, mentality, and personality into her students, resulting in tremendously high marks and her ascension to being one of the most beloved teachers of the time. However, upon her morally bankrupt acts being revealed, she simply stated she was within her bounds by the local court. After all the earth ponies of the town she worked in sent their foals to her to have them shaped into proper citizens of the kingdom, she was obliging. Even if it meant causing immense mental and psychological damage to the identities of developing minds.
This was ruled to be within her rights after being taken to the high court of Canterlot, leading to a complete outrage sparking across the kingdom. The dominoes that had been set up over a lifetime of unethical treatment were starting to fall, cascading into one another towards the end of that era of unicorn exceptionalism. Ethicists within the unicorn courts at last made themselves known and stood against this ruling. In the coming years, the mistreatments of the present, and the past, that the other equines had to endure at the mental command of unicorns came to light. Finally a decade later the revision was made to Equestrian law once more, and all ponies were precluded from any act that would 'violate the mental, physical or emotional autonomy of another, regardless of race.' This included many smaller laws regarding thousands of fringe cases revolving around magic, and a specific ring of courts to be set up to investigate magically perpetuated crimes.
"Wait, wait wait." Applejack said, her face contorted into a knot of confusion. "I've never heard about this none. Not in history books, not in class, not from anybody. Not even Twilight talks about this."
My mind fastened on this, and I figured that made a fair bit of sense. It wasn't as if my sister would be keen to allow others to simply light upon something that in the end could cause a lot of lingering hostility towards unicorns even in the present day. It'd probably be better in her mind to eliminate any evidence of these things so that the citizens could live harmoniously, without that shadow lurking on them. However I felt differently, so I answered the orange mare honestly.
"The records have been expunged from all but the Royal Archives, which only a scant few ponies have access to. Including me, Celestia, and Twilight. Though I doubt she's gone into the deeper sections... one can read for a lifetime in there. Keep in mind this was over a thousand years ago... it was much simpler to get others to forget over a couple generations than it is today." I explained, and upon seeing her face still somewhat confused, I decided to state why this probably occurred.
"Celestia most likely saw the lingering records of unicorn abuse of magic upon the other Equestrians as an obstacle that prevented true harmony among the citizens. What she most likely did... was slowly eroded the records of it over a few generations. Removing it from books, history classes, and so on. Until those that had lived with it were long gone and the memory had faded from all living memory. Then completely expunging it from history within the next couple decades after I was gone, leaving nobody but herself with the information I am imparting unto you, and a couple dozen books in the royal archives."
The response from her was one that I mostly expected. First an expression of slow curiosity... then of annoyance, then of suspicion. Her tone of voice clearly reflected it too. She was truly the Element of Honesty.
"So instead of having people just accept that it happened a long time ago, but still let it be as a lesson to all of us here today, she swept it all under the rug?"
In my mind, I had expected almost precisely that response. She would want clarity and earnesty in this rather than being misled even if it was with good intentions. I decided to console her, but in a manner that would lead the way into what I wanted to address next.
"In a lot of ways, I enabled the issues of what happened so long ago... and I feel no end of guilt about it. My pen passed many of the laws that caused the situation to begin with. So while the public forgetting about these things is firmly the responsibility of my sister, the actual misdeeds perpetuated under those statutes are to be traced back to me. I enabled this. A lifetime for most... under laws I now firmly regret creating."
My guest looked at her tea, clearly having lost her thirst for my refreshments.
"I'd be willing to forgive, if I just could understand where you were coming from, was all." She pondered.
Forgiveness wasn't something I expected. Earnestly it wasn't something I wanted. With another sip of my tea, I set the cup down on the coffee table once more. I decided I would explain the general mentality that unicorns had at the time. The justifications that were put forth for what had occurred.
In the era that Equestria was formed, pegasi were still nomadic, and earth ponies were content endlessly performing the same cycles of agriculture. Nothing had changed for hundreds of years of their way of life. Unicorns in the meantime had been plucking away at their birds for quills, filling books in an effort to push the natural born gift of their magic further. Object manipulation was a parlor trick. It was what was truly possible with it that they sought. The capability to reach beyond the physical and pierce the veil of the arcane.
My sister and I were always partial to unicorns. We were enamored with their spirit and willingness to research. We would lend them our ancient wisdom and observations, as well as our hoarded scrolls from ages long since past, in exchange for development of magic. This came with many unintended discoveries, such as advanced mathematics. Soon basic chemistry followed as well. Education was made mandatory for our citizens. An educated populace arose in the city-state.
While pegasi still wandered the north of what would become Equestria for decent hay, Canterlot was developing into a glowing testament to our progress. With our discoveries we pushed architecture further than ever before. As the castle itself was in the middle of being reconstructed, a final breakthrough was made. A reliable manner of performing magic was discovered. Not specific to an individual or a cryptic cave scribbling of a hermit who perished long ago. True magic that couldn't be explained by physical means... but instead only obeyed laws. Eluding even the basic rules of science, but complementing science's basic principles.
By this time my sister and I had claimed Equestria as our own. The earth ponies of the new kingdom had little issues with this. They were quite literally being handed education, medicine and more in exchange for a share of their crops, which they had more workers to plow the fields than ever thanks to mortality rates dropping drastically. The pegasi were a harder sell, but eventually came around to the idea. However they were wise to question that the effective ruling class were only those that could use magic.
As unicorns began mingling with the other Equestrians it became clear how far apart we had drifted socially, and culturally. It became blindingly obvious to even a foal that they distrusted us in positions of power. They would accept our medical breakthroughs, as well as our education in matters of science and mathematics, but the changes that came with us governing them oftentimes led to unicorns being run out of town. If they were lucky, of course. Some had their horns taken off by those that deeply disliked unicorns as a whole. Taxes, the concept of banking, and changing their ways of life to be more like our own weren't on the table in the minds of most, but in the minds of certain groups, actively hurting mostly innocent unicorns was justifiable.
This couldn't stand for long. There was quite literally no way it could. We all but demanded that earth ponies adopted money instead of trying to trade us food or tools that were useless to us, as well as cease their assaults on ponies that were simply going about their obligations. The population grew to a point where the earth ponies had no choice but to adopt our farming methods. We taught them this with the implication that they would have to bend and start to use money. This didn't happen, until at last I personally gave a written order to a scholar of magic to convince, by any means, a few of the elders in an earth pony town that they needed to cooperate. This worked at last, but under the mental influence of magic.
The precedent was set, and this was done with the stubborn settlements of earth ponies all around Equestria soon enough. Those that vehemently refused to pay taxes or to educate their foals would have their mind swiftly changed. Soon enough, however, an even great tension arose. They began to catch on. Nobody who had been exposed to a unicorn alone could be trusted. But it had been decades of modernization for these ponies. Unicorns accepted crop shipments, managed growth reports, did a census, educated foals, ran libraries, doctors that absolutely had to be trusted, and more. They couldn't forsake all of that.
So things settled into a deep seated tension, and behind our backs most earth ponies cursed our names. Pegasi were thankfully much more easily brought to sway, adopting what was at the time modernity. Their tendency to accept shortcuts and be eager to save energy played well into modern life. Even with their sometimes fiery temperament they at least could be reasoned with. Earth ponies however were almost completely obstinate. Stubbornly refusing to change despite constant encouragement and later demands.
The stereotype perpetuated itself in unicorn culture that an earth pony was an archaic, mule-ish creature that hated creature comforts, education and reveled in their own ignorance. This was after all the experience that most had with them, given the sheer amount of mistrust earth ponies had towards unicorns. Earth ponies had similar views the other way around. That a unicorn was an easily swayed, flighty being that felt entitled to circumventing hard work through their natural gift of being born with a horn. They saw Canterlot as a monument to arrogance and magic as a tool that would almost always be abused to force them to change.
Things began to consolidate despite the earth ponies digging in their hooves. They paid taxes, gained educations, used modern farming techniques, and elected local officials that worked alongside representatives from Canterlot, who were almost always a unicorn. What they did not know is that practically every single pony we selected to collaborate with this local elected official was very well versed in mental manipulation magic. Personally as a princess I trained hundreds of these representatives to govern in a manner that was consistent with Canterlot styled values and decision making, and made sure they would enforce that on the local official they were assigned to manage.
All around improvement marked the coming decades. By then unicorns were somewhat commonplace, though of a generally higher class than earth ponies. Pegasi tended to be more than content being middle class in Canterlot and running errands, having fully adopted the Canterlot culture. Though unicorns still saw them as a firebrand, it was an embraced and positive relationship between the two species. Where earth ponies were to be controlled if one was to get anything out of them. Among lawmakers, lawyers, and scholars across Canterlot, most were in agreement that use of magic to enforce behavior onto an earth pony or a particularly unruly pegasus was ethical. Especially considering the improvements that had been made since we adopted these manipulation policies.
We traveled headlong down the slippery slope and were happy to ride it to the very end. A vast amount of the magic that tampers with the minds of others originates from this era. This is due to the fact that we openly experimented with it on non-unicorns, oftentimes without them even being aware. The sheer amount of manipulation that could occur was astounding to us. It gave us great glimpses into how the mind worked. We kept pushing to go further as the printing press finished development, and now papers and books could be pushed out by the bucketloads.
Within the next few decades even public facing scholars, educators, public officials and more began to ponder the idea of unanimously allowing mental manipulation, to ensure cooperation and harmony in the kingdom. After all, if everyone got along then and the means weren't violent or damaging, it was fine. The sentiment was enticing considering how modernizing a majority of the population was dragging onwards ever so slowly. It came to a head whenever I stood in a courtroom one day, hearing a case that had occurred in a large farming town.
A pony had burned down an entire granary in protest of 'being made to use a contraption they had never seen before I have to pull day in and day out.' Though negotiations were had with them that they could give up farming if they wished and do something else, they took that as an even bigger disgrace and insult. They vanished into the night and by the time they were found again, nearly a year's supply of food had been destroyed.
When I heard their testimony before me, all I received was stubborn pride justifying their actions. I stared them in the eyes, lit my horn and made sure that they'd be content managing, reporting, and tracking the town's food supply for the rest of their days for coming close to starving their entire town for the winter. I did it without hesitation, and it convinced me that there were a fair few situations that yes... mentally tampering was much easier, less violent, and simpler than any other punishment and could be a second or third route of action if initial demands or negotiations fell through. The scholars I called peers in my magical studies were right.
Not even a few weeks later I signed the amendments to our laws permitting such things to be used when authorized by courts. It became commonplace to settle payment disputes and violent behaviour this way. The wider reaching implications of this however became clear soon enough... as the road paved with good intentions led us elsewhere. Personal misuses of this permission by authorities became immensely commonplace. Over a lifetime it insidiously permeated every aspect of Equestrian life that related to unicorns.
Eventually it all culminated into the event with the prodigious unicorn scholar mentally altering her students to adopt her mindset and habits to make them successful. Formerly blind to these misuses in my marble castle, isolated from the issues of the earth ponies, I investigated deep into this culture of manipulation, magical abuse and prejudice. Me and my sister repealed it unanimously after things proved to be heating to a flash-point. Some schoolhouses in parts of the kingdom were being burned, and a fair number of unicorns in rural areas had gone missing... we needed to act and had a will to do so.
Applejack stared into her drink, having arrived at room temperature a few minutes ago. Her normally bright green eyes seemed to have faded to a moss tone in the dim starlight that shone from my ceiling. It was mid-afternoon by that point, but the curtains kept the room dark. Silence reigned. It felt like she was trying to read my words for anything that would govern the context of what precisely I wanted out of this engagement. Our eyes met. Tension sat heavily on both of us. At last, she spoke.
"What was the point of telling me all of this, Luna? Just to get me mad at you?"
I shook my head slowly. Of course that was not my intentions at all.
"Negative. I intended for you to simply be informed, and to talk to me about your thoughts on this. It is also why I had you swear to me that this would not leave this room. As your word binds you more than any other."
"Well, obviously, I think that it's awful. Everything about what you just told me was just awful. What the unicorns did, what you did... what the earth ponies did to some of the innocent unicorns. I never heard about any of this. I never thought about the idea that a unicorn could do any of that. It... makes me sorta anxious."
My eyes searched her face. Perhaps, this was what my sister had acted upon. That sense of anxiousness that Applejack was confessing. It made sense after all that I had revealed to her. The idea that such things had occurred, and the idea that the capacity lay within ourselves to do such things again. Based on tribalism and preference. She stared up at me, as if she expected me to console her about these feelings. It was a consolation that I wasn't about to give.
"Such things are far in the past... I don't know how much we've changed since then though. Technology of all types have set many on equal footing with those magically gifted. Great thinkers are just as often earth ponies as they are unicorns these days. However it remains ponderous how much it's all truly changed. I don't know if that comforts you at all, however..."
She looked back down into her drink. Quietly, she set it aside. Her next words weren't so expected.
"I can't tell anyone about this, can I?"
For a moment, I pondered the thinly-veiled request. I decided that I would allow her a small freedom considering the weight of these revelations.
"You may tell Twilight and Rarity."
The young pony met my eyes one last time before taking her leave of me. Her expression wasn't lost on me however. She was wondering why I had instructed her to tell only them if she did reveal this to others. The answer was double-edged. She was less likely to tell them if she was truly deeply effected in her friendship with unicorns... and Twilight and Rarity would be the ones to be most tied to this news considering the horns upon their heads. Twilight most of all. How they'd react, I had no idea. I simply knew that it was the clearest course of action in my head at the time.
Author's Note
Comments and feedback are greatly appreciated!
Designing a way to browse the books in a library is quite difficult once you start to up the scale of things. I would hope that one day the small scale library that I ran in Ponyville becomes much bigger than what it is. The current method of organizing books was to separate them all by subject, but that made things hard to organize in relation to different topics, or interrelated topics. Sometimes, you'd have to walk all the way across a library to access a book, because it happened to be of mostly the same topic but not precisely, as it also belonged to another and it got filed under that topic instead whenever it was brought in.
"If only there was a way to organize information outside of three dimensional space..." I pondered to my blackboard, which had several proposed methods of solving this issue on it. "If books didn't take up physical space it'd circumvent the issue of physical locomotion, and things could be sequentially organized by an additional digit in the labeling system indicating ever further subsets of topics, and we could keep an index of those without physically separating them and inconveniencing ponies. But even random topics can be interrelated in small ways, and a book could be written on those connections... so it's hard."
Spike stared at the piles of books laying around me that I had isolated as the greatest offenders to this puzzle. Most were related to geography. It was actually a deceptively sticky subject that wove its way into many different topics and so they were flung all over the library for the most part. The dragon tilted his head up to me.
"Well Twilight, why don't you just separate geography out as its own topic and have a separate number for those? That'd make the most sense."
I sighed, not expecting Spike to be understanding. "Well Spike, that doesn't solve anything because then to read about the geographical impact on say... weather, you'd have to go over to the geography section. Which splinters things even more."
"It sounds like you're honestly fighting against how books work." He replied.
The idea crossed my mind that perhaps I was... maybe. It was a curious sentiment. However my pondering was interrupted by a tap at the door. Mentally putting a pin in what I was doing, I steered myself to the front door of the library. I straightened my mane with a brush before opening the door. The sight of a rather tired looking orange farmhand greeted me, not wearing her typical straw hat. Her mane was a bit off, and it was very peculiar for her to not have her face protected from the sun. I didn't conceal the surprise in my voice as I spoke.
"Oh hey Applejack! What brings you here?" I asked, my eyes scanning her face for any clues as to why she was out of sorts.
She seemed relieved to see me. The orange mare began looking around at the streets of Ponyville as she spoke. Nobody was around as it was due to rain soon, so I didn't understand why she was acting as if she'd be overheard.
"Heya Twilight, I just wanted to talk to you about something. It's pretty important so... um, could I come inside?"
Without hesitation, I stepped aside to allow Applejack into my abode. With the door shut behind her I pulled up a side table and two stools for us to sit on. She clearly needed some tea too, so I figured I'd get some of that once the conversation was underway. Once we were seated, she began in a tone that tipped me off that something might be wrong. Her voice was full of anxiousness and worry. As if something was eating at her.
"Today I went to Canterlot. A rushed trip. Lun-" She tripped on the title. "Princess Luna called me up there for something she said was important. I thought that, shoot, I should hurry if it's important royal business. So I went up there and she told me something that I just don't know how to feel about and I was wondering if y'all would hear be out about this."
After waiting for a proper moment to interject, I decided I would urge her to calm down.
"Applejack, I need you to slow down. So, Luna called you up to Canterlot. You talked about something and it's bothering you. What is it? You can say whatever you want. Just y'know, be more specific."
There was a long pause as she took a deep breath in... holding it... then exhaled slowly through her nose. A bunch of tension left her shoulders as she did this. From what I could hear she was at least more relaxed. Not less bothered by whatever she was about to say, but at least more relaxed.
"Luna told me about something that I haven't heard about. It... sort of has me worried. She told me that a long time ago, that unicorns and earth ponies hated each other, and that they did weird mind control stuff if ponies broke the law and other nonsense. I couldn't believe it really. Something about the way she was saying it all made me trust her though."
I slowly blinked, thinking to myself. That didn't make much sense... as far as I knew Equestria's past was peaceful all the way through its unification and later expansion. The idea that perhaps there had been some sort of tension between the unicorns and earth ponies seemed a bit ridiculous to me.
"That's... pretty strange Applejack. As far as I understand Equestria's history, the earth ponies improved their farming capabilities, medicine and education, and unicorns flourished because of the increased agricultural output. They complemented each other, they didn't fight."
Applejack shook her head at me. "She told me that they fought a lot, and both did some awful things to each other. She says Celestia just went back once it was in the history books and took it out."
What she suggested was possible, I would admit. It was something that could possibly occur. It was within the realm of feasibility. However I had yet to see a proper motive for such a thing. What would be the point in something like that? And even if it was covered up, what bearing did it have on the present anyways?
"I think that something like that is a little bizarre coming from Celestia. Even if she didn't have a good reason, which I'm sure she would for something so critical, what does it matter when it comes to the modern day? Even if bad stuff happened in the past, I don't think it has much of an effect on how things are right now."
Applejack looked at her hooves. Gears were clearly turning in her head; hopefully having been set in motion by my comments. She then replied to me, sounding slightly less unsure.
"Well what Luna told me was that Celestia thought it might hurt the reputation of unicorns. Like, it'd cause issues between us and such to have all that in the past. So she got rid of it."
To me that seemed fairly wise of Celestia. After all, this was something that occurred hundreds of lifetimes ago. It was tension that was so long removed from the present day it practically didn't even matter, but it could still cause unrest if anypony were to draw upon it to cause issues. I trusted Celestia to make that sort of decision. She was the sole ruler of Equestria for a thousand years. I might bring it up with her sometime later as a brief talking point, but I overall agreed with her course of action. By the tone of Applejack's voice, this had been a serious issue that needed to be addressed in some manner.
With the utmost confidence, I replied. "I think Celestia was probably right to take whatever happened out. Harmony is more important than a perfect record. If I was a few years younger I wouldn't be saying that, but I have faith that Celestia knew exactly what she was doing, and was probably wrestling with the same philosophical dilemma you're having right now."
Applejack bit her bottom lip. I could tell the orange earth pony didn't want to admit I was possibly right. It was contrary to character to admit that lying was correct, ever. That much I understood more than anything. With the utmost patience, I watched her slowly puzzle out her response.
"Well... Twilight, I think that... instead of pulling things out, ponies should be able to make decisions on their own about these sorts of things. By just sorta brushing that stuff aside, I feel like maybe you're telling ponies how you should feel about the past. Instead of letting them decide on their own. It feels like lying."
I had a feeling she would come up with that sort of answer. After all she wasn't just the Element of Honesty. She was also among the most bull-headed of anyone in Ponyville.
"Well, do you think lying is okay if it's for the good of everyone?" I asked.
"I don't think so, because that's making ponies make decisions that aren't true. Making ponies draw up their feelings and opinions on stuff that's not real. Plus it makes your side look right instead of letting everypony decide for themselves."
My eyes diverted to the stairs, where Spike was probably sitting, waiting for us to be done conversing as he overheard everything we were talking about. I then looked back to Applejack. She had good points, but personally... I disagreed. Especially when it came to Celestia. I trusted her more than about anyone else, and if she had foresight that this could cause issues again in the future that warranted the removal of these things from the history books, I was in favor.
"Even if Candle Dust was responsible for abusing her magic to make her students better at schoolwork a thousand years ago by highly morally questionable means, there's no good reason for that to cast a shadow on what we do today as civilized ponies, with lots of well working laws and investigative tools to tell whenever such magical abuse happens. It's not something that, in my opinion, should impact the lives of ponies that may as well be a different species by this point. We're more harmonious, sensical, and have a much better understanding of what makes a well functioning society by this point."
Believing I had made my point, I turned to the stairs to call for Spike. "Since I know you're there, can you get us some tea?"
Applejack looked at me with a very conflicted expression. However as I watched her... the expression turned from conflicted to anxious yet again. Except this time it was even worse, eyes widening as realization dawned on her. Only after I thought about it a moment did I realize.
She had never mentioned Candle Dust to me. I was supposed to be feigning ignorance.
Author's Note
Comments are immensely appreciated, they help guide me and give me motivation!
It felt like I had ice in my veins. It was colder than all those autumn mornings waking up after falling asleep in the barn. My hooves felt like they were frozen in place. Twilight gave me a nervous looking smile. It send a lightning strike through my heart as I leapt from my seat, overturning it and sending it slamming to the library floor. I was at the door in a heartbeat, all the adrenaline coursing through my body at once. I pushed it open as fast as I could and ran as far as I could. I needed help, serious help. It wouldn't be found here. I couldn't trust Twilight. Who else knew but hadn't told me? Anyone close to Celestia?
She'd been leading me on, trying to act like she was giving an honest opinion! Pretending she didn't understand exactly what I was talking about. She knew the entire time I'd known her. All the things she'd told me about history herself, about how Equestria had accepted every last pony into it peacefully and more, it'd all been a bunch of crabapples. It was all a lie, the peaceful and happy start of Equestria back then was a bunch of hot air to keep everybody smiling and nodding their heads to Celestia. Like she hadn't done anything wrong, and that she's never made a mistake in her life.
Soon I felt my runner's high picking up as I reached the edge of Everfree, having sprinted all the way there. I was blessed with strong legs and a good set of lungs to make it so fast. I still had a way to go, but there was only one pony I could truly trust to have her wits about her and help me. I barrelled headlong into the forest, sticking tightly to the paths.
Zecora's hut was no small measure of distance away from Ponyville. I was lucky I could keep a running pace as long as I could. Once there I slammed my front hooves into the door, throwing it open and causing the bottles to clatter along the many wooden shelves, swaying slightly from the ceiling ropes. Zecora blinked and looked at me before speaking in her usual melodic tone.
"I sense this is urgent, what is it you need? Your breath comes in gasps, from Ponyville did you flee?"
I didn't have much time to explain to her exactly what was going on, so I decided that I would do my best to do abbreviate my needs as much as possible.
"I need as much potion as you got on making sure magic can't mess with your brain and such! It's super urgent."
Zecora thought about it, then ponderously stepped over to her shelf, puzzling over its contents as she thought aloud.
"I have such potions, but I wonder, who or what brought such magic into creation?"
I answered as quickly as I could through panting breaths, trotting around the hut.
"A unicorn... at least I think."
With a slow nod she picked up a loop of rope in her hoof, holding the potion up to me on the other end.
"Many times unicorns have tampered with minds. A subtle crime, forgotten to most of your pony folk, and many of mine. Take the potion at the end of the line, it will make you immune for a time. A year you will be uncharmeable. Rare ingredients are consumed making this though, stronger than many potions I know. I may take as long to make more."
The moment I got the clear to drink it I tilted my head as far back as possible and chugged the bottle down. It tasted vaguely like tree sap, molasses and some hard cider. I didn't mind too much. That was what most new cider makers' batches tasted like anyways. Soon I had it all down... a pretty big bottle, having had to stop for breath once. Once it was down it sat in my stomach like fire.
A brief moment passed when I was about to thank Zecora, but then a cold feeling swam through my body. Like a flood of cold inside my skull, causing me to shiver from head to toe. It wasn't something I could have described properly unless I'd experienced it first. I became very strangely aware of where my brain sat in relation to my skull, before it faded, and I took a few deep breaths, shivering.
"O-okay. Thanks Zecora, I really owe you one." I said, turning to leave as quickly as I'd came.
"Please stay safe!"
I trotted away. It was impossible to tell what time it was through the thick Everfree canopy, but by intuition it was probably nearly nightfall.
Dear Princess Celestia,
It has come to my attention that something is awry with a bit of knowledge I obtained a while ago. I might have fallen victim to some sort of charm that I don't understand at the moment, however its nature is clear to me now, and as such I can circumvent its effects. It is very simplistic in nature. I'll be heading out to you this afternoon to meet you at the castle, I hope that you can accomodate me.
Your most loyal student
Twilight Sparkle
The walk from the train station to Canterlot was quiet. The train ride had taken longer than I'd expected. It was getting into the evening, and I could see Celestia's sun starting to set on the western horizon. My mind twisted with the possibilities of what I'd discovered. Only a few other ponies had been in the train car with me, on the trip there. My mind welcomed the quiet of the upper city streets as I approached the palace. It wasn't a holiday, nor was there a social event being hosted there this evening. All was calm.
Without a word I was allowed into the fortress. My hooves tapped quietly on the smooth floor. It echoed softly off of the walls. I couldn't even see the ceiling, the cool blue light didn't reach up that high. My eyes slowly adjusted to the interior of the place, and I kept an even walking pace. I had to find Celestia. I knew she didn't typically sleep but once a week or so. She had the magic to extend her waking hours harmlessly, so obviously she would. Maybe it also came with being an alicorn, too?
Soon the entrance to her tower was before me. Just as I raised my hoof, the door opened on its own. The light inside was crisp and golden, a stark contrast to the cool blue lights that shone in the corridors at night. Within the room Celestia sat quietly behind a large desk. Her eyes met with mine, and she beckoned me in with a small movement of her hoof. I had little choice, and there was nothing to say. I stepped into her chamber.
The door shut behind me, and she pulled the chair out on the other side of her desk. I'd been sitting in that chair as her student many times. Plenty of those had been me misusing magic to be lazy or wandering where I wasn't supposed to be so I could learn things I wasn't ready for. This was different however. I had questions for her not about how to use magic... but why it had been used. The sound of her voice though... it made me pause. It made me feel like I knew better than this.
"Twilight... I get the feeling from your letter that this might not be a necessary conversation."
Almost immediately I felt foalish for being there. I already knew the situation. This had been something that had been plain to me the moment I'd pieced together I'd been under a charm. This conversation was totally, and completely unnecessary. That was what my instincts told me. Could I trust my instincts though? My mind told me no. My gut told me to nod, explain I was behaving on a hunch and that I'd just drop it. Not mention it ever again. I was a pony of logic first though. My reasoning won out in the end.
"Your highness... Why was there a curse charm on the Unabridged History of Equestria?"
I sat down, fully prepared to accept the answer. I heard a click from behind me as the door locked and a spell to soundproof it engaged. Here eyes looked down into mine, and suddenly I felt like I was her apprentice again. A filly shoving her head into business that wasn't mine. My whole body washed with shame even before she started to speak. I knew why. I understood perfectly. I'd even explained it to Applejack.
"Because the present harmony of the kingdom is more important than a curious little filly's need to know the truth. The happy, content existance these ponies have going about their daily lives with each other, earth ponies, unicorns and pegasi alike, holds infinitely more worth than a bit of text written by a scholar who was elderly when your sixth great-grandfather was born. Nothing remains of that previous, past reality besides that little scribble. It holds no bearing on who we are... I would suspect that you already know all of this though."
My ears folded, diverting my gaze to my hooves. She was right. She was painfully right. I was threatening the harmony of the kingdom over something stupid. My logical mind was losing out to how I felt about this in my heart. This was wrong from a purely logical perspective... but whether it was from the charm or just hearing it from Celestia herself, I was beginning to really doubt that I was in the right here even from a logical perspective.
Even if I theoretically was correct in saying that I had the authority and right to disclose this to the entirety of Equestria. What good would it do? Make everypony feel bad about the past? Cause tension between earth ponies and unicorns? All to feel like I did the 'right' thing and be logically, factually correct? As I sat there scolding myself for this I began to understand exactly why the curse was put on that book. To tell everyone was selfish. Celestia snapped me out of my own thoughts with her calm, but very stern voice. I noticed her horn was glowing, but I couldn't tell if she was doing something magical, or was just stirring the tea on her desk.
"You understand very well how utterly selfish it'd be to reveal this to the public. Just so you can say you are right about something, and were the bringer of the truth. It would be to weave disharmony into the kingdom for your sake alone. So you could be 'right'. I put the curse on that book so that the reader would first deny the possibility the events in it happened. Then you'd downplay them and stress that even if you did show the public, it'd cause discord and meaningless societal tensions just for your own selfish ideals of 'truth'."
My head travelled up and down practically on its own, feeling like I was two inches tall on the seat in front of her. I was stupid, and she knew better than me as always. The combination of motherly disappointment in her face and royal authority made it feel like she was staring right through me. All I could do is listen to her as she concluded her lecture.
"Now Twilight... if you did somehow tell someone about this since, I trust you managed to swear them to secrecy, at least?"
My eyes went wide, and I tilted my chin up to look at her once again. Desperation to make things right was clear in my voice, echoing through every bit of my being. I'd messed everything up so far. I couldn't keep doing this.
"I did tell one pony, one of my closest friends, on accident. She won't tell anyone else I think, but just in case I, um... I'll make sure that she comes around to not sharing it okay?"
My eyes began to water. This was the best I could do, a desperate promise. I felt bad about doing this to one of my best friends but it was what it'd take to make sure this didn't mess everything I knew up. Celestia nodded gently, looking down at her drink of tea. She stirred it idly, horn lit brightly.
"I trust you Twilight. Make sure that this kingdom... and all the hard work me and my sister put into creating it, did not go to waste. One pony could cause tension in the hearts and minds of the citizens for decades just because they want to be seen as virtuous."
I nodded so hard I felt my mane jump on my head.
"I won't let you down Princess!"
For the first time all evening, Celestia smiled. It was sincere, and it made me want to cry in how relieved it made me feel. My hooves curled a bit, pushing against the chair beneath me. Her approval was just as satisfying as it had been when I was a filly.
"I'll leave you to it Twilight. Remember, most secrets are best left un-shared."
