The Story Book (Leroy's Version)
The Story Book
Stars blazed in the skies above and the moon gleamed brightly tonight. Below, plains of black jade grass sprawled in every direction, circling the Canterhorn Mountain like an inverted halo. The city itself glowed like a second starfield and, even though it neared midnight, more lights were on than off and the citizens were awake and excited. Luna herself was proud of the night she had creation - everypony seemed to be enjoying it. Everypony, that is, apart from a certain Twilight Sparkle.
Rather than partying, Twilight spent that night reading. Although naturally an introverted person, years of her mother’s coddling and favouritism from the Princesses had rendered her more asocial than private and more antisocial than particular in her habits. Tonight her muzzle was stuffed deep into an astronomy textbook and she studied intently, oblivious to the beautiful skies right outside and above.
Having sent Spike to a friend’s house for a sleepover game of Ogres and Oubliettes, Twilight had the house to herself. First went dinner and then a bubble bath and, now, she cocooned herself in blankets upon the couch, intend to finish this book and a dozen more. Nobody was going to bother her tonight - she thought wrongly.
Knock! Knock! Knock!
Something thumped on the door, urgently. The echoing sound was impossible to ignore and so Twilight groaned off the couch and started to see who it was.
Who is knocking at my door at this time? I know they are not my mother or assistant. It might be one of the royal messengers though. Oh! Maybe it's a delivery pony with that telescope I ordered last month. No, it's way too late for any deliveries now...
But what she was not a telescope courier at all. In fact, she didn’t see anybody. Annoyed at the prank, she shut the door in a huff. Or, rather, she tried to. Wedging it open was a little book and pang of regret shot through Twilight’s mind at the thought of damaging it any further. Immediately, she scooped the tattered notebook up in her magic and hurried inside, locking the door behind her.
Placing it down on a desk, she found it to be a far more confusing sight than anything else in her library. Twilight breathed a sigh of relief almost upon seeing its damages. Covered in scratches and rips, inkblots and doodles, grime and dirt, there was no way her clumsiness could have made the book any worse. Still, however, this was no way to treat a book! and she frowned in frustration as she tried to figure out who had done this to it.
She got nowhere after half an hour. Why, she couldn’t even discern its title, the poor book was so damaged and neglected. Carefully, she opened the first page. There was a single word she could read on it: “The”. Everything else was scrawled over in red crayon and rendered illegible.
What a mess this book is. I can’t even see its title! Still, I might as well read it. It must’ve been very important for somebody to vandalize it so thoroughly. Twilight thought as she took the book and returned to her couch. Once there, she sat down and, levitating the book, she began to read aloud.
“Once upon a time, there was a beautiful alicorn princess who wanted a child more than anything else in the whole world. But every stallion she met she hated. They were cruel to her, greedy and rude. None of them would make a good father for her child.
They only courted her for her wealth and they cared nothing for her personality. After one especially awful stallion - a prince from Saddle Arabia - the princess decided that romance simply wasn’t for her. Retreating to her rooms within her grand palace, she researched a spell. This very special spell would allow her to have a child without the need for a stallion at all.
For months and months she researched, spending nearly her whole treasury on perfecting this ancient ritual. But finally, on beautifully clear night just like this one, she did it. The spell was complete and she began to cast it. Mists swirled around her as she recited the magic words. Her horn glowed and the stars flickered. And then it was done and she felt something kick within her just as the dawn began to rise” Twilight read.
What a remarkable story this was indeed! It mirrored Twilight’s own conception. Although her mother certainly wasn’t the princess, she was a wealthy magician and one renowned as the most beautiful in the country at that. Twilight was hooked like a fish on a line. And that was just what the accursed book wanted.
She read, too mesmerized to notice how her legs looked so pale tonight - like somebody; no, something, was sucking out her blood and turning it into ink. In much the same way, she ignored how the words on the pages darkened and reddened until they were a deep arterial crimson. To her, the odd little book was just that good.
“After one year of aches and pains, the princess gave birth to a healthy foal.
When she held her daughter for the first time, she promised herself that would give her baby whatever she wanted. After precious memories had passed by, her foal grew up into an adorable and smart filly,” Twilight said as every word made her closer to start shedding tears. “This story reminds me of myself. How weird. How… intimate. Did somebody spy on me to write this? Is this a sick prank?”
But instead of shutting the evil book, or looking around for that very spy, she continued on. Although she didn’t know it, she had been trapped since first her hoof absentmindedly brushed against the book’s tattered cover. “For she was too precious and far too good for common life, the alicorn princess homeschooled her beloved daughter. She taught her everything she knew and that was a thousand and one things in the end. The filly learned maths and physics, language and literature, history and high culture. In the end, she mastered them all and, for this, the princess rewarded her child with her own pet dragon.
Unfortunately, the princess’s spoiling and distrust of normal ponies turned her daughter away from the world. She began to fear the outside world and all its terrors - its poverty, its violence, its ignorance - all of that terrified the filly and caused her to demand more from her mother. She begged for a house with armed guards to fight off the criminals she was so sure wanted to molest her. She demanded a library of books for it, so that she would never have to leave again. The daughter hated everyone else by the end, even sending away her own dragon on a whim. As the years went by, she became cruel and selfish and eventually she loved her books more than her very mother!
However, the princess was insisted that her child would succeed her one day - that she would be princess once her life came to its end. She begged her daughter to leave her house, to make friends, to talk - just to talk to somebody else.
But all that was pointless. Her daughter was too far gone. Her daughter was damned.”
Twilight slammed the book shut. She could read no more. Crying freely, she realized that the strange story could only be about her. It was a biography - one written with her own blood and tears. And its story, this story, was almost at its end.
I need to show this to my mother, thought Twilight as she struggled to stand. But, when she looked down, she found that her legs, and indeed her whole body, was a pale sickly grey. Drained of blood, her story at its end, the unicorn crumpled to the ground.
Although she couldn’t see it, being dead, the book was not yet finished. As the last of the fluid wept from her body, the last of the words inked themselves upon the haunted pages.
This is what they read:
As much as the filly wanted to improve, she found that she lacked the strength. Eventually, she became so buried in her books that she forgot even to eat or drink. It was no wonder then that she simply collapsed one day from fear and exhaustion and she never got up.
Her funeral was sparsely attended. Only her mother cried at it and the only other guests were the authors and architects she had patronized. Twilight Sparkle was buried in a tomb, far beneath the earth, where the night sky and the world below it could never scare her again.
