Twilight looked through the book excitedly, it was concerning an area of magic apparently not visited in many years; the creation of magically animated constructs.
‘‘There are many different types of construct.’’ Twilight spoke aloud as she read, not because it was necessary but because it helped her to remember things ‘‘Rock, metal, fire to name but a few, each has its own method of providing itself with energy, rock constructs require the intake of minerals from almost anywhere, metal constructs require vast amounts of electricity and fire constructs require burnable substances such as wood.’’
‘‘Without command a construct will remain stationary except to seek out a new energy source as required.’’
‘’It should be noted that unless a construct is bound to a particular unicorn it will follow almost any command given to it barring that which would cause its own destruction, binding can be achieved by taking a small amount of matter from a unicorn’s horn and mixing it with the construct’s being, this can only be done after the construct has been created.’’
She closed the book before speaking excitedly ‘Imagine what a help something like that would be, I mean, Spike helps me as much as he can, but sometimes he does struggle with the heavy lifting, and maybe one could help AJ with her applebucking! The possibilities are almost endless!’ At this point a voice drifted down from upstairs.
‘‘Twilight, are you speaking to yourself again?’’
‘‘No Spike, well, maybe a little, but it’s nothing to worry about.’’
‘‘It is when it keeps me awake at night; get some sleep, Twilight.’’
‘‘Oh, alright.’’ She made her way upstairs though there was no way she was going to drop this.
‘‘Ah’m not so sure that this would be such a good idea, sugarcube.’’
Twilight snorted in exasperation ‘‘Why not? You’ve got to admit it could be useful.’’
‘‘Maybe it could, but it still don’t seem right to create sumthin’ just to do work for us.’’
‘‘But we build carts and carriages all the time just to do work for us, this is no different to that.’’
‘‘I don’t know, if it’s something that needs to feed itself, it just makes it seem like it would actually be a living thing.’’ Twilight stared at Fluttershy in disbelief.
‘‘It doesn’t eat, it just takes in fuel like we use to power trains.’’
‘‘But darling, I can’t help but notice that all the things you’ve mentioned work with at least some input from ponies for instance, I use a sewing machine to make my work easier but without me it’d be pretty useless.’’
‘‘I agree with Rarity, you can’t claim the awesomeness for yourself if somepony else did all the work.’’ Rainbow Dash puffed her chest out with faux-pride ‘‘Besides, like some lump of rock could keep up with me in the air.’’
‘‘Well they wouldn’t necessarily be made out of stone, Dash, you could even make one out of clouds, you know.’’
Pinkie Pie squealed ‘‘Ooh! Could you make one out of balloons? Like a giant balloon animal?’’
‘‘Well, maybe, Pinkie, but it wouldn’t exactly be resilient, now would it?’’
‘‘The thing is, Twilight, Ah know you’re powerful curious about these constructs, but I don’t think anypony would be willing to use one, it just doesn’t sit well with how we do things here.’’
‘‘But-’’ Twilight sighed deeply ‘‘Yeah, I suppose you’re right.’’
Rarity was the first to notice the oncoming signs of depression coming from the studious unicorn ‘‘That doesn’t mean you can’t study it dear, Princess Celestia may have asked you to study friendship, but we all know how much you like to study magic as well, you should feel free to continue looking into it but, don’t get your hopes up that it might revolutionise the way everypony works.’’
Twilight perked up almost immediately ‘‘You’re right, I can still research it, I could even put it into practice maybe!’’
Rainbow Dash had found the book ‘‘Where did you get this thing anyway, this thing looks even older than that egghead stuff you normally read.’’
‘‘I found it in the storage downstairs.’’
‘‘What? You have more books downstairs?’’
‘‘Yes, what’s up here is only about half the collection, I’ve read everything up here so I decided to move onto the books in the basement and found this, and maybe got a little overexcited about the possibilities.’’
‘‘Well, no worries, sugarcube, just be careful fooling about with magic like that.’’
‘‘It’s hardly fooling about, Applejack. I will be pursuing this with my standard scientific approach.’’
‘‘Still.’’ Applejack gave her a worried glance as she and the others left the library.
Hours into the next day and Twilight was still searching around the canyon for a suitable mass of rock to use, by this time she was exhausted and almost sick of the idea of continuing, it was only her determination to see her project through to the end that kept her going. As the sun was setting the air became horribly muggy in the sheltered canyon, the mud Twilight was caked in becoming even more uncomfortable. A dreadful stink rose from the puddles of water and the light reflecting off them reduced visibility. The canyon was denied even a lick of wind by the high walls.
It was just as Twilight resolved to go home for the day that she noticed an area where the rock wall of the canyon had splintered, excitement lent her energy, this was exactly what she had been looking for. A short search revealed a large mass of basalt with seams of grey rock within it. Twilight swarmed over it, eagerness clearly evident.
‘‘Hmm, Obsidian, means that the mountain above is more than likely a sleeping volcano, when it came out it must have picked up other types of rock as it cooled before it settled.’’
She summoned a tape measure seemingly out of nowhere before starting to measure the rock.
‘‘As it stands, the rock is the same height as me, but a good deal wider.’’ She laughed slightly ‘‘Thankfully.’’
‘‘This means that when fully formed, the construct would be…’’ A roll of parchment and a quill appeared and Twilight began scribbling furiously muttering to herself ‘‘Apparent density…rough volume…along with reforming. It would be about half again my height! Perfect! Not so big as to be unwieldy but also able to bear large loads.’’
She let out a little squeal of delight as the parchment and quill disappeared, only to land on the head of a certain unsuspecting draconic assistant.
‘‘Now, all I need is to bring it back with me. No way am I going to repeat that debacle with Tom.’’
Somewhere in Ponyville, Rarity’s head snapped up from her work ‘‘We swore we’d never speak of that again!’’
Unaware of this, Twilight bound the rock to her with magic to prevent any mishap such as when she teleported with Spike, she’d rather not find out whether she could burn rock if it could be helped. When Twilight appeared back in the libraries’ basement it was lucky for Spike that she made him jump as this allowed him to avoid the mass of rock.
‘‘T-Twilight! What’s going on?’’
‘‘Oh, hello there Spike, what are you doing down here?’’
‘‘I was just doing some dusting.’’
‘‘Oh, alright then, I’m just going to be doing some work.’’
The spell itself was almost misleadingly simple, all she had to do was provide the magical energy while the transmutation circle as the book put it directed the form it would take, apparently the circle would act as the guide but it would be Twilight’s mind that decided the exact specifics. Excited to start she had sent Spike out of the library for and got down to work immediately even though it was nearly dark by this point.
She fed her magic into the markings on the floor slowly at first, carefully, until the markings started to glow and then her excitement got the better of her again and she pushed harder until she had to close her eyes to avoid the glaring light, and then, just as soon as it started, it was over. Before her stood what appeared to be a larger than life statue, the body was the pure black of the obsidian while the mane and tail were varying shades of grey, she tentatively approached. The black ‘coat’ of the female earth pony statue was perfectly smooth and very shiny, the mane and tail were rougher, as if imitating hair, the statue appeared to have its eyes closed.
‘‘Interesting, the construct is neither a pegasus or a unicorn, obviously it would be too heavy to fly,’’ She hadn’t seen in any of her readings an instance where a construct could use magic, though some more complex ones did use a horn as its focal point. Shrugging it off she continued her study, commenting on the nature of the ‘hair’.
‘‘I didn’t expect the different types of rock to separate like that, but it is convenient, this’ll strengthen the obsidian itself by not having impurities within it.’’
True to Twilight’s earlier prediction the construct was half again her height, making it hard to see its’ eyes though she thought they must be closed from the glimpse she could get. Finally having sated her curiosity she took a step back and rested her horn against its chest, taking a deep breath before sending a magical ‘jolt’ throughout the rock. As she looked at it again there was no indication that anything was different until its eyes slowly creaked open, revealing an icey-blue glow.
Awareness was a surprise, after not feeling anything for, how long was it now? Feeling a sense of self would be the last thing you expected and yet she was aware of herself, aware in a way she hadn’t been for a long time. It was when she realised that this surprised her that she recognized the emotions flowing back to her, they all seemed new to her, it was then that she realised she had a sense of novelty. Hang on her thought processes began to work in earnest if I got a sense of self-awareness, then emotions, that means- . It was at this point that a flood of memories crashed into her head, good ones, bad ones and the worst ones, they came on, unrelenting, crushing her under their weight, threatening her newfound sense of reason.
And just as quickly, they stopped, leaving her with what could only be described as a headache, despite the fact she had no discernible anatomy to speak of.
What a great way to discover that I can feel pain. She then thought about this for a moment. Awesome! I have sarcasm!
She began to feel the reason why she had, quite literally, been pulled back together, something was calling her forward, she had a choice, she could easily ignore the call and go back to the nothing she’d been in or she could answer it.
Well, having sentient thought is kind of exciting
With that she rushed forwards all at once, into what she didn’t know.
Her first impression was one of weight, the only real way she could think of to describe was that she felt, solid, ruminating on this for a while numerous things came to her, for one she could hear, and feel the floor under the hooves she now apparently had, the subtle smells which hung in the air were painfully apparent to her having come from a place that had none, she didn’t have a chance to test her sense of taste, though, before she was asking herself why she couldn’t see in an almost indignant manner.
Because you haven’t opened your eyes yet, obviously
That thought made her feel a little stupid, of course she couldn’t see if she didn’t bother to open her eyes! Hey! Gimme a break! I’ve only had eyes for less than a minute now! Having indulged herself enough with this internal conversation she opened her eyes for the first time in… she really would have to find out how long it had been. In a day, night? Whatever, of surprises she was treated to another one when the first thing she saw was a huge pair of expectant eyes looking right into her own, causing her to reel back in surprise and crash into something, there were numerous small impacts all over her body and she looked around in confusion to find herself covered in books, why books?
Twilight could feel her heartbeat speed up as the construct’s eyes opened, what she didn’t expect though was for it to reel backwards as if in fright and crash straight into the stored books, bringing them crashing down around it.
‘‘Ooh, that wasn’t supposed to happen.’’ It really was terribly frustrating, but at the same time it might give her a chance to test its dexterity, but she couldn’t really bring herself to trust it with books just yet, especially after what just happened. The construct was looking about itself in apparent confusion, she hadn’t expected it to display such odd behaviour, she’d thought it would be a lot more stoic and, well, rock-like, oddly enough. She nearly jumped out of her skin when it reached for a book and started flicking through the pages, before long it had parked itself on the floor and was apparently enraptured by whatever it was it was reading. It took about ten minutes for Twilight to come out of her stupor.
‘‘Excuse me.’’ She couldn’t keep the irritated edge from her voice and the construct glanced up with innocent surprise scrawled across its features.
‘‘Oh! Sorry, I must have gotten distracted! I’ve not read a book in… I really should find out how long it’s been!’’ Twilight stood there in shocked awe, her jaw working uselessly before she turned tail and bolted upstairs.
‘‘This can’t be happening! What have I done?’’ She put every kind of lock she could think of on the door to her basement along with several magical wards and even more pieces of furniture, topping it all off with the bust of some important pony from history before frantically looking around for the book she’d found the spell in, certain that there must be an answer within it somewhere. It was with a certain sense of dread (you know, the one where it feels like your heart momentarily stops) that she realised she had left it in the basement.
Heavy footsteps made their way up the stairs as the construct head for the door.
Its coming for vengeance! It knows what I did to it and now it will come and step on me, or turn me into stone to see how I like it, or make me be its slave, and then Celestia will find out what I’ve done and she’ll banish me, and then lock me up in the place she banishes me to, and then lock the construct in there with me to exact retribution, and oh dear sweet Celestia what if she banishes me to magic kindergarten and then locks me up with the construct? The children will have to watch my messy demise! Won’t anyone think of the foals and fillies? And then I’ll be punished for scarring the minds of children, I won’t get a burial! They’ll tie me to the construct and throw me in the sea! Just to teach me a lesson! And then-!
There was a knock on the door from the basement ‘‘Excuse me?’’
Twilight screamed. Later she would claim it was to buy her time in order to enact a tactical retreat, but the fact of the matter was, it was just a scream.
Five mares who had been talking to a certain worried assistant clearly heard it and burst into the library, Applejack was the first to fathom what was going on (ish) ‘‘Twilight, what in tarnation is in your basement?’’
Twilight’s voice barely broke what could be called a whimper ‘‘A construct.’’
Pinkie Pie bounced excitedly ‘‘Well that’s what you wanted isn’t it? Can we meet them?’’
‘‘No!’’
‘‘Twilight, what’s wrong?’’
‘‘It spoke!’’
‘‘Ooh, scary!’’ Rainbow Dash could not resist the urge to poke fun
‘‘It shouldn’t be able to speak! It started reading a book!’’
‘‘So let me get this straight.’’ Rarity decided to bring some clarity to the matter ‘‘You created a construct? And you ‘bought it to life’ for want of a better phrase? Then it started reading a book? And then it spoke to you? And this made you barricade it in the basement?’’
Twilight nodded ferociously throughout this.
‘‘Not being funny, sugarcube, but don’t you think that’s overreacting?’’
‘‘AJ! A construct such as that should not be capable of anything like what it’s just done! Who knows what it’ll do next!’’
As it turned out, what it did next was turn around head back down the stairs and start reading again, after all, it really was a good book.
‘‘What’re we gonna do? What’re we gonna do? What’re we gonna do?’’ Twilight was jogging on the spot, unable to contain her nervous energy.
‘‘Oh forget this!’’ Rainbow Dash shot over to the impromptu barricade, which hadn’t been tested in the slightest and hauled it out of the way before beginning work on the door, this, however held tight due to Twilight’s earlier actions ‘‘Twilight! Open this door up now!’’
‘‘I can’t do that! We don’t know what might happen if we let it out!’’
‘‘I’m not talking about letting it out, we should go down there and confront it.’’
‘‘But-.’’
‘‘Twilight, darling, think about it, you just told us you created a pony out of stone, if really wanted to do something awful to you, do you not think it would be battering on the door right now?’’ It was hard to deny Rarity’s logic.
‘‘But-.’’
‘‘Yeah, Twilight, you’re always saying that everypony deserves a chance, besides you always insist on confirming the effects of your spells before we record them, so in a way we’ve gotta go see what’s down there.’’ That was just plain unfair, Spike using her own habits against her.
‘‘But-.’’
‘‘Besides you can’t just keep your basement locked up forever, sugarcube, mostly ‘cos ah know you wouldn’t be able to resist those books.’’ Applejack must have known Twilight hated the idea of leaving all the poor, innocent, books behind.
‘‘But-.’’
‘‘Ooh! Maybe it’s friendly after all, and then we can have a party! I can make rock cakes.’’ There was a pause ‘‘You know, because it’s made out of rock.’’ Pinkie’s random factor nearly threw Twilight off completely, nevertheless, she had one more go.
‘‘But-.’’
‘‘Anyway, even if it is evil, you’ll have me there, I can show any hunk of rock who’s boss.’’ Before being flattened by Rainbow Dash.
‘‘Unless it falls on you, then you’ll have to get Tank to save you.’’
‘‘Yes, thank you, Pinkie.’’
Twilight couldn’t help but giggle at Pinkie’s comment, even if it was at Dash’s expense ‘‘Fine, I get what you mean, we need to tackle this problem before it gets out of proportion.’’
Twilight’s horn flared and the locks both magical and physical fell from the door as she yanked it open. There was a resounding crash as everything in the library jumped into the air about an inch before settling back down. It appeared that the construct had fallen straight through the open door, it was all the group could do to stare at it in shock, unable to find their voices.
The construct stood, its eyes glowing with a cold blue light as it looked about itself, eventually they stopped, focussing on what was most intriguing. Pinkie Pie was pulling faces and giggling at the reflection she could see in the construct’s body.
She eventually finished the book, it had not been very long, merely a short and somewhat fanciful tale, though it did make her smile, she heard raised voices from upstairs and decided that that now warranted her attention. As she stood she felt a little giddy, look at her making decisions!
Yes, you’re such a grown up little filly now!
She huffed a little in irritation, being sarcastic was fun and all but she decided she needed somepony else to use it on, otherwise she’d just end up continually undermining herself, and that wasn’t exactly a good way to use sentient thought processes now that she, well, thought about it. Putting that to the side for now she pushed an ear up against the door, just in time for it to be pulled away from her, allowing her to fall to the floor in an undignified heap. There was a moment of silence before she quickly righted herself and looked at the mares assembled before her until she noticed one of them pulling faces at her, or, more accurately, at her flank.
Before she said excuse me, she remembered how well that had gone down last time, so for no apparent reason she decided to respond in kind, well, except for the flank staring part. That was just weird.
It was to everyone’s’ (except Pinkie Pie’s) great confusion when the huge stone mare turned to her and stuck out her stone tongue, while the blue orbs that were its eyes moved slightly. Everyone was speechless, though Pinkie Pie was only so because she was giggling too hard.
‘‘Y-y-you looked so silly!’’
‘‘And you did not? Why were you pulling faces anyway?’’ Despite the tone of the words there was a ghost of a smile on the construct’s face.
‘‘Because my reflection looked so silly.’’
‘‘Your reflection…?’’ The construct looked back in confusion at its own flank ‘‘Ah, I see. Why exactly am I reflective?’’
‘‘Um, I can explain?’’ Twilight squeaked.
(Several undoubtedly boring minutes of getting tea and so on later)
The six ponies, one dragon and one construct were all seated around the central table in the library, Twilight, considering this to be her responsibility, choose to speak first.
‘‘Well, I guess we should start with introductions, I am Twilight Sparkle.’’
‘‘Applejack.’’
‘‘Rainbow Dash!’’
‘‘Rarity.’’
‘‘Pinkie Pie!’’
''Fluttershy.''
‘‘What was that?’’
‘‘Fluttershy.’’
‘‘One more time?’’
Twilight jumped in ‘‘Her name is Fluttershy, don’t mind it, she’s just a little… shy.’’ Clearly the name was far from being an oxymoron. ‘‘And finally this is Spike!’’
‘‘Hey! How come I didn’t get to do my own introduction?’’
‘‘Not now, Spike.’’
‘‘Well, it is a pleasure to meet you all, my name is Petra.’’
The silence was deafening, no, more than that, the silence made your eardrums want to retire, spend two years getting drunk and then declare themselves useless before hurling themselves off a skyscraper.
Petra was beginning to look a little worried. ‘‘Well, I know it’s not a great name* but it isn’t that bad, is it?’’
‘‘Well, no, but I didn’t expect you to have a name.’’
‘‘Why not?’’
‘‘Well................................................................because..............................................................................................because, YOU’REASTONECONSTRUCTTHATIMADETOHELPDOSOMEWORKANDTHENIANIMATEDYOUBUTI’MREALLYSORRYABOUTITPLEASEDON’TKILLME!’’
Petra burst out laughing, to Everyone’s surprise.
‘‘You’re ridiculous, you know that? Why would I kill you?’’
‘‘I-I don’t know, it just seems, silly, now that I say it to your face.’’
‘‘Exactly.’’
Rarity chipped in ‘‘You see darling, all you had to do was stay calm.’’
‘‘Of course, everything worked out fine, didn’t it?’’
‘‘Certainly did for me!’’ Petra replied, cheerfully, ‘‘Now that I’m back I realize how boring being dead was.’’
Everyone’s jaw hit the table with the most resounding of metaphorical thumps. It was Applejack who found her voice first.
‘‘Hang on, now, y’all are saying that before Twilight made this body and animated it you were dead, as in a dead pony?’’
‘‘No, I mean I was a dead mongoose, yes a dead pony, what else would I be?’’ Oh yes! Managed to fire off some sarcasm!
‘‘But, that wasn’t supposed to happen.’’
‘‘Really? Well, I guess we got lucky, or, at least I did.’’
‘‘So, when were you last, well, alive? Before now, I mean.’’
‘‘How long’s it been since Celestia defeated Nightmare Moon?’’
‘‘Just over a thousand.’’
‘‘As in relatively just over a thousand or literally just over a thousand?’’
‘‘About two years over a thousand.’’
‘‘Oh, so about a thousand and two years then.’’
Twilight’s eyes were on the verge of popping out of her head, she had been expecting the strange mare to use the defeat of Nightmare Moon as a reference point, not that she was going to say she died in that time period. Her curiosity was piqued.
‘‘So, hang on, you were actually around when Nightmare Moon was trying to take over?’’
‘‘Trying? She was succeeding. But, yes, I was there, and I’d really rather not talk about it.’’
‘‘Well, of course, darling, we can all understand that.’’ Rarity was giving Petra a rather appraising look.
‘‘Hang on.’’ Pinkie was glaring at Petra ‘‘If you’re from like, over a thousand years ago, how come you don’t talk all old-times-y like Princess Luna?’’
Twilight was astonished, once again Pinkie had overcome common expectation to ask a question that was surprisingly relevant, why didn’t this mare speak in a manner more similar to old Equestrian? Petra, however, had other thoughts on her mind.
‘‘Wait, Princess Luna? As in THE Princess Luna, not Nightmare Moon?’’
‘‘Yep.’’ Applejack grinned at her expression, such as it was, the eyes were still hard to understand, but the rest of her face acted just like a normal ponies’.
‘‘You have got to tell me all about this.’’
That evening, after having told Petra the story of Nightmare Moon’s return and defeat, and having dealt with the questions she had afterward (not to mention the excited bouncing that nearly ruined the library). Twilight finally got to sit down to write a letter to the princess about the events of the day.
Dear Princess Celestia
The other day I found a book in the libraries storage containing some kinds of magic I had never seen before, one type in particular that I decided to try my hoof at, the reason I am writing to you now is that it didn’t turn out quite how I was expecting.
The magic in question was that required for the creation and animation of a construct, in this case one made out of stone, I thought the idea was fascinating, so I gathered the necessary materials and so on. Everything was going according to plan until it became apparent that I had not created an automaton but a sentient being. In fact it is even more shocking than that, it appears that I have bound the soul of a dead pony into a stone body!
As I write this she is asleep in the basement, or at least that’s what she told me she was doing, I’m not sure if she can sleep, to be honest, further research is required. She appears to be amiable and in fact quite interesting.
She tells us she died just over a thousand years ago, during the time of Nightmare Moon, at first I thought she was going to use that time frame as a reference but then she implied that she had died at the same time as the first defeat of Nightmare Moon, I cannot be absolutely certain as to whether or not this is true. Maybe there’s a record somewhere, she states that she doesn’t want to talk about it, you can’t blame a pony for not wanting to talk about her own death, though.
At the moment, we only know three things about her:
-She died just over a thousand years ago.
-She’s a mare. (I know that’s obvious, but I just included it for completeness)
-Her name is Petra.
Your Faithful Student
Twilight Sparkle
*Actually it is one of the laziest names I have ever used and I should feel ashamed. Not to mention the fact that it took me over 3,000 words just to say the name of the main character.
