As evening settles upon Morgan Castle, the chamberlain’s staff light the hanging lanterns in the various halls and chambers to ward off the night. Pools of warm amber light flow from the tall leaded glass windows and spill over the pale stone and decorative white marble of the castle.
Morgan is an ancient structure and it harkens back to a different time; a time when the town of Trotsdale was a mere collection of farms along a fertile river basin… It is an immense yet beautiful collection of thick stone walls, vast halls, intricate stained glass, and mazes of dark twisty passages.
In the past it was obviously a fortress; a defensive position, and the taming of an Empire was commanded from its battlements… But in this day and age it is merely the home of the Empress of Roanoak and a haven for rare tomes, scrolls, and the oft-strange ponies who seek out such things… For the royal library at Roanoak is renowned for its collections – and its rumors.
Some say that locked inside the vaults deep below the castle lays a collection of powerful and dangerous artifacts – items gathered by the Empress on her travels or hidden away by her Librarians for reasons unknown...
And these “Librarians” are an enigmatic group to say the least… While the Empress has her matchless Imperial Guard with their polished armor and razor sharp lances to defend her from all threats physical - these Librarians are the defenders of her secrets. And this is a task they accept with an almost fanatical zeal.
In this regard it is the castle library that attracts most of the visitors, and they tend to find themselves spending many, many hours amidst the collection. The library itself is quite large; the lower area divided into several rooms, each with collections of bookshelves, and the open gallery above is likewise lined with row upon row of scroll-laden shelves.
Off to the right a large fireplace radiates a soft warmth to chase away the chill and damp – for both the reader and for the parchment. And all around the room are various maps of faraway places, globes, old paintings of famous ponies, and even older tapestries of historic events which all grant the dark wooden walls a historic feel.
The overall effect is one of deep serenity and calm… This is a peaceful place.
At the far end of the room from the large oaken doors lies the Empress’ reading room; a large circular alcove backed by an immense stained glass window that is set in wrought iron the height of both floors. Cushions of fine silk and velvet and plush carpets fill the area around a low central table, and the room itself is lined on both sides by curved bookcases full of old tomes.
It is within this room that a young Unicorn paces. He walks back and forth before the low table several times and occasionally glances towards the main door, nervously, before laying himself down on one of the velvet cushions in an attempt to look casual.
Once seated he quickly finds himself busily admiring a tapestry that depicts some bit of ancient history involving Ponies and Dragons… He is startled when another pony silently appears from out of nowhere; this new Unicorn, wearing the livery of the Roanoak Librarians, casually levitates a delicate silver tea set on a matching ornate serving tray. Without a word she pulls a dark purple cloth from a saddlebag and spreads it carefully over the table in a smooth motion, and then the tea service gently settles in the center of the cloth. Her task complete, she turns smartly and departs just as silently through a nearby passage that the younger Unicorn swears was not there a moment ago.
And that is when he suddenly he hears the main doors open – and turns to look…
None other than the Empress of Roanoak herself steps though the door, and as she carefully folds her long blue-tipped wings against her sides an attendant stops her. She smiles to the stallion and lowers her head so that he can say something to her privately before motioning to the sitting room with a tilt of his head. She nods in reply and proceeds.
As she moves though the room the Unicorn is struck by her preternatural grace – she makes no sound as she moves, and each step she takes looks as if it were planned well in advance. She is possessed of a deep purple coat – almost black – and like velvet it does not reflect the lights of the room. Her mane and tail are jet black tipped with blue, and quite long and full – though her mane is currently tied up into a thick ponytail.
Entering the sitting room she gracefully lays herself down on the large pillow near the window and looks at her visitor in silence for several moments…
“I was told you wish to speak with me?”
He doesn’t immediately respond. He simply sits and stares, his eyes locked to her gaze. Her eyes are like infinitely deep pools ringed in the most vibrant emerald green he has ever seen, and he finds himself drawn into their depth…
She laughs lightly, horn flickering with violet energy as she turns her attention to the tea service, averting her gaze. “First time I am guessing?”
He suddenly blinks and shakes his head a bit as the tea service between them is bathed in the violet glow of her magic. “I… What?”
“Your first time interacting with a Royal… What is your name young one?”
He stammers a bit as he watches the tea set come to life; the tea pot pours into two porcelain cups as the honey dipper floats from the jar, and the creamery dispenses precisely while both cups are stirred. “My – my name? Uh, of course – your Majesty. My name is Graf, Graf Broadsheet.”
She smiles and dips her horn slightly in greeting. “Very good. Well met Graf.” A cup and saucer lands gently before him, the honeyed tea within still swirling…
The other cup floats casually before her muzzle, and she closes her eyes and breathes in the smells of the tea levitating before her, “I have never been able to discover the Librarian’s source for this particular mint…”
She turns her attention back to the Unicorn. “So, young master Graf, what brings you before me this evening?”
He swallows hard as his magic lifts a quill to parchment. “I – we – we don’t seem to have anything about you for the town paper, and as you are always here I – I thought I might interview you, Empress, for an article… If that’s okay… with you… of course…”
She chuckles, “Just call me Aurora, and relax dear – you are doing nothing wrong by desiring to speak with me.”
He nods nervously.
Aurora smiles and laughs lightly again. “Well, tell me what you already know, and we will proceed from there.”
“I – we don’t really have anything documented your Majes – Aurora.”
She nods and shuffles her wings a bit, getting comfortable, “Well, perhaps it will be easier if I explain a little about the Royals first, and then we will move on to me… What questions can I answer for you?”
“Is… Is that okay? I mean, telling me secrets of the Royals and all?”
She laughs, “My secrets guard themselves. And those that do not – well, the Librarians make sure they stay out of sight. Besides, if I am the one doing the telling and I divulge something I should not, then I shall simply have to send myself to my room without dinner.”
He snickers and visibly relaxes as her joking and the prospect of questions brings his journalism experience to the fore. He shuffles a stack of parchment containing questions… “Your Majes… Aurora. My granddam used to talk about how her granddam would tell stories about you… Are you – I mean the Royals – are you all really immortal, as they say?”
She takes a sip of the tea, savoring its complex flavors for a moment before continuing. “Yes, we are immortal. We can be injured, or even killed, just like anypony – but we do not age in any way you would recognize.”
He nods, pausing in his writing and looking up at her. “How… How old are you?”
She smiles, “That, my dear Graf, is a very difficult question for me to answer…”
Aurora pauses briefly and looks up at the ceiling, watching the play of the lights on the rough-hewn beams above before speaking. “Memory is such a fickle thing - more fleeting than a rainbow after a summer storm. It is there for a few brilliant moments,” she sighs, “and then gone - leaving only the feelings you had when you saw it…”
She closes her eyes, “To be precise, my earliest memories are generations in your past, of things that are now mere legends – but I cannot remember my foalhood. I have no impression of growing up, no memories that define me…”
She looks back to the Unicorn as her teacup settles on the table. “It is like that for us… Having lived so long our birth, creation – whatever it was is now just a vague impression of being.”
He just stares.
Aurora flows back to her hooves and smiles down at him, and then motions with her horn for him to follow her into the main Library room. “Come with me, some of the tapestries here might help explain things that words alone cannot.”
She walks slowly down one of the isles of shelves, looking at all the books and scrolls gathered there. “In general, we cannot remember back more than a few hundred years or so before things start to get fuzzy – which is why we keep personal libraries...” She nods towards a shelf, “These books and scrolls are full of things I can no longer remember clearly – all I have left are the thin impressions of happy and sad, fear and elation… So we, the Royals, tend gather the wispy threads of our past, chronicle our present, and place them in libraries like this in the hopes we can place meanings to the feelings in the future.”
He magic envelops a tome and lifts it gingerly from the shelf, and it opens itself before her, “There are … complications to this though. My perceptions of an event a thousand years ago might be completely different from, say, Celestia’s. Perceptions being what they are, what she may have seen one way, I may have seen completely differently… And then there is what everypony else thought, at least the ones who bothered to write it down…”
The book closes and settles back into the spot she picked it up from, “Being as none of us can actually remember the event clearly though, we are left with many variations on a theme. This is why we have so many legends and tales, even though we certainly must have been there for the event…”
She looks back over her tail at him and watches him write, allowing him a moment to catch up before continuing her stately stroll. “I have always assumed our limited memory is a defense against having millennia old doubts gnawing away at us for eternity… To wonder ‘what if?’ forever would be just about the worst existence imaginable I figure…” She nods with finality – “Some things are better forgotten.”
Graf whispers as he looks a the titles of various ancient tomes, “To live forever – I can’t even imagine…”
Aurora chuckles, “Immortality is not all it’s cracked up to be young one… It really is not all that fun and, kind of a dreadful bore really.”
“But, think of all that you could accomplish…”
She gracefully stops once again and looks back at him. “Yes, for a while one is elated to have cheated the ending of their story…” She closes her eyes for a moment and smiles, “Imagine for a moment all the things you could do if you could live forever…” Her eyes open and she pins him with her gaze, “Now, ask yourself, what happens after that? What happens when you carry on past the longest to-do list you can possibly think of?”
She lets him ponder that for a moment.
“If you are me, you go a little bit crazy…” She laughs with a wink, “But we shall get to that. For the most part though, ponies who long for immortality typically cannot figure out what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon – so I am not really sure what the draw is.”
Graf finishes writing and moves on to his next question, “I know you said you don’t remember your foalhood, but – all Alicorns are not necessarily Royals… Where do the Royals come from?”
She looks at the Unicorn askance, “Well… From cabbages of course, the same as any other pony…”
He blinks…
Aurora maintains a perfect poker face for a few moments before breaking out in giggles. “Not really. The Royals are simply Alicorns who have lands they govern.”
He looks as if she’s pulling his leg again…
She chuckles at his look, “It is true. But it is not as simple as standing on a bit of earth somewhere, planting a flag, and declaring it as yours; it is a very special relationship with the land…”
She pauses and looks at him curiously, “Have you travelled much Graf?”
Graf shakes his head, “I was born in Phillydelphia, but I’ve spent all of my time in the greater Canterlot area. That’s about it really.”
Aurora nods and motions for him to follow as she walks over to a large map on the wall.
She points with her horn to the lands of Roanoak, nestled on the coast some ways south of Equestria and bordered to the south and west by wild lands. “As you can see here, most of the world is what we refer to as the Wild Lands, and as you probably know they are not particularly safe to travel. Prior to my arrival, Roanoak was part of the Wild Lands… Its magics were very, very strong, but wild and untamed – and very dangerous. By all outward appearance, Roanoak was a vast desert of shifting magical currents that lit the skies at night with rippling curtains of magical energy.”
“But our world is alive, it is aware, and everything that is – is for a reason. We may not understand the reasons, but this does not change the fact that things happen because they are supposed to happen… And it is for reasons we don’t understand that, occasionally, an area of the Wild Lands will shift its song to attract just the right Alicorn. As happened when Roanoak found its voice and I was drawn to this place like a moth to a flame…”
She looks away from the map to Graf, who looks a bit confused and simply states, “Music?”
Aurora smiles, understanding his confusion. “That is the only term that comes close to fitting… The important part to grasp is that everything – every rock, tree, mountain, lake, animal, and even pony – has something like a personal magical melody. When Roanoak began to sing, it was a perfect harmony to my melody, and that drew me here. When I found it, we were complete, and I became as much a part of Roanoak’s song as it did mine…”
Graf nods, “What happened then?”
She pauses a moment, thinking, and then turns and walks slowly towards the fireplace… “To adequately explain our origins requires an understanding of the bond we share with the land. We, each of the Royals, have a similar story… It is typically the only memory we have of our origin and it is etched indelibly in our consciousness. The bonding, that meshing of music I referred to? It is not without consequence to the Alicorn…”
She stares into the flames; the firelight glints along the fluted spirals of her ebon horn and flickers in her eyes… She is looking at something Graf cannot see – the past perhaps – but he can see the impact, the emotions...
After a few moments she continues quietly. “The power of the world is… vast… It is like the biggest ocean one can imagine, and yet bigger and more powerful than that a hundred times over – and it has a color… It is what blue was made from, pure. A color that has never been seen, never polluted by understanding…”
A tear rolls down her furred cheek from her wide eyes… “My frail form is insignificant, all but invisible, a simple leaf drawn into the depths of a limitless ocean and there is no way to even form the thought of resisting its pull. I am consumed by it, absorbed, completely... I cease to be…”
She shudders before continuing, “There is nothing but the blue that is more than blue and floating. Endless floating. And peace… Moments – millennia, I know not which pass and we surface from that place of floating. We are reborn, sired from the world and the magic; we awaken as we are now upon the cool green grass of our promised land… We are still the pony we were, we are still the magic that is, but we are also a foal who is seeing the world for the first time…” She closes her eyes and her voice is oddly distant, “I know who I am. But I am not who I remember I was…”
She lifts her head again and shakes it slightly before looking down to the Unicorn. “I have no real frame of reference for how long ago that was. I do know that on that day I received this.” She motions to her cutie mark. “I cannot say for sure, but I get the impression that this is not exactly the same as the mark I bore before… then…”
She turns away from the fireplace to face Graf. “Since that day, Roanoak has been my sire, and the magic of the world my dam – and I am their daughter… If one likens the magic and the land to the king and queen, then I would be a princess...” She nods as Graf makes the connection. “Yes, that is why we bear the Princess title generally.”
Aurora nods towards another map with her horn, motioning for him to follow. “Ultimately, it is this union that allows us to act as the conduit for the inherent magic of the land we are a part of, the Old Magic, and we channel that magic in directions that appeal to our temperament. It is our will that gives order to the Old Magic, allowing us to bring order to the world.”
She stops at a map of another continent, one on the other side of Eternity’s Crossing; the Eastern Sea. “But, I cannot stay within my lands forever; events of state bring me to all corners of the world, and once outside the lands of Roanoak I truly require those guards you see around the castle… For when I depart Roanoak, I no longer have access to the magic of my lands and must rely on my own power and skill… We refer to this as the Rule of Sovereignty: none of the Royals can bring real power to bear outside of the lands that grant us that power in the first place.”
Graf nods as he scribbles, then pauses a moment to look around the room before looking back up to Aurora, “So, about your talents… If I may be so bold… How powerful are the Royals? Can Celestia really raise the sun?”
Aurora laughs, “Well, that goes straight to the heart of some of our secrets, and I cannot tell you everything. But the marks we bear are not merely decorative – we not only rule, but we serve as very important parts of the Order of things… My mark, for example, signified my power over the Rifts…”
He murmurs, “Wise, powerful, immortal…”
She nods, “It is heady stuff, but for all of our immortality and strange powers we are still just like you in one very important way; we have the same emotions that drive desires for kinship - for someone to commiserate with, laugh with … perhaps even love. This, and a singular desire to make the world a better place for our people, are what keep our moral compasses set true though the millennia.” She sighs and looks over her shoulder into the flames of the fireplace again for a few moments, “And makes us just as fallible as any other pony.”
He looks confused, “Fallible?”
Nodding again she walks across the room to a set of three tapestries and looks up at them. She motions to the left most of the triptych, which depicts a dark colored Alicorn mare seated on a regal throne. Standing before the mare are several petitioners as some affair of state takes place. “Imagine if you will that you are one of the Royals… You are ageless, almost inconceivably powerful, and yet still possessed of the most pony of emotions: Love, fear, elation, and yes, even anger. You know that your 'heart' will allow you to make errors of judgment, just as the mortal ponies do - but yours come with consequences immeasurably more dire for a mistake…”
Her gaze drifts to the next tapestry; the dark colored Alicorn mare stands in front of the throne majestically - wings spread and horn high as she calls forth magical power. Runic rings of spellfire light the floor around several ponies before her as the banishment spell takes hold… “Imagine that you must stand as the final answer in all things for your people, always. That your reason for existence is to ensure the continued prosperity of your people, at any cost.”
She looks down and sighs quietly… “Even if that cost requires you to perform acts many will see as evil, for a greater good that only you have the lifespan to comprehend…”
Aurora shifts her gaze back up to the tapestry, “Imagine that you understand, with perfect clarity, that every decision you will ever make will have an impact upon lives generations distant; repercussions that will go on beyond anyone who would ever remember the decision, good or bad - save you…”
She motions with her horn to the final image of the triptych. A war rages between two groups of ponies. A war brought about by the banishment. Above the battlefield, superimposed in the clouds the head and spread wings of the dark Alicorn mare can be seen – she looks down upon the conflict, saddened, and a lone tear traces down her cheek…
“Imagine having seen conflicts of such scale that they would bleed the colors from a mortal pony… Conflicts that your decisions had wrought…”
She turns her head to the side and whispers, “Imagine you are admired as a symbol of all that is good, but you are forever stained with blood that only you can see...”
She looks back at Graf and pins his eyes with her own for a moment...
“This is what fallible means to us. A simple error of the heart – a lapse of judgment – and it can kill thousands…”
Graf swallows, hard, as the weight of the concepts settle upon him. “I… How do you – manage? The responsibility…”
She nods, “In short? The love of our people and the knowledge that in spite of it all, it is what we have to do… We are created for this. We are a balance between mortal pony wants, needs, and desires, and the world that looks after them. And we need our ‘heart’ to maintain that connection, despite the pains…”
Aurora turns from the tapestries and moves back towards the shelves of tomes and scrolls. “And, we always have our appointed advisors, students, and friends who helps us make the right choices. It may ultimately be our decision, but there are many who help us make it.”
The scratching of Graf’s quill finally stops behind her and he asks, “You mention your guards, your court, and the members of the royal family, yet you sound very lonely… Do the Royals have relationships?”
She stops and looks back at him, “Lasting relationships amongst our own kind are exceedingly rare. We do not typically get along well with each other… Imagine an argument lasting generations, or holding a grudge for a thousand years… And even if we do get along for a time, we cannot have foals or our own.”
She takes a few paces, levitates a book to view, puts it back, and levitates another… “But our heart can lead us to do many things, including fall in love with mortal ponies… But the inevitable is that we will watch our loved one wither and pass on while we haven’t aged a day...” She sighs, “But, like everything else, eventually our memories fade and the love we once had becomes another entry in a book of stories… A curious footnote attached to a thin feeling of loss.”
Graf looks up from his writing, “It sounds as though there was a Mister Aurora?”
She nods her head, “It was a very, very long time ago… His name was Pritchel Smith. I literally ran into him in Manehattan… Back when Manehattan was a quaint little town on the coast and Morgan Castle was little more than a riverbank…”
She walks over to another shelf and looks over the scrolls, “This might be as good a time as any to get back to what brought you here tonight; my tale. But, the best way to tell a story of someone is though the eyes of another, and I have just the spell for that…”
“Pritchel wrote down a lot of his memories for me… Ahh, here they are.”
She holds the scroll in her magic and begins to read… Graf can feel the tingle of magic brush though his mane and prickle along his coat. The library around him seems to grow somehow distant and dim, the space feeling larger and the faint sounds of a busy town reaches his ears...
I was very young when I met Aurora – I had just gotten my first break in town, apprenticing to the blacksmith who was there at the time. It was my first time away from home, and I was alone in the most crowded place I’d ever seen…
He looks around and sees a brilliant violet glow flowing from Aurora, across the floor, the walls, and along the beams supporting the ceiling. The magic shimmers and sparkles as a scene from a Manehattan, hundreds of years in the past, materializes around him.
“Hey you! Get out of the street! Ponies workin’ here!”
Graf sees a very coltish blue and white earth pony leap out of the way of the speeding carriage, only to trip over his own hooves and end up tail over teakettle in the shrubbery next to a fruit stand. He lies there, upside down, as two fillies walk past giggling and mutters to himself; “Not exactly a grand entrance…”
Aurora’s voice continues over the scene, cementing it into being for Graf, who is now but a hapless passenger in her magic and Pritchel’s tale. “My grandsire had arranged my apprenticeship with “Old Blue” as a favor, but that was about it – I had no idea where I needed to be or who to speak to, so I headed off looking for an obvious forge.”
He had been wandering the back alleys of town for a couple hours when the unmistakable sounds of a fracas begins a few blocks over. There is a lot of yelling and shouting, and it sounds like it is headed his way – fast…
He stops to look around, to make sure he’s out of harm’s way, when the loveliest mare he’s ever seen, while he was awake at any rate, broadsides him… She is as black as the bottom of a well and very tall, lithe, and graceful - with long legs and the thickest, shiniest black mane and tail he’s ever seen...
She quickly looks around; up at the rooftops, at the various alleys adjoining the one they are in, and at random doors and landings – her amazing emerald green eyes flash and sparkle as she looks everywhere and at everything. Her gaze eventually settles on the colt in front of her and she pulls back a bit, one forehoof off the ground, and raises one elegant eyebrow – her expression is one of ‘Who put this sack of potatoes here?’
“Uhhh - howdy miss,” he mutters, voice cracking and making him blush a bit.
She narrows her eyes and surveys him; her strange green eyes glimmer as she looks through him, which unnerves him even more. She suddenly nods, “You look like the strong silent type – which is exactly what I need, right now…”
All he can think is that she has the most wonderful dusky alto voice...
She points with a delicate forehoof at him, and then to a spot slightly downhill from a nearby wooden loading dock, “I need you to stand right … there and face that direction… And do not move!”
Her presence and commanding nature has him moving in an instant… He’s not sure why, but he trusts this strange mare – there is something about her…
Once he’s in position she turns-tail and takes one step – then stops and looks back at him over her shoulder, “Oh, and here, hold this for me…” Her ebon horn glows faintly as she lifts a jeweled necklace from one of her packs and loops it over his nose.
“Remember; do not move – at all…” She leaps into the shadows, and as he starts to turn his head – from across the alley she hisses, “Do not move!”
He snaps his head back straight ahead - the necklace swaying a bit as it hangs from his muzzle. At that moment three uniformed guards enter the alley from directly in front of him.
“You! Don’t move!”
He rolls his eyes and thinks to himself that he’s not exactly sure what the deal is in this town, but apparently it is best if you just don’t move...
The guard ponies walk towards him, slowly. “Where’d you get that boy?” one asks, nodding to the necklace. Another just chuckles reaching around for his nightstick, “I hope he tries to run…”
The guards are a mere two strides from him when the black mare materializes from out of the shadows across the alley, “Well, hello there boys.”
The guards all jump and wheel to face her, surprise plain on their muzzles. She winks at them and ever so casually taps the rain gutter next to her with a back hoof, this makes it reverberate with a loud ‘bang’.
Above, a startled raven takes fight, cawing madly.
The group of guards look up in unison and watch the raven drop its breakfast of some partial pastry on the roof to the right. On that roof, a rat who has been watching the commotion runs out and grabs the morsel – just as a big orange alley cat jumps up on the roof and scares the rat out onto a nearby clothesline…
As one, the guard’s heads turn as they watch the rat scamper along the clothesline overhead. It gets about half way across the space between the buildings when the pin that holds the clothesline suddenly lets go, causing the rat, the pastry, and a few items of clothing to swing wildly across the alley.
The guard’s collective gazes continue tracing the path of the clothesline as it gains speed, and together they wince a bit as the line hits the side of the building to the left. Luckily, the rat is perfectly aligned with an open window and upon impact sails through the opening and into the building.
In unison they turn back to the black mare and smirk. The mare, during all of the commotion, has simply been watching the clouds up in the brilliant blue sky...
They take one step towards her when she suddenly turns her emerald gaze on them and merely states, “Wait for it…”
Instantly a piercing screech rings out from the building on the left – the guard’s heads all snap back in that direction as somepony is heard trampling down the stairs inside. With a thunderous ‘bang’ a yellow and orange mare runs out through the back door situated between the guards and the dumbfounded blue and white colt.
The becurlered mare pauses a moment, splay-legged in the middle of the alley, then takes a deep breath – and continues to shriek as she gallops up the alley behind the colt. Her curlers fly in all directions and bounce around the cobbles while the rat clings on to her mane for dear life.
As the terrified mare gallops past the tavern two buildings up the alley the rat makes a leap of faith from her mane – and lands on the handle of the wedge that is holding several kegs of cider at the top of the loading ramp. As the handle slowly sinks, the rat appears to ponder why it bothered to get up this morning…
With an all to loud clatter the wedge slips out from under the barrels... There is a loud creak, and then a groan, and then suddenly three barrels of cider roll down the loading ramp and gain amazing speed as they cross the loading dock.
The black mare watches the scene with a smile, and with a nod begins casually strolling across the alley back to where her unwitting accomplice is standing.
Back up the alley a ways, behind the colt, the barrels hit the stop at the end of the dock with a boom and are launched upwards by the impact. They fly gracefully through the air in slow motion arc that precisely intersects the noonday sun, creating three barrel-shaped shadows right where the guards are standing…
The guard ponies, all staring upward with gaping looks of confusion on their faces, turn tail and run back the way they came as if the very hounds of Tartarus are on their heels. Half a second later the barrels impact where they were standing, exploding open and sending a hundred gallons of cider and barrel rings chasing after them down the narrow alleyway.
A moment passes as the black mare walks up to the supremely confused colt, then back the way the guard ponies ran many voices suddenly shout, followed by a thunder of hooves...
The black mare walks in front of him and laughs, breaking the shock that had rooted the colt to the spot. He blinks a few times as she casually loops the necklace on her horn and removes it from his muzzle. She winks with a sly grin and whispers “Now, we run…”
She leads him through the back alleys of the town at a breakneck pace; her dainty proportions and long legs allowing her to simply bound and leap deer-like over carts, ponies, and around tight corners. The colt on the other hoof, being an Earth pony, opts for a more direct approach of simply barreling though things in his path.
Twice she saves his hide by suddenly appearing out of nowhere and leading his captors away, only to return in moments and release him with a quick spell. Once he returns the favor by running up behind two Unicorn guards waiting to ambush her, and shouldering them into a brightly colored pavilion that collapses upon them. This leads to much flailing and shouting, but the Unicorns seem no worse for the wear as the black mare and the colt gallop away.
Eventually they make good their escape through the wall around the town and down the packed earth road… And once out of sight of the town, and their pursuers, they slow to an easy trot. She laughs, “Not bad! Not bad at all! I typically do this sort of job solo, but you seem to have your uses.”
He smiles, panting, “What… what did we just do?”
She grins, “You, my dear, just assisted in the heist of the jewel shipment between Manehattan and Canterlot. Congratulations! You are now a wanted felon! Sought by none other than the crown of Equestria!”
“A WHAT!”
He stops dead on the road and watches her prance around him, tail flagged and laughing lightly, “Liberating is it not?”
“I… No! It’s not liberating – if anything it’s imprisoning… Father is so going to kill me, if the Canterlot guards don’t do it first…”
She bounds to a stop in front of him and smiles, “You worry too much.”
“No you lunatic mare, I worry just enough… Oh, how am I going to get out of this?”
She laughs again and holds out a forehoof in greeting, “Well, seeing as we are going to be together for a while – my name is Aurora.”
“No we’re not going to be together for a while, I’m heading right… back to…”
Landing lightly all around them are Pegasus ponies in the livery of the Equestrian Royal Guard… And he’s fairly certain they aren’t going to see the humor in all this.
-=-
A few days have passed while he has been a ‘guest’ of the Equestrian Royal Guard… An official pony of some sort has just left his cell after asking all manner of questions.
He shouts to the official, “I’m telling you, that mare is crazy!” Then sighs and lays back down on the bench at the back of the cell. “Well, I always did want to see Canterlot…”
“That is the spirit!”
He looks around for the sudden voice, and then sees her walking towards his cell. “Oh no… no no no no…”
“Relax!”
“Wait… Why are you out there?”
She stops suddenly and looks around as if noticing for the first time she’s not in a cell… “Well now... This is a bit odd is it not?”
He nods, “Yes. Yes it is – and whatever you’re up to I don’t want any part of it. The pony I just spoke to says there is no evidence against me and that I was just an unwitting pawn in your crazy plan. And he thinks they’ll let me go.”
“Go?” She tilts her head a bit in confusion “Go where?”
“Home, Phillydelphia… I don’t care. Just back to some kind of normal-“
“Boring… Everyday… Existence...” She punctuates each word with a toss of her head as she walks up to the door on the cell.
“Look pony… Wait, what is your name anyways?” she asks.
“Pritchel… Pritchel Smith”
She nods, “Look Pritchel – I have been way down that road you are on, In fact, I think I have laid a few of the pavers in that road, and I can tell you one thing – that road will get you to the end of your days in as safe, sane, and expeditious a way as you can possibly desire.”
“But by all the powers above is it ever boring.”
She paces slowly in front of the bars, emphasizing her points as she talks, “You get up, you do your thing, you eat, and you go to bed…” She stops and motions with a forehoof to the left “rinse” then to the right “repeat”.
“That is not living – trust me on this.”
He finds himself agreeing, then stops and shakes his head. “And spending my life behind bars is?”
She laughs, “Think of it more as ‘temporary lodging’ – I got us caught because I have not been to Canterlot in, well, a really long time.”
“Wait… You? This – was intentional?”
She nods, “Indeed! See, I am not one for walking long distances, so it was easier to get the Royal Guard to deliver us.”
As if on queue, a guard comes around the corner of the cellblock some distance away and stands there a moment, looking the other way.
“Look, Pritchel,” she whispers, “I have – umm, I have not been completely honest with you…”
“Oh, really?”
She smirks and shhh’s at him, “No, really. I am not exactly who I appear to be…”
“A thief?”
“No! Well, yes – right now… Arrrg!” She shakes her head in frustration then looks up with her trademark grin that he’s come to associate with getting into some sort of trouble, “This is why I think I shall keep you…”
The guard turns to look their way, and eyes at the black mare for a moment before turning to go – pauses, then whirls and shouts “Intruder!”
She nods, “I am far more complicated than you can probably imagine, but this is not the time. I am going to ask you a simple question – will you come with me? I can show you a road the likes your great great grandponies will talk about with awe…” and she sticks her foreleg through the bars to him.
Pritchel looks at her proffered hoof, “I – I don’t know. Part of me wants to sit right here and go back to what I know, but the other part…”
The guard charges towards the black mare, his spear at the ready.
She turns her head and grins at the charging guard, but through clenched teeth she hisses, “Pritchel! This is a limited time offer…”
“But…”
She winks at him, and he knows he really has no choice but to follow this mad mare – and he takes her hoof in his…
…and finds himself standing in a secluded area, near the grand plaza of Canterlot, with Aurora standing there grinning.
“Welcome to a whole new world Pritchel!”
-=-
The scene begins to dissipate as Aurora’s magic fades, leaving her juxtaposed over her phantom self as the library returns to the world of the physical.
Graf stands there slack jawed again, and blinking a bit.
Aurora looks down at him and chuckles as the scroll rolls itself back up carefully, “And that was how I met Pritchel…”
She returns the scroll to the shelf and moves back towards the sitting room, motioning for Graf to follow. “We had many adventures over his years, and I like to think I fulfilled that promise…”
They reach the sitting room and Aurora dips her horn, “Well my dear Graf, it has been my pleasure recounting a bit of my past for you – but it is late, and I must return to my chambers. If you desire to hear more of the histories I have saved here,” she looks over her shoulder at the shelves, “Simply ask, and if I am free I will happily show them to you, as I will for anyone curious.”
Graf nods and turns to his stack of parchment. Then looks up quickly, “One last question, if I may.” She nods, “What did Celestia think of your little adventure?”
Aurora laughs lightly, “It was certainly not the fist time I had done something brash with regards to her. Fortunately, she has quite the sense of humor and has made certain to have some measure of fun at my expense as well… But those are a tales for another time…”
He nods and smiles, “Thank you Empress… I mean, Aurora.”
She nods graciously and with a flash of her horn, vanishes from the Library, leaving the Unicorn to gather his notes for the paper – and ponder all that he has heard.”
