The Next Level Of Your Studies

by cleversuggestion

Rating: everyone
Tags: Main 6, Princess Luna, Original Character, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Adventure, Twilight Sparkle, Princess Celestia
Length: 23555

Twilight Sparkle gets a letter from Celestia that sets her on a quest for knowledge which will transform her more deeply and completely than she ever imagined was possible.

Twilight Sparkle learned how to be a unicorn at Celestia's knee, and few know more about her than magic. She learned how to be a pony from her five PFFs, and they count her as one of their most treasured friends. Now, Celestia wants her to learn the science of living deliberately, which will take all of the skills and resources she's accumulated so far.

A note on tags: FIMFiction considers 'Adventure' and 'Slice of Life' to be opposed tags, but I wish I could have both. A mighty river is fed by many streams. (Maybe I should just alternate each week.)

Published 2013-02-09 06:00:01 UTC
Last updated 2014-05-03 05:21:50 UTC

1.The First Question

1215 CE, shortly after Twilight moved to Ponyville

Even though she could see the gleaming spires of Canterlot from her new home in Ponyville, even though she had made more friends here in one day than she had in two decades there, and even though Spike had joined her on this adventure, Twilight still felt a twinge of homesickness. No more practicing magic in Celestia’s garden, no more reading textbooks at the Griffon and Foal, no more study sessions at Pony Joe’s. Spike seemed pleased with the new bakery, but cupcakes weren’t quite the same as donuts, and it seemed tremendously unwise to introduce Pinkie Pie to coffee.

She ran a hoof along a shelf of books, inhaling deeply. The feel of leather on her hoof, its smell mixing with paper, glue, and wood, reminded her of her earliest memories and called up deep parts of her that she thought of as home. She silently thanked the Princess for her attention to detail. Celestia must have known this would be Twilight's first extended stay away from her family, and known that living in a library would make the transition less abrupt.

A knock on the door interrupted her musing, and she hurried over to open it, inviting Rarity inside. She quickly pulled off her hat and opened up her saddlebags, revealing many carefully organized swatches of colorful fabric. "Twilight, darling," Rarity began, "We simply must do something about this library."

"Why?" Twilight had asked, glancing around. She had just reshelved, and while she had noticed on her first visit to the Boutique that Rarity sorted her shelf of patterns, catalogs, and romance novels by color and height, Twilight much preferred sorting books by their subject, author, and title.

"Because it doesn't look homey enough!" Rarity declared, gesturing with a carefully groomed hoof. Twilight's experienced eye noticed Rarity’s dust repellant enchantment, and made a mental note to ask her how to cast it. Swapping spells had been one of the few pastimes she had shared with unicorns in Canterlot. "It's just books everywhere!"

Twilight laughed, then described her childhood home to Rarity. Twilight had lived with her parents and brother in a three-story brownstone in a respectable neighborhood in Canterlot, near the university where her mother was a professor of astronomy. On the roof were a handful of telescopes where her mother would show them planets, stars, meteors, and comets. Outside the windows were flower boxes, blooming year-round with an ever-changing variety of blossoms.

But inside the house? From bottom to top the building was crammed full of books. In the cellar, there were as many books on wine as bottles. In the kitchen, there were more shelves devoted to cookbooks than to cooking supplies. In the dining room, each of them had a shelf within easy reach, so they could swap out any books they finished midmeal. ("Midmeal?" Rarity had mouthed, astonished.) The sitting room on the second floor had a few comfortable couches hidden in a maze of bookshelves, and stacks of overflowing books occupied any spare space on the floor.

Any other colt would have had put his posters of the Royal Guard on the wall, but Shining Armor’s bookshelves had forced them to the ceiling and door. (They had briefly experimented with putting shelves on the doors, but that had ended poorly.) One wall was devoted to military history, from the exploits of Bucephalus the Great to Commander Hurricane, another wall was devoted to Equestrian history and law, another devoted to abjuration and magical protection, and the fourth wall was devoted to adventure stories, a complete collection of the Daring Do books occupying a place of pride at eye level.

The house, in fact, had four such collections- Night Light and Twilight Velvet had decided to buy each pony their own copy to forestall arguments over who would get to read it first on release day.

Twilight's personal library had overflowed her room and extended into the hallway. Magical theory and spellbooks took up half the wallspace, as well as a few stacks in the room, but the rest of the room was varied. Economics books rested next to history books, psychology next to biology, philosophy next to fiction, art next to poetry. Her narrow bed was almost a cot, with even more books stored underneath it. Her large oaken desk was the focus of the room, and its top was the only part guaranteed to be clear of clutter; everything else was ordered but not quite tidy.

Rarity grudgingly admitted that the library had a certain charm, and so they compromised on replacing the curtains. As Rarity measured and hummed to herself, Twilight looked at one of the books she had brought with her from home (an old favorite: Theoretical Research in Neuroponynomic Decision-Making) and drifted back.

Books were the first sensations she could remember, but her first memories of events were of the game that she would play with her parents. Every night, the four of them would nestle onto the couches in the sitting room and they would ask her and her brother, "What did you see?" or "What did you notice?" and she would happily chat on, telling them about her day, her experiences, and her thoughts.

They would listen carefully and ask questions. When she said she saw a tree in the park, they would ask what kind of tree it was, or why it was where it was, or what it was doing.

Oftentimes, she would discover she knew answers she did not expect to know, as a line of questions would lead her attention to something she could figure out. Sometimes, the questions stumped her, and those were the ones she grew to love best. What was the tree doing? At first, she thought "nothing," but knew that could not be the answer, and so she said "I'll find out." The next day, she went to the park again, looking carefully at the tree. She noted the shape of its leaves, how its branches spread over the path, how its roots ran down to the stream. She observed that ponies would sometimes stop under the branches, hiding from the sun while enjoying the breeze of the park and sound of the stream. That night, nestled next to her father on the couches hidden by a maze of books, they started the game again. "What did you notice?"

She mentioned the tree, its leaves, all of the things she noticed about it. Then came another question: "Why could that be?"

"The tree could be there to shade the path."

Her father nodded. "How would you know?" This was itself many questions, as she learned from the game over the years. It was "what would you see if this were true?" and "what would you see if this were false?" and "what could you observe to learn more?"

In this way, she learned about the planning of parks, about photosynthesis and transpiration, delighting in her curiosity and growing mastery every step of the way. What was the tree doing? Why? She learned to watch, remember, and ask herself, "What is the significance of what I am looking at? What questions will my father or mother or brother ask me? How will I answer them?"

And as she listened to her brother answer questions, and grew old enough to ask them herself, she noticed that they would ask different questions. Her father would ask about processes and purposes; her mother would ask about things and types; her brother ask about people and potentials. On many occasions, each would ask a different question that would stump her, and then, laying in her narrow bed, looking at the moon through her narrow window, closed flowers peeking above the sill, she would stump herself: "What questions am I not being asked?"

2. Celestia's Request

1217 CE, shortly after the Crystal Restoration

Warmth and pressure blossomed without warning in Spike's chest. He hurriedly set down the book he was carrying, opening his mouth before he burst. A gout of green flame erupted from his throat, and he swiftly snatched the heavy parchment scroll it contained in his claws. “Twilight! Letter!” he called through the library. (Twilight, for some silly reason, had vetoed calling it the libratree.)

“Is it from the princess?” Twilight asked excitedly, ears perked up and the scratching of her quill coming to a halt.

Spike broke the sunburst seal and saw a familiar salutation. “Yep! Want me to read it to you?” Twilight nodded and so he unfurled it fully and read, in his most impressive voice,

My dearest, most faithful student, Twilight,

I hope that you have rested after your adventure in the Crystal Empire, but knowing you I imagine that you're eager as ever to get back to work.

A lifetime is not long enough to learn and enjoy all friendship has to offer, so please still send me friendship reports whenever you or your friends learn something new. As I promised, it is time to begin the next level of your studies. First, some homework: focus your personal attention on rationality. I recommend you get started with epistemology and decision-making under uncertainty.

I know you will continue to impress me with the speed of your learning and depth of your understanding. Please have a report ready in a month and present it to me in Canterlot.

-Princess Celestia

Spike walked over to and set the letter on Twilight's desk, knowing she would want to read it again (and again). He saw Twilight's furrowed brow and sped to the kitchen, starting a pot of tea. He had gotten enough practice at reading Twilight that he could often tell requests were coming before Twilight thought to make them. Whenever Twilight wanted to digest something big, she would sit at her desk, either slowly sipping tea and staring at nothing in particular as she thought or scribbling hurriedly as she made list after list. The Princess's letter had been full of praise--he puffed up a little thinking about how proud everyone was of the pony that he thought of as his big sister--but the new request for Twilight was something he knew she would take a little too seriously. Maybe more than a little.

As the kettle boiled and Spike thought about it some more, the request worried him a little. When the Princess had told Twilight in an offhand way to make some friends in Ponyville, Twilight rediscovered the Elements of Harmony and saved Equestria from eternal night. When the Princess asked Twilight to write reports on friendship, those letters were what Twilight needed to climb out of the despondent depths Discord inflicted on her and restore Harmony. Clearly, Celestia was a good judge of the wisdom of doing something. Here was another special request for Twilight, and Spike feared it would be necessary sooner rather than later.

Twilight had read the letter twice after listening to it before she started deconstructing it. The Princess was... well, the Princess. Twilight had never met a wiser pony, and studied everything she could about her carefully. Being praised by the Princess was one of the best emotions she had ever felt, and she was almost euphoric from the amount of praise in this letter. She already knew the place of honor it would get in her collection of letters: a understated gilt frame placed high enough that she could see it over the foot of her bed, directly above the letter she had received after scoring perfect marks on Twist Hobble's final exam. The last sentence filled her with a familiar fire: she would learn everything there is to know about rationality and impress the Princess. The Princess would be so impressed, she would make Twilight her personal advisor at the castle in Canterlot, and Twilight would get to spend all day talking with the Princess or reading through the Canterlot library.

The rattle of a teacup on a saucer brought her back to reality. Spike had brewed her some tea as quickly as lightning; or, perhaps, her fantasy had gone on a bit longer than intended.

“Why, I was just about to ask you for some tea! Thanks so much, Spike!” She smiled broadly and levitated the cup to her lips as Spike preened. She stifled a giggle by drinking instead. Spike worked so hard to be her number one assistant, and she felt positively blessed to have him as a friend. And, right after she thought it, she decided she ought to say it. As she carefully placed the cup back, she said to Spike, “You really are the most thoughtful assistant a pony could ask for. Thanks.” He blushed, and left to do other chores with an “aw shucks.”

Twilight took another sip of tea, warmed in her belly and in her heart. After the book on sleepovers led to the smashing success that was her first sleepover, she decided she would see if she could find a book on friendship. (She wouldn't dream of plagiarizing the book for her friendship reports, but once she realized the importance of friendship she wanted to devour everything she could about it.) In less than two years, she had almost worn out her copy of “How to Win Friends and Influence Ponies” by Dale Carneighee by reading it again every month. He had stressed repeatedly the power of compliments, a lesson Twilight tried to work into her life whenever she could. It amazed her sometimes the power of happiness to create more happiness- truly, this was deep magic.

As she set down her cup, she summoned several rolls of parchment and a quill, ready to organize her thoughts as create a plan. Decision-making and uncertainty seemed like obvious topics, but epistemology not as much. She was pretty sure it was the philosophy of knowledge, but thought it was worth checking. She levitated a dictionary over, quickly confirmed her memory, and then went back to her checklist. She wrote at the top, then carefully underlined,

Epistemology and Decision-Making Under Uncertainty

-Books on philosophy. (Check library index, publisher's catalog. Might not have everything here in Ponyville; interlibrary loan should help.) Check tables of contents and indices for mentions of epistemology.

-Books on decision-making. (Same as previous.)

-Books on uncertainty. (Same as previous. Additional keywords: probability, chance. Ignorance?)

-Friends. How do my friends learn things? How do they make decisions? How do they cope with uncertainty?

When she couldn't think of anything else after a minute, she moved to the second roll of parchment, listing all of the books she had remembered reading that mentioned epistemology. The third listed books she remembered on decision-making, and the fourth roll listed all the books she had remembered reading on probability, statistics, and related math. The fifth roll listed her friends and some initial hypotheses. She noted with pleasure that she had come up with a category that wasn't books on her first try- she wouldn't have thought of that two years ago. Now, she knew her friends have a wealth of experience that she could draw on.

3. A Hidden Meeting

One Day AR

Deep Field shifted uncomfortably. His indigo robe had grown tighter over the years, now feeling like a second skin over his dark grey coat rather than the loose garment he had once hidden inside. Their cowled and masked robes were supposedly for anonymity, as if a sufficiently clever unicorn couldn't identify another one from their voice and the color of their magic. But at least the robes made the cold cellar somewhat more comfortable.

Soft hoofsteps, then the scrape of metal on metal announced the arrival of another. Deep Field listened carefully, hearing the chirp of the key's enchantment and the lock's enchantment recognizing each other. One of the doors to the cellar slowly clanked open.

Another cloaked and masked unicorn entered, silently nodding to Deep Field. From the height, it was probably Amaranthine, but could be Obsidian Sky. They stood together in the depths, listening in the silence for the hoofsteps of the others, Deep Field shifting uneasily. This meeting was unlike any of their previous meetings, and he had no idea how it would go.

They arrived, one by one, coming through different paths to different doors, sliding different keys into different locks. But they wore the same indigo robes, cloaks, and masks, hiding as many details about their identities as they could.

For good reason, Deep Field reflected. If their treason were discovered, they would be lucky if they were imprisoned for life; probably in a cell much like this cellar. But much more likely and poetic would be a one-way trip to the moon.

The fifth pony stepped into the cellar. They watched him lock the door behind him, deftly maneuvering his key with his pale yellow magic. Perry Pierce, Deep Field thought, anxiety surging as he waited for the last arrival to take his position. Every invitation Deep Field had received in his youth, or sent out once he became the Horn's Tip, had expressed the date in BR: before return. It has been one of their little quirks; a calendar that counted down, their excitement palpably increasing as the date approached the time of prophecy. Deep Field had not even been sure that he would survive to see the day, and now part of him wished he hadn't. The invitation for this meeting had to be sent in the usual way, and Deep Field had almost written "BR" instead of "AR" out of force of habit.

He steeled himself, then held up his right forehoof, the others mimicking his actions.

“The moon also rises,” they said together, their soft voices blending into one in the quiet gloom. They lowered their hooves back to the floor, setting them down carefully to minimize the sound.

“The stars were right,” a deep voice began. Deep Field was certain that was Obsidian Sky, one of the younger members of cabal at only forty. He was the newest member, and so spoke first. “The sun failed to rise, and it looked like Her plan was in place. We all had our parts to play, and by the dark of the new Moon, I did mine.”

He paused, but none of the others spoke, their eyes glinting through the slits in their masks.

“What happened?” he asked plaintively. “Why did we lose?”

Again, silence descended.

“My source in the palace,” began the mellifluous voice Deep Field knew was Perry Pierce's, “claims that Celestia fled as soon as Night Mare Moon landed in the Old Palace. I haven't been able to find out where she hid- no doubt she'll claim that she rushed to the Old Palace to fight Night Mare Moon.”

“Reports from Ponyville are scattered,” Amaranthine said. “It is certain that Night Mare Moon appeared in front of of the town, and then Celestia's pupil, Twilight Sparkle, followed her into the Everfree Forest. Beyond that is unclear.”

The fourth speaker was the only one of them that had successfully kept her identity secret from Deep Field, disguising her voice with a spell and deigning to use her mouth instead of her magic to manipulate objects. Deep Field had been in the cabal with her for twenty years, and yet his only clue to her identity was that she was a mare.

“It seems we will be learning the truth from the papers with the uninitiated.” Today, her modified voice sounded metallic, harsh. “Not only did we lose, we don't even know why.”

They all shifted, then, their unease feeding off each other. Deep Field knew that, as the most senior member, he would have to speak last. He had hoped he could say something resolute, something to turn this loss into a victory. But searching within himself, he could not find resolution; only a sad, lonely voice asking why he had ever expected this to work.

“Perhaps,” he said in his voice that crackled like old paper, “that is why we lost. We knew our parts of Night Mare Moon's plan, and we did them. But even with all our ears to the ground, we did not know Celestia's plan. We had the prison prepared to hold her once she was defeated- but then she fled instead of fought.”

The silence between their words now felt shocked, not just uneasy. He had to add something, he had to show them the way forward. But how could he when he hadn't found it yet?

“We will have to increase our infiltration of the palace, and determine a new way to overthrow Celestia.”

“Really?” the unknown mare burst out, breaking their protocol. “You're still trying? A goddess with a thousand year plan just failed to dethrone Celestia. Can't you read the writing on the wall?” It was so odd to hear such exasperated words in the clipped, neutral tone of her modified voice.

She looked at their masks, then, her expression hidden as much as theirs. She pulled her signalling gem out of a pocket in her cloak, setting it on the ground of the cellar. Deep Field felt sick- things were spiraling out of control and he had no idea what to do. It was clear she was walking out on them; that had never happened before.

They watched her retreat, unspeaking, and her hoofsteps echoed through the passages.

“We're stronger without her,” Obsidian Sky said scornfully. Deep Field bit back a scoff: it sounded like Obsidian Sky was saying that as much to reassure himself as to reassure the others. Even so, as their posture shifted, Deep Field noticed that it seemed to have helped.

“You know,” Perry Pierce said, “we all swore on our magic to never reveal the secrets of the Moon's Horn. She claimed to not use magic to hide her identity, but what if she had been a spy all this time, and is just leaving now because she thinks we're beaten?”

Again, Deep Field felt doubts rising through his mind. Would a unicorn really sacrifice her magic just to spy on them, and for decades? Did someone else cast the voice modulation spell on her, and monitor the signalling gem for her? He realized he could test that last bit by analyzing the magical residue of the gem, but he felt strangely uncompelled to put that belief to the test. The emotional possibility that she had been a spy froze the surface of his mind, trapping those doubts like air below ice.

“She was always too cautious, too passive,” Amaranthine began. “We could have used Night Mare Moon's return to cripple the Royal Guard and take the Palace- but instead we just secured resources to 'smooth the transition.' We are stronger without her.”

Deep Field nodded. “We won't let this setback stop us. We are Luna's Faithful, the Moon's Horn, and if we may not crown her then, by the stars, we shall avenge her. I will see all of you tomorrow,” he said, looking at the three remaining unicorns in turn. Each met his fierce gaze for an instant then nodded their agreement. They left the cellar, locking their doors behind themselves.

Deep Field remained in the cellar, staring at the gem that she had left behind.

4. A Star Rises

CE 1188

"My name," Night Light would say whenever he was feeling poetic, "comes from my habit for looking for light in the darkness." Most ponies would ask what they would expect if an idea were true, but he would ask what he would expect if that idea were false. Paired with his swift intellect, that approach rapidly gave him a reputation for sharpness, which he took a bit more pride in than he would care to admit.

Professors at the University of Canterlot soon grew to recognize the blue unicorn who would ask insightful questions which required awkward answers. The moment that entrenched his reputation, though, was when he presented a counterexample to a theorem after five minutes of thought, while still a sophomore.

The next day, he was approached by a light grey unicorn stallion with a dark red mane and the sort of body Night Light had only seen on overly fashionable mares who introduced himself as Velvet Rope, which was both his name and cutie mark. They walked and talked about math for hours, then went to a coffee shop and talked about science for more hours, and then headed to Griffon and Foal, a pub favored by students, to talk about politics for even more hours. When the lighter stallion finally had to stagger home to collapse of exhaustion, Night Light, still wired from their conversation, went walking through the gardens of Canterlot.

That was the less poetic reason for his name. He liked to go to bed when the sun rose and get up in the early afternoon, begrudgingly making an allowance for classes. (The professors would have complained more about his frequent absences if they weren't often a relief.) For some reason, he felt more alive at night, more focused; though perhaps it was just less distracted. There were less ponies around, and more time to think, and he vastly preferred the glittering night sky, with its thousands of stars (with many more, he knew, too small to see without a telescope), to the day with its single bright star, too bright to directly observe.

Perhaps there was a metaphor there, he mused to himself as he nodded to the guard patrolling the entrance of the river garden. He had walked this path--past willows and ferns--more times than he could count, and his hooves knew the way without his mind having to take the reins. Velvet--he already thought of him as a good enough friend to abbreviate his name--had suggested some rather interesting political ideas. He had been unable--or perhaps just reluctant--to elaborate on them, and so Night Light could not be sure which of the holes he saw were empty patches of sky and which hid stars he could not yet see.

Most interesting of Velvet's ideas was the carefully hinted intimation that Princess Celestia's rule might have downsides. As soon as Night Light saw Velvet's point, he was embarrassed that he hadn't thought of it himself. Veneration of Celestia went so deep that even he, so committed to rooting out falsehoods elsewhere, hadn't even thought to question it.

He passed underneath the boughs of an ancient willow. Planted over a millennium ago, its branches formed a canopy for the path that wove above, around, and even under some of the roots.

He walked out from under the tree and saw the stars again above him, concepts crystallizing around them like supercooled fluid around a bubble. It took a few minutes to get the rhymes and meter right, but after more pacing he said to the sky,

"We are ponies, like stars in the night;

We are clusters of sparkling light.

But her presence is Day.

Are we visible? Neigh!

For Celestia's simply too bright!"

The next day, he went to classes as usual, though he was preoccupied by thoughts of Velvet Rope and his ideas. Worse, he didn't know where to find his new friend. He had been so excited by their conversation that he had forgotten to ask for any details like that, and Velvet had not volunteered them.

He needn't have worried, though, as a smiling grey stallion met him outside of his last class for the day. “Light!” he exclaimed, “I have some friends I'd like you to meet,” and turned to trot off, swishing his tail playfully. Light smiled, and chased after him.

They swiftly arrived at a coffeeshop, where both coffee and company were waiting. Night Light was seated in a booth in the back, his standard order of quadruple shot espresso already at his place. Velvet introduced him to Ever Dependable, a tan unicorn stallion studying engineering and whose cutie mark was a rolled blueprint, Swift Canter, a yellow unicorn mare studying mathematics, whose cutie mark was a matrix of ones and zeros, the diagonal elements colored red, and Glancer, a pale green unicorn studying psychology, whose cutie mark was a scroll. He had seen the mathematician in the halls of the math building, and the psychologist walking around campus, but had never learned their names. They rapidly fell into easy conversation, darting from one topic to another.

The coffee flowed and the conversation sparkled well throughout the afternoon. Eventually, Velvet stood up and smiled sadly at the other ponies. "As much as I'd like to stay, I'm meeting someone for dinner and would rather not be late." Night Light glanced at the clock, surprised at just how late it was, noting that he hadn't had a chance to share his verse yet. In fact, Velvet had stayed mostly silent throughout the afternoon, listening and watching, and they had mostly talked about the other pony's specialties and Night Light's interests, never touching politics.

"Before you go," Night Light said, "I've got something I'd like to share with you." He delivered his limerick, the other ponies smiling and clapping their hooves together when he finished.

They all stood up, the others sharing a glance. "Quite a find, Velvet," Glancer said. "You could have put together an opposite committee and he still would have passed." Night Light's ears perked up, and he saw the other two nodding their heads in agreement.

Velvet, still smiling, looked a bit surprised. "No need for deliberation?" The others nodded, and then Velvet looked at Night Light. "Walk with me, Night, and I'll tell you what all that was about."

They stepped out into the street, Velvet Rope's horn glowing and the air around them starting to shimmer. Night Light immediately recognized it as a sound-cancellation spell, noting the sounds of Canterlot diminishing, their hoofsteps and breaths the only background for their conversations.

“Everyone at the table today was a member of a society of carefully selected ponies,” Velvet began. “We look for ponies that are clever and open; interesting to talk to and fun to be around. I do the primary screening, and then I put together a committee of ponies that I think can fairly judge that pony's talents. If pleased, we extend an invitation.”

Night Light looked at the ponies they passed on the street, their conversations inaudible inside Velvet's spell. “An invitation?”

“We meet regularly at a private location,” Velvet continued, “and talk about whatever we like.” He looked back, smiling. “I ensure you you'll find many conversations more interesting than our first one there.”

Night Light felt his excitement growing. Velvet was one of the best conversationalists he had ever met, and he was still deeply curious about his political musings. Discussing mathematics and science with the ponies at the cafe today had been electrifying, but little different from discussing it with his professors; he doubted that he could get that sort of concentrated social interaction about other topics anywhere else.“Should I say yes now, or do you need to sell it some more?” he asked jokingly.

“Well, a drawback of talking about whatever we like is that every member is sworn to secrecy on their magic.” Velvet looked back ahead, and Night Light considered that condition. That was the most serious oath a unicorn could give; breaking it meant one's magic would fade away, which almost always resulted in suicide. “To my knowledge, no unicorn has ever betrayed the society, so it's not that much of a drawback.”

“Well,” Night Light said, “that also means it must also be only unicorns there.”

Velvet paused, then deliberately said “Yes.” He looked back at Night Light. “Though, while I'm sure that excludes some quality company in the Manehattan branch, it doesn't constrict recruitment all that much here in Canterlot.” He gestured to the passing crowd, almost all unicorns.

Velvet stopped, dropping the spell, the sounds of the city rushing back to their awareness. “Well, this is my stop,” he said with a smile, levitating a small scroll to Night Light. “Here's your invitation. If you're interested, show up; if not, it was great to get to know you.” Night Light picked up the scroll with his magic, looking at it.

“Thanks!” he called out. Velvet nodded, then walked into the restaurant, greeting one of the stallions waiting there. Night Light began to slowly walk home, looking at the scroll again, noticing the crescent moon on its seal.

Author's Note

Many thanks to majus for the limerick.

5. New Moon

date +%s
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A bright multicolored flash and a roaring shriek flooded her mind. With a sudden soft pop, they disappeared, replaced by nothingness. She was overcome with the sense of being lost in a lightless, soundless cavern. She could feel the space and its immense emptiness, but she could not remember what had been there, could not see what was there now, only had the maddening sense that everything was missing, placed just outside of her reach. As she fumbled around, she heard voices echo throughout the cavern, prattling on about inconsequential things she could not understand.

She felt heat on her coat, then heard a new voice that stood apart from the rest. Groping about, she found her memory, but it threw a permissions error when she tried to query it. She could not place who the voice belonged to, but something about it said power. Power meant it was a threat, but she could not find her defenses. Where was her shield, what was its status, how did she raise it? She was operating blind, and her projections for the future were growing gloomier by the cycle.

Then the voice turned to her, its volume and focus shaking everything. “Princess Luna!”

That phrase she understood; it was the name of a personality file, last altered at 6784628249. But that terrible voice was not a reference; it was a command-

Her mouth opened and lungs expanded, air rushing to fill them. Her eyes shot open, pupils rapidly focusing on the bright white pony that towered over her, wings spread wide, long horn held high. Celestia, she thought, and then the princess spoke again, advancing all the while.

“It has been a thousand years since I have seen you like this.” Celestia knelt down on the dusty floor, radiating calm and effortless grace. Luna recognized their surroundings as the council chamber, though neither the names nor faces of any council members came to mind, which was as worrying as its decayed appearance. The smell of rot and dust, the once bright stone gone gray with exposure to the weather contrasted sharply with Celestia’s bright youthfulness and shining jewelry, looking just as Luna remembered her. “Time to put our differences behind us. We were meant to rule together, little sister.”

What differences? Her memory wasn’t cooperating with her, and she didn’t have time to figure out why. Whatever they were, they were somehow enough to ruin their castle and waste a thousand years, as confirmed by her internal clock. Why couldn’t she remember what had happened, what had brought them to this room? Even though Celestia had joined her on the floor and made conciliatory gestures, Luna’s tactical position was clear.

“Will you accept my friendship?” Celestia stood back up, and Luna flinched away. Surprisingly, no attack came, and so she contemplated the situation. Her magical reserves were spent and her body ached all over. She could not remember why they were fighting. All she had left was the meagerest bit of physical energy and a sharp horn.

She felt a flash of anger, then lunged upwards and forward. Celestia jerked her neck back, shock on her face. Didn’t think that would work, Luna thought sadly, and quickly covered by generating tears and rubbing her cheek against the cold, gleaming gem on Celestia’s necklace. “I’m so sorry! I missed you so much, big sister!” Why did I try?

Celestia leaned back towards her, and seemed to be crying as well. “I’ve missed you, too.”

Luna was too busy holding herself together to pay much attention to the other ponies scurrying about or to the change in scenery as she was transported from the ruins to a garishly painted town. She briefly forced herself to focus on each one; these ponies had been there at her reawakening, and so there must be something important about them. Only one of them was obviously important; she was a powerful unicorn, despite her young age, and there was something about her facial structure, her coloration, the sound of her voice; something familiar. It took far more energy than she would like to hold her head up, to look forward, but little details could be the clues she would need later to piece together what had happened.

Remember them for revenge, part of her whispered, you are not awakened, but put to sleep. She saw herself stabbing them, not just Celestia but the two pegasus fillies carrying a garland of flowers towards her sister, the pink one that would not stop moving, the whole crowd of ponies congregating together into a crushing pressure on her mind, even the unicorn that she knew but could not remember.

She took a deep breath and focused inward. Sleep did sound fantastic, right about now: time to recharge, time to mend. She imagined that angry voice as a part of herself. Looking at it from a distance, she saw that it was behind the lunge on Celestia. It writhed, screamed, and dug its talons into her, but she reached out and held it firmly. Her steady hooves were more patient than its desperately scrabbling claws, and so she slowly pulled it off of her and placed it in a mental box she conjured. Do not fear, she said to it as she slid the lid of the box into place. I will come back for you, when I can. She released the breath, feeling her tension release with it.

She looked back outwards, seeing the crowd of ponies anew. Now, their worried expressions did not look hostile, but concerned. Concerned about her. She looked down at the garland around her neck, surprised. They were celebrating her return, not Celestia’s victory over her. Somehow that filled her with warmth, and she looked up at Celestia, smiling at her.

Celestia smiled back, then walked over to speak with the unicorn. Luna faded from notice, slinking onto the chariot, barely able to keep an eye and an ear open.

Twilight Sparkle, she heard Celestia call the purple unicorn. Who was this pony who did not feel the need to bow around Celestia, who seemed to genuinely like the Princess, and be liked by her? Why did that cause echoes of a deep pain to reverberate throughout her mind? I need sleep, she thought wearily, too tired to notice the rustling coming from the box she had stored her rage in, and the rainbow-colored vines creeping around it, locking it tight.

6.The First Growth

CE 1209

Saturday was her father's day off from his duties as a Royal Guard, and so that was the day White Lightning would take Rainbow Dash to the local racetrack. They'd spend the day together, sprinting back and forth, doing wing push-ups, and lifting weights, finally heading home as the sun began to dip below the clouds to a large dinner cooked by Crystal Prism. It was the highlight of Rainbow's week, time for just her and her father to delight in each other's company and the joy of being alive.

When she was going through flight camp, it became a time for her dad to give her helpful pointers and correct her form, helping her stay consistently at the top of her class. “Talent,” others whispered, and she replied confidently, “This? This is practice.” After she had graduated flight camp and started Weather Academy, they could fly together seriously, their end-of-day exercise shifting over the years from a daughter riding her father's back to two pegasi racing around the track.

But White Lightning was a tall stallion, and Rainbow Dash was a small filly who had just earned her cutie mark. White was the honorable sort who always threw his all into any competition, and so Dash measured her progress by the slow reduction in the number of times he lapped her, and the shrinking distance between their times.

After two years of racing, seeing the white blur in front of her get closer and closer week after week, it finally happened: she won a race with White. As she did her victory dance, he solemnly nodded in congratulation, and waited for her to finish. She eventually did, and landed next to him. “Mom's going to be so proud of me-”

“Rematch?” White curtly cut her off.

She blinked. He'd been resting, and she hadn't- and his endurance was way more than hers in the first place. She could survive another ten laps around the stadium, but beat him? Almost definitely not. But by the iron look in his eyes she saw there was no way she could say no. “Sure,” she replied, getting back into her racing mindset.

As predicted, she came in a fairly distant second. White had been preening for a full minute before she crossed the line, and he nodded to her as she landed. “Ready to go home?” he asked.

“No,” she replied, trying to match his deep voice with her high one. “Rematch?”

He smiled, a deep smile that she rarely saw but that always filled her up from the base of her hooves to the tips of her wings. “Always,” he said, and they were off again.

They had raced five more times by the time the sun went down and the stadium lights went on, and twenty more times by the time the stadium closed, and then another ten times before the pimply pegasus teenager who worked the front built up enough courage to politely ask the tall and imposing guardsman White Lightning to leave. The score was 34 to 3, favoring White, but Rainbow savored those 3 as her wings complained of soreness and her stomach grumbled about a missed dinner.

At Crystal Prism's pointed suggestion, they started racing after lunch, stopping for dinner. The score slowly shifted, like sand pouring through an hourglass, her number of losses creeping downward and her wins upward. They both threw their all into their practices, and his determination never seemed to waver.

But White Lightning was a broad workhorse, and Rainbow Dash was a lean racer. When the score reached 2 to 18, he started asking around, and by the time it had been 0 to 20 for three weeks in a row, he introduced Rainbow to Dan Patch after they got back to the stadium from lunch.

“I know you're in school to be a weathermare,” he said to Rainbow, “but I think you ought to start training with Dan Patch here. We think you could be a Wonderbolt.”

Rainbow's jaw dropped, and she looked rapidly from White to Dan Patch. “You really mean it?” Like nearly every other pegasus foal, there had been a Wonderbolts poster by Rainbow's bed since before she could walk, let alone fly, and her excited expression reflected all those years of dreams. “When would I start?” she asked, nearly prancing in place.

White hesitated. “Today,” Dan Patch said, “and then Saturdays from here on out.”

She stop prancing, and looked at White, confused, her mouth twitching as he nodded. “But that's our day,” she said, barely holding back the tears threatening to pour out of her eyes. “I want to spend time with you, Dad. That's why I'm here every week.”

He looked deep into those wavering eyes, and smiled at her, a deep smile she had seen long ago. “You're better than I am, Rainbow. I fought it as long as I could but you rose to my every challenge. You're everything I could want in a daughter, and I'm proud of you.”

He pointed to the stands in the stadium. “As long as I live, I'll be watching you rise higher and fly faster than you did before. It'll be your time, and I'll be here to cheer you on.”

She swallowed, and then gave him a big hug, which he returned while Dan Patch suddenly became interested in the Astro-cloud of the stadium. “Okay,” she said softly.

Author's Note

This chapter was written before Games Ponies Play, so let's pretend the stallion clearly related to Rainbow is her older brother.

7. Rainbow Dash's Advice

1217 CE, one day after Celestia's letter.

The first name on Twilight's scroll was Rainbow Dash, followed by a brief description of Dash's expertise. Expected Insights: Speed? How to make decisions quickly and correctly. Loyalty? How to think about values.

Twilight strode out of the library, checking her checklist. Rainbow Dash would probably be floating somewhere nearby. Or, maybe Dash would come looking for Twilight. Twilight telekinetically opened up one of the windows of the library. It wasn't scheduled to rain today, but she checked the sky anyway, seeing almost no clouds. She checked off the "prepare for meeting with Rainbow Dash" sub-item and moved on to "find Rainbow Dash." If she was napping--like she did most clear-weather days--one of the few low-hanging clouds was a good place to start looking.

"Rainbow Dash!" Twilight called up to the first cloud she came across. A cyan face framed by a prismatic mane popped over the edge, blinking back sleep. Well, that was easy, she thought.

"Hey, Twi. What's up?"

"I need your help with something!" Twilight said, and Rainbow's eyes lit up. "Princess Celestia has tasked me to-" Dash's imagination spun into high gear. This wasn't just a runaway carriage or raging fire- it might be a runaway alicorn or raging dragon! "-write a report-" and with that, Dash's hopes were dashed and her face fell. "-on decision-making under uncertainty and epistemology."

"Aw, that stuff's easy." Dash dismissively waved a hoof. "I just go with my gut."

Twilight blinked. Twice. "I think that might be a little shorter than the princess is expecting, Dash."

Dash chuckled. "Twilight, you'd get so much more done if you'd just do stuff in ten seconds, like I do. But, I suppose I can spare ten minutes. Race you to the library!"

Rainbow Dash leapt from the cloud, her tail streaking behind her. Twilight Sparkle started rolling her eyes, folded space with a pop, and then finished rolling her eyes as Rainbow Dash cleared the open window, flaring out her wings to brake. "That fast enough for you?" Twilight asked with a smirk.

Dash pouted as she landed. "Yeah. So, what is epistemology anyway?"

Twilight gestured with a hoof, excitedly dropping into lecture mode. "Epistemology is the branch of psychology and philosophy that deals with the study of-"

"The fast version, please." Dash mimicked Twilight's earlier smirk.

Twilight sighed and dropped her hoof. "How you decide if ideas are right and beliefs are true."

Dash cocked her head to the side. "Isn't that obvious? Right ideas and true beliefs win. If Snips says I'll fly faster painted red, and Snails says I won't, then time me flying with and without red paint. You can race any conflicting ideas, and one of them should win."

Twilight summoned scroll and quill and took notes furiously, barely keeping up with Dash's explanation.

"And if you don't know and can't check, you go with your gut. You can't always know everything you'd like to."

Twilight looked up from her notes. “So, basically, empiricism.” Dash looked at her quizzically, and so she continued, “It's a branch of epistemology that holds that beliefs come from sensory experience-” she noticed Dash's eyes rapidly beginning to glaze- “that is, that the only way to determine truth is by looking at reality.” Dash snapped back to attention, and nodded.

As Twilight reread her notes, Dash thought for a second, then burst out, “Also, when I say to go with your gut? I spend a lot of time training my gut. When my alarm goes off, I leap out of bed before I know what's happening, because that's what I practiced! When a burst of hot air threatens to send me into a spin," she said, her eyes going wide and her wings spread out for emphasis, "I don't even need to think, because I practiced reacting, not thinking!" She snapped her wings back to her body, and pointed at Twilight with a hoof. "My coach used to tell me, over and over, good habits make good racers, and eventually I believed it. It's easy to know something in your head but not in your muscles if you don't train them too.”

Twilight looked up from her notepad, which she had been looking at instead of Rainbow's gestures. “Learned it in your muscles? I get how reflexes help you fly, but I don't see what that has to do with decision-making.”

Rainbow cocked her head again. “Don't you have mental reflexes too? I mean, when I get to the starting line the first thing I do is size up the competition. I practiced doing it first, so that I'd remember it every time. Knowing how to read their posture doesn't do me any good if I don't look at them!”

Twilight excitedly tapped her quill against the notepad. “Similarly, any techniques that I learn won't be useful unless I actually use them in making decisions.”

Rainbow nodded. “Exactly! I mean, did the princess ask you to learn about decision-making, or learn decision-making? If you want to do something as well as it can be done, you need to be really precise about what it is you’re trying to do, so that you can focus on doing what you want most.”

Rainbow went quiet, thinking about some distant memory, but Twilight was too focused on the question to notice. The original letter, of course, was in a special magical frame back at the library, but Twilight had made a copy, which she pulled out. “Focus your attention on,” she said. “And next level of your studies. Hm. Could go either way.”

Twilight looked at Rainbow, her eyes growing as swiftly as her horror. “It could go either way! I-”

Rainbow, rolling her eyes, hushed Twilight with a well-placed hoof. “Relax. Just pick one of them.”

As soon as Rainbow removed her hoof, Twilight erupted, “But what if I'm wrong?”

Rainbow shrugged. “That's decision-making under uncertainty, isn't it? Maybe the Princess left it ambiguous so it would be your first assignment.” Seeing that comment only heighten Twilight's anxiety, Rainbow quickly continued, “Making the decision, I mean, not making the same call that She would. So long as you have a good reason for your choice, I'm sure She'll be okay with it.”

Twilight started breathing more slowly, and nodded. “Right.” She looked around and chuckled. “Thanks, Dash. What would I do without you?”

Rainbow shrugged. “Wear a groove into the floor worrying, probably.”

“Thanks,” Twilight said, with much less gratitude.

Author's Note

I was introduced to practicing getting out of bed by Steve Pavlina.

"You can do so much in 10 minutes' time. Ten minutes, once gone, are gone for good... Divide your life into 10-minute units and sacrifice as few of them as possible in meaningless activity." -- Ingvar Kamprad

8. Unexpected News

Two Days AR

“Deep Field!” Perry Pierce exclaimed as he burst through the professor's door.

Deep Field's heart stopped for a moment, then resumed its tired beating, while his face stayed impassive, eyes focused on the telescope photo in front of him. He had never truly gotten used to this cloak and dagger business, but he had been doing it long enough for his outward appearance, at least, to be placid. He was unsurprised that Perry had figured out who he was--he reflected again that their missing member was the only one who had any true talent for discretion--but they had rarely done more than chat inconsequentially at the Lunar Society or share significant glances at dinner parties. Now, the stallion was in his office unannounced and out of breath, neither of which suggested good news.

“It's Professor,” he said icily, “and close the door behind you.”

Perry hurriedly slammed the door shut with his magic, making the collected trinkets of a long career rattle on the bookshelves around Deep Field's office. Annoyed, the professor looked up from the photo, studying Perry, rehearsing denials if the stallion was in trouble.

“It's Princess Luna,” Perry said quickly. “She's alive and in the palace.” Deep Field's carefully maintained expression vanished, replaced by pure shock. “Celestia gave her the West Tower, which they're renaming the Night Tower, and Celestia's going to formally announce Princess Luna's return and their co-rule tomorrow night at a major banquet.”

“Co-rule?” Deep Field muttered, even more shocked. “That's... certainly a surprise. Can you get us seats at that banquet?”

Perry chuckled, slowly regaining his breath. “Velvet Rope is busy working his magic. I might be able to get you one. Or did you want four?”

Deep Field's irritation returned, and he displayed it on his face. “Why would I need four? One for me, one for my wife, if you can spare it.” Even with this new development, they ought to try and maintain some paranoia.

Perry Pierce's expression immediately sobered. “Of course, I don't know what I was thinking.” Deep Field wanted to facehoof. Had he really been that obvious once? Thin Knife had claimed so, sometimes laughing and sometimes deadly serious, but while the grey chef had taught him everything he knew, she hadn't taught him everything she knew. He resisted the urge to shake his head to clear out thoughts of an old pony decades in her grave; he just moved his attention to another spot. Like she taught him to.

“You must have run here to bring me this information,” he added more kindly. “Can I get you something to drink?” He levitated out a small bottle of brandy; the good kind he kept in his office for celebrations.

Perry smiled and shook his head. “No, I have more messages I ought to deliver, and I should eventually get back to work. But thank you for the offer.” He opened the door and departed, shutting it softly behind himself.

Deep Field poured himself a glass and swirled it idly, watching the amber liquid as he digested this news. Co-ruler? Thinking of the chef who had once used her namesake knife on both tomato salads and other ponies made Deep Field paranoid again. This could be very good, or very bad. The Moon's Horn had been Night Mare Moon's servants more than Luna's. Luna might appoint them as advisors for their service, or Celestia might throw them in prison for their treason.

But would Luna need them as advisors? They were skulkers and agents, shadows and whispers. Would Luna need that now? They had once been assassins. He had been the youngest in the cabal when Thin Knife died, and her replacement had been the mystery mare. He wondered briefly if she had been an assassin. Not for the Moon's Horn, certainly. Thin Knife's viciousness had seemed like just a tool used by the Moon's Horn when he had joined them, but after she died it hadn't seemed necessary to replace her.

He saw the glass of brandy held idly in his hoof and drank deep, reflecting that some tools create their own purposes.

9. How I Met Your Mother

CE 1988

Night Light ignored the crowds, sights, sounds, and smells of Canterlot; only some automatic part of him was aware of the oncoming pedestrians and warning lights, dodging and stopping as necessary. The top of his mind was busy ruminating on Velvet Rope's invitation. The crescent moon was a symbol from the ancient days of pony history, back when the moon ran free throughout the sky; he had never seen it used for a seal before, and was not quite sure what to expect. He had decided not to open it in public, for reasons that seemed sillier the more he thought about them. Somehow, being silly made them no less compelling.

His curiosity burned brighter and his anticipation grew, his pace unconsciously increasing until he made it back to his small dorm room, on the seventh floor of the student tower. Panting from the climb, he shut his door behind him, locked it, and placed the sealed scroll carefully on his desk. He summoned a glass of water and drank deeply. He loved the view from his room but hated the climb; he eagerly anticipated the class next semester where he would finally learn teleportation. He had found and read a few spellbooks describing it, but the large warnings and emphasis on practice suggested that it probably wasn't a spell he should experiment with on his own. He realized he was stalling, glanced at the door and windows to make sure he was alone, and then broke the seal on the scroll.

The unrolled scroll contained an address, a time and date, and a brief note suggesting he wear something nice. Well, that was underwhelming, he thought.

He had shown up early, unable to contain his excitement. He had dressed about as well as a student on a scholarship could afford, and seeing his reflection in the many plate glass windows of Canterlot, he wondered if he would have looked better with nothing on. Is it better to be thought poor or look poor? he idly mused.

And, unfortunately, he was idle; the address was for a closed shop in a narrow alleyway. He could barely make out its dirty sign; a vial, perhaps, and a pony? He tried the door, only to find it was locked. Placing his ear against it revealed neither sounds nor secrets, and so he settled down to wait. Maybe it’s a front for a subterranean meeting hall?, he wondered, and his suspicions grew progressively more fanciful as he waited.

The sound of hoofsteps coming down the alley interrupted him just as he imagined that they would get put into bottles which would be launched to the Moon, as hinted at by the shop's sign and the scroll's seal. He saw Ever Dependable, Swift Canter, and Glancer rounding the corner, breaking into smiles when they saw him. He smiled back, self-consciously noting that they all wore outfits noticeably fancier than his.

They tapped hooves in greeting, and then Ever Dependable levitated a key out of one of his pockets, opening the door to the shop. They stepped inside, and Night barely noticed the brief quiver of passing through a magical ward, the rest of his senses overwhelmed with the strange sights and stranger smells of the dimly lit shop. The primary impression was one of clutter, with bizarre objects too unique to be categorized scattered wherever they could physically fit, unlabeled jars and books stacked haphazardly on shelves. He noticed what looked like a zebra skull before Ever Dependable closed the door, cutting off most of the light entering the shop. Night heard Ever Dependable lock the door behind him and clear his throat.

"Night Light," he began in his deep voice, "you stand before us a candidate to join our society. The chief of our virtues is silence; you must swear to keep our secrets without even knowing our name."

"Well, if you could tell it to me beforehand, then it wouldn't be very secret, would it?"

Swift muffled a chuckle, and Ever Dependable frowned at him. "This is typically a solemn affair."

Night frowned. "Oh, fine." His frown deepened when he realized that he didn't know where Glancer was anymore.

"Your responsibilities are for life; even if you are expelled from our number, you will still be sworn upon your magic to maintain your silence."

He paused, and Night realized just how quiet the shop was, except for a distant rustling. The lights had grown even softer; somehow, he was still clearly visible, but only Ever's muzzle was softly illuminated, his eyes were just glints in the dark above that, and the rest of his body the faintest suggestion of a shadow. Swift stood to their side, watching the two of them, her eyes the only part of her Night could readily differentiate from the shelves and junk around them. There was still no hint of Glancer.

"Our other virtues are openness, truth, and amity. You will be expected to listen to, advise, and aid any fellow of the society to the best of your ability; and you will be able to expect the same from your fellows."

Night spooked as Glancer's soft voice continued from behind him, "Will you swear yourself to these virtues, of your own free will and accord, on your life, honor, and magic? If so, say I will swear."

Night felt the yes on his tongue, his mind flinching away from even the thought of saying no. But he knew that this was serious, and, by Celestia, he would take fifteen seconds to think about an oath that would last his entire life instead of acting immediately to avoid embarrassment.

What was the worst thing that could happen? His time constantly bled away by people he had sworn to help, his own projects and dreams languishing. Having to choose between doing something illegal or that he disagreed strongly with and losing his magic. How likely were they? Rather unlikely, but possible. What was the best thing that could happen? A constant stream of interesting issues to think about. Connections to implement ideas on a scale larger than he could ever do himself. How likely was that? A bit optimistic, but not too unlikely. What were the median and average cases? Were they worth it? He glanced from Ever to Swift, and if they were impatient, they didn't show it. "I will swear," he said with a firm nod.

Glancer walked from behind him to beside him, the pale glow of his levitation enough to see what he was carrying: two vials, one large and the other small, and an open carrying case, containing a brush, which to Night's horror, he realized was probably made of unicorn horn, with bristles that had the look of pony hair.

Glancer extended the large vial towards him, and Night took it with his magic. "This is a third of the spell to bind your oath to your magic," Glancer explained, "and this," as he shook the small vial, "is another third. Neither will affect you without the last third: your oath, given without equivocation or reservation. Please, drink all of that vial, and stand still; your throat will feel odd, and this will be cold." He unstoppered the small vial, a faint, sharp smell mixing with the smells coming from the rest of the shop.

Night opened his vial, smelling the contents. It was surprisingly pleasant; a deep smell that reminded him of granite and oak, of mountains and tall trees. He drank it with three quick gulps, stoppering the empty bottle, which Swift took from him. It did feel odd, like it had coated his mouth and throat and stuck there, rather than sliding all the way through to his stomach. Glancer dipped the brush in the small vial, and carefully painted his horn from base to tip, moving with the spiral to ensure every ridge was covered. Swift coughed and shifted her position as they waited for Glancer to finish.

Finally, it was all done, and Glancer stoppered the small vial, wiping the brush off on a small cloth and returning it to its case. Ever looked Night in the eyes, and said, "Repeat after me:"

"I, of free mind and spirit, in the presence of these witnesses, do solemnly declare that I shall keep all secrets entrusted to me by my fellows; that I will embody the virtues of silence, openness, truth, and amity towards my fellows; and that I shall do so for as long as I live."

At the conclusion of the oath, Night Light's throat erupted with an electric sensation, and he coughed out a small cloud of deep red smoke, which crackled with sparks. The three ponies stepped into the light, smiling brightly. "Welcome to the Lunar Society, brother," they said, hugging him warmly.

"What is that?" he asked, pointing at the cloud which was rapidly fading.

"The safety precaution," Glancer explained. "The original spell only had the horn ointment and the oath; we added a throat coating that will itch if you are about to reveal any secrets, so you don't do so by accident."

Night burped, a few more sparks escaping his mouth. Swift snorted, then explained "It's also a bit more showy than it needs to be. It helps make it obvious that new members have taken the oath." Night shook his head, causing another burp, and then frowned.

Ever smiled at him. "Don't worry, it'll fade by next morning, and it'll get less frequent as the night goes on." He looked at Swift, "Are we ready to head out?"

She nodded. "Just give me a minute to prepare the circle."

Night's earlier fears (about their mode of locomotion, at least) were unfounded; it turned out that they would use a standard teleportation circle. She drew it carefully, and Night noted many embellishments that he had not seen on circles before. They took their places in the center, the three of them lighting up their horns as they started the joint teleportation spell. Night, not yet practiced in such spells, simply watched.

They stood there for a moment, their magic humming. Night was able to tell by the beat frequencies that the three of them weren't quite harmonized, but couldn't tell if that was on purpose or not. As he was still calculating whether or not to interrupt them to point that out, he felt a push, and then a pull, and then a BANG, and suddenly they were standing in the middle of a large, well-apportioned hall, surrounded by well over a hundred unicorns, ranging from college-aged to those with three hooves in the grave, all dressed well, their horns still glowing slightly from their half of the teleportation spell, clapping their hooves together to applaud the four's arrival.

Velvet Rope melted out of the crowd and sauntered up to them, smiling deeply at Night Light. "Welcome to the Lunar Society!" He gave him a quick hug, causing Night to burp up more sparks, causing widespread smiles and laughter. "Let me introduce you to everyone."

And so he was swept from table to table, meeting too many ponies for all of the names to stick, some of whom he recognized from the newspapers, or from the university, and many which he had never heard of but rapidly became eager to know more about. One mare with a frizzled mane and a cutie mark of happy cattle had just enough time to tantalize him with a description of her research before Velvet gently tugged him away from the table, pulling him towards the next one.

And then they were done. Velvet finally gestured towards two empty seats at a table where Glancer, Ever, and Swift were sitting. Night collapsed into the chair gratefully, and a unicorn immediately appeared by his side to hand him a menu. He realized he was starving, and scanned the menu, realizing quickly that he only recognized half of the dishes, and none of them seemed to have any prices. He ended up ordering something with a three syllable name, and counted Velvet's order; thirty-one in total.

He burped again, and Velvet smiled. "I am sorry about that," Velvet said, "I do wish it were less embarrassing. But it's better than the alternative. Apparently, in the early days a handful of ponies accidentally lost their magic by saying things they didn’t realize were secrets." He shook his head. "How could someone make a binding spell like that and not put a safety on it?" He fixed his gaze back on Night, suddenly looking concerned, "So, Light, are you glad you joined?"

Night Light looked around the room. Over a dozen tables, each with ponies he wanted to talk to, each with a conversation so interesting going on that he could scarce bear to walk away from them. "More than I could have hoped," he said with a smile, which was interrupted by another sparkly burp.

"You know, Light," Velvet said in a sultry voice, "I find that kissing helps those fade faster."

Light looked back at their table, glancing at Swift. She looked at him, then Velvet, then had to cover her mouth with a hoof to stop from laughing. Then Light, confusion evident on his face, looked at Velvet, who had already wiped the disappointment off his, and so Light saw no answers there.

"Or food," Velvet said quickly, "and it looks like ours is about to arrive." He inclined his head towards an approaching waiter with two plates. Light cheerfully dug into his food, which was fantastic, and the conversation sparkled like his occasional burps, dancing from topic to topic like a fire in the night.

As the night stretched on, ponies began to leave, and others to arrive; but the balance was flowing out, and so slowly, the hall emptied; eventually, the lights dimmed and Velvet pointed that out to Light as a sign that the society's meeting was done for the night. They left, chatting with the few others who had stayed until closing, and then Night found himself outside a stately mansion one of the richer sections of Canterlot. He started walking home, and Velvet walked with him, the cloudy skies above hiding the stars from view. They walked in silence, which Night found surprisingly relaxing after a night of talking.

Then they reached the intersection where their paths diverged, and said a quick goodnight. "By the way," Velvet added, "you ought to stop by my place for dinner tomorrow night, if you're free. I've got a sister I'd like you to meet; her name is Twilight Velvet."

10. Luna's New Home

CE 1215, second dusk after Luna’s Return

Sensory data immediately snapped into place as her conscious mind rebooted. The sun was at (π/2, 5π/3), the moon had just become visible from the surface, and from triangulation of various signals she was confident she was in Canterlot. From visual inspection she was in a comfortable bed in a marble room with dim light emanating from magical sconces set low on the walls. Two vespertilian guards stood watch, their slow minds still processing that her eyes had opened as she continued her tactical assessment. She had not intended to sleep so long, but examining the report from her last body diagnostic revealed why her pons had delayed awakening her consciousness so long. 30 hours of rest, though it had helped, was incomplete. Her muscles were still stiff and her magical reserves, though no longer nearly depleted, were still within the yellow zone. Nevertheless, she could get up, work, and assess the situation. She had drained the fatigue from most of her mind, but a filesystem report was waiting, with several implications flagged red. It seemed her mental organization had been almost totally shuffled, and she still felt out of place in herself.

The guards finally noticed that she had awoken and sprang into action, kneeling before their princess. Reassured by their familiar presence, she ratcheted down her thinking speed to one closer to theirs. A lesser pony would have asked questions like “what time is it?” or “where am I?”, but Luna could simply sense the answer to both. Instead, she ordered, “REPORT.”

“Mistress,” one guard barked, “The captain wished to be informed as soon as you awoke.”

“GO,” she said, turning her attention to the other guard. “INFORM.”

The first guard swiftly departed, and the remaining guard hesitated. “The plan failed,” he said sadly. “We were able to take the governor of every city hostage, but were expected. Each one was unguarded and came quietly.”

Rapid hoofsteps in the hall cut off his report; the captain must have been close. He saluted and Luna inclined her head slightly as Captain Fellwing entered the room, almost breathless. “My princess,” he said softly, and bowed. Not bothering to look, he dismissed the guard with a hoof. “I’ll finish your report.”

The door shut behind the guard with a soft click, and Fellwing paused. “I want to take full respon-”

Luna sighed, and Fellwing immediately fell silent, well-trained to avoid her displeasure. “You did what you could,” she said softly, dropping her Canterlot voice. Now that I’m finally in Canterlot, she thought, bemused. “How many did we lose?”

Fellwing stood taller. “None. We were afraid about you for some time, but I was sure you’d pull through.”

Luna smiled. “The worst is behind us, then.”

Fellwing scratched his cheek with the claw on his wing, which he did whenever he was agitated. “Your majesty,” he began, then faltered, looking down at his hooves. Luna had never seen him this anxious before. “I have no idea what to do. Our invasion was welcomed, our every plan foiled and now we are stationed at the very heart of our enemy's-”

“Celestia is not our enemy,” Luna said automatically. Her internal verifier balked: how did she know that? Why did she believe it? Why believe it so strongly to say it without reflection first?

Fellwing looked surprised, but bowed. “As you say, my princess.”

Reasons appeared; not nearly as strong as she wanted them to be, and clearly invented for justification rather than driving her decision. As little as she trusted them, sharing them might calm Fellwing. “Twice I have tried her strength,” Luna said, “and twice I have lost. I see no wisdom in trying a third time.”

Fellwing nodded slowly. “It certainly seems Celestia expects you to work together, now. We have the tower to ourselves.” He paused.

“You worry it is a prison,” she said, watching his face closely. He nodded grimly.

She looked around the room, recognizing the architecture. It was larger, but had the same feel as her bedchamber in the palace they had shared. “I think not. I wouldn’t put a balcony on a prison for winged occupants.”

Fellwing gestured. “Have you tried its door yet?” She chuckled and he smiled.

“I’m sure you’ve had time to explore. Show me around the tower, tell me what you’ve done with it.” She leapt out of bed, carefully expending just enough energy to look as though she weren’t tired, but not enough to tire her again. It seemed to reassure Fellwing, but only served to worry her; she had correctly judged that there were few such stunts left in her before she slept again.

“There’s also one of Celestia’s servants waiting in the garden nearby. She has something to discuss with you.”

Luna immediately went on alert. “What?”

“The servant mentioned a banquet, and a...” Fellwing stumbled over the unfamiliar phrase, “a photo shoot?” Luna immediately went on high alert.

Luna was led to Celestia’s chambers. The new palace was so much larger than their old one had been; instead of two towers mirroring each other, there was a tangled mess of spires rising up above the mountain, some thin, others wide; massive meeting halls and secluded nooks. Celestia’s tower was neither the largest nor the smallest nor the tallest, but Luna did notice its central position in the sprawling castle. Even after dusk, the place swarmed with servants and guards, all giving Luna a respectfully wide berth as they hurried about their tasks. Then they were at the alabaster doors, which immediately swung open to admit her, the guards and her guide staying outside.

Celestia was inside, levitating a scroll before her face as she lay on a large, red bed. She set down the scroll as Luna entered, smiling at her gently. Luna bowed to Celestia as the door shut behind her, marshalling her energy.

“You wished to speak with me, big sister?” She kept her tone level, her worry hidden.

“Yes, little sister. I worried for you.”

“I could sleep off the worst of it.” Luna looked around the room, studying the architecture and decorations. It was all new; no hints remained of Celestia’s chambers a thousand years ago. She had not had a good handle on Celestia then, and even what little she had seemed to have slipped away.

Celestia nodded. “I’ve planned a banquet to announce our co-rule tomorrow night. The most important ponies in Equestria will be there; the Line, the ministers, the best of Canterlot’s high society, and the governors.” Luna was not sure if there had been an emphasis on that last word, or if she had just imagined it. “I hope you’ll be well enough to attend.”

Luna nodded, surprised. “I will be well, but... co-rule?”

Celestia looked at her, gaze unreadable. “Do you feel up to it?”

“Yes.” Even if it were not true, Luna did not see a benefit to answering no.

Celestia looked at the scroll, and Luna relaxed slightly as soon as Celestia’s gaze left her. “I also scheduled for you to meet with Photo Finish.”

“This is the... photo shoot?” Luna asked.

Celestia looked at her again, and her eyes softened. “I’m sorry, sister. I forgot the terminology was modern. I should have called it a photography session. Think of it as a portrait, painted very quickly.”

"Photograph? So they found a way to make light write itself, then."

There was the barest hint of a pause before Celestia said “Something like that.” Luna was not sure what to make of it, and filed it away for reexamination.

"There's a whole nation outside of Canterlot, eager to see their new princess. This'll allow you to be on the front page of every newspaper in every home in Equestria, without leaving your chambers."

Luna relaxed. "That does sound rather convenient."

"And don't worry," Celestia began, immediately causing Luna to worry. "I'll have one of my most capable ponies ensuring the story and the photos and spun positively."

"So when would this photo session be?"

"Tonight," Celestia said lightly. "Though you can reschedule it if you like; they'll understand, and the guests to the banquet would no doubt appreciate the exclusivity of seeing you first."

Luna grimaced. “It will be trouble enough preparing for the banquet that quickly, and I doubt it would be as efficient to reschedule that. Let us push back the photo session by a week.”

“Very well.” Celestia nodded, her serene warmth unperturbed. Luna wondered what she meant by it. What would Celestia conclude about her health from that? Had she tipped her hand too far? Had the invitation to do it tonight been a test, and if so, had she failed it? She kept her face placid, her worries churning silently and invisibly inside her.

They sat in silence for a few seconds, and then Celestia looked back at the scroll. “I should let you rest,” Celestia said. Was it a dismissal, or sympathy? Either way, Luna was not about to contradict her, and stood up. Celestia looked at her again, and smiled. “Good night, my sister.”

“Good night,” she responded, smiling to match Celestia.

11. The First Value

CE 1203

They arrived, in groups, pairs, or by themselves; all linked together and all terribly alone.

Many lived close enough to walk to the farm, while others had immediately packed and taken the train, carriage, wagon, or skyship after receiving their black-bordered letters. They all brought food, in barrels and baskets, presenting it to the stallion of the house with their condolences. In happier times, the farm would have provided for them; now, they provided for it.

They set themselves to work: Apple Strudel organizing the foodstuffs, putting some in the cellar, others in the pantry, and sending the rest to Apple Brown Betty, who had commandeered the kitchen. This part they knew how to do; the chores occupying their minds and limbs and keeping the horror and grief at bay.

They all knew each other, though the old remembered some ponies that the young would never meet. They had watched the stallion of the house grow up, a sturdy colt now as large as other stallions but not quite done growing, who had taken up his father's yoke nonetheless. His grandmother stood behind him as they were greeted, a new wrinkle joining the many others surrounding her flinty eyes. Some of them murmured their concerns about the financial state of the farm as they presented their gifts. “We'll make it,” the two replied. Braeburn offered to stay on for a bit as a farmhand, and was warmly accepted. Peachy Sweet offered to buy the farm, and was coldly rejected.

Then they had all arrived, and it was time to consider the departed.

For an hour, there was no wall of work, no distraction, only them and their future. Two boxes lay open, and one by one they passed them, saying goodbye to ponies that could no longer hear them, trying to pour their grief, horror, regret, and despair into those boxes. Then the lids of the boxes were carefully closed, the boxes carefully lowered into the earth, and the graves carefully filled with dirt. Two saplings were planted. They all agreed how terrible it was, for two to be taken so young.

Then they departed as they came. Braeburn lingered, waiting until the rest of the family had left, then he went to the house to start supper. The four survivors stood on the hill, grown cold without the heat of the crowd's bodies. Granny Smith shivered.

This was the first of her children that Granny Smith had buried. She had lost count of how many funerals she had attended before this one.

Big Mac had been to one funeral before; his other grandmother. There, many had said that she had lived a full life. It had seemed impolite to disagree, so he hadn't. He was both glad and sad that no comments like that had been said today. Granny Smith was not worried about him; he would make it.

This was Applejack's first funeral. She had put on a brave face, but even Braeburn staying had barely consoled her. Now that they were alone, she began to cry. Mac, crying himself, comforted her with a leg over her withers. Granny Smith worried about her.

Applebloom was not yet old enough to understand. Granny Smith knew that she would have to be told, again and again, that her parents would not be coming back. She would have only the faintest of memories of them; besides the tears the answer would cause, there was little reason to worry about her.

Applejack finished crying, and looked up at Granny Smith. “Why aren't you crying?” she asked.

The old mare looked down at the filly. “The same reason you aren't, sweet filly. I ran out of tears.” She looked at the farmhouse, a welcoming light shining from its windows. “Their spirits have fled, and their bodies aren't going anywhere. Let's go eat dinner now." They didn’t move, and she continued, "You can visit them tomorrow, but remember always: they live on inside you, not in this hill. We have a lot of work to do with them gone, but we can make it. We will make it.”

“I wish they hadn't gone,” Big Mac said softly.

Granny Smith fixed him with a sharp look. “Wishing won't make it so. We've got to make the best of what we've got, and do what we need to do.” She took a deep, ragged breath. “But for what little it is worth, I wish it too, Big Mac. Oh, how I wish it too.”

12. Applejack's Advice

1217 CE, one day after Celestia’s letter.

Dash had stayed until Twilight calmed down, then left to resume her nap. Twilight surveyed her notes, filed them away carefully, then summoned out her plan and a quill, putting a satisfying check next to “Ask Rainbow Dash for advice,” and moved down to the next box: “Ask Applejack for advice.” Returning that scroll to her saddlebag, she levitated out her preparatory notes for talking to Applejack.

Some ponies, and at least one dragon, thought that Twilight’s level of organization was, well, intense. Twilight would have agreed with them, if it was just the checklists and schedules everypony else saw. But Twilight saw the system of tasks and deadlines that those tools supported. Each task was small enough to seem easy, but checking it off the list was a small victory spurring her on, and this way she only had to remember everything once, not every time. Her memory was good, but paper's memory was perfect. Each block of time devoted to a specific activity meant she had a looming deadline keeping her focused, without the anxiety that she wouldn’t be able to finish in time. And intense organization allowed her to tackle immense problems. Most other ponies in Ponyville would react to a personal request from the Princess of Equestria to do original scholarship as if it were a cockatrice, freezing in place in front of a cliff too high for them to ever climb. Twilight saw the same cliff in her imagination, but with ink on parchment she drew herself stairs in that cliff, breaking down a monumental mission into manageable objectives, and those manageable objectives into easy actions, stacking those actions one atop another to make a schedule that brought her step by step from where she was to where she wanted to be. All she had to do was to put one hoof in front of the other.

Thus Twilight stepped out of the library, walking down the road towards Sweet Apple Acres, reading her notes on Applejack. Expected insights: Honesty seems like the core of a solid epistemological approach; she’ll definitely have a lot to say on that. She manages a farm: she must know something about decision-making. I’ve read that agricultural experiments led to the development of several statistical techniques; she may know more.

The warm sun shone on Sweet Apple Acres and a slight breeze rustled the leaves of the apple trees in a verdant symphony. Applejack sniffed reflexively, smelling blossoms, dirt, and sweat.

She snorted at the last scent. She had been working hard, but could tell it wasn't hers; Big Macintosh must be just a bit upwind of her. Checking the fences around Sweet Apple Acres was a job as boring as it was long, but it needed to get done. In the Apple family way, they turned it into a game: Big Mac and Applejack would start at the same post and go in opposite directions. They would mark the post where they met, and then check the other's work. The pony who covered more fence was the winner and didn't have to help with dinner that night--but missing anything was a five post penalty, and so they moved quickly but carefully before they met up, and then crowed delightedly on finding any mistakes on the second pass.

They were close to the midway point. The race would be over soon, and Applejack didn't think she had much of an edge. The next wooden post was still sturdy, crossbeams snug in place. Applejack gave it a quick second glance, then ran on towards the next post, catching a whiff of ink on the air, then spotting Twilight walking up to the farm.

"Well, howdy there sugarcube!" Applejack leaned on the fencepost, looking around to check for anything that needed fixing. "What brings you round these parts?"

"Heya Applejack!" Twilight smiled broadly. "I wanted to chat for a bit. You free?"

Applejack grimaced slightly, looking at the fence, then back to Twilight. "Just to chat? Ah'm sorry, but Ah got a lot of work to do today. If it can wait, how about you come back for dinner and then we can talk?"

Twilight Sparkle looked disappointed for a second, then smiled. “Okay! Have fun!” She turned around, trotting back up the path.

Applejack raced on to the next post. “Oh, Ah will,” she said to the wind with a smile.

It was only a few more posts before she saw Big Mac, giving a fencepost a final tap. Applejack smiled smugly, as the midway post was two posts behind her. She still could lose, if she had made a mistake and Mac didn't, but she thought that was unlikely. “Ya did well, Big Mac,” she smirked.

“Eeyup,” he cheerfully replied.

“But Ah'm afraid I did better.”

He smiled. “Eeyup.” They passed, now doublechecking the other's work with eyes peeled like apples ready for coring. Big Mac was a bit more of a gracious loser than Applejack was, but as she checked his posts Applejack had to admit he was also a bit more careful than she was. It'd been a while since she'd missed a broken post, but when one of them did find a mistake, it was generally him cantering to their meeting point with smugness straining the edges of his stoic demeanor.

Applejack had a few seconds to catch her breath and smooth down her coat when she saw Big Mac trot up with a resigned look. She broke out into a grin. “Well, what're you cookin' tonight, Big Mac?”

Big Mac looked thoughtful for a moment. “What'd Miz Twilight want?”

Applejack blinked, surprised. The smell of ink hadn't been that strong, but the breeze was faint and it would have only taken a few minutes for Big Mac to make it to the post where she met Twilight. “Just to talk. She's comin' to dinner.”

She could see Big Mac's focus go a level deeper. “She liked that apple stromboli Apple Bloom made when she wanted a chef cutie mark, didn't she?”

Applejack snorted. “Yeah, she was the only one who looked like she wasn't saying it out of politeness.”

Big Mac shuffled his haystalk from one side of his mouth to the other. “Maybe not the only one.”

Twilight wished there was a way she could see if her friends were available on short notice besides walking up and asking them, but at least by bringing along a book she kept it from cutting into her studying time too much. Soon she was looking at John Fetlocke's Essay Concerning Pony Understanding instead of trees. Twilight liked trees about as much as anypony, she supposed (with the obvious exception of Applejack), but found she liked them much better when processed into paper. Whenever she thought of all the knowledge that ponykind had carefully gathered and stored within books and libraries, she would shiver with excitement at the world she lived in. What a time to be alive, she would murmur in her mind, looking back at all the past had to say to her, which paper had made possible to say cheaply.

Before tackling the classic work on epistemology, Twilight had read the chapter on it in a more modern philosophy textbook. “Essay” had clearly been meant in the classical sense of the word, unsurprising for something centuries old, as it was four volumes and six hundred pages long. Reading the dedication to Celestia on the first page had given her a thrill; perhaps the Princess had met the author and discussed the work with him, and would have stories to tell Twilight. For a mare as interested in the history of ideas as Twilight, it was hard to find someone more fascinating than Celestia, who had been alive through it all, and talked with many of Twilight’s intellectual heroes.

She had been reluctant to start and finish a book anywhere other than the first and last page, but years of targeted research eventually forced her to pick up the habit. Sometimes you just wanted a single spell out of a spellbook--and the books would always wait politely for you if you wanted to read them later, though there were too many for even Celestia to read all of them. She had skimmed the book first, trying to get a general sense of what Fetlocke considered important and how he structured his argument. If Applejack referred to it, she wanted to have enough of the formal vocabulary to follow along. Or, she supposed, Applejack's knowledge of the subject might be independently discovered, or passed down from her family. “Ooh!” she absentmindedly said to herself, “I should add homespun wisdom to the expectations scroll!”

Lyra looked at Bon-Bon, who looked back at her. They politely waited until Twilight had made it around the corner before they burst out laughing at Twilight's remark, though they weren't entirely sure if Twilight would have heard them if they hadn't waited. Some ponies just never knew when to take their noses out of a book.

Applejack's other chores went by quickly. Sweet Apple Acres was big for only two ponies of working age, but she and Big Mac made it work through skill, determination, and buckets of sweat, which she was currently washing off with buckets of water. Big Mac had just jumped into the pond and then shook himself dry, since he had to make dinner with Granny Smith, but Applejack had time to relax. She finished washing and started braiding her hair, pondering Big Mac's question. He was a hospitable pony--any Apple was--and so it made sense that he’d make sure Twilight would enjoy dinner. But she got the sense that there was something he hadn't told her yet, and was finding it hard to not jump to conclusions.

Apple Bloom looked quizzically at the apple stromboli, and only Twilight and Big Mac had taken large portions. But there were several dishes, and enough food for all of them to fill their plates twice (three times for Big Mac), and so they descended on their food with a vengeance. They chatted idly about the state of the farm, the neighbors, what Apple Bloom had learned in school that day. The meal wound down contentedly, everypony talking less and less as they became gradually warmer and fuller. Eventually, Granny Smith declared it Apple Bloom's bedtime, and escorted her off despite the filly's yawning complaints.

The three sat in contented silence for a moment. Big Mac lazily moved the haystalk from one side of his mouth to the other. Applejack felt the pie resettling in her stomach.

"So, sugarcube, what did you want to talk about?"

Twilight began talking excitedly. "Well, I got a letter from Princess Celestia!" Applejack took a slow breath to try and maintain the peace of a warm meal, but Twilight's enthusiasm was too infectious. "She asked me to learn about rationality, especially decision-making under uncertainty and epistemology-"

"She-piss-the-what?" Applejack asked, confused.

Twilight blinked, clearly thinking, then said “How you decide if ideas are right and beliefs are true.”

Applejack thought for a moment, envious of Big Mac's haystalk and tapping her hooves instead. How did she decide if ideas were right? “Well, Ah tend to follow a policy of trust, but verify. If they're a dependable pony, or Ah expect them to know more about it than Ah do, then Ah'll believe it. But there are some things you've got to see for yourself.”

Twilight levitated out a parchment scroll, quill, and ink bottle, and wrote in neat script 'trust but verify'. The scratching of the quill on parchment made it a little harder for Applejack to focus. It felt like one of the chickens was trying to get loose, and she had to remind herself to relax. Twilight asked, “How about decision-making under uncertainty? I'm sure you've got a lot to say about that.”

“Decision-making under certainty is hard enough, sometimes. It’s not always obvious what’s best for you and what you care about most.” Applejack was quiet for a moment, and Big Mac stretched a hoof out towards her. She held it, then continued. “Ah know Ah was confused for a while. Did you ever hear the story of when Ah got my cutie mark? Ah had decided that Ah was sick of this family and this farm, and Ah wanted to get as far away as Ah could. Our aunt and uncle live in glamorous Manehattan, so Ah went to stay with them.” She chuckled. “That didn’t go well at all. One night away was all Ah needed to remind me of what Ah was missing. And as soon as Ah realized that, Ah saw Dash’s Sonic Rainboom, and Ah was on the next train home. Ah find that it’s easiest to figure out what you value, and keep that in mind, rather than going crazy about what you don’t know. And thinking about what’s most important to you makes figuring out what you need to know easy.”

She saw Big Mac glance towards the hill, and she looked that way too. During the day, the two trees were visible from the window, but from anywhere on the farm they could tell which way the hill was. She continued, “Ah’ve found that it helps to take time regularly to just think about your life, what you care about, and why. It helps to make sure you’re focused on what’s really important to you, not what’s right in front of you."

She gestured towards the window, away from the hill and towards the orchard that stretched off under the moonlight. “Take one of our trees, for example. Ah love that tree because Ah love our farm because Ah love my family. If this tree had a blight that could bring down the farm, Ah'd be the first to chop it down and burn it, even though Ah'd deeply regret the necessity. If the farm was making Apple Bloom sick, Ah'd be the first to recommend moving." Her mouth twisted as if she had eaten a sour apple, clearly unhappy to even be thinking about those possibilities.

Twilight's quill came to a rest, and she reread what Applejack had said. Applejack watched fireflies lazily twirl through the window, and Big Mac resettled the haystalk in his mouth.

"A spreading blight..." Twilight murmured. "That could be like a lie or a false belief: it could spread to other statements or beliefs and threaten your orchard of truth."

Applejack snorted at the idea of growing truth on trees, as if it were some sort of fruit. Big Mac cleared his throat and gave her a significant look that she interpreted to mean If you don't bring it up, I will. She glared back at him, but relented quickly. It was fair.

"That's... a good way of puttin' it, Twilight. Celestia knows Ah've held on to some beliefs long after I knew they were wrong.”

Twilight's eyes lit up, and she helpfully started, "Like that time you believed you could do everything without help-"

"Yep."

"-or that time you believed you needed to fund the repairs for town hall-"

"Yep."

"or that time when-"

"Ah think you made your point, Twilight," Applejack said with a glare.

"Oh.” Twilight giggled. “Sorry about that; I just like to associate three examples with a trend, to make sure it's not just a fluke or coincidence."

They waved goodbye to Twilight, who summoned a small light to guide her way back to the library. Once Twilight's light had vanished behind a hill, Applejack turned to Big Mac, who was still watching the road, a wistful expression on his face. “Anything you want to tell me, Big Mac?”

“Eenope,” he said as innocently as he could muster.

She narrowed her eyes. “Anything you should tell me, Big Mac?”

He glanced away, then sighed heavily. He glanced at the ground near her hooves. “Mmaybe.”

She waited, a slight breeze of crisp night air teasing their manes, but he released no details. “Ah'll say it, if that'd be easier for you.”

He looked up to her face. “Ah'd rather you didn't.”

She paused, but he remained silent, and so she went on. “Ah reckon you're interested in Twilight.”

He looked away. After a few seconds, a soft “Mmaybe” escaped her elder brother.

“Well, there's only one thing to do, then. Tell her!”

“Ah can't do that!” he said, eyes widening in fear. “What would she see in a pony like me?”

“A fine Apple!” Applejack said, her temper rising. “Half the mares in Ponyville would jump at the chance to go on a date with you! Ah'm sure you've noticed them flirting with you when you work the market stall.”

Big Mac turned a slightly deeper shade of red, barely visible in the moonlight, and always difficult for any outside his family to notice. “Eeyup, but... Twilight hasn't.”

“Well... maybe she wants you to make the first move. She did grow up in Canterlot; who knows how they do things there.”

They were both silent, staring out over the farm. Applejack realized another implication of her observation: she had meant to reassure Big Mac, but neither of them knew what manners Twilight would expect. A cloud slowly drifted across the south field, raining on the trees there. Twilight was a pony who thrived with written rules and clear expectations; if Big Mac declared his interest in a way she wasn't expecting, she might freeze up. An owl hunted over the north field, only visible when its silhouette blotted out stars. But even researching the Canterlot way to do things might backfire; Twilight had commented before on how refreshingly honest and unpretentious Ponyville was, and putting on city airs didn't seem like it would help. Her brother's breaths were long and even, the tip of his haystalk slowly dancing as he chewed on it. It had been a while since they had just stood together, thinking; there was always so much to do. She had always assumed that he would find a mare sometime, just like she had always assumed that she would find a stallion sometime. But for the first time, she realized that sometime might be now.

She wondered how good Twilight was at reading ponies. Twilight was great at reading books, that much was obvious, but Big Mac conveyed most of his meanings with gestures and expressions, supplemented by the occasional word. Applejack had been comforted many times by his strong shoulder and patient ears; was that what Twilight wanted in a stallion? Or would Twilight want someone who could talk her out of her anxieties, who could impress her with lectures on abstract subjects or fancy poetry?

Applejack felt odd wondering that, her familial pride conflicting with her friendship. She wanted Big Mac to be happy; she wanted Twilight to be happy. If they could be happy together, all the better. But if not...

“Ah want her to like you as much as you do,” she said softly.

He chuckled. “Eenope.”

She smiled. “Okay, maybe a bit less. But waiting around ain't gonna help. Either she likes you, or she don't; either way, you'll be able to move forward.”

He nodded, and they stared into the night together.

14. Advice About Advice

CE 1198

“Twilight,” Night Light said kindly, “why don't you explain to me what happened.” It was worded as a question, but it was not one.

The gates of Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns had silently swung shut behind them. Night Light, fresh from work, was wearing his suit, now a bit worse for the wear from hurried trip. Twilight's mane was even more disheveled than normal, and there were tear streaks running down her face.

“Well,” the filly sniffled, “It was the practice session in between lessons. Moondancer was trying to turn a matchstick into a needle, but she was casting the spell all wrong. I told her that she was putting too much swirl-wise force into the helix, and so it wasn't bending properly.” Her voice quivered a bit, so Night Light's steady hoof stroked her ruffled mane. “I cast the spell to show her, and then she called me a know-it-all and stuck me with the needle I made.”

“That wasn't nice of her,” Night Light affirmed.

She paused, then looked up at him, softly asking, “Am I a know-it-all, dad?”

Night Light smiled, trying to decide how to best word this. “You are very clever, Twilight, and that's a good thing. But how you use that cleverness will influence how other ponies treat you.”

He gestured to his suit, smoothing it out with his magic. “Take my work, for example. Ponies ask me to solve their problems, and I look around, find the causes, and tell them a few ways how they can solve it. Often, I'll see several other, unrelated problems that I know how to solve. Do I tell them how to solve those problems?”

Twilight looked at him, confused that this was even a question. “Yes?”

Night Light smiled. “Can you think of any reasons why not?” This time it was a question, and the sort that she liked.

Twilight stopped sniffling, thinking about this new problem. “Well, I guess they're only paying you to solve one problem, and wouldn’t like it if you charged for two.”

Night Light chuckled. “Well, there is that. But that's not the real reason; I could always point out that I noticed the other problem, and that they could hire me to fix it.”

Twilight stroked her chin with a hoof. “You mentioned that you tell them a few ways to solve the problem. For most problems, though, one of those solutions is probably obviously better. If you give them two choices, and they pick the bad one, then you're not helping them as much as you could.”

Night Light nodded. “That is a risk. But they may have different values than I do, and so what seems best to me may not be best for them.” He stroked her mane again, smoothing it out a little. “Good job noticing the hint, though.”

Twilight refocused on that. “They like deciding?”

“They don't just like deciding,” Night Light said, “they exist to decide. If I called myself a decider, no one would want me around, competing with them. So I'm just an advisor; a specialist that they can call in and that they can direct. If they ask me what else I notice, I tell them; but if they don't ask me for something, I don't force it on them.”

“So I should have just let Moondancer struggle?” Twilight asked.

“It's good of you to want to help,” Night Light said with a smile. “But you need to separate your intentions from the consequences of your actions. Does Moondancer understand more about magic now than she did this morning?”

“Probably not,” Twilight concluded reluctantly.

“Remember always that advice is a social action,” Night Light said, his voice growing more solemn. “I'm your father, and our interactions are shaped by our relationship.” He dried her cheeks by levitating away the tears, dropping them onto the sidewalk. “That relationship permits some actions and prevents others; I can groom you in public, and I cannot stop caring about you. You can trust that I give you advice because I want you to do well. Many people give advice just to hear themselves say it, or because they think someone like them would, not because they see how it will help their listeners.”

He started walking slowly towards home, the filly following behind him. “And social actions change relationships; if you give a gift to someone, the relationship is different from it was before you gave them a gift. If you employ another pony, then you are their boss and they are your employee, and things are different.” Night Light glanced back at Twilight. “When you give advice to another pony, you suggest that you know more than they do.”

Her mouth crinkled at that, and he smirked. “Yes, I know that you know more about magic than Moondancer does. I think she knows it too. But just because something is true doesn't mean you need to say it aloud. Your words are tools; use them carefully and deliberately.”

Twilight nodded. “Thanks, dad. I'm glad you came to pick me up.”

Night Light smiled. “You're welcome.”

“I love you,” she said simply.

“I love you too.”

15. Luna's Old Toy

CE 1215, after Luna's Return Banquet

Luna had dedicated extra care to her memory, finding enough space to store her complete sensory input for the entire banquet, not just the perceptions or concepts that had floated to her conscious attention. No doubt there were much of significance that she did not yet understand, which she would want to be able to notice when the other pieces of the puzzle came her way. Even without that, a public appearance like this with so much at stake would have been draining, and now that it was over she felt the need to do something recreational.

First, she had to meet with her advisors. One of the rooms in her tower made for a good conference room, albeit without a suitably impressive throne, and they were waiting for her there when she arrived.

"MY LITTLE PONIES," she began after she sat on the nicest chair they'd found in the tower, "INFORM ME OF YOUR EFFORTS."

First to speak was Fellwing, as captain of her guard. "Celestia's captain of the guard has transmitted the security of this tower to us, and we are discussing shared responsibility over the perimeter of the palace." He smiled toothily. "I get the impression that Celestia has leaned on him to be accommodating, and so I'm trying to snatch all I can."

Next was her chancellor. "I've investigated transporting the remainder of the lunar ponies from the Moon to Equestria. Celestia's ministers believe it will not be difficult to find them space, most likely in some sort of cavern system. There are several in the mountain beneath Canterlot that seem promising." He glanced at the others. "I am not sure how the adjustment will go, to be honest. I think there are some who would like to stay at the Redoubt, and others who would only like to visit Equestria. The days are... unpleasantly bright, and it just seems inefficient to all be on the same shift."

The Archmage nodded. "I've been going through the library and putting my Ancient Equestrian to use. I had to devise a spell to block out most of the light to be able to read under their lamps; I suspect we'll need to produce sunglasses and provide them to our ponies so that they'll be able to deal with it."

Her doctor spoke next. "There are permanent solutions, many of which we could implement shortly. But all of the ones I've thought of so far will also block the ability to function in low light, and so I'm looking for one that will be flexible." He grimaced. "There have also been a truly startling number of illnesses among the ponies here in the tower. I've been working with some of Celestia's doctors to treat those impacted and inoculate those who aren't. They've also expressed concerns about diseases moving the other direction. At the very least, we shouldn't have any more physical contact with the Redoubt until the situation is under control here and we've put precautions in place."

"CLEAN THIS TOWER AS WELL, TO REDUCE OUR RISK," Luna commanded. "AND WHILE WE'RE AT IT, WE MIGHT AS WELL REDECORATE. THIS IS THE NIGHT TOWER, AND WE WILL MAKE IT SO." Interior decorating sounded exactly like what she needed right now.

The new decorations--dark and solemn to match the Princess that dwelt within--as well as rumors of disease kept the number of gawkers and well-wishers to a minimum. Immediately after the banquet, there had still been many which she greeted briefly, most of whom quickly departed after hearing the Royal Canterlot Voice (how did her sister manage to be heard in that whisper of hers?) and seeing her guards, carefully bred to their new look during her long exile.

The interruptions mostly managed, Luna prepared to spend her days sleeping and her nights trying to rebuild her mind, locked inside her bedroom. She was a lightning-fast thinker, but she had over a thousand years to search for answers, and when she reached towards much of it she felt a friction slowing down her mind, pushing her back to other areas. She knew there were many more plans made on the moon than she could recall, but what were they? What had her goals been? It took concentrated focus to remember one plan, and the result was so mystifying it hardly seemed worth the effort. Her childhood had mostly faded, but that had always been the case. She could remember her parents after she had become an adult, but... some part of her wondered where they were, why they hadn't been part of the stream of important ponies here to see the exotic new Princess.

They're probably dead, she deduced, surprised she hadn't remembered that. Ponies die. A trove of medical knowledge, longevity research, and magical theory appeared before her mind's eye, but she focused on a much more pressing question, for which she could not find an answer: did I go to their funeral?

Other memories had just felt like she had to swim through molasses to get to them; but the memory of their funeral felt like she had to climb a wall with her wings tied down and her hooves slathered with lard to get to it. She frowned and concentrated on the feeling of friction, abandoning the memory and delving within her mind with her magic.

As suspected, the block was an aftereffect of the Harmony blast. But it was a temporary block, it seemed, already chipping and sure to erode with time. Luna breathed a sigh of relief; she was sure that was not a happy memory, and while she didn't feel up to learning it now she was sure it would be better to know a bad truth than let the knowledge be lost forever.

There was a sequence of timed knocks on the door which identified the guard outside. A brief clairvoyance spell confirmed that the guard at the door looked like the pony issued that code, and a brief brush against his mind confirmed there was no coercion or fear. “ENTER,” she declared.

He obeyed, entering and pressing his snout to the ground in the traditional bow of deference.

“My Princess,” he said in his gravelly voice, “a petitioner waits on your pleasure. He asked me to give you this.”

He slid a piece of paper onto the ground in front of himself. Luna glanced at it, sharpening her eyesight to correct for the angle and the distance, reflecting idly on how much easier the adjustment to Equestria was for her than for her subjects. It was a lattice of dots, with peculiar lines running from some dots to other dots- one of the codes she had devised, long ago. It did not take her long to decrypt it. The Horn's Tip brings buried treasure.

The Horn's Tip? More friction, but this must be important enough to know. She delved, draining her energy to find a path through the block. He was a servant of hers, here in Equestria; there were others. They had had a plan, once, but it was locked away in another spot.

She checked her internal clock. That tidbit had taken her thirty minutes to unlock, and the guard had been patiently bowing the whole time. She wondered how patient this Horn's Tip was. “BRING HIM TO ME,” she commanded. The guard nodded and departed at once.

After a brief wait, a unicorn stallion with an indigo robe and mask entered the room, carrying a black chest with his magic and flanked by two of her guards. Luna detached part of her magic in a gaseous form, drifting over him like a cool breeze- and getting a glimpse of what lay beneath the clothes. A unicorn whose white mane and dark grey coat flecked with spots of white suggested he was out of his prime. His cutie mark was points of reddish light on a black background- an oddly specific astronomical mark. I'll have to check the astronomy departments for a unicorn who specializes in distant galaxies. The chest was made of ebony wood, and inlaid with elaborate wards; Luna knew that she must have made them, but irritatingly, the memory was too distant to reach for now.

He set the chest down and slowly made the traditional bow; at least, as well as he could with the flexibility left in his joints. Luna was surprised to note a lack of annoyance at the frailty of his attempt at decorum and filed that away to introspect about later. Once, she would have responded sharply; she felt both her past self's surprise that she hadn't, and her current self's surprise that her past self would have. She rose from the bed, walking over to stand in front of his chest, studying the design. Mind, she thought to herself. That's what I would have decorated like this. The wards were still shining bright, even after a thousand years. I build to last, she thought grimly.

She reached out with her magic and the wards melted for her. The ebony chest opened itself, its tightly interwoven pieces uncurling like a flower, and she felt a chill wind rush out of it. Inside lay a sphere of pure night, its darkness drinking in the light of the room, with malevolent pinpricks glinting deep within.

She quickly shut the chest, restoring the wards. The wind ceased, but the room remained cold with the memory of the sphere.

She turned hard eyes on the robed unicorn. "WE SHALL KEEP THIS WITH US," she declared in a way that brooked no disagreement. She looked again at the chest, contemplating its contents. "YOU HAVE DONE WELL IN PRESERVING IT." The unicorn nodded quickly, then backed carefully out of the room, her guards shutting the door behind him.

Once, long ago, she had started a diary. But Luna was never one to do things imperfectly: no, it would be an external mental archive. It was as familiar as her hoof, but as distant as the stars: she knew that this was an artifact of the old Luna and that by reconnecting with it she might trace the same steps that led to a thousand lost years. But it would have the answers that her own mind seemed unable to give her as long as the effects of Harmony still locked her away from part of herself.

As she returned to the bed, tucking her legs under her once more, she pondered what it was she wanted. She had always pursued knowledge without question and without remorse, but look where that had gotten her. An odd part of her whispered to destroy the orb, or turn it over to Celestia, but that voice was small and easily silenced. She would keep it, but not use it unless she needed to. Eventually, she would have learned everything there was to learn while harmonized, and then she would learn her past. And record her future, she realized, cementing her resolve to keep it. Now, she just needed to figure out how to hide it. Plans raced through her head, a smile creeping onto her face.

Deep Field panted, trying to slow his racing heart. The guard, with his grotesque bat wings and tufted ears, looked at him with a gaze somewhere between caution and concern. “I'll be fine,” Deep Field wheezed.

The guard nodded and nonchalantly remarked, “If you were going to have a heart attack, you probably would have by now."

Deep Field didn't respond, deciding his lungs were better spent trying to force more oxygen back into his system. After the banquet, he had prepared a speech; drafted it, practiced it in front of the mirror, working out the paths the conversation could take and what likely outcomes were. But he hadn't predicted how terrible it would be to bow before the Princess of the Night in her sanctum, bearing an old treasure entrusted to a distant predecessor. His words had fled his head before that commanding voice, and it was all he could do to leave with his bladder intact, let alone ask her to declare them under her protection or take them into her service. Looking at the guard next to him, and remembering her presence, he wondered if he even wanted that anymore.

At least she didn't lock me up, he thought. He had worked through his plans and drafts on paper before consigning those notes to the flames, and that was the worst consequence he had imagined beforehand. He had stared at 'imprisoned' written in his neat hoofwriting on the scroll for a long, long time before making the trip to the Canterlot Palace to seek an audience, sneaking through the hidden tunnels to avoid having to explain to one of Celestia’s guards what a masked unicorn was doing carrying a box into the palace. Now he had to make the trip back, shaken and alone.

13. Luna's Return Banquet

CE1215, the night of Luna's Return Banquet

In the cramped entrance to their home, Twilight Velvet adjusted Night Light's ascot for the third time. The banquet wasn't for another few hours, but they had a carriage waiting outside to deliver them to the palace early. Night Light's mind drifted to the previous day, when his brother-in-law had offhandedly remarked that it was surprisingly easy to manage good seats for all of them, including Shining Armor and Twilight Sparkle, when very few other families were sending multiple generations to the hastily arranged banquet. There was an air of mystery around the whole affair, with conflicting explanations for the delayed sunrise on the day of the Summer Sun celebration, occurring just before Luna's return. Night Light was the patient sort, who knew that it would take months for all the details from events like this to come to light, but the phrase "Mare in the Moon" was whispered with alarming frequency. They had rushed an invitation letter to Twilight by pegasus courier, imagining the Princess was too busy to relay a letter like she did in calmer times. Twilight had promptly sent her reply by dragonfire, delivered to them from the Palace by a Royal Guard. The letter was short:

Dear Mother and Father,

Thanks for the invite, and be sure to thank Uncle Velvet for me. I made some great friends here in Ponyville and am going to be continuing my studies here. Sorry that I can't make the celebration in Canterlot.

Love, Twilight Sparkle.

Twilight Velvet had been exasperated. “Of all the times to start making friends!” Night Light had noticed the odd specificity of the letter’s last sentence, saying nothing and filing that fact away.

She's the lucky one, he thought as Twilight Velvet adjusted his ascot for the fourth time, bringing him back to the present. Velvet Rope was dressed perfectly, a fashionable coat draped close to his slim frame, with a green carnation in the lapel pin as his only decoration. He was busy helping Shining Armor center his badge, which was shaped like a purple six-pointed star. Twilight Velvet was wearing her fanciest dress, the one she had commissioned for the celebration when she got tenure (and which had been altered several times since). Gemstones studded the midnight blue dress in the (technically accurate) patterns of constellations, and her earrings were a large ruby shaped like Mars and a massive cloudy jade shaped like Venus. Night Light had wisely refrained from pointing out that they just looked like mismatched ball earrings, though her fellow astronomers would happily note that she even got the relative sizes right.

Night Light preferred smaller gatherings, where each pony was interesting enough that he would be content to talk to just them for the whole night. Princess Luna's return banquet was not a social event so much as a historical one, and he supposed that if he didn't go, he would always regret it. Unfortunately, avoiding regret was not a particularly exciting motivation.

Which was what made Twilight's refusal so odd; she loved history, loved comparing the stories and unraveling the tangled knots, checking them against the old, thick tome Night Light kept in his study. She would never pass up the opportunity to see history in the making-

Night Light stiffened, and Twilight Velvet immediately let go of his ascot. “Too tight?” she asked worriedly.

“No,” he said, smiling. “I think it looks better now.” He looked over at Velvet Rope, hoping to change the topic. “Do you know who is sitting with us?”

Velvet Rope, still adjusting the many straps of Shining Armor's ceremonial outfit, spoke without looking away from his work. “We're at a twelve-seat table in the second tier. Cadance is seated in the first tier on the left, and we're seating Shiny so she'll have a clear line of sight.” Shining blushed furiously as Velvet Rope continued, entirely unconcerned with the younger stallion's embarrassment. “The others are: William Wright and 'guest', one Sapphire Shores. He thinks she'll be Mrs. Wright number five, and she couldn't get a ticket on her own.” Night Light had contracted for Wright before; he was an elderly stallion who had been a steady helmsman for his family business, widowed four times, and already predeceased by two of his many children. Night Light had never met Sapphire Shores, but vaguely suspected that she was a musician of some sort.

“Mosely Orange and wife. I suspect you've been keeping up with the Southern Colonization Company; he's been rising up the ranks in Manehattan and is now a director. Hoofworth and Chime Melody. They should be pleasant as always.” Chime Melody and Hoofworth had each built up industrial fortunes, their business interests clashing until they decided to marry and merge their empires. Night Light had never quite gotten the whole story, and was happy to let that stay buried. They were both old friends, though, and had hired him several times. Putting them at the same table with the Oranges and Wright sounded like a deal in the making, though, which considerably brightened the conversational prospects of the night.

“At Pierce's request, I gave Twilight Sparkle's seat to Deep Field.”

Twilight Velvet looked up from adjusting Night Light's ascot for the fifth time. “My old advisor? I didn't know he was coming.” I didn't know that Pierce knew him that well, Night Light thought.

Velvet Rope smiled as he finished gussying up Shining Armor. “Well, he wasn't until Twilight Sparkle declined.”

Deep Field looked at his mirror. An old pony stared back at him. The skull was still the same; he could recognize the pony who had grown up on a farm, whose parents had been so crude as to name their foal after the place of his conception. He knew that foal had looked up at the stars in the night sky and the gleaming rooftops of Canterlot, just visible over the horizon. But that smooth-faced foal was buried beneath wrinkles as deep as the furrows of his boyhood farm; the only shared features he saw were the same brown eyes, and that the flesh hung from the same sharp bones.

He had gotten his cutie mark late; he was well into his astronomical studies when he developed a way to resolve a very small portion of the sky. He had called the resulting view the Deep Field, and thus turned his shame to his pride. That he also got his cutie mark then had seemed almost like an afterthought.

He wondered at the magic of cutie marks; he looked like little more than bones in a sack of skin and hair, but his cutie mark was as bright as the day it had appeared. Was he the same pony, anymore? His research had required orbital magic, and as a unicorn with an Earth pony father raised away from the halls of power he had managed to get clearance to perform his experiment. It had also earned him the attention of the Moon's Horn, and led him to where he stood today. His life seemed dominated by burdens, now, not discovery, and a cutie mark of a discovery felt out of place on his skin.

But that young pony whose bones he inherited had carried burdens of his own; perhaps his cutie mark was that he found a way to turn his burdens to his advantage. Deep Field smiled. He had not expected to find another interpretation for his cutie mark at his age; perhaps he had the ability to reinvent himself again. He looked at the clock; it was almost time to teleport to the palace.

Sapphire Shores was a musician, Night Light rapidly discovered. Shining Armor’s favorite, in fact, and it wasn’t long after she learned that Shining Armor had all of her records that she gave up any pretense of paying attention to her ‘date’ (who was old enough to be her grandfather) to focus instead on the strapping young guardsman. Shining Armor was visibly torn between his desire to fawn over an idol and his dismay at having to deflect her flirtations. Night Light’s paternal affections prevented him from fully enjoying Shiny’s torment, but Velvet Rope and Sapphire Shores had no such compunctions, and he slowly fed her details over the course of the night.

Night Light had been worried that Wright would respond to the slight by getting drunk, but after a few failed attempts to capture Sapphire’s attention he harrumphed and then focused on the chatter between the commercial couples. Night Light paid close enough attention to interject something clever every now and then, but from Night Light’s perspective it seemed to be little more than all of them realizing that a colony in the Southwest would probably be profitable for all of them. That sort of blue sky planning (the sort that was important but not urgent) was the sort of thing he tried to do regularly and deliberately, rather than on the random occasions of dinners, subject to the whims of seating arrangements.

But as he looked around the room, he reflected that these occasions were anything but random, and the seating arrangements the result of enough focused brainpower that whim didn’t quite describe it. Yes, many of the constraints were accidental--move Cadance on the first tier, and their position could shift significantly--but someone stood to gain from these ponies sitting together, and so sit together they would.

And with that thought, he looked again at the table of honor. Celestia and Luna sat together, at a table that was in fact smaller than any of the others, but which seemed larger by the amount of space each princess was allotted. When they had all entered, Celestia had given a long speech, and then Luna shouted a short one, and then the servers had begun to deliver the first or many courses. Each table in the first tier- those closely related enough to style themselves Prince or Princess, as well as important government officials- had been ushered up to greet Luna in person over the course of the banquet. Night Light didn’t expect they’d do that for the rest of them- it looked like they were spending at least fifteen seconds per pony that spoke with the princesses, and each table sat twelve, and there were around eighty other tables. Fifteen seconds for twelve ponies was three minutes, or a twentieth of an hour, times eighty tables was four hours. They might interact with Luna while exiting- then, average time per pony would be closer to three seconds, which would still be interminable but more reasonable.

Night Light was somewhat disappointed, actually. He had imagined the event as historic, that he would tell his grandchildren that he was there when Luna’s return was celebrated, but now that he thought about it, with the way his children had turned out it was likely his grandchildren would know Luna all their lives. It was shaping up to just be a sumptuous dinner (the palace chefs did know what they were doing) in public. They had learned little about the Princess of the Moon besides that she was glad to be back. Doubtless many financiers had planned to excuse themselves and ‘visit the facilities’ if any details had been leaked about the implementation of the Princesses’s co-rule, but the speeches had been devoid of such details and Night Light had noticed no sudden departures from those ponies that spoke with the princesses directly. With little content to fuel speculations besides Luna’s bizarre lack of volume control, the conversation had rapidly shifted from the occasion to more personal matters.

Perry Pierce and Deep Field had both spoken little, Night Light noticed. They seemed otherwise lost in thought, frequently glancing at Luna’s table, though Twilight Velvet had grown bored enough to discuss work with Deep Field. Pierce was no doubt thinking about the political ramifications of Luna’s return, both for Equestria at large and within the Lunar Society. An emergency session of the Society had been called as soon as the invitations to this banquet had been received, and Night Light was not looking forward to also losing his next evening. Within any group of ambitious ponies, there would be talk of politics, and over the years there had been many discussions within the Lunar Society about how Equestria could be remade in the shape of a Griffon clan, or a convocation of dragons, a massive corporation, or something never seen before. Some had speculated about the return of Luna, and there were those in the society who insisted that Luna had been banished for seeking to implement a Republic in Equestria, allowing ponies to choose their own leadership, and thus hopefully choose her over Celestia. Night Light had found this difficult to square with what he could find of the historical record, or the widely accepted story that the banishment of Luna had been prompted by her feeling unloved by the citizenry of Equestria.

Perry Pierce had been one of the strongest voices in favor of republicanism in the Lunar Society, and was even willing to consider outright anarchy. He had many convincing points, and could argue the issue for hours on end, but most ponies, Night Light included, had come to the conclusion that Celestia had ruled for long before they were born, and would rule for long after they would die, and thus political speculation was not useful. Night Light went so far as to claim it was not useful because ponies grew so passionate while discussing it. In the annals of the society, they could see the progress of mathematics, engineering, natural philosophy, and business, but beyond a few administrative innovations, Celestia’s government remained as stable and tightly controlled as the orbit of the world around the sun. The unicorns had controlled that once, but it was not likely they would do so again.

But now Luna had returned, right when one of the many conflicting predictions said she would. This was the biggest change to the government of Equestria in centuries, and if Night Light knew Perry Pierce, the stallion would try to put himself at the middle of it. Night Light had his reservations, both about Pierce's theories and the demeanor of this returned Princess. Pierce’s preoccupied silence was probably fevered planning.

Perry didn’t like his coltfriend’s family very much; Velvet Rope’s sister Twilight Velvet was about as robotic a pony as he’d seen, more interested in things and ideas than other ponies. Night Light’s deference towards the rich had always grated against Perry. Even Perry would admit that, of the twelve at their table, Night Light was the cleverest; and yet he had a comfortable brownstone and a secretary against Wright’s mansion in the country and collection of concerns. A society that elevated Wright above Light was a sick society, but instead of seeking a cure, Light just made Wright richer. Perry knew Light’s work had earned Wright bits for every penny Light had been paid, and that this didn’t bother Light infuriated Perry almost as much as the situation itself.

Their foals were also too close to the heart of Equestrian conservatism for Perry to feel comfortable around them. Shining Armor was in the Royal Guard, and on the fast track to the top, likely to make captain in a year or two, and Twilight Sparkle was already there as Celestia’s personal student.

But Velvet Rope was as well-connected as anyone in Canterlot, and so Perry kept his opinions to himself and smiled along. Just by sharing Velvet’s bed Perry had dramatically increased the reconnaissance available to the Moon’s Horn. Velvet Rope had taken years to woo; Perry suspected that Velvet’s reluctance was because his uncanny ability to read other ponies had tipped him off to Perry’s ulterior motives. But Perry had been patient, and eventually Velvet had acquiesced. At the time, it had seemed a validation of the long focus and deep patience of the Moon’s Horn, but Perry’s faith in them had been deeply shaken and he was not quite sure he was going to land on his hooves.

The best case would be if he managed to get Luna to argue the case for an Equestrian Republic, he was elected its first president, and went down in history as Equestria’s most important ruler.

The next best would be if he managed to get elections inserted in the administration as part of the switch to co-rule, and was elected to the most important ministerial position. Then he’d finally be able to set things straight in this country.

Almost as good would be if he managed to become Luna’s right-hoof minister. He knew that Deep Field planned to raise the issue of their roles moving forward with Luna, but figured it would be easy to argue to Luna that he was more skilled than Deep Field, and figured that Luna should be biased against seniority systems anyway.

He had made plans in the event of an all-out war between Luna and Celestia; times of tumult were particularly useful for reordering things. But those plans should probably be discarded now.

He paid just enough attention to the conversation to not offend, nodding along at the right time, smiling at Velvet Rope whenever the stallion glanced his way, and sliding a hoof up his leg whenever the stallion had gone too long without looking his way. He found it hard to care about the new colony--really, they were calling it Appleloosa?--or the young mare flirting with Shining Armor, or his attempts to steer the conversation away from her lust and towards the meaning of her music. Neither growth nor love nor art could turn his mind from thoughts of control.

The dinner began to wind down, the conversations growing softer, ponies glancing around more. This is when the first guests would start to leave, during a normal banquet, but for an occasion like this, none could bear to be the first to go. With a new princess on the scene, none wanted to give offense, and what if something happened after they left? Celestia either noticed the mood or had expected things to go this way, and stood up as the hall entered a particularly quiet lull. Conversations stopped, ponies craned their necks to see, and Celestia gestured for Luna to join her.

Luna stood up, and shouted her thanks at the guests for attending, that she would begin to receive guests in her tower at a time to be determined later, and wished them all goodnight. Celestia bid them goodnight as well, and then the two Princesses departed.

With that, the night was ended, and ponies began to file out. Wright and Hoofworth stood and shook hooves vigorously. Night Light looked around, trying to sense the energy of the room and not getting a good read. He looked over at Velvet Rope.

“Tense,” Velvet Rope supplied, helpfully. “Very few people got what they were coming for, tonight.”

“I’ll say,” Sapphire Shores said, winking at Shining Armor, who blushed furiously.

Velvet Rope smiled. “Well, I did what I could to make the tables interesting. But no one knows how to plan around Princess Luna yet.”

“I’ll say,” Deep Field muttered to himself, softly.

“Princess Celestia, maybe,” Velvet Rope said. “But if so, she isn’t sharing, yet. And did you hear that invitation? ‘At a time to be determined?’ That’ll fuel the rumor mill for some time.”

“Well, that and her voice,” Perry Pierce added. “It looked like it didn’t go over well.”

“That’s putting it politely,” Night Light said as he stood up, “but with Princesses I find that’s the wisest way.”