Jade - 12th of Solarus ‘15 EoH - Late Morning

I yawned as I wiggled awake next to David. Despite the insanity that had been trying to learn the Equestrian political system, I had enjoyed my stay in Ponyville so far. Mostly because Twilight's palace had the best guest bedrooms ever!

Until seven days ago, I had no idea that there was such a thing as a bed with curtains around it. That was a beautiful thing! So cozy! The perfect way to section off a large room into a nice small, dimly lit, warm place. A changeling couldn’t ask for more!

Well, we could also ask for some bedtime snacks to go with the perfect bed, but that’s what a mate is for.

Though to be fair David was less a snack and more of a meal. A tasty meal. Now I know why mom and dad let each other have a concubine, freshly made love is delicious!

I spent a few minutes gently nuzzling David’s neck to see if he was awake. He just rolled over muttering, saying something about things in that alien language of his. Deciding to play a bit unfair I gently nibbled his eartip, but only got a few twitches out of his ear before giving up on breakfast in bed.

Carefully scooting out of bed, so that the warm wouldn’t escape the covers, I slid between the bed curtains and set hoof on the Purrsian carpeted floor.

I loved the palace’s decorations. There were lovely plush carpets everywhere, not just to add a splash of color to the dark crystal walls, but to make the place usable. The crystal was unnaturally smooth, without carpet over it, hooves would slide and skitter all over the floors, making a pony slide like they were standing on greased ice.

There were also bolts of silken cloth hung in a draping banner style along the tops of rooms and hallways. Many different colors and patterns of cloth were used, and each helped you find your way to a different place by letting you know what area of the palace you were in by their color, and where in that area you were by the pattern.

All of the decor aside from paintings of ponies and the odd statue were that nice, pretty but purposeful blend. It just made sense to merge decoration and utility. When I got to the actual building part of building a Hive, I’d have to copy the idea.

I looked around the room, admiring the solid mineral based walls. it was nice to be in a proper home again. Well, almost proper. It wasn’t underground, but at least it was carved out of a solid chunk of material. Nice solid, safe, and unyielding crystal.

Well, presumably unyielding. I’d rather not test that. Repairs would be pretty expensive. Though the painted to not be hideous looking tree portion supported the entire palace just fine, so the crystal had to be pretty strong. At least in terms of bearing a load.

Though it did make me wonder why Twilight chose to have her palace made out of crystal. She seemed like such a practical pony, and well, even after just over a week it was pretty clear that she was more than a little… unbalanced. You’d think she would have had a manor house built to match the architecture of the rest of Ponyville.

A light knocking on the wooden doors interrupted my thoughts. Trotting over to the door I gently opened it with my magic, hearts giving a tiny flutter as the opening door revealed Twilight’s Scribe. The glossy purple Drake was smaller than others of his kind I’d seen so far, but something in how he carried himself suggested he’d seen worse than you a dozen times before breakfast. Even if he also looked upbeat and cheerful.

“Uh, Hi!” I quickly greeted, “Spike, right?”

He nodded, reptilian eyes focusing on me with far too much sharpness for my liking. “Yep. Uh, you alright?”

“Fine.” I replied quickly, not wanting to let him know that he creeped me out.

It was weird, I didn’t have any problem with Drakes at a distance, but apparently up close they shifted me into full ‘There is a predator nearby!’ mode.

“No you’re not.” Spike sighed, shaking his head slowly. “You think I’m going to eat you, right?”

“Uh-” I started flinching a little.

“You know, I never had this problem as a baby. But the second you grow a little, gain your wings, and start walking on all fours everypony’s attitude changes.” He huffed, giving me an indignant look. Only to give me a playful wink a heartbeat later, “I know I look like a fierce dragon now, but I’m a softie. I’m not going to hurt you.”

“Well.. I know that. But-” I sighed, taking a half step backwards, “It’s hard to fight instinct.”

“Tell me about it. I was this close to growing into a full dragon,” Spike held up a claw, two talons forming a tiny gap between them, “but nope. Lost all three hoards. Couldn’t stop trying to make one till I grew up. But after that… Meh, I’m just a scaly pony realy. Don’t worry, you’ll get used to me in another week or two.”

I nodded slowly. “O-okay… So uh, why does Twilight have you do so much? I mean you're a scribe, right?” I simply had to know.

Spike cocked his head at my question, “Uh, no… I’m her assistant. I don’t just write for her, I do- well, everything.”

“Oh! So you're her Coltservent?” I asked curiously, “I’m just trying to understand the palace staff’s um… arrangement?”

He smiled in amusement, revealing those super pointy draconic teeth, “Oh! Heh, good luck equating Equestrian servants to foreign jobs. Most ponies here hold two or three positions at once.”

He stopped, blinked, then shook his head, “For example, right now, I’m supposed to be a messenger. Twilight wants to see you. She’s in the private dining room in the kitchen.”

I stared at Spike helplessly for a minute. He gave me a little grin of understanding.

“Go left. Down the staircase on your right, then follow the blue starred drapery until you reach the kitchen. You want the small room to the left of the kitchen’s entrance.” He instructed, turning to trot off down the corridor.

“Thanks!” I called after him, letting out a held breath as I quickly stepped into the hall, closing the door behind me.

I felt my ears droop in embarrassed sadness as I headed for the kitchen. It felt awful to be afraid of someone who had to be nice and friendly to hold the job they did. Even worse, with all I’d been through it felt so stupid to be afraid of a dwarf dragon!

The big variety would make sense to be afraid of, they love changelings like ponies love fried hay. But Spike and other miniature dragons… I didn’t understand it. I was a head bigger than him! I’d fought Queen Chrysalis! But nope! The polite and chit-chatty assistant still managed to make me nervous.

Stupid brain…

I arrived at the dining room still mentally grumbling about my embarrassed sadness. The room was very small, just big enough for six ponies to eat comfortably. It had one large round wooden table, which surprisingly had no decoration other than it’s woodgrain and a glossy polish, and it’s walls were very plainly decorated with shelves holding books and nicknacks. It was the most homey part of the palace I had seen so far!

As I walked in Twilight looked up from her seat where she sat reading from the familiar cloth and wood slat book Lily, David, and I had carried for so long.

“There you are!” Twilight greeted with a smile, “Would you mind helping me decipher Clover’s spells? I have nothing scheduled for today, and I thought you might like a break from political lectures.”

I nodded gratefully and took a seat beside this alien version of the mare I’d come to know.

Twilight normally looked so formal, stiff, and poised, like a living statue going about the motions of a ruler with precise and measured motions. This Twilight looked like a normal pony. Was this what she was normally like?

“I would love too.” I answered as I settled into the chair. The simple wooden seat was a bit oddly shaped for someone my size.

Twilight gave me a relieved and happy smile, “That’s great! I know you don’t know too much about magic yet, but maybe that’s just what we need to work this out… Also maybe you can remember what Clover did exactly.”

“I can try,” I replied taking a look at the page Twilight had been reading. It was the first spell in the book, just a few pages behind the title page. “I can’t control when and what I know she knew though. It comes to me randomly.”

“Is that how you suddenly worked out the light spell I was trying to show you?” Twilight asked curiously.

I nodded in response, avoiding speaking to try and avoid the bunny trail of magic lessons. I didn’t want to go to school today.

“Cool! We’ll have to study the phenomenon sometime. Maybe we can find a way to let you use Clover’s memories like a reference book!” Twilight exclaimed excitedly. “Uh, speaking of books, did the book get damaged during your journey? It’s missing a few pages.”

“Not that I remember.” I said in surprise, “What pages are missing?”

“I’m not sure… There’s ten different places where pages have been very neatly torn out from random parts of the book.” Twilight informed. “It could have been to remove a mistake, or to prevent a spell from being learned. I honestly can’t tell… Mostly because the farther in I try to read the less sense everything makes.”

“Well, I guess that means we try to work on the first one.” I said simply, squinting as I tried my best to read the spidery writing. “What’s weird about it?”

“The spell matrices.” Twilight explained. “A novice mage wouldn’t notice anything wrong here, later on in the book sure, but not here. This spell is just an explanation of the standard matrix Clover uses for the other spells in the book. Modern magic all uses a variation of Starswirl’s amniomorphic spell as their matrix, but with ancient world spells you generally have to know what the specific mage used to get their spells to work properly.”

“So we need this spell to make the others work.” I mused. My eyes widened in sudden realization, “Oh! Maybe she used the spell matrix as a sort of key to encipher the other spells!”

Twilight flashed me a proud smile. “That’s exactly what I think! The only problem is that this spell doesn't make any sense either.”

I nodded and rubbed a hoof across my chin in thought. “Well… I’m just an amateur… Also, I can’t read that hoof writing. What’s weird about it?”

Twilight nodded grimly. “Clover was definitely not the best at penmareship. The problem is there are these little extra bits thrown into the matrix’s description. I thought they might form a sentence or an equation, but they are just nonsense as far as I can tell. If you cast the spell like this it would form a spell matrix, but it would be very unstable, ether decaying quickly or causing a spell formed within it to behave oddly.

“So I’m thinking that if we cast the right spell with the matrix that will reveal a clue as to-”

A scrap of parchment with some characters hastily but neatly scratched onto it caught my eye.

“I don’t mean to interrupt, but is that the ‘nonsense’?” I asked, glee welling up in my chest as I realized I knew something Twilight didn't for a change.

“Huh?” Twilight asked, before looking at the scrap of parchment. “Yes. Why?”

“That’s changelish writing.” I giggled, giving Twilight a pleased with myself grin.

She shook her head. “No it’s not. My translation spell covers spoken and written changelish.”

“I’m the first diamond you’ve met, Twilight.” I pointed out. “If two neighboring nations can speak entirely different languages-”

Twilight facehooved. “Oh my gosh! I’m so sorry! I’m just focused on this mystery right now! I didn’t even think that changelings might have dialects.”

“It’s okay. I used to think all ponies spoke Equish.” I picked up the scrap of parchment with my magic and floated it over to the table in front of me and stared at the characters sketched onto it.

“Well, it’s just that the Ruby, Emerald, and Sapphire hives all use the written form I have included in my spell so… Well, you know.” Twilight chuckled in embarrassment.

“No, seriously, it’s fine.” I soothed. “See these characters? My hive doesn't use all of them, but I recognize most of them. Each one is a little picture that has a specific meaning. It’s like writing with runes like Equish uses except each word has it’s own individual character.”

“Oh! That would explain why I don't recognize it!” Twilight exclaimed, “Your hive uses a pictographic version of the language!”

“Is that the word for it?” I asked before looking back at the characters. “Anyways, the order of characters doesn't mean too much because they form the context of the sentence as a whole. But the exact order does matter a bit, so I should be able to read this if I can work out-”

I nodded happily as I found a pattern in the characters that would say something that made sense within the context of hiding information. “There! ‘The warmth of the candle illuminates’.” I said happily.

Twilight’s eyes lit up, “That must be the spell to use with the matrix! Let’s see…” Twilight closed her eyes in thought, “Given the arrangement of each part, if I use this to form a small candle sized flame…” She shook her head slowly. “No… That will just make a shower of sparks.”

“Well, try it anyways?” I suggested.

“I suppose it wouldn’t hurt.” Twilight said, horn pulsing for a literally only just detectable instant.

A small shimmering candle flame winked into existence a few inches in front of Twilight’s nose, danced for a brief moment then fall apart in a shower of yellow-blue sparks.

“Well, at least you know what an unstable matrix does now.” Twilight mused, sitting back in her chair to think.

“Well, why are you so sure that the matrix plus a small flame needs to be cast? Maybe that’s just the key. If you wrote it down, would it look like a code, or something?” I asked curiously.

Twilight mulled the idea over for a minute then nodded. “Yes, I suppose you could use that as a cipher key… But no mage I can think of would hide something that way when they can hide something magically. My own personal spellbook has all of it’s text scrambled unless you cast the proper spell while holding it, an idea I got from reading one of Starswirl’s books.

“So since Clover was especially powerful, and also was Starswirl’s teacher, it makes sense for her to… I’m sure you understand what I’m saying, right?”

I nodded, “Yes, but wouldn’t Clover have known that?”

“What do you mean?” Twilight asked with a small frown.

“Lily told me these spells can only be cast by a very powerful wizard. So if you wanted to protect them why, would you choose a method that a mage would think to try first?” I asked seriously.

Twilight nodded slowly. “Well, you have a point there… How about I write down the matrix as it would be if casting that candlelight spell, and you see if there are any more ways that sentence could be read? That way we can try both methods.”

“Sure!” I turned back to the parchment just as Twilight conjured another sheet of parchment and a quill, catching both appearing out of the corner of my vision.

Changelish is an odd language by the world’s standards I guess. It makes perfect sense to me. Context provides what the message is supposed to mean, and the characters used provide the context. The order of those characters provided another layer of context before each character's meaning finishes the thought.

This meant that the characters within Clover’s message could be arranged in limited ways. The first three I had thought of made no sense given the context of a message one might hide to let others know how to understand the rest of the book. Unless ‘See how she sparkles’ was some sort of hint at a riddle.

Or maybe…

“Twilight! Can I have parchment and a pen, please?” I asked in sudden realization.

“Of course! I should teach you my parchment making spell later. Stores never stock enough of the stuff.” Twilight said as she conjured parchment and quill in front of me without even looking up from her work.

Picking up the quill with my magic, I began to write down every possible string of characters. Maybe if you put all of them into proper order you could make a single longer statement! That was an old kind of poem they made us do in school, where you have one sentence that can be read a dozen ways, each way adding more meaning to one overall narrative.

It only took a minute to get all the combinations written down in Changelish and Equish. But getting an order to the sentences right was a bit more challenging. Twilight finished her four page long description before I managed to put the last line into place.

“There. I think this is it.” I said as I finished.

Twilight looked over and then gave me a confused eyebrow raise. “How do you get this out of eight characters?”

“Uh… Well this is all the possible things they could say, with the nonsense left out, and then arranged into a single longer statement… It’s a poem.” I explained.

“That's kind of cool.” Twilight said as I passed her the message.

“Here. It’s a riddle, I think.” I informed, glancing at the parchment again.

The warmth of the candle illuminates,

see how she sparkles?

Her light reveals the gates,

which guard the chronicles.

The tome is the key,

by which entrance is claimed.

The lock is shared with thee

by those friendship hath proclaimed.

Not by deed nor presence,

such thoughts mislead.

You desire a pleasance,

the warmth friends heed.

“I’ve never been very good with riddles.” I continued, “But we can probably fig-”

Twilight’s eyes scanned the parchment once, “Oh! She’s talking about the Fires of Friendship!”

I felt my ears droop. Stupid riddles! Always making me feel like an idiot…

“Uh, what are those?” I asked to distract myself from Ms. Insta-solve.

“The Fires of Friendship is Clover’s greatest magical discovery.” Twilight explained. “It’s a physical manifestation of the emotional bond between friends that many mages can use to amplify their own power. The Fires themselves are a sort of a… Multi-tool. They can do many different things depending on… How you manifest them! Ah ha!”

Twilight grinned and quickly pulled me to her side with a wing-hug. “Jade, you’re a genius! She did hide the key with a non-magical cipher, and then also ensured that you could only make sense of the key if you knew her history! I just need to conjure the Fire using Clover’s matrix and we should be able to read everything!”

Twilight’s horn began to glow before she stopped cold, and the glow faded, “Wait… You said you left some parts out. There could be more to this… What sorts of things did you think might be nonsense?”

I giggled. “Good thought, but most of those things wouldn’t form coherent thoughts. The only ones that do don't fit in with the rest. ‘I am interfaced!’, ‘No really, it’s forty two.’, ‘He tried to kill me with a lifting-fork.’, and well… nonsense like that.”

“Lifting-fork?” Twilight asked raising an eyebrow. “How can you even get that from words that mean things like candle, light, and warmth?”

I gave her a sheepish smile. “Uh well… I never said Changelish was an easy to learn language…”

Twilight shook her head slowly. “I’ll want to see if you can help me work out a translation spell for your dialect… Anyways.”

Her horn blazed again, this time staying lit as a ball of warm pink flames swirled into existence over the book. The flames rolled and slid over one another like a clump of string being pulled from both ends until it twisted itself into the shape of a heart. The heart pusled for a few seconds, then sank down to rest atop the book, where the flames flowed outwards leaving behind a single rolled piece of parchment as they vanished.

Twilight immediately grabbed the parchment with her hoof making an excited little squeak. The small bit of twine holding the scroll closed practically disintegrated as Twilight’s magic ripped it away from the parchment, unrolling it in a flourish of delighted-

“I have absolutely no idea what this is.” Twilight said flatly, staring at the page. “Yay!”

“Uh, yay?” I asked in confusion, “I thought you wanted to be able to learn-”

“Yep! Exactly that. I like to learn.” Twilight said happily. “It’s obvious that this is one of the book’s missing pages, but I have absolutely no idea what these glyphs are, mean, or signify. So I have something new to study and learn about! Maybe there is a whole lost art to be rediscovered!”

Twilight set the page down and conjured another piece of parchment. A half second later and a flash of her magic copied the page’s text to the parchment. It was covered in strings of whirling loops which could be writing, except each line of ‘text’ was bound within square shaped glyphs with their own unique structures and designs. Half rune, half pictogram.

“Oh I get it!” I exclaimed in realization. “So we can try to put one page into the book to see if that does anything but you have a copy of the glyphs!”

“Exactly! We could put this page in and the text may become normal writing.” Twilight said as she hummed over the page, “but what page is this one? Where should it go?”

That’s obviously the first page, you silly filly. Clover’s memories informed.

I bit my lip to keep from laughing at the alien thought and instead suggested. “Why not put it in the first missing page’s place?”

Twilight paused, gave me a look for I simply couldn't decipher, slowly facehooved, and then turned the book’s pages to the second one in from the cover.

After gently placing the page into place, Twilight slowly smoothed the torn edges together. The moment her hoof left the page, a pale blue spark of magic raced down the torn line, knitting the page back into the book as if it had never been removed!

The text swirled, shifted position like a fat pony trying to stand up from it’s back, then faded into nothingness. An instant later the page filled with a high quality sketch of what looked like a map!

“I swear, if this is yet another quest giving map…” Twilight muttered to herself while I learned over the shifting ink picture in awe.

The map slowly changed angles, the geometry of the small island it showed coming into view as the changing angle showed there was a small hill at the island center-

No… it wasn’t a map! It was a moving ink representation of what you would see if you flew along the island starting from above! There was a hill, a small forest, a fountain, and a dock, and then built into the side of the hill was a small stone building. Like a-

“Hey, does that look like a house to you?” Twilight asked tapping the page with her hoof to point out the structure in question.

I nodded, opening my mouth to reply when suddenly Twilight began to glow a bright white!

I yelped, grabbed her left wing to try and pull her away from the book, only to yelp again as the glow spread to my hoof and-

The world turned white!

Suddenly like a slap to the eyes the world came back! Except we weren't in Twilight’s dining room. We were standing on a dirt path in front of the stone house in the drawing.

Which had a note pinned to the door.

A note written in the same writing as Clover’s spellbook.

Well done.

I give unto you my library. My spellbook will transport you to and from this Library, a place you found when you inserted the first page, any time you wish. Without the other pages, it is otherwise useless. The pages have been hidden across many places to prevent the tome’s misuse. You can find clues to their locations in my Library, as well as Starswirl’s.

You do not have to pursue them if you do not wish. You were able to find this isle outside of the universe. You are a worthy successor whether you choose to finish my final work or not. Enjoy my home.

“Wow! This is pretty cool!” I exclaimed excitedly.

Twilight remained frozen, staring at the note on the door as if in a trance, eyes shrunk to pinpricks, ears ridged, tail stuck straight out in alarm.

“Uh, Twilight?” I asked, hoping she didn’t have a stroke.

I’m not sure if my eardrums burst before Twilight’s almighty squee of delight, or after. I don’t think I ever will know for sure.