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The Alicorn Job

by Tumbleweed

Chapter 1

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“This way, class!” Principal Celestia's voice was as clear and melodious as a church bell. She practically bounced on the balls of her feet, her lush hair trailing behind her like a banner. “We've still got three more wings of the museum to tour!” The chance to get out of her office, and out of her school had obviously invigorated her as she lead her gaggle of students through the high-vaulted halls of the newly opened Ponyville History Museum.

Unfortunately, not all of her students shared her excitement.

“This is totally lame. It's just a bunch of old pots and jewelry and stuff.” Rainbow Dash grumbled, hands thrust into her pockets. She lingered at the back of the field trip crowd, as far from Principal Celestia's totally-not-cool enthusiasm as she could manage. “How come we couldn't take a field trip to somewhere cool? Like, I dunno, a monster truck rally or something?”

“I'm not sure if there's much in the way of educational value at a monster truck rally.” Twilight fiddled with her glasses by reflex. Where Rainbow Dash lingered out of boredom, she kept to the back of the tour both to stick close to the rest of her friends, and so she wouldn't miss anything as she made her way through the museum as slowly as possible.

“Sure there is!” Rainbow Dash said with a grin. “We could learn about, like … mechanics! And physics! And dinosaurs!”

“Truckasaurus ain't a real dinosaur.” Applejack said.

“It's still rad!” Rainbow Dash squeaked.

“Please, Rainbow.” Rarity laid a delicate hand at the soccer-star's elbow. “You should keep an open mind. It'll do you some good to take in some culture. Why, I understand this museum has an absolutely spectacular collection of ancient Greek sculpture.”

“I reckon you just wanna see them statues of naked dudes playin' frisbee.” Applejack said.

“Why, I never!” Rarity glared at the cowgirl. “That's just the way art was done back then, you know. Not to mention the proper term is discus.”

“Hold up, who's naked?” Rainbow Dash said.

“Who isn't?” Pinkie Pie beamed. “Seriously! All those old timey statues and mosaics and paintings are just full of naked people! I guess they just didn't invent pants yet!” She giggled.

“Actually,” Twilight held up a finger, lapsing into lecturing mode. “Archeologists discovered a three-thousand year old pair of pants in a central Asian tomb fairly recently. That's at least a couple of centuries before the period we come to think of as ancient Greece, so it's entirely possible that they knew what pants were, they just preferred not to wear them.”

“They sound like my kinda people!” Pinkie Pie said.

“Except for the fact that many ancient Greek city-states had few, if any rights available for women.” Twilight rubbed at her chin. “Though it did vary from city-state to city-state. Even still, women were universally excluded from major social events like the theater or even the Olympics.”

“So … not my kinda people.” Pinkie Pie deflated a little, and snapped her fingers. “Nuts.”

“Come along!” Principal Celestia stuck her head out from around a corner, looking pointedly at Rainbow Dash and company. “We haven't even made it to the Hall of Arms yet!”

“Arms. Great.” Rainbow Dash muttered. “What's next? The Leg Exhibit?”

“She's not talking about anatomy, Rainbow.” Rarity noted. “She's talking about … you know. Weaponry. Rapiers and arbequesues and glaives and the like.”

“Sounds scary.” Fluttershy murmured.

“Sounds awesome.” Rainbow Dash perked up. “Why didn't any of you guys tell me? I call dibs on the ninja sword!” And with that, she took off at a sprint to catch up with the rest of the field trip.

“That ain't how it works!” Applejack sputtered as a matter of principle, and took off after Rainbow Dash before she could wreak any more havoc. Rarity, Pinkie Pie, and Fluttershy soon followed, chattering amongst themselves.

Meanwhile, Twilight just smiled, and let out a wistful sigh. A warm, fuzzy feeling welled up inside her, to be surrounded not only by so much knowledge, but also to be surrounded by her friends-- most of them, at least.

Twilight looked over her shoulder. Sunset Shimmer stood at the far end of the ancient jewelry exhibit, staring at the same display case she made a beeline to as soon as they walked in. Sunset raised her hand and let it drift forward, fingertips inexorably drifting towards the glass.

“You shouldn't touch the display case.” Twilight blurted, for lack of anything better to say.

“You're right.” Sunset drew her hand back to her chest, but didn't take her eyes off the case. “There's vibration sensors worked into the glass, and a weight-sensative pressure plate underneath the display. It might even be pressurized, too. One wrong move and this whole museum would lock down.”

“Or, um, I was gonna say it's rude to smudge the glass, but that works too.”

“Oh, uh, right.” Sunset forced a grin. “Leaving fingerprints-- I mean, uh, smudges, would be bad.”

Twilight frowned. “Are you okay?”

“I'm fine.” Sunset Shimmer said in the too-confident tone that said she wasn't.

“You know you can talk to me, right?” Twilight said. “About, you know … stuff? No matter what it is?”

“I do, I do. I … just got a little sidetracked, that's all. Distracted, even. Every time I feel I've gotten used to this dimension, well, I find something new. Funny how that works, right?” She gave Twilight a light, awkward punch on the arm.

“I guess?” Twilight rubbed at her bicep.

“Oh. Shoot.” Sunset looked across the exhibit hall, to where the last few stragglers of the field trip were meandering towards the next display. “We'd better move, or else they're gonna leave us behind!” Sunset Shimmer thrust her hands into her jacket pockets and hurried off.

Twilight took a half step to follow-- but she stopped herself before she could get too far. Curious (though not curious enough to commit the museum-sin of touching the glass), Twilight leaned in to examine the necklace within the display case. There must have been something that made that little scrap of metal so interesting, even if Twilight didn't know what. Not yet, at least. She fiddled with her glasses again, and her eyes took in the otherwise unremarkable placard at the base of the pedestal.

On loan from an anonymous donor:

THE ALICORN AMULET.

Next Chapter: Chapter 2 Estimated time remaining: 49 Minutes
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