Author's Notes:

It’s been a while since the last update, I’m not entirely sure if this chapter justifies the wait.

We’re getting some more supporting cast, treat as you may.

As always, you know my policies.

Daring had been asked to come up to Canterlot with all they had acquired, mostly to help with anything the princesses thought might come up and partially to go through the list of what they would need for the town. Of course, they would need architects and construction workers, but there were other professions that would need to be called on for Daring’s project. They would need plumbing experts to help with bathing facilities and primary homes, maybe some artisans to help make everything look more appealing, a pony with good animals skills (like Fluttershy) after it was all up, and a small host of other professions would be needed to be called upon.

So now, here she was, separate from her lifemate for the time being. It seemed less than ethical ponies were coming out of the woodwork these days. Daring’s publishers, evidence pointing to her father’s mentor, and who knows what Twilight would find in her mother’s personal accounts. On the train ride back to Ponyville Twilight had revealed she had discovered some of the personal diaries of Astra Showers and had every intention of reading them when she got the time to do so.

Daring was surprised by her current line of thinking; she had never really considered what she could be like with a life partner before. Of course, before the idol’s restoration, she had been focused on either her career as an adventurer, her writing career, finding her sister, or some amalgam of the three. She still wasn’t giving up on finding evidence regarding her sister’s whereabouts, but with her life of adventure and writing basically brought to an end she still needed something to occupy her time. Growing a family and helping revive something lost seemed like an excellent way to occupy her time.

She had put so much focus on finding Star Log alone that she hadn’t genuinely allowed others to take up the task in any way before. Now, she was putting her trust into the princesses to find clues regarding her family; it seemed every member of her family had a profound impact on Equestria and its culture. Daring had a photo in a locket of her sister, along with one of herself, from when they were fillies; the images had been taken with an ancient camera and were not of the best quality. She kept the locket in the same lockbox that contained all the backups of her prior contractual agreements.

Daring blinked a bit; she had entrusted Princess Celestia with retrieving them, something the princess was a bit too happy about doing herself. When she entered the conference hall the princesses requested she report to she found out why she had such an uneasy feeling beforehand, one of the first things she saw when she entered the chamber was both portraits expanded to lifesize on the wall directly across from the door completely touched up and accurately colored. They had actually gotten Star Log’s night blue coat in the right shade and her dusky indigo mane in the proper tone as well.

Luna was waiting for her in the room and gently closed the doors behind Daring with her magic. “Worry not,” said Luna, “these images will be brought down when our meeting concludes. Of course, you and your sister being as pretty as you were cute at that age is remarkable. It is most fortuitous you had these images in such a safe place, how did we do with the image restoration and update?”

“You got her colors flawlessly,” said Daring with her eyes beginning to mist up a bit, “even her midnight violet eyes are properly shaded.”

“Well, I always did have a knack for the arts, no matter what they might be. And I must confess, I would have loved to meet your sister.”

Daring gave a chuckle, “She would have adored you too, maybe even made an offer to be your personal assistant. Star Log and I were supposed to be a team; she’s family which means I’ll never stop giving up hope on her.”

“Sister would have to agree with that sentiment,” said Luna with a curt nod, “as to our inquiries regarding your sister, it would seem more ponies need to be punished for their dereliction of duty, Sister was not pleased by that. Fear not, we shall continue the endeavor into finding the whereabouts of your kin. How fares Twilight Sparkle?”

“Giddy as a filly on her birthday,” said Daring with a chuckle, “she found some of mom’s old personal accounts and decided she needed a little quality time with them. She also said something about sending some of the Storm Bottles to Canterlot and Cloudsdale when she has all the diaries freed and enough empty containers to deliver.”

“I must insist the older versions, which still have clouds within them, be made available for my personal use, I find their tunes fascinating and wish to keep them close as an inspiration to other ponies.”

“Alright, enough of all that,” said Daring with a shake of her head, “we’re here to discuss the town I’m making a go at establishing.”

“Quite right,” said Luna with a chuckle, “Tia is more occupied than she was anticipating, she will be joining us when she has the time to do so.”

“So you’ll likely just be giving her a few files on everything that goes on here,” said Daring with a hint of amusement. “Have either of you worked out your considerations to assist in the project?”

“Yes,” said Luna gesturing to a small collection folders and dossiers before her on the table, “Celestia’s picks are all ponies with an excellent track record in the planning and building of structures and plumbing. My choices are more in line with skilled individuals that have a bit of an artistic appreciation and tendency to get a sense of fervor for their work. And these,” she hefted up an attache case colored like her coat with her mark upon it, and floated it in her magic towards Daring, “are dossiers on every specialist we believe could be needed for your project that my sister and I haven’t picked out.”

“Sorting through all of them could take hours, possibly days,” said Daring, “which makes picking those of interest tricky.”

“Which is why my sister had a full team of ponies sort them into piles according to her specifications while compiling the information for us. A project such as this came close to happening a few times, but in each of those prior cases, we already knew exactly who we wanted for the project. This is something a little different, and we probably should have had dossiers for all our prospective experts regardless of circumstances well before the point you mentioned your idea for this project.”

Daring just gave her an understanding nod and flipped the briefcase open and began going through the files; it helped that she had an idea of the kind of ponies working this project. She wasn’t really one for social interaction, hence one of the reasons she primarily did things alone in her prior occupation. This town idea she was going with was an entirely different thing for her; she didn’t even know prompted it.

__________________________________

At around that same time Spike was helping to train Twilight’s new assistants, something he was both happy and angry about. He was happy about the training of Twilight’s new assistants because it meant he wouldn’t have to keep close to Twilight as much as he used to, he was angry about it all because it was falling primarily on him to train the individuals that would be taking over his former position. Spike wanted to be helping Daring with her project; it would be considerably more interesting than the task he had at his disposal now.

There were five individuals all brought in to take up his old mantle, Twilight felt that with her increased socio-political status it would be best for her to have multiple assistants. The first he noticed was a young changeling who identified herself as Mandible, she was a limey-blue color and had a surprisingly chipper personality. There was unicorn mare that referred to herself as Holly Belle, stating that once she was no longer an individual of interest to an investigation regarding her former employers she was to report the Castle of Friendship, she also seemed to be jumpier than Fluttershy had been over twenty years ago. A young dragoness, about the same age and size Spike himself, had been when he first moved to Ponyville, with pink scales and cotton candy blue spines that called herself Thrash, she also seemed to be incredibly irked with the look of someone being forced to attend. A young yack that called himself Ivan. And the final applicant was a young earth pony filly named Jade Arrow; she had a coat that resembled her name’s first part and a tail and mane that resembled gold and bronze.

All of them were in white jumpsuits that had them numbered in accordance to order of application, Twilight’s idea, and were currently filling out questionnaires and personality tests in one of the meeting halls. The fact Spike had to be there to look over the results, and grade them, just made him more irked. From what he could see most of the applicants wouldn’t make the cut, he was also pretty sure Jade Arrow was a pony that was from the Crystal Empire and was only there as a way of getting closer to the hero of the Crystal Empire.

After almost an hour of boredom so intense Spike was ready to beat his head against the wall, he would have read a book to pass the time if it weren’t for the fact he’d already read through Twilight’s entire library several times before then.

Of course, he had read over all the books on architecture and structural engineering a few dozen more times after Daring had announced her plans for a new town, chances are he was pretty close to the next best thing to an expert on those matters now.

Questionnaires were to see just how much of the duties that were being asked of them they knew, which is why all the questions were either essays or multiple choice. The personality tests were just so they could get a baseline of what applicants coming in were like, personalities have a tendency to change with time and various other factors. The fact that Twilight was the one responsible for basically writing all this up herself, quite some time ago, was a testament to her preparedness. She had known for years Spike would likely leave her side for other things, these forms the applicants were filling out were just the first step in a multi-part evaluation of who was best suited to taking over Spike’s position.

Spike would be handling the practical abilities portion, something he both looked forward to and dreaded. It wasn’t often Spike felt a conflict of duties, but it seemed they were getting more and more severe when he and Daring became lifemates and were separated for extended periods of time. Dragons mated for life, something he had brushed off and thought of as not worth considering in his younger days as something that wasn’t worth thinking about or mentioning. Now he knew why, when a dragon's mated they developed a mystic connection to their partners that caused them to prioritize their lifemate over all else.

These conflicts of duty were due to his prioritizing issues. He prioritized finishing up his work as Twilight’s assistant but was also prioritizing following through on Daring’s plans. At the moment they were only slightly in conflict, hence why he was able to perform his current duties. Of course, he nearly wanted to tear Twilight apart when she said she wanted to gather data on Spike’s current anatomical features; it was quite apparent his instincts to that to imply a level of intimacy that was only to between lifemates.

“Alright, I actually got through things ahead of schedule,” came Twilight’s voice, while Spike was still waiting for them to complete the written portion. The violet alicorn turned the corner to see a very bored looking Spike, her outfit couldn’t scream LIBRARIAN loud enough, especially because of the reading glasses perched on her muzzle. “Oh, hey Spike. How are things?”

“I just finished recording down the applicants a little while ago, and they’re taking the written portion of the application process now,” Spike nearly droned in a bored voice. “None of them have brought out a completed work yet, I told them there’s no time limit and to triple check their answers.”

“Good,” said Twilight, “I’ve got everything for the day out of the way, and few things I wasn’t expecting to get to until later this week are finished up too. I’m still waiting on the blood test results though. Oh, and it and Princess Celestia sent a notice that Daring’s test result came back positive regarding her parentage.”

“In her defense, her parents were pretty below others' notice until a few years ago, and a pony merely claiming the parentage wouldn’t be so intimately familiar with the house they resided in. Claiming both as parents would be even rarer, not to mention claims of having a sibling.”

“True, it seems Keen Tone was organized as me when he was younger, but the event that caused him to be taken advantage of resulted in him deciding he didn’t need to be so orderly in his organizing. Also, only his genuine family would be familiar with his packrat inspired organization process. It’s actually an ingenious way of securing your work; it only looked like a disorganized mess. Packrats actually know where everything they stored is. Daring mentioned her sister was seemingly the most orderly of them all.”

“She also said they used to joke about not knowing where she got it from, which means they knew exactly where those tendencies came from. She really wants to get some sort of resolution regarding Star Log, no matter what that might be.”

“I would like to have at least a chance to talk to Star Log once; there’s so much I want to talk to her about.”

“I’ll bet,” said Spike, “Daring’s in Canterlot with the princesses right now.”

“You just had to remind me,” quipped Twilight, “well, I’m off to my lab to work on some projects. Let me know about the most promising applicants with your report.”

“Will do,” said Spike with a salute.

_____________________________________________

“Well, at least I got a good start on things,” said Daring with exhaustion in her voice. It had only been three hours and she had only gotten two ponies chosen for her select group. Now she was having lunch in the conference room with both princess, and had barely touched her food.

“I know it’s daunting,” said Celestia, “but this is one of the things that comes with the project you proposed. Frankly, we’re all excited over this.”

“Indeed,” said Luna, “it is not often something of such ambition comes along. The teams we’ve selected for this project are looking forward to working on all this, especially my select corp.”

“The presence of a public bathing facility isn’t something seen all too often in Equestria,” said Celestia, “especially on the kind of scale your town will have.”

“Some of the sources I’ve uncovered over my time of adventuring indicated that during a period of time in the pre-Equestrian era public bathing facilities were common among pony communities. Of course, that was during the transition from a nomadic lifestyle to the more stationary communities we enjoy today. And their methodology for creating such establishments was pretty simplistic.”

“How simple?” Inquired Celestia.

“They diverted pieces of streams and rivers,” said Daring as she took a half-hearted bite of her salad, “to what were effectively artificial pools then used unicorn magic to heat the water and had another channel leading back to the source stream take the dirtied water downstream.”

“Well, with modern innovations in technology and magic we won’t have to worry about something so crude,” said Celestia, “as effective as it was. Maybe after they’re done building your town, I’ll commission a public bathing facility for Canterlot.”

“I too will probably commission such an establishment for the area around my school,” said Luna, “and we will both probably recommend Ponyville establish such a structure as well.”

“With so many experts in the same area it might actually go up faster than anticipated,” said Daring, “although, I’m worried about running to issues like an unwillingness to listen to suggestions. In my experience, experts often tend to believe their insights on the matters pertaining to projects are the only genuinely valid ones.”

“An issue we will deal with when the time comes,” Celestia, “for it is a truly valid one to consider.”

“The reason being,” said Luna, “we cannot usually know who is a detriment to the project before they are involved. We have done our best in choosing individuals that have an excellent service record or reputation for cooperating with others.”

“On other matters,” said Celestia, clearly deciding a change of subject was needed, “checking on your familial claims proved more trying than anticipated. I actually did manage to keep some samples of Astra and Keen’s manes,” Daring looked at her with surprise, “it was back when they were much younger and I just happened to encounter them.” Celestia gave her a smile, “they were both lost at the time, an old tracking spell that’s now fallen out of favor, for the most part, required pieces of their manes.”

“They didn’t tell Star Log or me about this,” said Daring.

“I was masquerading as another pony, a habit of mine from time to time,” stated Celestia, “the same holds true for Luna, it’s a way for us judge how ponies are when not aware of being in our presence. I placed those mane pieces in a spell that suspended their states; I guess I had a feeling they would be needed at a later date. However, it took longer than anticipated due to a factor you mentioned but was disregarded at the time; you are indeed pregnant. The unique foal you’re carrying is far enough along to indicate you are actually bearing a foal but not quite along enough for us to determine any of the particulars.”

“I am looking forward to your motherhood,” said Luna.

“Mostly because she wants to spend time with the foal,” said Celestia, “my sister has always adored foals.”

“Thankfully,” said Luna, “this new community you are working towards will mean heightened security for your offspring. Because of the fact, all of Equestria’s rulers have a vested interest in the community it will be potentially harder for individuals of questionable to make it so any of foals in the town seemingly disappear.”

Daring stabbed into her salad again and brought up another dossier to read, “I just hope this community will be viable enough to continue on past the initial point of interest,” she flipped open the folder and started reading with an annoyed sigh.

_______________________________________

Spike didn’t like the looks of what he had before him, all the applicants had finished the written portion and awaited his evaluations regarding their answers. That wasn’t the main problem at the moment; he was grading the papers while they worked on the second portion. The practical application wasn’t going very well.

So far, Holly and Mandi were showing some progress, the rest of the applicants were showing a complete lack of understanding the filing system for a library. Twilight said she wanted at least three assistants to ensure the monstrous workload she had often saddled Spike with wasn’t so daunting, but what he had to work with at the moment was very underwhelming.

Mandible, whom he had taken t calling Mandi, were his best bets, for all the good it would do him or Twilight. Mandi was more than eager to please, seemed to have just the right level of confidence and seemed to know her way around an archive, but her written portion was showing some barely passable scores. Holly, however, was showing much better results on the written scores and was excelling at the practical portion of the exam, but her confidence and sense of self-worth were worrying to him.

Something hit Spike; Twilight didn’t have any planned or running projects, what possible reason could she have for being in the lab? Spike took a look at his stopwatch; he decided to put all the applicants on a timer, it was almost up. “Alright everyone, you have one minute and nine seconds to complete this portion of the practical exam,” Spike a declared over the intercom system Twilight had installed in the library a few years prior.

When the time was up Spike inspected each of the areas the applicants were in charge of, Jade’s portion of the library was more of a mess than anything else which was a definite point against her. In fact, the only sections that still looked like something Twilight would approve of belonged to the territories he had dictated to Mandi and Holly. Spike gave an annoyed sigh, before he could say anything Thrash said, “So, how we do?”

“In all honesty,” said Spike, “terribly, the only ones with any points to their name are Holly Belle and Mandible. The rest of you didn’t quite match up on the written portion and it looks more like you all were trying to make a nest out of the books with varying degrees of success, the only ones that seem to actually know how a library’s system works are our two point leaders. There are four more portions to the practical application portion of this exam, and if any of you laggers fail another two then you’re out of the running. Now, this portion isn’t going to be graded and the chance of earning points is minuscule but necessary before we move on to the next portion of the evaluations. Mandible, you and Holly Belle will be a team of supervisors to ensure the rest of these ‘slackers’ have everything put away the proper way, if they manage to do it in a neat and orderly fashion I might consider providing them some points to keep their flanks from getting roasted in this endeavor. While you’re handling that, I’m going to go and check on our princess. And don’t even think about leaving this library without permission, we’ll know if you do.”

Spike’s warning wasn’t an empty boast either, each of the applicants had been given an ID card to indicate they were being evaluated for a position at Twilight’s castle, cards that were enchanted to never be lost or stolen in addition to having enchantments that allowed both Spike and Twilight to monitor their activities remotely. Maybe being trusted with a bit of authority while he was out would help Holly get some confidence, Mandi seemed to defer to her in the library when Spike wasn’t an option.

Spike went to check on Twilight; it took a few minutes to get to her lab and access it. “Hey Twi,” Spike hollered as he entered the area, “what are you up to in here, you didn’t tell me about any projects that require your lab.”

“Oh, nothing much,” came Twilight’s voice as he descended the steps. “Just working on a model version of the town Daring drew up,” Spike finally arrived in the main area of the lab and came up next Twilight, “I thought looking at a mini mockup might be a good way to hash out any needed changes but this layout she provided is actually pretty good. Now, I don’t know the designs she has formalized but I do have some ideas of designs she’s considering.”

It really was a miniature version of the town Daring had proposed, complete with mini versions of Spike and Daring next to the central structure. “Are you going to present this to Daring and the other princesses?” Spike inquired

“Yep,” said Twilight, “this way they’ll have something more tangible to work with in deciding the configuration for everything.”

Spike took a closer look at the model town. The temple structure, which was modeled after Zelshirska’s mark, was at the center of it all, the school building was at the edge of the residential area and almost next to the main bathhouse, the school building was modeled after that of Ponyville’s schoolhouse. The houses for the residential district seemed to be modeled after those in the Crystal Empire. On the other side of the temple was the commercial district, the primary place for businesses and casual selling of wares. The three bathhouses were represented by models of the schools of Celestia and Luna, and a mockup for one of the designs for Twilight’s university that was still in the planning stages.

“Maybe before you further on this, you should ask Daring about the designs for the structures in the community,” said Spike, “I think somepony might get the wrong idea looking at this mockup.”

“I suppose you’re right,” said Twilight, “how are the applicants doing.”

“Overall, horrendous,” said Spike with a visible wince of pain, “only two managed to get passing grades thus far, I initiated the third practical test when I came to check on you.”

“Good, if they knew we were watching them they’d be uneasy. Did you...”

“Give the warning about their movements being monitored, yes, but I didn’t mention the extra bits.”

“Let’s see how the recruits are doing,” said Twilight as she lit up her horn to create a viewing screen. The signs weren’t looking as promising as she had hoped, even after Spike had given his report. “It looks like most of them made a mess of the library.”

“That was before I came to check on you,” said Spike, “the only ones that didn’t make a mess of things were Holly Belle and Mandible.”

“I know who Holly Bell is,” said Twilight, “I invited her here for this. I’m guessing Mandible is the changeling.”

“Correct,” said Spike, “she did best on the written portion, but Holly did best on the first practical application part of the test. The rest didn’t manage a passing grade on either,” he passed her the personality tests with their results, “and their personality results aren’t much better, but in the case of our passing grade candidates, you and your friends can help adjust their personality to something a bit less problematic. Holly Belle seems to have it the worst; she’s so lacking in assertiveness that the others could seriously take advantage of her. Although I did observe that despite her excellent sense of confidence, Mandible chose to defer to Holly in the library, chances are she does have some potential to be a bit more authoritative when the situation demands it.”

What they were seeing wasn’t putting a whole lot of hope in Twilight, Holly was the best authority for managing the library but her lack of confidence was holding her back, even with Mandible’s supportive approach to her fellow applicant. Of the five applicants, two were trying to push their luck. Thrash was trying to intimidate the others into doing her own work, a definite mark against her. And Ivan was having a conflict of interest due to his unfamiliarity with the library’s filing system and the typical perfectionist behavior Yacks were known for, to the point of literally tearing all the books in the shelves he was organizing and starting over from scratch whenever he was told two books needed to switch places or a book’s orientation was off.

“What warning did you give them?” Inquired Twilight as she pulled her hands down over her face.

“If they got two more failing grades they were out,” said Spike, “although, it looks like we won’t even get to the next stage before that happens. I’m a little worried; I was hoping that at least one other applicant would have something resembling passing marks.”

“You and me both,” said Twilight with a sigh, “I don’t think we’ll need the rest of the test, as much as it pains me to say. Looks like Holly Belle and Mandible are our winning applicants, stars have mercy on us all.”

“I’ve been privately referring to Mandible as Mandi; I haven’t openly referred to her as that just yet,” said Spike, “just thought you might like to know.”

“Thanks, Spike,” said Twilight with a smile, “that helps, we should get the other applicants out and get our ‘winning’ applicants’ training underway as soon as possible.”

“Agreed, it’s driving me nuts being away from Daring for so long.” Twilight took out a notebook and started taking notes, Spike just rolled his eyes.