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Repercussions

by Hiver

Chapter 35

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I slowly stretched and blinked my eyes open to see nothing but stars. Scooting back, I sat up and rubbed my eyes sleepily as I pulled out from beneath Lunas flowing mane.

Yawning a bit, I jumped off the bed, spreading my wings for a silent glide out of the silence bubble to stop my hooves from making a sound against the floor. Just because I was getting up, I didn’t want to wake Luna, especially as she’d be getting up early today as it was. Just another three hours or so so I wanted her to get as much as she could.

Because today was Hearth’s Warming and we needed to go watch that stupid play again. Seriously, it was the same every year!

Well, tradition was tradition.

The outer room was empty, but I wasn’t surprised. Sunset was going to spend the day with Sparks and Midnight before they joined Celestia after the play and then she’d join me and Luna.

Coincidentally allowing her to completely skip attending the play.

Funny that.

I made my way over to the tray on the table and picked up a tea and a plate of fruit(mango!) before moving over to look out the window.

The weather team was on the ball today, it was a slight white cloud cover and it was snowing cherrily.

It was actually looking to be a pretty nice day today.

I happily chewed on a piece of fruit. With just a little bit of luck, today is going to turn into a nice and relaxing day for once.

There was a knock on the door.

I glared at my tea for a second. Oh fuck you, universe.

Sighing, I looked towards the door, “Enter.”

The door opened slightly and a guard poked her head inside, “Sir,” she said, “One Miss Moon Dancer is waiting to see you. She says she has found something you might find interesting regarding something called ‘Project Bruce’?”

That’s what I had named the thestral research project. I’m a nerd, so sue me. Sunset had facehooved when she found out.

“Oh, please let her in.”

The guard nodded and ducked back out, a moment later the door opened and Moon Dancer walked inside, a stack of papers held in her magic.

She looked a bit nervous but also excited which I took as good news.

“Moon Dancer,” I said with a smile, “Can I get you anything? Tea? Fruit?”

She blinked at me in surprise as she folded up her cloak, “Oh! Uhm… I could use some tea?”

I nodded and moved over to the table, pouring her a cup, “Considering it’s the middle of Hearth’s Warming, I can only assume you have found something important.”

Moon Dancer blinked at me in surprise, “It is?”

“Yes, happy Hearth’s Warming, Moon Dancer,” I said and floated the cup over to her for her magic to grab.

“...Happy Hearth’s Warming, sir,” she said and sipped her tea.

I smiled at her, “You found something?”

“Ah, yes,” she said and put the cup on the table before promptly forgetting it existed, “I have been able to locate several facts regarding Thestrals that I believe you were interested in.”

“Go on.”

She adjusted her glasses and glanced down at her notes, “It doesn't seem like the original spell nor the spell used to modify the curse are known, possibly they were lost to time or just hidden in the first place. At least there are no details about either at all in the ancient archives.”

I blinked at her, “...You went through all of them already?”

Moon Dancer nodded, “Yes. While a lot of it was spellbooks simply because that’s the majority of what unicorns wrote down at that time, none contained anything relevant. What was more useful was the scrolls of lore and ancient maps.”

I slowly nodded, “What did you find?”

“Several things,” Moon Dancer said and then shuffled through her papers before she floated a paper over to me which had a sketch of a much older map on it. The dimensions were off quite a bit, but I could still make out the continent Equestria was located on.

There were symbols on it and lines drawn, none of which told me pretty much of anything.

“Okay,” I finally said and nodded, “What am I looking at? This is… pegasus script, right?”

Moon Dancer nodded, “It is, well, a variation,” she agreed, “At the time, they made the vast majority of maps. It’s actually interesting, despite that Unicorns were the primary scholars at the time, maps was one of the major trade sources between the two tribes not including weather. Other sources incl-”

“Moon Dancer,” I said, gently interrupting her before she really got up to steam, “What about this map?”

“Oh!” she said and moved up next to me, moving up next to me and lighting up her horn to shine a small light on the drawing at a sigil close to the south end of the map, “This sigil, recognize it?”

I shook my head, “Never seen it before.”

“It’s not on any of the translation guides, it’s a really, really old one. But I could trace it’s meaning back to be a combination of the sigils meaning ‘Pegasus’ and ‘Bat’,” she said, looking at me with excitement, “I think it’s warning ponies away from the area!”

“You think that’s where Thestrals were originally from?” I asked with a small frown.

Moon Dancer nodded, “Exactly!”

I glanced down at the map, “That… would put it in the middle of the Southern Jungles,” I said slowly as I slowly nodded.

That made sense. That would explain the entire not liking cold thing, especially if they were still there when the curse modification was done or the original curse was cast. Fruit bats were tropical. Then again, so were most vampire bats.

...Good thing too or I’d be snacking at bugs right now. Ew.

“But does that help?” I finally asked, looking at her, “It’s not really where the thestrals come from that we need to know, we need to find out about the unicorns that cast the spell.”

Moon Dancer beamed at me, “Yes! But that’s the brilliant thing! If the unicorns didn’t live close by, why would they bother!? Modifying a curse like that is not a minor feat!”

That… that was a very, very good point. Without having a very good reason, such as living next to them, why would they bother casting a spell like that?

“You think there might be something to find down there?” I asked her, “After all this time?”

Moon Dancer nodded, “I do!”

Next Chapter: Chapter 36 Estimated time remaining: 5 Hours, 22 Minutes
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