#167
Summer. Day 178. Evening. Ponyville.

I balanced the staff on the base of a wing and knocked on the door. I was greeted by a stallion in a tattered suit, ruffled hair, and a enraged expression splashed across his face. “What?” he barked.

“I would appreciate it if you and your friend would keep your voices down, I'm trying to read.”

“Tch!” he spat, “You sound just like her!”

Upon some further inspection, I saw he was a unicorn and was casting a spell. The way it fluctuated indicated that it was a holding spell. Tilting my head, “And who is she?”

“A stupid bitch of a princess who-” I fired a bolt of ice, pinning him to the opposite wall. Almost like a spider web. “ The fuck!?” he roared. “You're not a unicorn, how can you-”

“Because I read and from that, I've learned.” I cut him off as I entered the room. I looked to the bed, blankets thrashed about and the sheets thrown to the floors. The pillows inexplicably absent from the dark purple head board. On the bed, a shape of a familiar mare. Cut and bruised, bleeding and crying. My heart dropped a moment, “...Twilight.” Then I became infuriated. My eyes burned with righteous fire. I turned the unicorn “You will not live to see the sunrise, you poor fool.”

“Really? I am the Second Prince of Trottingham. Killing me is an act of war!”

“Shut your trap!” I roared back. “No prince should ever treat a mare in such a manner. If killing you is an act of war, then cursing you is not.” I cast a quick spell to mute his magic. He struggled in the ice. I rummaged through his bags until I found a sigil indicating his royalty. I approached Twilight, and asked a hushed question. She nodded and grabbed at the blankets, covering herself up and shaking wildly. Forcing his mouth open, I placed tip of the staff near his tongue. “You will go home, immediately but you will be leaving with a curse. You will always tell the truth as a lie will make you deathly ill. You will vomit for days and your body will become weaker and weaker. Walking and breathing will become nearly insurmountable. No magic or potion will over come this curse and the cure non-existent.”

The end of the staff leaked a gassy green poison that seeped into the stallion mouth. He twitched and shuddered. Panic and fear in his eyes, a sight that left me feeling disturbingly satisfied. I stripped the ice from him and pulled the the staff away. The gas evaporated. “Trottingham, was it? How did you get here?”

“By zeppelin” he coughed. “Canterlot docks. My guards are out-”

“I know.” I menaced. “Now leave the kingdom, peasant.” I teleported him and his guards to the docks in a flash of light and turned my attention to Twilight. “Let's get you home.” she sniffed and coiled the blanket around her, cloaking her face and hiding her wounds. I grabbed my books and bags and escorted her back to the library, Twilight's home.

She didn't talk much on the way, but she did ask a question. “Was that okay?”

“No. He wasn't a prince anyways. Trottingham doesn't have a second prince. Pip told me so at his wedding.”

“R-Really? How could I be such a fool?” She said as I opened the door for her. She began sobbing. “I can't believe I did-”

I put my hoof to her lips. “Shh.” I closed the door. “The sigil was a well made forgery and the fellow had robbed the rich. I sent him to a place called the Valley of Silence. He won't last long there.” I helped her up the stairs and to her bed. “Don't do anything rash and stay here. I'll be in here, by the stairway.”

I stayed awake the entire night, watching endlessly and unable to sleep. The rage boiled still and I wished I would have killed the stallion right then and there. A quick death would have been far too nice for such a crude bandit. She slept in the blood-stained blankets, tossing and turning from whatever nightmares she was having. I wondered if she was even able to sleep at all. It wasn't until she called me over that confirmed my thoughts. Strange that she would ask me to hold her hoof to help her sleep, but it worked.

In the morning, she explained the situation. She was taken off guard and teleported there. The arguing I heard was her trying to reason with him and warn him. The last part I heard was his yelling at her. He had used magic to muffle her screaming and keep her still. Rather traumatic. While she rested, I was to make sure no one else was allowed in, even Spike. Why she's putting so much trust in me I have yet to understand.

She's had me take to her books about healing spells and the like. The few that she needed required the caster to be in good health. I used the staff once more, handy thing. Got most of her wounds healed up, a few of them left some nasty scars, however. Then she turned her attention to the staff itself and asked me to fetch one of her books on Star Swirl the Bearded. I brought it back and she flipped through the pages.

“Letter, I hope you realize whose staff that is.”

“Star Swirl's, I'm guessing?” She nodded. “I got it from the Designer. He seemed to know a great deal of people, the majority of whom are legends, who've all kept him a secret. Even knew Spike's mother, apparently. “

“Really?” She asked, her eyes alight.

“It's not a pretty ending, Twilight.” She begged with her eyes. “Are you sure?” She nodded. I took a deep breath and opened the book, it's screens fluttering about. I quickly typed in a search term and found the video.

“How can you read all of this?”

“I translated a bunch of text books my mother wrote in an ancient language. It's become second nature, I guess. Haven't I given you my notes on it?”

“You may have. There's a chance I haven't looked them over as I've been rather busy in the past year.”

I gave her a quick smirk and played the video. There were smaller things I noticed that I hadn't seen before but they weren't really worth much note. Twilight watched most of the video in awe. Cringed at the part where the Designer literally compressed the massive dragon after overpowering it. He made it seem so easy. 8000 years of experience does have its pay offs, I suppose.

After the video ended, Twilight was in visible shock. “How did he know?”

“His tapping into the magic stream of the planet itself allowed him to see into the future at will. It also made him immortal, in a sense. It's rather convoluted and I'm still going through all of his research. Should I look up Star Swirl?”

“Yes, please.”

Searching through until I found some proper notes and another related video, I told her I hadn't watched this one yet. Star Swirl simply hasn't crossed my mind. We watched that one together and found that Star Swirl, though not immortal, grew well past 130 years of age. He had met the Designer while venturing into the Caverns of Howling Wind. A place made of an unmoving mass of clouds that were as dark as night, lit vaguely by the sun. The clouds meandered over a large basin and was a tangled mass from awkward winds. The Designer went there to find a stone and was apparently waiting for Star Swirl to show up.

Their meeting was pleasant and without fuss. Neither one surprised to see the other, as if they had already met before. They greeted each other with familiar hellos and a shake of hand and hoof. The Designer didn't have the staff, obviously. The two of them found the stone together and upon pulling it from its pedestal, another one replaced it. Only smaller and less refined, presumably growing much like a tree. Twilight watched again in awe, as the two began to shape the stone into something for the staff Star Swirl had brought with him. Upon completion, the staff had engulfed part of the stone, set it like a jeweled ring or crown.

The process was familiar, I had gone over it earlier and these two had replicated it perfectly. It is a bit of a shame the blood must be drawn for such a process to work. Unfortunately, I haven't seen a way in his notes to make it work without. Still, why the blood of two parties were needed is a bit confounding and something that I still need to look into.

After the successful binding of the stone, the two of them exchanged some words and the video skipped a beat. It resumed with the Designer lingering by Star Swirl in the middle of a forest. They spoke some scrambled audio to one another. Star Swirl had a young filly standing behind him. Old enough to walk on its own but not quite old enough to remember anything. With some reluctance, Star Swirl gave him the staff and the child, who wound up under the care of some fortunate parents. Even with the notes provided, it's unclear why Star Swirl had the child with him.

I turned to see a tear glimmer from Twilight's eye. “That's my great grandmother...” She said. I paused the video and zoomed through a couple pages of notes, finding all of the information on her grandmother and revealing another fact, that she too was mine. We gave each other a few awkward glances and laughed. “No wonder you're so extraordinary, Letter.”

“I could say the same about you.” I fired back. It's strange I never really looked into this. Even when I asked my father about older relatives, he would say that his mother was separated by hers at birth. I looked through the tree and saw each of the notes on them that the Designer had left behind. Each one had them separated either at birth or just our of bad luck alone. Nothing he planned from the looks of things. “Just keep in mind that the only thing this will omit is the possibility of dating.”

“Of course. Besides, I'd rather have a husband that would stay at home...” She trailed off. The mood darkened.”

“Twilight, there's more to the story, isn't there?” She started to bawl her eyes out. “Did that stallion actually... rape you?” She shook her head and turned her head, her sniffling loud and choked. “You have to say something, Twilight.” Sudden flashes of what seemed like memories burn through my eyes. Vague shadows of movement. I blinked them away and continued, “It's okay to be scared. We're here for you.”

She turned back to me and hugged me in the tightest grip I had ever experienced. She could have broken a few bones if she squeezed any tighter. After she stopped, she spoke up in a dry voice. “He did rape me, but only with foreign objects. It was terrifying knowing that a stallion could get pleasure committing something that heinous. Discord always said that the world isn't always flowers and butterflies. Now I see why.” She looked to the floor and sighed. “I feel so... awful.”

“It's not your fault.” The vision became clearer. The shadows morphed into more solid shapes. Another series of memories flowed: marriage, children, a kingdom under her rule. “You'll marry and though you'll remember it forever, you'll remember you're happier. The recovery process will take time, years even.”

She pulled away a bit, “You sound like a fortune teller.”

I smiled, “Maybe I am.” I saw another flash of the throne room, one vastly unfamiliar to me. I stood before her, as a messenger. I lightly shook my head, “Letters and scrolls aren't the only thing a courier delivers.”