Loyal
by Jordanis
Prompt: Deep Castle
Canterlot was old. Twilight knew this, of course. Everypony knew this. You might as well say ‘water is wet’ or ‘Celestia raises the sun and moon’. The city of Canterlot had been Twilight’s home since she was born. ‘Canterlot is old’ was something she’d internalized as a tiny filly and never really thought about since, even when she’d moved into the oldest part—the palace—full time.
It wasn’t really her department, you know? When she wasn’t taking lessons directly from Princess Celestia, most of her coursework was with the High Energy Magic and Applied Thaumaturgy departments, both of whom had histories that only went back a little more than a century.
That’s not to say that she didn’t appreciate Canterlot. It was beautiful, of course. It had to be, with the Princess living there. But it was the background to her life, not the focus of any of her obsessions. The new Auroric Vane Tower for the HEM department was, and Celestia’s rejection of it felt like a horn to her heart.
* * *
The rejection letter had been addressed to the department chair, Professor Stubborn Ponder, but Twilight read it anyway and she’d been flabbergasted.
“She knows how important this research is!”
Ponder shifted from his left hooves to his right hooves, not quite meeting Twilight’s eyes, “Well, I’m sure, but—”
“I’ve told her! A bunch!”
“Ah…” the professor shuffled back until his gaskins found his chair. “...well, I’m sure we could—”
“I’ll talk to her. We’re scheduled for a lesson this afternoon.”
Ponder’s eyes went slightly wider. “I really don’t think—”
“I don’t think it’ll be a problem either. I’m sure I can get her to see. Don’t worry about a thing, professor!”
She galloped out of his office, and he sank heavily into his chair.
* * *
Twilight beamed up at the Princess as the glow from her horn faded. Next to her, an easel still held the last poster from the presentation she’d whipped up since that morning, showing a picture of a the bright future of thaumaturgic research at Canterlot. One of the two chief spires of the palace was nearly invisible under beautiful, flowing brass latticework, and the top of the tower had been replaced with a set of immense, sweeping metal plates sticking straight up into the sky; one brass, one copper, and one silver. She’d even done some minor illusion work to make the aurora overhead wave and sparkle gently, and to make the three vanes turn slowly into the current of the aurora.
Princess Celestia took a long, slow sip from her teacup. Her flanks rose and fell with an inaudible sigh, and her wings resettled themselves.
“No, Twilight. I’m sorry, but that’s final.”
She said it so gently, so patiently. Twilight couldn’t untangle what she was feeling, other than the tightness in her chest.
“But why?”
Celestia’s mouth opened, but then she paused, looking (Twilight thought) unsure. Her mouth closed again, and there was a long moment where she looked upwards before replying.
“Canterlot is—” she halted again for a moment “There are things that are not meant to be… disturbed, Twilight. That’s all.” She stood abruptly (for Celestia), and began a stately walk toward the door. Twilight followed her, but she could feel her ears burning in shame.
* * *
Celestia clearly wanted her to let it go. Twilight tried to do so with just as much enthusiasm as she devoted to anything else Celestia wanted from her. Three nights later, though, she found herself staring at the ceiling of her bedroom long, long after midnight.
Canterlot was old. Celestia was old. Twilight found herself wondering, for perhaps the first time, how old. She’d spent the previous day pouring over all her notes from every history class she’d ever taken, and then diving into the history section of the library. This year had been the 998th Summer Sun Celebration, marking Year of the Sun 998–998 AS, in the usual notation, as opposed to dates before then, which were notated ‘AD’ for ‘Age of Discord’.
The oldest reference she had found to Canterlot had been in 160 AS, in a crude atlas that already credited the city with being the ancient capital of Equestria. This had also been the first reference she’d found to Celestia, other than the calendar itself.
There was missing data. Missing books. And it was… clearly not something she could ask the Princess. She wasn’t entirely sure how she’d reached that conclusion, but she felt it right down to her hooves. Celestia would know what was missing. Celestia would know why it was missing. The conclusion that she couldn’t quite think out loud was that Celestia was the only pony who could make it stay missing.
* * *
When Twilight’s next free day came around, she slung her saddlebags on, stowed her notebook, quill, and ink in one side and a canteen and a sandwich in the other, then descended into the basement of the castle.
She started under the kitchens. She recognized, now, that behind the modern ovens and cooktops were the bricked-up arches of the original cooking fireplaces. As near as she’d been able to find, the kitchens had always been in that spot. These days, the next level down held the magical cold storage, but the practical versions of those spells had only been invented a hundred years ago. Before that, the castle had needed the mass of the mountain to keep food cool.
At the back end of the hallway between the various modern cool and cold rooms, Twilight nudged aside several serving carts that hadn’t been used in years, then peeked behind a heavy tapestry. There it was, just as she’d thought. The stairs down to the original cold cellars, a further three levels below.
She was about halfway down when the shoe on her front hoof snagged the worn, uneven lip of the stair. She had been hugging the wall in a way that the ancient servants clearly never had, judging by the rut running straight down the middle of the stairwell. She managed to raise a shield in front of her face and horn as she stumbled forward, so her head bounced harmlessly off the next stair and she felt the impact in her neck and shoulders, instead. The next stair, though, she landed on her unshielded side, then she flipped and hit the next stair on her other side, then her back hoof caught and she hit her shield again.
When she finally came to a stop at the bottom of the stairs, she was fairly confident she had not blacked out at any point, but she started running through the self-diagnostic steps for concussions that she’d learned last year. OK. Horn lit, no pain in the temporalis. Pupil response to the light seemed… about right? She was fine. She took a deep breath. That hurt, but she was pretty sure she was just bruised.
She needed to keep moving, but this was where her plan got kind of hazy. She’d spent her evening a few days ago researching what structural reinforcement spells existed that long ago, then the next evening pouring over a book on stone construction in order to try to guess how deep the foundations of Canterlot needed to go.
This wasn’t the part of the castle that hung out over the open air, this was the part of the castle carved into the mountainside. That’s where the tallest towers were, so their foundations could sink deep into the earth. She guessed there had to be at least three more levels below her.
She wanted to see them. She’d found a treatise on historic stone working techniques, another on ancient construction, and knew there had to be more if she could find it. If she could just see what was down here, down at the roots of Canterlot, she thought she’d be able to tell something about old it must be, beyond ‘more than 800 years’.
She pushed more light out from her horn, and the level slowly revealed itself. There were no doors, no hallways, no twists and turns—just pillars and a low ceiling extending out in all directions until they faded into the dark. She turned herself in the direction of the Canterhorn itself and started walking.
* * *
The floor ended in rough-carved stone--the bedrock of the mountain itself. She’d turned to her right once she reached that wall; the direction of the tower that ought to house the Auroric Vanes. She could tell that it was slowly curving away from her, following the mountainside, but there didn’t seem to be anything else. Once she’d paced off enough distance that she was sure she was under the tower itself, she stopped.
Nothing was different. The stone wall stood to her left, the pillars stretched out into the darkness to her right, and ahead of and behind her. Her lips were dry, and she sat.
She craned her head every which way. Her neck still hurt. She slumped down against the rock face of the mountain and fell right through the ancient illusion and down a set of stairs as fresh and unworn as the day they’d been carved from the mountain’s bones.
* * *
This time, Twilight knew she’d blacked out. When she lit her horn, the stabbing pain behind her eyes confirmed it, but she needed the light. She could just make out great barrel vaults low overhead, but this time they didn’t stretch in every direction. There was… something circular through the one in front of her. It would be right under the center of the tower, wouldn’t it? Yes… yes! It would! This was it!
She shuffled through the low passage, the curved ceiling just clearing her horn. Princess Celestia would have had to keep her head bowed to come in here. The moment she emerged from the tunnel, the chamber in front of her transformed.
Overhead, the night sky blossomed. The stars spread in a wave from the center of the room’s ceiling. Gentle moonlight shone from directly over Twilight’s head, though it was still enough to make her wince. An aurora slowly faded into view.
Once her eyes finally adjusted, Twilight shuffled forward again. The illusion overhead ended just above horn height. The stone walls of the chamber were finely dressed and polished, and inset all around the perimeter with niches, each one holding--
Twilight’s breath caught. She recognized them from a sketch in one of the books she’d read. Stone sarcophagi, of the immediate post-Discordian style. She could read the inscription on the nearest one, magically clean and dustless despite its age.
Moonshine Breeze
265 ALS – 2 AS
Forever Loyal
There was a different name on each coffin. The dates all ran to the first ten years or so AS. Twilight had no idea what ‘ALS’ was supposed to mean.
Here was her missing data, though.
She still didn’t think she could ask Celestia about it.
Canterlot was old. Twilight knew this, of course. Everypony knew this. You might as well say ‘water is wet’ or ‘Celestia raises the sun and moon’. The city of Canterlot had been Twilight’s home since she was born. ‘Canterlot is old’ was something she’d internalized as a tiny filly and never really thought about since, even when she’d moved into the oldest part—the palace—full time.
It wasn’t really her department, you know? When she wasn’t taking lessons directly from Princess Celestia, most of her coursework was with the High Energy Magic and Applied Thaumaturgy departments, both of whom had histories that only went back a little more than a century.
That’s not to say that she didn’t appreciate Canterlot. It was beautiful, of course. It had to be, with the Princess living there. But it was the background to her life, not the focus of any of her obsessions. The new Auroric Vane Tower for the HEM department was, and Celestia’s rejection of it felt like a horn to her heart.
* * *
The rejection letter had been addressed to the department chair, Professor Stubborn Ponder, but Twilight read it anyway and she’d been flabbergasted.
“She knows how important this research is!”
Ponder shifted from his left hooves to his right hooves, not quite meeting Twilight’s eyes, “Well, I’m sure, but—”
“I’ve told her! A bunch!”
“Ah…” the professor shuffled back until his gaskins found his chair. “...well, I’m sure we could—”
“I’ll talk to her. We’re scheduled for a lesson this afternoon.”
Ponder’s eyes went slightly wider. “I really don’t think—”
“I don’t think it’ll be a problem either. I’m sure I can get her to see. Don’t worry about a thing, professor!”
She galloped out of his office, and he sank heavily into his chair.
* * *
Twilight beamed up at the Princess as the glow from her horn faded. Next to her, an easel still held the last poster from the presentation she’d whipped up since that morning, showing a picture of a the bright future of thaumaturgic research at Canterlot. One of the two chief spires of the palace was nearly invisible under beautiful, flowing brass latticework, and the top of the tower had been replaced with a set of immense, sweeping metal plates sticking straight up into the sky; one brass, one copper, and one silver. She’d even done some minor illusion work to make the aurora overhead wave and sparkle gently, and to make the three vanes turn slowly into the current of the aurora.
Princess Celestia took a long, slow sip from her teacup. Her flanks rose and fell with an inaudible sigh, and her wings resettled themselves.
“No, Twilight. I’m sorry, but that’s final.”
She said it so gently, so patiently. Twilight couldn’t untangle what she was feeling, other than the tightness in her chest.
“But why?”
Celestia’s mouth opened, but then she paused, looking (Twilight thought) unsure. Her mouth closed again, and there was a long moment where she looked upwards before replying.
“Canterlot is—” she halted again for a moment “There are things that are not meant to be… disturbed, Twilight. That’s all.” She stood abruptly (for Celestia), and began a stately walk toward the door. Twilight followed her, but she could feel her ears burning in shame.
* * *
Celestia clearly wanted her to let it go. Twilight tried to do so with just as much enthusiasm as she devoted to anything else Celestia wanted from her. Three nights later, though, she found herself staring at the ceiling of her bedroom long, long after midnight.
Canterlot was old. Celestia was old. Twilight found herself wondering, for perhaps the first time, how old. She’d spent the previous day pouring over all her notes from every history class she’d ever taken, and then diving into the history section of the library. This year had been the 998th Summer Sun Celebration, marking Year of the Sun 998–998 AS, in the usual notation, as opposed to dates before then, which were notated ‘AD’ for ‘Age of Discord’.
The oldest reference she had found to Canterlot had been in 160 AS, in a crude atlas that already credited the city with being the ancient capital of Equestria. This had also been the first reference she’d found to Celestia, other than the calendar itself.
There was missing data. Missing books. And it was… clearly not something she could ask the Princess. She wasn’t entirely sure how she’d reached that conclusion, but she felt it right down to her hooves. Celestia would know what was missing. Celestia would know why it was missing. The conclusion that she couldn’t quite think out loud was that Celestia was the only pony who could make it stay missing.
* * *
When Twilight’s next free day came around, she slung her saddlebags on, stowed her notebook, quill, and ink in one side and a canteen and a sandwich in the other, then descended into the basement of the castle.
She started under the kitchens. She recognized, now, that behind the modern ovens and cooktops were the bricked-up arches of the original cooking fireplaces. As near as she’d been able to find, the kitchens had always been in that spot. These days, the next level down held the magical cold storage, but the practical versions of those spells had only been invented a hundred years ago. Before that, the castle had needed the mass of the mountain to keep food cool.
At the back end of the hallway between the various modern cool and cold rooms, Twilight nudged aside several serving carts that hadn’t been used in years, then peeked behind a heavy tapestry. There it was, just as she’d thought. The stairs down to the original cold cellars, a further three levels below.
She was about halfway down when the shoe on her front hoof snagged the worn, uneven lip of the stair. She had been hugging the wall in a way that the ancient servants clearly never had, judging by the rut running straight down the middle of the stairwell. She managed to raise a shield in front of her face and horn as she stumbled forward, so her head bounced harmlessly off the next stair and she felt the impact in her neck and shoulders, instead. The next stair, though, she landed on her unshielded side, then she flipped and hit the next stair on her other side, then her back hoof caught and she hit her shield again.
When she finally came to a stop at the bottom of the stairs, she was fairly confident she had not blacked out at any point, but she started running through the self-diagnostic steps for concussions that she’d learned last year. OK. Horn lit, no pain in the temporalis. Pupil response to the light seemed… about right? She was fine. She took a deep breath. That hurt, but she was pretty sure she was just bruised.
She needed to keep moving, but this was where her plan got kind of hazy. She’d spent her evening a few days ago researching what structural reinforcement spells existed that long ago, then the next evening pouring over a book on stone construction in order to try to guess how deep the foundations of Canterlot needed to go.
This wasn’t the part of the castle that hung out over the open air, this was the part of the castle carved into the mountainside. That’s where the tallest towers were, so their foundations could sink deep into the earth. She guessed there had to be at least three more levels below her.
She wanted to see them. She’d found a treatise on historic stone working techniques, another on ancient construction, and knew there had to be more if she could find it. If she could just see what was down here, down at the roots of Canterlot, she thought she’d be able to tell something about old it must be, beyond ‘more than 800 years’.
She pushed more light out from her horn, and the level slowly revealed itself. There were no doors, no hallways, no twists and turns—just pillars and a low ceiling extending out in all directions until they faded into the dark. She turned herself in the direction of the Canterhorn itself and started walking.
* * *
The floor ended in rough-carved stone--the bedrock of the mountain itself. She’d turned to her right once she reached that wall; the direction of the tower that ought to house the Auroric Vanes. She could tell that it was slowly curving away from her, following the mountainside, but there didn’t seem to be anything else. Once she’d paced off enough distance that she was sure she was under the tower itself, she stopped.
Nothing was different. The stone wall stood to her left, the pillars stretched out into the darkness to her right, and ahead of and behind her. Her lips were dry, and she sat.
She craned her head every which way. Her neck still hurt. She slumped down against the rock face of the mountain and fell right through the ancient illusion and down a set of stairs as fresh and unworn as the day they’d been carved from the mountain’s bones.
* * *
This time, Twilight knew she’d blacked out. When she lit her horn, the stabbing pain behind her eyes confirmed it, but she needed the light. She could just make out great barrel vaults low overhead, but this time they didn’t stretch in every direction. There was… something circular through the one in front of her. It would be right under the center of the tower, wouldn’t it? Yes… yes! It would! This was it!
She shuffled through the low passage, the curved ceiling just clearing her horn. Princess Celestia would have had to keep her head bowed to come in here. The moment she emerged from the tunnel, the chamber in front of her transformed.
Overhead, the night sky blossomed. The stars spread in a wave from the center of the room’s ceiling. Gentle moonlight shone from directly over Twilight’s head, though it was still enough to make her wince. An aurora slowly faded into view.
Once her eyes finally adjusted, Twilight shuffled forward again. The illusion overhead ended just above horn height. The stone walls of the chamber were finely dressed and polished, and inset all around the perimeter with niches, each one holding--
Twilight’s breath caught. She recognized them from a sketch in one of the books she’d read. Stone sarcophagi, of the immediate post-Discordian style. She could read the inscription on the nearest one, magically clean and dustless despite its age.
Moonshine Breeze
265 ALS – 2 AS
Forever Loyal
There was a different name on each coffin. The dates all ran to the first ten years or so AS. Twilight had no idea what ‘ALS’ was supposed to mean.
Here was her missing data, though.
She still didn’t think she could ask Celestia about it.