First Checklist Item [Misc Journal Shenanigans / Action]

[fourthgenerationprincess]

[ In the middle of the day, Luceti is treated to the following eloquent series of letters: ]

DDDDD

[ So this is what happens when a hoof gets ahold of a drawing-to-text synthesizer. This is followed by a voice post about three minutes later: ]

... triangle, a couple of straight lines, and a square have to do with...

[ Several minutes pass, and then a video materializes. The viewer may be greeted with a pair of huge, intense violet eyes. ]

A-ha!

[ The sight of this particular creature might seem out of place to anyone who doesn't know Pinkie Pie or Rainbow Dash. You can now see a purple pony with a horn protruding from her mane. The horn is bathed in a magenta glow, as is a pointy stick that is way too close to the camera. Like mankind before her, Twilight is learning how to use tools. ]

Hi, um... anypony who's watching this! I'm Twilight Sparkle, and... I don't recognize these woods at all. [ She looks around, probably for the umpteenth time. Twilight's found herself deep within the forest, to the southeast. Not that she knows this. ] It doesn't look like any part of the Everfree Forest I've been to. [ A cloud parts and the sun shines in her face through the unseen treetops. Twilight shields her face with a hoof. ] Oh. Actually, I guess I could...

[ She looks back at herself and spreads her wings. Not her small Luceti wings, though. A huge pair of alicorn wings, of the same purple as her fur. She prepares to take off, then remembers the journal and hits it again with the stick. Video feed switches off. ]

---

[ Following this recording, the population of Luceti may witness a purple shape flying around the sky, observing the village from above. She'll circle a few times, trying to orient herself, before deciding to alight in the fountain square.

Two areas will grab Twilight's interest fairly quickly. First, she'll see her coronation outfit in the window of the clothing shop. She'll find this strange enough to go inside and consider buying it.

The other building she'll notice is the library (with a squee of excitement). Good luck extracting her from perusing the many, many, many tomes that now litter the floor. This is why Twilight needs an assistant librarian. What she wouldn't give for Spike right about now.

Feel free to interact with her in the square, at the clothing store, in the library, or in the air: she's several yards up but not out of shouting distance. ]

Comments

[geniustheveil]

That's true; however, if you're looking for that sort of information, you'd probably find more in the journals. There isn't much left here in the library about it at all.

[fourthgenerationprincess]

Oh. I guess I could read that. [ Hovers her journal in front of her. ] So I have two libraries of information to sift through!

In that case, show me your favorite books.

[geniustheveil]

I like various types. Would you be interested in biographies, maybe? [No, really, this and dictionaries are her go-to genres. She just won't admit to the more secret liking for novels. She doubly won't admit to the romance novels.]

[fourthgenerationprincess]

Would I! I love history! [ She puts aside whatever book she was reading and gets up. Ready to follow you wherever, Ami. ]

[geniustheveil]

[Er... Ami ends up eyeing the books scattered about instead.]

Shall I help you finish picking these up and organizing the ones you want to study further before we go?

[fourthgenerationprincess]

What was I thinking? These books are a mess! [ What have you begun, Ami? Twilight levitates a few books and starts putting them back on the shelves. ] But you know, I'll probably be in here again, and I don't really know what to study first. I'd like to read all of them.

[geniustheveil]

You could choose some to bring home with you for awhile. It's like any other library in that. [Tactfully, she draws no more attention to the mess, she simply starts picking the books up.]

[fourthgenerationprincess]

Hmm. [ As she's putting them back, Twilight removes a couple. Then a couple more. By the time the mess is finally clean, about a quarter of the floor-to-ceiling shelf is levitating in the air around her. ] Okay, I think I'm ready!

[geniustheveil]

[Whoa! Ami's eyes widen as she takes a quick look around. The books. are floating. in the air.

This is not the first time she's seen something like that, but she can't do it herself and it's still not exactly common. She can't help thinking it seems convenient.]

Amazing!

[fourthgenerationprincess]

Huh? [ It takes a minute for Twilight to figure out what Ami's so amazed by. Then she figures it out. ]

Oh, this? It's nothing. Most unicorns can levitate things. Where I come from, anyway. [ Maybe there are other worlds with unicorns that can't? Got to encompass all possibilities now that she knows about alternate dimensions. ]

[geniustheveil]

Until I came here, I never saw a unicorn at all. I never even heard of them, except in books. [No one in her world, these days, thinks they're real.]

[fourthgenerationprincess]

Well, I never knew about humans at all. Or giant talking turtles. Besides, I'm not a unicorn.

[geniustheveil]

I'm sorry; I shouldn't have assumed. It's just that when you said most unicorns could levitate things, I thought...

[fourthgenerationprincess]

Oh! Well, I used to be. I might have been last time I was here, but... [ she spreads her wings ] now I'm an alicorn.

[geniustheveil]

I thought maybe the wings were a sign of growing older, of reaching adulthood... something like that.

[fourthgenerationprincess]

Well, in a way. This is how I realized my destiny. Not every unicorn gets them. And if Rainbow Dash had a horn on her head, it might affect her aerodynamics. Then she might not be able to be a Wonderbolt!

[geniustheveil]

It's a little like they say about angels: You have to earn your wings.

[fourthgenerationprincess]

I definitely had to earn mine. I've been studying for years.

[geniustheveil]

But you reached your dream. After all that time and all that effort, you were able to accomplish what you wanted.

[fourthgenerationprincess]

Yeah, and now I get to be a princess! Which is a little scary. But also exciting!

[ She clacks her hooves together in excitement thinking about this, and then comes back to all four, her eyes sparkling, to look at Ami again. ] I think everypony reaches their dream eventually. All you need is a little hard work and time.

[geniustheveil]

I hope so. I was lucky to be able to reach mine back home, too - and here as well. [She has everything she wanted, which is not something she expected to see actually happen: friends, a career as a doctor, a place she feels like she belongs and a way she feels she can contribute to everyone.]

[fourthgenerationprincess]

Really? That's great! What did you do? Do you do? [ Tenses are confusing. ]

[geniustheveil]

I became a doctor. I work at the village clinic here, too; although the battledome clinic usually sees more patients.

[fourthgenerationprincess]

[ She grins. ] I'll bet your cutie mark would be a stethoscope. Or maybe a heart.

Wait, what's the battledome?

[geniustheveil]

[Well, possibly. But there are other strong possibilities, anywhere from books to her Mercury sigil to the bubbles and water of her attacks, to the harp she uses as an enchanted weapon in another world.]

I think I'd like that. Like a sign of what I can do.

The battledome is a sort of arena. People train in combat there, with a simulation program.