A dragon's breath

by Zixinus

Rating: everyone
Tags: Adventure
Length: 5471

A mysterious letter sends the Mane 6 and Spike unto a new adventure, as well as new thoughts.

A mysterious letter from the Princess sends Twilight, Spike and the rest of the mane 6 trough a dangerous journey in the Everfree Forest. Their destination? A spot that none of them knew about in a wild region of the nearby mountainside. Their path is more dangerous than they realize and what's more, Spike is pushed into introspection as to what a dragon is doing among ponies.

About the cover: I've made the cover image myself and it's sort of the first thing I've made really MLP related. I'd welcome anyone helping me improve it, even if only by (constructive) suggestions.

Update: I am putting the story on hiatus. I have a smaller project going and the story needs an overhaul. However, I plan on putting up a new, non-ugly cover image (as opposed to the thing that you can currently scare away small children with) and chapter 2.

Feedback, criticisms or even a thumbs-ups are all welcome!

Published 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
Last updated 2012-02-21 23:24:03 UTC

Invitations

Note: I occasionally use footnotes in the form of stars. Usually, in paper form, footnotes are at the bottom of the page but that's obviously onworkable on the internet. Browsing up and down just to check the footnote brake's a readers flow, so I opted for a simple solution. While leaving the footnote thing at the end of each chapter, I'll also copy it at the end of its respective paragraph. These paragraphs are marked by /+ putting them in slash-plus bracket like so +\ at the end of its respective paragraph. Not the best solution but the simplest.

Many thanks to evilsoup for help with editing, brainstorming and much more (except the disturbing mental images).

Also big thanks to revy for proofreading. It might not be obvious, but his work provided much-needed improvements.

Chapter 1: Invitations

The door of the library opened to allow the purple librarian unicorn inside.

Her name was Twilight Sparkle and she was in a good mood. She was progressing well with her studies while enjoying her own home and plenty of free time. Her mentor and teacher, the ruler of the Equestria itself (or rather, one of the co-rulers of Equestria, she corrected herself), was pleased with her recent studies and reports. Now, she arrived home with her saddle-bags* full of fresh, juicy apples. They were a gift from her friend Applejack, in exchange for her helping out around her family farm, Sweet Apple Acres.

While it wasn't her first time on the farm (and its orchards), it was her first time being so involved with the various farm tools and machines that they used there. The Apple family produces all sorts of things; vegetables as well as the fruits of their namesake (if in smaller numbers), keeping themselves busy all year round. They had many things that helped with processing and preparing goods. She couldn't help but be fascinated, and now - finally home - her very first desire was to check for the book 'Hoofbook of Farm Machines'. She knew she had it because Applejack had once  asked for it herself.

That quickly got out of her mind as she found that the library was filled with smoke.

"Spike! I smell something burning! Is everything alright?" Twilight called out. In a panicked reaction she glanced over the bookshelves. The books, as far as she could tell, stood in their usual disorganized, disorderly fashion after many perusing ponies had gone through them (despite her best efforts to keep them tidy). None of them were burning or had smoke pouring from them however.

There was noise from upstairs, but no answer to her shout. Twilight closed her eyes and took another strong sniff. Something was definitely burning, but it was not the fine, thin smoke of burnt paper. No, this was something rougher, very coarse and far, far more thick. There was also the faint grainy smell of freshly charred wood.

"Spike! What's going on?!" she yelled, dropping her bags of apples to the floor. She was already mentally prepared for the worst and remembered the details of the 'extinguish fire' spell she learned while still a filly.

The library itself was a massive hollowed-out tree, which only added to her panic over the possibility of fire. The hollowed-out stem of the tree served as the main floor of the library, with a separate "wing" (an sidegrowth of the trunk) functioning as a reading room. Above was a living space overlooking the library floor, with additional side rooms such as the bathroom and the kitchen accessible from there.

Twilight ran up the stairs in a hurry. Here the smoke was very thick and strong. She coughed, her eyes streaming and her vision blurred. She could barely see the outlines of the furniture. Twilight galloped to the nearest window and threw it open, allowing the worst of the smoke to escape. She thought about using a wind spell to help it clear quicker, but decided against it. She needed to find the source of the building smog. And Spike!

"..ight? Is that you? I'm in the kitchen!" came a barely-audible voice that belonged to her baby dragon.

Dashing in, the purple mare surveyed the devastated kitchen: dishes on the floor, utensils everywhere (ready to be get broken underhoof), various bits of ingredients on everything (including the ceiling), the kitchen table upturned, drawers pulled out and their contents disorganised or spilled, misshapen trays and pans on the floor with thickly-smoking charcoal mashes on them and, amongst it all, a very guilty looking dragon holding a flagon of water.

"Hi Twilight!" said Spike with a nervous smile, trying to inconspicuously pour water on one of the smoking catastrophes that littered the room.

"Spike! What happened?" Twilight asked between coughs, undecided whether to be glad that there wasn't an actual fire or displeased at the frightful mess.

"Well, you see er... this is..." He glanced around himself and at the chaos he'd created. His expression clearly revealed that he knew this was beyond excuses or explanation. "Oh darn it, I messed things up big time," he admitted guiltily, more to himself than to Twilight. His suddenly sad, sullen expression drained most of Twilight's anger.

To further fortify her patience and to clear the air (which was a more pressing need of the two), Twilight decided to open the kitchen's only window, only to see that it was already open. Since there was no fire, she decided to do a small air-filter spell around her muzzle that would filter out the smoke. Spike needed none, as he was fireproof in this regard too (at least, he didn't seem bothered by this much smoke).

"What happened?" asked Twilight with a little trepidation.

"I messed up dinner," Spike repeated while staring at the floor, before mumbling something else that Twilight couldn't quite hear .

"I can see that, but how? You can cook, you have cooked, you are fine in the kitchen!" asked the purple-coated unicorn.

"Not this time," said Spike miserably.

"Well, where is the food? Maybe it's salvageable ..." said Twilight, unable to help herself at Spike's sullen expression. Spike pointed toward a heavily smoking area of the kitchen where a lump of ash and twisted metal had actually burned itself into the floor.

"What is that?"

"The cast iron pan," replied Spike. Twilight levitated it above the floor to get a better look at it. It broke down into smaller pieces as it rose and shed ash in process.

"The cast iron... Spike, how did you manage this?" asked Twilight in surprise.

"Well the recipe said a low, long flame should be used or it would be ruined. So I used only a little fire at a time and I got tired pretty fast. After a while I stopped paying attention, just focused on breathing more fire, and I sort of... lapsed..." He trailed off, looking at the very spot he mentioned. Twilight could imagine it happening; Spike often liked using his own flame rather than the small kitchen stove (he considered it too slow and weak, and to be fair it was rusty and rickety).

"What about the rest of the kitchen?" Twilight asked absently, still a bit shocked.

"I was looking for the double-sided egg-spoon and the reverse-pan-stirrer and other stuff that the recipe mentioned. Between various steps, it mentioned quickly using things that I wasn't sure where they were and I, er... panicked..." the baby dragon explained reluctantly, his hands gesturing in confusion. "I also tripped on...stuff." he added, which explained the trails of fruit peels and fruit-meshes lying around.

It was only now that Twilight noticed the books on the floor, near the overturned table. There was a picture dictionary, one or two other cooking books (one of them laid open with a bookmark showing a page with a tool she didn't know the name of) and a book about fruits. But what caught her attention was an older, hardcover book with a flowing, gold-lettered title.

"'Royal Canterlot Cuisine'?" she exclaimed, levitating it into the air to examine more closely. "'Forever fine foods for the famishing famous' by Head Chef Ram Sea'?! Spike, I am pretty sure that this is way over your head. Horseapples, from the look of it, it's over mine! Or anypony's in Ponyville for that matter. What possessed you to try something like this?"

Spike rubbed his arm, looking elsewhere, clearly uncomfortable with the answer. Twilight waited, holding him under a stern gaze until he relented.

"I just wanted to impress Rarity and the others."

Twilight was confused. "But you usually manage to do so! Without setting the kitchen on fire! What happened?"

"I visited Cherilee today for breakfast and her porcelain tea set broke while I was there. All of it. And it was from her grandmother. It was awful. She cried a little. She said it was her fault and it was really, and I did try to save it, and if I think about it she was right but...  Want not destroy..." Spike said all this with the most miserable voice, his expression even more wretched if that were possible. That particular phrase sent Twilight back a few years, bringing back a memory she hoped forgotten.

It happened at Aunt Moonshine's. She was a potion maker. The day began fairly happily, as he got to take Spike who usually was taken care of by Celestia until Twilight got older. Aunt Moonshine was always very strict and Spike, barely able to talk, was always very curious at that age as well as easily bored. When her aunt was explaining something in her ingredient storage, Spike started climbing the shelves. It was probably all the rocky smells and shiny minerals. Aunt Moonshine began shouting at him to stop, which made Spike try to hide, which made him knock things off the shelves even more. Twilight tried to tell Moonshine that all she needed to do was stop shouting and she'd be able to coax Spike back to her, but her aunt just shushed her into silence. Spike eventually found some sealed pots full of various powders that he knocked to the floor, lost his balance and landed amidst the spilled powders, and was so surprised that he sneezed a few sparks.

It was one of the worst days of her life. Spike was pretty singed, his scales were not really developed yet and she could tell that they were quite sensitive. It hurt him, it really did. Having to explain how she didn't take proper care of him to Princess Celestia was awful, even though she said that it was none of her fault. But that was not the worst part. It wasn't even Aunt Moonshine's incessant screaming of curses and horrible names at both her and the little baby dragon. It was that awful, ear-tearing sound that sometimes haunted her nightmares...

Forcing herself back to the present, Twilight understood. Spike remembered some of those names; they hurt him for a long time, even after he got over them. Even after Aunt Moonshine said an apology. Names that she could see why he would suddenly remember and why he wanted to get a few extra compliments to counterbalance them. She went over to Spike and gently nudged him.

"Come on, let's clean up this mess," said Twilight, trying to change the subject with forced cheerfulness. Spike nodded and passively started picking things up from the ground.  He looked a bit relieved, but not happier. "You know, it's actually pretty impressive that you can melt metal," she added, seeing that her forgiveness didn't alter his mood much. She levitated a broom around the kitchen, starting with the ceiling.

"Actually... yeah. I didn't know that I could do that," he replied in a more upbeat tone after some consideration. "Could it be that I'm entering another growth spurt?" he asked with some excitement and vibrancy slowly entering his face, much to Twilight's relief.

"It could be," she suggested enthusiastically. In truth, she wasn't sure about the subject. There was precious little about dragons in the library. She was unsure about asking Celestia or requesting a book from the library network (if she even knew what to ask for). Zecora seemed to know a bit about dragons, but that was largely a mix of passed-on adages and stories. Twilight had learned a little, and while a little was definitely better than nothing, it was still not much. She normally just winged these issues, an approach the zebra endorsed ('Don't let your doubts get on top, just listen to your gut's talk').

"I wonder whether I can do it again. Fire-breathing can be hard! There is that old pan with the hole in it, I wonder if I could-" Spike broke off, suddenly realising what he was saying. Twilight's expression was that of challenging amusement.

"Outside a library made out of a hollowed out tree, I hope?” she said with mock strictness.

"Of course Twilight!" Spike agreed hastily.

"You know, maybe we should visit the farrier tomorrow? I am sure that he would welcome some help with the forge," Twilight suggested. "I bet there is plenty of metal for you if you want to..."

Twilight was cut short by a growing shout of "IINNNNNNNGG" and then a loud crash as terrace doors were forced open. One could tell by the sound that the doors would have to be replaced, as the force shook the building, knocking several objects to the floor.

"Twilight! Spike!" came the loud shout from a concerned Rainbow Dash, "Is anyone in here? Where are you guys? Are you alri... hey, where's the fire?" The pegasus looked around in confusion as she noticed the complete absence of a raging inferno.

"We're in the kitchen, Dash!" Twilight shouted through the doorway, "Don't worry, there's no fire!" She exited the kitchen to greet Rainbow Dash, with Spike following right behind, as it was simply too small for all of them.

"You guys OK?" asked the rainbow-haired pony, worry still showing on her face. "What happened?"

"Oh, you know: the usual kitchen accident, burned food, exploding puddings." Twilight smiled dismissively. Spike was about to say something, but Twilight surreptitiously swiped him with her tail.

"Puddings explode?" asked Rainbow Dash, clearly hung up on that, perhaps significant, detail.

"Yeah, sure! Mix the ingredients wrong, accidentally slip in something you shouldn't, and the yeast, er, overgrows! Then before you know it, boom!" She waved her front hooves about her in mimicry of the event. "It goes right to your face and up to the ceiling," she elaborated, nodding enthusiastically at her own reasoning. Spike was quite embarrassed, even though nopony was looking at him.

Rainbow Dash looked bemused, scratching her head.

"I might have used a tiny, itsy-bitsy shred of magic to... speed things up! Silly me, I probably got the spell wrong," said Twilight in an altogether non-confessional voice.

"Ooookaaayyy... Twilight, I'm a bit worried. When you usually get magic wrong, you make a big mess. Like with the doll? I don't just want to criticise but..." Rainbow Dash trailed off, feeling a bit uncomfortable.

"Don't worry, it won't happen again," Twilight assured her, shooting a meaningful glance at Spike. Spike nodded, catching her meaning.

"Anyway, I saw the smoke and thought the worst. Is everything OK then?" said the pegasus, obviously past caring about the reasons for the fire, much to Twilight and Spike's relief.

"Yeah, I just have to clean up a... little," replied Twilight, casting a look of dread towards the kitchen.

"Oh! Oh! Can I help with clearing out the smoke? I have this awesome stunt that's part of a routine of mine! It should air the whole house in a jiffy!" said Rainbow Dash excitedly, even making a small circle in the air as she spoke.

Twilight thought of the thick, appalling smell of the smoke. "That would be very helpful Rainbow, thank you," she said.

Rainbow Dash grinned and flew out like a lightning bolt. Within moments the sound of her rapidly circling above the library was heard. A few seconds later Twilight could feel a slight wind in her mane, meaning that RD was picking up speed. After that the air was certainly clearing, the smoke visibly being sucked out through the open windows.  As it continued however, dust began to visibly rise as well. The window blinds and picture frames began to shake.

"Erm, Rainbow?" said Twilight, forgetting for the moment that she couldn't possibly hear her. The wind increased, lifting up debris and light clutter into the air. Picture frames, curtains and shutters rattled violently. Papers glided across the room and collected in a slowly-spinning pile in the centre of the library.

"Rainbow!" Twilight yelled, but there was no reaction. Spike brushed up against Twilight, not exactly frightened but still going to the best support he knew.

The whirlwind started to gain strength; Twilight's mane was blown upwards, various objects hit the floor and began to slide or bounce across it, while the vortex of spinning papers in the middle of the room grew denser as it picked up more and more material.

"RAINBOW DASH!" Twilight cried out again, Spike joining in as best he could. All to no effect, as they now had a small and very loud cyclone on their hoofs.

Now lighter objects were casually thrown around the house. Spike's basket bed was taking a tour around the library, Twilight's blanket was doings its best impression of a ghost, books were falling off the shelves in all the excitement, some of the dishes and cups had had enough of the cruel world, and amongst all of it, scrolls, sheets, even small bundles of paper were ascending upwards while covering everything they were caught up in.

Then it suddenly stopped, everything abruptly falling to the ground as the howling wind subsided. Twilight's mane was in her face, there was not a pony-belly's worth of clean space to be found, and simply nothing was in its proper place. She also heard a faint whistling in her ear.

Rainbow smoothly zoomed in through the terrace door and landed, posing and declaring with satisfaction: "There. Clear and clean as a summer sky." Then Rainbow opened her eyes and realised the scope of mayhem she has caused. Twilight regarded her with an expression of barely-contained anger upon her face.

"You said something about magic and messes?" she snapped bitterly.

"Erm, I think I might have overdone it a little," admitted Rainbow Dash with a nervous smile and giggle.

"A little?" snapped Spike. Keeping the library (and his home) tidy was his job as well.

"Okay, maybe more than a little. Look, I'm pretty much done for today, how about I help you clean this up?"  Rainbow Dash offered by way of an apology.

"Hmmm... Okay Rainbow Dash, how about you collect things into piles and I'll sort them?" said Twilight, already growing calm as her organisation skills took over. "Papers, scrolls and library things on the ground floor, everything else on the living room floor. That alone would save me a lot of time."

"On it! I can probably sort this mess in ten se..." She looked around. "...er in a jiffy!"

She was soon buzzing around the room, collecting papers, scrolls and scattered books, treating the task as if it were a game. Already she was using the walls to rebound herself and gain speed. As she did so, she started to stir the air up again, causing papers to fly. The piles she was creating were quickly scattered in the wake of her flight, a fact not helped by the haphazard way she added to them (often just dropping them when she was over them rather than properly stacking them). Needless to say her "work" was impressively counter-productive.

Twilight sat down and rolled her eyes. She knew that Dash was doing this because she wanted to get it done as fast as possible, so as to avoid the onset of boredom.

"Dash? Dash? Rainbow Dash?" She called out to Rainbow with a hint of impatience in her voice that Spike recognised. It was a sure sign that things were really getting on her nerves. "DASH!" Twilight grabbed the over-excited pegasus using her magic.  "This is not something you can do in ten seconds flat! Please, slow down! Buzzing around will only make things worse and force us to start over. As crazy as it sounds, we have to take our time if we want to get it done quickly!"

"Gosh Twilight, you're a bit grouchy today," said the upside-down pegasus, her rainbow hair flailing around as she swung from her magically suspended tail.

Twilight was quite annoyed. She let go of Rainbow, who fell to the floor with a start. With her ears flattened, the purple librarian pointed towards the entrance

"Somewhere over there is lunch for both me and Spike. I got up early today and spent all morning at Sweet Apple Acres helping Applejack renovate the farm. I ache all over and am completely exhausted from using so much magic. They were kind enough to give me some delicious food for my troubles. And now I have to literarily dig it out of this... this mess!" Then Twilight pointed around the library, especially at the books that had fallen from their shelves. "I also just had a re-shelving day a while ago, and now, just as I get back home, hoping for a quiet afternoon of reading..." Twilight stopped herself before she went any further. "I'm sorry, you're right Rainbow, I am being grouchy. It's just that everything is so... disorganized." She laid down on the floor, looking tired and exasperated. Rainbow appeared crestfallen and apologetic. Spike decided that this is was a good opportunity to hug Twilight, who welcomed the gesture and hugged him back.

Then Spike started to make strange noises, almost as if he were about to belch. Twilight was about to make a reproachful remark when he backed away with his claws over his mouth. Finally he burped out a scroll. This came as no surprise to Twilight or Rainbow Dash. What did surprise Twilight was that instead of a red ribbon, there was a deep blue ribbon around the scroll. It was a Royal Seal, rather than Celestia's quick-and-simple (if still royal) horseshoe. Without missing a beat Spike caught the letter and opened it. Clearing his throat, he began to read it aloud.

"Ahem, 'Loyal student Twilight Sparkle: We, the Royal Princesses of Equestria, write to you to inform you of your appointment with an old, respected friend to Equestria that has decided to resume contact with us. The appointment is to be held after five (5) full days from now, on the night of the full moon. We have attached a suitable map of the area that displays the location of your appointment. The location in question is a large disk, made out of bronze and covered with a layer of gold, about five pony-length* in diameter, and is elevated above the ground. The appropriate symbol for it on your map is copied into the letter. No diplomatic protocol is required for this meeting beyond basic courtesy. However, you may bring any item or pony you may deem necessary or suitable. Proper documents of our past diplomatic meetings will be sent once they have been found and retrieved from the Royal Archives. We expect a full report on your meeting upon its completion, detailing any results or conclusions reached, and written at your earliest opportunity to properly do so. We wish you the best of fortune in this and future endeavours. Signed, your beloved ruler: Princess Luna. Sent with the permission of, and by, co-ruler, Princess Celestia. PS: You must take Spike with you!"

/+*Refers to length as an unit of measurement of a stretched out horse at a gallop. Apprx 8-9 feet, I just round it to 2.5 meters (hopefully, that's a galloping pony's stretched-out length). +\

Spike neatly rolled up the letter as usual and then took the included parchment, to be ready with either.

"I thought only Princess Celestia sent you letters," Rainbow Dash remarked with a touch scepticism.

"She usually does. Spike, could I have a look at that letter?" asked Twilight. Dash looked confused at this request, unaware that Spike took his duties of burping letters seriously and that he found the notion that his reading might be inaccurate to be insulting. Spike held out the letter regardless and Twilight levitated it over to herself. Rainbow Dash couldn't help being curious and nuzzled her way to see. Spike joined them, standing at Twilight's other side.

The first thing Twilight noticed was that the ink was different. It reminded her of the richly textured golden letters she saw Celestia use occasionally on official documents, the way they seemed to gently glow out of the very paper itself. Here, the letters were velvet black, sinking into the paper as if they were holes into the night sky, complete with an occasional glitter of a star or a faint, passing silver shine by the edges of the letters. The hoofwriting was indeed different, sharper and thinner. Except the last line, the postscript. That was Celestia's hoofwriting, in regular ink.

"I don't get it. Why would Princess Luna send you the letter?" said Rainbow Dash, clearly puzzled.

Twilight just stared at the letter with an expression of equal puzzlement upon her face. Spike answered instead: "I don't know. The way I get and send letters is only between Celestia and me. I think it was her that sent the letter, but Princess Luna wrote it."

"That makes sense, I guess. It's pretty cool to get a job from royalty, but I can't shake the feeling that something is off. What do you think Twilight? Erm, Twilight?" Rainbow Dash stared at Twilight, only now realizing that she appeared to have frozen in place. The pegasus hesitantly waved her hoof in front of her eyes, but there was no reaction.

"Er, Twilight? Twilight Sparkle?" said Spike with a tone of dread. Twilight's eyes darted about and fixed upon him.

"Do you know what this means?" Before either of them could answer, Twilight shouted "It means we're now bureaucrats!"

"We're what now?" they asked in confused unison.

"Me and Spike! Ponies that serve her royal majesty's government! Ponies that do things for all ponykind, for all of Equestria!" Twilight elaborated and gestured wildly, getting up close into Rainbow Dash's personal space, who was slowly backing away from her. The pegasus slipped on the papers that were strewn across the floor and landed on her rump, only for Twilight to press right up to her nose. "We now have a massive responsibility that we never could have imagined! All of Equestria depends upon us!"

"So what else is new? I mean, with the Elements of Harmony and that snoring dragon and stuff..." She leaned back a little to try and escape Twilight's invasion of her personal space. Her words did nothing to curb Twilight's energy though.

"Yes, but now it's official! As in we have to do paperwork! Following protocols! Filling forms and..." She gasped, "Learning regulations! My studies!"

Both Spike and Rainbow Dash exchanged a glance of worry and an annoyance. Spike even mouthed the words "she's doing it again".

"What if we are behind schedule? The full moon is five days away... ohmygosh, I have to check my lunar calendar! My regular calendar too! My study schedule as well! Do we even have a book on diplomatic protocols?! What if-" She stopped abruptly as Spike interrupted her. He did so using a jug of water.

"TWILIGHT, SNAP OUT OF IT! You're getting yourself wound up again! Just like that time you missed sending Princess Celestia a report. Remember how that turned out?"

He succeeded in getting through to her, and she blinked, momentarily shaken. Rainbow Dash used the opportunity to try and say a few reassuring words.

"Yeah Twi, I mean what if we just have to meet and escort this guy? The letter said that you don't need anything special."

"Rainbow's right," said Spike, "And besides, Celestia wouldn't let Princess Luna give you an assignment that you couldn't handle."

Twilight shook the water out of her mane and took a deep breath.

"You're both right. I was acting silly. It's just that this sounds so important! I don't want to disappoint the Princesses, and we've never had a letter from Princess Luna before. "She paced around a bit and then decided to levitate the map, gently opening it. "Let's have a look at this, shall we?"

It was grey-brown parchment and unrolled stiffly. Twilight could not escape the impression that it was like a pirate treasure map: the parchment was worn, the edges were ragged, the ink faded, the material flaking and discoloured in spots. The north-arrow looked nothing like she had seen on any other map, recognising it simply because it could not be anything else. There was a legend (for the map's symbols), but the words and grammar were... odd.

"Where's Ponyville? I can see Canterlot, but I think Cloudsdale is in the wrong place," said Rainbow Dash, "Then again, it does moves around so that's no surprise. Still, that shouldn't be over there. Hey, these symbols are all wrong too; the only ones I recognise are all outdated." She was a  familiar with maps owing to her job.

"Yes and look: Fillydelphia is shown as a village. A lot of settlements are missing and there's a few I haven't even seen before. Here!" Twilight pointed to a spot where there was a half-black and half-empty circle overlapping each other. "Based on the river and the mountains, that is where the old royal castle of the pony sisters is. Reckoning by that, Ponyville should be in this valley, here." Twilight now pointed at an empty spot on the map.

"And that's the place we're looking for!" said Spike, pointing to a symbol that was also found on the letter. Both ponies exchanged worried looks.

"That will take me through the Everfree forest!" said Twilight, alarmed. Ever since the cockatrice incident she was much more wary of the place.

"Yeah and let me tell you one thing: you're not going alone! I'm not letting you go there by yourself again. Who knows what you could run into!" said Rainbow Dash, her voice full of assurance, her tone suggesting that she wouldn't accept any kind of argument.

Spike cleared his throat. "Ahem. She's not going alone."

"No offence Spike, but you're still only a baby dragon," said Rainbow Dash in a more gentle tone. Spike didn't say anything in response, but still crossed his hands and grumbled a bit.

"She's right. Safety in numbers. Besides, the letter did say I can bring anypony I think I should. If this is important, I can't think of anything better than having my friends at my back," said Twilight earnestly. "That and my number one assistant of course," she added when she noticed Spike's expression.

"We should try to find the map we used when we went up that mountain. You know, the one we dragged Fluttershy up to deal with that snoring dragon? Maybe we can take a route through that and avoid going into the deeper parts of the forest," Rainbow Dash suggested.

"That's a great idea! That map should be right... errr..." Twilight searched around. The map could be anywhere, as the library had just been redecorated by a pegasus-made tornado. "Let's focus on cleaning this mess up first," she said, realising she was getting caught up in all the excitement.

Twilight looked at Rainbow Dash and Spike, then at the letter and map, then finally the library. She rolled the scroll and parchment up and closed her eyes. Her horn began to glow and within a moment a wooden cylinder with a strap levitated over to her. She placed the rolled-up letter and map into that.

"There. It's an old oak cylinder that messengers used when carrying important letters. I'll place this above the mantle. Now, Rainbow Dash? Gather up things into neat piles; everything made out of paper on the ground floor and the rest upstairs. I'll sort them out and put them into their proper place. Spike, you handle the kitchen," Twilight instructed, happily organising things with her usual efficiency.

"Why should Spike clean up? You made the mess!" Rainbow Dash pointed out. Spike smiled.

"I don't mind. Anything to help," he said, exchanging a conspiratorial glance with Twilight, who then shared a small giggle.

+++

*Refers to length as an unit of measurement of a stretched out horse at a gallop. Apprx 8-9 feet, I just round it to 2.5 meters (hopefully, that's a galloping pony's stretched-out length).