Chapter 4: Ebony's Secret

Another day of work, grinding up unicorns and making them into our magical rainbows.

Now to head home, I mean, I work in Cloudsdale, but my house is in Ponyville. I did this because the land is cheaper there and I wanted a big house. I flew down off of the edge of Cloudsdale and swooped down gliding over the acres of farmland that is Sweet Apple Acres, making a left turn and flying for a few more miles to the edge of the Everfree. My house comes into view, its a four story house on the surface with a network of tunnels and rooms underneath.

It’s layed out like a big lower case N, with the door on the inside of it, the sides protecting it. The house itself is old brick with long sweeping vines covering the sides in places. A high wall of pale newer brick surrounds the 20 acre house and lawn, and a gravel path going up to the door with hedge bushes planted at the edges. I land just beyond the front gate of the wall and start walking up the path. Turning my head to the right I see my small pagoda in the middle of a pond and the bridge that connects it to the land. A grove of weeping willows surround the pagoda and leave an opening so you can see the bridge clearly.

Now I’m not an eccentric pony, this home of mine I only use a few rooms regularly. The extensiveness of the house is solely for the purpose of my… staff… I mean, this whole house and nopony here? Please, everypony gets lonely! I finally come up to the front door, which is hand carved mahogany with pegasi flying around a cloud with Princess Luna standing on it raising the moon. I take out a key and walk into the door and into the foyer, my butler nods to me and shambles past. Dinner will be soon, and he is a very busy gentlecolt. The foyer itself is large, like a hotel foyer with stairs running on either sides of the wall and the center open to the next set of rooms, a crystal chandelier hangs on the ceiling and the ceiling is painted with scenes of Princess Luna and Celestia, but mostly Luna. The stairs are made of dark gray marble and banisters of maple wood, the floor of the foyer is made of white marble and the walls are made of walnut.

I walk straight under the staircases and walk into the hallway, it is much simpler with the same floor and walls, but manny door adorn the walls. All of them are made of smooth birch wood carved with different carvings designating what function they have. One has a pony stirring a cauldron for the kitchen, which maids and my butler enter and exit hastily. Another across from it has ponies in elegant dresses and tuxedos dining on fine food, for the dining room. I turn to a door with carvings of creatures on the walls, smoke and fire clouding the faces and most of the creatures are obscured unless you’re really looking.

I reach up to my neck, to the black choker I always wear and pull it off revealing a key attached to it. Inserting the key into the locked door and disappearing inside locking the door tight behind me. More carvings are all over the small room, and stairs of black marble lead down into blackness. Carefully stepping down the stairs, for for an eternity I come to the ancient looking library, brilliant white marble walls with gray columns every 6 hooves and bookshelves in between. Aisles of bookshelves line the room, a sort of hallway between the columns of books, at the end is another door, this one made of wrought iron. Older looking but it has aged well, not even a bomb can get through that puppy, and I have the only key.

I begin to walk down the hallway between the books toward the door. As I pass every shelf, pedestals with old looking armor and weapons sit on top in glass cases, battered but still polished. I reach for the key around my neck again and unlock the gigantic door, pausing to admire the mosaic painted on the ceiling. The ceiling is white marble covered in a mosaic of the battle between Celestia and Princess Luna a thousand years ago, with ponies of every race and coat color clashing for their favorite Princess.

I unlock the door and inside before it closes you the reader can see white covered with red, red and dark red everywhere, carpets, walls, flooring all red…not blood, but who knows?  White mist leaks from inside the door and out into the hallway for a moment. Then with my back hoof, I slam the door shut.