The Valhalla Gem

“Dear my little ponies.

You have bested me with the elements of Harmony like Princess Celestia and Princess Luna before you. And I must congratulate you. So from the last of my power, I give you this orb, it will let you live forever and you will feel no pain, all you have to do is feed it.

From your loving and dear friend.

Discord”

And with those words echoing in the wind, the statue of Discord in the gardens of Canterlot began to shake, a crack formed from it’s chest as a burst of light shone from it. Out the light, fell a marble, it tinged as it fell, hitting the pedestal and rolling along the dirt. As it rolled away it’s glassy body grew in mass, it had already grew to the size of a orange, then a tennis ball, then finally a basketball as it slowly went into a halt. It was opaque and black, giving off a glossy shine in the moonlight. The sky, clouded by rain clouds started to wash over a dark red colour like blood spill, before it washed away back to the normal blue and starry backdrop.

This had not gone unnoticed as the younger of the princesses had seen the change with her own eyes as she monitored the night. Without haste she quickly spread her wings out and dived out of the observatory tower to inform her sister.

Celestia was asleep in her bedchamber, resting up for her time to raise the sun and perform her duties as Ruler of Equastria.

“SISTER!!”

Princess Luna had barged down her sister’s door, backing up her own strength with her magic as her glowing horn had illuminate the dark bedchamber. She spoke with the royal Canterlot voice which had violently woken up her sister. The sudden shock and the piercing light from Luna’s horn had left Celestia in a bad attitude if her sister hadn’t a good reason for such intrusion.

“Sister, what is it? I can’t have you forcing your way in while I am sleeping”.
“THE NIGHT, THE NIGHT HAD TURNED RED, I ALSO SAW LIGHT COMING FROM DISCORD’S STATUE”.

Celestia jolted out of her bed, her mane and tail reformed to sway in the non existent wind again.

“He has escaped again?”.

Luna had dropped her voice to normal to answer her sister on this.

“No. Nothing has changed but the sky”.
“It would be a good idea if we checked on this sister”.
“Yes. I have already sent my guards to investigate. They will return with a full status report momentarily”.

Celestia walked beside her sister out her bedchamber and down the hallway.

“I do not think he has broken free, we would have heard of him by now if he had”.
“That is why I sent the guards than search the area beside you sister, it is obvious he hasn’t escaped”.
“Still, I’m not sure it was a good idea to send the guards, Discord could easily trick them, even turn them against us, we should still go out and check ourselves”.
“If that is what you wish sister”.

Celestia had subconsciously lead her sister to the exit of the castle into the gardens. The two guards were scouting the area still, sniffing at the ground and dragging along the dirt to see if anything had hidden itself in the grass. They had already uncovered the orb and has placed it on the stone pathway against the hedge, so it would not interfere with their searching.

The sisters walked up to look at the statue.

“Where did you see the light?”.

Luna walked on front of the statue and pointed to the chest of it.

“I see. There isn’t a single crack in the stone. Nothing has escaped from it”.
“Princess”.

The guards were stood at attention as Celestia looked over her shoulder, the orb was at their hooves.

“We haven’t found anything, besides this”.

The guard on the left put his hoof on the orb, Celestia and Luna both lowered their heads to have a closer look momentarily, then lifted their heads back up and looked at each other with a puzzled look. They turned their attention back to the guards.

“I have never seen anything like this in my life”.
“It just looks like a black glass orb to me”.

Celestia put her hoof to her chin as she went into a trance of thought.

“Send it to my faithful student Twilight Sparkle. She can study it, maybe she can find something”.

Celestia’s horn glows and a quill and scroll was conjured. She wrote on it what had transpired and sealed it to be passed on to the guard.

“I want both this and the orb to be at Twilight’s doorstep in Ponyville by the time I raise the sun”.
“Very well your highness”.

The guard took the scroll in his mouth and the other started to roll the orb away to be packaged and sent to Twilight.

“Sister, do you think she can find out anything about it?”.
“I’m sure, Twilight’s not my number one student for nothing”.

Celestia winked at her sister as they went to retreat to their bedchambers, the time of dawn was still quickly drawing closer.

Twilight was already up, she was studying the stars through her telescope, unfortunately she had just missed the sky’s changing but was in time to see the sun rise. After a few hours of studying she proceeded to Spike’s basket. He was in a deep sleep, it took some nudging from Twilight to get him to wake up.

“T-twilight . . . W-what is it?”.
“The sun was rising soon. I was wondering If you wanted to watch it with me?”.
“Eh? . . . But I’ve seen the sun rise millions of times, it’s never changes. Why would I want to see it again when I would rather see the inside of my eyelids?”.

Twilight rolled her eyes as Spike went back to snore again. She was going to wake him up again but the door knocked which made her break from her pestering duty to answer the door.

“Special Derpy Delivery!!”

Derpy had already placed the package down on the floor, she wants panting enough for Twilight to faintly notice it.

“Oh good Twilight I finally found you, did you move five times? I went to five other houses and you weren’t there. Anyway, Celestia’s orders was for this package to reach you before sunrise. It was on the express train here and no one else was awake to take it to you. I came as fast as I could, but you’d moved so many times”.
“Derpy, I’ve always lived here”.
“Oh”.

Twilight dragged the package in with her nose and left it beside the doorway before turning back to Derpy.
“Why did the princess want this delivered to me so urgently?”
“I don’t know. Maybe she should have written it on a scroll”.
“Okay Derpy, thank you”.

Twilight cleared her desk and placed the package on it. She unwrapped the brown paper to reveal a box, within the box was the orb found earlier, packed safely with paper strips.

“Why would Celestia want to send me this?”.

She lifted the orb out of it’s container and studied it closely, spinning it around and watching it‘s glossy finish reflect the light.

“It’s very nice, maybe it’s just a ornament she wanted to send me”.

She floated a kitchen bowl onto the table and placed the orb on top of it.

“This will have to do until I can find something more ornamental, a stand or something”.

She returned to her desk and started to write down her new schedule. Every few minutes or so, when her mind wasn’t completely focused, she would turn to the orb and stare at it.

This had continued throughout the day with her daily chores and studies when she had been in the room. Spike acted completely oblivious to it, but also has the day grew his patience did too. It was starting to get darker, and the sun would be setting again, for the moon to rise.

“Twilight!”
“Yes Spike”.
“You’ve been staring at that ball all day, you’ve never even told me anything about it”.
“Oh . . . It was a present from Celestia”.

Her words were muffled with papers.

“What?”.
“IT’S A PRESENT FROM CELESTIA”.

The door busted open, Derpy had charged through the door, the force had made her lose control of her path, in the process she had dragged a lot of the books off their shelves, collided into the table, knocking over the orb and finally stopped as she hit Twilight, knocking her papers into the air and fall in a flurry like gentle rain.

“Twwwwilight”.

She started to uncontrollably rumble, she flew up and looked down on who she was sat on.

“Sorrry”.

The orb rolled into her lap as she looked up at Derpy with a riled look. Derpy nonchalantly smiled back to her.

“Twilight. Your bleeding”.

Twilight’s papers had given her a paper cut on the side of her face when they were projectile from her mouth when she was struck. The blood was running down her lip and neck.

“Oh Twilight I’m so sorry”.
“It’s just a paper cut . . . Why did you come barging in here!?”

Derpy turned to her saddlebag and brought out the scroll Celestia wrote.

“I forgot this when I delivered that parcel”.

Twilight floated it down to her so it was neck height and began to read it.

“Dear my faithful Student.

There was a scare when Discord’s statue showed some activity and the night sky turned red. This orb was retrieved from the near the statue. I need you to study it and report back anything you have found.

Yours Faithfully
Celestia

I see, so this is why she sent the orb to me, thank you Derpy”.
“Your welcome Twilight”.

Derpy flew off, Spike had already put away a third of the books she had knocked down. Twilight used her horn to collect the papers and order them, some of them got blood from her lip on them as she put them on the desk.

“That looks pretty bad, you should check it out”.
“It’s okay Spike. It doesn’t hurt at all”.

She got up, the blood stream on her body had found it’s way to the orb, which had taken a different look, it was still a black glass orb, but inside looked like it has a thin red cloud floating around inside like a worm in a apple. Faintly it also looked like blood was acting like the cloud inside but on a different course.

“That pretty weird”.
“It must have reacted to the blood, this is peculiar”.

Twilight thought back to the letter.

“Maybe this is what the sky looked like that the princess was talking about”.
“I don’t know”.
“Spike take a letter, we have found out a new feature of this orb, although I don’t think I would be able to find out what it is with my limited collection of books and it may be important to figure out what this thing is sooner than better, your also wiser than me, so I believe finding out would be quicker for you than me too. Your faithful student”.
“. . . Okay, done”.

They prepared the scroll and orb for departure, and Spike let out a big gulf of flames.

“What time is it Spike?”.

Spike turned to the clock, the time was late at 10 and night was settling already.

“It took Derpy all day to deliver that scroll”.
“hehe . . . Yeah”.

Spike looked at Twilight’s lip again.

“Twilight, you sure you don’t want to check that out”.
“Spike, don’t worry about it, I’m fine. And I . . . kind of like it”.
“Like it?”.

To think of something as annoying, and painful, thing as a bleeding paper cut, as likeable?

“. . . Spike, get to bed. I’m talking a early night myself, I don‘t want you staying up all night”.
“But Twilight”.

Twilight gave him a disdainful look and matched him to bed. He groaned and told Twilight how out of herself she was being but it wasn’t getting through to her. Moments before getting in his basket, he felt that accustomed rumbling before burping up a reply from Twilight’s last scroll.

“To my faithful student

This is very peculiar, but it seems strange that you would want to have me research this than do it yourself, even though I understand your reasoning, I thought you would love to uncover what this thing is. Anyway, I will comply with your wishes my faithful student.

Celestia”.
“See even the Princess thinks your being a bit out of yourself”.

Twilight stopped and reflected upon herself. She had been acting out of character.

“. . . Maybe your right Spike, look, I’ll get this cut cleaned, you get to bed, okay”.
“Okay.”

Spike curled up in his basket as Twilight trotted into the bathroom, she proceeded to dip her mouth under the tap she just turned, the blood went down with the water. She turned the tap off and dried her face, getting rid of the blood that had dried in her fur.

“Like it?”.

She looked in the mirror at her cut, the blood had clotted and it wasn’t bleeding anymore.

“What could have made me say such a thing?”.