Faster Than You Know

Trepidation was not nearly strong enough a word to describe how Chance felt standing before the doors of the Castle of Friendship. Even though his foalhood home lay just a few blocks from the towering spires of crystal, Chance had fully loaded his saddlebags in preparation for this moment. Of course he had the still wrapped scroll from Princess Luna, but he also had stuffed his bags with six or seven history books as well as his own notepad and sketchbook. He knew what he expected to find, but he also knew better than to never go anywhere without covering for the unexpected. In his bags also rattled a flint and steel, a bottle of water, and a probably fairly squashed sandwich wrapped in a cloth napkin.

As usual, the street around the castle was clear of traffic of any sort. Ponies avoided it, stayed out of the shadows it cast and away from all that might lay buried there, metaphorically and possibly physically. Dusk was beginning to settle over him the longer he stood there, and Chance fixed his eyes on the distant beacon that made itself known amidst the stars as the sun set. It was almost ironically appropriate, his hoof raising to brace against the golden doors over twice his height. Twilight and dusk were synonyms, and with Flurry Heart’s ever hopeful light piercing the heavens, the moment couldn’t be more perfect.

With a shove, Chance pushed the double door open, stumbling forward as the golden doors swung wide to greet him, far from the crack they’d given him when he was a blank-flanked colt. Startled, Chance fell back onto all fours, eyes wide as he stared into the dusty, cobweb infested interior of the crystal halls of the Castle of Friendship for the first time. The first bits of moonlight were trickling through the green tinted windows, illuminating the pattern of tree branches that were artfully carved into the glass. Violet and gold tasseled tapestries hung between crystal pillars, most of them in various states of disrepair, their colors a dull imitation of what they must have once been. The floor was as cold and crystal as the walls, just smoother, and when Chance took his first steps onto it and into the darkness, he whinnied in alarm when hanging crystals on the ceiling lit up. He staggered back out onto the steps, flustered by the unexpected magic that still lingered within the castle’s walls. Taking a deep breath, he stepped inside again and let the crystal light bath him in a myriad of golds, pinks, blues, and purples.

The entrance hall stretched out before him, beckoning him forward as the crystals continued to light his path with every step he took. So entranced was he, that Chance hardly noticed the golden doors swinging shut behind him. He spared them a glance before fixing his gaze ahead once more. More than the crystal light, or the history hidden within the castle walls, Chance could feel something tugging at him, calling him. It was hardly a malicious pull, though it did make the earth pony falter in his steps for a moment. It was as though somepony had a hoof on his heart, beneath his ribs, making him breathless and his heart jackrabbit as it tried to urge him forward. Simultaneously, the presence was comforting, tickling wisps of thoughts into his mind that didn’t quite form words. He felt warm from muzzle to tail, encircled in some unearthly power that wished to make itself known.

In his head, the shapeless words began to become more coherent with every step forward he took, the warmth growing stronger, the silent pull keeping his hooves moving. He grasped at every bit of it, letting the magic pull at him, draw him in. Chance did not really believe in such things as destiny, but this was perhaps the closest thing to it. A purpose. A magic that called out to him and him alone to show him his purpose. At the end of the entrance hall a set of stairs ascended upward, and each carved out block of crystal that made it seemed to be singing to him. With every tap of his hooves to the solid flooring, the magic whispered louder. He came to a door at the top of the stairs, and reared back to plant his forehooves against it. As with the entryway, the doors opened easily at his touch, and as they swung open to reveal the great hall, he could finally make out the words that the magic was murmuring into his ear.

“Thank you, for the offer I mean. But I’m afraid I have to say no.”

Before him stood the place he’d centered most of his research around, and it took his breath away. Overhead a chandelier made of twisted, petrified wood hung more of the radiant crystals that had decorated the hall before it than he could ever possibly count. They lit up every corner of the circular room, chasing away dust and cobwebs with their light so that the Crystal Thrones shone like new. His heart still pounding in his chest, Chance stepped closer to the thrones to peer at the table that lay in the middle of them. As the records said, it was a complete map of Equestria, though Chance was sad to see that it was apparently magically capable of updating itself. When he’d read about it he’d half hoped to find it in the condition in might have been in during the height of Princess Twilight’s reign. But even from where he was standing he could see the changed features of Equestria. The eastern coast was still scarred, cities that had once prospered still marked by the ruin of war. The train tracks that once ran between Equestria and Griffonstone were severed, leaving only ocean between them. Ponyville was as expansive as it was outside the castle walls at that very moment, the remains of the Everfree Forest just a crescent at the edge of it. Rainbow Falls was wiped entirely off the map, a rough hole in the Crystal Mountains where it had once stood. And beyond that, he could make out the Crystal Empire, it’s boundaries stretching out among the mountain peeks where a great wall had been erected as a border. Chance gasped as he noted the beacons along the wall flickering as they would be at this time of night, and at the Empire’s center, a white beacon reaching up into infinity beyond the map’s limited skyline.

Though he felt compelled to touch the map, Chance moved away from it, focusing again on the thrones that surrounded it. Crystallized cutie marks embezzled their crowns, and the sight of each of them surged a new emotion through every fiber of his being. So many of them were shapes grouped into threes, an uncommon thing to see in his own age. Three balloons, three diamonds, three butterflies, three apples. The only two that did not follow this pattern were the throne at the head of the table, if one could actually consider a round table to have a head, and the one just to the left of it. Reverently, Chance dared to pass a hoof over the throne that had once belonged to Princess Twilight Sparkle, the magenta star holding his attention for a long, silent moment before he felt the pull again. Almost there, it said in feeling alone. Almost home.

Chance squeezed himself between the table and the throne to the left of the royal seat, his breath catching harshly in his throat as he set his forehooves upon the base. It was like he’d been struck by lightning, every nerve and bone and muscle in his body singing all at once. Tartarus, maybe he had been struck for real. After all, the mark upon this particular throne was a single white cloud with a rainbow bolt descending from it. Steadying himself, Chance climbed onto the throne properly, the sensation of being called and tugged at fading gently away. Here. He was here. This was his place, his throne. It had been waiting for him.

Chance stared at the map before him, the rise and ebb of the feeling that had brought him here leaving him stunned and at a loss for words, let alone proper or intelligent brain function. The table glittered in its sapphire hues before him, and it was with mindless, reckless abandon that Chance reached out to place a single hoof upon it.

A flash of light burst upwards, bouncing off the crystal walls and lighting up every window within sight. Chance was certain all of Ponyville would be able to see it, and perhaps maybe even Canterlot might witness its glow from its position on the mountain above. Now that he had touched it, Chance couldn’t bring himself to remove his hoof. A different feeling bubbled within him now, a sense of waiting and wanting that curled in his gut. A minute passed, then another, each seeming to be longer than the last as Chance stared unblinking for the map. The castle had waited for him, so now he too would wait for the castle.

Another minute passed, and Chance startled as another flash of light cast its presence into the room. But it was not one of the castle’s lights, one of the many glimmering crystals. No, the warmth in Chance’s body had focused itself on his flanks, and flashed a dark green within in clover-like cutie mark. He watched, still beyond words as mirror image of the mark pulled away from his coat, shrinking as it dashed over to hover above the map and fix itself over Canterlot.

Although Chance was annoyed at the prospect of returning to Canterlot so soon when he knew there was so much more to see of the castle, the tugging feeling had returned to its place in his chest, and he no longer had the option of ignoring it. He had been chosen, and now he was being summoned. Though what the map expected him to do, to find within the royal city, Chance couldn’t even begin to wonder. All he knew was that he was needed there, a new sense of purpose urging him onward.