Twilight had sometimes wondered about the door at the back of the Starswirl Wing of the Canterlot Archives. It was carved of heavy, rich mahogany, and covered in rune-work, the likes of which Twilight had never seen. It was also locked. Always. This in itself was not strange, because Celestia wasn't the sort of Princess who let random ponies wander through the halls and check out ancient tomes of dangerous magic. That said, Twilight Sparkle was not a random pony. She was Celestia's personal student, who had access to all the restricted areas of the library, even the sections dealing with time spells, age spells, all the really powerful, dangerous stuff.
What could possibly be through that door that even she didn't know about? The mystery was tantalizing.
After the last major threat took place in Canterlot, Twilight had been furiously reading up on magic and magical practice, so as to be better prepared for future incidents. It was thanks to this new study that she was prepared, at last, to open the lock of the door at the back of the Canterlot Library. Now, the reader must not be surprised at this blatant example of breaking and entering. Twilight Sparkle was, for all intents and purposes, a good student and a pure-hearted mare. She wouldn't normally resort to such a tactic, but this situation was... different.
Her first avenue of inquiry, Princess Celestia, was no longer an option.
"Princess, can you tell me what the deal is with that locked door in the archives?" The unicorn had asked one day, fully innocent and trusting. Her teacher had never lied to Twilight, no matter how painful the truth could be.
"It's just a janitor's closet, Twilight." Celestia had replied, and the young mare was frankly, quite shocked. Either Celestia didn't know, or she was lying, because there was no way that a fancy mahogany door with glowing blue runes was just a closet.
"I... I..." Don't think that's the truth, Twilight wanted to say, but she couldn't spit out the words. She began to think that maybe if she phrased it differently, the words would be easier to say, but as the unicorn mulled over new combinations, she began to forget what she'd been so worried about.
"That is to say... What was I saying?" Twilight finally muttered, confused, and irked that she didn't know what she was irked about.
"I haven't the foggiest, Twilight." Celestia replied, and her neutral expression conveyed a subdued amusement, like this was just a cute quirk of her unicorn student, and maybe it was. The solar regent simply changed the subject, and conversation proceeded as usual, never mind Twilight's subconscious and disturbing fear that she'd forgotten something.
It wasn't until a week later that Twilight re-discovered the door, and the memory came back, foggy and incomplete. Twilight was aching to give her mentor a second chance, and wrote herself a note this time, just in case. After all, Twilight was a busy mare. It was entirely possible that she'd just gotten confused... Right?
The second time she asked the question, Celestia repeated the same answer, and got the same confused responses. When she left the office, Twilight found her note, and her eyes focused on the second words in the margin: possible befuddlement spell. She immediately cast an anti-mind-magic spell that triggered the remnants of her foggy memories, and as they flooded back, Twilight gave a sorrowful sigh. If Celestia used a a befuddlement charm, it meant that she had intentionally hidden the room from her student. It also meant that Celestia had lied, the biggest betrayal of Sparkle's young life.
This meant that as much as Twilight hated it, the sun princess could not be trusted.
After that, Twilight lost track of the door. It was an odd thing to lose track of, because it was quite distinctive, and had already prompted two trips to Celestia's office. That said, the door was simply nowhere to be found. Twilight recalled that her mentor had called the door a janitor's closet, so she methodically went through, and checked every closet in the archives, to no avail. Finally, at her wit's end, Twilight devised her own version of the mage-sight spell, and used it to seek out places of high enchantment.
In a library full of ancient and magical books, that was easier said than done.
Finally, after hours of arcane work, Twilight discovered the location she was looking for.
"A 'Notice-Me-Not' ward." Twilight muttered, impressed with the genius of it. The Notice-Me-Not was a mild befuddlement spell that kept anyone but the caster from noticing a certain pony, or object. It was intended to force the observer to ignore the object in question, as if it weren't really there. This particular version was alicorn-strength, obviously put in place by Celestia herself.
"No doubt, to keep me from remembering it even exists..." Twilight muttered. She did not ponder the fact that a unicorn's homebrewed mage-sight spell could see past the ward of a literal demi-goddess. Once Twilight Sparkle focused in on a mystery, there was nothing that could dissuade her. After assuring herself that there were no alarm spells, or traps on the major enchantment, the unicorn entered into the heart of the spell with a flick of her horn.
One of the things that made this unicorn so unique, was her special talent. It was not, as so many believed, the vague amorphous concept of 'magic', or even her element of harmony, friendship. Twilight Sparkle's special talent, was the ability to examine, and manipulate magical matrices. That is to say: she hacked magic.
Now most unicorns know how to dispel an enchantment. It's one of the first lessons learned in magic kindergarten. The actual spell used, involves simply overriding the original spell by brute force. That couldn't work on this door, because despite how talented she was, Twilight Sparkle was still little more than a unicorn with wing, despite her princess of friendship status. She could never hope to brute-force override an Alicorn spell, nor did she wish to. If she destroyed Celestia's enchantment, she would certainly alert the princess to her tampering. Instead, Twilight simply added her own magical signature to that of the caster's (Celestia), effectively making her an exception to the spell's effect. She could easily remove it later, and planned to. For the moment, it was as good as a dispulsion, and she could now see the door in front of her, clearly.
Twilight examined the runes before her with a mild amusement. It was a stupidly simple locking ward, but due to the runes, it was carved into the wood itself, so as not to be dispelled without the key to unlock it. Any unicorn could unlock this door if they wished, except for the simple fact that rune-work was a forgotten art-form. Fortunately, Twilight had read up on it, just for this occasion. After she determined the proper signature to trigger the unlock-sequence, she was in. Easy as cupcakes, or so Pinkie might say.
What she found, was a room full of books, and in Twilight's mind, she'd hit the jackpot. It took a full twenty seconds to calm her breathing, and stop squealing like Rarity at a dress sale, before she could even begin to peruse the bookshelves and their contents. Many of the books, while old and academically interesting, were relatively mundane.
For example, Twilight found it hard to believe that Celestia put a first edition of The Life and Times of Puddinghead behind a locked runic door with a befuddlement enchantment. It was certainly old, and fragile, but that was nothing she couldn't handle with a simple preservation spell. After examining each book, and realizing that they were all similarly harmless, the unicorn found herself a bit disappointed. Sure, Celestia might have kept these books in here for the simple fact that they were too fragile for the general public, but that didn't explain why she lied about it to Twilight. After all, Celestia understood her student well enough to know that she would never, ever, harm a book. Surely, the princess could trust her with this, of all things?
Just as she was about to slump down in defeat, Twilight Sparkle had a realization. If Celestia had used the befuddlement spell outside, couldn't she have used one inside, as well? With a burst of her horn, Twilight called up the mage-sight spell, and examined the room, like she had earlier. To her satisfaction, she immediately sighted a hidden bookcase towards the back of the room. This one was simply invisible, and inset with the wall, so that no-one would trip over it. that enchantment, Twilight dispelled, as it would be easy to replace later.
When she saw what had been hidden, her eyes practically jumped out of her head. It was an entire shelf of journals, never before seen by civilian eye. Twilight trotted over to Starswirl the Bearded's fifth journal. She'd read the printed copy, of course, but the original version was supposed to be lost to the sands of time! Celestia had it all along?
After checking to make sure that the preservation spell was intact, Twilight flipped open the book, and began reading. Starswirl's Fifth was one of her favorite books of magic. It was the book that spoke of the magic of friendship, and limited though his knowledge of it was, it had given Twilight a lot of joy over the years, since she'd moved to Ponyville.
Very quickly, Twilight realized that this wasn't the same book she remembered. Apparently, this was a book about dark magic, a field which had never been written about, much less by Starswirl, of all ponies. The unicorn frowned, before putting the book in her saddlebags. This required further examination at home. Twilight also grabbed one of the other Starswirl books with a name she didn't recognize, and placed it in her bag as well, before replacing the invisibility spell on the bookcase and trotting out from the room. Once outside, she removed her exception from the outer ward, and went along her merry way.
With a message to the princess, Twilight informed her mentor that she was heading back to Ponyville. Her Number One Assistant dragon missed his pony friends, and was dying to get home. Also, Twilight didn't think she could handle a goodbye in pony, because she wasn't sure she could lie to Celestia about the books, and all the secrecy that had come between them lately. For the unicorn prodigy, it was like watching an idol crumble before her very eyes. Out of all the ponies to suppress knowledge, Twilight had never suspected Celestia would - that was just the stuff of conspiracy theories, right?
It was the real reason she snuck into that room, and stole these books. She had to get to the bottom of this, and clear Celestia's good name. Surely these books were censored for a reason. (The fact that Twilight felt utterly betrayed by her mentor's lack of trust might have also factored into her decision.)
When they finally approached Ponyville on the train, Twilight breathed a sigh of relief. She was out from under the shadow of Canterlot, with its sun and looming princess, and had finally gotten around to examining the books more closely. The journal was both clinical and personal, it seemed, and Twilight found it quite different than Starswirl's usual works. If this was the mage's fifth journal, Twilight wondered where the book on friendship magic had come from. Were the modern reprints simply misnumbered? Obviously, Celestia hid this book for a reason - dark magic was notoriously dangerous, and the only modern pony who still used it was Luna, and that was known to only a select few. And even then, while technically classed as dark magic due to her influence of dreams, it was part of her special talent, and quite benign in comparison.
Glancing over the other book, Twilight found that it was titled Art of Ascension, and it passed all the authentication tests that Twilight knew by heart. It matched Starswirl's handwriting, tone, and personality, and the subject matter seemed to be the only thing unique about it. It was about Alicorns, and more specifically, about how Luna and Celestia had ascended to their current nigh-immortal states.
"Twilight! I have something incoming!" Spike exclaimed from the adjacent seat, and he burped, out a scroll, which was immediately caught and opened by the purple mare's telekinesis.
Dear L.S.B.F.F.
Cadance and I have discovered something... interesting, here at the castle. We've unlocked a huge library, a library that might be even bigger than the one in Canterlot. That's not the weird part though - but I'm not certain I can tell you about it on paper. You'll just have to come see for yourself. Enclosed are two tickets for you and Spike.
Love ya, Little Sis,
Shining Armor
"Seems like our return trip to Ponyville will just be a stopover..." Twilight sighed.
"What? Were you called back to Canterlot?" Spike asked sympathetically.
"No, it's nothing serious." Twilight explained. "My brother just wants us to come take a look at something in the Empire. I hope you aren't too upset about missing Pinkie's Autumn Equinox Party."
"Nah, it's okay. Besides," Spike grinned. "I love the Crystal Empire."
"Only because they treat you like a prince and stuff you with crystals." Twilight giggled.
"Exactly! After all that assistant work, I'm tired out, and ready for Spike Time." The dragon smirked.
"I feel awful for leaving without letting our friends know we've been delayed though..." Twilight mused.
"Just use the dragonfire port at the Royal Guard Outpost to send a letter." Spike suggested.
"Spike! That's an official military channel!" Twilight whisper-gasped, as if someone in the next-seat-over would hear her.
"So? You're an official princess sending a report to the elements of harmony. Even if it's weird, it's probably legal, and the chances of getting caught are -"
"One in two-hundred," Twilight completed the sentence. "Even lower if we mark the envelope as being for the elements' eyes only..."
"I mean, we could also just post it from the empire when we get there, but it takes hours for us to arrive, and who knows how long it'll take the regular postal service to come all the way to Ponyville?"
Twilight couldn't deny that Spike made a very compelling argument...
After a moment of deliberation, she decided to write the letter, and in a matter of minutes, Spike had sent it to the outpost in Ponyville, where a top pegasus flier would presumably have it rushed straight to Sugar Cube Corner - that place where the highest concentration of element bearers could be found at any given time. From the pegasus, to Pinkie Pie, and from Pinkie to Rainbow Dash, and so on, until every member of Twilight's inner circle had seen the letter.
The young princess couldn't have explained her trip in detail, because she trusted the girls with her life, but wasn't sure she trusted Celestia not to manipulate them. She was currently on her way to the one place where there were ponies she could trust with anything: Her Brother and Sister-in-law.
The ride to the Crystal Empire took longer than Twilight would have liked, but at least she and Spike had gotten to nap along the way. And when she wasn't resting, Twilight was reading the book on dark magic she'd gotten from the library. Of course, Twilight wasn't planning on becoming a dark mage and wresting power from Celestia or anything like that, but she was dedicated to learning all magic, even that which was traditionally called evil.
She had the theory down now, Twilight realized, and only the actual spells remained by the time they arrived in the station of the Crystal Empire. It was leagues slower than Twilight's usual reading speed, but Starswirl wrote in Old Equestrian, which she had to mentally translate. On top of that, some of the concepts outlined were difficult to translate into modern Equestrian, and Twilight had to consult a pocket dictionary.
"Wow, It's almost morning here..." Spike mused as they stepped onto the platform, and into the waiting hooves of their relatives.
"Sunshine! sunshine! Ladybugs awake!" Twilight chanted with her sister-in-law, but stopped when she realized she was still speaking in Old Equestrian.
"Sorry," Twilight yawned. "It's been a long train ride."
"We can tell." Shining noted sympathetically. "Let's get you two into bed, and then we can talk later."
"You don't hear me complaining." Spike grinned, before hopping up onto Twilight's back to doze.
* * *
After a nice long rest, Twilight finally felt ready to deal with living ponies again, and emerged from her guestroom feeling refreshed. She followed a servant's directions to get to the library, and found her brother and sister-in-law hard at work.
"Don't you guys have servants to do that?" Twilight asked, startling her brother so much that he actually fell off his stool.
"Yes, we do," Cadance explained. "But we're looking for a book, and we don't want anypony to know."
"Why not?"
"It's nothing bad, it's just that... These ponies are really... Panicky, you know?" Shining added, and Twilight recalled the incident that occurred when the Empire first reappeared, how everypony freaked out about the crystal heart.
"Ah, I see. Prudent choice, dear brother." Twilight nodded, and turned to Cadance. "Can I help? I recently invented a spell that can search an entire library in seconds."
"We're looking for a book about Princess Amore, the last Empress." Cadance explained. "Specifically, one with pictures and descriptions. Aunty Celestia once told me I was the last living descendant of Amore's line, the child of a younger brother, to be specific."
"I see." Twilight nodded. "Haven't you been able to find any pictures of her?"
"Not a one. Amore was a very well-liked princess with a lot of support from the people, so it would make sense for her to have a portrait made." Cadance continued. "At first we thought Sombra might have destroyed them all, to erase evidence of past rulers, but we found a portrait gallery with a painting of every Emperor and Empress, all except Amore the third."
Twilight finished working on her spell matrix once Cadance finished her story, and cast the spell. A huge pulse of magenta magic ran over every book in the library, and with a tell-tale pop, a single book teleported in front of Twilight. Skimming through the pages, Twilight made quick work of the book, and closed it with a snort.
"Has your reading speed improved, little sis?" Shining asked, impressed by the display of magic.
"No, I just skimmed until I found the right passage. Some description, though. It hardly tells me anything." Twilight muttered.
"Well, what did it say?" Cadance asked, leaning forward.
"It said: 'Her violet wings didst flutter more fairly than any other pegasus' on that day.' I can't even tell if 'violet' meant they were purple wings, or if it's just an antiquated figure of speech."
"Wait, 'any other pegasus'?" Shining mused. "Was Amore a pegasus?"
"I was a pegasus by birth, maybe she was too." Cadance added.
"No," Twilight countered, "The passage referred to her coronation day, at the age of thirty-two. You ascended before that age, and I did too. Odds are, if Amore was an Alicorn, she would have had her horn by then, right?"
"Did the other rulers in the portrait hall have horns?" Twilight asked curiously.
"I don't remember..." Shining replied, thinking back to the rows on rows of old portraits, only recalling that they all looked stuffy and old.
"I'll go back and check!" Cadance volunteered, and darted back out of the library, as fast as her wings could take her.
"She could just teleport..." Twilight giggled, amused by her sister-in-law who still did things like a pegasus sometimes.
"She likes to do things the old-fashioned way." Armor replied, with a faint smile. For a moment, they just listened.
"Did you miss me, Twily?" Shining asked quietly, once the sound of wing beats disappeared into the distance.
"Of course I did, B.B.B.F.F." Twilight replied with a smile, and nuzzled the white stallion's neck. "I always miss you."
"I think of you all the time now, whenever I find something I think you might like, or when something you've said comes flooding back to me." Shining explained, with a warm smile, the smile he reserved only for Twilight.
"I think of you often, too." Twilight smirked. "Like when Spike leaves the toilet seat up, or when I see a royal guard getting wasted on New Year's Eve."
"Twilight!" Shining laughed, and pulled his sister into a headlock. "Is that any way to treat the brother who cares about you?"
"In all truth, I really do miss you, Shiny." Twilight conceded. "You need to visit more often."
"I'm back!" Cadance announced, fluttering through the door, and she gave only a passing glance and an 'aw!' to her husband and sister-in-law's roughhousing. Twilight simply teleported out of her brother's grasp and timed her exit-portal to land on top of him.
"So? What did you find?" Twilight asked, finally getting up from on top of her brother.
"Well, the portraits are all busts, so I don't know about wings, but I saw for a fact that not a single one of the previous rulers had a horn!" Cadance exclaimed.
"Well... It's not uncommon for other pony nations to have non-alicorn rulers, right?" Shining Armor mused.
"Yes, but, that doesn't match up with what Aunty Celestia told me..." Cadance murmured, and Twilight froze, remembering the incident of yesterday, with her mentor's deception.
"What exactly did the Princess tell you?" Twilight asked, almost afraid to find out.
"When I was just a filly, I ascended. Celestia took me under her wing, and explained that my status as an Alicorn meant I was destined to rule the Crystal Empire, which would one day return. To the rest of the world, I became Mi Amore Cadenza, named after the last Empress herself."
"So it doesn't make much sense when paired with the idea that none of the past Empresses were Alicorns." Shining Armor clarified. "What would be Celestia's motive to lie?"
"To bring the Crystal Empire into Equestria?" Twilight offered.
"No, that doesn't make sense either. The Empire is fully independent of Equestria." Cadance explained.
"She didn't want you to think too hard about your ascension!" Shining exclaimed, stamping down a hoof as he realized it. "And it doesn't matter that the empire is independent, because you'll still do whatever your Aunt wants you to. She practically raised you, Cadance. Why wouldn't you listen to her advice?"
"The only way I'd stop listening to Aunty Celestia would be if she... Lied to me..." Cadance whispered, plopping down on the floor in a sitting position as she thought about why her aunt could have deceived her. Was it intentional? Was it merely a mistake?
"That sort of reminds me of something." Twilight mused. "Did you ever encounter a runic door in the Canterlot Library?"
"Not that I recall." Cadence thought, her mind drifting back to her foalhood in the capital.
"That means the notice-me-not ward probably wore off recently." Twilight muttered aloud.
"Er, pardon?" Shining interrupted her thoughts, and Twilight drew the two books from her saddle bags.
"I found these yesterday, in a corner of the Canterlot Library that the princess insisted doesn't exist." Twilight explained, a tad bitterly, as she levitated The Art Of Ascension over to Cadance "You might find the answers you need in there."
"Celestia insisted it didn't exist?" Cadance asked, eyeing the book. "Are you sure?"
"She insisted so hard it gave me a temporary memory wipe." Twilight replied, glaring at nothing in particular. "It would have worked too, if I hadn't put safeguards in place after I got suspicious."
"Okay, geez..." Shining rubbed his forehead with a hoof, thinking hard. "So Princess Celestia lied to Cadance about how she ascended, and lied to Twilight about that hidden room in the library. Any good explanation for using a memory spell on my little sister?"
His ire was entirely justified, as mind manipulative spells were completely illegal in Equestria, and Celestia was the last pony any of them had expected to use it, and on her beloved student, no less.
"Why here? Why now?" Twilight mused, "If Celestia wasn't behind all this, I'd almost believe the convenience of all these secrets coming to light in the space of two days was her doing."
"I get what you're saying." Shining added. "It's a bit too convenient, if you ask me."
The siblings were interrupted by a sudden gasp from the pink alicorn, who murmured a quiet 'oh my' as she read from the book she'd been given.
"What did you find, Cadance?" Twilight asked, teleporting over to peer over the mare's shoulder. Her former foalsitter used her magic to highlight the paragraph she was on, and Twilight read aloud.
"'It is important to note the difference between an alicorn, and a pegacorn, which is merely an exceptionally magical unicorn with wings, or a pegasus with a useable horn. A pegacorn doesn't have the ethereal mane that an alicorn will sport, and they will only grow to be the size of a full grown stallion (if a mare), or a head taller than the average stallion (if a stallion). A pegacorn does not possess earth pony magic as the alicorn does, and will not live longer than the average pony.' Oh my stars, Cadance-" Twilight stopped reading, and looked her sister-in-law in the eye.
"I know, Twilight. It's just been another lie." The pink former pegasus sighed with a downcast glance at the book. "We're not really alicorns."
"Now let's add 'lying about my wife and sister's alicornhood' to the pile of things Celestia needs to answer for." Shining groaned, and even he, former captain of the royal guard, had dropped the Princess from Celestia's name for the moment.
"Okay, so, keep calm, keep calm." Twilight chanted, and she and Cadance worked through their breathing exercises.
When she finally felt calm enough to not have a panic attack, Twilight got a determined expression and turned to the two older ponies in the room.
"We have got to get to the bottom of this!" The lavender (pegacorn?) exclaimed, and Cadance nodded briskly.
"I agree." She replied. "But since we don't know who to trust, I think it's important that this remains between the three of us."
"Agreed." Twilight and Shining answered together.
"I'll keep researching the pegacorn phenomenon," Cadance explained.
"And I'll work on a mind-circle, a ritual outlined in the book I read on the way here." Twilight said, bringing out her version of the journal, and pointing to a diagram with a wing. "It can help us figure out if our minds have been deeply messed with."
"Define deeply." Shining asked, frowning with concern.
"Anything bigger than a basic memory spell. Like... Like a geas, or a total memory replacement." Twilight explained. "Something even worse than what Celestia did to me earlier."
"Even worse?" Cadance chimed in. "I don't even want to consider the possibility that Aunty- that Princess Celestia could have done such a thing."
"Can we really put anything past her at this point?" Shining noted, as Twilight began drawing the circle, and the stallion cast a sound proofing spell around the library. "She lied to you about being an alicorn and an empress. She put an illegal mind spell on Twily!"
Cadance seemed somewhat cowed by that thought, and her ears drooped as she thought it over. If Twilight was affected by her mentor's betrayal, Cadance was devastated. Ever since her ascension, Celestia had practically raised her, and she suffered deeply from the knowledge of her actions.
"Circle's done." Twilight noted, making the last sigil of her chalk drawing on the floor. Modern magical practices required very few ritual elements, so the very act of drawing a ritual circle, showed that this was old magic. She cast a preservation spell to keep the chalk from smudging as she stepped inside.
The two married ponies nodded, and stepped into the chalk outline with Twilight, who powered up her horn, and flooded the construct with magic, activating it. According to the instructions, a green light surrounding the pony indicated a clean slate, while a red light showed tampering.
"Big brother... Cadance..." Twilight whispered, though the haze of green light around her body. "You're under a geas."
She traced the spell back as far as it would go. The exact date couldn't be pinpointed, but based on certain markers, Twilight put a rough estimate on twenty years ago. Approximately the year she was born.
Twilight Sparkle had just enough presence of mind to conjure a pillow before she fainted.
