Chapter 1 - A Secret Once Lost
Princess Twilight inhaled deeply as she stepped into the library's restricted section. The smell of old books sent a flutter through her heart, all the more so now that the dust had been completely cleared away. Spike had really outdone himself with the cleaning.
It had been a little while since Twilight had taken over rulership of Equestria, and she had finally managed to free up enough time in her schedule to start properly organising the restricted section. The place was packed full of ancient books, scrolls and artefacts, and Twilight was looking forward to organising and cataloguing every last bit of it.
Settling in at the first shelf, Twilight levitated her quill and parchment and dove right in.
"I'll get you next time, bring your A game!" Celestia grinned as she trotted up the steps to the house she shared with Luna. The other residents of Silver Shoals were finally getting comfortable with having their former ruler around, enough so that the local buckball team had finally given in and let her play, or rather, given her and the team she joined a very thorough thrashing.
It was a refreshing change of pace.
Reaching the top of the steps, Celestia felt a little fuzzy feeling in her chest at the sight of the cute little two-storey house waiting for her. It was half-timbered, with pale blue walls, white timbers and fittings, and pretty terracotta roof tiles. "Luna, I'm home!" She called as she used her magic to open the front door.
The former princess of the night called out a half-hearted greeting. She was curled up on a huge fuzzy bean bag reading the latest entry of her favourite novel series.
"At a good part?" Celestia asked.
"Very," Luna replied excitedly. "The Suriel let slip about the bond the heroine shares with the High Lord of the Night Court. Now they're in his cabin and I think she's about to give him soup which means-"
Celestia half-listened to Luna's gushing as she trotted into the bathroom and set the bath running. Celestia neither knew nor cared for the series, but she did love hearing her sister talking so happily and so freely.
Leaving the taps to run, Celestia walked back to the room with her sister and headed for her own squashy cushion. Just before she sat down a wisp of glittering green magic floated in through the window, stopping in front of her and re-materialising into a scroll with a loud pop.
"Is that a message from Twilight?" Luna asked, her voice tinged with a mixture of curiosity and caution.
"I think so." Celestia quickly levitated the scroll and unrolled it with her magic. Usually, the sisters and Twilight corresponded with letters through the regular post service, something Luna was endlessly amused by. A scroll sent through magic like this probably meant that something was wrong.
"It's addressed to both of us." Celestia cleared her throat and read out, "Dear Celestia and Luna. I apologize for contacting you urgently like this, but I was organizing the restricted section of the library when I encountered something odd."
Luna groaned and dropped her head to the bean bag with a loud whump. "Great. So she's either found some boring old tome and wants to talk about it immediately, or she's found something dark and dangerous that you forgot to tell her about, like your old diaries."
"Don't be ridiculous, there's nothing dangerous left in that library, and my diaries are kept in a much more secure place than that." Celestia huffed and turned her attention back to the scrol. "Specifically, I discovered an old bronze key under the bust of Gusty the Great." A strange sense of foreboding washed over Celestia, though she didn't have the foggiest idea why. "When I picked it up in my magic, I think I accidentally activated it somehow, because it immediately turned into a d-."
Celestia snapped her mouth shut as she realized exactly where the feeling of foreboding came from. Reading on silently, her worst fears were rapidly confirmed. Uh oh. Luna isn't going to be happy. Ugh, I hate it when she's right.
Glancing at her sister, Celestia saw that Luna, unfortunately, had noticed her sudden silence. "Well? What horrid item did you forget about?"
"I-I didn't forget about anything, Twilight just found a relic from our old castle in the Everfree." Celestia rolled up the scroll and tucked it under a wing as she stood up. "Well, I'll just go and see what she's found. It's probably just some old piece of trash or something. Won't be long."
She almost made it to the door, and for a moment Celestia hoped that she was off the hook, but the moment her magic gripped the doorknob Luna pulled her back with a firm, "Tia."
Celestia gulped and looked over her shoulder, trying to feign complete innocence. "Yes, dear sister?"
"You're out of practice, Tia, your poker face is worse than Twilight's," Luna said flatly. "Now, am I going to have to write to Twilight myself to find out what she has stumbled upon, or are you going to stop lying to me?"
Caught out, Celestia grimaced and turned back around, coughing into a wing. "So, well, do you remember, back when we still lived in the Everfree, the old relic room where we stored our more… 'unusual' acquisitions?"
"Yes," Luna replied evenly.
Celestia avoided looking her in the eye. "Do you also remember the key we found? The one with the eye in it that, er… opened a certain… doorway?"
"Oh, no." Luna rubbed her temples with her hooves. "Please don't tell me that you were stupid enough to try and hide that thing in the restricted section. You told me that you had destroyed it!"
"I was going to!" Celestia shot. "I just… couldn't quite bring myself to do it."
"Of course you couldn't," Luna muttered. "At least tell me your former pupil displayed more sense than you and left it well enough alone, or, better still, wiped the thing from existence?"
Celestia winced and shook her head. "Um, no. When she realized that the doorway was a portal she tried going through it and... well, she saw the other side, and now she wants an explanation."
"Fantastic," Luna muttered sarcastically. She gave a resigned sigh and stood up, stretching her wings and saving her page with a bookmark. "Fine, I suppose we had better go and tell her what we know. We certainly can't let her go wandering around the Boiling Isles without some kind of warning."
