Spike's awakening was bitter, after such a complicated night the little dragon at least hoped to have a restful sleep, which translates to a minimum of 12 hours of uninterrupted sleep, but no, as much as he tried to hold on to sleep it was sullied by the sound of frantic movements and compulsive murmuring.

When the dragon finally opened his eyes he found Twilight, who was walking from one side of the library to the other, around her levitated several books open on different pages, it didn't take the dragon long to realize that they were some of the books of Starlight's small collection, curiously, they all shared the same theme reflected in their covers, history.

“Mhnnn...Twilight?” the sleepy voice of Spike snapped Twilight out of her morning mania, at least long enough for her to turn to look at her friend.

“Oh good morning Spike Did you sleep well?” the question was asked with an oddly nervous tone.

“Uh...yeah. And you?” Spike replied as he got up from the makeshift bed and walked over to his friend.

“Sureeeee...!” the alicorn replied with an excess of enthusiasm ”Why wouldn't I be? It was just a rough night is all.”

Spike could clearly denote the symptoms of psychotic Twilight, he wondered if perhaps, despite the fact that they both went to bed after their visitor's departure, she had been able to get even a little sleep.

“Oh that's..great, and emmm...now what do you do?” he asked trying a calm approach.

“Oh nothing it's just, a little research, I felt bored all of a sudden and said why not?”

“Oh, okay and what's your research about?” Spike was trying to remain calm in the face of an outbreak that seemed to be more serious than usual, he didn't blame her for it either, but he wanted to make sure it was still manageable.

“It's just a little pony history refresher, for no particular reason..” Twilight let out a nervous chuckle and went back to concentrating on her books.

Spike looked around the room, noticing the packing crates, previously sealed by Starlight, completely destroyed, as well as hundreds of scrolls on the floor which held what Spike could deduce was a timeline, he took one between his claws and analyzed it.
The timeline went in reverse, starting from the time of Star Swirl to the times of the ancient pony society, noting how, exactly at the two thousand year mark in the past, there was a large gap that was then picked up again at the five thousand year mark, in the time of Grogar.
At this Spike looked at more scrolls noting that, despite some having more or less information, they all agreed on that three thousand year empty time span, now I understand Twilight's growing desperation, with some discomfort he decided that a direct confrontation would be best.

“Hey Twilight...” she said nervously.

“Yeah Spike” she said in a cheerful tone that sounded fake.

“I wanted to ask you something...regarding last night...” the calm voice of Spike was abruptly interrupted by a clatter caused by Twilight dropping the books she was holding with her magic.

The little dragon was startled as the alicorn turned sharply taking frantic steps towards him, glaring at him.

“Nothing happened last night Spike!” she shrieked as her eyes widened like saucers.

Startled at his friend's reaction Spike tried hard not to show his latent concern, he had never seen her like this, not even in her worst moments, he could see in her eyes how much the late night visit had affected her, he took a deep breath and continued.

“Twilight...” he said calmly, which caused the alicorn to relax her posture and her expression to change to a more worried and downcast one.

“I...I'm sorry Spike, it's just...agh!” the mare cried out in frustration ”I, I don't even know what's wrong, it shouldn't be anything wrong if it's not true but....What if it is? If everything that...pony said is true, then yes there is something terribly wrong...”

“And don't you think it would be better to talk it over with our friends, maybe that way...”

“NOOOOOO!!!” the alicorn shrieked shrilly.

“We can't tell anyone about this Spike-anyone!!!”

“But...why?” asked the dragon clearly confused.

“Spike this can't be known, not until we know if what she told us is true, if we start telling it there will be panic, please just see me, I'm the freaking friendship princess and the very idea of this being even the slightest bit real is driving me crazy.”

As much as she wanted to debate it, Twilight was right, this news could endanger all of Equestria if it spread the wrong way.

“But then...what are we supposed to do?”

“We need to find proof, real proof that verifies the story she told us...” Twilight paused, trying to remember.

“Bek,” Spike interrupted.

“What?”

“That was her name...” said Spike remembering the last words his visitor had said to him before saying goodbye and then he remembered.

“She told me to apologize to you for her...” Spike ran to the sheets on the floor rummaging around for a moment before returning to Twilight.

“And she also gave me this...” he said as he showed her the small folded piece of paper.

“What's that?” asked Twilight taking it with her magic.

“I don't know, she told me to follow him if we still wanted the answers...”

Twilight unfolded the small paper quickly, analyzing it for a moment.

“Spike...” the mare began to say, catching the dragon's attention.

“I haven't the slightest idea what this is...”

“What!” The dragon exclaimed as he moved to Twilight's side to look at the contents of the paper.

Indeed its contents made no sense, it was just a bunch of randomly arranged lines, circles, rectangles and arrows, accompanied by a bunch of illegible notations.

“But what...?” exclaimed Spike taking the parchment ‘What the hell is this?’ the dragon got as close as possible to the inscriptions trying to read them but it was impossible.

“Maybe, she got the wrong paper...” the dragon mentioned.

Twilight let out a long groan, the only possible clue they could have had was just a bunch of scribbles.

After a moment's digression the alicorn shook his head and exclaimed.

“No! It must mean something, we just have to decipher the what...” Twilight began to say as she resumed her pacing back and forth.

“We need help...” she said looking at the ground thoughtfully.

“But, you said we couldn't tell anyone...” replied Spike quizzically.

“We don't need to explain anything Spike, we just need to find someone who is able to tell us what's in here.”

“Alright... “the dragon began to say ”Who do we know who is smart enough or knowledgeable enough in glyphs, ancient language or Equestrian history...?”

Both dragon and pony looked at each other and before long they were running out of the library and in the direction of the main entrance. The halls were beginning to fill with students heading to classes and in the midst of the commotion, Spike and Twilight ran into Starlight.

“Oh Spike, Twilight, good morning!” Effusively exclaimed the unicorn missing her friends' misaligned appearance.

“Starlight, perfect just who I wanted to see...!” said Twilight in a louder tone than she would have liked ”Do you know if Sunburst is still in town?”

Starlight, confused at the seemingly random question replied.

“Uh...if he'll be staying in Ponyville until your coronation takes place..”

“Great! do me a favor, could you tell him I'd like to have a meeting with him when we get back, Spike and I have to leave to attend to important matters.”

“Uh..yeah sure I'll...”

Without waiting for Starlight to finish her response the alicorn resumed her run followed closely by the little dragon, just as they were about to turn down the hallway the unicorn's voice stopped her in her tracks.

“Twilight wait!”

The mare turned to look at what had been her first pupil, her look must have denoted her concern and lack of sleep since Starlight asked.

“Is everything...okay?”

Twilight thought longer than she should have, prolonging a silence that emphasized the strangeness of the situation, after deep thought Twilight gave a faint forced smile to her friend and replied.

“Yes Starlight...everything is fine...” and without further ado she ran off.

Starlight thought for a moment, she didn't understand why her teacher seemed so upset, yes she had seen her shocked after the attack during her coronation but now she looked even more disturbed, she quickly dismissed the idea, it must not be such a big deal, after all, if it was, she would tell her.

Spike and Twilight flew over the streets of Ponyville, speeding through the sky, out of the town limits and into the Everfree forest, their first stop being Zecora's house.

The zebra scanned the inscriptions and symbols on the paper carefully, Twilight and Spike remained silent, sitting in the living room of the hut, after a long moment the healer looked up and wore a confused expression.

“Twilight Sparkle and Spike the dragon, I understand what your concern is, but on this paper I only see lines and squiggles for no reason” the zebra said solemnly in her usual harmonious tone.

“But is there really nothing you can deduce from these symbols, nor from the strange text?” asked Twilight impatiently.

“This text might be readable...” began Zecora as Twilight's eyes lit up ‘If the dirt and water hadn't made it unrecognizable’ the alicorn squealed in frustration.

“Zecora please, you're the best decipherer we know of can't you really tell us anything?” asked Spike in a calm tone.

The zebra watched the dragon and then the scroll for a moment before letting out a sigh.

“I could provide you with an alternative, however in it I will tarry...” the zebra began to say as she set the parchment aside and began to pull things off her shelves ”An old technique I know of to reveal ink, if it was used long before disuse the writing will not have become extinct.”

Twilight and Spike looked at each other hopefully before the zebra continued.

“But as I tell you, the process takes time, if you want an answer you will have to come back another time.”

At this Twilight pondered for a second.
“Sure Zecora just give me a second..” said the alicorn as she flashed her horn, pulling another scroll, ink and a quill from her saddlebag.

In a tangle of quick movements Twilight took the old parchment and, in a couple of minutes, had perfectly replicated all the shapes and symbols, bypassing the unintelligible text and handing the original to Zecora.

“How long do you think it will take you to decipher the text?” asked Twilight as she put her things away.

“There is no way to speed up the process, however I would have it by tomorrow afternoon if I don't take any breaks.”

“I really appreciate it Zecora...” began Twilight as he and Spike retreated, however their departure was interrupted by the zebra.

“Twilight Sparkle?” the alicorn and dragon spun around.

“Forgive my boldness but what do you need this knowledge for?”

Twilight went cold at the question, she could explain, tell her, but she had made a promise to herself, not to mention that surely having to tell everything slows down the process and this one needed to be as efficient as possible.

“Oh it's just...for an ancient history study” she replied devoting a smile.

The zebra looked at her with a quizzical expression yet said nothing more to question the, she simply said goodbye and they both started their way back to town.

They both still had one more stop before returning to the castle and, although this second pony was a most peculiar choice, Twilight wanted to be sure to cover all possibilities.

Walking through the streets of the village, they advanced in silence, Twilight lost in thought and Spike not wanting to interrupt the, finally a cute little house adorned with yellow and purple flowers, a small garden in the front welcomed the guest and, in the middle of it, a curious contraption, both the alicorn and the dragon knew what it was, after all they had traveled to the more modern cities of Equestria where seeing them was no stranger, however, to any small town pony who had not traveled much in their lives, it was still a rarity.

The pair of friends walked carefully across the yard, avoiding the toys strewn on the grass and passing by the bright blue phone booth. Stopping on the porch and knocking gently on the door.

A few moments passed before the door opened and a squint-eyed gray pegasus greeted the pair.

“Oh Princess Twilight Sparkle how nice to see you here!” exclaimed Derpy giving them a wide smile.

“Just tell me Twilight Derpy you don't need to be so formal...” the pegasus scratched her head quizzically before letting out a giggle.

“Oh excuse me princess, I always forget that you and I knew each other from before” Twilight couldn't help but let out a sigh at Derpy's apparent disinterest to stop referring to her as ‘princess’, her thoughts quickly went to a small lavender colored unicorn foal peeking out from behind Derpy.

“Mommy why is there a princess is at our door?” asked the little girl with a shocked expression on her face.

“Oh sweetie! Well she's here because...because...oh excuse me could you tell me again why you came?” Derpy scratched her head again looking back at Twilight.

“Actually...” started to say the alicorn ”We were coming to see your husband.”

“My husband?” asked Derpy quizzically.

“Yes, we need to talk to him about something very important” said Twilight with a serious expression.

The pegasus seemed to grasp the situation quickly before exclaiming happily again.

“But of course! He's in the garden” Twilight and Spike turned to the garden and saw nothing, no trace of the pony they were looking for, in a moment Derpy screamed effusively, so loud that it scared the princess and the dragon.

“Honey!!! The princess is looking for you!!!!” for a moment, nothing happened and the next, the phone booth shook violently, there was scuffling and things falling and finally it opened, revealing a brown earth pony wrapped in wires and full of oil stains.

“Huh, what, when, where?” the pony looked confused and Derpy, in a tone again too high again exclaimed.

“Look love, the princess came to see you, she says she has to talk to you about something important!” for a moment Twilight cursed Derpy's indiscretion in shouting that so nonchalantly but then it dawned on her that it didn't really matter, since no one knew what she was talking about.

The family invited them in, sitting down at the dining room table and offering them delicious muffins. Finally the doctor sat down at the table with Twilight and Spike while Derpy and her daughter Dinky played in the living room.

“Very well Princess Twilight, tell me what can I do for you?”

“Well doctor Hooves, sorry to bother you like this in your house but, we need to know your opinion about something” quickly Twilight took the parchment out of her bag, unrolling it on the table and showing it to the doctor who began to analyze it, placing a monocle on it.

After a minute the doctor looked up.

“Where did you get this?” he asked without much hesitation.

For a second, again, Twilight didn't know what to answer, Spike being quicker with his response.

“Ehhh...it's about a very old document...yeah, Twilight and I, we're just trying to figure out what it means” the answer seemed to satisfy the doctor as he looked closely at the details of the forms again.

“Well...I'm really not too sure...” the answer re-boosted Twilight's nerves.

“I would say it could be some sort of code cipher but some of the shapes overlap others and are symmetrically distributed, so if it was a code, it would be a very bad one...” the doctor continued as he moved along the entire length of the scroll.

“It could also be the artistic representation of something, like a cave painting, but the symbology seems very modern to me, like the arrows or these arcs between the rectangles...” The more the doctor talked, Twilight and Spike's hopes of getting a clear answer faded.

“Finally the wildest thing I can think of is that it could be a double polarity quantum proton circuit diagram, but if that were the case it would be an incomplete work” that last deduction left the alicorn and the dragon with a poker face, they had not understood a single word but they were sure that definitely, that was not what it was about.

After a while more of rambling on the part of the doctor they came to the conclusion that they could not get anything out of it, even so the doctor asked them for a copy to continue analyzing it, Twilight gladly gave it to him before retiring along with Spike.
As they both said goodbye to the family and walked across their garden back to the street Spike whispered to Twilight.

“So what do we do now...?” he asked somewhat dismayed.

“I don't know Spike, so far it's all been fruitless, looks like you were right this morning, maybe she gave us the wrong grimy piece of paper” the alicorn's expression reflected anger and frustration, the thought of this ending up stalling like this irritated and worried her in equal parts, Spike noticing this decided to keep his spirits up as best he could.

“But, we must not give up hope yet, we still have the last option!” she exclaimed trying to keep her friend from being consumed by her thoughts.

“You're right...” said the alicorn after a moment ‘Sunburst, if anyone can shed light on this mystery it's him’ at that moment Twilight took off running in the direction of the castle followed closely by the dragon.

The sun was already setting over the horizon when they both arrived at the castle gates, greeted by the smell of dinner for the students being served in one of the great halls they didn't have to do much to deduce where Sunburst was.
Arriving at the dining hall Twilight and Spike searched with their eyes for the unicorn, to neither's surprise he was sitting next to Starlight chatting happily, they both walked cautiously between the tables greeting the students until they caught the unicorns attention.

“Twilight! You're back!” exclaimed Starlight as she paced a bit on the bench at the table.

“You're just in time for dinner, sit down and I'll serve you...” the unicorn started to say but was interrupted.

“I'm sorry Starlight but now is not a good time, we need to talk to Sunburst, now.”

The yellow unicorn turned in surprise with a spoonful of soup still in her mouth.

“I..?” he spoke with his mouth full.

“Yes, you must come with us it's important..”

“Twilight, what's wrong?” asked Starlight now worried, Twilight seemed to be making a very big effort not to lose her cool, she answered her student as best she could.

“It's nothing Starlight, we just want to talk...” twilight's voice was less than reassuring ”Please sit back down and enjoy your dinner..”

“No!” exclaimed Starlight loud enough for some of the students sitting nearby to turn and look at them.

“I know there's something you're not telling me, since this morning you've been acting strange, if whatever that important thing is that's what you're getting like this, then I need to know too...”

The alicorn looked around, she noticed how the small discussion was starting to make some of the students nervous and others curious, she didn't want to make a fuss and worry more individuals, so, resigned, she simply replied.

“It's okay...”

The four of them, Twilight, Spike, Sunbusrt and Starlight were in the latter's room, sitting around a small desk, the scroll lay sprawled across it and Sunburst was inspecting it keenly.

“So you're telling me it's not a cave painting...?” the unicorn asked the princess.

“No.”

“Not even a code...?”

“No!”

“Nor is it the schematic of a quantum dual polarity proton circuit?”

“NO!!!! I don't even know what that is!” exclaimed Twilight with frustration and exhaustion in her voice as she plopped down on the desk with her hooves covering her face.

Everyone in the room looked at each other in concern at their friend's apparent nervous breakdown, finally Starlight asked a question.

“But Twilight why is this so important, where did you get this?”

The alicorn kept her head down, she knew she couldn't say it, say she admitted she received the pony that had caused so much panic and then just let her go, she knew she would be judged, no, she needed to keep up this charade a little longer.

“It's just...” she started to say ”I thought this would give me the answers, answers to something really important...” Twilight gave Starlight a tired look, a look full of frustration and anger but one that also reflected a deep fear deep down.

At this Starlight's heart shrank, she couldn't see her teacher like this, it hurt. Quickly the unicorn approached the table and inspected the scroll up and down, turning on it to the left and then to the right until finally, placed in a diagonal position on the scroll an idea came to her.

“Wait...” she began to say making everyone look at her.

“I've seen these symbols before...”

“What?” asked Twilight almost jumping up from the table.

Starlight turned to the small collection of books on her dresser, flashing her horn and pulling them all down one by one inspecting them, after a moment the unicorn exclaimed.

“Aha!!!” turning to the others and placing the book on the parchment stridently.

“Equestrian Architecture..?” asked Spike quizzically.

“The Definitive Historical Guide to Structures of Yesterday and Today” said Starlight proudly ‘It's one of my favorite books, I've read it a million times and here...’ she began as she flashed her horn making the pages turn quickly until she stopped at a section marked ‘Symbology’.

“Looks to me like we'll find the answers.”

Everyone appreciated the images, noticing that many of the shapes and figures that appeared were almost identical to those on the scroll.

“It's amazing...” began Spike ”This is a blueprint! How did we not notice?”

“Technically it's an architectural schematic...” replied Starlight ‘And I don't blame you for not noticing, it's very poorly done, the alignment is irregular the drawing is crude and the callsigns are confusing, it almost looks like it was made by a 9 year old foal’ laughed Starlight as Twilight analyzed the scroll more closely.

“So it's a blueprint...a blueprint...but of what?” asked the alicorn having regained lucidity in her thoughts.

“I think I can help with that too...” said Starlight as she flashed her horn again, advancing even more pages in the book, Twilight couldn't help but widen her eyes like saucers when the swirl of pages stopped at a new section that read ‘Great Planes of History’.

Starlight turned a few more pages until she stopped on one with a large picture drawn on it, the picture depicted the front of a castle, a castle they all instantly recognized.

“The castle of the two sisters...” said Twilight almost as a whisper.

“Yes... “Starlight began to say ”Look, here are the original plans of the throne room, if you compare them to the first set of symbols on the scroll... they are almost the same.”

The unicorn placed the book's schematic next to the scroll, she was right, although somewhat messy and crude, it was an exact replica.

“What about the rest of the blueprint?” asked Sunburst intrigued.

“It's other parts of the castle...” replied Twilight.

“I scouted it a while back...” she pointed her hooves at the scroll ”If this is the throne room and here's an arrow to the right, then this here is the outer hallway, and these zigzag lines look like stairs, so these are the lower levels of the castle...”

Twilight followed the, now, clear line on the blueprint, turning down hallways, down stairs until finally ending up at the other end of the scroll where a huge X stood out.

“This is deep in the castle, in the old cellars...” said Twilight letting silence flood the room for a moment.

“And what's in there...?” asked Starlight finally, causing her teacher and the dragon to exchange nervous glances for a moment before the alicorn looked back down at the scroll and said.

“The answers...”.

Author's Note

Regarding Zecora's rhymes, it may have been a little lost in translation, I apologize, I swear it does rhyme in Spanish.