Chapter 2:
Two of Us

The early morning light flooded Sirius's room and soon, his eyelids fluttered open. Pulling the covers off, he hopped down onto the wooden floor and opened his small window. His house, situated on the edge of Canterlot, had an amazing view of the sunrise every morning. The walls of the city usually blocked the horizon, but his home was also built on a small hill, making the beautiful pinks, reds, and yellows of the early light visible.

While the young pony was getting himself ready for whatever the day had in store, his parents were already up.

"Well Pearl, I'm going to have to go into work today," Midnight said, entering the kitchen. His wife had been preparing a little breakfast for him, knowing he'd be up.

"Is it going to be an overnight trip?" she asked as she lifted the bread she was baking out of the stone oven, horn glowing.

Midnight sat at the table and sighed. "I don't know. Shimmer's note seemed pretty serious but there hasn't been much activity at the observatory recently." A plate came to rest in front of him with some bread and butter.

"Well I wish it wasn't. I promised that I would visit my mother today since she's been feeling very ill lately. I'd take Sirius, but I don't know how long I'd be there."

"I could take him to work with me again," Midnight suggested.

"Are you sure? Every time he does, I'm worried you don't get much work done."

"It's fine. Ponies bring their kids all the time. We've redesigned the loft to fit that need. There are toys, some furniture; he doesn't bother me at all."

"Okay. Thanks sweetie." Pearl pulled him into an embrace. Pearl held him a little longer, thinking. "Do you think we've waited too long? " she whispered into his ear. "If we tell him any later, things could get bad."

Midnight whispered back, "Honey, trust me, he'll be okay. Had it not been for Princess Celestia, we may have never known that he was the fulfillment of that prophesy. I think when the time comes, she'll be able to help. She'll know what to do." They both stood there for a little, just holding each other close. Pearl almost let a small tear fall, but she was startled when the kitchen door slowly opened and Sirius stepped through.

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“Why did you need to go into work today?” Sirius asked his father. They were now nearing the Royal district of the city. Ponies were opening shops and the smell of food wafted throughout the air.

“I’m not sure," Midnight replied. "Whatever it is, Shimmer was very urgent about it." Sirius looked up at him, confused. Midnight turned to him. "Shimmer's sort of our leader over at the observatory," he said, satisfying Sirius's curiosity.

In time, the two had arrived at a large golden gate, one that Sirius had remembered from the day of the exam. They climbed quite a few flights of stairs, going past balconies and walkways until they reached their destination. Midnight put his hoof against the metal door and pushed it open. Inside the round room was a large glass roof that appeared to be able to move to accompany the large, golden telescope in the middle of the room. The large facility was also adorned with notes and boards of all kind. They had a great deal of scientific information on them but what interested Sirius the most was the pony who seemed to be working on the telescope.

"Oh! Midnight, I'm glad you made it," said the earth pony as he made his way over to them. His purple coat was stained with grease and he had quite a few tools in a saddlebag at his side. "I've been having some trouble with the telescope and I was wondering if you could help me out?"

"Sure, but why do you need it fixed so urgently?" asked Midnight.

"Before it went out of commission, when we were using it to measure the annual star charts, I noticed something strange in a particular group of stars." he was now roaming the room and pointing to some of the charts. He stopped and turned toward Midnight, "One of the stars in it was moving. Stars don't generally move noticeably, and this one was moving fast. We don't really know what it means, but all I need right now is some help getting the telescope fixed." His frantic expression changed as he walked over, looking as if he'd forgotten something. "I'm so sorry. Where are my manners?" He held out his hoof to Sirius, "My name's Shimmer."

Sirius shook his hoof and smiled, "I'm Sirius."

Midnight spoke up, "My wife was busy today so I decided I'd just bring Sirius along."

"You never told me you had a son Midnight," he said with a smile.

"Yeah. I've brought him only a few times in the past. I don't think you were here to actually meet him though."

Shimmer thought for a moment, "Well, that's good that you brought him because I brought my daughter with me today as well. She's been looking for somepony to play with. I'm sure she's around here somewhere Sirius, if you'd like to go play?"

"Go on upstairs Sirius. It'll be a while before we get the telescope working again," Midnight said.

Now that Sirius knew he'd have somepony to play with, he just had to find her. He didn't know where to begin looking. He jumped onto the spiraling staircase and made his way up to the familiar loft.

It was dark. The toy chests in the corner of the loft were closed and nothing was moving. Where was she? Sirius walked past one of the couches but was startled when he heard a noise. It came from behind him and Sirius was genuinely frightened because when he turned around, nopony was there. He looked around at the couches he had past just moments ago and saw nothing and decided to return to his search, turning his body to walk.

"Boo."

Sirius nearly fell back down the stairs from the sudden noise. It was the last thing that he had wanted to hear in the dim light of the upstairs loft. After his fall, he regained his composure and noticed that there was a small pink unicorn standing before him. She was giggling.

"What did you do that for?" Sirius asked angrily, rubbing his head.

"I'm sorry. I just wanted to have some fun, it's not everyday that I have somepony else to play with. Anyways, my name's Gemini."

"I'm Sirius." He was still a little unsure of the situation but Gemini seemed okay. He eventually mustered up the courage to ask another question. "Do you come here often with your dad?"

"Sometimes. He has to come in to work a lot, so I stay home with my mom. She's a pegasus though and sometimes she has to go and work at the weather factory in Cloudsdale, so then I come here." She sighed. "Sometimes. It gets boring though if we stay for long and I can't ever go and explore because there's no one to go with me." She said this with a frown and a little hint of expectance in her voice. She flashed her bright green eyes at Sirius, hoping he would get the message.

Sirius soon felt sorry for her, overcome by the look. "I could go with you. I haven't had much time to explore the castle either."

She perked up immediately, shaking her light yellow mane up and an enormous smile spread across her face. "Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!" she yelled, taking Sirius into and embrace that felt more, to him, like she was trying to kill him. She released and sped off at blinding speed towards a door that seemed to lead outside from the loft.

Sirius followed and soon they were both outside. Gemeni was standing impatiently on a thin walkway that appeared to wrap all the way around the castle.

"So where are we going?" Sirius asked turning his head to get a better look at the place.

Gemeni looked around. "I don't know. Maybe the castle has a dungeon!"

Sirius smiled. "Or a deep, dark, mysterious cave?" he suggested.

"There aren't any caves in Canterlot silly. If there were, I'm sure we would have heard of them." Gemini and Sirius laughed for a little before trotting away, not knowing what they would encounter.

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Had they been considerably louder, the sound of their wandering hooves may have resonated throughout the entire castle. They crept to and fro. They didn't need to. It wasn't like where they were going was off limits. Still, they had great fun pretending to be spies, sneaking around statues and fountains and hiding from the royal guards.

After quite a while of walking, they finally settled on a destination. The large building in front of them had a small sign on the door,

"Canterlot Archives
Artifact Wing"

Sirius had been to the archives before, but not to this wing. His father usually just bypassed it when they went, but now he and Gemini were curious about what was inside and wasted no time in opening the door to a world of ancient history.

Author's Note

Well, after a long wait I have finally finished the next chapter. Updates should be speeding up though for those of you actually interested in this story. I am hoping to finish it sometime over Summer and have some pretty fun chapters lined up once the story really gets going. Thank you for reading, rate it, comment, tell me how horrible it was (haha) and have a very nice day.