NaNo2014: Shadows of Friendship: Part 4

The baby dragon was not daft enough to try and disturb Twilight when she was working on the bright treasure that looked edible and delicious to him but had an awful taste that had put him off eating it for life. Instead he found his spare cards and started making adaptions to his deck in case Twilight wanted to duel while they were waiting for the Princess to write back.

Twilight lost track of the time as she worked on the trinket. Her dam-sire had told her a long time ago, back before she had even gotten her cutie mark and started studying under the Princess, that the one who passed the test and completed the ‘Millennium Puzzle’ got one wish and that wish was guaranteed to come true. She was beginning to wonder though, if it was called such because it was going to take a thousand years to complete.

The first pieces went in easily. She knew almost instinctively now which pieces went in which order right up until she was about a third of the way done. Then the difficulty started. She could not insert the pieces by hoof, the puzzle was far too complex and fiddly for that. Instead she had to use her magic to put it together as well as hold it in place. The complex creation was a 3d puzzle, which meant that it would make a statue or something once completed but if she pushed on one piece just a little too hard it would completely collapse and she would have to start from scratch.

More than once she had ruined hours and hours of careful work in such a way and she was extra careful as she started the difficult task of assembling the other two thirds, not that she knew which piece went where or what the end product was supposed to look like.

Spike was surprised when he looked up from his cards to find that not only had it started growing dark, but the puzzle was really beginning to come together in front of the unicorn he looked up to. It looked like an upside down version of one the pyramids that he had seen in a book about Saddle Arabia, which had once been Equigypt. The hoop on the base was new though and looked sturdy, as if you could loop rope or something similar through it and wear the completed thing as a rather large and probably heavy pendant.

“I’ve done it!” Twilight crowed as she slipped the last bar one piece into place, leaving one last space for a piece to go. She knew which one it was, a piece that was, oddly enough, shaped like the main star of her cutie mark and had an eye symbol on it. Twilight had researched it and it was known as the ‘wadjet eye’ or the ‘Eye of Anubis’ who had supposedly been a God in the days of Equigypt. “Just one more piece and…” She froze when she went to use her magic to lift the last piece of the puzzle out of the box and found that it was empty. “Spike!” The baby dragon scrambled to his feet at the panic in her voice, “Spike!”

“What?” He asked as he scrambled to her side, “What’s the matter Twilight?”

“There’s a piece missing.” Twilight panicked, trying to maintain the magic holding the puzzle in place despite the surge of emotions coursing through her.

“Huh?” Spike blinked at her, confused.

“A piece. Of the puzzle. It’s gone! The last piece!” Twilight whinnied frantically, “Please tell me you haven’t eaten it!”

“No way!” Spike protested, even as he lit the lamps with his fire breath and started searching for it, knowing what Twilight’s next question would be. “Tried that once, remember? It was gross. I haven’t seen it lying around either.”

“It might have fallen out when we moved around for a while.” The filly paled beneath her fur at that idea. It was not like she could just buy another puzzle and complete that instead. This one was ancient and one of a kind. Not only that if she could not complete it, she would never pass her dam-sire’s test and that was something she just could not live with.

 “I thought the box hadn’t left the house since Princess Celestia borrowed it? And you had all the pieces then?” The purple dragonet questioned his pseudo-mother as he turned the place upside down to look for the missing gold. Before too long Twilight had put the golden treasure down carefully on the desk and joined him in the hunt which decimated the normally orderly library and left it looking like a surprisingly careful hurricane had hit. One that did not damage anything but did leave absolutely everything strewn across the floors of the multi-storey building.

Despite their best attempts though, the piece was nowhere to be found. Twilight let out a frustrated and despairing whinny as she started getting ready to go look for it outside next, only to pull up short when Spike burped up a burst of green fire and a letter emerged from it, coiled in a red band just like the one she had had Spike send that afternoon, but sealed with the gold wax and insignia of her tutor, Princess Celestia.

“Guess she had a lot to do.” Spike frowned slightly as he opened it, “You want me to read it now?”

“It’s from the Princess, it could be important.” Twilight hesitated by the door, wanting to go and look but knowing that anything from the Princess was more important than her petty concerns even if they involved the puzzle she had poured her heart and soul into for the last eight years.

“My dearest Twilight,” Spike read out as Twilight shut the door and turned to look at him properly, shoulders sinking, “It is of great importance that you join me in the palace this evening.”

“Really?” Twilight blinked, “Tonight?”

“I will be sending a pegasus chariot to pick you up not long after I send this letter to you.” Spike continued, nodding, “Please be ready for a short three day trip before he arrives.”

“Now?” Twilight winced, thinking about the missing puzzle piece and realising that she was not going to have time to search for it outside of her home. “She’s sending me somewhere now?”

“Guess she’s taking your warning seriously.” Spike shrugged, “That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”

“Yes but…” Twilight had a sinking feeling. Unless Celestia was going to come with her, she had a horrible feeling that she was going to be sent away for her own protection. It was frustrating. She could help. She knew she could but it did not look like she was going to be given the chance.

“What do you want me to pack?” Spike asked, “And what about the missing piece?”

Twilight did not know. She wanted a little more time to go out and hunt, but perhaps this was a blessing in disguise. She could ask the Princess if she had seen the puzzle piece and try to convince her mentor that she could help. “Maybe we’ll find it when we’re packing.” Twilight sounded more hopeful than she felt, “Get together the books I was reading earlier, my recent school notes, the…”

Spike nodded, starting to grab everything on Twilight’s ever expanding list. Not that anything was easy to find in the mess they had created when searching. Still by the time the chariot arrived their bags were packed and Twilight had carefully returned the rest of the puzzle to the box it had come in and before Spike could take the last of the bags out, she shoved that in too.

It was a short trip to the palace from Twilight’s library. The unicorn had been assigned her home by the Princess so she was not surprised by that fact, nor that it was the same distance in the opposite direction from the library to her school. It was a boon in most respects as it meant that if she was called to see her tutor or to attend extra classes, as she so often was, she could make it there in a short amount of time.

Today however, she was not entirely happy that the trip was so fast. She had not entirely worked out what she was going to say to the Princess when the chariot arrived in the courtyard of the palace and the pegasus pulling it, a white coated, blue maned stallion with a silver shied as a cutie mark, whose name, if she remembered the introduction properly, was Mirrored Shield, helped her down from the chariot.

“Don’t worry about unpacking, Miss Sparkle.” The Mirrored Shield told her with a smile, “I’ll move your things to the bigger chariot, but Princess Celestia was insistent that you go and see her in the great hall immediately.”

And if that was not enough to set the butterflies in her stomach off again, nothing was as Twilight headed into the building that was imposing enough during the day time, but was worse right now by the light of the torches and the moon which seemed to be watching them ominously from above. Its shadow laid heavy on the ground, the castle’s many spires making the form on the ground look like some kind of beast stretching its arms into the skies as if preparing to strike.

“Get a grip Twilight.” The young unicorn told herself, shaking her head and taking a deep breath, before levitating Spike onto her back and cantering in through the main entrance. “You’re being ridiculous.”

Spike, thankfully, did not say anything, probably assuming she was working herself into a nervous frenzy as she often did when her tutor called her before her. It was ridiculous after the many years of being Celestia’s student, but Twilight was no fool. She was fully aware that the Princess could decide that teaching her was too much effort at a moment’s notice. The Princess, who some considered a Goddess, ruled over all of Equestria alone after all. Teaching her young student took time away from that important duty and she never wanted the alicorn to decide that she was not worth the hassle.

She just hoped that bringing up what could possibly be an overreaction to an Old Mare’s Tale was not the final straw for her and she was not about to be sent home for good.

The guards knew her and Spike rather well and they were allowed through the corridors without much fuss. The only real issue came when she was scurrying through the hallways, heading for the main hall where the Princess heard petitions and held grand parties, when she collided with a unicorn gentlecolt who emerged from one of the side rooms and Spike went tumbling from her back. He only didn’t hit the floor because of the fast reaction time of the unicorn she had collided with, who used his magic to catch Spike in an aura of red.

“S…sorry.” Twilight stammered to the gentlecolt. He an odd looking stallion whose rather gaudy red suit covered up most of his coat, including his cutie mark and whose silvery lavender mane hid one eye from sight, though she was almost certain she caught a glimpse of gold beneath the tresses.  

“No problem Twily-girl.” The stallion shrugged it off even as he set down Spike, “I should have been looking where I was going.”

NaNo2014: Shadows of Friendship: Part 2

Canterlot; Current Day.

“Please, Twilight?” Spike begged, the purple baby dragon fell to his knees, his forepaws coming together in front of him in a pleading motion as his bright green spikes quivered in time with the excited trembling of his body, “White Lightning never, ever shows off his new stuff in Canterlot. He ALWAYS does it in Manehatten. I know you don’t duel much anymore but can I go, please? Please?”

“Spike...” Twilight hesitated. She knew how much her friend and in some ways child, enjoyed it when her former classmate released the new DuelRune packs for public use. Before White Lightning had invented them, the card game she had enjoyed as a training tool at her mentor’s school had been nothing but a simple game to anyone who wasn’t using its summoning techniques, spells and traps as a way of fine tuning their control over their magic.

Ever since the DuelRune Grids had been released, however, Duel Monsters had exploded in popularity right across Equestria. The grids allowed non-unicorns to do what the more magically inclined had been able to do for years and the ability to see and hear the monsters battling as the two players duelled had pushed what had been an offshoot training tool into an insanely oft played thing.

For Twilight herself the DuelRunes did not mean much. They were well made and she enjoyed looking them over and trying to work out exactly how her former classmate had managed to make them work. However she had stopped playing the game for fun about a year or so ago, unless it was against Spike and she no longer needed the game to help teach her control over her magic.

For Spike however, who had enjoyed the game back when it had just been a simple card game, it was a huge step and he wanted to be there every time an upgrade was released. “Please, Twilight?” The baby dragon begged. “We’re supposed to be on holiday anyway.”

That made Twilight grimace. It was true that the school she attended, ‘Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns’ had let out so that everyone could go home for the Summer Sun Celebration, but her elder brother was Captain of the Palace Guard so he had not been able to come and see her and her parents had gone on vacation for it. This meant that she and Spike were on their own for the celebrations, which, in all honesty she planned to sleep through.

“Spike, it’s...”

She did not get to finish her sentence before Spike produced the book she had been searching for from the library and grinned at her, “You could take it with you.” He pointed out, knowing exactly which buttons to push, “And I wouldn’t be too far away if you needed me to take notes. It might be fun.”

Technically her baby dragon friend was right, he would be right there with her if she needed him. However she knew full well that if she tried to catch his attention once the display had started, she might as well be talking to a brick wall.

“Spike this is really important.” Twilight tried again. The purple unicorn flicked her multishaded tail in her irritation that no one seemed to understand that for her research was fun. Bar a good, challenging game of Duel Monsters, there was nothing she enjoyed as much as burying herself in her books and learning new things. “I know there’s something about this Summer Sun Celebration that...”

“Please?” Spike latched onto her left foreleg, “Please, please, please, please? I won’t ask you for anything for a month!”

“If I ask you to take a note or a letter will you actually pay attention to me?” Twilight asked him with a sigh, “And when I say it’s time to leave will you actually come with me this time?”

Spike blushed as much as a purple dragon could and scuffed the floor sheepishly with his foot at the reminder of the last time that they had gone to one of these demonstrations and he had successfully kept them out until late into the night.

“I swear on my comics.” Spike told her, his tone solemn as he crossed his heart.

“Alright, but let me pack my saddlebag.” The delighted cheer and momentary tightening of Spike’s grip before he darted off to grab his deck was reward enough for conceding and she let out an amused, yet exasperated huff before using her magic to pack the bag which had the same pink star surrounded by darker purple ones as her cutie mark.

In went the book she had been after, closely followed by quills and parchment so she could make her own notes while Spike was distracted. However she hesitated before packing the small fabric case with her cards in. She still enjoyed the game, but it was a distraction that she did not need.

“Ready Twilight?” Spike asked, practically bouncing in his excitement. She jumped a mile, shoving the last few things into her bag without looking and levitated it onto her back. Spike jumped up next, his own deck strapped to his hip via a holster she had had made especially for him for the previous Hearth’s Warming Eve.

“I still don’t know if this is such a good idea.” Twilight told the baby dragon clutching onto her sides as she cantered towards the door. “It would be much easier to do my research here.” She hesitated by the door, almost loath to exit into the bright sunlight outside.

Spike almost complained. He would have done in fact if he had not noticed the slight tremble under him, as if Twilight was shaking. “Twilight?” He asked, worried for his friend and the unicorn who had hatched him. “Are you okay?”

“Fine, fine.” Twilight took a deep breath and stepped out into the sunlight. It was not that she was agoraphobic by any stretch of the imagination. In fact she enjoyed curling up under a tree with a good book as much as the next pony. However it had been years since she had seen White Lightning in the hoof. The white unicorn stallion had been a fellow student at her school and had forever been battling her for the top spot. Right up until the accident, Lightning had been one of the most competent wielders of magic and had matched her in almost every subject, especially in Duel Monsters though he had never quite managed to defeat her in either marks or at the card game.

Then then accident had happened. No one was quite sure what had happened, but she and White Lightning had been duelling in the school courtyard when his step-sire had interrupted and at some point during the conversation the two stallions had had afterwards, Lightning’s horn had been broken and his access to his magic lost.

She had not seen hair or whisker of White Lightning since that day. He had withdrawn from the school the next day and his step-sire had passed away soon after, leaving the young stallion in charge of the massive company that his step-sire had run.

She had not duelled anyone but Spike since that day and it was slightly nerve wracking to think that Lightning was in her neck of the wood again. Still she knew she was being silly. He probably did not even remember her and she had much more important things to worry about, like why this Summer Sun Celebration, the thousandth in Equestria’s long history, worried her so greatly.

The crowd had already gathered when they arrived in the plaza at the centre of Canterlot and Twilight was more than happy to drop Spike off at the crowd’s thinnest point and retreat to a nearby café to have a bite to eat and read her book. The baby dragon weaved amongst the hooves of the excited crowd with practised ease and found himself a perch at the front of the gathered horde that would allow him to see everything perfectly.

Twilight tried to tune out the excited hum as she ordered a daisy sandwich, settled at a table and pulled her book out of her saddle bags. It was not easy, as every so often she would catch a word here or there that would catch her interest. However once her sandwich had arrived and she had found the section of the book she was looking for it was almost like the world around her melted away, leaving her in a little bubble of just her, her sandwich and her research.

The roar of the crowd as the demonstration started went completely unnoticed as Twilight read through the section on the Elements of Harmony and found that, frustratingly, there was not much written about them. Instead it recommended she turned to the section on ‘The Mare in the Moon.’

That proved much more productive. It spoke of the fact her mentor, Princess Celestia herself, had defeated a wicked mare of darkness, known as Nightmare Moon, using the Elements of Harmony and sealed her away on the moon. However the dark and powerful Alicorn had sworn that when a thousand years had passed she would return and bring night time eternal.

Her defeat had heralded the very first Summer Sun Celebration and it had been celebrated on the longest day of the year every year since, right up until the modern age and as Twilight was already aware, this year was the one thousandth celebration of that day.

“Oh…” Twilight breathed when she realised what that meant. “Spike?!” She asked, wanting him to help her confirm her findings. She glanced around and grimaced when she could not see the petite dragon for the horde of ponies gathered around the glow that could only be an active DuelRune grid. “Oh horse feathers.” She grumbled as she gathered up her things and ate the last bite of her sandwich before taking a deep breath and diving into the masses in order to try and reach her friend and scribe so he could send a letter to the Princess for her.

“Excuse me, pardon me,” Twlight apologised as she tried to squeeze her way through the crowds. It was almost impossible to see someone as small as Spike for the herd of ponies and no one wanted to move and possibly lose their vantage point. It was good for her in one way because it meant that there was no way her former classmate would be able to spot her. The problem was it meant that Spike probably would not be able to either. Not only that but she was a little worried, considering that she got stepped on twice while trying to find her friend. Spike was much smaller than most of the ponies here and it was quite possible that he would get trampled.

“Twilight!” Her head snapped towards the sound, which, both thankfully and frustratingly was coming from a certain baby dragon who was across the other side of the crowd from where she had left him and was waving at her from the back of another of the colts in her class. She could not help but wince and shy away from the hissing and complaining at the noise, which carried over the sounds of the demonstration. “Twilight, over here!”

A gap opened up in the crowds, allowing her to get to Spike’s side easily. She took advantage of it, well aware of the eyes on her as she made her way across to him, including one set that she had really hoped to avoid.

“Ow.” Spike’s ride was complaining as Twilight reached them, the black furred pony with his silvery grey mane and tail and his white crescent moon cutie mark, had his hoof covering his ear and looked pained, “I do need to be able to hear Spike.”

“Sorry Dark Moon.” Spike apologised, looking sheepish for all of about two seconds before grinning at Twilight. Before he could say anything or Twilight could ask him to take a letter for her, another voice broke into the conversation.

“Twilight Sparkle?” The young mare flinched at the sound of her name and turned to face the speaker, coming face to face with a pure white stallion of about her age with a short, tidy, brown mane and tail and the picture of the back of the Duel Monsters card for a cutie mark. He smirked as he looked her over, “It is you. Oh good, I needed someone to demonstrate my DuelRune grid on. You do still play, don’t you?”

“Well, not for a long time and I really need…”

“Go on Twilight.” Spike jumped down from Dark Moon’s back and pushed her forward towards the runic grid on the floor.

“Spike!” Twilight yelped, embarrassed and trying not to pay attention to the mutterings of the impatient crowd, “I don’t have tim…”

“What’s the matter Twilight?” White Lightning interrupted with a slightly vindictive chuckle, “It’s just a short demonstration. I would have thought Celestia’s prize pupil would jump at the chance to show off a new training tool.” He turned away, his tone turning nasty, “Unless, of course you don’t think that the Princess is a very good teacher…”

There was a sharp gasp from the crowd before complete silence fell.

“One game.” Twilight glared at the white stallion before her, using her magic to plop her saddlebag down next to Spike, “Just one.” She snapped as she lifted her deck box from her bag, “And you’ll see how good a teacher the Princess is!”

“Then step into the grid.” White Lightning gestured to the blue circle on the left of the runic grid taking up a lot of floor space, “And show us.”

“Once I’m done,” She told Spike as she cantered into the circle and put her hoof on the right sigil, causing the circle around her to glow and activating her half of the DuelRune grid below her, which lit up the same purple as her magic, “I need you to take a letter.”