Something Magical This Way Comes
By Gingerquill
Prologue
“Spike?” Twilight Sparkles voice echoed through the broken arches and ruined vaults of the Castle of the Two Sisters. Though only silent, stone gargoyles and empty suits of ancient armour seemed present to listen, and they were in little apparent hurry to respond.
“Spike?” She called again, “have you finished loading that last batch of books?”
In the following silence it briefly occurred to her she knew so few of the ruins secrets, that Spike might once again have fallen prey to an ancient trap or become lost down some long forgotten secret passage. As she was about to set off in a worried search for her oldest companion, a towering stack of books lumbered round the corner ahead of her, swaying as it tried to find balance on the uneven flag stones.
“Right here.” The stack groaned back, much to her relief, before it gave a laboured heave and unceremoniously dumped itself on the floor. The diminutive, purple scaled form of Spike the Dragon emerged from behind and slumped against it, panting as he wiped beads of sweat from his forehead. “Couldn’t we have got a little help for this?” He huffed trying to catch his breath.
“A little help would have been nice, but I’m afraid everypony is busy today.” She smiled, finding even his complaining strangely endearing. “Besides, we’re only doing a little run.”
Spike threw a sardonic look at the collection of books that towered over them both.
“Yeah… little…”
“Now Spike,” Twilight lightly chided him, “the Tree of Harmony may have graced me with my own palace, complete with a library, but it couldn’t conjure up any new books to fill it, and with Golden Oaks…” She trailed off, looking sadly into the middle distance for long moments before gathering herself. “Well, we need to restock.”
But Spike wasn’t yet willing to let go of his point.
“All I’m saying is, if we’re going to trek through the Everfree Forest to haul a… ahem… little run of books, a little help would have been nice. What about those guards Princess Celestia offered you? They’d come in real handy about now.”
Twilight subdued an amused smile as she turned away and started to wander.
“I’m the Princess of Friendship. It doesn’t really help the cause if I have a bunch of random heavies hanging around, scaring ponies off and doing all the lifting.”
“I’m sure you wouldn’t say no to have Flash Sentry hanging around.” Spike said with a wry grin, which he quickly wiped away when Twilight threw a dark look at him.
“I’ll thank you not to be spreading rumours about my personal life.” She spoke deliberately. “Come along, one last look through the library before we go.”
“Awww,” Spike slumped, but kept his tongue. Instead as Twilight once more wandered away in the direction of the library, he picked out one of the tomes, an especially dusty and faded example of literature, so worn he couldn’t even make out the title. He began idly thumbing through the pages, trying to figure out what was so great that had made Twilight pick it from the shelves, when he reached the centre pages.
“Twilight!” He cried, “come check this out!”
Alerted by the urgency in his voice, she galloped back to save her oldest friend from whatever trap or catastrophe had befallen him, only to find him holding the tome up for her, like some styled, purple lectern.
“Check it out.” His voice was full of awe and wonder as he held it high, and her eyes went wide as she saw what lay within.
The middle pages had been hollowed out, creating a secret compartment. Inside sat an intricately wrought amulet, a beautiful weave of gold and silver strands wrapped delicately and lovingly round a single, oval gem of deepest ocean green. About the size of a chicken egg, it was polished to a perfect, gleaming finish. Though the precious metal weave showed the passage of great time, not a single blemish or speck of dust marred the stone, its deep colour seemingly stretching on forever within itself.
“Wonder how long it’s been in there.” Spike mused.
Twilight didn’t respond at first, she simply stared at the gem, mesmerized.
“It’s beautiful…” She said at length, lifting it with her magic, the soft lavender glow gently enveloping the amulet. She brought it round her neck and fixed the clasp before allowing it to hang.
“Suits you.” Spike grinned broadly. “Might need to give it a bit of a polish, but it looks good.”
Twilight stepped over to an ancient, dust coated mirror, sweeping away the cobwebs with a wave of magic to gaze and admire her reflection for a moment.
“Yes, it does look good, doesn’t it?”