//------------------------------//
// Astromancy 
// Story: The Music of the Spheres 
// by MrBossMan 
//------------------------------//

Author's note: A* is pronounced "A-star"

        Bigger.
Yes, it was definitely getting bigger.
        Well... or closer. Or both. But regarding perspective, it was getting bigger.
There was no doubt of that, now. Twilight had been checking the sky periodically for the past five hours, just to be completely sure that she wasn’t seeing things. And as she did she had looked through every astronomical manuscript on hoof in a desperate attempt to discern just what it was that was getting bigger. None of them contained any useful information.
It had all started at around ten o’clock. Twilight had set aside some time for leisurely stargazing before bed that night, as she made sure to do once every few weeks for personal reasons. It gave her a chance to get better acquainted with the night sky, and the deep reaches of the universe far beyond Celestia’s influence. Not to mention she was running out of time to see Antares, and there was no way she was going to miss that!
It was while viewing the area near Sagittarius--roughly the galactic center--that she noticed something odd. The normally rather uniform star cluster in that region seemed strangely warped. Twilight methodically checked each of the lenses and mirrors in her telescope for imperfections, but found none. She looked again, and then once more through her refracting telescope, and once again saw the disturbance. And, what was more, the stars being affected seemed to be creeping away from each other, as if opening up to allow something through. The motion was hardly noticeable, like the path of planets against the starscape, but visible to a careful eye, and Twilight was sure she saw it.
It was growing late, and the library was supposed to open at eight o'clock sharp the next morning, but this was important. It wouldn’t be the first time the unicorn had pulled a spontaneous all-nighter for whatever reason, and it wasn’t like she would be able to sleep now anyway. Not without figuring out that anomaly.
Minutes viewing the object grew into hours. Books and hastily-scribbled notes piled upon the desk, then the floor. Before Twilight realized it, the clock on the wall showed three in the morning, she had drained her fifth mug of coffee, and the thing in the sky had grown at least one whole arc-minute in apparent size. Yet she still had no clue what it was.
        Well, she did have some information. She had come to recognize the distortion as gravitational lensing, which resulted from a very massive object bending light around itself and warping the view of whatever was behind it. And there was a commonly accepted theory that the center of the galaxy--exactly where she had been looking--contained a supermassive black hole known as Sagittarius A*, around which the rest of the Milky Way orbited. But the central axis of the entire galaxy wouldn’t simply decide to move toward Earth on a whim, and even if so there’s no way it could have gained that much speed that quickly with its huge amount of inertia. Nor could it have grown any larger; all its satellites were relatively stable, so it hadn’t consumed any of them, and the Law of Conservation of Matter stated that it couldn’t just spontaneously obtain mass.
        So the anomaly had to be something else. But what?
        … Twilight had absolutely no clue. And there was probably only one pony alive who was better acquainted to the night sky than she--and definitely only one who would know more about it than any book in her library.
        “Owloysius!”
        The owl turned his head 180 degrees from his perch by the window.
        “Take a letter.”
        “Who?” he asked.
        “To whom,” Twilight corrected.
If owls had been physically capable of rolling their eyes, Owloysius would have liked to do so. Instead, being a helpless slave to biology, he had to settle for a blank stare.
“Princess Luna, please. Celestia is asleep by no-” The unicorn looked at the time. “... Isn’t awake yet. Besides, I’m sure the famously neglected night goddess would be delighted to be getting mail at this hour.”
It had been quite a chore to teach Owloysius to write with his talons. His penmanship was still far from perfect, but through several years of working with Spike, Twilight had grown accustomed to dictating her letters. Otherwise, they sounded awkward and usually contained several scratched-out sentences--not at all befitting for royalty. The chicken-, or owl-scratch, was a worthy tradeoff for more flowing diction.
Thus, a clear and concise description of the situation was penned and addressed to the currently-waking Princess, attached to some more technical notes on the subject. The whole bundle was rolled, bound, and stamped with an Omega rune to direct the translocational magicks about to be used.
Twilight levitated it as she stepped out onto her balcony. Channeling her spectral energies and touching her horn to a corner of the parchment, she lit a magical fire which quickly began to consume it. The ash was carried by an aether wind up toward Mount Avalon and into Canterlot Palace.
It was then that a quickly growing light consumed the sky behind Twilight’s head. She whipped around just in time to see a fierce blue-white fireball burn through the atmosphere above Ponyville, flashing north toward Canterlot. Multiple sonic booms, trailed by a prolonged ear-splitting roar, filled the air.
           As the meteorite neared Mount Avalon, it slowed considerably, orbited the mountain exactly five times, and entered the Royal Palace just as harmlessly as Twilight’s letter had moments before.
The unicorn might as well have knelt over and pawed at the ground to search for her dropped jaw. That had literally been the single most implausible thing she had ever seen happen. She guessed that it may have been the most implausible thing ever to have happened period.
Had she just witnessed a UFO?! No, it wasn’t flying anymore... Just a UO, then? Well, by definition it was an object, and at the very least she hadn’t identified it, so it met all of the qualifications. But UFOs were the stuff of urban legends and crackpot conspiracy theories. There had to be a reasonable explanation for this...
A wizard did it! Maybe it was a Guided Bolide spell... but those can’t be thrown at anywhere near supersonic speeds, and at that sort of distance there was no way the caster would be able to guide it so precisely. What if it was imbedded with a low-level Come-to-Life enchantment? Such a thing had never been attempted before, but theoretically...
Twilight’s thoughts were interrupted as a cloud of magically glowing ash floated in front of her face and coalesced into a letter. She unfurled it and eagerly read, hoping for some answers to her many questions.

Twilight Sparkle,
An astute observation, but we already know of this matter. Takest thyself and thy friends to Canterlot on the morrow--ye must arrive by midday. All will become clear then, but be forewarned: it may not be to thy liking.

With urgency,
        HRH Princess Luna.
P.S. Get thee to bed. Thy penscript is nigh-illegible.