The Death Altar In Twilight's Basement

by tom117z

A Rogue Book Horse

Ponyville, On A Saturday

It was a sunny day in Ponyville, as idealistic as any day could appear to be. The residents of the town continued on their merry way, attending the market to buy various groceries while the fillies and colts were ushered into the classroom of Miss Cheerilee.

Aside from two young ponies, that is, who decided it was a good idea to skip class that day.

“Little Wing, slow down!” Cirrus, the still blank-flank pegasus colt whined pitifully while sprinting to keep up with his over-eager friend. His light blond mane was constantly slapping down into his eyes as he went, forcing him to lift one of his bright-blue hooves to his face to brush it out of his vision periodically.

“But the Princess has the new Daring Do book in the library!” Little Wing argued in response, not at all slowing her pace. “And I’m NOT letting somepony like Diamond Tiara steal it from me!”

“You know you’d only be borrowing it from the library, right? You’d have to return it in, like, two weeks!” Cirrus quipped with a frown before wincing away at the scathing glare Little Wing shot back at him. “Shutting up now.”

“Maybe you’d prefer to be learning math!” Little Wing shot back. “Why is there even school on a Saturday?”

Cirrus’ expression flattened. “Rainbow Dash,” he said bluntly.

“So that’s what the rainstorm was about…” Little Wing muttered, only to be knocked out of her ruminations when she almost smacked head first into the very alicorn they were looking for.

“Oh! Sorry!” Twilight quickly apologised, almost dropping some rather ominous red crystals she held in her magic. “I didn’t see you coming, with the whispering and all.”

“...W-what?” Cirrus mumbled before collapsing next to Little Wing, gasping for breath. “Whisperin-”

“Sh-shh!” Twilight poked his nose with a hoof. “Soooo~, what are you two doing out of school?”

“It’s a Saturday, it’s stupid we have to come in today!” Little Wing argued with a pout. “And I wanna read the new Daring Do!”

“Seriously!” Cirrus blurted out. “What’s that about whispering!?”

He was ignored.

Twilight sighed slightly, detecting imminent disappointment. “Oooh, yeah. Sorry, but ah, Rainbow beat you to it.”

“WHAT!?” Little Wing blurted out, her eyes widened and her wings popping open into a cutely threatening stance. She then sagged in defeat. “Aw ponyfeathers. That mare is really annoying.”

“Now now,” Twilight scolded. “I’m sure you’d get along if you got to know her, if you ask Scootaloo she’d say she’s the perfect big sister.”

Little Wing snorted. “Me and her? Sisters? What crazy universe are you thinking up?”

Cirrus scowled at Little Wing. “My lungs feel like lava for nothing, then. Thanks, Lil. Thanks.” he grumbled in mild frustration.

“You always were slower, Cirrus. You never could keep up back in Cloudsdale.”

“Hey, that was Stutter’s fault!” Cirrus shot back with a frown.

Twilight lifted an eyebrow, slightly confused by the name. “Who’s Stutter?”

“Not important,” Cirrus grumbled while standing up and glowering at Little Wing. Where she stood, Twilight ruffled her wings uncomfortably, the red crystals twitching slightly in her magic. She perked an ear and nodded to her left.

“Well, sorry, kids. I wish I could help you but I need to get these things to- ah, somewhere important. Bye!” Twilight said a bit too quickly before cantering past the foals. Cirrus looked after her and then back to Little Wing.

“Why do I hang out with you?” he asked bluntly.

Little Wing shrugged noncommittally. “I’unno.”

Little Wing looked after where Twilight had bolted off to, a small smirk making its way unto her face.

“But now that I think about it, she’s a huge Daring Do fan herself. She probably has her own personal, and signed, copy!”

Cirrus gave her a deadpan look. “So?”

“So… it is a library, let’s borrow it!”

Cirrus did not seem thrilled by that idea, not one bit. “‘Borrow’ it, eh? Okay, one, she’s not in there and that would definitely be stealing. Two, she’s one of the four ruling princesses of Equestria. Three, we could get in a lot of trouble. Four, she’s one of the four ruling princesses of Equestria! Five, it’s you concocting this operation. Failure is to be assumed.”

“When did you get so wordy?” Little Wing asked curiously, genuinely impressed by the other foal’s lengthy tirade and unfazed by the not-so-subtle insult directed at her.

“When you suggested committing an act of theft,” Cirrus replied with a roll of his eyes.

“It’s a library!” Little Wing insisted further.

“You say that like it changes that its blatant thievery!” Cirrus rebutted.

“Oh don’t be such a foal,” Little Wing said with a shrug.

“...We are foals. Clearly one of us is more foalish than the other.” Cirrus closed his eyes and sighed with a shake of his head. “Alright, fine. I’ll come along. But just so we’re clear I am coming along strictly as a witness to testify against you when you get caught.”

“Well we won’t, so BWAH!” she said back with her tongue sticking out.

“She lied just before getting caught,” Cirrus quipped with a smirk.

“BWAAH!”

“The library is unguarded!” Little Wing announced, peaking up from behind the bush she and Cirrus hid behind.

“It’s a library,” he deadpanned while looking up at her.

“I know, but she IS a Princess,” she pointed out. “Not having guards around seems… irritatingly reckless.”

“Uh-huh…” Cirrus grunted before standing up. “Whatever. You’re the criminal mastermind here. Lead the way.”

“Gladly,” the filly responded with a flex of her wings, then getting up and simply walking up to the front door without a care in the world.

“Little Wing!” Cirrus shouted after her. “You can’t just walk up! For one thing, the door is going to be-”

“Unlocked?” she called back, the door swinging open easily enough. “As I said. Irritatingly reckless.”

Spike, who was on the other side of the door with a mop in his claws, dutifully cleaning the floor, screamed and ran away. “BURGLARS!” He then jumped through the nearest window.

Cirrus trotted up to Little Wing with a wide smirk. “Caught in… less than one second. That’s a new Ponyville record.”

“Shut. Up.”

They walked casually into the library, ignoring the broken glass and the maybe a little unconscious Spike on the other side of that glass. Little Wing got to work examining the main library, but didn’t hold out much hope of finding her precious there. She wasn’t wrong, and with a groan and stamp of her hoof she decided it wasn’t to be found there.

“What did you expect?” Cirrus asked indignantly. “This is where the public books are kept. The book you want will be in her private collection.”

“Yeah? And where would that be? Hm?” Little Wing eyed Cirrus critically.

“Her bedroom would be a good place to start.”

Little Wing looked repulsed by the idea. “Her bedroom!? No way! We are not ransacking somepony’s bedroom, that’s just rude.”

Cirrus gave her a queer look, since they had already broken into the library in the first place and possibly scared Spike into hurting himself. Somepony should probably get on that. “...Okay, sure. Whatever you say.” He finally said with a shrug. “So where, oh master of thievery, do we look next?”

“The basement.”

“Uh-huh. And why would she keep it in there?”

Little Wing shrugged. “Well, that’s where I overheard once that my mother keeps her ‘special collection’ as she called it. I wonder what they are…”

Cirrus blinked. Wisely, he decided not to press the issue. ‘Kay…”

In a new awkward silence, the duo headed down into the basement slowly and carefully. Or at least CIrrus did, Little Wing flew down there.

“I made it first I win!” she childishly announced as she burst through the door.

“It wasn’t a race.” Cirrus snarked out, still content to merely observe.

“Yes it was and I won,” Little Wing decided, then moving to take a good long look at her surroundings. “Wow, this place is… something.”

“It’s probably where she does that crazy magic stuff everypony talks about,” Cirrus said, looking intently at the large telescope in the centre of the room that poked through the roof, letting small shafts of sunlight in. “It’s all scientific and magic mumbo-jumbo. I don’t think you’ll find the book back here.”

“What about in here?” Little Wing asked, pointing behind one of the bookcases, which actually rested slightly ajar on the wall.

“What do you mean?” Cirrus asked before Little wing shot over and grabbed him.

“Come see!” She exclaimed, all but dragging the hapless Cirrus Ramble to what she had found. “See!”

Cirrus shook off his foalnapper, and then looked to where she was enthusiastically pointing. Her blinked. “Is that… a secret room?”

“Yup!” Little Wing announced victoriously. “It must be her secret Daring Do cave! Think of all the fanfiction it must contain!”

“I doubt it.” Cirrus said flatly, though he was admittedly curious about this discovery. It was spooky, too, sending a chill down his spine. He could have sworn he could hear a voice whispering deeper inside.

“And you’re boring,” she remarked. “Come on.”

“You can’t be serious. This is… a little creepy,” he uttered, taking a step backwards. “You don’t wander into some magic powerhouse of an alicorn’s secret chamber so… casually!”

“I just did,” Little Wing called back, already having disappeared into the hole behind the bookcase.

“Oh sweet Luna on a merry go round,” Cirrus whined in exasperation before scampering to catch up to his trouble-making friend.

The first room was covered in the roots of the Golden Oak above, making up the walls and floor much as the rest of the basement. A couple of crates sat against the far wall, partially buried by an old and weathered tarp, but a cursory glance revealed them to be empty. However, a little ways past that particular room the roots gave way to stone walls that seemed far newer than the tree that led into it.

“And what is all this?” Cirrus asked to nopony in particular. “We… should go. Yup. Go right now.”

“Are you crazy? This is super exciting!” Little Wing rebuked, continuing on forwards and leaving Cirrus with no choice but to follow.

On entering the lab they immediately saw several tables with various pieces of scientific equipment spread around on them. Beakers and a few magical looking crystals were organised extremely meticulously, some even glowing and humming softly.

“I don’t like this… Little Wing, we need to go.” Cirrus said uneasily while watching Little Wing rounded a corner further ahead.

“I heard you the first time, and I’m still ignoring you,” she remarked. “And what’s behind this thing?”

She was pointing at a small wall that didn’t reach all the way up to the ceiling, a simple barrier blocking something from view. Little Wing trotted around the barrier, noting the sheet that had been discarded to one side as if it had previously been covering something.

Then she looked up at what it had been covering.

“Little Wing…” Cirrus said in absolute terror when he reached her side. “That’s an evil death altar.”

Little Wing tilted her head. “What do you mean? Just because it’s made of bone, has red magic pouring from the skull and is whispering to us doesn’t mean it’s evil. You are so judgemental.”

“YOU ARE SUCH AN IDIOT!” Cirrus shouted before turning around to run.

He ran face first into the waiting belly of a specific lavender alicorn, who know looked at them with a raised eyebrow. “Who's an idiot, now?” Twilight Sparkle asked curiously.

“Oh, hiya again Princess!” Little Wing gave her a happy wave. “What’s this thing?”

Twilight seemed confused for a moment, before seeing the corner of the discarded cover poking out from the side of the barrier. She only then realised she forgot to hide her ‘special project’ when she went out.

“O-oh… that…” Twilight rubbed the back of her head sheepishly. “I… have no idea! Yup!”

“But… it’s in your basement.” Little Wing pointed out with a raised eyebrow.

“I… know! Weird, huh?” she said with mock cheeriness. “Another Twilight must have been here! A rogue book horse!”

Cirrus paled. “Uh… uh-huh, okay. Well, we don’t want to interfere with your pursuit of this rogue book-horse, so… eh-heh heh, LET’S GO LITTLE WING!” Cirrus said in a trembling voice before grabbing his friend and shooting away as fast as he could, leaving the secret room and library behind in a trail of dust and surprised filly shouts.

Twilight watched them go, wondering if they had anything to do with the dragon assistant she had carried in and laid to rest on her bed, said dragon assistant being very much out cold. And bleeding, probably.

Shaking her head, she decided that the foals had bought her quickly thought up and yet completely foolproof cover story and put the trespassers into the back of her mind.

“Now…” she said, levitating up the now fully charged magical crystals she was carrying. “Let’s finish this. Oh, I can’t wait to meet the ancient sun gods! I have so many questions, and so many essays to write!”

She placed the crystals in their designated slots, and the whispering being produced by the altar began to increase. The entire altar glowed, the red eyes billowing with pure magical power.

“This is it!” she said excitedly. “I can teach them all about the magic of friendship! Celestia is going to be so proud of me!”

Then she began the chant…

“Utinam soli Deo placere et ex anglicus Latinae translationis translate melius! Exite, et hoc software non lactaverunt!”

The evil death altar reached its full strength.

Only for it to suddenly stop, an eruption of confetti blowing forth from the eye sockets of a skull that, now that Twilight thought about it, seemed oddly like a plastic replica.

Twilight stood there, mouth agape like a particularly bewildered goldfish. The altar had stopped glowing, the eye sockets empty and the crystals cold and dark. There was also confetti absolutely everywhere, so much so that she would still be finding pieces of it for years to come. Had the library not had such a short future left for it, anyway.

“I don’t understand it, why didn’t it work?”

Twilight gave the altar a good looking over, before spotting a very hard to spot label tucked away at the bottom of the frame.

“Totally not fake altar to summon fake gods, by Flim and Flam incorporated.”

So… there were no ancient sun gods after all.

Twilight huffed in indignation. “Well, that’s ruined my Saturday. Hope this doesn’t become a thing…”