It had been some time after dusk came along, the light of the sun was still shining long streams of its golden rays of violet, red, and orange across the western side of the city. Streams of cumulus swirling together on the horizon to make a beautiful light show with the sun to herald the passing of another day and the entry of a new night. The moon began to creep above the horizon and the stars were just beginning to peak their way through the slowly dulling sky. The castle towering above everything else reflecting the last slivers of light from the twilight sun. Nighttime lamps and lights were turned on along the streets to assist the common night goers of Canterlot. The city was still bustling as always, as the Capital of Equestria should be.
Within the confines of the dusty Ancient Records section of the Royal Library, Princess Luna, one of the co-rulers of Equestria paced back and forth beside the length of a single shelf. Next to her was an unlocked display case carrying an ornate gold scroll the length of half her own foreleg and an old black tome of average size with a silver etching of a dragon atop a dusty, old desk. Luna’s blue eyes were fixed worriedly on the floor as if she was preparing for something bad to happen at any moment. Every so often she would dart back to the scroll, staring at it a while before resuming her pacing.
Suddenly, there was a knock on the side of the narrow passageway into this ancient part of the castle’s library. Luna jumped and blasted at the archway with her magic before looking to see who was there. When she turned to look, a tall alicorn mare with snow-white fur and a long multicolored mane wearing a big golden crown very familiar to her had ducked in time to miss Luna’s involuntary attack.
“That almost hit me that time,” The mare said humorously.
“Sister!”, Luna cried as she ran up to the mare.
“I’m so sorry Celestia! I suppose my old war instincts are still acting themselves upon us. I'm still not used to living in a mostly conflict-free world I guess. We nearly did the same horrid thing to dear Jeeves when he tried to wake us up the other day.”
Celestia the white alicorn in question, gave Luna a chuckle and wrapped her hooves around Luna’s withers as they shared a tender hug between each other.
“It's alright Luna, I know it has been hard for you some days, adjusting to the modern world, but you have been getting steadily better, and these incidents have been getting further and further apart,” Celestia reassured. "Your anger management classes have been going well too from what I hear."
"I still don't know however why or how singing "I Feel Pretty" is supposed to calm my disposition." Luna dryly remarked.
Luna quickly returned the hug as they began to break the embrace.
“Now what have you been doing in this dusty old section of the library Luna? It's past time for you to raise the moon,” Celestia inquired.
“Oh, of course. My apologies, I’ve been preoccupied with something else and I forgot my own royal duties,” replied Luna as she walked over to the window on the outer corridor.
Her horn quickly glowed, and the moon slowly rose over the horizon and into the sky to bring about the night.
“Now what is it you’ve been looking at over here-
Celestia stopped as she saw what was lying down in plain sight on the table that Luna was so preoccupied with.
“Luna, are those the artifacts that we found on Discord’s throne after we turned him to stone the first time?” Celestia asked.
“One in the same sister, or this case, two in the same. I’ve been looking into any possible means other than the Elements to combat Discord ever since his “supposed” reformation by the hooves of one of our newest dear friends Fluttershy,” Luna replied as she made air quotations on supposed with her hooves. “Did we use that gesture correctly? I think we did. So much of the ponies’ dialect and body language has changed since our absence.”
Celestia looked at Luna with concern and walked over to her workspace.
“Luna-“Celestia started.
Luna stopped her by raising her hoof.
“I know what you are going to say, sister. That we must be able to forgive and forget, and we must allow ponies to redeem themselves whenever they make a mistake,” Luna stated. “However, while I will always trust you and our dearest new friends, I will never fully trust Discord. Ever.”
“Luna, I know Discord is troublesome, he still is even after his reformation. Don’t you think though that after three months of quiet from him we can at least begin to relax?” Celestia asked.
“We will relax when we have another measure against Discord should he try anything else again. When our friends went after Discord the first time, he was able to steal the Elements of Harmony away from them and hex them into being opposite from what they truly are. We just want to make sure we have another way to defeat Discord.” Luna replied.
Sighing deeply, Celestia knew her sister could never give this up. Discord had been more than just a mere enemy to her in the distant past.
“There is something that has been bothering me, dear sister.”
“What’s that?”
“After all these many centuries we never tried to find out what these artifacts were and what their purpose is?” Luna inquired.
“Don’t you remember? Both of us tried to open the scroll and the tome with our combined magical strength after we imprisoned Discord the first time, but we could never get them to open. So we just had other ponies use tools to carefully lift them into that display case and locked them away” Celestia pointed out as her horn glowed and attempted to lift the scroll and book.
“I had always assumed that the scroll and the tome were instruments of chaos for Discord to enhance his own powers,” Luna replied.
"Well, what did your spies say then?"
“After our spies had told us Discord was visited by a strange bipedal bald monkey, the being gave him this book and this scroll. Our spies said he was speaking nonsense that sounded like an incantation. They warned us….not..to- Luna stopped as both of them came to a realization and face hooved themselves.
“They told us not to touch the scroll and book even though they aren’t affected by our magic and nothing has ever happened to anyone who accidentally touched it.” Celestia finished.
“OH MYSELF AND MY SISTER! You mean in all these centuries we could have opened up these artifacts ourselves the whole time? Even when we weren’t even sure if they were dangerous to touch, to begin with?” Luna snapped at no one in particular.
“I wouldn’t say that, if we are going to finally find out what they are now we have to be cautious,” Celestia replied.
Luna carefully eyed the scroll first and slowly reached over to it, but Celestia put her hoof on Luna’s.
“Put a defensive barrier around your hooves at least.”
Luna nodded as her horn glowed and her hooves were covered in the same blue glow. She then slowly put her hooves on the scroll and tensed up for something bad to happen. After a few seconds, she breathed a sigh of relief and carefully opened the large golden scroll very slowly. When it was completely open, for a split second, Luna and Celestia gazed upon the most alien markings she ever came across. Suddenly though, the scroll flashed even brighter than her sister’s own sun and blinded the both of them causing them to give a small shriek of pain. Luna quickly closed the scroll to try to stop the effects.
When they could see again, the scroll had been closed successfully, but the books on the shelves around them had been thrown into disarray from their lash out of pain.
Celestia’s horn glowed and all the books circled them and glided back onto their respective shelves.
“Let’s not do that again until Discord can tell us how to read this scroll,” Celestia said with a tinge of annoyance.
Then, down the hall, they could hear the rapid clopping of hooves getting louder and louder as it reached the passageway. A muscular guard pony with a snow-white coat and a silver mane familiar to Celestia appeared in the doorway and gave a quick deep bow to the both of them before quickly taking off his helmet.
"Sergeant Silver Sickle, how delightful it is to see you again. I had hoped that our little evening meal together two weeks ago didn't scare you off." She mischievously said to the guard with a smile.
She giggled at Silver Sickle's expense when he turned brick red through his white fur and stuttered while trying to speak.
“N-N-Not at all y-your Majesty, th-th-that evening was pleasant. But more importantly, for now, your highnesses, a strange intruder has appeared in the throne room. He is screaming the strangest things and tearing up the castle with his magic,” The guard pony said.
Celestia's smile disappeared as she and Luna looked at each other with worried looks and looked at the scroll layed about on the ground before looking back at each other and widening their eyes in realization.
“Gather up the guard! Put the castle on high alert, but don’t engage the intruder!” Celestia cried.
The guard pony saluted again before running off to carry out his orders.
“I must send a letter to Twilight and her friends. If this intruder turns out to be the same ally Discord had a thousand years ago that gave him these artifacts, he may not know about his defeat and reformation,” said Celestia as she materialized a piece of parchment and a quill and wrote down a quick message, rolled it with her seal and sent it to Twilight via dragon flame.
“That’s what I’m afraid of Sister, we can’t allow another entity to cause disharmony in our land again,” replied Luna.
“Or it could just be Discord fooling around again messing up our throne room under the guise of another and we could be making a fuss over nothing,” Celestia thought out loud.
“Whatever the case may be, we must attend to any problem that arises in Equestria,” Luna stated.
Both of their horns began to glow and they attempted to teleport out of the Royal Library and into the Royal Throne Room to confront the intruder. However, when they attempted to teleport, their horns sputtered and sparked. They could also hear a scratchy male voice saying, "ah, ah, ah, that's not polite". Which kept happening again and again after five minutes of using different variations of their teleportation spell in multiple attempts to teleport into their throne room. After failing so many times, Luna threw a book across the room in anger, but Celestia stopped it before it got damaged and set it down on a table in the room.
Can't let a good book be destroyed, Celestia thought.
"What's going on Celestia?" asked Luna.
"I'm not sure Luna, this has never happened before within the confines of Canterlot Castle," she replied. "Someone is blocking specific spells in our arsenal but not all of our magic entirely."
Luna began to trot out into the hallway fully intending to walk through the two miles of hallways to get to their throne room.
"Then let us find out who it was that did this the old-fashioned way sister, I do not appreciate when somepony waltzes into our home and mess with our MAGIC!" Luna screamed at the top of her lungs as she stepped into the hallway and slipped on something slick which caused her hooves to fly out from underneath her, causing her to slide across the white marble floor and smash into the hallway wall with a loud thump. Knocking over a nearby table and all of its contents.
"Luna! Are you alright?" Celestia asked concerned as she cautiously ran up to and stopped at the edge of the hallway.
"We are alive, but I fear we, "had our wind knocked out of us" as the commoners say" Luna wheezed out as she was lying painfully on the floor. "What in mother and father's name did I slip in?"
Celestia gazed at the tile hallway floor and noticed a slimy substance covering the floor. She noticed an odor and gave a quick whiff.
"It's....vegetable oil," she concluded awkwardly. "The entire hallway is soaked in it, floor and ceiling," she said as she leaned her head over to look down the long hallway. "My first thought would have been Pinkie Pie, but not even she would do something hurtful like this."
"I'm going to bucking hang the damn pony who did this by their back hooves over a vat of boiling water if I ever get my hooves on them." Luna wheezed out angrily. "Then I'm going to bucking shove a mace down their throats and use them as bucking bait for fishing for Ice Eels."
"Hang on Luna."
Celestia opened her wings and hovered over the floor with a few well-timed flaps over towards Luna. She carefully lifted Luna off the ground and brought her back over into the library.
She pulled Luna's forelegs up because that would help her breathe normally and she knew the instinct was to hold your chest when something like that happens.
"Breath deeply," she said.
It took a minute, but Luna managed to regain her normal breathing pattern.
"We're fine sister, We're fine," Luna said as her breathing began to slow down to its normal rate, and stand back up.
"Let's try flying this time" Celestia suggested.
Luna nodded as the both of them opened their wings and carefully flap in a rhythm that let them hover over the floor.
"We can clean this later" Celestia sighed.
They quickly flew across the first long hallway and whenever they noticed a guard that had knocked themselves out from slipping, they pulled him or her into a room away from the hallway.
Eventually, they made it to the turn into the second long hallway where they immediately flew into something sticky and got their wings caught.
"What in Tartarus is this?" Luna screamed as she was struggling to get free.
Long strands of a sticky pink substance had filled the entire hallway, randomly strung from one side of the hallway to the other like a web.
"I believe it's gum," Celestia said. She leaned over bit off some of the gum on her wing before spitting it back out. "But it's still in its natural form without the sugar."
"Why would somepony use one of our childhood favorite snacks like that of what mother gave to us for such a nefarious purpose?" Luna asked.
"Hold on I have an idea," Celestia said after rolling her eyes.
Celestia's horn glowed and then the entire hallway froze over, causing the gum to harden and break. They caught themselves before hitting the floor and hovered once again over it.
Luna looked at Celestia with a raised eyebrow to which Celestia answered.
"What? It was a useful spell to learn. You wouldn't believe how many little colts and fillies in my school got their manes covered in this stuff by throwing it at each other" she said.
They flew the rest of the way through the second long hallway and into the throne room.
What they found when they entered had to be the strangest creature they have ever seen and worn the strangest clothes that they have ever seen in their long lives. A bipedal creature with no fur at all except a patch of silver and black hair atop its head and on its face was what looked to be a goatee. Its hands were smooth and smaller than those of Minotaur’s. It’s clothing if you could call them that were the most mismatched clothes they’ve seen yet. A purple suit with dark swirls and a swamp green undershirt with half purple pants and half swamp green. A single piece of what looked like scaled green armor was on his right forearm. He was also leaning on a simple oaken walking stick.
“What in-” Luna started.
The creature turned to face the two sisters and gave an unnaturally large smile that rivaled that of Pinkie Pie.
“Ah! Actual company! I was beginning to think these single-minded guards were the only people here. I’m so happy, I can just tear out your intestines and strangle you with them!” the creature cried happily.
Luna and Celestia looked at each other with bewildered looks before looking back at the unknown creature who appeared to be male from the sound of his voice.
“State your business here creature! Who and what are you?” commanded Luna.
The male creature kept his unnaturally big grin on his face before giving a slight bow.
“I suppose an introduction is in order. I’m Sheogorath, Prince of Madness. And other things. I’m not talking about them,” declared Sheogorath. “As far as my business goes I was in my vintage cheese room eating my vintage cheeses when I was summoned back to this stupidly colorful dimension of yours hoping I would find my old associate ruling over all of you with his chaos reigning over everything like cats from the sky and my madness spreading like butter. Especially after I went through all the trouble to give him one of the scrolls, but that doesn't seem to be THE CASE!"
The creature who introduced himself as Sheogorath spoke in an exaggerated accent of what the Sisters recognized as a mix between Lyrish and Trottish. Still confused by Sheogorath’s odd mannerisms, Celestia stepped forward in an attempt to intimidate this new adversary.
“I’m afraid I must disappoint you Prince Sheogorath. Discord has been defeated and reformed by one of my own subjects. If you are here to cause trouble in our kingdom I’m afraid we must disappoint you further,” Celestia replied.
Sheogorath continued to smile as he leaned over towards them on his cane.
“Reeeeellllyyyy?” he said incredulously.
As the sisters’ horns began to glow to fire off an offensive spell, Sheogorath looked in the direction of the Royal Library as if he could look through the walls and raised his left hand off of his cane.
“Oh well, then I suppose I should take back the scroll, and banish you to somewhere where savage animals will feast on your lungs and kidneys after playing leapfrog with your backsides and then spread madness here myself,” he said nonchalantly as he opened his hand and the Scroll and tome teleported into the room and his hands as his cane disappeared.
“Almost forgot about that book, oh well, you can keep it,” he said as the book flew towards Celestia and Luna as if it came to life.
They easily dodged the book, but realizing it was just a distraction, they turned back to Sheogorath to watch him similarly snapping his fingers to their own chaos spirit. Their eyes turned white and grew brighter and brighter before a field of swirling aura blew around them in a storm of energy. Just as she was losing consciousness, Luna could have sworn she heard the voice of a familiar violet alicorn very dear to her calling out her name directly behind her. She tried to turn her head to look while she could still see, but then her entire world faded into darkness.