Chapter 1
Room to Worry
Today began as any other day for Celestia, that is to say, at night. As the sole controller of the sun, Luna says it doesn't like her and will actively refuse to be moved by her, Celestia needs to raise the sun every day. Meaning that she needs to wake up at night to make the transition to day.
For Celestia, the morning routine was one of the more pleasurable parts of her day. It would consist of sliding out of bed onto the soft and simple a grey rug below. Smelling the mix of night air and hot, fresh tea, doubtless brought to her by the sneaky maid Quiet Feather, who had the incredible ability to move within the princesses rooms without notice. Something Celestia was equally impressed with and frightened by. She would often wake up early and try to catch the stealthy maid in action, but without the aid of magic, this task proved to be too difficult for her.
She did not drink the tea immediately, but instead goes her royal bath chambers to prepare for the upcoming day. Aided by magic, her morning method for assembling the ensemble that was the image of Princess Celestia was swift and effortless.
Shower, to feel fresh,
Put up her mane to dry in her signature, perfect wave,
Brush her teeth to a sheen, and to get the royal physician to stop nagging,
Comb her fur to perfect straightness,
Apply the perfect amount of makeup,
Releasing her mane from the towel,
and finally don her royal regalia, shoes and all.
She used to use many different maids and stylists for her morning routine. Over time, however, she found that her employed did not seem to care as much as she did for the morning ceremony, often giving varying results on the state of her appearance. That and the quickness of her performance meant that the tea left out in the bedroom would be at the perfect temperature for consumption.
Lifting the cup and saucer from the table, she strode out onto the balcony, taking a sip in preparation for dawn. Setting the tea on the edge of the balcony, her eyes moved to her sister's tower, and, with a look, began the practiced art of painting the dawn. Ever since the return of her sister, Celestia has regretted making two separate towers for each of them, it put so much distance between them she felt, though she knew that was not the case.
'Maybe I could have made them a little closer together, at the very least,' she thought.
Moving back inside, with tea in magic, of course, Celestia rested herself on a cushion just inside the balcony doors. She was nearly finished with her morning routine, and, as usual, was sad to watch it go. Aside from dinning with her beloved sister, it was something she looked forward to. It was a welcome start to dealing with nobles, taxes and laws that took up much of her day, and gave her the motivation to get out of bed.
With a sigh, she returned to reality. She set her now finished tea down in favor of her daily itinerary, making sure to commit it to memory before leaving the sanctity of her room. This was the final step in her morning routine, and prepared her mentally to prepare for the coming tasks. After only a few readings through the list, she set it back on the table, ready to face the day.
Celestia was almost done with the Day Court, the last petitioner was making their plea for additional resources to be allocated to the agricultural research funds, a reasonable request, as far as Celestia's experience was concerned. The stallion was light grey in coloration, with hair that was streaked either darker or lighter colors than his coat, giving the appearance of marble. His eyes were blue and full of youthful energy, and he was brimming with confidence about his great and grand new plan for agricultural development. Which made it quite difficult for Celestia to break the news that Equestiria was in a place of great satisfaction in terms of agriculture, with both growth and supply exceeding expectations nearly every year. Celestia hated this aspect of her job the most. The stallion, Marble Grain, had obviously put a considerable amount of effort into this plan and accompanying presentation, and it pained Celestia to dash his plans so.
"And now, Court is adjourned! ", Celestia called to the guards, who promptly shut the doors when Marble passed through.
"What would you like to do now, Princess?", Raven asked, knowing that Celestia would follow the schedule, but asking anyway out of courtesy.
"I think now is a fine time for lunch," Celestia responded, giving her most trusted aid a warm smile.
"I shall have it prepared. What would the Princess like?"
"Tell the chefs to make whatever they please, I do not feel cravings for anything specific."
"Very well, Princess," Raven responded as she sent out one of her own many aids to relay the Princess' message to the chefs.
"Raven"
"Yes Princess," Raven spoke, preparing a quill and notepad in her magic.
"Take a note, I would like that last petitioner, the stallion by the name of Marble Grain, to be considered for the Council of Agriculture, he made such a wonderful argument, I almost agreed to his proposal."
"Of course, Princess, it will be done," Raven responded, already stashing the notepad with the written note back in her saddlebags.
The pair continued onward down the hallway, walking in tandem. They were a regular sight around the castle. During the day, it was normal to see Raven never leave Celestia's side. To any newcomer though, the pair would look rather irregular. Raven was in stark contrast to Celestia, and not just in height. She was shorter than most unicorns, making her almost a third of Celestia's height, but the the major differences came in coloration. Raven had deep purple coat, almost appearing black in anything except direct light. Her mane was a shiny jet black, tied back into a bun. She wore cream, oval reading glasses, which were set a little down in front of her crimson red eyes. On her back, was a set of saddle bags, plain in decoration and cream in color, like her glasses. Her cutie mark depicts a single red ravens wing, almost the same color as her eyes. They walked the rest of the way to the dinning hall in silence, both contemplating various aspects of the day to come.
Upon approaching the doors to the hall, just before Celestia could open the doors, a wave of magic, strong enough to sway her balance, struck her. Stumbling for a moment before regaining balance, she looked around. Raven had completely lost her balance, laying sprawled out on the stone floor, trying to recover quickly. The guards had fared only slightly better than poor Raven. Many of them were still on at least two of their four hooves, and where standing back up quickly.
"Guard!" Celestia called to one of the few guards who, like her, were able to keep their balance, "Fetch my sister! Tell her to meet me below Canterlot."
"Yes your majesty!", the guard called, already galloping to Luna's tower.
"Raven, gather the rest of the Guard and search for any hurt"
"Yes your majesty!" Raven nodded, back to her hooves.
Celestia charged up a teleportation spell, and, releasing with a pop and flash, disappeared.
Luna, being fast asleep, thought she was rather rudely awakened. A guard was pounding on her door, calling to her. A bit groggy from being awoken before time, she slid out of bed, using magic to quickly don her regalia, though not worrying about the appearance of her coat or main.
"Why disturb us?" Luna spoke with a bit of venom as she quickly pulled open the doors, glaring at the offending guard.
The guard in question, gulping, said, "There was a magical disturbance, a wave. it knocked everyone, save your sister and a few guards flat on their bellies."
Luna stood their for a moment, continuing to stare at the guard, though in a slightly more forgiving way. The guard continued to look, wide eyed in fear and awe, at Luna.
"And did my sister ask anything of us, or did you decide to disturb your princess' slumber all by yourself?"
"Oh!" finally shocking out of his stupor, "She wanted you to meet her below Canterlot." Luna now stared quizzically at the guard.
After a few seconds of slight confusion from Luna and mounting dread from the guard, she turned and closed the door to her chambers. Lighting the torches in her room, Luna still preferred the look and sound of fire over the magic light that the rest of the world uses, she made her way to her desk.
Piled high with books, parchments, letters, scrolls and various other types of reading materials, she started rummaging through the drawers looking for her map of Canterlot. Princess Celestia had thought to give her a map of their new home a few days after her arrival, though Luna was a quick study, and had already memorized the important aspects of the castle even before receiving the map, she still needed it to find the more obscure locations that Celestia had built into the castle.
"Below the castle..." Luna muttered to herself.
Glancing over the few top level maps of the castle in favor of the lower sections, she found a single line of text about what she thought her sister meant. Written in Celestia's own cursive, just above a oval arch, was the words 'Crystal Caverns'. Celestia only ever wrote things onto these maps if they were only for the Princesses eyes only. After a few moments of thought, she charged her own teleportation spell, targeting the location her sister had written in on the map.
After a pop and flash that Luna was familiar with, she found herself at the entrance to what looked like a mine shaft, one that was abandoned ages ago. The tracks and wheels of the minecarts seemed well enough, but where still rusty in places. The wood was a different story, as it was rotted and broken, seemingly from many years of neglect. The walls started out as merely rock and dirt, but quickly transitioned into crystals, almost as if you were looking into a giant geode.
Luna walked forward past the precipice of crystals, lighting a magical light while doing so. The light it cast seemed to reflect off of the walls and various stalactite and stalagmite structures in staggered and odd ways, something other than just simple refraction. Luna noticed this and immediately cast a different light spell. This one, while not as potent, did not rely on magical light itself, rather, it only created a source of light. This new light quelled the odd retractions and confirmed Luna's suspicions about the magic-absorbing properties of the crystals. Walking further still, Luna felt the air grow arid and hot, the opposite type of air this cave should contain.
"This is... odd", Luna said aloud.
"Sister? Luna, come over here!", Luna heard her sister's voice call from somewhere deeper within the caves.
Looking briefly around and immediately giving up, Luna called back, "Thou shalt need a little more specificity, dear sister," a tinge of annoyance being summoned, and quickly dispelled.
"...Sorry. I forgot how tricky these caves can be. I have walked them many times." Celestia called back, "Give me a moment."
Luna stood, still observing the crystalline structures that towered over her. 'The caverns where akin to a mirror maze', she thought, 'annoying and difficult to navigate without magic.
But because of the properties of these caves, magic is rendered mute,' her train of thought continued.
Laughter.
Luna's ears perked up. Did she hear that? or was it just another trick from the cavern's
moments later, a thin trail of golden magic lit up, just below eye level for Luna. Surmising that this was her sister's doing, she followed without hesitation, almost forgetting the light tittering laugh she heard. The path that she walked was sometimes winding, sometimes straight, and seemed to go on for fair longer than she thought it would. Her confusion and wonder of this strange cavern grew the farther she walked. Her sister's voice carried for far longer than it should have, potentially aided by the flat sides and unique acoustic properties of crystal.
'Or perhaps,' Luna thought, 'there was a magical reason behind this. I shall need to ask Celestia what her research about this place uncovered.'
Luna could tell she was getting closer, the dryness and arid feeling were getting stronger with every step. Rounding the final corner, Luna finally laid eyes on her sister, and the thing that caused the magical disturbance.
Before her was something spectacular, something that was almost impossible to explain, even with magic. Inside of a crack in a crystal, a crack that ran sixty feet up to the ceiling and was ten feet at its widest point, tapering towards each end, was a gateway to another world. around the edges, where the portal bordered with the crystal, there was a melding of world and crystal, seemingly swimming together in a space about an inch wide, making it impossible to tell exactly where the alien world ended and the crystal started. The world itself was, in Luna's opinion, unappealing, being almost purely desert, broken up with very bland rock formations. But, aside from her personal thoughts, this was simply the single most astounding thing she had ever seen, a gateway to another world. An honest to goodness portal between dimensions. She was awestruck with sheer excitement, it had to be studied, it had to be researched and tested! Her giddiness was quickly dashed when she saw her sister haphazardly flinging rocks and sand back into it.
"Sister, woulds't thou call this a regular occurrence?" Luna asked solemnly, with no attempt to hide disappointment.
"I wouldn't call it regular," her sister responded, still flinging debris. "Its more of a 'once a century' occurrence."
"And why, prey tell, are we not studying it?"
"I already have, Luna", Celestia responded without pausing, "About two-hundred years after you went away, the first portal occurred. I believe they are caused by a highly magically charged crystal spontaneously discharging at the right frequency. I have not found a good way to stop them from happening."
"Should we be worried?"
"No, not at all! As far as I can tell, only inanimate objects and magic can come through, and throwing everything back and sealing up the crack seems to prevent cross-world contamination"
"And how stable woulds't thou call this gate?"
"Very stable! I let one go for about a month under strict quarantine."
"Oh, so nothing to worry about then?"
"No, sister. One portal let in a toxic cloud, but this one seems to be devoid of danger and life. I couldn't detect anything for hundreds of miles. Now, will you help me throw back these rocks? I think I got most of the sand."
Luna was not entirely convinced of her sisters explanation and lack of concern. To her, it was very worrying. To have a random gateway to another dimension randomly opening in the caves beneath the most populated and important city in Equestria, with potentially hazardous consequences was more than a reason to be concerned. But Luna did trust her sister, and started moving items back into the portal.
After everything was sent through, the gate was surprisingly simple to close, as it only required a brief disruption of the event horizon, in the form of a basic level magical blast, to cause a chain reaction completely closed the gate. Luna was still disappointed that she could not study the phenomenon, but Celestia assured her that she had written a couple books of notes on various experiments she had tried. She also promised that Luna could run some of her own experiments on the next gate. This sated Luna's curiosity for the time, but did nothing to bandage the small bit of worry that nested in the pit of her stomach.
"Sister, art thou sure everything is alright?" Luna asked her sister as they walked out of the caverns.
"Of course." she paused, "I didn't detect anything living or magical in those caves, nor any foreign life or magic in Canterlot." Celestia said, attempting to reassure her sister's concerns, "There is nothing to worry about. Now, since your already up, would you care to join me for lunch before retiring back to bed?"
Luna sighed, smiling, "Of course sister, we would be happy to dine with thee."