//------------------------------// // The Three Circles // Story: Draconequus // by cheezesauce //------------------------------// “Quills... check! “Parchment... check! “Magnifying glasses, refractive lenses, stopwatch, vernier scales, micrometer scales, sextant, photometers, quadrant, gnomon... check! “Ah yes, the telescope...” Twilight grinned at the massive, sixteen inch telescope in front of her. “Check!” “And now, it’s time to begin... researching!” Twilight jammed her eye into the telescope’s eyepiece, adjusting the metal knobs carefully with both hooves and bringing the red moon into focus. It hovered like a ghostly red orb in the night sky, partially hidden behind thin wisps of clouds, in contrast to the bright stars that surrounded it like tiny, sparkling diamonds. Twilight rotated the telescope on its stand, sweeping past the blanket of stars and noting any anomalies before focussing back on the red moon. “It’s really strange,” Twilight whispered. She had heard about a lunar eclipse before, but had never gotten a chance to actually see one. Tonight was special. And of course, thanks to her monstrous telescope, she could magnify everything twenty times larger. Which made things even more special. The young scientist felt a smile creep onto her face as she fiddled again with the knobs, zooming in until she could see the craters and scars on the moon’s surface. Eclipses are strange, but nice, she decided. Nice. She turned the word over in her head. Today had been nice for her too, and by that she meant that everything had went smoothly according to schedule. She had finished all her chores for the week, and with Spike on a visit to Canterlot, she was left her peacefully alone in the library. To do research! Now, she could read that book on eclipses and watch it happen at the same time. Feeling a little dizzy with excitement, Twilight flipped open her book, Everything You Need to Know About Lunar Eclipses. She levitated her trusty notepad in front of her and jotted down some notes. “A lunar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes behind the Earth, such that the Sun, Earth, and Moon are aligned exactly,” Twilight narrated. “The red color arises from the bending of the Sun’s rays...” As Twilight wrote, she was faintly aware of how clearly she could hear her quill scratching on the parchment. Below her balcony, the streets of Ponyville were deserted except for one or two lonely pedestrians. She supposed it was because nopony felt too comfortable walking late at night under the ominous-looking moon. “Ah dunno Twilight... Granny Smith used ‘ta tell me some nasty tales of things happenin’ during eclipses.” Twilight sighed. Applejack, being as superstitious as ever. It was bad enough that mare believed in the ‘Pinkie sense’ phenomena, which... Twilight frowned. ...which turned out to be pretty accurate actually. But that was after much, much, much evidence. She still hadn’t figured out how the heck that worked anyway. Well, unlike Applejack, Twilight considered it nothing less than a privilege to be able to observe the eclipse. This would be the first time in over a thousand years, according to the archives. Twilight’s gaze drifted up from the quiet streets to the red moon. She felt a small shiver pass through her spine as she stared at the ghostly orb, but she gave herself a shake and it was gone as quickly as it had come. Miles away, the dark moon hovered like a dismal sentinel in the sky, sending shafts of its pale rays onto the treetops of the Everfree forest. Beyond the forest’s edge, large stone statues stood in a desolate graveyard. They were once part of a beautiful sculpture garden that had occupied that very same spot. But over half a century, seeds from the Everfree forest had found their way into the grounds. Gradually, the forest began to take the sculpture garden into its corrupted woods, leaving only the statues as a vague reminder of what the gardens once had been like. The grounds were eerily silent, as if all life had deserted the area, and a single statue lay out in the open. Its body was carved long and snakelike, ending in a monstrous, unearthly head. The moonlight settled on the stone, its pale rays bending and gathering together on its surface like iron filings to a magnet. The statue began to look uncannily realistic under the light. A single crack appeared on the stone, not more than a centimeter long. It began to deepen and lengthen, as if being cut by an invisible blade. A second crack appeared beside it, extending and deepening just like the first. Seconds later, a third crack appeared, and then a fourth. Fueled by the shafts of lunar light, the cracks and fissures worsened still, joining up along the statue and merging into a web. Bit by bit, the stone crumbled and peeled away, breaking off and falling among the tall grass. A figure emerged from the crumbling stone, barely noticeable in the darkness of the night. It lingered on for a while, before slithering deep into the Everfree forest. Twilight Sparkle lay in bed after a long night of stargazing. She couldn’t fall asleep, despite how tired it had left her. The sky outside was black, and it had to be a few hours past midnight. She shifted under the covers, poking her head out and snatching a quick glance at the alarm clock. She was right—it really was a few hours past midnight. Twilight gave out a sigh and flopped back onto the bed. She closed her eyes, focusing on the darkness behind her eyelids. The feather mattress hugged her body snugly, its shape gradually adjusting to her body weight and making her sink deeper and deeper into its soft material. Wrapping the covers around her, she completed a blissful cocoon of warmth. “Such soft, cottony beds...” the unicorn murmured, somewhere between wakefulness and sleep, as her head sank into the pillow. Moments later, Twilight was tugged out of sleep again. She flicked an ear in annoyance at whatever was bothering her, and then she decided she could use that ear for better things. She heard the chirping of crickets coming through her window, mixing with the rustling leaves of the library’s branches, and a faint scratching sound came from inside the library itself. Probably some animal managed to sneak in, she thought, swivelling her ears to pinpoint the source of the disturbance. Her library was a tree, after all, and lots of small animals loved to live in trees. The sound was coming from the main floor below. It was probably one of those squirrels that lived in the library’s branches; they had come in plenty of times before. She would even lay out pieces of fruit for them, watching them munch on the healthy treats. This one sounded a little different, but at any rate, there was nothing that she could do about it now, because her bed needed her desperately; she could almost hear it calling out to her. “Oh irresistible sweetness,” Twilight whispered, caressing the bedsheets. “I’d never leave you for some scratchy sound.” Hmm, speaking of which, what happened to that sound? It had disappeared, leaving only the chirping of the crickets. A single hoofstep cut through the silence of the night, and Twilight bolted upright, her bed forgotten. That was no squirrel. Somepony was down there, and she had to do something about it. Twilight threw off the covers and rolled out of bed, landing on all four hooves with a solid thud. Quick, think, Twilight. Thinkthinkthinkthink! Twilight fell back to her natural solution for most of life’s problems. Okay, things to do when something bad is happening at night: Item one: Identify the ‘something bad’. Twilight gulped. She really needed to redo this checklist, because that wasn’t a very good idea. Getting that information meant that she had to go down to have a look, which meant that she would be exposing herself to the threat, which could lead to undesirable results. But then again, this was her library. She ought to know what’s happening in it. Or maybe that could wait till tomorrow. It depended on who that pony was. Twilight listened to the strange sounds echoing from below, beginning to suspect some sort of burglary taking place. She must have forgotten to lock the door while Spike was away, leaving it wide open to strangers. A burglar was inside her house, possibly armed and dangerous. This was serious business. Item two: Devise strategies to avoid the threat. Twilight thought for a moment. She turned to face her bedroom door, lighting up her horn. Concentrating hard, she directed a swirling pulse of magic at it, surrounding the door with a faint purple aura. Slowly, the magic seeped into the wood, its glow disappearing into a spell lock. Okay, that ought to work for now. Twilight knew she wasn’t going to go down to have a look anytime soon, and hopefully, that pony wouldn’t come up the stairs either. She sat facing the door, waiting for the danger to pass. It wasn’t till the early hours in the morning that the sounds faded away, and she was able to fall into an uneasy sleep. Celestia stood at a white semicircular table, surrounded by professional-looking ponies, all wearing clean, white lab coats. These scientists were the best from all of Canterlot, experts in the fields of magical studies and science, and they looked ready to prove it. “Your highness, we were correct in our hypothesis about lunar eclipses containing magic,” a grey stallion began. He was wearing the Royal Canterlot Crest, a mark that identified him as the lead scientist of the team. Celestia’s brow creased. “This might be of a concern, Aether Scroll. Have you searched deeper into it to see what its effects are?” “Yes, and this should interest you,” Aether said, motioning at the table. A simple experimental setup was laid out, consisting of an empty beaker, a vial, and a dish. The dish held pieces of a faded gray solid, and was elevated up on a tripod stand. Celestia shifted her attention to the vial beside it, clamped by a holder. The substance it held seemed to be a light, semi-transparent liquid that pulsated with a faint red glow, resembling the colors of the eclipse last night. “Go on,” Celestia said, her eyes lingering on the vial. “Well...” Aether Scroll shifted uncomfortably on his hooves. “In truth, we haven’t been able to explain a lot of what’s happening. But it seems like there’s potential in this one. Let me do a quick demonstration to show what I mean.” The group of scientists proceeded to put on clear plastic safety goggles, as if they had rehearsed this long before Celestia’s arrival. She was passed a pair as well. “Here we have a sample of Trioxychloromethyl Pentoxysillicate... ” Aether began confidently, redirecting her attention towards the scraps of faded grey solid. Celestia gave a light laugh as she slipped on the glasses. Apparently the scientists had decided that inventing a few new terms would make up for their lack of a proper explanation. “Commonly known as stone, or fossilized grass to be exact,” another scientist offered. Aether tutted. “Partner, the princess obviously knows what that is. Furthermore, it is not simply stone; it is a very specific type of—” “I do know what that is,” interrupted Celestia, not wanting to hear the scientists bicker, “but it is necessary to familiarize myself with the terms of the laypony. Please, carry on.” She gave them a smile of encouragement. “Of course, your highness,” Aether said. “Moving on, we are now going to add a sample of moonlight from the eclipse.” He reached for the vial, holding it inches above the dish while gently uncorking it. With a delicate hoof, he proceeded to invert it, pouring its contents over the grey scraps. The faint red liquid vaporised the moment it came out of the container, becoming a light, almost intangible gas that slowly floated down to the dish like a heavy cloud of mist. It didn’t spread out the way normal gases do, instead collecting and flowing towards the dish. Once touched by the strange cloud of gas, the scraps began to change in color. Gradually at first, the stony grey became lighter and lighter. The process began to speed up, warping and turning the scraps into bright green. The gas disappeared, leaving behind blades of healthy, green grass. Celestia stared, her interest now piqued. Magic, as shown yet again, was a strange element, appearing in the unlikeliest places and always filled with surprises. She levitated the dish towards herself, pulling out a single blade of grass from the pile and examining it. “Very interesting. Aether, I trust your team to continue working on this discovery. Find out as much as you can, and keep me updated.” Celestia returned the blade of grass to the dish. “It is an inconvenience that I could not have done this myself. My regular duties will always take precedence over additional research initiatives. That being said, do not hesitate to ask me for assistance if you need to.” “You can rely on us, Princess. I daresay we’ll have ourselves a breakthrough in no time,” Aether said, touching a hoof to his chest proudly. “Excellent, and do find out what other types of fossils are affected as well.” “Of course, your highness.” Celestia folded her goggles and set them neatly down on the table. “Well then, if there are no further queries, I will take my leave.” With a small smile on her face, the sun goddess made her way out of the room. A light, frantic knocking on the library’s front door woke Twilight up in the morning. “I’m coming,” the unicorn groaned. She pushed open the door and stumbled out of her room. Her vision was blurry, as if she were looking through a pair of fogged-up goggles. Still, she managed to navigate her way down the stairs, blinking occasionally to clear the bleariness from her eyes. She gave herself a rough shake, flinging away the last remnants of sleep that clung on to her coat. “Come in.” The small golden knob of the front door wobbled as the pony outside tried it. “Twilight, the door’s still locked.” It was a delicate, silvery voice, sounding as if it belonged to a refined mare. “Oh, oops,” Twilight mumbled as she flicked the lock, swinging the door open with her magic. “Hi, Rarity! What brings you here so early in the morning?” “Forgive me, Twilight. I’m terribly sorry to bother you.” The fashion designer sounded as if she was bringing some great inconvenience, while her eyes began drifting over to Twilight’s messy bed-mane. “I didn’t wake you up, did I? I was just thinking of borrowing one of your splendid reference books for a very special client arriving later.” “Oh sure,” Twilight said. “Come on in.” She watched as the white unicorn trotted into the library before closing the door and flicking the lock shut. Twilight stared at the small metal lock. It was odd that she had needed to unlock it in the first place. Twilight gasped. Especially since that was how the pony got in last night! The burglary! She had to— “Twilight, I thought you would usually be up much earlier, being the ever so hardworking pony that you are.” “Yes, yes,” Twilight cut her off impatiently. The events from last night flooded back to her, but she didn’t want to cause any unnecessary alarm to her friend just yet. She needed time to work things out, to find out what went missing. Twilight turned back to her friend. “Um Rarity, tell me if you find anything unusual around here, anything at all—broken windows, for example.” Rarity gave her a curious look before shrugging it off. “All right, darling. I’ll take note of that.” She ran a hoof through her mane and headed off to the reference books section. Twilight moved off in the opposite direction, checking for signs of a break-in. She scanned the windows, shelves, everything. To her surprise, things were intact and completely normal. Even the books remained neatly arranged on the shelves just like the night before. Twilight stopped, tapping a hoof to her chin. It looked like there was no evidence of a break in to her, but she knew that there were sounds coming from the library last night. Or at least she thought she knew... Twilight let out a long sigh, wondering if it could all have been a really bad dream. Her sleep-deprived mind struggled to keep up with all her thoughts, punishing her with a throbbing headache. “Why, what have we here?” Rarity’s voice echoed from the other end of the library. “Hold on, I’m coming!” Twilight dropped her thoughts, turning around and cantering over to Rarity. “What is it?” Twilight skidded to a halt next to Rarity, who seemed to be inspecting the oak floor of the library. When she noticed it, Twilight felt a chill run down her spine. A strange marking had appeared, carved faintly into the wood. It had a simple design, consisting of a large circle, followed by a medium sized one, and finally, a tiny little circle. Three circles, their centres aligned side by side in a neat row. “There’s another one here,” Rarity said. Twilight looked to see another symbol several hoofsteps away, identical to the first. She stared at it, not liking the idea of strange symbols appearing in her library, especially ones that she wasn’t familiar with. “Twilight, were you planning to draw these”—Rarity flicked her hoof—“things all over your library?” She had spotted several more of the markings, and clasped a forehoof over her mouth, her eyes widening at the impending fashion disaster. “It really doesn’t suit well,” she continued, removing the forehoof and setting it down. “At least you’ve only gotten a few... We could cover them up, and then I’ll give you some marvellous design patterns that you could use for your whole library.” Twilight was too focused on the symbol to give a response. She traced the thin lines of the three circles with her hoof. From the look of how perfectly rounded they were, she knew that they couldn’t possibly be muzzle-carved. Or horn-carved, perhaps?  No, not even unicorns could have that level of accuracy with their tools, despite having a better grip thanks to their magic. To top it all off, they actually looked familiar, as if she had seen them before. “Twilight, is there something bothering you?” “Oh... No, nothing,” answered Twilight, her eyes still glued to the ground. “Well, it does appear that you are busy,” Rarity sighed. She had already picked out three consecutive volumes of Elements of Design whilst waiting. The fashion designer glanced at a large clock hanging on the far wall of the library, remembering why she was here early in the first place. “I’d best be going now,” Rarity decided. “I simply cannot imagine being late for my appointment, you know.” Giving a weak chuckle, she headed out of the library, the three heavy tomes floating behind in an aura of light blue. Hardly noticing, Twilight paced round and round. First, it sounded as if somepony was around here last night. And the very next morning these shapes appear on the floor...  Twilight swirled the information around in her head. Though she found it difficult to imagine how that pony managed to carve such perfect shapes, at least it would explain the scratching sound. There were still many unanswered questions: Why would somepony do that? How did he or she get into the library in the first place? What do these symbols even mean? Grabbing her notepad, Twilight traced out the shapes as accurately as she could. Satisfied with the sketches, she turned to the giant shelves that occupied every spare corner in her library. Books filled up most of the shelves, arranged from the base till the top rows, and the shelves themselves almost scraped against the ceiling. She would find the answers to the symbols in one of them, because that’s what books were for—answers. And I’m sure I’ll have them in no time! Hours later, the unicorn had massed up a pile of discarded books that was several times larger than herself. Still more flew out of the shelves, each given a quick scan before being unceremoniously dumped on the pile. While Rarity had a knack for picking out small details, Twilight realised she could easily scan through book titles and get a rough overview of their contents. None of her friends were convinced that it was a hidden talent though, and Rainbow Dash had cleverly dubbed it as another ‘epic egghead habit’. Twilight huffed in annoyance, magically flinging yet another book away. “This is ridiculous.” The unicorn grabbed the next book from the shelf. “But you know what?” she said, staring at its rich brown covers. “I’m gonna continue searching! Because one does not simply give up in the middle of research.” Twilight looked at the number of shelves that had yet to be searched through and her eye gave a dangerous twitch. It was going to be a long day.