It had taken longer than anypony was expecting for the books to get even partially sorted. Twilight had been so eager to totally reorganize a library that she forgot to consider the fact that she had no idea how any of these had even been organized before, and she had to go through the books one by one to figure out where to place them. As a result, her normal filing systems became utterly impractical.
Disappointing as it was, alphabetical order would just have to do.
Around an hour and a half later, everything had been reshelved in loosely alphabetical order. Twilight frowned at it, her cheeks puffed up in annoyance. “...Spike, that ‘E’ book is in the ‘C’ section.”
Spike glared at her. “Twilight. No. Bad. Stop.”
“But-”
“Stooop it.”
Twilight puffed up her cheeks at him even more, her wings ruffling at her sides. “Hmph. Now who’s the killjoy?” she asked in a deadpan.
Spike chuckled in amusement and lightly punched her on the shoulder. “I might be a killjoy, but you are always gonna be the killjoy!” he declared with decisiveness.
“Oh, uhm, I don’t know about that,” Fluttershy muttered, tugging absently at her mane.
Spike turned to her with his arms crossed. “Fluttershy, I’ve lived with this nutty book pony for, quite literally, my entire life. If I say she’s the killjoy, she’s the killjoy.”
“Um… okay.”
Twilight rolled her eyes and playfully shoved Spike. “Oh, hardy har.”
Thorax looked on from Fluttershy’s side with an amused smile. Angel was situated on his head, using his horn as a makeshift handhold so he didn’t fall off. “Heh. Well, you’re in higher spirits, at least,” he pointed out, nodding at Twilight with a warm smile. “You were kinda down earlier.”
Twilight hesitated before nodding. “R-right. Yeah, I guess so,” she admitted, rubbing the back of her head. “Sorry. But hey, I got it out of my system! And now all these books are ready for us to explore and read!”
“That they are,” Spike agreed, hopping down from her back and walking forward a few paces. “So, how we doing this? I mean…” he gestured at all the books. “There’s a lot to cover here.”
Twilight looked up again, her eyes shimmering with anticipation. “There is. There really is…” she mumbled dreamily. There were so many books in here, she honestly wasn’t sure where to start. Her heart sped up just a little at the thought of reading so many of them. It may have been her imagination, but she could have sworn her mouth was starting to water-
A carrot then clocked her in the side of the head, jarring her from her trance. She gave off a quiet grunt and shook her head before turning to face the offender. She found a smugly grinning, unrepentant Angel Bunny staring back at her, his paws rubbing together.
A few giggles went around the group before Twilight huffed and spoke up. “Ugh. Spike has a point, there’s a lot of books here, and we’re kind of going in blind,” she said, raising her voice to address the whole group. “We’re looking for any information that’s connected to the Tree of Harmony, the Elements of Harmony, or anything even remotely related. We’re looking for clues about the chest that it presented to me. It has six keyholes, so I am assuming there are six keys needed to open it. I have no idea where to begin looking for those keys, though, and that’s what we’re here to fix.”
She turned and gestured widely at the chamber. “But like Spike said, we don’t really know a whole lot of the books in here, so we’re going to have to do this the old fashioned way. We’ll go through each section one at a time and pick up any books we come across that sound like they might be related. Then we’ll come together and scour them for any clues.”
She turned and began to point at each member of the group, one at a time, as she dished out instructions. “Spike, I want you to browse through ‘A’ through ‘F.’ Fluttershy, I want you to get ‘G’ through ‘L.’ Thorax, ‘M’ through ‘S.’ I’ll take ‘T’ Through ‘Z.’ Let the rest of us know if you find anything particularly noteworthy when going through your books so that I can skim them. I’m probably the fastest reader here, so that will give the rest of you a chance to scour other options. Sound like a plan?”
There were no objections, although Fluttershy did glance over at Angel with a curious frown. “Um… what about Angel? Can he do anything to help?”
Angel began furiously squeaking and waving his paws around in a clearly negative gesture.
“If you didn’t want to help, why did you come along?” Fluttershy asked with a raised eyebrow.
Angel opened his mouth and pointed at it emphatically.
“Oh. Well, if you help us, I’ll give you extra carrots on top of your regular dinner. Does that sound good?”
Angel crossed his arms and looked away.
“Extra extra carrots?”
Angel glanced back at her as if tempted, before resolutely returning to his refusal.
Fluttershy put on the sweetest smile she could, her eyes shimmering. “Pretty please?”
Angel gave off a high-pitched sigh before turning back to her and letting out a begrudging series of squeaks. Fluttershy clopped her hooves together with a smile before turning back to Twilight. “Angel can help me with my books.”
“Good idea. The rest of us can’t exactly understand the little guy,” Spike agreed. “So, A through F, right?”
“Right,” Twilight confirmed, glancing up at the roof. Her brow knitted with mild annoyance. The light streaming in through the grand window in the back was turning a dark shade of orange. They were definitely not going to be heading back today. “We’ll look around for a couple hours, then we should probably try and get some rest. We can keep looking in the morning if we haven’t found anything by then.”
“And if we don’t find anything tomorrow?” Thorax ventured carefully. “How long are we planning to stay out here? I mean, Wind and Squall are going to be worried if I take too long, and this castle is in the middle of the Everfree Forest…”
“Not to mention Rainbow,” Spike pointed out, his lips curling into a frown. “We all know how she gets. If you aren’t there when we get back, she’s probably gonna get real worried real fast.”
Twilight paused, her ears drooping. That was a problem, wasn’t it? Rainbow had always been excessively protective of her, and given recent events, Twilight could only imagine she would be even more so than ever before. The mere idea of making the pegasus needlessly worry, especially with how much anxiety she was still trying to deal with…
“...If we don’t find anything by the end of tomorrow, then we’ll head back the next morning,” she decided with a firm nod. “If worse comes to worst, we can always come back and keep looking another time.”
Spike gave her a thumbs up before turning and waddling off for the ‘A’ section. “Sounds good. Let’s hop to it!” he called back over his shoulder.
A general vocalization of agreement came from the others, and they all scattered to their assigned areas. Twilight watched them all go for a second, taking the chance to internally appreciate everything they were doing for her right now; to go so far out of their way for her sake, especially Thorax, given he wasn’t nearly as close to her as Fluttershy or Spike.
“I really have the best friends in the world,” she thought, smiling softly. With that warm thought chasing away the cold that had taken up roost in her heart, she set off for the ‘T’ section.
Sadly, it turned out that ‘the best friends in the world’ was not synonymous with ‘the best at finding information in a thousand-year-old library.’ Twilight resisted the urge to groan under her breath as yet another tome of red herrings and dead-end leads snapped shut before her muzzle, affording her a view of the others.
After they had collected their first batch of books, they all assembled at a nearby table and got to work skimming over what they had found. As they had planned, anything that seemed particularly relevant was shuffled over to Twilight for her to pore over while the others kept searching in broad strokes. It was definitely effective, albeit somewhat slow, and a backlog was starting to form. Twilight was a fast and thorough reader, but even she had limits, amazingly.
However, Twilight’s reading speed proved to be all but irrelevant. She had forgotten about the old dialect these books were written in, and it took quite a while to get fully accustomed to what each one was trying to tell her. Once she had it down, the information was fascinating, she had to admit, but translating the old, antiquated letters and speech patterns had slowed all of them down significantly, adding a layer of frustration to what would have otherwise been a relaxing and thought-provoking study session.
More layers of frustration would be added with each and every book Twilight went through. Each one had something that seemed somewhat related: notes on ancient relics or places of power, common arcane trends between such locations and objects, and the typical methods of interacting with or getting around any relevant hazards.
But none of them really had anything to do with the Tree or the Chest. Anything even remotely close was still too far detached or off-topic to be of any help. The Tree of Harmony and the Chest were wholly unique magical forces, and it was becoming more and more apparent with time that the odds of anypony having encountered anything similar in the past were slim to none.
Unable to resist the groan any longer, Twilight heavily brought the book down onto the table with enough force to jostle the rest of its contents. She took a few seconds to breath and calm herself down, not wanting a repeat of what happened back in the Golden Oaks.
“...Um… are you okay?” Fluttershy’s tentative whisper of a voice called out to her, drawing her attention back to her assembled friends.
Twilight shrank down into her seat when she realized all of them were looking back at her with varying degrees of confusion and concern. Thorax took it a step further, actually looking apprehensive. Twilight swallowed heavily and sighed, gingerly pushing the book away. “I’m sorry… I was hoping we’d have gotten somewhere by now, but, well… nothing, yet. I’m starting to think this might be a lost cause.”
Spike frowned. “But… it was Celestia herself who sent us out here,” he pointed out. “She told us, no doubt about it, there is at least one book in here that can help you.”
Twilight scoffed and slid out of her seat. “Well, it wouldn’t be the first time she was wrong about something,” she said, unable to keep the bitterness from slipping into her voice.
“Twilight?” Fluttershy called after her, the pegasus rising up from her seat.
Twilight paused, the coals in her skull dying out. She sagged, her ears drooping before turning back to face her fillyhood friend, offering her a small smile. “I’m okay, Fluttershy… I’m just going to talk a little walk and clear my head, okay? You all can keep reading if you want.” She didn’t wait for a response. She set off down the first row of books she came across, eager to lose herself among the shelves and get a hold of herself.
As she left the light of the candles behind, she was soon enveloped in near-total darkness. Twilight slowed her pace to a snail’s pace, mindlessly ambling between the shelves. She took a deep breath, holding her hoof up to her chest. She allowed the musty, dusty scent of ancient books to fill her nostrils and soothe her thoughts before breathing out and pushing her hoof away. She repeated the motion once, then twice, and finally a third time before, at last, she felt more or less like herself again.
The breathing exercise did not, unfortunately, do much to chase off the confusion and anxiety in the back of her mind. Her spikes of anger were becoming increasingly concerning. How long could she go like this before one of them was too much for her to handle? What if one of them came about and she lost control, lashing out at her friends? What if she hurt them? What if she hurt Rainbow?
She shuddered, leaning against the side of a bookcase with a hushed whimper. It was a terrible thought and an even worse possibility. The worst part, though, was that it was entirely possible, and she had no idea what to do to prevent it.
She remained like that, slumped against the case, and tried to dissect some course of action she could take in her mind for quite some time. Eventually, she was pulled out of her morbid worrying when the tell-tale scraping of claws on stone reached her ears. She looked back to see Spike waddling into view, bathed in the flickering orange glow of the candlestick held in his claws.
“Hey… you feeling any better?” he asked tentatively as he drew closer.
Twilight nodded. “A little,” she said, a half-truth at best.
Spike hummed. He set the candlestick down before coming closer and putting a claw to her shoulder. “You’ve got a lot on your mind,” he said softly. “But you’ll figure it out. We’ll figure it out. We always have before, this won’t be any different.”
Twilight took a deep breath and smiled down at him. “Heh… I hope you’re right about that,” she said, reaching down to pat him on the head.
“I am!” he assured her. “I don’t think I’ve been wrong about that yet!”
Twilight gave a more energetic laugh at that. She pushed herself away from the bookcase and nodded down at him. “Alright. If you say so,” she said in agreement, deciding there was no harm in trusting his word on the matter for the time being.
He flashed her a toothy grin before turning to head back for his candlestick. “Anyway, we’re thinking we’re gonna wrap it up and get some shut-eye. We’re all getting kinda tired, and we might be able to work better with some actual sleep.”
“Sleep, huh?” Twilight echoed, starting to follow after him. Now that he mentioned it, she was pretty tired. Some rest would probably do her a world of good. If nothing else it would help her clear her head so she could focus better on the morrow. She took a few steps after the baby dragon, igniting her horn to light the way.
When they emerged from the shelves, Thorax and Fluttershy were already pulling over the various pillows that had been laid out before, dusting them off for use. Angel was looking at them impatiently, tapping one of his feet against the table. He glanced back as Twilight and Spike returned, then squeaked and chattered at Fluttershy.
“Just a moment, Angel, we’re almost ready,” Fluttershy told him.
Angel, apparently, did not approve of this. He gave off the tiniest draconic growl that Twilight had ever heard, rolled up some invisible sleeves, and then leaped for a chair that sat between him and Fluttershy, probably to use it as a launchpad to accost the pegasus. He landed on the backrest, already crouching to pounce.
And then the chair tilted backward.
Twilight’s eyes widened when she heard the sound of gears grinding, and her eyes caught the glint of old steel as the chair tilted back at a strangely uniform angle. Angel squeaked in alarm, falling from the chair’s backrest to land with a tiny thump on the cold stone below.
“Oh my goodness! Angel!” Fluttershy exclaimed, quickly reaching down to pick him up. “Are you okay?!”
Angel made angry, indignant rabbit noises.
“Oh, thank goodness!”
Twilight frowned at the bunny, her feathers ruffling in irritation. She was happy to tolerate him because of how much he meant to Fluttershy, but she could not for the life of her ever figure out why Fluttershy liked him so much. He was like an angry little devil.
“Uh, guys?” Thorax suddenly spoke up, drawing everyone’s attention to him. His eyes were glued onto the wall on the other end of the table, his ears pointing forwards. “There’s something in the walls.”
“What?” Twilight asked, swiveling her ears forward as well.
Sure enough, she could hear something moving in the walls. A steady ticking sound, like gears moving together in some great clockwork machine. It was getting louder, too, and she could feel a subtle tremor in the floor to accompany it.
“Angel, what did you do?!” Fluttershy asked, her ears folding back. “Is it a trap?! Are we in danger?!”
In answer to Fluttershy’s question, two of the bookcases that sat against the wall suddenly lurched forward with a crack of stone grinding on stone. A cloud of dust was kicked forward from the sudden movement, drawing an alarmed squeak out of Fluttershy. She quickly dove behind Thorax for cover as the changeling spread into a defensive stance.
The bookcases then opened out like a sliding door, revealing an archway hidden in the wall that led to an isolated chamber. Twilight’s eyes widened at the sight. Two windows were set into the back wall, one depicting a stylized abstraction of the sun shining down on the Equestrian countryside, while the other showed a crescent moon over a collection of stars. Tapestries that were practically untouched hung between the windows, shifting slightly in the aftermath of the secret door’s thunderous opening.
A collection of pillows was set up by the bookcase, half purple, and half pink. A reclining chair not unlike Rarity’s fainting couch was against the opposite wall. A dusty round wooden table was off on the right side of the room, a grey cup set down on its surface. In the very center of the room was a stone pedestal, at the top of which was a thick, leather-bound book that looked to have been made by hoof.
Twilight swallowed and stepped inside, lighting up her horn to see better. Her eyes were immediately drawn to the book above all else. She approached the pedestal, briefly looking around for any signs of a trap. There were none to be had that she could see, thankfully, so she approached the pedestal.
The Journal of the Two Sisters.
Twilight’s eyes widened. She took the book in her magic and flipped it open, skimming the first few pages with interest. There was a short entry accompanied by a collection of rudimentary sketches depicting hidden chambers, a long corridor with hooves reaching from the walls, and a trap door.
The blurb of text read: “I love to duck behind the paintings, and though the hall of hooves still gives her a bit of a fright, the trap-door slide is Luna’s favorite!”
Twilight turned the page, finding more sketches and another paragraph or two of text. The sketches depicted an elaborate pipe organ with lines connecting it to various seemingly random objects: a wall sconce shaped like a hoof, a suit of ancient pony plate armor, a trap door, and an extravagant throne.
“Soon, the Organ to The Outside will be finished! I can hardly wait!”
“Huh… interesting,” Twilight muttered, lightly lifting the book in her magic and turning to the others. “I think this might have been the book Celestia was talking about.”
“Oh? How do you know?” Fluttershy asked, poking her head out from behind Thorax.
“Well, for one thing, it’s hidden,” Twilight pointed out, gesturing to the room around them. “Secondly, she specified one book, and that it would be hidden. Third, this is her and Luna’s old journal from when they were fillies!”
“So… do you think maybe she talked about the Tree in there at all?” Spike asked, raising an eyebrow.
Twilight beamed. “I have no idea! But there’s one way to find out!” she declared before flopping down onto a nearby cushion and turning to page one. “I’m going to read through this for a while. You all go ahead and get some rest.”
“How ironic,” her own voice grumbled in her skull. “Taking advice from the very pony who punished us in the first place; from her brown childhood ramblings, no less.”
Twilight’s smile faltered, her nostrils flaring. She did not dignify the voice with a response this time, however, instead focusing on the words on the first page. A few moments passed in silence before the voice spoke up again. “Ignoring me, are you?”
“You’re just a symptom,” Twilight thought clinically. “A side effect from my last blunder. All you are is an irritating voice in my head, and I don’t have to listen to anything you say.”
“Adorable,” the voice chuckled in amusement. “You’re still not getting it.”
“It’s adorable that you think this conversation is still open.”
“Ooh! The worm has some bark!” The voice exclaimed in a condescending tone. “Such a pity she has no bite. She never will. Not without me.”
“I said the conversation is closed.”
“Then why are you still talking?”
Twilight snarled deep in her throat but did not continue. She tuned the voice out as well as she could, pouring all of her focus into the book beneath her. A few seconds passed and she slowly began to relax into her pillows, a sense of calm coming over her. She quickly lost herself in the words of her mentor, finding no small amount of fascination from looking at her hoofwriting long before it gained the elegant twists and curls she had come to know when she was growing up.
She abruptly jarred from her reading when the others came back into the room. Curious, she looked up to see they all had their pillows floating behind them in Thorax’s magic. Spike and Fluttershy were at the head of the group. The pegasus stepped forward and smiled. “Um, is it alright if we sleep in here with you?” she asked gently. “You know, to keep you company?”
Twilight looked at them all for a moment, before a tender smile crept onto her lips. “I don’t mind at all, Fluttershy. Make yourselves comfortable,” she said, nodding next to her.
In a flash, Spike hopped onto the pillow next to her and leaned against her side, a sleepy smile on his face. “Aw yeah, best mattress in the house,” he snarked before giving off a loud yawn.
Twilight snorted and draped a wing over the baby dragon, pulling him closer. “Yeah, yeah, just remember, this mattress moves. And it’s made of flesh and bones, so don’t get too grabby! Your claws are sharp.”
Spike nodded, burrowing his face into her fur behind her foreleg. “Uh uh,” he mumbled before falling quiet.
Fluttershy and Thorax set themselves up on her other side, laying out their pillows and getting comfortable side by side. Twilight glanced over at them, her smile growing. They were clearly cuddling closer than she would expect for somepony as shy as Fluttershy, and she didn’t miss the almost-protective way Thorax draped his wing and foreleg over her shoulders.
“I’m happy for them, I really am,” she thought to herself before turning back to her book. “Now, let’s see what Celestia left for me…”