Celestia and Luna return before their bedtime. After all, it's easier to snoop around a location if you're already in it. The pair, however, do not sleep. Instead, Celestia and Luna sneak out of their room once Luna detects that Twilight is asleep. Silently, the team woke up in their adjacent rooms. The moonlight peers into each of their rooms, gently illuminating them. Celestia's room is exceptionally pink, with bright colors, a large bed, and several books strewn about the room. Trophies from her little tournament wins in sports adorn the surface of the various shelves in the room, with a singular bookcase sitting in the corner. The bookcase is empty because all the books are part of a book fort in the corner or strewn on the floor haphazardly. With a deep yawn, Celestia stands up from bed and wanders out of the room.
Meanwhile, Luna quickly jolts out of bed. Her room is much more night-themed, with blue lighting and blue all over the room. A small plushie sits on her bed, watching over it for any monsters or evil creatures. Unlike her sister, Luna keeps her room very tidy, spending much of her day inside it. As she stretches, she sees her walls covered by bookshelves, and books adorn every single one. She looks towards her small board, which is dedicated to her friends, and several old and new pictures decorate the corkboard with little threads linking them all together. With a giddy smile, Luna wanders out of the room, the pair meeting up in front of Celestia's door.
A yawn escapes Celestia as the pair meet up. "Mmfn. Alright, Luna, let's finish this so I can sleep." She stretches. "I did fly here from the Griffon Empire, and I'm exhausted." She says tiredly, a little slouch in her neck as she looks at her sister.
Luna smiles. "No worries, we're just going to give a little quick lookie and see if we can't stop Mom ourselves. Even just figuring out what's wrong would be nice." She mumbles. Luna, looking quite downtrodden. Celestia feels heartbroken at this, so she pulls Luna for a close hug.
"We'll always have each other, Luna. We'll fix Mom together." She smiles brightly. Celestia happily holds Luna close while her younger sister shakes off her doldrums. Luna perked up after a hug and nuzzle.
"Alright Sis. Let's do this before Mom wakes up from her nap." She says with a quick trot. The pair walked quickly towards Twilight's study. The duo sneak around the castle, avoiding being seen by the guards and maids as they approach the study. About mid-way through, Celestia pokes Luna while the pair are waiting for a guard patrol to pass.
"Uh. Sis, why are we hiding? We're literally the princesses. We wander around at night all the time. Especially you." Celestia says with a confused blink. Luna then perks up her ears at the comment with a little blush.
"Oh, right. Sorry, I just. Really got into the whole spy thing." She says with a little giggle. The pair walked towards the study. The maids and guards pay them no mind. They act like they aren't even there, like proper guards. The maids look at the pair, but one glance and they know better than to say anything.
The pair make it to the study. With a push of magic, the team opens the large, ornate doors. With a quick look around, the pair see that the entire area is covered with magical paper, glyphs, and prototype spells of all types. Quickly, the duo get to work, looking over the table and through any of the books lying around. While they don't know precisely what they're looking for, the pair know their paper is only the seventh out of thirteen pages.
After a search, though, they conclude that the notes aren't there. All the things they find are on simple spells that Twilight has been working on for ages now. Teleportation, better levitation spells, and other spells she brought back from the future. Still, they keep looking, and after a little while, each of them finds something.
Celestia finds a small notebook wedged between two books on the shelves. With a curious tilt of her head, she flicks through the pages.
She reads only two before closing the book quickly. The Alicorn is mildly shaken before she opens it again. With a sigh, Celestia reads it through for any hints within the pages.
-Section 8-
Magical analysis of Starswirl's spell. While on the surface level, the spell is straightforward, especially for me now. It has some irregularities that have been strangely placed throughout the magic spell and is different from all other universes that have a similar spell in place. While the spell originally was supposed to fail, I have found that the magic that I cast was Unusually complete. Not by Starswirl either, as his spellwork is, unfortunately, several times less refined than whoever filled in the gap. Whether it was me or someone else is to be figured out. Unfortunately, I won't be able to find out until I return to the futu- I mean. Present. However, I have discovered a few things about the spell and its ongoing effects with this in mind.
Firstly, the spell has a contingency in it. Things will progress as written regardless of the proper flow of time, which means that this spell can break and change time against all laws.
Secondly, the time dilation between this time period and the present extends and is shortened, meaning my return will be unchanged as long as there is more work to be done here.
Thirdly, the time dilation is only one way. This means that if I were to visit my friends in the present, then things would fall apart in the past due to my interference.
Adjustment of the spell would be needed for me to make any further progress.
-Section 16-
Test number 180. I think I found my error in the previous spell's anchor section. Recreating a spell from just a single cast is proving to be complicated. Even after this failure, though, the damage is getting much more minimal although, just like how Unity said. It seems like the backlash is starting to have adverse effects. Although, it's mostly just headaches that are fixed with bed rest.
-Section 121-
Test number 1223. Failure. The spell didn't sustain a proper balance between present and past. Adjust the linking section by .8.
Ambrosia's descendant invited me to dinner. So I'll finish up tomorrow.
-Section 122-
Test number 3400. Failure.
Why is life so short?
-Section 123-
No test today. I have… somewhere to be.
-Section 124-
Test number 4000.
There's no point, even with thousands of years.
I'm never going to see my friends again before this era changes me entirely. Today is my last test after this. I think I'll take Luna out for some ice cream. It's time I live for myself. Suppose friendship causes this much pain. Then what's the point?
At least this way, I can enjoy the time I have with my daughters. Maybe I'll run into Discord at some point. He's not much of a threat to me anymore, so perhaps… maybe I have a chance there.
I miss remembering their faces. But, well. Who can remember someone they haven't seen for thousands of years?
-Section 124A-
Test failed.
Celestia closes the notebook quickly. Twilight was trying to find a way home. All this time, she felt so alone. At the same time, Luna and herself were already adjusted to how Alicorn years were and how normal ponies had fleeting lives. Twilight, however, lived entirely differently. She lived for those small moments, for those few days. She was forced to adjust to the rapid-fire nature of an Alicorn's life.
She must have felt so alone.
Meanwhile, Luna was having her own moment, noticing a small scrapbook lying in the corner of the room. With a tilt of her head, she gently levitates and holds it up. Celestia would have never found it. The room was so dark after all.
Luna opens the book, looking over several pictures that Twilight had taken over the years.
She sees pictures of their first meeting. Her interrogation with the king.
The first time she met her friends' ancestors. All the little adventures they all had together, wandering the countryside and spreading happiness.
The first time, one of them died. Twilight was stricken by grief for days. She hardly left her room, only leaving for her duties and nothing more.
Even then time passed, the pictures slowly lost more and more of her friends until none were left.
Then, it picked back up, and the group was revitalized by four of their kids.
And the process repeated. The group dwindles each and every generation. Ultimately, the only one who consistently was friends with her was Cinnabar's descendant.
She had just died a little while back, too. No wonder Twilight was so upset when they came home. Twilight barely left her room after that, and that's when things really started to spiral down.
All the other pictures were just of her and them. Celestia and Luna loved taking pictures with their mom when they were out and about. The final image was of Twilight and Unity. Luna never particularly liked Unity. It's obvious that she's just around for her personal benefit. Even then, though, she's been more of a help than not.
The pair simultaneously sigh, reminding each other of their presence. With quick movements, Celestia puts the notebook in her bag while Luna teleports the scrapbook to her room. "Did you find anything?" They say to each other at the same time, getting a small giggle from each other.
They shake their heads as the moonlets in a small beam of moonlight. Just as they're about to give up, the pair notice a glint in the corner. A small gem sits in the corner, shattered but still brilliantly shiny, even in moonlight. They've seen gems like this before.
"Unity's room. She's hiding all the stuff in there." Luna says.
Celestia nods. "Mm.. Only Unity's room has these crystals. Not to mention, she knows no one would dare go in there. Cept she didn't imagine that it'd be us." She giggles as she puts the gem away and leads the way up to the Magus Tower. Luna follows behind.
The pair arrive in front of two large crystalline doors. With a little push, they enter inside. The room itself is small, with a small bed against the wall to make way for the massive amount of magical tools all around it. Gemstones line the walls, and a large, magical ball of light glows brightly in the center. Celestia quickly notices the desk, a large pile of papers uncovered by dust lying on the table. "There they are." She says, quickly trotting over to the desk to gather the pages.
Luna, on the other hand, enters and instantly feels drained. "Huh? What's going... On?" she stumbles and staggers a bit, feeling all her ideas, even the next chapter for her Celestia x Unknown Spear Guy fanfiction, flying out of her head. "Whats." She grunts a little as she staggers forward. "My head. Hurt." After a moment, the feeling passes, shaking her head and looking up at the orb. "Celestia, what is this thing?" She asks quickly
Celestia, in the meanwhile, is reading through the papers, writing things down, and looking over to Luna. "I dunno, but Unity's manuals are alphabetized, so I'm sure you can find it if you look." She says. "In the meanwhile, I'm gonna figure out what Mom is planning," she quickly says as she looks over the papers, having them all floating in front of her.
Luna nervously walks around the room, seeing the magical tools as the headache dulls from piercing to throbbing, consistent pain. She looks over towards the desk Celestia pointed her to, a small shelf underneath it with red binders all along it. Trotting over, the younger sister notices several crystals on the table, showing different scenes of Twilight's memories.
"I guess even Unity realized that Twilight was forgetting. I'm glad she's trying to help." She says with a sigh. Although, some part of her feels. Wrong.
With a shrug, she digs through the folders and finds the one about the various orbs in the room. "Here we go. The harmony orb. A defensive orb that drains creativity and negative thoughts in its local surroundings. Currently in prototype 1. It cannot affect creatures without darkness in them. Fully pure creatures and those cleansed of their darkness in the past are unaffected by the orb currently. It needs to be adjusted still if the harmonization spell is to be cast on time."
Luna looks up at it and tilts her head. "I guess that's why Celestia was unaffected." She mumbles to herself and rubs her horn a little. She shakes her head. "No. That's in the future. Right now… Right now is right now." She mumbles a bit before she trots over to the orb. The bright object swirls in the air and spins rapidly, cutting through any breeze that dares to hit it.
Celestia joins her after a moment. "I got all the pages and info we needed. Did you figure out what the orb is?" She says. Celestia curiously looked at the orb swirling above the pedestal.
Luna responds with what she learned, the pair curiously watching the magical object with deeply curious expressions. Luna breaks the silence after a moment, though. The younger sister trotted up to the orb with a smile.
"If mom needs this to cast that spell. Then the best thing to do is just yoink it, right?" She then grabs the orb, unable to hear Celestia trying to stop her over the loud noise of the sphere.
"Luna NO! Unity traps her stu-" That's all Celestia can say before a bright light envelops the pair.