"Oh no! What am I going to do?! I forgot to bring my notes! What do I do if I can't remember a spell?!" Twilight spouted frantically in the train, her hooves clapping on the wooden floorboard.
"You should calm down sugar cube. Ya always get upset fer the smallest things I tell ya hwhat."
"What was that?" Rarity looked at Applejack in a baffled manner.
"Just...tryin' somethin' new."
"Ah." Rarity nodded in approval, then returned to finding a hat to wear.
Twilight began to burst with rage at Applejack and literally stuck her own face to the cowpony's.
"What do you mean? It's super important! Celestia might make me go down a year and study everything I already know! I'll never get to read new books."
"You already read new books." Rainbow Dash spoke in a bored manner as she read her new book titled "Daring Do and the Wanton curse".
"That's not the point! I'll never get to read any of the advanced books." Twilight mumbled as she paced back and forth on her spot.
"Twi. Yer gonna use up the floorboards if ya continue walkin' back and forth like that. It's even making me nauseous."
"Yeah! Here. Have a cupcake."
"MPFF!"
Pinkie Pie had just swung down from the ceiling and stuffed a cupcake in the lavender mare's mouth. She was too nervous to savor the sweet, fruity flavor, and wiped the crumbs off her mouth before pacing back and forth again.
"What am I going to do?!"
"Well...you could...relax? I know a great way to do that..." Fluttershy trailed off.
"How? Why not show our poor little Twilight, Fluttershy?" Rarity proposed.
"I'm not sure if I should..." Fluttershy began to squirm nervously.
"Go ahead deary. Here. Let me help you there."
Rarity hopped off one of the several blue leather seats lining the sides of the car while the windows themselves shone light upon the entire area. The train was starting to slow down, so its stop was coming closer and closer, unnerving Twilight even more. Fluttershy was being pushed against her will closer to the purple mare, who just stood in her spot, back turned to the whole conundrum. As the two mares neared their friend, the train blew its whistle and a booming voice was heard:
"We are arriving at Canterlot! Everypony please return to your seats as we slow to a halt at the station."
"Oh. Too bad. You heard him, Rarity. Sorry." Fluttershy bolted towards a seat and clung on, making the fashionista huff in aggravation.
"Well...Here we go." Twilight's voice indicated extreme stress and unnerving. This wasn't helped by Pinkie Pie who was trying to cheer her up with a 'happy' song of hers.
The station wasn't very noticeable in appearance, especially with the lack of the building usually there, waiting with strength for each passing train. Instead, ponies frequently sold tickets at bit further in booths, and those who worked on the train would take the destined tickets and let the passengers aboard. Normally, there was supposed to be a caravan waiting for the group, but it was not yet there.
"Hmph. They make a lady wait? How uncouth." Rarity snapped.
"Bah! I can't wait her any longer! I already stayed stuck in that train for so long that my wings are stiff. I'm gonna fly all the way to the castle while you wait for your carriage."
Before anypony could oppose her decision, a rainbow-colored blur was already zipping through the sky. Twilight continued to pace back and forth while Fluttershy stayed in her corner. Applejack was waiting as well while Pinkie Pie seemed to have disappeared, and Rarity's face had swollen three times that day. Finally, after a long wait, the carriage came from the sky. It had a round shape, and the wood itself was purple colored. Several shapes of colored gold curving around certain areas and bending on others served as the decoration to the wood. The wheels were golden and seemed to have been recently cleaned. One of the two guards pulling the carriage spoke up:
"I apologize for the tardiness. We were in the process of cleaning this carriage when it was called for use. We preferred to finish the job instead of letting the passengers sit in filth."
"Well that is very polite of you. See girls? They are refined gentlecolts." Rarity swung her mane and put a hoof to her chest with audacity.
"Weren't you the one who was complainin' 'bout their impoliteness?"
"I...uh...let's go to the castle, shall we?"
Applejack rolled her eyes as the crew got inside their transport. Surprisingly, the inside itself was also golden, but the seats were a smushy purple color. Perhaps they came from Saddle-Arabia? The trip was actually quite calm and comfortable despite Twilight's ravings about actions after failure. Never focusing on success. Arriving at the castle, the mares saw a familiar blue pegasus trying to outsmart the royal guard pegasi. The four got out of their colorful transport into Canterlot Castle's yard, letting their hooves rest upon the clean, perfectly aligned trail of ground, itself lined by grass trimmed so perfectly one could be sure that somepony used a magnifying glass, a ruler, and small tweezers to adjust the length and height of this lawn to impossible perfectitude.
"Wow. It sure changed a lot 'round here." Applejack awwed as she looked at the scenery.
"Yeah. Princess Celestia wanted to change the look of the castle as he thought it was time for a new style." Twilight shared with her friends, her calmness starting to seep in.
"I approve of this, although it does lack a bit of finesse." Rarity nitpicked as always.
"I hope she didn't take down any trees. I don't have anymore room in my house for animals. I'd have to make some tree houses."
"Where's Pinkie Pie?" Twilight wondered.
The four mares looked around for her, but she was still out of sight. Eventually, Rainbow Dash came back down, huffing, but with pride in her face and joy in every pore.
"Ha! Did you see that? I beat the royal guards. Ha! I barely broke a sweat."
"Are you kidding? You look like you were in a lake!" Pinkie Pie shouted out from nowhere.
The five mares yiped and hopped away. She literally just appeared out of nowhere. However, Pinkie's friends were used to this by now, so the pink party pony's sudden teleportation appearance wasn't enough to phase them anymore.
"Where were you? We were about to ask Rainbow Dash to look for you?" Rarity sterned as she scolded Pinkie Pie who simply smiled at her with a big white smile.
"Places."
"How did ya even get here?"
"By doing things."
"Oh, Pinkie Pie. You're always so mysterious." Twilight gave a laugh.
The pink pony smiled in response. The great wooden doors made of...hoof-carved mahogany swung open to reveal the entrance to the palace of white rock. A stallion with a blue coat and a coiffed white mane wearing a tuxedo and a smug grin invited the mares inside. He did not react to the three he considered to be "lowly commoners". He knew much about the mane six, as per his need to study the records of the castle archives. The entrance was still the same since the Galopping Gala with some minor changes. The flat staircase was still there, but it had a red carpet nailed onto the stairs, giving it a nice colored look compared to the rest of the bright, white room. The large windows at the top of the walls were immense and gave an insurmountable amount of sunlight into the entire entrance. Pastel colored drapes with golden linings hung besides these windows to add to the color and to show that Celestia was indeed the princess in charge of the castle.
Unfortunately for Rarity, the group did not climb these stairs. They went through a small wooden door on the right into some halls of the castle. They were smaller, but seemed exactly the same compared to the entrance. A red carpet, large windows, with some paintings and pottery added to decorate a bit more. The paintings ranged from simple scenery to portraits of ponies and other creatures long gone. The names of each were underneath the paintings themselves and etched upon the bronze frames. Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash played a game to see who could find the funniest name. The closest was "Sir Rumpledpigskin". Finally, the group stopped in front of a door just like the rest in the halls. Small, brown, and blocking the view.
"In here if you will, madams." the stallion opened the door and led the mares inside with a gesture of his hoof.
"That is very kind of you. How gentlecoltly." Rarity cooed.
The stallion did not react, and still looked as tired as any gentlecolt."I was taught proper manners as to serve anypony who properly deserves it." he insisted on the 'deserves' part of his sentence, giving an undertone that Rarity hated.
"Princess Celestia! Here I am!...Princess?" Twilight was baffled.
The room simply seemed like a storage area. It wasn't anything but plain wooden boards and a single window. Everypony looked around to try and figure out what this meant, but Rainbow Dash got fed up and said:
"You know what, I'm leaving. I don't like being cramped in rooms like this. I can't fly like this or work on my awesome skills." the rainbow pegasus floated towards the door, but smashed herself against the wall in a great panic, her hooves tapping against the gray cement like a demented hammer."What happened to the door?!"
"What? It was there just a sec' ago!" Applejack shoved her friend out of the way to see if this wasn't a trick.
"Twilight, what's going on?!" Rarity screamed so loud everypony's ears rang.
"I don't know! Maybe this is part of the test? Maybe..."
As Twilight and the three mares talked, Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy were left to their own devices.
"Umm...what if there was a hidden button somewhere?"
"Yeah! A hidden button so evil it wears a mustache! Muhuhahaha!"
"Pinkie Pie, there are no must...That's it! There's a specific pattern to the walls! Look at them. There are spots that are a bit browner than the rest." Twilight noticed.
"Aaaaand they look like mustaches..."Rarity moaned and stooped her head.
"Maybe we should push them at the same time?" Fluttershy suggested once more.
"That's a great idea. Okay everypony. You heard Fluttershy. Everypony...*sigh*...I can't believe I'm going to say this. Everypony put your hoof on a mustache and push when I give the go."Twilight had facehoofed and was dragging said hoof down her face.
"Right!" they answered in unison.
Everypony, even Pinkie's newly acquired mustache of pure DIABOLICALNESS, put a hoof to the wall. They all turned and looked at each other with seriousness and determination.
"Ready?" Twilight asked, her eyes dotting to everypony. Each replied with a nod."Okay then. One...Two...THREE!"
They all pushed the mustaches, and found themselves flung through a vortex onto another floor, but on each other. Pinkie landed happily atop and yelled for more as she chuckled adorably. Celestia was sitting at the base of her throne with her sister and were sipping tea from a rather big table of a night blue. It was the throne room, and the group had landed on a red carpet with golden linings. The entire room was enormous and still had the windows with the same colored drapes all the way at the top of the room, only, they were placed with an arch pattern behind the throne. The throne itself sat on a same patterned staircase as the one in the entrance, only, a bit higher and wider.
"Ah. Twilight. You made it!"
"P...Princess Celestia?" the lavender unicorn mumbled underneath her friends."Could you get off, girls?"
"Oh! S-sorry." each got off and rubbed their shoulders or their heads in embarrassment.
"Come have tea with us, Twilght Sparkle." Luna proposed as she poured another cup into her sister's own cup.
"I..."
"Come!" Luna insisted.
The group scampered up to the table and was immediately offered some tea for themselves. Each took a sip, and each "mmmm"d in appreciation.
"It is a batch of my own specialty. I learnt how to make this in Saddle-Arabia." Celestia boasted.
"I know how to make tea too." Luna mumbled as she looked down.
"Yes. I know, but I wanted to try something new."
This explanation didn't seem to change anything.
"Princess, why'd ya trap us in that room? It scared us. You did it without explanation!" Applejack complained as she set her cup back down.
"Yeah! I thought we were going to die in there!"
Celestia showed a face of fright."I would NEVER do something like that. It was to test your teamwork. Surprisingly, it was Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie who found the solution through sharing their ideas. You need to learn to speak up though, dear." Celestia nudged the nervous pegasus who shrunk even more under the gaze of Luna.
"But why? Was that my test?"
"Not at all. It was just to see, as I already stated, how well you listened to your friends and their suggestions. One can only fail if they only listen to their voice."
"That is true..." Twilight trailed off as she took another sip from this strange tea cup.
The teacups themselves seemed to follow the same pattern as the new design. White, with golden trails all over them for random decoration. No two cups were the same.
"The true test is to see how well you can concentrate and how much magic you can channel. The magic channeling is not exactly a test. It's more like a way to test your endurance."
"It is very important for the future spells you are about to learn, Twilight Sparkle." Luna interjected, her tone giving a darker and more scary feeling to the test than it really had.
"When am I to start?"
"In an hour. We will have tea first, and speak of your adventures with your friends. A bit of relaxation is always good."
"Don't worry Twiilight. Even if you do fail, which I really doubt, we're here to help you get better. If you fail the endurance test, I'll teach you HOW to have endurance." Rainbow Dash's cheering seemed more like a threat.
"A trip to the spa with me and Fluttershy will help untense those muscles afterwards."
"And--" Applejack was cut off by a rather medium pitched voice having suddenly appeared out of nowhere.
"And a good hello to you, ponies."
It was a tall biped. Judging by its voice, it was a male. The doors were slowly closing behind it. Everypony just stared at it in both surprise and confusion, except for Pinkie Pie who was curious...and smiling like is her personality. It wore what seemed like a very long, white lab coat of perfect cleanliness. On its hands were surgeon gloves of a vanilla-ish tone, and on its head were goggles which possessed a bigger strap than usual which covered its head entirely. The goggles themselves possessed yellow lenses of two different sizes. The one on the left was bigger than that on the right, but both sides had smaller lenses above them for magnifying a view to allow precise work in...whatever it did.
As it walked forward, its brown shoes yelling with clipping and clopping, the tension in the room began to tense up. He left his arms behind his back until he approached the table within five steps. He then bowed and spread his arms to his side, his facial expression unseeable through his face goggles and the black strap covering his face like a very tight mask.
"Atleast he seems to be a gentlecolt." Rarity noted with disdain and she eyed the abomination from head to toe.
"In some circles, Rarity of Carousel Boutique."
The fashionista began to stutter. She was famous?!
"Princess Celestia of the sun, and Princess Luna, also known as 'Nightmare Moon'."
Normally, these were things that anypony knew, but Celestia and Luna glared at the biped who did not glare back and simply looked through his goggles as he stood back up. The two princess placed themselves in combat positions.
"How do you know about those things? You aren't from here." Celestia growled.
"That's kinda normal, Princess. He's probably from another country--" Twilight chuckled in her words.
"No. He's not from here."
"What do you mean?"
"Things that creatures like you wouldn't understand."
There was a long stare between the three giant creatures. While two were beginning to shake as adrenaline coursed through their bodies, the other remained still. Immobile. Unfaltering, and emotionless. The mane six didn't know what was happening, and they wanted answers. Was this part of the test? A portion Celestia didn't speak about? Or was this unforeseen intrusion holding some darker secret? What was that creature, and who is it? Where did he come from? So many questions that only a few would receive answers from.