Two hours.
Two hours of absolute boredom.
The Spellweaver had little opinion on anything the rest of the group talked about. Did you see that latest movie? Did you catch that program on MANE 6 last night? Have you tried that new restaurant near the edge of town?
“No” to every question that was thrown Jessica’s way.
Every now and then, she could latch onto a conversation for a while, but it was short lived.
The conversation was winding down when, finally, Jessica caught her break.
“I’m reading this great book about Queen Celestia’s life story. It’s called Rising Sun,” Victoria said. “Have any of you read it?”
Jessica lit up immediately. “I have! That’s one of my personal favorites,” Jessica piped. “I simply adore Jean Price’s works, but I find this particular one the best.”
“What’s it about?” Diane said, muffled by a cupcake.
“Well, like Victoria said, it’s about how Celestia came to become who she is today, all the way from her childhood to where she is today,” Jessica said. “It’s great. You should all read it.”
“Pfft,” scoffed Julia, one of the two Cloudwalkers in the room. She was reclined in her seat, feet kicked up. “It can’t be that good.”
“Says you! You don’t even read books!” Laura exclaimed from the seat beside her.
“She’s right…” squeaked the other Cloudwalker, Erika.
“Yeah? So what!” Julia spat. “Can we just move on?”
Victoria’s posh living room grew quiet for a moment. Everyone was gathering their thoughts to make up another topic to think about. Julia was about to start the conversation, but was interrupted by a commotion in the next room.
“Elizabeth! Hurry up or we’ll be late!” called a girl’s voice.
“Hold on a sec!” Elizabeth called from upstairs. There was a rustle, a crash, more rustling, and finally the sound of footsteps descending on the stairs.
“Ugh, finally!” said a different voice. Moments after hearing this, a trio of young women emerged from the neighboring room, each with a backpack slung over their shoulder.
“Where y’all headed?” asked Laura.
“School trip to the Gardens of Mikhail!” said Elizabeth. “Did you pack the lunches, Mary?”
“You betcha!” said the young Earthmover. She flashed a bulging paper package she had been holding in her hand.
“Come on! If we don’t hurry, we won’t make it!” said the third member of the little group.
“Carly! Enough! We know!” said Elizabeth, annoyed. “Anyways, let’s go. Bye, sis!”
She smiled and waved at Victoria. The elder waved back.
The threesome began to file out the door when Laura suddenly remembered something she had to tell her sister.
“Make sure ya bring back a couple hundred pounds of feed, Mary!” she called out, but the door shut before she had even made it halfway through her sentence. “Aw, shoot. Oh well.”
“I’ve been to those gardens,” said Erika softly. “They’re really nice.”
“Maybe we should visit those gardens sometime,” Jessica suggested. There was a murmur of approval among the six, minus Julia.
“Boring,” was all the input Julia gave on the notion of looking at a bunch of trees and old sculptures.
“You’re boring…” Erika whispered as she gave Julia a teasing look. Julia returned the look.
The four other members of the group gave each other sidelong glances.
“Movies, anybody? I’m just dying to see that one with that one guy in it!” Diane said as she sprang up from her seat.
“Gee, Pinkie, that’s real specific,” said Laura sarcastically.
“I like the sound of a movie. How about it, Jessica?” Victoria said.
Jessica nodded, followed by the approval of the rest of the company.
“All right! Let’s jam!” Diane said as she joyfully made her way to the door.
The group emerged from Victoria’s manor to the warm sun complimented by a cool breeze. Victoria had her house built on a hill a fair distance away from town so that she could look over Equitem and the valley. Jessica looked out into the vast expanse of lush green surrounding a little town. When she saw the pictures of how the world looked when she lived in Canterlot, she would have never thought that it would have looked so beautiful. But the world was a whole lot prettier than it was in all the books she read, and she was glad it was. An airship sped by above her, breaking her gaze upon the valley, blowing the leaves off the trees as it flew off into the distance towards the ivory castle of Canterlot.
“… and this here is a statue of Starswirl the Bearded. For those of you who actually did the homework last night, you’d know he was the inventor of the crystal engine and court mage of Queen Celestia,” said the instructor of the group of teenagers who were less than interested in monuments of centuries old figures. “All right everyone! Let’s meet back up here in two hours. Don’t get into any trouble!”
The students shuffled lazily through the garden of exotic plants and marble, stopping every so often to investigate a particularly interesting plant or to converse to one another about out of school affairs. But there were three young women who were genuinely intrigued by the history surrounding them in the garden. The trio was gathered around a depiction of Queen Luna, taking pictures and scribbling down notes.
“Amazing. I can’t believe how well sculpted these all are,” uttered Elizabeth as she snapped a few photos on her camera.
“I know, right? Centuries old and they look as if they were made yesterday,” said Mary, who was attempting to draw the visage of the queen, although not very well.
“Pretty cool,” Carly said absent mindedly. She had just remembered that she hadn’t finished last night’s homework and was scrambling to complete it.
While Elizabeth was trying to get an angle to shoot again, she saw behind the statue a mass of people swarming near the entrance to the Sacred Grounds, the walled off innermost section of the gardens. It was normally sealed off from the public, but Elizabeth remembered seeing on the news that morning that they were letting the public in for a limited time.
“Check that out, guys,” Elizabeth called to her friends. The other two pulled themselves away from what they were doing to see what Elizabeth was talking about.
“Isn’t that the Sacred Grounds? I thought they didn’t let anyone in there,” Mary said, stashing her incomplete sketch in her bag.
“They don’t, but I heard that Queen Celestia is letting people check it out for a while,” Carly said. “I think we should check it out before it gets too crowded.”
“So let’s go!” Elizabeth urged.
They gathered their belongings and made their way to the crowd assembled in front of the tall iron gates guarding the entrance to the inner gardens. They waited for several minutes before two tall Royal Guards appeared from behind the crowd. They made their way to the front of the gates before they turned to face the people waiting eagerly to enter the gardens.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” boomed one of the guards, his voice amplified by his magic. “You will be the first people to enter the Sacred Grounds in over ten thousand years. We ask that you be respectful to anything and everything you find within. We also ask that you refrain from using any photography during your visit. Leave any crystal devices you may have outside the premises of the Grounds. And lastly, please do not touch anything. Any violation of these rules while result in immediate ejection from the Grounds and the Gardens.”
After the guard had finished, he and his partner used their magic to open the gate. It slowly swung inwards until the two sides were parallel to one another. The sound of the doors locking in place could be heard as the swarm of people began to pour through them.
The entirety of the inner gardens was covered by a dome that prevented any sunlight from entering. The only source of light was provided by the local flora, which were only dim white lights and an occasional blue or red tint. The visitors were confined to walking on a narrow walkway surrounded by a waist high metal fence. The path was only wide enough for two people to walk side by side, but even then it was still a squeeze. After about three minutes worth of walking, the walkway opened up to a large circular platform in the center of the rotunda.
“Wow,” was all Elizabeth managed to say when finally reached the center.
“This place makes me feel strange,” Mary said as she looked out into the darkness of the garden. “It’s like a dream.
“Let’s go over here guys. I want to get a closer look at the plants,” Carly said as she went approached the edge of the platform, Mary closely following her. Elizabeth, however, ignored her, focusing her attention on something else.
It was a gigantic statue right in the middle of the platform.
Although it was dark in the chamber, the effigy seemed to give off a luminescence of its own. From this light, every last one of its features could be seen with an unusually clean clarity. It was a man, a man adorned in an elaborate set of armor. Although his eyes were blank and empty, his face appeared strong and defined, but a prominent goatee also gave him a sinister appearance. The strangest thing about this statue was what the man was standing on. At his feet was a mangled mess of animals both recognizable and incomprehensible. Lions, deer, goats, birds. It was a strange yet intriguing mess.
“How strange,” Elizabeth said absently. She approached the monument until it was just out of arms reach.
It was then that she heard a ringing.
It seemed to come from everywhere and it was slowly gaining in volume.
Alongside the ringing was a voice.
Touch it. You know you want to. Just one little touch.
Unwillingly, Elizabeth raised her arm and reached for the statue. She maintained contact for only a second, but during that second, she felt as if she was running a mile. Her heart began to pound against her chest. Sweat was flowing down her face at a dramatic rate. When she finally retracted, she collapsed on the floor, gasping and exhausted.
“Elizabeth!”
Mary and Carly ran over to Elizabeth’s side and helped her to her feet.
“Are you all right?” Mary said as she wiped the sweat off of Elizabeth’s face.
Elizabeth did not respond. She was shaking and gasping for air. A crowd was beginning to gather around her.
“Come on. We gotta get her out of here,” Carly said.
The trio ran along the path in the dark garden towards the light, leaving confused onlookers behind.
It seemed as though the statue’s hard face had twisted into a smirk.