//------------------------------//
// Chapter 2 
// Story: Whatever Happened to Princess Sparkle? 
// by Algorhythm 
//------------------------------//


-2-

One of the newer wings of the castle was built during the years following the inauguration of Princess Sparkle. Although, to call it a wing would be rather improper. This section of the castle was built into the underside of the mountain overhang the castle's outer towers clung to for support. Almost two years of working on clouds, pegasi, earth ponies, and unicorns alike were able to carve their way into the mountain and build a huge circular space. Only then were the rooms and crystal-glass floors built within the completed structure. It was a marvel of millennial engineering.
From below, it looked as though it belonged to the castle. The round 'underdome', as it was sometimes referred to, was constructed of one solid piece of marble, fused and tempered by magical wards strong enough to stand the test of time. The windows were imported from the Crystal Empire at Princess Sparkle's request. Princess Cadence sent it to her for free.
Over the years that the Princess lived within the castle walls, she collected and created her own tools for her research. In fact, the hallway was wide enough that it was turned into a showcase of obsolete, but important tools created throughout Equestrian history. Each had their own plaque which was brimming to the edges with information. As far as anypony could remember, the young princess was adamant that all of her work was thorough, which extended even to these snapshots of history.
Sadly, following the initial bans on research, many of the 'most dangerous' machines were confiscated or destroyed. Any of those that were still in working order had been moved to the bottom floor of the dungeon, to stay until they could be controlled properly. Any of the designs that outlived the application, were in a sealed archive. It was still closed, and only the Princesses knew of its location.
Despite this, those machines that were left behind had already become outdated by an explosion of thought and design. This renaissance, although soft in its impact, had spurred many creations. Some were swallowed in the ever increasing bans, but most had found basic use in everyday life. Subsequently, these new creations had also found a new home in the halls and rooms of the underdome.
Sir Dew Point, the Royal Alchemist, was lucky to have been given this part of the castle as his own. The beige coated unicorn trotted across the Glass Room with a rather tightly wound spring in his step. In this marvel of a building, inspiration was hard to lose and its proximity to the formerly abandoned mines beneath the castle left him with plenty of research material. Today, he'd finally discovered a new gem growing within the caves – something new to test and study in the best room in the castle: the Dawn Room.
Situated near the center of the underdome, the room was designed to study the effects of magic on crystals. Used frequently by Princess Sparkle and various scientists she collaborated with, they studied crystals and gems from all over the world in this room. Light was funneled in to be captured at any point in the day through a series of tubes and mirrors build discreetly around the castle grounds. Here, the very foundations of magical theory were tested – where science met magic head on in a collision of thought and ideas.
He stopped in front of the crystal altar in the center of the room. It was a round pedestal, with an ornate clamp in the center. Hanging directly above it were several pipes – exit paths for the ingenious sun capturing mechanism. Fortunately there was space for direct sunlight only once per day at dawn. Unobstructed on the side facing the glass wall, a small port in the ceiling was already opened. Fortunately the birds weren't inclined to come inside, so he didn't have any preliminary cleaning to do.  
Sir Dew placed the chunk of white and black crystal into the clamp. He grunted as he pushed down on the crank with his magic. The crank offered some resistance but after a moment, it gave way. 
Dew frowned. The scratching noises coming from the clamp's plates were not a normal occurrence with the machine. That, paired with the crank's resistance, meant it was time for an inspection – especially before any substantial damage occurred. He made a note to request a checkup – after all, somepony from the Crystal Empire would have to take a look at it.
He turned to grab a piece of parchment from his newest package, but his quill was nowhere to be found. Rolling his eyes, he dug into the paper bag beside the box of parchment for a new quill and inkwell. Organization would come later. His eyes flicked up to the unit beside him.
Along the stone walls, were scrolls and books of research materials – current ones, of course – most of them written by his quill. So much of his work seemed to be in progress, or placed on hold, or otherwise stalled in publication disputes with The Royal Academy for Magical Study. It irked him greatly to even think about it. How could the Royal Alchemist, and former Dean of the Academy not have his papers published?
A frown crossed his features. Of course he knew why they were always stalled. It was a petty rivalry he didn't even care about with the current dean. Her papers had to be more important because she was on the front lines of changing–
Too far, he thought. She's not my ex-wife.
That set him groaning. His ex-wife could never understand the importance of keeping alive the traditions and benefits of alchemical science. Magic could do more for pony kind than mundane science could on its own. That, and at least his pursuits weren't intending to release banned avenues of research to the public. Working for the Princesses gave him the leeway to make discoveries under strict supervision. He had no ambition beyond being the first to pen a discovery, so that his name would be solidified in the halls of history. In his mind, banned research wouldn't stay banned forever. Getting in where he could now was an advantage he was happy to take.
Besides, the banning of research was arbitrary and uninformed. As much as he loved the Princesses, he couldn't understand why Princess Celestia would ban types of spells that had enormous potential to save ponies from harm.
He shook his head. His magic reached out behind him to the desks against the front wall. He fumbled with the vials and beakers on the tables for a moment before sighing in exasperation.
His worktables were a complete unorganized mess of ingredients, bottles, phials and flasks of... something. He'd figure it out later. He trotted over to the desk and shuffled through all of the research notes scattered about and shoved into empty spaces between his works for his clipboard. The more time it took, the more frustrated he became. He was not going to miss the dawn light because of his disorganization.



As he shoved another set of papers into an empty beaker, the door opened and a silver unicorn mare trotted through the door.
"Good morning, Sir Dew," she chirped.
Dew Point did not look happy to see her. "You're late."
The mare's cheery smile turned to a frown. Her ears flattened against her head and she averted her gaze.
"I'm assuming you slept in the library. Again. Perhaps you should bring an alarm with you when you go to study."
Her small build made it easy for her to go unnoticed in crowds and right now, she wanted nothing more than to just shrink so small that nopony would have to see her again. Failing Dew Point was worse – there was no escape knowing she had failed her mentor, no matter how little or large the mistake was. It stung like putting a hoof on a hot stove.
Dew Point trotted over to the crystal altar in the center of the room. After a moment of agonizing silence, he said, "Quicksilver, make yourself useful and find my clipboard. I have a new crystal to study and I cannot afford to be without it."
Quicksilver perked up and trotted over to the shelves. She lifted the scrolls she'd organized for him last night and pulled out the clipboard, his quill, and a vial of ink. "Here you go–"
The clipboard flew out of her magical grasp and floated over to the waiting Dew Point. "Organize those research documents by date, time, and subject. I was busy last night approaching the red potion from another direction. Don't touch it."
Quicksilver nodded as she placed the quill and ink on top of his supply box. Dew Point was very methodical as a researcher – but his interest was so tuned into new ideas that many of the shelves held recipes he'd approached but never finished. She'd thought of pulling a few off of the shelf for him to complete, but her teacher had never been one to approach something old and tried. It had become her job as the apprentice to complete whatever work he'd started. Of course, she never was given credit, but that was understandable. Apprentices didn't get credit for finishing a potion.
That didn’t mean that she didn’t want or deserve credit – far from it. The amount of work she did for her master was enough to be considered partner-discovered work. Just getting to the recipes was a hassle, trying to make sense of a table that looked like one of his experiments had exploded on it. Sorting the recipes out was the worst part of the job. Not to mention that in order to put it in the right place, she’d have to analyze its properties, and then try to find a proper type of magic to categorize it. Sometimes she would have to make the potion from scratch just to understand its effects.
She winced. Once, she had to drink one of his potions to analyze its properties. When she had woken up to her mentor laughing while calling for a doctor, she noticed that it had done nothing more but change the colors of her mane and coat, as well as adding some rather embarrassing polka dots. After a few days at the hospital for additional side effects – nausea, anxiety, feelings of being on camera and not knowing it – her coat finally turned back to a normal color and she stopped coughing up hairballs. As much as he put in an effort to remove the dangerous recipes from the table, she didn’t want to risk it again. It was an experience she was very cautious never to repeat.
"Oh yes! This is a fine specimen!"
Quicksilver looked behind her. Dew Point was eagerly writing away on his clipboard, looking at the crystal he had gathered. Curious, she stepped back from the table to get a look at it too.
While before it was a white and black, in the focused light from the sun, greens, reds, greys, and even some purples were flooding out of the crystal, refracted on the floor. The colors of the crystal itself seemed to shift and move in the sunlight, becoming lighter and lighter as time passed. In fact, Quicksilver was drawn in by the way it seemed to move in the clamp... almost as if it was trying to wriggle free of its confines.
A low hissing began to assault her ears. She flattened them to block out the noise, but that didn't seem to do anything – it came through as clearly as before. She tried to look away, but found that she could not.
...mine...
Thoroughly alarmed, Quicksilver began to call on her magic to form a shield. Not even a twinkle came to her aid. A light blue iris began to take shape in the colors on the floor. The dragon-like slit of black came soon after, turning to face the entranced mare.
With a small pop the eye turned back into a rainbow – a normal refraction of light. She looked at the crystal which was now a clear chunk of diamond. The hissing noise in her mind stopped as well. She stared at it, her mouth slightly agape.
"Rubbish! Absolute rubbish," Dew Point shouted angrily. "A little bit of sunlight destroyed this whole chunk of crystal! Such strange magical properties – it would be useless in potions..." He tapped his hoof against his chin in frustration before looking at his apprentice. "Quicksilver!"
She shook her head and looked at him in concern. "Yes, Sir?"
"Your severe lack of attention this morning is frustrating at best and angering at worst! You've never seen strange crystals before working under my tutelage?"
She looked at him incredulously. "But I was–"
"Let me finish." Quicksilver's eyes went wide and she shut her mouth. He pinched the bridge of his muzzle with a hoof. "I cannot work with you being in a daze or distracted." He levitated a badly beaten up paper from a set of saddlebags under one of the front tables. He levitated it in front of her face. "However, given your continued high marks, I see that it is fit to give you a break from your scholarly pursuits. You can wander the castle grounds like you normally do and I will fetch another one of these fine specimens before the budget meeting this evening."
Her temporary relief turned to abject terror. "But that crystal looked at me!"
Dew Point looked back at her. "Don't be ridiculous. You were staring at those research notes as if you were either sleeping, stupid, or dead. I assure you that you are none of those things."
"But–"
"Although if you continue hearing or seeing things or having lapses of memory, the word 'unwell' would be a fitting description." He turned his gaze to the side while waving his hoof back and forth.
"It was alive–"
He narrowed his eyes, and placed his hoof on the ground. "Perhaps if you slept more often, then you wouldn't be as overtired as you seem to be."
Quicksilver opened her mouth to protest, but closed it upon seeing Dew Point's stern gaze. Maybe he was right after all?
"Go get some sleep. A nap would do you well."
She hesitated for a moment. If that crystal was alive, then it could be a threat to the Princesses and the castle. But if it was a hallucination, like Dew said, she'd be the biggest laughing stock in Canterlot. Dew might even get rid of her for someone else. 
Eventually, she sighed and relented. "Yes, Sir."
He smiled at her. "Good." Dew ruffled her mane in a fatherly manner and went back to the crystal in the clamp. "Come back tomorrow when you are fully rested and ready to work. Be on time."
She smiled weakly. "Yes, Sir."

--*--

Quicksilver opened the doors to the main hall of the castle. Her white hooves were mostly clean, but strewn with hedge trimmings from the castle garden. She was slightly damp, having run through the fountain to cool off and her mane dripped onto her back, sending chills through her spine. It was a sweltering day, just as planned on the weather schedule to dry out a few flooded areas down in the valley. The previous week's storms had been rather awful, and because the unicorns still fought with Cloudsdale on rain schedules, it made cleanup efforts take longer than anticipated. As such, it was still a perfect day to play outside in the local fountain. One of the off duty guards followed behind her, his normal toffee coat much dryer than hers.
He flipped his dyed blond mane out of his face and smiled. "The Captain of the Guard will make an example of me."
"Not until next week, when the heat warning gets pulled. He was in the pool out back this morning for his workout." Another stallion, his coat dyed grey and his mane a bright white, shut the door behind him with his magic. "It'll be fine."
"Says you."
The unicorn stallion rolled his eyes. "Relax, feather brain. If Silver can go in the water and make a fool of herself in front of the castle brew, we'll be fine."
She groaned. "His name is Sir Dew Point."
"Yeah, yeah. C'mon. I bet Dutch Oven and his crew are making dinner. We might be able to get food early."
The two stallions ducked off down a different hallway towards the kitchens. She sighed in relief. 
It wasn't that she hated social situations, per se. She was... awkward. Very limited interactions with the other guards went poorly at best. They were acquaintances, and that's how she wanted to keep it.
That wasn't to say she didn't like having friends. It was merely a complication her career could not afford. When she was young, she had a few very close friends. They ate together, walked to school together, practically lived in each other’s apartments, and acted almost like sisters. At the Fillydelphia Public Library, they were the only members of the Junior Readers book club. 
Her cutie mark changed things. While in magic class one day, she earned her cutie mark by creating a first aid potion from scratch. Her promising step forward at a young age gave her the chance to be accepted into The School for Gifted Unicorns, which her parents pushed her to do. Of course, she was accepted and the next school year, their unbreakable friendship was tested.
Needless to say, things worked out poorly. Comet Tail wouldn't talk to her when she came home for the first summer after boarding school. Comet believed that her new school meant she was too good for her friends. The others stuck by her and they tried to salvage what they had left. The next summer they had less to talk about. By the third year back, they barely even exchanged glances. Quicksilver never returned home after that.
She wandered down the hall, taking in the beautiful stained glass windows on either side. One she passed was of Princess Celestia and Princess Luna using the Elements of Harmony to turn Discord to stone. 
She snorted. Discord was far more useful creating managed chaos in Equestria than when he was a bitter tyrant. He had made the wild northern frontier a little more manageable and the southern forests tamer for visitors, explorers, and the like.
She looked back down the hall, shaking her head. Tourists couldn't appreciate these mosaics for the history they contained. At least... most of them couldn't. She was once a tourist too. Part of the reason she applied for being an apprentice was to be in this place.
As she passed through the hall to the observatory, she noticed that there was less traffic than usual. She raised an eyebrow. Her ears flicked to the left and right trying to see if there was anypony in the halls. As her eyes scanned the hallway again, she slowed to a stop. One of the doors was slightly ajar.
She crept closer, wondering who was using one of the private studies.
"–and because we took a voluntary cut last year, we would like to simply return to that amount."
"I second that. The Academy deserves the requested funding after being as gracious as they were last fiscal year."
Silver recognized the latter voice as Dew Point for sure. But the subject matter was something she could care less about. Finances were for ponies who went to the Merchant's College.
"That seems fair. Any objections?"
Quicksilver stopped just beyond the door. That was Princess Luna's voice... during the day.
Quicksilver backed up a few paces and turned to face the door. It was slightly ajar, but she didn't dare open it any further.
"I have several. That funding was reserved for the establishment of a second school in Manehatten. On top of that, only salaries have increased. Tuition has stayed flat. Perhaps a few extra bits from everypony would cover the amount you are looking to gain."
"I also object. Farmers were promised additional assistance in expanding farmland this year to get ahead of growing demand. Without that funding, we risk being unprepared for a food shortage or a bad season."
"Princess Celestia promised that she would lift the ban on improving magically powered vehicles to save on physical labor for transportation, farming, shipping, and even the postal service. At the moment, it’s not even worth producing any! We're slipping behind on the pursuit of science. Even the griffons are jumping ahead of us!"
"Please, please," Luna interrupted. Quicksilver licked her lips and pressed closer to hear. "In the twenty-five years of your service, Balance Book, how many meetings has my sister attended?"
"Of this meeting?" Came the stallions reply.
"Of any meeting."
There was an uncomfortable pause before Balance Book spoke. "Few. None within the last five years."
Quicksilver covered her mouth with her hooves. Princess Celestia... wasn't doing anything?