It was a beautiful, blue, sunny morning in the Crystal Kingdom. The sun was young in the sky, and birds flitted from tree to tree, their morning songs filling the air with beautiful music that brought a smile to any of the ponies that happened to hear. It was a day some ponies would call perfect.
Despite the beautiful weather and wonderful sunshine, Princess Twilight Sparkle was asleep. Her room cast into shadow by thick velvet curtains and filled not with the beautiful sounds of birds but instead the nasally sound of snoring that a certain white unicorn would have said was most unladylike.
A light rap at the broke the calmness of the scene, this was followed by a second and a third rap as each one was left unanswered. With no reply forthcoming, the door opened, and the caller scampered into the room, a silver tray balanced on one of his claws and a scroll clutched in the other.
As the figure grew accustomed to the darkness in the room, he sighed and shook his head at the sight before him. Claws clicking on the marble floor, he crossed the room and placed the silver tray and scroll beside it on a table beside the bed before turning his attention to the sleeping pony.
Twilight was sleeping on her front, as had become her custom since she struggled to keep her wings in check. Something that that caused a gleam to appear in the visitor's eyes as he cracked his knuckles.
"Twilight..." he whispered so as to not actually disturb her. "Time to get up."
Carefully, he climbed onto the bead, and positioned himself to her side, just behind one of her wings. Slowly, with a finger extended, he inched his claw forwards; towards the point where the wing joined with the main body. A point which he had discovered was particularly sensitive. The whole room seemed to freeze as the finger made contact and dug deep into Twilight's side.
Letting out a bloodcurdling scream, Twilight jumped straight up into the air her wings wildly flapping as they tried to instinctively keep her airborne. Unfortunately her lack of skill and practice left their flapping useless and she fell back to earth, landing in a heap.
"Spike!"
The laughing little dragon jumped off of the bed and began to roll around on the floor.
"Spike! It's not funny!" screamed Twilight as she peered through the gloom at the young dragon. "Why do you keep waking me up like that?!"
Spike picked himself up off the floor, and walked over to the windows. "Aww, come on Twi, you know I'm just kidding around," Twilight just grunted in response. "Besides, it's your fault for sleeping in till ten, especially on such a beautiful day." With that Spike wrenched open the curtains, filling the room with light and causing Twilight to hide her head behind her wings and scream out again.
"Spike!"
Taking this as his cue to leave, the young dragon scampered out the room, chuckling all the way. He only paused to duck just in time as a large, fluffy pillow was magically propelled at him and it flew through the open door ahead of him.
As the laughing subsided and the room became quiet once more, Twilight closed the door with her magic and settled back into bed. For a moment she just lay their grumbling and willing her heartbeat to slow. "I'll get him back one day, then we will see who is laughing." She sighed and decided that seeing as the damage was already done that she should probably get up.
Climbing out of bed; stretching her legs and wings, she walked over to the window and threw it open, letting birdsong and and the scent of cherry blossom fill the air. She inhaled deeply and enjoyed the smells of summer, detecting a faint but familiar smell. The delectable smell of pancakes.
Gazing back into the room, she finally noticed the silver tray, a covered dish sitting upon it. A faint smile traced it's way across her face and her features softened. She remembered then why she didn't stay angry at Spike. Sure he could be annoying, but he also made the best pancakes she had ever tasted. Not even the royal chef's that Princess Cadance had hired could match them.
Levitating the cover off the dish, she was instantly hit with the aroma of apples and freshly baked dessert. Her smile extended as she took a fork in a magical grip, no doubt Spike had used apples provided by her friend Applejack. Carefully, she took a small portion of the pancakes onto her fork, and placed it into her mouth. Instantly she was hit with an explosion of taste. With such a delicious breakfast, she was unable to hold back any longer and set about attacking the food.
Ten minutes later, her food devoured, Twilight decided it was time to take her empty tray to the kitchens and begin her day. Picking her tray up in a telekinetic grip, she heard a gentle flop as the parchment that Spike had previously left on the table fell to the floor.
Carefully placing the tray back on the table, she looked over the parchment. It wasn't very important, just a notice informing her that the meeting that she originally came to the Crystal Kingdom to attend - the one interrupted by Sunset Shimmer - was going to be held tomorrow.
She thought for a moment about the events that had transpired only a few days ago, being in another world, battling a former student of Celestia for her own crown. It was a strange experience, made all the stranger due to the fact she met alternative versions of her friends. That was something that puzzled her, she had seen "human" versions of pretty much everypony she knew, apart from herself. She wondered what had happened to the human version of her, if it existed like her friends did.
It was an interesting thought, but not something she decided she would dwell on.
After making sure she had memorized the timing of the meeting, she put the note down and picked the tray up again and set off out of her room (closing the door behind her) and descended into the depths of the castle, towards the kitchen. The palace's kitchen was, unlike the rest of the palace, practical instead of beautiful. When Cadance first took the throne, like the rest of the building, the kitchen was made of crystals and was beautiful, but at the behest of Shinning Armour, the gems were removed and replaced with more modern equipment. After all, crystal ovens are hardly easy to come by, and since his life in the army, he preferred practicality.
As she stepped inside the kitchen, she noticed it was mostly empty, breakfast was long since over (for most ponies) and only light preparation was going on for lunch. Twilight wasn't surprised to see Spike cooking alongside the head chef, a rather jolly plump griffon by the name of Gusteau. Since they had come back from the Human world, Spike spent most of his free time learning to cook under the chef's guidance. The little dragon had stated insistently that he just enjoyed cooking and wanted to learn dishes from other lands, but she noticed that whenever Rarity complained about being hungry, or wanted a snack, Spike - along with a full array of food - was never too far away.
She dumped her tray by the rest of the mornings washing up, and quickly left the kitchen, her mind already focusing on what she wanted to do for the rest of the day - the library. Twilight knew it was - in the words of Rainbow Dash - a book wormy thing to do, but she didn't care, she hadn't had any time to visit the wonderful place since the fight against Sombra, and she couldn't resist the 1,000 year old books anymore. Who knew what long forgotten knowledge awaited her in there.
She exited the light but stuffy interior of the palace into the glorious sunlight, squinting her eyes as she did, and breathed deeply the scent of summer. Twilight let her wings hang loose as she walked to the library, enjoying the sensation as her feathers caught a gentle breeze. She still wasn't completely used to her wings, and all the discomfort from them getting in the way of things until she adapted to them fully was made up for by the strange - but pleasurable - sensations they gave her at times. She felt it most when she was doing her flying lessons with Rainbow Dash, and she was starting to see why Rainbow called Fluttershy a chicken for refusing to fly half the time, after all, it felt so good.
The walk was simply bliss to Twilight, she got to stretch her limbs and she even ran into a couple of her friends on the way. She met Rarity as the fashionista was busy taking measurements of a couple of ponies from a temporary stall she set up on the main street, the crystal ponies were so impressed with her designs from the crystal fair that the queue to the stall was quite long. Then she met Applejack, also with her own stall selling some of her home grown apples. While they weren't exactly as popular as they were back in Equestria - what with all the crystal berries - the delectable treats still drew a decent crowd.
Arriving at the library, Twilight felt the buzz, a feeling she hadn't felt in a long time. It was the feeling she used to get when she read a new book, sadly, she had read most of the books in her own library and as such didn't really get that feeling anymore. But now it was back, and it was the most powerful it had been since she was a little filly waiting for her new magic book for Hearthswarming.
She stood there for a moment, taking the building in, it's great crystal structure inviting her to enter and absorb some of the knowledge stored within. Just thinking about all the hours she could spend reading some of the books inside sent a literal shiver down her spine and across her wings, making her look like she was trying to clumsily imitate some of Scootaloo's martial arts. After the spasm passed, she felt that she had waited long enough, and passed through the open doors.
Inside it was cooler and darker and Twilight had to wait for a second for her eyes to adjust to the new ambiance. It was quiet, as was to be expected of a library on a hot day, but not completely empty. The gentle patter of hooves on the crystal floor could be heard coming from different areas of the library. A kindly looking librarian sat working at a desk near the first row of shelves, her hooves moving from book to book with a stamp. Twilight approached the mare, the same mare she had met when she first visited the kingdom, and she looked up, a small smile appearing on her face.
"Ahh, Twilight, so good to see you again. It's been almost a year since I last saw you, hasn't it?" Twilight nodded, her motion causing her wings to flutter slightly, the movement not missed by the librarian. "And I see you're a Princess now, well congratulations."
"Thanks, although I'm surprised you hadn't heard about it already."
"Well, maybe somepony tried to tell me, but you know how it is. Working in a library and when I hear the word Princess I automatically assume they're talking about some fairy tale they've recently read." Twilight blushed, sometimes something similar happened to her when she chatted to her friends, not that she'd ever admit it.
"So, how may I help you today, 'Princess' Sparkle?" The words almost made Twilight giggle - she still wasn't used to being called princess - and she probably wouldn't for sometime."
"Just Twilight will be fine, thank you miss..."
"Parchment. Mint Parchment, Miss Twilight, so how may I help you today?"
"I was wanting to read up on some of the history of the Crystal Empire, do you know which section that would be?" The librarian's smile quivered a bit before she replied.
"Sadly, we don't have a dedicated section for that. You might be able to find some books that touch on it in the Ancient History section, section A - rows 19 and 20."
"Thank you, Miss Parchment," said Twilight with a small curtsy before turning and walking into the depths of the library.
Section A row 19 wasn't hard to find, the library was spaced so section A was closest to the entrance, so naturally it was only really a matter of finding row 19. As Twilight rounded the corner into the row, she was greeted by the sight of some of the largest books she had ever seen. Thick, heavy bound tomes, they clearly used vellum instead of paper, which caused Twilight to shiver. She had read about how in the ancient past, before the press and ability to mass produce paper, many writers used animal skins to write their texts. She knew it was due to a different time and different culture, but a part of her couldn't help being repulsed by the fact she would be holding the skins of fellow critters in her hoofs as she read.
Glancing at the names of the tomes, Twilight was upset to see that most of the volumes only covered history associated on Equestria or the Gryphon Kingdoms. Nothing about the Crystal Empire stood out from the other tomes on the shelves. She sighed and levitated a stepladder from the end of one of the shelves to in front of her. It looked like that if she wanted any information on the past of the Crystal Empire, she'd have to search for it.
Night reigned over the Empire, owls hooted; crickets chirped; stars twinkled; and a full moon gazed down majestically on the land below. Being the summer, the town was still alive with activity as ponies dined at the many restaurants or danced at one of the clubs. And an open air theater was being performed in the Empire's new stadium. Everything was busy, apart from the library.
The library was shut for the night, it's doors locked tight and it's lights off. It was dark and quiet. The only light and noise in the building came from the back of the Ancient history section, where a solitary pony sat amidst a fort of books reading tomes from the light of a solitary lantern. Twilight had failed to find any of the information she sought during the day and thus managed to persuade the librarian to let her stay in the library over night to try and read as many of the books as possible.
A loud thud echoed through the library as Twilight closed the current book she was reading, it's thick cover letting out a loud boom as it closed. She let out a groan of frustration, it was the 50th book she had tried and like the others, it contained nothing about the crystal empire. This was the most unproductive day of book reading she had ever experienced. Never before could she not find books on a subject she sought out and this almost made her want to cry.
As she pushed the current book away from her, she looked around and realized she had finished every book she had taken down from the shelves. It looked like it was time to get more. Slowly, she got up from where she was half sitting and half lying down and stood up straight, and after a little stretch of her legs, slowly trotted off down the shelves again, stifling a yawn back with her forehoof as she went.
This time, she got the stepladder manually, her time spent using her magic all day to actually lift the tomes made her want to actually use her hooves and give her horn a rest - albeit a rather short one. She moved the stepladder to a shelf near where she had built her fort, a shelf up against the back wall, and slowly climbed the steps to reach the higher books. Unfortunately, the long day of sitting still reading and the late hour didn't help her hoof at all, and she struggled to climb the stepladder without it falling out from beneath her. Once she had reached the top, and took a second to ensure her balance, she reached up and tugged at one of the lighter looking volumes, one that looked like she could at least carry it without magical aid.
The tug did nothing more than almost make Twilight fall backwards as the tome - resistance to the force she applied to it - slipped through her grip. Muttering a few obscenities under her breath, she once more gripped the tome, this time applying a firm but even force to the book, making sure not to tug too roughly and risk falling backwards again. This time, the tome stayed firmly in grip, and slowly started to inch forwards at a snails pace which belied the size of the tome. As she started to pant and sweat with the effort, Twilight guessed that no ordinary tome would be so heavy and yet remain so small. Her guess was right as moments later the book went as far as it would go and the halting of it's motion was accompanied by a click.
Bemused, Twilight just stood there, book between her hooves, wondering what had happened. For a moment nothing happened, then before she could react, the bookcase started to revolve. For a panic stricken moment Twilight wondered what to do, the rational part of her brain was screaming for her to let go before she got trapped who knows where, but the curious part urged her to keep the book firmly clutched and find out where she would end up. In the end the rational part of her brain won over, but far too late, and she let go just as the revolving bookcase stopped moving with a clang.
Twilight landed on a rough stone floor, her hooves meeting the solid ground with a clatter. Nervously, she looked around to no avail, wherever she had ended up was pitch black. Exhausted and magically drained, Twilight struggled for a second, but eventually conjured enough light to see by. Although, how long she could keep her horn illuminated she could not guess.
With light now to see by, Twilight noticed she was standing inside a rather small chamber. The room was bare, it's walls and floor made from the same dull, cold grey stone. The only other feature in the room apart from the bookshelf behind her was a staircase in the center of the chamber which lead down below the library. Slowly, she inched towards the start of the descent, hoping to see what lay below. However, the staircase descended in a spiral and thus the bottom was hidden from view.
"Hmm," she muttered to herself quietly, "Do I go back out into the library? Or do I go down into a possibly ancient unexplored secret passage?" She tapped her right front hoof on the ground in front of her as she tried to think. Eventually the prospect of discovering some long lost secret became too much for her, and she decided she would head down the stairs, at least to see where they lead, after all, she was in the library to find out about the Empire's past.
As she made her way down the stairs, her hooves not only echoed on the stone, but also kicked up a lot of dust. It seemed to her that no pony had been down here in a long time. Almost as soon as she started, she reached the bottom of the stairs, this caught her off guard and she took an extra step, expecting to continue downwards and fell flat on her rump at the base of the staircase.
"Ouch!" The words escaped Twilight's lips before she could hold them back, and for a moment, she looked and hoped the noise hadn't disturbed anything in the dark. She sat, her rapid pulse and breathing gradually returning to normal rhythm, and looked around herself. The stairs ended in a large chamber, the walls to each side of her were just in range of the light from her horn, but the wall at the far end was nowhere to be seen.
Eventually, sure that nothing was going to leap out at her, at least not while she remained sitting where she was, she got herself up, shook the dust from her coat and took a proper step into the room.
Their was a woosh, and the room was bathed in a comforting, warm light, her step triggering some hidden mechanism or ancient charm and causing braziers which lined the walls to ignite. Now illuminated, she could see the far end of the room, and noticed that it appeared to be some sort of private part of the library. At the far end were three small bookshelves. One on the far wall, and one on each of the side walls next to it. In the center of the room between the bookshelves lay a dais, and on the walls leading up to that part of the room, in between the braziers, were at least a dozen large portraits.
Twilight walked slowly down the chamber, taking time to inspect the portraits as she passed. The pictures were a mix of stallions and mares, and despite how different each pony looked, each one shared two common traits. Each pony wore a crown, clearly the same crown from how it looked in the pictures, and each pony had the same second name according to the name plaques below the paintings. Tango.
"Wow," she whispered. "These pictures must be the royal family that ruled over the Empire, and I guess that means this was part of the library dedicated to them." As she got close to the end of the room, she passed a painting which had it's canvas torn, the image of the pony that resided in the painting gone. However the plaque beneath it was still legible. "Sombra," she muttered as she read it, the word sending a shiver down her spine.
She tore her gaze away from the painting, and continued towards the bookcases and the dais between them, while she walked her mind marveled. This chamber was a treasure trove of history, if nothing else at least she'd discovered the names of the ponies who once ruled the Crystal Empire.
Eventually she reached the end of the chamber, and stood before the dais, which instantly stole any attention she may have had from the bookcases. The dais itself was rather simple, made of a rich dark wood, it's colour starkly contrasting the drab grey stone on which it stood. However, it was what was on the Dias that piqued her interest the most. A large book with a thick cover bound in a dark blue cloth that was spangled with stars. She wanted to squeal with joy but held them back before she confirmed her suspicions. Unable to read the cover from where she stood, she stepped up to the dais and peered down at the front of the book.
"Del Tango, Volume the Sixteenth," she read. "Sombra. Penned by the Wise and Noble hoof of Starswhirl the bearded." Twilight was instantly intrigued and let out the squeal she had been holding onto. It was a book by Starswhirl the Bearded, about Sombra. Of course, without a picture on the cover she had no way to prove it was the Sombra she had encountered previously, but she had a strong suspicion that it was. Which made her really interested in reading the book, why would Starswhirl, the pony who invented half of the spells ponies used today, write about a pony like Sombra.
Unable to wait, she flipped open the cover, blew off the dust that resided on the first page, and began to read.