//------------------------------//
// Chapter XLVII 
// Story: Journey to the center of Equestria 
// by Rarity Belle 
//------------------------------//

After Twilight had changed her attire and was done with her entire morning routine, the soothsayer had finally left the tent for what it was. Fluttershy would have pointed her to the exact location of where she had seen the magical doorway appearing. “So, what you’re telling is that you saw the stone physically move out of the way during one period of the sun’s rising? Sounds to me like there is some kind of magic at play here,” repeated Twilight before she approached the spot.

Her hands then moved themselves all over the place while she tried to actually get a feeling as of where the magic could have been surging through the whole of the place. With her horn lightly charged up and the aura to be found around her hands she tried her utmost best to actually and physically get to feel the channels of the doorway’s arcane energy.

The doctor just stood there with a massive smile upon her face. She had looked down the very hole that would be leading them down to the center of Equestria. She couldn’t have been happier. The only question was whether or not it was something that would be repeated. Was it a once in a year event? Or perhaps once in a week? Or was the event happening daily?

Fluttershy couldn’t tell for certain but she didn’t care about it whatsoever. She was almost one hundred percent certain that that very doorway would have been the one. The one that would be leading the lot of them over to the place where they needed to be. And that very place was the center of Equestria itself.

The quest of madness and insanity, the quest that had brought both friend and enemy together, the quest that had already placed them against near impossible odds, was slowly getting to an end. The bones of the doctor could be feeling the change in the wind as the frozen one seemed to have been dying down.

“Hey Twilight, is it normal that the freezing wind lays down?” Fluttershy asked when she looked around her. She could have sworn about the fact that that very wind was there about a couple minutes ago. So what changed?

The hands of Twilight were still going over the wall and the even began to knock. She really tried to see just where the hidden entrance could actually have been hidden. Yet the words of Fluttershy were in fact acknowledged by her. The attention of the unicorn was shifted over to the pegasus with a raised eyebrow. If there was one thing that she knew how to do, it was multitasking.

Though it almost seemed to be as if Twilight still didn’t knew what had happened. But the more she began to pay attention to that little fact, the more she began to realize that the pegasus was actually right on the matter. Something was off about it all and the mare couldn’t place to herself what it seemed to be.

Twilight removed herself from the wall and she took a couple of steps away from it. Her thoughts were going all over the place as she tried to feel the chilly wind that had been tormenting them for so long. “Unusual, where did that wind go to?” she spoke to herself. Her body turned over into the direction of the Frozen North.

The eyes of the mare narrowed themselves up to the point they were almost fully closed. For with the ice and snow reflecting tons and tons of sunlight which were just hurting her eyes to look to the frozen plains. Yet she couldn’t understand how the wind would just be laying down for a matter like that.

There must have been some sort of logical conclusion behind it all and Twilight was actually determined to figure out what it could possibly have been. “Sudden drop in the freezing winds, all over the Frozen North. Look, not even the finer snow is moving. It means there’s no wind a the whole of the place. Which is unusual,” the soothsayer said to the doctor.

Neither of the mares knew exactly just what could have caused everything to have become the way they were. Though they were having both their own theories on the matter. Theories that ranged from the good, all the way over to the insane. Yet there was one that seemed to have been the most likely of all.

“I have heard rumors, that once or twice a year, all of the winds in the Frozen North just stop for about a week. Why, is never said. It just stops and drops dead, only to pick up again,” whispered Fluttershy to the unicorn.

Twilight began to once again stroke her chin. She too, had heard those very rumors as well. “Some say that the magic that keeps the circulation going has to recharge every year or every six months. Perhaps it is the time that we’re in right now. And possibly, that week gives the magic of the mountain the chance to open the doorway. Oh that’s clever,” the soothsayer said to herself.

Her attention shifted right back towards the rocks of the mountain as her horn charged itself up, “Oh how could I have been so foolish? It isn’t about my magic interacting with the magic of the doorway, no… It’s the magic of Mother Nature herself messing with us all. Oh that’s clever, annoying for certain. But it is just so, so, so clever!”

The aura around both of her hands only became more intense before the hands were placed at two parts of the mystical entrance way. The massive bursts of arcane magic that were being sent through the rocks were supposed to make it move.

There wasn’t anything that happened to the rocks though. It just remained dead in the water like that. None of the stones even moved a single inch apart from a couple that were just falling off the side. The aura around the hands then faded away from existence while Twilight took her hands off of the stone. She turned her body around and leaned with her back against the wall.

Fluttershy’s eyes looked over to Twilight with a look of uncertainty. A look that was literally begging her for an answer on the question of what they needed to be doing next. “I’m having a theory, a crazy one, but it’s one,” said Twilight, “and it’s better than having nothing.”

The ears of the doctor were immediately perked as she began to listen more carefully. “Tell your theory, Twilight. I’d like to know it,” returned Fluttershy before she scooted over to the soothsayer. Soon enough could the both of them be found just standing there, leaning against the rocks of the mountain’s actual peak.

“Tomorrow morning, before dawn, we all gather ourselves right here and once the entrance way has formed itself, we will be going at it. We just rush in and pray for the best to happen to us all. I don’t, I don’t see any other way from which we could be doing our things. Perhaps it is madness, certainly. But it might be our only hope of getting where we need to be,” explained Twilight before she pointed in the direction of the frozen plains.

“As soon, as that wind starts to blow again, our chances of actually getting into this mountain without breaking it open like a nut, are gone for another six months to a year. I don’t think we are having that much time left given everything,” the soothsayer added.

Fluttershy could be understanding the words as a whole and she was even a little bit scared about them. She wasn’t really ready for the facts as they were and the theory just was riddled with holes. “A-All likely and s-such, but what if, if you’re wrong?” she dared to ask.

Only to receive a rather cutting look from the eyes of Twilight. But the look was soon changed into one of doubt. She, Twilight Sparkle the soothsayer, began to actually doubt about her own abilities. Of course did the chance exist that she was dead wrong about it all.

“I don’t know, Fluttershy, if I’m wrong about my theories, I think we just missed our only opportunity. But I’m not ready to give myself in just yet. We have gotten all this way, went through so much dangers already. We have seen madness itself, so why wouldn’t there be just that little bit more of it?” said Twilight with a voice of mixed emotions.

“But our luck eventually does run out, doesn’t it?” the doctor whispered. She was terrified to speak those very words. Though those words caused the unicorn to nod in a strange calm. Those words were perhaps a whole lot more true than they should have been.

“Oh yeah. Luck eventually does run out, I just hope there’s that tiny little bit left inside of the pot for us. So that we can complete this trail of madness in two ways.”

Those words, spoken in that almost somber tone caused the pegasus to raise another eyebrow. “You think it’s a one way trip?” she asked without any form of stutter. Yet the fear was still audible within her voice. Twilight simply gave a shrug as a response.

Twilight honestly didn’t knew whether or not it was going to be a one or two way trip. Of course she hoped the latter, but after having seen everything altogether. She wouldn’t have been too surprised if it actually was just one way trip.

The decision to not answer the question was one that had two effects coming down. The first one was that it terrified Fluttershy to the fact it actually might have been a one way trip. Yet the other showed her that there might have been a slight chance of it going both ways. But Twilight was still thinking about the actual way back.

In the meantime had the unicorn removed herself from the wall as the rest of the mares also had come out of their beds. They were all dressed up and ready to hit the day if they needed to. But the mare spoke the words about the fact that they needed to wait for the next day if they wanted to actually get inside of the mountain.

Naturally she didn’t told the rest of them what she had told Fluttershy. That information was supposed to remain confidential for the rest of them. Who knew what gears and switches of madness would be given off of they actually knew that their little plan had a higher rate of being a failure then a success?

It was a risk that Twilight wasn’t willing to take at all. She had to keep every last one of the mares at her side until they were either in the center or on the way back. The thoughts that rushed through her head weren’t the most pleasant one and as time crawled by. The unicorn simply dropped herself unto the ground before her eyes stared off into the distance.

She was out of answers upon all of the questions that she would be getting. She needed to do a bit of research in perhaps the only place she knew it was possible for her in that timing. So the unicorn assumed her meditational pose and closed the eyes off from the world.

Though just in that moment could the heavy, mechanized leg of Applejack be heard walking past her. “Yar gonna make the travel up there, ain’t ya? Best of luck finding the answers ya need. The others might have taking yar words for what they were, but Ah saw the doubt in yar eyes. Ya think ya know it all, but in fact ya know just as much as we all do,” the admiral spoke to the soothsayer in a tone that didn’t seem all too friendly actually.

Yet the soothsayer herself opened just one of her eyes and looked up to the admiral. “As much as I want to thank you for your input, Applejack, I also have to make the little note that it pretty much is not helping me in any way or form. But yes, I’m indeed going to try and reach the celestial planes. Hopefully there’s something in there that can help me figuring out just what exactly it is I’m looking for,” answered Twilight with an annoyance clearly audible within her tone.

“Now if you please want to excuse me and stay out of my way until I have returned, that would be greatly appreciated.” The admiral just shrugged a little bit in response before she continued on her way. Where she would be going didn’t come up in the mind of Twilight. For she just closed her eye again and began the mental preparations to make the ascend up to the planes.


~~~~

                     
The storm inside of her head was raging more violent that it had ever done as all of the matters she needed to be having and answer upon just rushed back to her like that. The hurricane that was her mind was released once more in its fullest of glories as the soul of the unicorn began to detach itself from the body.

Twilight looked through the eyes of her soul and saw how the others were just doing their own things, all while her body remained stationary. One last glance was given over the lot of them, then she turned her attention upwards and the soul was just on its way. It shot up into the skies and far above it like an arcane missile being fired.

The soul travelled through both time and space in the search for the celestial planes. It wanted –if not needed– to land in one specific location to get the answers that she needed to have. Answers that could possibly change her entire viewpoints of the travel they all had been undertaken. The eyes of the mare always kept a watchful eye out for that one location as the gates of the planes came into her eyes.

All of the sudden was she then just there. Twilight had made the ascent to the planes of the goddesses just like that. A routine job had it become for the unicorn and every time she went up, there wasn’t really anything of interest to see for her. She had seen all of those things along the way for countless times already.

The massive creatures that supposed to be living within the seas, the ships that sailed out of the port of Canterlot, the once beautiful crystal castle of the Frozen North. All those things had she witnessed more than once. They weren’t getting old in her eyes, but just uninteresting in the moment. With a deep exhale had the soul taken off again as the eyes looked over the planes themselves.

Planes that seemed to be stretching to a near infinity until the little tips of the mountain ridges separated the celestial with the lunar plains. She needed to find her place as soon as possible. Everything depended on it if she wanted to figure out anything about how they needed to be tackling the situation.

The pressure was building inside of her mind. That time might have been the last chance to talk with the goddesses themselves about her journey. If they somehow would have gotten into the mountain, who was to say that the communication spell still worked? It worried Twilight perhaps a little bit more than it originally should have been doing. But the fear was rightfully placed.

The unicorn then began to soar over the planes at the speed not even the fastest pegasus could be travelling. She was soaring through the skies of the planes while her eyes were kept open with firm. One blink and she might have missed the very place she needed to end up.

Twilight Sparkle was getting more and more curious about everything they had done and had seen. From Sunset Shimmer to Chrysalis, to the griffon emperor himself. They had conquered so many obstacles already in their trip, so why would they be slowed down by a broken entrance and one that was only appearing at certain times of day, or year?

All kinds of questions were surging through the mind of the mare as she needed to figure out certain bits and pieces more than anything. Yet the most important question was the one she didn’t dare to be asking to anyone. The question that could be spreading their imaginations wide and was either the most wonderful heaven they had ever seen, or the worst hell they could have ever heard.

All she had for an answer was that sphere of magma or the dying star. She still wasn’t sure just what exactly it happened to be. Her feelings told her that she was actually right with the both of them. It was just another fact that worried the unicorn to near death.

“Where is it? Where is it?” she muttered to herself. Twilight kept on flying through the air of the planes. Twilight needed to find that one little location in the vast stretches of land that were the mythical and mystical planes. But the beating sun was something where even her soul was getting trouble with. It’s heat became only more intense as she soared over the place that could only be named as a desert.

Yet in that very desert she was needed to be. Within that desert laid the place of knowledge that she needed to have. But the usual spire that soared into the skies wasn’t there to be found anymore. It had broken down and fallen over a terribly long time ago. It had happened in a time where the devil herself had once managed to enter the plains right there.

In the corner of her eye she thought to have seen something that actually resembled that very broken spire. Her curiosity was of course taken by it and the unicorn turned herself quickly around. She flew closer and closer to the structure that laid half buried within the sand and couldn’t believe what she caught within her eyes.

For within the sand it just laid as if nothing had touched it for thousands of years. A smile of relief was released through her mouth as she finally had found it. She had actually and finally found the place she was looking for. Twilight Sparkle had discovered the location thought to be lost to her: the Celestial Library.

The unicorn dropped herself in one of the spire’s many windows and fell down to the very floor of it. But because of the fact that the spire laid at its side, the staircase she had to walk on didn’t really work her way. But she happened to be a soul of a traveling soothsayer.

She had the power to soar through the likes like a pegasus, so why wouldn’t she have the power to walk through vast matter? Which was exactly the thing she did. The fear of actually crashing right into the bottom of the staircase was one that remained present. Nothing should have been taken for certain within the realm of the celestial goddess.

One moment the laws of nature and Equestria could apply, the next could everything have been thrown out of the window. Next to the two goddesses, there also happened to be a third creature that roamed the place. A creature that very few soothsayers actually dared to speak about.

They knew it existed, but that was it. Yet that creature was a trouble for another time, the unicorn was approaching the bottom of the staircase. With one deep exhale she actually dared to take the step forward. She thought to be walking right into the stone out of which the staircase was made, but much to her own surprise did she just walked through as if nothing happened.

At the other side of the staircase did the mare turn herself around and looked back the way she came. “Alright then, this is something interesting to know. Time to head to the library and see what I can find before tomorrow morning hits.”

So said, so done. Twilight travelled all the way down the spire and eventually further down into the ground where she was met with the vast emptiness of the massive underground library. Why the library with so much knowledge was hidden right in the desert was something that she didn’t knew. Perhaps it was also better that she didn’t knew. Twilight wasn’t in the mood to meet the librarian of the day.

The unicorn was just wandering through the massive halls with each held bookcases that were going sky high and were filled to the brim with arcane scrolls. It pretty much could have been heaven and Twilight would have been happy with it. Because it felt like actual heaven in her own eyes. She was in the biggest library in existence, whether it was in the planes of the goddesses or the real world. No other library that she knew of was bigger than that one.

Not even the one in the lunar plane could be matching the sheer size and scale of the one she was in. But she remember that she wasn’t there just to look at the scenery. She was there for business and that very business would she be doing.

The unicorn walked over to a series of tables with chairs and took place upon one of them. Yet the screeching sounds of the same chair being pulled back was the only sound that filled the entire library. Suddenly did the eyes of Twilight from left to right as she hoped not to have awoken anything.

Though the sounds were loud and cringe worthy enough to do exactly that. After a couple of seconds of returned silence, she simply released a deep exhale and took place on the chair. A chair which was then moved forward again as Twilight laid both of her arms upon the tabletop.

She was ready, ready to begin her search through the thousands of scrolls. The horn began to charge itself up as her eyes were closed. The scrolls in many different bookcases gained the same raspberry aura around them as the horn and were levitated towards her.

Everything was different in the planes of the goddesses, even the libraries. They were far from the conventional ones that everypony was used to. In these kind of libraries one wouldn’t just pick out a scroll and read it. No, one would have to take place and call upon its magic as that would be doing the job.

The mind only had to think about just what it would be needing or doing and the magic would be picking out the scrolls that were even remotely based upon the subject. Then the scrolls would have brought over to the reader who would be scanning them as quick and best as they could.

So it also happened to be the very case in Twilight’s. The scrolls that went past her eyes were records from years ago. Not just a couple dozen, but thousands as well. She needed to know if there was anything written about the thing that they could be encountering in the center of their very world.  Scrolls as long as the length of the library went past her eyes in seconds as she read all of the content it carried. Yet none held any form of answer.

It almost felt to her as if they weren’t allowed to be knowing just what was resting in the center of Equestria. Either it would have been that, or the anthronies of ages old didn’t knew a way to be getting to the place. All of the scrolls actually caused more questions to be risen up inside of the unicorn then to have answered them.

Nothing spoke about a ball of magma or a star that laid in the center of their world. Yet perhaps she could be finding the answers she was needing by going even further back in time. So all of the scrolls were placed back in their rightful places as the eyes of the mare stared into nothing but the emptiness of space.

Her mind began to think about a couple more subjects that she could have used in order to gain just that little bit of extra information. And there came the scrolls once again. They danced within the arcane powers she had before the eyes of the mare read through the content they carried.

Things best left untold all surged through her eyes as history was playing itself out before her eyes. Finally did she then came to the last scroll of the series and the dates alone said it was old, ancient even. But did it happen to be actually old enough to have been a clue on the matter.

Time and time again was she reading through the countless scrolls of arcane power. All the way up to the point where she would just be giving everything up. For her feelings it seemed like she had been gazing through every last scroll in the entire library.

Twilight had learned about tomes previously left unimagined and spells powerful enough to suck the very life out of anypony. She had read about how the dark magic was actually created and pieces of Equestrian history long before the anthronies even came about.

But there was nothing. Nothing inside of the library that could have been brought her one step closer to the task that was at hand. The mare released a deep exhale through her nostrils as she tried to fight the tears back. All that she wanted to do in the moment was to just return to her body, return to bed and cry herself to sleep.

Not even the mighty Twilight Sparkle, the bookworm under the soothsayers, the one who always was having some form of a plan or anything else, had anything to work with. All that she had were the mental images and those simply weren’t enough for her. She was at a dead end for once.

Though when all hope seemed to have been lost, the whispers in the wind finally had found their way into the ears of the unicorn. The wind circled around her head as the whispers were whispered within the ears.

Almost in an instant sat the unicorn straight in the chair. The horn would have discharged itself, she was listening to them. She listened with care to the world that the goddess of the sun was having to say against her. “But, I, I am a strong mare. It’s just, it’s just that nothing seems to be making sense to me right now. Everything I try, I can’t seem to be getting more information about the subject,” replied Twilight against the whispers.

She was waiting for the answer upon her words as a gentle, but an oddly polite giggle filled up the room. Almost as if an older mare was looking at her from a distance. The eyes of Twilight shifted over to the origin of the sounds but there wasn’t anything to be seen within them.

“Strange…” she mumbled to herself as her ears were perked up again. For the whispers of the goddess were once again said to her. “What do you mean with, ‘there’s a first for everything’? I don’t understand, there must have been being down there before right? It’s just, oh for the love of… No, not you!”

Twilight was getting only more annoyed as she shook her head from side to side. “Just, just leave me alone, please. I’m having so much troubles on my head and now that I don’t have any form of information about down there, what’s the profit of having me still here? I learned things I shouldn’t have because of my hunger to power.”

And then there was silence. Complete and utter silence had taken over while Twilight turned her head from right to left. She hadn’t actually expected the fact that a goddess would just leave her hanging the way they did it. It was madness in her own eyes, but something else inside of the library was madder than her.

With a shock did the eyes of the unicorn turn themselves upwards and from right to left. She heard the steps of another being, a physical being, wander through the halls. Only one would could have been released out of her mouth before she felt her contact with the realm just breaking up. “Chaos,” was that one word she said aloud.

Then the soul of the unicorn just shot up into the skies, through the stone ceilings of the library and back into the skies that would be burning her hair off. The unicorn then was almost immediately sent back the way she came. Something was breaking the contact with the planes and she wasn’t happy about it.

Closer and closer she came to her actual body. Only moments later was the final dive being made. Before Twilight knew what was going on, she could feel the stone cold muscles and bones of her body once again just sitting there.


~~~~

                     
Her eyelids were having the greatest of trouble opening up as she wondered just how long she had been sleeping there. The whispers of the other mares came into her ears, which caused her to become really curious about what was happening or actually had happened.

With all of the strength that was still inside of her body did the mare force her eyelids open and she took a deep swig if fresh air. All of the bones and muscles were put to work right away as she crawled herself up. The darkness of the place was then falling over her as she realized that it was the middle of the night. Or even worse, they were terribly close to the second morning.

The unicorn was still a little disorientated when she walked around almost like a chicken without a head. Everything stopped making sense for a moment until she saw the shimmers of the other mares just standing there.

“Look who's finally back. Flutters told us to pack up and wait for you before heading through that doorway she had seen yesterday,” commented Rainbow with her usual cocky smile going across her face.

“Wait, yesterday? S-Somepony, tell me the bloody time!” exclaimed Twilight almost straight away. The mare truly didn’t have even the slightest of ideas where in the timeline she happened to be. Though when she heard the answer that was given to her, only a gulp could have been released.

For as it turned out, it was the second day. The day where they would be putting the theory of Fluttershy right to the test and see whether or not they truly would be starting on the last leg of their journey.

“So, what do we do now?” Twilight asked when she knew both where and when she actually was. The other mares pointed to Fluttershy who on her own turn pointed towards the first rays of light. The first rays of light managed to hit the stone of the actual peak and from there on outward, it was only a matter of time before either the stone would move, or it would remain dead.

Twilight suddenly realized what would be happening and she prepared herself for everything and anything. The light continued to crawl itself down the rocks as the last words were spoken.

“Everypony packed and ready to go?”

“E’yup,” answered Applejack before she assumed a stance of running.

“Everypony also knowing that after this, there is no turning back until it’s all over?”

“We do,” replied Rarity, who also assumed a starting pose.

“Well, here goes nothing.”

“You said it,” said Rainbow before she flapped her wings a couple of times. A deep exhale was then being released through each of their mouths. The sunlight was touching all of the rocky face and then it began. Within their eyes they all saw it happening. Yet none of them could be believing the facts as they were.

Stone was moving, shifting and transforming before their very eyes. The entrance way was revealed to them all and only Fluttershy could be saying the words where everypony else was thinking of. “Let’s go!”