Children of Harmony

by Pinkie Pie Sweets

Chapter 31: The Ghost of the Crystal Palace

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Later the day at night:

Sakura her siblings and cousin are in Rose's room listening to the story about Rose's Crystalling. Rose feels a bit embarrassed because her mother is retelling about Rose going out control with her flying and magic. The two babies are already sleeping in the nursery and now it's time for them to get some sleep. Right now they are in their pajamas and nicely snuggle in their bed and sleeping bags.

Cadence says, "After the Crystalling, we have a big party. Pinkie still manage to throw a great party."

"Wow! Did that really happened?" Ame asks.

"Yes. Yes it did," Cadence answers happily.

"Sounds like being an alicorn can be pretty hard," Sakura replies and also referring the comment to herself.

Cadence can understand why Sakura asked. In reality Princess Cadence used to be a pegasus before she became an alicorn herself. She can understand that changes can have some hardship in her life, but manage to get through it.

Then Cadence says, "I understand that having wings, magic, and strength is not very easy, but in do time we were able to handle the responsibilities of being an alicorn."

Sakura asks, "Do you think I'll have a responsibility someday?"

"Maybe so, you just need to know what it is," Cadence answers happily.

Then Twilight comes up to her kids and says, "Now I think that's enough stories for tonight, time for you all to sleep."

"And it's your special day as well," Cadence adds happily.

Then she tuck her daughter in for bed. Sakura and the twins also tucked into their sleeping bags for the night.

Rose yawn and says, "Good night mommy,"

"Night mom," Sakura and the twins reply with a smile.

"Good night our sweet children," Twilight says happily.

"We love," Cadence adds with a smile.

And with that, the kids starts to sleep as Twilight and Cadence leaves the room.

"Night, Cadence," Twilight replies.

"Goodnight, Twilight," Cadence says.

Then they both leave to go to their rooms in order to get some sleep for tomorrow's birthday party.

At a different part of the castle, later in the night:

Shining Armor and Onyx the librarian along with the other ponies are finished with their meeting for the night and the ponies already left to do their everynight work and some are going to go to sleep.

"Goodnight, Shining Armor," Onix says as she's leaving the meeting room, but doesn't notice the mysterious shadow figure walking pass her.

In one of the restrooms:

The twin ponies are fixing one of the pipes for one of the sinks, until they smell a really bad odor coming from the hallway.

"Hey do you smell that?" the red hated pony asks.

"I do. It smells like a donkey (phew)," The green hated pony answers in disgust.

Then they hear a strange moaning sound coming from the hallway. When they turn around they can see a big shadowy figure walking down the hallway. They can tell that it's big, it's white, and hairy. They are so scared that they hug each other really tight unit the shadow figure is gone.

The pony with the red hat nervously asks, "Did you see that?"

"I did and it's huge," the pony with the green hat answers with fear.

Then the two ponies scream, "Aaaahhhh!"

Then two of the ponies in the hallway see white glowing eyes in the hallway and are too stiff to move. When the figure leave the two ponies screams and run away.

In Rose's bedroom:

Sakura, Rose, Yuki, and Ame are sleeping in bed, until Yuki wakes up feeling a little tired.

Yuki tiredly says, I need some water."

"Yuki want to go get some water, but she is to scared to go alone.

She then starts to shake her sister and says, "Sakura. Sakura, are you away."

Sakura groans as she is waking up and says, "Not anymore."

"I'm sorry sis, but I want to get a drink of water and… I don't want to go alone," Yuki answers sounding scared.

Sakura then starts to wake up a little more and feels more awake than she is.

"Sakura say, "Okay sis, but make sure you stay close to me,"

"Okay," Yuki says feeling glad to have a great sister.

Before they leave to go get something to drink, Sakura and Yuki hears ponies screaming, "Aaaahhhh!"

The screaming also wakes up Ame and Rose freaking them out.

Rose screams, "What in the world was that?!"

Sakura opens the door to the hallway to see what is going on. When she did she and the others can see ponies running away in a panic.

One of the ponies screams, "There's a monster in the castle,"

"And it's huge!" The other pony screams.

After running pass Rose's room. Sakura and the others are looking confused. They have no idea what is going on, but they knows that something really scared those ponies.

"What got into them?" Ame asks looking confused.

"They said something about a monster?" Yuki says questionably.

Then Rose says, "Okay, it's offical…"

"What's official?" Ame asks.

"There's definitely something in this castle and I think we should find out who or what it is," Rose explains.

"And I think I know how to lure it out," Sakura declares.

In the library:

Sakura, Yuki, Ame and Rose are at the entrance to the library and they set a trap in order to catch it. Sakura use a rope to tie one of her detective conan manga and leaves it on the floor. Ame and Rose are holding a big net and are waiting for the monster or whatever it is to come out and take the book.

Yuki turns to her sister and asks, "So, remind us why you tied your Detective Conan manga with a rope."

"And why do we have to hold the net?" Ame asks.

Sakura turns to her siblings and cousin to tell them about her plan.

Sakura explains, "Like in a lot of detective books and mangas I read, the culprit always return to the scene of the crime. I remember the librarian says that our mystery being like to take books. When he find a new book, he can't resist taking it."

Then Yuki happily says, "I get it! You're using your as bait."

"That's right. Then when the culprit takes the book tugging the rope. Yuki and I will try pull it and you two use the net to catch it," Sakura answers.

After Sakura complete explaining the others about her plan, something starts to tug on the rope and taking the book along with the rope.

"Sakura!" Yuki screams and grabs the rope with all her might.

"That thing is... too... strong," Sakura says as she try to pull on the rope.

Sakura turns to Ame and Rose to give them the signal to throw the rope at the monster.

Sakura screams, "Guys, throw the net!"

"On it!" Ame says.

Ame and Rose are flies out and are ready to throw the rope. Just then the rope snaps making Sakura and Yuki fall to the ground. When Rose and Ame comes out to get the monster they discover the monster is gone.

Ame confusedly asks, "Where did it go?"

When Sakura and Yuki get up and go in the library, they can see that the monster is gone and the strange thing is that the only way out of the library is the entrance where they are earlier.

"It's gone," Yuki says.

"Where did it go?" Rose asks.

Sakura and the kids look around to see if there's anything out of the ordinary or something that can be used to find out where the monster gone to.

As they search around, Yuki see something on the ground says says, "Look guys!"

"There's the rope the book was tied to,"

"And it's under the bookcase," Ame says as he shows the others where the rope leads.

Sakura looks at the rope closely and can see that rope is under the bookcase. She can also feel a sligh of air from where the rope is. Sakura is starting to get the idea on how the monster disappear so fast.

Sakura says, "That means… there's must be a secret passage behind the bookcase."

"But there has to be a switch, right," Ame says as he lean over on of the statues while flying in the air.

Just then the hoof where Ame is leaning from goes down making Ame says "Huh!"

When they turn they can see that Ame activated a secret switch and see the bookcase moving to the side of the room revealing a secret staircase.

Sakura happily says to her brother, "Good job Ame."

"You found it!" Yuki screams happily.

Ame blush a little while scratching his head and says, "I guess I did."

Sakura and the children decides to take a look at the secret passage that they discover. When they look inside they can see that it's dark.

They all say, "Woah!" with amazement.

Ame says, "It's a secret cave and there a stair case."

They can see that it also dark in there. Sakura knows what to do in this situation.

Sakura says, "Well girls, it looks like this is our job to light the way."

"Yeah!" Yuki and Rose says agreeing with Sakura.

All three of the girls light up their horns so they are able to see the inside of the cave better. When they light up their horns, Sakura, Ame, Yuki, and Rose make their way inside the cave and starts to walk down stair.

As they are walking down stairs, They can see that the staircase looks like it hasn't been used in years. Rose and the twins are a little scared about the ancient staircase.

Rose scaredly says, "This place looks very dark."

"And spooky," Yuki replies feeling a bit frighten.

Sakura can tell that the others are getting a little scared.

Sakura says, "Don't worry everyone, as long as we stay together, we have nothing to worry about."

The others smile and glad Sakura is being brave and helping them being brave as well

"This place must have been built when King Sombra ruled here," Sakura says to herself.

After a long time they are finally downstairs and are in an underground cavern which is under the castle. When they reach the entrance of the cover they can hear a strange growing sounding coming from the tunnel.

Yuki says"I hear growling noise coming from this tunnel."

"Whatever it is, I'm beginning to think this is no ghost we're dealing with," Sakura adds point to the tunnel.

"I agree," Rose replies.

Then the growing noises comes out again and it's really loud. Sakura and the others are a little nervous about going through the caverns, but they know they need to figure out what is going on.

Then Sakura says, "Let's follow the noise and figure out this mystery,"

"Right," The twins and Rose reply with agreement.

And with that, Sakura, and the others start to walk down the cavers in order to solve mystery of the the shadow figure in the castle.

Back in the palace:

Shining Armor, Princess Cadance, and Twilight are checking about all the screaming and anything else that is going on.

Shining Armor checks the hallway to hear about the screaming and about the strange figure that Onyx is talking about, but he found nothing,

Then he hears Cadence calling, "Shining Armor."

Shining Armor turns to see his wife heading toward him with a worried look on her face. Shining Armor knows that when she make that kind of face, he can tell that some has happened.

"Did you hear that scream?" Shining asks.

"I did and the ponies I talked to said they saw something that about a size of a gorilla," Cadence answers sounding a bit worried.

Shining is starting to think that Onyx and the other are right about someone being in the castle at night.

Just then they hear Twilight panicky screams, "Cadence! Shining Armor!"

Shining Armor and Cadence turns to see Twilight towards them looking scared and worried about something. When she reaches them, she looks very scared about something very important

Shining worriedly asks, "Twily? What's wrong?"

"The children are gone!" Twilight screams with fear.

Shining Armor and Cadence gasps with horror hearing that their daughter and Twilight's children are not in the room anymore and hearing that their missing is not good at all.

"Gone?! What do you mean gone?" Shining scaredly asks.

Twilight scaredly explains, "I went to go check on them after hearing the scream, but when I look in Rose Crystal's room, they were gone. I checked the nursery and I'm glad the babies are okay, but Sakura, Rose, Ame, and Yuki are missing."

This is something they don't want to hear. First they have to deal with a mysterious shadow and not 4 children has disappeared from the room. They need to find them before something else does.

Shining hugs Twilight and says, "Don't worry Twily, I'll have the guards search the castle for them."

"In the meantime we should try to look for them as well as this mysterious figure," Cadence adds.

With that, Shining Armor leave to go inform the guards while Twilight and Cadence start searching for them. They all really hope that they are all safe and not in any kind of danger.

Back in the cave:

Sakura, Ame, Yuki and Rose are walking down the caverns to find the mysterious shadow creature. They've been walking for quite a while now and they don't know how long it will be until they reach the end.

Ame tiredly says, "This is going on forever."

"Yeah!" Yuki replies with agreement.

Just then Rose starts to shiver a bit and says, "I'm cold."

Ame can see that she is getting cold and tired after walking for a while.

Ame takes off his robe and says,"Here Rose, you can use my rob."

Then he puts it on Rose hoping it will keep her warm. Rose feel glad that she has some really good cousin.

Ame happily says, "Thank you Ame."

Ame glad that he is able to help. Sakura is proud of her brother for doing a good deed. Then they continue walking through the cavern to find the monster and hoping to figure out what is going on

Just then Ame see something on the ground that catches his attention.

Ame inform the others saying, "Hey guys, look at this."

"What is it? Yuki asks.

Sakura takes a closer look at the ground. When she looks at the ground, she can see that the ground look different and can see a rope attaching to something on the ground.

Sakura says, "It seems to be some kind of trigger."

"And there's a cage hanging up their," Ame says point to the cage hanging on the ceiling.

Sakura and the girls look up to see a big cage hanging from a rope which has also been connected to the floor.

Sakura says, "It looks like a monster trap, but why would a monster try to catch another monster."

"Maybe it's not the monster who set it up," Yuki suggests.

"I agree," Rose replies.

Sakura is starting to think about the trap that's been set up. From the looks of it the cage has been there for a long time.

Then Sakura turns to the others and say, "Let's keep moving and we need to watch our step."

Yuki, Ame, and Rose follow Sakura's lead and being careful on not triggering the trap. They then continue traveling through the cave. They also keep hearing the howling noise and from the looks of it it's getting louder with means they are getting closer.

Just then, the kids find themselves being in front of large horse statues with giant lances and they are facing down.

Ame says with amazement, "Wow! Those stone statues are huge."

They look at the statues to see that they are very old as well and think they are build a long time ago.

Rose asks, "Do you think these statues belong to King Sombra."

"I believe so," Sakura answers.

Ame takes a closer look at one of the statues to see one of them has gears in them. He blow on them to take a closer look at them.

Ame says,"I agree, These statues have gears in them. They might be for saluting him and…

"From the looks of it, I think someone turned it into…" Ame says as he throws a stone in front of the statues path.

Just then the statues raise their lances and they can see a net is attached to the lances.

Ame suspiciously says, "Another monster trap."

"Good catch, Ame!" Sakura says feeling proud of her brother.

Just then Sakura sees that the caverns are bigger at the other side.

She turns to the others and says, "I think there's a bigger caverns over there. Let's go."

Sakura starts to walk past the statues with Ame, Yuki, and Rose following them. When they get there they can see a giant maze and it looks like it goes on forever.

"A maze!" Yuki surprisingly says,

"I think King Sombra had it built here too," Rose says with suspicion.

Ame, Yuki, and Rose are starting to get worried about walking through the maze and getting lost. Sakura then has an idea on how to get through the maze

Sakura turns to the others and says, "Don't worry, I learned a spell that will help us get through the maze."

Sakura use her magic to create a magical path to lead them through the maze. Rose and the twins are amazed to see Sakura learning powerful magic.

"Yay sis!" Ame and Yuki cheer happily.

Sakura smile and are glad that she is able to help, but right now, they have a mystery to solve.

Sakura says, "Let's go!"

And so, Sakura starts to go through the maze with Ame, Yuki, and Rose following them. They know that once they get through the maze the mystery will be solved.

Meanwhile, in the castle throne room:

Twilight is waiting for Shining Armor and Cadence to return after she finished searching for them, but so far no luck at all. When Cadence and Shining Armor return, they can see that Twilight is very worried and see that the children are not there.

Twilight sadly asks, "Did you find them?"

"No." Shining sadly answers.

Twilight becomes more sad because they have no lead to where the children gone off to.

Cadence worriedly says, "Oh, where can they be?"

Just then few of the guard come to the room to give a report. One of the guards named Stardust comes over to Shining Armor to tell him their report.

Stardust says, "Your highness,"

"Yes Stardust," Shining replies.

"The guards and I found a secret passage in the library," Stardust explains.

"A secret passage?" Shining, Cadence, and Twilight says questionably.

"Yes. I used my scanner to confirm ath the children went down there," Stardust adds.

"They did!" Twilight says with a shock.

"We need to go down there!" Cadence adds sounding very worried.

"Right," Shining says.

But before they go off to the passage, Stardust says, "Sir, we also confirm that a creature of unknown was also at the library as well."

After hearing the addition to the report, they know that they need to do down there before something happens.

Then Shining Armor says, "We better go done there. Guards follow me."

With that Shining Armor and the guard leave to the secret passage to follow Sakura and the others. Twilight and Cadence follow them and want to see if their children are safe from harm.

Back under the castle:

Sakura, Ame, Yuki, and Rose are still following the magical train that Sakura creates with her magic. They follow the trail and are glad they are not getting lost.

Just then Rose thinks of something that's been other her since she enter the caverns.

Rose says, "Is it just me or does anyone beginning to thise these traps were set up for a reason."

Sakura turns to the others and says, "Yeah. I'm beginning to think King Sombra had them set up in order to catch something."

"But it looks like the monster was able to avoid being captured," Yuki replies remember that the traps aren't set off.

"I agree," Ame replies.

Then the kids all continues to follow the trail until they reach the end of the maze and they can see an entrance to a cave. They can hear howling and screaming from the cave and believe the monster is in there.

Sakura says, "This must be the monster's secret room."

Sakura give them the signal to stay quiet and take a close look inside the cave very carefully so they won't be seen.

When they look inside the cave they can see a big white creature with ice like horns. The creature has all these book around it and has a chain on it's ankle. They can also see that it's crying as well.

Yuki surprisingly says, "There it is."

Ame looks confused and says, "When I picture seeing the monster, I imagine it to be less sad or crying."

Sakura looks close at the creature and remember when she seen it before.

Sakura declares, "That's no monster. That a Crystal Bard,"

"Crystal Bard?" Ame, Yuki, and Rose asks sounding confused.

Sakura turns to the others and quietly explains, "I've read about them. They're supposed to be creature that can calm anything and anyone with their soft soothing voice, even the most savage of beast, but what's it doing here of all place?"

"I don't know, but it looks sad," Yuki says seeing the creature so sad.

"Poor guy," Rose replied sadly, feeling sorry for the creature.

Rose turns to the other and says, "I think we should help it."

"Yes, but first we need to talk to it and see what's wrong," Sakura replies.

Then she decides to go inside the cave to taking to what they find out is the Crystal Bard.

Sakura comes up the the Crystal Bard and calmly says, "Excuse me. Please don't cry. We don't want to hurt you, are you okay?"

Ame, Yuki, and Rose comes up to it hoping to help as well.

Yuki sadly asks, "Can you tell us what's wrong?

The Crystal Bard turns to see Sakura and the others and then he starts to cry.

The Crystal Bard cries as he explains, "Y-y-you… all made it… th-th-through all the t-t-trap a-a-and found m-m-me. P-p-please don't t-t-take me back to King Sombra!"

Sakura and the others are shocked to hear King Sombra's name. They realized that he doesn't know that has been gone for 20 years.

Sakura says with a shock, "King Sombra! He's been off the throne for thousand of years and 20 years ago he was defeated for good."

The Crystal Bard looks at them questionably and asks,"King Sombra is gone? Do you… you mean… I'm free?"

"What do you mean?" Ame asks sounding confused.

The Crystal Bard starts to cry again and decides to explain to them his story.

The Crystal Bard explains, "A-a-a long time ago, King Sombra captured me and took me away from my Crystal Bards have a really smooth voice that can calm even the most savage being. He treated me… like a pet. He kept me chained up and forced me to read to him. Luckily I love to read, but he… he was so mean."

"You mean he chained you and treated you like you're some kind of obedient pet," Yuki replies with a shock.

"Yes," The Crystal Bard answers still feeling sad.

"That's cruel," Sakura sadly replies.

Then Rose asks, "But what were you doing here?"

The Crystal Bard sadly continues his story, "One day, I discovered a secret passage under the castle and… ran away breaking my chain to hide away from him."

Sakura put her hand on the Bard to calm him down. Then Sakura sadly says, "I'm willing to bet it didn't take long for Sombra to discover you were gone…"

"And then, he had all theses traps set up to capture you," Rose sadly adds.

"Yes, but I was able to avoid it and I've been hiding them ever since," The Crystal Bard answers and continues to shed some tears.

"That's awful," Yuki replies feeling like she's going to cry herself.

Ame and Rose are also feeling like crying after hearing his story. They wonder how can somepony acted to terrible to another creature.

Sakura starts to cry and says, "You been hiding for a long time and you were all alone."

The Crystal bard sadly answers, "Yes. I'm sorry for taking all your book. I always return them... eventually."

Ame comes over to the Crystal bard still shedding some tears and says, "I'm so glad we found you and you can mostly thank Sakura for it."

"Don't worry we'll help you… um… I don't think we really introduce ourselves," Sakura replies realizing they forgot to ask for his name.

The Crystal Bard starts to smile and says, "Right. I'm Ice Shard."

"Hi Ice Shard, I'm Sakura," Sakura says as she introduce herself.

"I'm Ame," Ame replies.

"Yuki," Yuki says waving to him.

"Princess Rose Crystal," Rose adds.

Ice Shard starts to shed tears of joy and happily says, "It really nice to meet you all."

But then Ice Shard starts to feel sad and aks, "But… If King Sombra is gone and I don't need to hide anymore, what am I going to do now?"

"Sakura, Ame, Yuki, and Rose look at each other and starts to wonder what they should do to help their new friend.

Sakura happily says, "Don't worry, we'll help you."

The Name says, "And you need to return all these books."

"Okay," Ice Shard replies with a smile.

"And we can introduce you to our parents," Yuki says happily.

"And there's also one thing," Rose says.

"What is it?" Ice Shard asks.

Rose comes up to Ice shard and gives him a big hug.

Then Rose says, "Do you want to come to a birthday party, today is cousins and my birthday and I would love it if you come."

Ice Shard is start to cry happily that he is making good friend and is invited to go to their party.

He happily says, "T-t-thank you all so much."

"No problem," Rose happily says.

They they are having a good time with each others, they all hear Twilight voice calling"Sakura! Ame! Yuki!"

Everyone is surprised to hear the familiar voice, except for Ice Shard.

Ice Shard asks, "What that?"

"Rose!" hearing Cadence voice calls.

Sakura answers, "Who is more like… our moms."

Just then Shining Armor, the guard, Cadence, and Twilight comes in the cave to see them with Ice shard.

Cadence happily says,"There you are."

"We were looking everywhere for you," Twilight adds sounding worried.

"And who is this?" Shining asks pointing his hoof to Ice Shard.

Ice Shard starts to get nervous seeing the guard after what happened the last time he sees them.

Sakura nervously explains, "It's kind of a long story."

Ice Shard explain his story to Shining Armor and the other about what happened to him. After they hear his story they start out shed a little tears and feel sorry for him.

"And that what happened," Ice Shard says feeling like he's going to cry all over again.

Cadence comes up to him and sadly says, "Oh you poor thing. Don't worry we'll help you."

Ice Shard starts to smile at Cadence and says, "You will."

"Of course we will. All we need to is help you find a job." Twilight adds.

Then Shining Armor says, And you can start by putting the books back to the library."

Ice Shard says, "Okay."

Then Ice Shard remember something important. He goes to the pile of books and takes out a book and hands it over to Sakura.

Ice Shard says, "Here you go, Sakura. It the book that I took from the floor."

Sakura smile and says, "Thanks Ice shard."

"Then with that Ice Shard starts to gather the books in order to take them back to the library. Then Sakura, Ame, Yuki, and Rose decides to help him take them back. Shining Armor, Cadence and Twilight are proud that their children is able to help Ice Shard. They can see that this turns out to be an interesting night for them.

Author's Note:

I love a little mystery. Next time, there will be another birthday celebration.