Magic Door for Sale
Chapter 2: 2. Chapter 2
Previous ChapterSo I forgot to post this after I had updated the story on fimfiction. Sorry bout that. Here it is, updated.
Enjoy! Review's always appreciated!
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Twilight winced as the rays from the morning sun crept through a slit in the curtain and fell conveniently on her face. She tried to delay getting up by rolling over but the heat on her mane was enough to drag her the rest of the way into consciousness. The lavender mare blinked groggily and rubbed the sleep from her eyes with her foreleg. The party at Pinkie Pie's last night had been a long one, celebrating Spike's birthday was as her friend put it a-super-duber-awesome-no-one-can-miss-this-party-it-is-going-to-be-something something Twilight had stopped listening after about the twentieth syllable and agreed to be there.
Not that she would have said no, but Pinkie talks too much when she gets excited.
Smacking her lips Twilight sat up and looked around her room, getting her bearings for the day and finding with satisfaction that everything was exactly as she had left it the night before. Or morning before. Whatever time it was she got home last night or this morning. There was the way to cover all her bases.
With a self-satisfied smile Twilight hopped out of bed and promptly tripped over her number one assistant's basket with a squeak, falling gracelessly to the floor while he slumbered away.
"Ugh, Spike!" She complained, only to notice her assistant was still asleep. How dare he move his basket from its properly ordered place in her room – this action would not go unpunished. Pushing to her hooves and shaking her mane Twilight's horn glowed with the intention of teleporting the sleeping dragon into the comfortable branches at the highest point of her tree house. But something stopped her. Next to his basket was a scrolled that he had belched out at some point in the early morning, a noise that she had clearly slept though because of the late party.
Mentally, she called it even.
Snatching the note from the floor with her magic, Twilight examined the seal on the note since it was different than what she would normally get. The wax that was used was a dark blue and on the seal itself was a crescent shape that had a stylized 'L' over it. This letter was from Princess Luna, but why would Luna be sending her a letter? Twilight liked to think that the Princess of the night was her friend but if she were honest with herself she had not heard from the dark alicorn since the Nightmare Night incident. Well, only one way to find out what is going on. She thought, unrolling the letter at eye level.
Dear Twilight Sparkle,
I write to thee in the hope that thy own expertise may help with a problem that has arisen only hours ago. Early this very morning I was watching the night sky, studying that which I had created, when a particular star began to move itself across the night sky.
"What?" Twilight said aloud, and continued to read.
After consulting star charts in the Canterlot archives we discovered in the present age the star is named Ostium Mundi 5, which I believe is much better than the old name of X-243-B. It simply does not roll off the tongue as well.
What I ask is that ye focus your considerable knowledge of magic on the star in the coming night. Because it has moved your star charts will not lend any aid other than a place to find its new position from. By my own estimates it appears the star has moved 176 degrees South, 8 minutes west from its previous position in the sky. We ask that ye make the studying of this star and make it your priority.
Please report any magical findings regarding the star directly to us.
Regards,
Princess Luna.
First thoughts were that Luna had only said 'we' a few times in the letter which made twilight happy for the dark princess.
However, the butterflies in her stomach were quickly overriding those feelings. Not only was the younger Princess asking a great deal of her almost no information other than what to look at, but she wanted Twilight to get on it tonight. The mare needed some organization to quall the rising uncertainty in her mind, she had been asked to do all of this before she had even had breakfast! Didn't Luna know that the key to having a successful day of studying was to have breakfast?! Ugh! Twilight needed something to calm her nerves. She needed a checklist, and fast.
"Spike, wake up!" Twilight half yelled but the sleeping dragon simply rolled over.
Irritated, Twilight yelled at the dragon to awaken and this time he groggily sat up – halfway coherent anyways – and asked what was the matter only to have a letter magically shoved in his face to read.
"That is what is the matter, Spike. I haven't even had breakfast and I have a personal request from Luna herself to investigate a star that happened to move itself all the way across the sky on its own because…magic…or something. I don't know she wasn't very clear which means I'll have to research every possible thing that may have caused that and who knows how long that will take and I only have until tonight to prepare for this so–"
A clawed hand was stuck in her mouth, stopping the tirade. Without a word Spike removed his hand from Twilight's mouth, wiped it on her coat, pulled a quill and parchment out from under the bed, and waited her to start dictating while still half asleep.
"I'm sorry Spike, I didn't expect to be woken up with work from princess Luna first thing in the morning or I wouldn't have stayed at the party so late." She looked down, her ears flattened against her head.
The dragon child grunted in acceptance of her apology and still sat there waiting for her to dictate the checklist that would surely calm her down, and maybe then he could go back to sleep. His indifferent gaze to the mare standing above him said as much and with an apologetic giggle Twilight got started.
"Alright, Luna's Star Research request is a good title, item one…"
Crystal was released from the hospital late the following morning after her concussion had been deemed light enough that she could go home and get some rest, on the condition that a follow-up appointment was scheduled. The rest of the night she only saw the orderlies and nurses that came and went, not once did Dennis see her again.
While part of her expected that, there was part of her that wished he had come back in so they could talk about what happened with their relationship. She still had unanswered questions about how exactly they fell apart but Dennis not coming back to see her answered a lot of them. What mattered was that he was simply not interested in her and that was all there was to it.
She opted to walk home since the hospital was only a couple miles from where here townhome community was built in spite of the fact that a city bus went right by her neighborhood. Crystal wasn't quite ready to face those fears just yet and desperately needed some fresh air after being cooped up in a hospital for fourteen hours.
Besides the autumn air was crisp against her lungs and the light of the sun on her face helped her feel refreshed in spite of the lack of sleep. Sometime after the original call had been placed to the old man who called himself Mr. Waddle, Crystal called the man back intent on getting more information about this magical door. However when she called back she was only met with a message that the number had been disconnected. Oh, no he didn't. You can't just dangle a pair of ruby red slippers to another world in front of Crystal Stone and expect her to back off if you unplugged the phone. Crazy or no crazy she was getting a door out of this.
Now that she had been teased with buying the door she wanted the darn thing whether the man was crazy or not and to prove the point, she had snuck the magazine out of the hospital in her purse.
Take that, Dennis.
Though she wasn't sure where to start in getting ahold of Mr. Waddle there was still a smile on her face when she finally arrived at her modest, two story brick townhome. The front of which was guarded by a waist high wrought iron fence and gate. Everything seemed exactly as she had left it the day before when she had left for work, but who could have predicted she would be involved in a truck on bus accident. Which reminded her, take some Tylenol before the headache came back.
Crossing the small front yard Crystal unlocked the door after rummaging around her purse for a moment, and stepped inside. Once again everything was exactly where she had left it. As she stood in the entryway she thought about what might have happened if she didn't escape that accident with just a shoulder injury and a concussion. What if she had been more seriously injured? What if she had died? Would anyone have even noticed?
Her breathing gradually sped up as all of the horrible possibilities came to her mind. She didn't even have a will so her stuff would have just…gone away. And what if she had wanted something to go to the nice old couple that lived next door to her? Would all of that be ignored?!
No. Crystal refused to let herself fall into a fit of anxiety like that. She had better control of her emotions than that and after taking a few deep, even breaths, and decided it was time for a nap. She had been awake a day and then some now and work wasn't expecting her back until Monday the next week, having already called someone in to cover Crystal's shifts. She had savings to tie her over for lost income and this way she would have her birthday off. Yay! There was one good thing to come from the accident so far.
After taking a Tylenol and making herself some toast, Crystal kicked off her shoes, grabbed her purse, snack, and proceeded upstairs to the master suite while glancing at the living room from the stairs. Maybe after some sleep she would rearrange the furniture in that room to help feed this feeling of change in her heart.
But as she reached the third step to the top Crystal noticed something different about the hallway in her peripheral vision, as if a single part of it was much darker than she had remembered. By the time she looked forward again into the hall several things occurred to the young woman at once: Firstly the door to her bedroom at the end of the hall had been replaced. Secondly, someone had broken into her house in order to replace the door. Thirdly, The door had runes center of the frame that kept it in place, and it looked very old. No, she realized this wasn't just any door this was the door…the one from the magazine!
Her heart beat in her ears as she shakily set her bag and toast down on the step and grabbed the can of aerosolized mace from an easily accessible pocket of her purse. She didn't know much about self-defense, but she knew enough to take care of herself. Besides the walls were thin enough that if she screamed the neighbors would hear.
Edging forward Crystal made it to the top of the stairs and promptly threw open the closet near the top. No one in there. She closed the door quietly and stepped slowly to the spare bedroom that acted as her office but was met with the same result. Empty of anyone but her. That meant that if whoever broke into her home was still there, they were in the master bedroom. Her bedroom.
Her hands felt clammy and her breath came in shaky waves as she reached for the handle of the ornate, hardwood door and quickly threw it open jumping into her room and yelling for whoever was in there to freeze!
Except there was no one there. A cursory check of the master bath revealed the same thing. Whomever had done this was long gone, hopefully for good. Setting the mace on her bed Crystal looked around her room to see if anything was missing or out of place, taking time with the knick knacks that she had inherited from her father before he died, and scanning the end tables on either side of her bed. There, on the end table closest to the door there was a flick of gold and beige that she couldn't remember being there before the accident.
Miffed that her home had been violated, Crystal stomped over to the end table snatched both objects to examine. The glint of gold had been from a brass key – an old style one with the single tooth on the end and a shaft that curled around into the head of a horse with what looked like a sun upon the neck.
The beige had been from a note that was left under the key that simply read:
Enjoy the magical world as much as I did. Do not worry about payment as it has been magically deducted from your account.
Crystal didn't need to log into her bank account to know that was probably true but what was she going to do about it? Call the police and tell them someone broke into her home to install a door and hacked a hundred bucks from her account? Right, that would land her in a different kind of hospital.
She glanced at the key in her hand and then up at the door – oh what the hay she had gotten this far so might as well see if the magic was actually real or not.
The magic only activates if entered from within. She thought. Obviously if there was magic to this heavy looking door then it didn't work when she had burst into the room like a mace-ninja.
"Only if entered from within." She said aloud, as her mind worked through the riddle.
On instinct Crystal crossed the space to the entry and closed the orate door with a ker-thunk that was much heavier than she was used to. The runes on this side of the frame appeared to mirror those on the other, opening and closing the door again to check confirmed that. She scanned the interior of the wood again looking for anything that might give her a clue to how the magic supposedly worked when she saw it. Right there in the center of the door was a depression, in which was a keyhole.
"No way." She laughed, as it couldn't be that simple but sure enough, the key in her hand slid smoothly into the hole all the way up to the neck of the horse head. Once inserted completely there was a loud thunk, and the runes around the frame lit up with white hot light.
Crystal squeaked in surprise and jumped back, her clenched fist pulling the key from its socket and the light from the runes died down as if a dimmer switch was moved to off. That wasn't possible. That couldn't be possible because magic didn't exist, did it? Blinking a few times to make sure what she saw was real she then became curious. If magic did exist than surely turning the key all the way around would do…well…something more than what happened when she simply inserted it.
Sliding they key home, it was again followed by the sound of something softly hitting the other side of the door and once again the runes along the frame lit up like Christmas. Driven on by her curiosity Crystal turned the key and was able to feel and hear what sounded like massive tumblers moving into position until it was finally spun in a full circle. There was a loud shutter in the door's frame and it popped open away from her just a little, filling her senses with a cool but sweet smelling breeze.
Holy smokes, this was real. All of it. The magic, the door, the man she has spoken with on the phone, and all she could do was stand there and stare blankly at the partially open door with what looked like glowing snowflakes blowing between the space every now and again. With shaking fingers Crystal pushed the door the rest of the way open, marveling at how it was opening away form her when her normal bedroom door was opposite. But it was the space beyond the doorframe that made her gasp.
Beyond the door where here hallway once resided was an endless mist of stars, appeared as if the mist itself was simply sitting there in the hall but blocking the view of anything beyond. The mist was a breathtaking display of navy blues and blacks mixing in perfect harmony dotted with every imaginable type of star.
The light breeze coming through the open door was cooler than the weather in Minneapolis had been and smelled like springtime flowers in bloom. She couldn't lie it was defiantly more inviting than and that coupled with the possibility of exploring a magical world was enough to cause her to take a step forward onto the frame itself. Only one more step and she could leave this silly life behind, at least for a while and with work not expecting her back for almost a week, why not?
Confident nothing bad would happen to her Crystal leaned forward and took a large step into the magical world that awaited her.
Watch that first step.
It's funny how simple instructions can be disregarded so easily. Four simple words could have saved all of this from happening. She watched as her foot, far overextended from her point of balance, went right through the floor she thought was there. As it turned out the floor and walls she thought were she had seen were merely a reflection of what was in her room, nothing more. Instinctively her body twisted to try and regain balance but when the edge of the doorframe rushed past her head and away from her, she knew it was too late.
Navy blue and black clouds filled with tiny glowing stars rushed past her as she fell. Were she not fascinated what was happened she would have screamed but utter curiosity at what appeared to be little clouds of space flying past her was overriding fear at the moment. But all of that changed as the space-like clouds began to part revealing an entirely new layer of clouds beneath her. Clouds that appeared to be made out glowing, white hot fire.
Crystal screamed.
Fear had quickly taken hold as she fell helplessly towards the flames. What a way to end it all, find out that magic is real just in time to be duped into your own death and it was the last thing she could think of to curl into a ball just before impact, hoping that would somehow make her death hurt less.
Passing through the layer of flames Crystal watched in horror as the fire wrapped itself around her body, forcibly straightening her limbs out to their full extents. Then the pain started as her body began to change, fist with her fingers, burning away into her palm as her arms seemed to change shape into a shorter, rounder form. Her legs were wrapped in the fire and bent into a new angle with a sickening crack, as her feet burned away just like her hands. Her back felt like the fire was burning deep into her shoulder blades for some reason and as she flipped in the air she swore she saw something cyan mixed with the flames before everything went blissfully black.
"CUTIE MARK CRUSADER ASTRONIMERS YAY!"
Twilight couldn't help rolling her eyes a little, but allowed the fillies their excitement. The day of study had gone well and she felt ready for to tackle this moving star, maybe even put it back where it was supposed to be. But in an unfortunate bit of luck the CMC group had caught wind that Twilight was going to be up late watching the stars and had decided to try their hand at finding their astronomer cutie marks.
This bad luck was cancelled out by the fact that Rarity would be with them to help chaperone the fillies, having generously offered to do so after Twilight had explained her situation.
Now, it was nearing eleven at night, the fillies had long since tired of stargazing through their telescopes and were waiting for Twilight to be done so they could use her much nicer, much more powerful telescope.
Rarity, ever prepared, had brought a second dinner that was currently keeping the young ones busy while Twilight finished her work.
"Making any progress, Twilight?" She called, breaking the stream of thoughts running through the purple unicorn's head.
"Not really." Twilight admitted, "According to my star charts this is the star that Luna was talking about and it did move the other night. There's defiantly a magical field around it but its hard to tell what. I mean it could be anything from a basic telekinetic field to a theoretical multiverse trans-dimensional–"
She stopped, noting that all four ponies were staring at her with blank expressions.
"It's a star, and it's magic." She finished and with her horn aglow, went back to studying the star, trying to sense what kind of magic was obviously wrapped around it when some thing amazing happened.
All at once the magic around the star came to life, the invisible waves of it cascading through her telescope and into her horn where she tried to make sense of what was happening. But as soon as the field had made itself known to the universe it was gone again.
"What the what?!" Twilight growled in frustration.
"Did something happen?" Sweetie asked.
"Is it gone?" Apple Bloom added.
"Did it blow up?!" Scootaloo cheered.
"Is it my hair?!" Rarity fretted, causing the other four ponies to stare at her with a mixture of amusement and something else.
"No. To all of that." Twilight said. "The magic around the star just lit up for a moment but then…it was gone. Like a switch just turned it off!"
"Just like that?" Rarity doubted.
"I know it doesn't make sense. Magic doesn't just disappear it leaves some trace of what it was after the fact but this." She concentrated on the telescope again, her horn glowing, "It's just gone again. Ugh! This makes no sense! Magic does not work that way!" She complained, repeating herself.
"Maybe it's playing magical hide and seek with'ya?" Apple Bloom offered but before Twilight could correct the young pony she felt familiar waves of magic run up her horn, which had never stopped tracking the star.
Pressing an eye to the telescope Twilight watched as just to the left of the star, barely in visible range of the view in the lens a small blue shockwave shot across the sky for a moment, a shooting star emanating from its center.
"Look! A shooting star!" Scootaloo exclaimed.
Sitting up from the telescope Twilight quickly caught the sight with her own eyes, the shooting star or whatever it was had obviously entered the atmosphere and was falling very close to where they were. Following the trajectory with her eyes in fact she was able to track that it would land right on…
"Oh no! We have to get to Ponyville, that shooting star is going to land right on the town!" Before panic would normally set in Twilights brain shifted gears into disaster mode, and punched the accelerator down. "Rarity, you and I will try and figure out where exactly that is going to land and get there so we can try to stop it – Crusaders come with us we may need you to wake the other elements."
With her friends behind her Twilight took off towards the town, her eyes on the shooting star as it fell ever faster towards the unsuspecting town. They were a ways out, having chosen a hill away from the lights to look at the stars so all she could do was keep running and hope they get there in time.
Wait a second.
Twilight slid on her hooves to a stop so suddenly that Rarity and the crusaders plowed into her knocking all of the ponies to the ground.
"Oww…why, darling, did you stop like that?! We don't have much time!" Rarity complained but a moment later, POOF!
Twilight teleported everyone to the town square.
While the crusaders tried to regain their bearings Rarity and Twilight watched the shooting star descend, it would be any second now that it would impact the town.
"Rarity! Try and use as much telekinesis as you can to slow it down." Twilight instructed.
"I-I don't know, Twilight I don't think I can help that much…." The white unicorn hesitated but the falling star was on top of them now. There was no more time to waste.
"Just to the best you can, NOW!" Twilights horn lit up with multiple layers of magic with Rarity adding what help she could to slow shooting star down, and it was working… but not enough. The unicorns try as they might could to nothing but watch in horror as the now smaller shooting star fell strait into the chimney of a home not far away, and blew out all of the windows.
Both ponies ran after the destruction, ignoring the calls from other townsponies that had been woken by the small explosion. Doing their best to avoid the glass shards scattered everywhere Twilight, Rarity, and the crusaders bringing up the rear made it to the home where Twilight raised a hoof to knock on the door.
"Seriously?" Rarity questioned, "Darling, their house just exploded and you're worried about knocking on the door…think about that for a moment."
"Eh-heh, right." Twilight blushed a pushed the door open.
The inside of the home had furniture and cushions scattered everywhere but there were a few things that immediately caught the mare's attention. In the middle of the living room was a Pegasus mare, sprawled on the floor and appearing quite hurt by the shooting star that exploded from her chimney. From what she could see it looked like she was sitting in front of the hearth when it happened, but that could be determined later. The hurt pony was a priority.
She heard Rarity tell the crusaders to get a doctor and quickly, leaving Twilight to assess the victim before more help could arrive. Stepping forward the bookish unicorn was able to confirm that the mare was breathing steadily and deeply and singed on her coat, but fortunately that was the extent of it. Sensing through the cyan mane she confirmed that there was a head injury, likely a concussion, but a mild one. She would live.
"She's so young." Rarity observed.
"No more than me I think, she's just small." Twilight concluded the exam. "She's unconscious and from what I could sense, probably has a light concussion."
"She will live then?" Another voice asked.
"Yes." Twilight said with confidence, turning to face who asked and expecting one of the medical ponies but instead, standing next to Rarity, was a pony who stood taller than most. Her navy blue coat was offset by a mane that flowed like the wind and shone like the stars in the sky above, and a cutie mark of a crescent moon. Standing next to Rarity – who appeared to be equally shocked – was princess Luna.