A/N: I apologize if the chapter was a little short. But of course, I'm in my two weeks of summative and an upcoming exam. But do hold on tight, a chapter takes some time to get out.

---

Twilight sat at the nearby desk, reading from a small book for some information on the mysterious box she and her friends found at the Tree of Harmony. This was the one history book to her that could tell her everything from Equestria top to bottom, even every secret dug into the roots.

Unfortunately, she isn't able to find any valuable information on this matter and she annoyingly groans, tossing the book into the pile of history books she has dug all over the Golden Oaks Library, all of them landing in a completely organized pile. Smarty was just coming up the stairs when he saw her doing them and wondered what the hay was going on with her and why she now looked so annoyed.

"What's wrong hun?" Smarty asked, approaching Twilight.

Twilight sighed. "I just can't help it Smarty," she said. "I'm just too focused on that chest that we saw a week ago. I mean, we did save Equestria, but whatever's in that box has to be important."

Smarty gave her mane a bit of a stroke and said "Don't get stressed over this. You never know what could happen. A key might pop up soon enough; we just have to know what each key looks like."

Twilight looked into Smarty's eyes for a few moments, then looked down and sighed. "You're right Smarty. I've just so distracted all this time by the mysterious box, it's been driving me a bit crazy."

"How about a visit to Canterlot?" Smarty suggested, smiling. "Prince Star Shine might be able to find some answers about that chest."

Twilight turned to the window, looking out towards the Canterlot Castle on the side of the tall mountain. Surely, Smarty was right about getting some answers from Star Shine. Sure he used to be Black Darkness, but he was useful for getting information out. He seemed to know everything from the rise and fall of Monoceros to the most recent events. She turned back to Smarty and nodded her head saying "Alright, sounds good."

Smarty opened up the big window and spread his wings. He slowly flapped them, lifting him off of the ground. Twilight opened up her wings as well, joining Smarty. Both of them flew out of the window on a straight course to Canterlot.

"Wait, hold up!" Smarty said, stopping the both of them.

Twilight looked at him with curiosity. "What is it Smarty?" She had asked him.

Smarty flew down towards the nearby stand and took out quite a couple of golden shining bits. He handed it over to the employee who was standing there, looking quite happy. He had owed this employee a couple of bits for having to buy some groceries for the library since he and Twilight hadn't used it in quite a long time.

"Thank you very much Prince Smarty." The employee said, bowing a bit.

Smarty smiled at the employee. "You are very welcome sir." He said, in his royal sound-like voice, and then flying upward into the air to join Twilight again.

"I owed him some bits." He told her.

Twilight just gives him a look of being a bit confused and then rolled her eyes with a smile on her face. It was going to be one of those days with Smarty being distracted by something else some of the time, wasn't it? Oh well, she had research to catch up on.

"Come on now," Twilight said, flapping forward towards Canterlot. "Whatever's in that chest could be detailed, and Star Shine's the expert on that kind of stuff."

Smarty just flaps forward, following Twilight towards the grand city in the sky.

---

The city of Canterlot was bustling with ponies and humans. It seemed to be a beautiful day for those two kinds of races to get out there and enjoy the day, talking to one another. Sure, they still had the snobbish ponies that made themselves look better and superior than them, but hey, it was all working out just fine.

Twilight and Smarty flew down towards the balcony of the Canterlot Castle, making a safe landing on the tiles with their own four hooves. Sure, Twilight stumbled a little bit when she landed, but she was starting to get used to her flying.

The both of them began to trot out of the balcony's view and into the hallway of the castle. A few guards roamed here or there, but most of them were most likely in the throne room of Princess Celestia, to make sure that nothing bad can put her into serious harm.

They went down the long hallway, leading towards the public quarters of Prince Star Shine. Smarty opened both of the double doors with his bare hooves, bringing light into the room. The entire quarters of Star Shine was in the form of a huge library of books on history and every single little detail about pre-Equestria.

"So many books!" Twilight said, rather excited. She's never seen so many books before in her whole life… well, besides the Crystal Empire's library. She makes a tiny squee.

"Now Twilight," Smarty said, raising an eyebrow with a soft smile. "Let's not get too excited, we're both here for some information."

"May I help the both of you?" A voice said from behind them.

Both of them turned around to see who it was. It was none other than Prince Star Shine. He stood before them, looking bored like most librarians would, except Twilight. She would be full of joy when showing ponies around the library.

"Star Shine… you have a humongous library." Twilight said, too distracted by all of the books on the shelves to even pay attention to what she came here for.

Star Shine and Smarty just looked at her like she was crazy for a brief moment. Beside the entire incident about the 'late letter to Celestia', they had never seen her act a bit like this ever. Smarty just clears his throat loudly, snapping Twilight out of her book fantasies and getting back on-topic.

"We're looking for information." Smarty said to the tall alicorn prince. "But it's not of the usual, in fact; it's for something that hasn't been seen before. We uncovered it when we had saved Equestria from becoming plant food."

"And what is this item that you're speaking about?" Star Shine asked, raising an eyebrow a bit.

"It's a mysterious box that grew out of the Tree of Harmony after we had given it the Elements." Twilight said. "It has a crystal-like appearance on the outside of the box with seven locks to open. I do not know what the inside is like, or what's inside the box."

"Hmmm, a box." Star Shine said, spreading his wings and flying over to the nearest bookshelf of Equestrian History. "A box, a box. Don't you worry, I'll look through the history books and see any references to this box you have mentioned."

Twilight and Smarty waited patiently while Star Shine began the search through his library. It didn't take too long, but Star Shine managed to find a book out of a different shelf from his library of books. It seemed to be a book that had symbol of a tree on it.

He flew down and placed the book onto one of his desks. Twilight trots over to the book and uses her magic to look through the pages of the book. While she's flipping through the pages, Smarty joins her in the search through the book. The pages keep flipping to the other end of the book until Twilight stopped on a certain particular page relating to that chest.

"I've found it." Twilight said. "Now let's get reading it to find more details on the chest."

Twilight scanned through the text of the pages and even looked at the small picture of the box as told in legend, never had been opened ever. She finally began to read it.

"The box itself is a mysterious figure that pops up once every thousand and three years. Nopony of the past knows about why it comes from the Tree of Harmony, but the box is said to have something inside, but they are unknown about it. If the Elements were reunited with the tree, the box will come out permanently, waiting for its opening from the seven keys that it so requires. Many tried to force the box open, but only seven magical keys unknown to them can be used to open the chest."

Smarty turned towards Star Shine who was right next to him. "Star Shine, can we borrow this book? We just need to write down more details on this. We'll bring it back as soon as we're done." He asked.

"Of course." Star Shine said with a smile. "Take all the time you need with it."

Twilight placed the book in her inventory and bowed to Prince Star Shine to thank him, turning around to leave with Smarty. "Wait. One more thing." Star Shine's voice called out. Both Twilight and Smarty turned to see what else Star Shine wanted to tell them.

Star Shine took out a purple book with the symbol of Celestia on it. He handed it to Smarty. "While I was searching through the ruins of Celestia and Luna's old castle, I found this in a secret room that they must have hid it in. It's a journal." He told them, giving them some information.

Twilight's eyes sparked a bit, releasing an idea. "We could use it. When me, Smarty or one of our friends has an issue that they had dealt with, they can write about it in the journal." She said to the both of them.

"That's a considerably great idea Twilight!" Smarty said.

Star Shine said "Well, I'll see the both of you later."

"Alright," Smarty said to him. "Come see us in Ponyville anytime when you're free."

Twilight and Smarty both bowed down to the now-good Prince Star Shine and trotted off while he was waving in farewell. The two of the young alicorns proceeded back to the balcony where they came in and flapped their wings, flying down back to Ponyville.

---

In the high mountains of Equestria, a figure's shadow slowly crept over the mountainside, looking down towards the view of Canterlot and Ponyville, an all in one view. The mysterious figure was not the shape of a tall alicorn, but shorter than that. The breathing of the figure was slow and rough.

The yellow eyes that opened on the figure reflected off of the ground, giving a glare towards the city and town. Then the figure laughed, with an evil sinister sound. Who was this figure and what was he planning to do? You'll find out soon enough, that'll be something for later.