Aurora was almost a year old now, and Spike was spending every moment he could with her. He'd recorded her first steps along with Celestia. He was lifting her up and down as if she was flying and smiled, "I don't know if you can understand what I'm saying yet, but you're the best thing that ever happened to me Aurora. I love you so much." hugging his daughter.

As she hugged her father back, the young princess, "Daddy" and cooed as Spike released her from the hug.

Spike's eyes widened when he heard his daughter say her first words, and smiled widely, "Your first word... your first word was daddy!" before pulling her into another hug. He picked her up and held her in his arms as he looked for Ember to tell her. When he found her, he told her, "Ember, you missed it!"

Ember raised an eyebrow, "What did I miss?"

Aurora cooed again before saying, "Mama! Daddy!"

Ember's eyes widened, "She talked! She's said her first words!"

Spike smiled, "Technically, her first word was daddy while we were playing."

Ember rolled her eyes, "Way to rub it in my face." before kissing Spike's cheek and then kissing Aurora's forehead.

Aurora giggled as her mother kissed her forehead and held onto her finger as she touched her nose, sneezing a small flame. When she yawned, she started closing her eyes, "Night-night daddy..." before falling asleep in Spike's arms.

Ember smiled, "Our little girl has been playing with her daddy so long she's gotten tired. It's getting late anyway, why don't we get ready for bed?"

Spike nodded as the two of them went to their bedroom and placed Aurora in her crib.

Later that night...

Spike was dreaming, and while he didn't know it, the magic of his Orichalcum Eye was affected by his dreams. In his dreams, Spike was training a 10-year-old Aurora in swordplay while being observed by Ember, Celestia, and Luna. Of course, that was far off at this point, right?

The Orichalcum Eye glowed a dark red, even though Spike was asleep, you couldn't close an Orichalcum Eye the same way you could with a normal eye. For a minute, Aurora started glowing the same dark red.

The next morning...

Spike woke up groggily chuckling, "What a weird dream. Ember would never let me train Aurora like that. Felt a bit too real to be a-" before being snapped out of his drowsiness by a scream from Ember. He looked to Ember and said, "Ember, what's-" before seeing Aurora sleeping in their bed, at the age of ten.

Starlight and Sunset were startled by the scream and entered the room, seeing Aurora in their bed as a ten-year-old shocked them as much as it did Spike and Ember. When Celestia saw her granddaughter in her son's bed, not as a baby, but a young child, she fainted, being caught by Starlight.

Luna yawned as she entered the room with a cup of coffee, "What's with all the noise-?" before seeing her grand-niece, and spitting out her coffee, "What the holy heck!?"

Aurora mumbled, trying to close out the noise, causing Spike to shush everyone and force everyone out of the room. "Ok, we're all... ok, confused is an understatement, this is just straight up weird. But it's obvious Aurora is still sleeping. First, Starlight, take my mother back to her room, I'm going to the archives to see if the researchers will be of any help. Ember, stay by Aurora's side until she wakes up. Sunset, you're with me, the archives will take time. Auntie Luna..." he looked at her, noticing she was still in her nightgown, "Um... maybe brew the rest of us some coffee? And maybe put on some clothes?"

Luna grumbled as she walked back towards her room. Believe it or not, Luna was not a morning person. In fact, to get her awake enough to care about the day, she had to drink at least a gallon's worth of coffee before noon.

Spike and Sunset headed towards the Royal Archives and Spike started looking through the crystal ball that was centered in the room. He couldn't find anything when he searched for age acceleration, but then he noticed an old record that was badly damaged, but he could make out the words, "Red Orichalcum." Spike called out, "Sunset, come here for a minute!"

Sunset walked over to Spike and asked him, "Find anything?"

Spike showed her the damaged records and told her, "It seems this record has some information about a red Orichalcum stone, just like the one in my Orichalcum Eye. It's badly damaged, but it's better than nothing..."

Sunset squinted her eyes and what she noticed caused her eyes to go wide, "Spike, this record shouldn't even exist! It's from the reign of King Sombra! During the Crystal Uprising, the rebellion set the archives on fire, they wanted everything in Sombra's collection of knowledge to be destroyed! I can't believe this survived!"

Spike was just as shocked as Sunset was when she told him the record was from King Sombra's rule, she was right, it shouldn't exist, after King Sombra was overthrown and executed, most of his archives went up in flames. "I'm going to talk to my mother and Ember, go get Twilight and Starlight and see what you can make out of the damaged records. I can't be 100% sure, but finding out more about my eye might have something to do with this."

Sunset nodded, "Right, I'll get on it." before going off to find Starlight and Twilight.

Spike went to his room to see Ember playing with their now ten-year-old daughter, who looked up to him and ran over, "Daddy!" before hugging him, and looking up at him with puppy dog eyes, "Daddy, when I grow up, I want to be a pirate! Just like you and great-auntie Luna!"

Spike's heart melted when his daughter gave him the look of an adorable begging puppy. He smiled, "Maybe, just maybe, you can come with us when we return to the skyways. But if you want to do that, you'll need training."

Ember sighed, "I had a feeling this would happen, I told her if you were ok with it, we'd take her with us when we go back to Skull Island."

Spike chuckled, "I don't blame you. Who can resist these beautiful puppy dog eyes?" before picking his daughter up and placing her on his back and running around the room playing with her and Ember.

And so, through some unknown magic, Aurora is now a ten-year-old girl, even though she was born less than a year ago. But what kind of magic could do this? Spike also found a record in the archives, and while it was badly damaged, it mentioned the existence of red Orichalcum stones. Are these two things connected? Or do they have nothing to do with each other? And what of Aurora, who now wants to be a pirate and has used her adorability to get her mother and father to allow this?

Find Out Next Time...

Next Chapter: Secrets of the Orichalcum Estimated time remaining: 45 Minutes