The baby dragon was not daft enough to try and disturb Twilight when she was working on the bright treasure that looked edible and delicious to him but had an awful taste that had put him off eating it for life. Instead he found his spare cards and started making adaptions to his deck in case Twilight wanted to duel while they were waiting for the Princess to write back.
Twilight lost track of the time as she worked on the trinket. Her dam-sire had told her a long time ago, back before she had even gotten her cutie mark and started studying under the Princess, that the one who passed the test and completed the ‘Millennium Puzzle’ got one wish and that wish was guaranteed to come true. She was beginning to wonder though, if it was called such because it was going to take a thousand years to complete.
The first pieces went in easily. She knew almost instinctively now which pieces went in which order right up until she was about a third of the way done. Then the difficulty started. She could not insert the pieces by hoof, the puzzle was far too complex and fiddly for that. Instead she had to use her magic to put it together as well as hold it in place. The complex creation was a 3d puzzle, which meant that it would make a statue or something once completed but if she pushed on one piece just a little too hard it would completely collapse and she would have to start from scratch.
More than once she had ruined hours and hours of careful work in such a way and she was extra careful as she started the difficult task of assembling the other two thirds, not that she knew which piece went where or what the end product was supposed to look like.
Spike was surprised when he looked up from his cards to find that not only had it started growing dark, but the puzzle was really beginning to come together in front of the unicorn he looked up to. It looked like an upside down version of one the pyramids that he had seen in a book about Saddle Arabia, which had once been Equigypt. The hoop on the base was new though and looked sturdy, as if you could loop rope or something similar through it and wear the completed thing as a rather large and probably heavy pendant.
“I’ve done it!” Twilight crowed as she slipped the last bar one piece into place, leaving one last space for a piece to go. She knew which one it was, a piece that was, oddly enough, shaped like the main star of her cutie mark and had an eye symbol on it. Twilight had researched it and it was known as the ‘wadjet eye’ or the ‘Eye of Anubis’ who had supposedly been a God in the days of Equigypt. “Just one more piece and…” She froze when she went to use her magic to lift the last piece of the puzzle out of the box and found that it was empty. “Spike!” The baby dragon scrambled to his feet at the panic in her voice, “Spike!”
“What?” He asked as he scrambled to her side, “What’s the matter Twilight?”
“There’s a piece missing.” Twilight panicked, trying to maintain the magic holding the puzzle in place despite the surge of emotions coursing through her.
“Huh?” Spike blinked at her, confused.
“A piece. Of the puzzle. It’s gone! The last piece!” Twilight whinnied frantically, “Please tell me you haven’t eaten it!”
“No way!” Spike protested, even as he lit the lamps with his fire breath and started searching for it, knowing what Twilight’s next question would be. “Tried that once, remember? It was gross. I haven’t seen it lying around either.”
“It might have fallen out when we moved around for a while.” The filly paled beneath her fur at that idea. It was not like she could just buy another puzzle and complete that instead. This one was ancient and one of a kind. Not only that if she could not complete it, she would never pass her dam-sire’s test and that was something she just could not live with.
“I thought the box hadn’t left the house since Princess Celestia borrowed it? And you had all the pieces then?” The purple dragonet questioned his pseudo-mother as he turned the place upside down to look for the missing gold. Before too long Twilight had put the golden treasure down carefully on the desk and joined him in the hunt which decimated the normally orderly library and left it looking like a surprisingly careful hurricane had hit. One that did not damage anything but did leave absolutely everything strewn across the floors of the multi-storey building.
Despite their best attempts though, the piece was nowhere to be found. Twilight let out a frustrated and despairing whinny as she started getting ready to go look for it outside next, only to pull up short when Spike burped up a burst of green fire and a letter emerged from it, coiled in a red band just like the one she had had Spike send that afternoon, but sealed with the gold wax and insignia of her tutor, Princess Celestia.
“Guess she had a lot to do.” Spike frowned slightly as he opened it, “You want me to read it now?”
“It’s from the Princess, it could be important.” Twilight hesitated by the door, wanting to go and look but knowing that anything from the Princess was more important than her petty concerns even if they involved the puzzle she had poured her heart and soul into for the last eight years.
“My dearest Twilight,” Spike read out as Twilight shut the door and turned to look at him properly, shoulders sinking, “It is of great importance that you join me in the palace this evening.”
“Really?” Twilight blinked, “Tonight?”
“I will be sending a pegasus chariot to pick you up not long after I send this letter to you.” Spike continued, nodding, “Please be ready for a short three day trip before he arrives.”
“Now?” Twilight winced, thinking about the missing puzzle piece and realising that she was not going to have time to search for it outside of her home. “She’s sending me somewhere now?”
“Guess she’s taking your warning seriously.” Spike shrugged, “That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”
“Yes but…” Twilight had a sinking feeling. Unless Celestia was going to come with her, she had a horrible feeling that she was going to be sent away for her own protection. It was frustrating. She could help. She knew she could but it did not look like she was going to be given the chance.
“What do you want me to pack?” Spike asked, “And what about the missing piece?”
Twilight did not know. She wanted a little more time to go out and hunt, but perhaps this was a blessing in disguise. She could ask the Princess if she had seen the puzzle piece and try to convince her mentor that she could help. “Maybe we’ll find it when we’re packing.” Twilight sounded more hopeful than she felt, “Get together the books I was reading earlier, my recent school notes, the…”
Spike nodded, starting to grab everything on Twilight’s ever expanding list. Not that anything was easy to find in the mess they had created when searching. Still by the time the chariot arrived their bags were packed and Twilight had carefully returned the rest of the puzzle to the box it had come in and before Spike could take the last of the bags out, she shoved that in too.
It was a short trip to the palace from Twilight’s library. The unicorn had been assigned her home by the Princess so she was not surprised by that fact, nor that it was the same distance in the opposite direction from the library to her school. It was a boon in most respects as it meant that if she was called to see her tutor or to attend extra classes, as she so often was, she could make it there in a short amount of time.
Today however, she was not entirely happy that the trip was so fast. She had not entirely worked out what she was going to say to the Princess when the chariot arrived in the courtyard of the palace and the pegasus pulling it, a white coated, blue maned stallion with a silver shied as a cutie mark, whose name, if she remembered the introduction properly, was Mirrored Shield, helped her down from the chariot.
“Don’t worry about unpacking, Miss Sparkle.” The Mirrored Shield told her with a smile, “I’ll move your things to the bigger chariot, but Princess Celestia was insistent that you go and see her in the great hall immediately.”
And if that was not enough to set the butterflies in her stomach off again, nothing was as Twilight headed into the building that was imposing enough during the day time, but was worse right now by the light of the torches and the moon which seemed to be watching them ominously from above. Its shadow laid heavy on the ground, the castle’s many spires making the form on the ground look like some kind of beast stretching its arms into the skies as if preparing to strike.
“Get a grip Twilight.” The young unicorn told herself, shaking her head and taking a deep breath, before levitating Spike onto her back and cantering in through the main entrance. “You’re being ridiculous.”
Spike, thankfully, did not say anything, probably assuming she was working herself into a nervous frenzy as she often did when her tutor called her before her. It was ridiculous after the many years of being Celestia’s student, but Twilight was no fool. She was fully aware that the Princess could decide that teaching her was too much effort at a moment’s notice. The Princess, who some considered a Goddess, ruled over all of Equestria alone after all. Teaching her young student took time away from that important duty and she never wanted the alicorn to decide that she was not worth the hassle.
She just hoped that bringing up what could possibly be an overreaction to an Old Mare’s Tale was not the final straw for her and she was not about to be sent home for good.
The guards knew her and Spike rather well and they were allowed through the corridors without much fuss. The only real issue came when she was scurrying through the hallways, heading for the main hall where the Princess heard petitions and held grand parties, when she collided with a unicorn gentlecolt who emerged from one of the side rooms and Spike went tumbling from her back. He only didn’t hit the floor because of the fast reaction time of the unicorn she had collided with, who used his magic to catch Spike in an aura of red.
“S…sorry.” Twilight stammered to the gentlecolt. He an odd looking stallion whose rather gaudy red suit covered up most of his coat, including his cutie mark and whose silvery lavender mane hid one eye from sight, though she was almost certain she caught a glimpse of gold beneath the tresses.
“No problem Twily-girl.” The stallion shrugged it off even as he set down Spike, “I should have been looking where I was going.”
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