The Ancient Doorway

When Twinkle Star saw the doorway she was so surprised that she didn’t say anything for a few minutes. For a few hours they had been following the road upwards, which led them into the mountains instead of next to them as they had been doing for so long, and there had been walls on both sides of the road for a while now. Twinkle Star had noticed the walls had been unnaturally steep and straight, but she had never thought they would end up in a place like this. A huge bend doorway was in front of them, and the stone doors were tightly closed. On the stone doors there were still the remains of what once was a drawing of the Royal Family’s pendant. The doors and the doorway were made of a weird, dark brown kind of stone, which Twinkle Star hadn’t seen before in the mountains.

Finally Aline broke the silence by saying:  “Great, now what!”
Twinkle Star sighed. “I don’t know. I don’t even really know what this gate leads to, to be honest. I recognise the sign of my family so it obviously has something to do with either my family or the old lands. But what it is for or where it leads to… I have no idea.”
Aline walked to the big doors and tried to push them open, but she didn’t have any luck. The doors stayed in their original position and didn’t move an inch. After she sighed “That won’t work” she walked back to Twinkle Star.
“I guess we can’t go on then. We gotta find another road, Twinkle Star.”

Twinkle Star didn’t completely agree with this. She never believed these doors could simply be pushed open. The doors looked old, and it was probably only possible to open them with old magic, but Twinkle Star didn’t have any idea how to do that or what kind of magic she needed to begin with.
 “Aline, why don’t we stay here for tonight?” She proposed, “I mean, it’s getting late and we both haven’t slept in a long time. This place is sheltered and quiet. We can stay here for tonight and figure out what we’re going to do tomorrow.”
She saw Aline was relieved that Twinkle Star said this. Aline probably was more tired than she admitted, because she looked quite pale and for a while now she hadn’t talked that much, at least in her case it wasn’t much.

Not much later they both lay underneath their blankets in the corner of the walls, under a rock that extended over the path a bit, so that if it would rain that night that would at least stay a little dry. The sky was clear at the moment, but they knew that wasn’t any guarantee over here. Fortunately Twinkle Star’s stuff hadn’t gotten wet in the rainstorm earlier as her bag was water proof, so their blankets and their food were still dry. Aline was softly eating her fruit while Twinkle Star had already finished her own. As she predicted, her wounds had healed for the most part already. The rain had washed the mud out of her hair and out of her fur but she still didn’t feel very clean and her hair felt dry and frizzy.
“Ywou Kwow,” Aline said with her mouth full, “I cwouwd dwo swomwething whih wour wair.”
“Excuse me?” Twinkle Star said, trying to hold her laugh. Aline looked ridiculous when she was trying to eat and talk at once.
“I mean,” Aline said when she had swallowed her food, “I could do something with your hair. I mean, it looks horrible Twinkle Star, and you don’t wanna appear before your sister like this, right?”
 Twinkle Star laughed. “Oh well, go ahead Aline. It can’t become much worse, can it? Though I wonder if you can do anything fancy with this hair of mine at the moment.”

Twinkle Star really was surprised when she saw herself in Aline’s little mirror thirty minutes later though. Twinkle Star had no idea how Aline had done it, but in the first two locks of her mane were in a nice curl, the next lock was braided, and the rest of her mane was tight together in a nice knot with one of the ribbons Aline had been able to save. Not only did it look good, on this way it wouldn’t be in Twinkle Star’s way and it wouldn’t get dirty as soon as it would when her mane were loose.
“It’s awesome Aline! Really, it’s great!” She said excited.
“Really? You really like it?” Aline asked happy.
“Yes I do! You know, you could get a job at my mother’s castle for sure! You really know how to make fancy hair styles, you know.” Twinkle star answered while she was still admiring her new head-dress in the little mirror.
“You think I could? Really?” Aline asked even more excited.
“Sure, but I don’t suppose you’re ever going there, right? I mean, you’re going back to your parents after we have found Stelline, aren’t you?” Twinkle Star said. “Well…” Aline looked down and sighed. “Maybe, I don’t know… I guess I’ll have to, but…”
“But what?” Twinkle Star asked. She was a little surprised by Aline’s reaction. She always thought Aline just wanted to be here for a while, and would go back to her parents after she had been here.
“Maybe I don’t want to.” Aline said with a soft voice. “I mean, I like my parents and our village, and of course my old friends are there and all, but I feel like I don’t belong there. I never did, and I told you. My future is somewhere else…” Twinkle Star smiled. She knew how Aline felt. She recognised the look in her eyes. She had seen that look before, in the reflection of a window, not too long ago… “Well, why don’t you come with me then? You can work at the castle like I said, and we can hang out as long as we want!” Twinkle Star proposed.
“Really? Oh Twinkle Star, you’re the best!” Aline yelled and made a jump out of joy which made Twinkle Star laugh.
“I’m sure you’ll love the new Friendship Lands. I have to admit my mom did a great job there. Of course it’s nothing like this place once was but hey, this wasn’t build in one day either. Have you ever been to a kingdom?”
“No, never. I’ve never been out of my village, at least not very far. I can’t wait to see it!” Aline said, still excited.
Twinkle Star laughed. She liked it to see Aline so excited, she was always a bit more excited and happy than others would be and somehow Twinkle star found it impossible not to be at least a little happy or excited when Aline was acting like this. Suddenly she felt like she had to yawn and remembered it had almost been forty hours since she had slept.
“Well, don’t you think we should get some sleep now though? It’s getting late, and who knows what we have to do tomorrow…” Even though Aline was way too excited to go to sleep, she agreed with Twinkle Star, and before she knew it Twinkle Star was far away in a dark, dreamless sleep.

When Twinkle Star woke up the next morning she noticed Aline was still fas away in a dream. It was still very early in the morning as there was only a little sunlight and the sky was still red from the morning sun. Twinkle Star noticed it hadn’t rained at all that night. She got up and wanted to get herself something to eat, but decided not to; she wanted to discuss what to do next with Aline during breakfast, so it wasn’t such a good idea that she would eat alone. She sighed and looked at the road she was in. The walls of stone were very straight and Twinkle Star was sure they were crafted by ponies, long ago. It was damaged by the eruption of course, there were cracks in the walls and rocks were laying here and there, but over all the place appeared to be in a quite good condition, considering what it had been through. Her view turned to the old stone doors and she walked towards them. She once again recognised the old symbol of her family and compared it with her pendant, which only confirmed it was indeed the same. The symbol wasn’t an easy symbol like Aline’s butterfly pendant was. The top of the symbol was shaped as a crown with 5 triangle-shaped points that faced upwards. In the crown were some jewels and in the centre was a diamond, and underneath this one was an even bigger diamond that was placed in something that looked like a candle holder that curled both to the left and the right, only of course it didn’t held a candle but the diamond. The diamond-holder was standing on a half circle of which the both ends faced upwards and curled to the outside just like the diamond-holder had done and they touched the ends of the crown and with that closed the pendant. The symbol, the pendant of Twinkle Star’s family…

Twinkle Star sighed. She was really curious what was behind the doors, but they appeared to be locked tightly so there was no way she could pass them without figuring out how they would open. She inspected the walls to which the doors were attached, but they didn’t show any sign of a key hole or something, either. Maybe this was a dead end, after all…

Suddenly Twinkle Star heard noise behind her and then she heard Aline cursing. She turned around and saw Aline jumping around on three legs while she held the fourth one up.
 “what idiot places a rock over here when I want to walk here quietly after waking up!” Aline yelled. Twinkle Star laughed. Aline had gotten up and was walking close to the wall on the other side and with her sleepy head she had bumped her hoof against a rock, she figured. Twinkle Star walked towards Aline.
“You actually didn’t see this rock?” She laughed, “It’s huge!”
“It’s not funny!” Aline yelled annoyed.
Twinkle Star noticed the rock Aline had bumped her hoof against was quite extraordinary. It was shaped almost cylindrical, with the usual cracks here and there of course, but still it didn’t look like it was made by nature, somehow. This was odd, Twinkle Star thought. A rock shaped like this, in a place like this? She inspected the rock a little more, while Aline asked Twinkle star if she thought the well being of the rock was more important to her than her well being because Twinkle Star seemed to care more about the rock than Aline’s hoof. The rock was covered in a thick layer of dust, Twinkle Star noticed, only the dust had stuck together through the years so it was now a solid cover over the rock and wouldn’t wash away with some rain. Slowly she tried to remove it and after a bit of trying it came loose, and Twinkle Star found out that the stone actually wasn’t just a stone just as she expected. It was made of the same kind of rocks as the doorway and the doors, and the symbol of the royal family was also on this rock, more clear and better preserved than it was on the doors.
“What is it?” Aline asked while Twinkle Star continued to remove the dirt.
 “I don’t exactly know yet, but if I’m not mistaken it’s the way to open these doors.”

It didn’t take long before Twinkle Star had the entire stone out of the dirt. It was preserved quite well actually, because the layers of dust and dirt had protected it from the eruption and other environmental changes. She noticed there was a print of an hoof on the top that looked like it was burned in the stone, and the symbol of both her family and the Friendship Lands were on the sides, together with something written in the ancient language of the Friendship Lands. Aline had noticed the writings too and asked Twinkle Star if she could read it. Twinkle Star sighed.
“I can, a bit. I learned it in the old lands, of course. A lot of the old books were written in this language and, well, when you’re a princess you have to be able to read those, right? But it has been a long time ago and I haven’t done it since the eruption. But I’m going to give it a try.”
Twinkle Star didn’t have a lot of trouble to recognise the writing. Several letters were written differently than the normal, modern speech was written, but recognising the old letters was the first thing she had learned and she had practised a lot with them, so she had remembered it quite clearly. She had more trouble with the language itself though. She knew a bit of it, of course. It was the same language that had explained Aline’s part in the prophecy, as Daiya was the ancient word for diamond. But she hadn’t learned a lot of it and the language was rather difficult. After about twenty minutes she had only explained half of the writings and she was about to give up on the rest, when she suddenly noticed she could figure out what it said with the words she had translated. It was almost as if she had read this somewhere before…