The Stone Keeper

Twinkle Star thought it had been ages since she had been eating such delicious food. The tropical fruits were really tasty, and even the not-so-tropical food tasted great due to the nice clear water and the climate, which made the fruits grow faster and made them tastier. Of course, as Vesti had explained, they took great care in their vegetable garden, as it was their only source of food, and it was very hard to get new food quick if they ran out of food.  During dinner, Damina tried to explain how the lake worked. Apparently there was some underground river far below the surface of the earth. Because it was so deep the water was very clean and cold. When it came to the surface here, it reacted with the special ground of the lake, and sometimes this resulted in some very beautiful jewels. Of course Damina wasn’t sure of this, but it was her most reliable explanation.

Twinkle Star had explained Damina about Regina and the new Friendship Lands earlier in the afternoon, when they were talking together away from the house. She had also explained about Regala and the fact that she had lost all of her children. Damina had been really understanding about it all, and she had been happy to hear Regina had lived on so well and had created a new country for the survivors, but when Twinkle Star asked if Damina wanted to come with them to the new lands, she said she wasn’t sure. She wanted to see her sisters, of course, but she didn’t feel like abandoning her life here. She would think about it.

After their little conversation they had headed back to the little house where Vesti and Testi had prepared some of the food. Of course Testi didn’t eat with them, as she was grounded, so she ate inside the house while the others were eating on the bank of the lake, in the light of the setting sun. Twinkle Star loved the evening in this place already. It was so nice to see the sky grow red and the lake reflecting the red color in the sky. She could totally imagine why Damina didn’t want to leave this place.

“Hey, what’s that?” Aline suddenly asked, interrupting Damina’s story about the jewels and the lake, and she pointed at something in the lake, close to the bank.
“it’s the water we collected from Fiume.” Vesti replied inbetween two bites of a very nice looking pineapple.
 “Why did you put the bottle in the lake?” Twinkle star asked, as she was also curious by now.
“To cool the water down.” Damina answered. “It had of course warmed up in the desert and I want it to be cool and pure when I use it tomorrow morning on the stone.”
Twinkle Star nodded. Fiume’s water was of course always pure no matter what temperature, but it would react to the stone better if it was as cold as possible. “Could you maybe tell me a little bit more of the stone?” She asked her aunt. “I’m quite interested in it, based on what I heard form Testi and Vesti.”
Damina sighed. “I don’t know about the stone. It’s not normal. It’s clean, as clean as possible, and still there is this dusty layer on it. But not on the outside. It’s perfectly round, but there is dust on the inside.”
“How can that be?” Aline asked short before she took another bite of her delicious melon.

“I don’t know.” Damina shook her head. “I don’t think it’s a normal stone.”
Aline looked at Damina, confused, and Twinkle Star smiled. Aline didn’t knew anything about magical stones or stonekeepers, but she was sure Damina would explain it in such a way even Aline would understand it’s importance. All her childhood Damina had told Twinkle Star and her sisters how important the magical stones were, and how powerfull they could be. Damina had really lived up to the hard job of the stone keeper of the Royal Family of the Friendship Lands, ever since the older stonekeeper, Medina’s sister Katika, had retired because she wanted to spend her time with her grandchildren. Of course Twinkle Star wasn’t sure if this strange stone was a magical stone, however Damina was definitely thinking about it and it really did sound very peculiar.

“What do you mean exactly, not a normal stone?” Aline asked Damina.
Damina took another bite of her food and then answered Aline. “Look Aline, there of course a lot of normal gems, jewels and stones in this world. Pretty ones, ugly ones, useless ones, huge stones that stop the river flowing, pretty little diamonds in a queen’s wedding tiara, you name it. But some stones can hold magical powers. Certain gems hold powers of their own, but you can also insert your royal powers in a stone, so you can give it a power of itself. You make it magical, so to say. I am sure Stelline here can transfer some of her powers in one of my jewels to show you what I mean.”
Stelline nodded slowly and smiled, happy with the challenge. Damina stood up and walked inside her little wooden house and not much later she returned with a nice purple jewel in her mouth.
“Here, this will do,” She said as she placed the stone in front of Stelline,  “I am sure Stelline knows how to have a little fun with it, right?”
Damina winked and Stelline nodded. She stood up and faced the stone that Damina had placed in the soft sand. Stelline closed her eyes and Twinkle Star noticed her horn was lighting up. She could feel the powers released by Stelline now, the same powers Twinkle Star had felt when she had been controlling the monster in the desert earlier that day. Twinkle star was amazed how Stelline was able to concentrate her powers like this to such a small object. Powers were hard to focus and it was definitely hard to send them to such a small little thing. Twinkle Star was sure she was never going to be able to do that, and she was convinced the only reason Stelline could was because of her horn. She knew she would never be able focus like Stelline was able to.

It didn’t take long for the light on her horn to disappear and Stelline opened her eyes again.
“Done.” She stated, and she walked back to her plate of food. Damina picked the stone up and placed it in front of Aline, who inspected the nice purple stone, but she couldn’t discover anything abnormal with it. She looked at Damina confused, who said: “What’s the key, Stelline?” But Stelline shook her head.
“No key. Just think of light. Think you need light because it’s really dark around you and you can’t see a thing.” Aline sighed and looked at the stone. Twinkle Star grinned when she saw Aline’s face. She still didn’t really understand what was going on.
“Just do it, Aline.”  Twinkle Star said and with that Aline closed her eyes.

It didn’t take long for the stone to light up. Very faintly first, but very soon the stone shone in a bright, purple light. When Aline opened her eyes she stared at the stone in amazement.
“I did this?” She asked with disbelief. Damina nodded.
“You summoned the powers Stelline gave to the stone. It’s rather hard to explain, but the stone can hold the powers someone gives to it, and respond to a request. Sometimes the request is a word, or a key as we call it, something like a password, but sometimes just thinking of what you need is enough. Of course, the one requesting the powers of the stone has to have at least some royal powers herself, but Twinkle Star had already told me you are from the Daiya family, so I was pretty confident you were able to summon something simple as this.”
“Wicked…” Aline said while she looked at the stone, that was still shining brightly. “So I can summon anything?” She asked Damina, who shook her head.
“No, not really. The more difficult the power of the stone is, the more royal powers you need to summon it. For example, such a thing as light isn’t hard, it’s not even hard to insert into the stone. But to summon a special kind of light is already more complicated, and you are not able to control the strength of the light you summon. Most of the powers stones can hold can only be summoned by ponies that are children of a queen.”

“What kind of complicated summons are there, then?” Aline asked while she moved the glowing stone between her hoofs, still amazed with the light she apparently had just summoned.
“Oh, everything. They can contain wisdom which you can transport back in your mind, they can hold protecting powers, offensive powers. Basically a stone contains powers inserted by one pony, and another can use those powers for itself without having to learn everything. Stelline here knows how to create light, and she transported that knowledge as a royal power in the stone. When your mind asks for light, your powers will send that request to the stone and the stone will release it’s powers of light.”
Damina explained and Twinkle Star nodded softly. She had heard this before of course, but it was a long time ago and it was nice to refresh her mind by hearing it again.
“So… Anyone with Royal Powers can insert something in a stone?” Aline asked and Damina laughed.

“Oh no, Aline. You need a lot of royal powers to be able to insert the powers in a stone. To summon them isn’t that hard, but to focus your powers and link them to something outside your own body is a much more complicated story. As far as I know, only the first two or three children of a queen have this power, and most unicorns can do it to, as their horn allows them to focus powers much easier. I can do some very weak powers, such as light, certain sounds, lullabies, but that’s about it. My powers are just too weak for stronger powers that are actually useful. Those stronger stones… they can only be created by queens.”

Twinkle Star noticed the light in the stone was fading. She knew Aline’s mind wasn’t on light anymore, and her powers, and thus the stone, reacted to that.
“Isn’t that dangerous, though, those stones? I mean, what if they fall into the wrong hands and it contains some other strong offensive power?” Aline asked.
To Twinkle Star’s surprise Damina’s mood changed at once. She wasn’t smiling and happy anymore, but her eyes looked sad as if she remembered something she would rather forget forever. She got up and closed her eyes for a second.
“Such things may never happen, Aline. But the stones are gone. All of them are destroyed with the eruption. But in case new ones are created, I will do whatever I can to prevent them from falling in the wrong hands.”
With that, Damina walked inside the house, leaving the others behind in confusion. Twinkle Star looked at Vesti who shrugged her shoulders.
“I don’t know,” She said, “Mom’s always quite tense about powerful stones. That’s why she keeps working with them, to make sure she knows it first if someone finds a powerful one. I think that’s why she’s so interested in the round one for which we fetched the water from Fiume. She knows it holds a secret.”
Twinkle Star nodded. “I know. I’m curious what the water will do to it tomorrow morning.”

That night Twinkle Star had some trouble falling asleep, no matter how tired she was. She was laying outside under her own blanket. Of course she had been invited to sleep inside, but the place was small and it wasn’t really more comforting inside than outside, so she had decided to sleep under the clear sky once more. She looked at the bright stars in the sky, and she realised they were just like little magical stones stuck on a blue blanket. At least that is what her mother had told her and her sisters long ago. It was true, they were all gone, but Twinkle Star remembered the stone room of the Royal Castle. The beautiful, colourful stones, Damina who kept saying they were never allowed to come close to them, the large door that was usually locked, the fun they had as children with some of the smaller, lighter stones, with little powers as creating light, stones that could make them fall asleep by singing a song in their minds, or some stones their aunt sometimes used to cure them from having a fever. But they were mostly gone now, Twinkle Star thought. She was quite sure her mother had never attempted to create new ones in the new lands. Would Regina have ever told the story of the stones and the stars to Ivy and Fleur? Would anyone ever be able to tell those little stories, or fall asleep because someone a thousand years ago had inserted her own little lullaby in a stone, so they could still hear it now?

But for now, there was only this round stone Damina was so curious about. Would it really be a special stone, a magical one, a summoning stone? Damina would be able to recognise it at once if it could be cleaned well tomorrow morning. While pondering over this and staring at the clear shining stars in the sky, Twinkle Star slowly fell asleep, only to be woken up by Aline the next morning.