//------------------------------//
// Chapter 4: The Ancient Castle 
// Story: The Timeless Hollow 
// by Warrior of Vale 
//------------------------------//


The Timeless Hollow












At last they had reached their destination, behind them loomed the foggy cliffs of the Everfree forest, the lone rope bridge swung in the wind, derelict and out of use. Ahead of them was the grand castle of the old royal ponies. Centuries ago it had been inhabited by none other than Princess Celestia and her sister Luna. Now it stood before them in ruins, forgotten and crumbling slowly. Vines grew up its walls and moss poked out of cracks all over the once sturdy stone gates. Atop one of the tall towers a flag still managed to wave back and forth bearing the crest of Celestia and luna, tattered but no less magnificent. Unlike the castle of Canterlot it was the only building in the vicinity, a testement to its age, existing before many pony villages had sprung up. The once mighty drawbridge was lowered and rotting, the moat was empty and filled with weeds. 



"Wow!" Scootaloo hopped off of her scooter and stopped right before the huge gates. "Now this is a castle!"
She took a moment to rest the scooter against a rock then trotted closer to the entrance.
"Careful now Scoots, we don't know what could be around here," Applebloom looked around them cautiously, the area they were in was very quiet, in the Everfree forest you could at least hear animals running around in the brush or underfoot, here there was nothing. Just the moon hanging overhead and a breeze so soft that you couldn't even hear it.
"What a run down dump," Diamond sniffed loudly then poked a statue which crumbled softly with a poof of dust and dirt. "I thought a castle would look a bit...more regal than this."
"Well it hasn't been used in close to a thousand years, I don't see anyone maintaining it, do you?" Sweetie Belle rolled her eyes and made a nagging motion with her hooves causing Applebloom to giggle and Diamond to let out a "harumph" before gesturing to Silver spoon to follow her.
Pip seperated himself from the group and ran along the side of the castles wall waving his sword back and forth, obviously excited. "ADVENTURE! PERILS! HIDDEN TREASURE!" He exclaimed, eyes wild with excitement. "This is what I've been waiting for!" He gave a happy little hop then nearly tripped over himself with glee. 
"Easy now tough guy, try making it into the castle before you end up crippling yourself." Scootaloo bonked him on the nose then beamed at him, just as excited.



Just beyond the grand opening to the castle and its rotten old wooden doors was the entrance hall, a truly beautiful room lined with old dusty stained glass windows depicting ancient pony wars and events. The sides of the room were filled with suits of armor and old relics of ages past.
In the middle of the room stood a huge monument, the Elemental Mantle. It was a wide circular shaped column with six arms extending from various points starting from near the ground to the near top, each arm ended with a bowl of sorts made to carry the original Elements of Harmony. Of course the Elements were no longer there, they'd since left their homes of stone and had become the necklaces and headpiece that Twilight and her friends donned on several occasions, that didn't make the monument any less magnificent though.
A hush fell over the foals as they moved slowly through the room, taking in all the history and wonder that it held.
They stopped for a moment near the center of the room and Silver pointed her hoof a little further down the way at a smaller doorway with a plaque attached above it.
"Luna said we had to go past this room to the central gardens right?"
"Something like that, then we'll enter a hollow, whatever that is," Scootaloo shrugged casually and turned to Sweetie Belle when she giggled, "oh really Scoots" she snickered patting her friends head, "a hollow is that part of a tree when they get that hole growing in them, like the ones animals sleep in. I think Luna meant a tree hollow though, its like a clearing but its surrounded by trees."
"uh...huh." Scootaloo gave her a blank stare then blinked slowly causing her friend to facehoof and grin, "don't you ever change Scoots." 
"Hadn't planned on it!" The orange filly grinned widely, pleased with herself.
"Luna said what we're supposed to do will become clear once we've entered that hollow, so we must be getting close. Which is good cause I think its almost dawn." Pip tightened his belt then stood up quickly, "we ready girls? ONWARDS!"
"Oh, I'm s'posed to be helping big Mac and Applejack with chores now if its dawn, I'm gonna be in so much trouble, triple chores for a week!" Applebloom bit her lip and frowned, " I really hope Luna does talk to Applejack about this, I don't wanna clear out the pigsties again this week, it took forever to wash that smell off."
"Took me even longer to wash the smell off of my mane from when you fell on me!" Scootaloo exclaimed, not eager to relive the horrors of the pigsty. 
"How...rustic..." Diamond tiara wrinkled her nose then moved further ahead of them to get out of range of anything she thought would be attacking her.
"Shoot, that pony wouldn't know an honest days work if it slapped her little tiara thingamajigger off of her head." Applebloom scowled, running to catch up.



Taking a moment to read the plaque above the doorway they saw that it did in fact lead to the garden and went through the passage which lead to a set of stairs leading down further into the castle, eventually the narrow passage widened and opened into the garden which was located directly in the center of the castle, there was no roof here, instead they could see the dull sun as it slowly crept closer to showing itself over the mountain range in the far distance.
The garden was, in some ways, extravagant. Rows upon rows of flower beds were now filled with weeds and old thorn bushes, the remnants of roses bushes and other similar flowers could be seen here and there. Vines grew up several wooden partitions which must've been to support grape vines back when the castle was in use. 
At the center of the garden was a statue of both royal sisters, they stood next to one another, Celestia was situated facing towards the rising sun and Luna towards the setting moon with their faces facing towards each other. You could tell that at some point it was a water feature, with streams of water normally pouring from their mouths, but the statue of Luna was missing its head, no chance of that now.
As they walked through the garden quietly they noticed how quiet it was inside the castle, not just the outside, it almost seemed unnatural and made more than one of them antsy.



"Well here we are, now what?" Scootaloo plopped herself down in some grass and scanned the huge garden, "I don't see any trees around here, or hollow things."
"That's strange," Silver spoon muttered as she adjusted her glasses carefully, "Luna said that we would know where to go from here."
"Maybe it's a puzzle...old ruins always have old puzzles!" Scootaloo shot up and started knocking on the walls around then looking for secret entrances, the idea caused Pip to leap up and do the same, "I bet I'll find the treasures before you!"
"I bet you wont!" 
"Will too!"
"Will not!"
"There isn't any treasure you twerps!" Diamond shouted, her eyes flashing with annoyance. "Just because this is an old castle doesn't mean there's treasure here." 
"PFT" Scootloo rolled her eyes and waved a hoof, "more for us then."
"Listen here you uneducat-" She started ranting but Silver reached out a hoof and stopped her, "It's not worth the trouble Diamond, they're going to think there's treasure here and you can't stop them. We're better off keeping our cool and actually using our heads to accomplish something, like figuring out what to do now."
Diamond flared her nostrils then took a deep breath and nodded, calming down a bit. "Of course, if it were up to those two miscreants we'd be stuck here forever, and we can't have that." 



A little whiles away Sweetie Belle and Applebloom stood near a wall looking over the old murals telling stories of the ancient ponies.
"What do you reckon we need to do here?" Applebloom ran a hoof over the pictures then turned and looked at the sun which was still rising slowly, filling the garden with weak sunlight.
Sweetie Belle rubbed her eyes wearily and sat down with a sigh, "I don't know... let's think about this garden."
She tapped her hoof against the ground and began thinking out loud, "this used to be Celestia and Luna's castle, so if there's a trick to this then it'd have something to do with them I guess."
"That'd mean the trick would have to do with the sun..or moon...or both I s'pose."
They sat there thinking for a couple more minutes then stopped to watch Scootaloo and Pip who were still tapping the walls and looking in the shrubs for clues.
Diamond and Silver had moved over to in front of the statues and were looking up at them when Diamond let out a yelp and shielded her eyes quickly.
Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked over at the two fillies who were now bathed in the light of the rising sun. The way the rays of sunlight hit Celestia's statue it let off a beam of bright light reflecting from the jewel that made up the statues eye, which was what had startled Diamond so badly.
"Stupid statue, almost blinded me!" she grumbled still rubbing her eyes.
"Whoa!" Pip shouted running up to the wall where the beam of light landed, "now here's a hint if I ever did see one!"
"Have you ever seen a hint?" Scootaloo trotted up to him then stared at the light beam as well.
"Well...no, but this is TOTALLY a hint, there's no way it couldn't be one!"
"Can't argue with that, this is pretty hintastic."




Silver Spoon looked up at the statue closely, her eyes squinting with concentration, after a bit she turned and looked at the wall the sunlight was projecting onto. "I wonder what Luna's statue would reflect if its head was still there. At dawn the moon doesn't give off any light anymore so there wouldn't be any moonlight."
"Well if you think about it, whatever is being hidden here would have to be something the sisters could access with ease, and obviously you can't access a room like this with ease if you can't get both requirements... unless one of those requirements wasn't moonlight."
Sweetie Belle moved infront of the statue and looked up at Luna's closely, after a little bit her face broke out in a smile and she hopped up onto the base of the statue with an "aha!"
Using one of her hooves she rubbed Luna's leg roughly for a moment then stepped back, "look here!" The rest of them -save Scootaloo and Pip who were still pondering over the wall- crowded around and saw the part Sweetie belle had rubbed clean, underneath all the dust, dirt and age they could see that the statue wasn't even made of stone but rather, glass. Or something similar.
"When the sun used to shine on this one it'd just go right through it all, except for the eye...I think" Sweetie pointed up at where the head would be, "it makes sense that the eye would be a dark stone or something that the sun couldn't shine through, since its shining through Celestia's eye on the other statue."
"So the sun would shine that beam onto the wall from Celestia's statue and it'd appear as a shadow from Luna's..."
Diamond turned to the wall then back at the statue, "but the head is gone now, how are we supposed to make a shadow that high up?"
"Easy! We just make a pony pyramid, climb up there and put your hoof where the sun would be hitting the eye."
Diamond looked at Silver who shrugged then turned back to them, "oh no, I'm not letting anypony stand on me, if thats the plan then I'm gonna be the top pony."
"But Diamond, you're afraid of heigh-" Silver started to mutter quietly but Diamond raised a hoof to silence her, "that doesn't matter, I will not allow another pony to stand on me, I may be here with these dorks but I still have my pride."
Both Applebloom and Sweetie Belle groaned then sighed, not willing to argue about it. They stood shoulder to shoulder then had Silver hop onto their backs, once she was situated she helped Diamond clamber atop them all. At the top Diamond looked down and gulped, then shook her head and reached up for Luna's back, with a grunt she swung herself up, almost lost her balance and yelled loudly.
"Diamond!" Silver reached her hooves up to catch her which unsteadied her balance and she collapsed on the other two who both stumbled and fell off of the statue with a thud.
"Owwww, ponyfeathers, that hurt." Applebloom rubbed her head gingerly then winced and looked up at Diamond who had managed to steady herself somewhat.
"Jus' reach your hoof up there and block a bit of the sunlight!" 
"I know what I'm doing you bumpkin! Just give me a moment." She took a huge breath then reached up to where Luna's head would be and waved her hoof carefully.



Her hoof sent a long strangely shaped shadow down to the wall but it was enoguh, with a huge groan and a ripping noise the wall shifted violently enough to cause Scootaloo to shout and latch onto Pip who shouted as well but only because Scootaloo blinded him with her hooves and refused to let go.
The rumbling continued as a portion of the wall started sinking into the ground revealing a doorway behind it.
Diamond Tiara inched her way down the statue then hopped into Silvr Spoons grasp and straightened her tiara, "now dont you all thank me at once for my brave actions."
Sweetie Belle made a gagging face and chuckled alongside Applebloom who took off towards Scootaloo and Pip, once she noticed them approaching Scootaloo quickly hopped off of Pip as the rest of them came up to the wall and composed herself quickly. She'd never hear the end of the chicken jokes if she let something like that scare her.
"Aha, so you solved it!" She grinned sheepishly as Pip picked himself up and shook his head, his eyes googly. "G-good job!" he cheered, trying to get his senses back, to little avail.
"Yup! That wasn't so hard." Sweetie Belle cheered then bopped hooves together with her two friends.
"Everypony look!" Silver pointed to the top of the new doorway where a new plaque had appeared.
One that read, "The Timeless Hollow."