"P-Princess! I... I didn't - I mean I-I saw you talking with somepony in the hallway and I... I was curious and-"
Sunset cut herself off as she heard Celestia's light-hearted chuckle. The Princess shook her head and looked at the filly in amusement.
"It's alright, my Student," she assured, "I know how curious you can be," she gave a wry smile, "and I must share some of the blame as well. I... wasn't being particularly conspicuous standing in the middle of the hallway like that."
Sunset eyed the Princess warily.
"So... you're not mad?" she asked hopefully.
"Well, I am disappointed," Celestia replied with a stern frown, "you should know not to stick your muzzle into places you know it doesn't belong, Sunset."
Sunset lowered her head, pawing at the ground with a hoof.
"I-I'm sorry, Princess," she muttered abashedly, "I was worried."
Celestia looked at Sunset quizzically.
"Worried?" she asked with a raised eyebrow, "about what?"
"About you!" Sunset suddenly cried, glaring at the Princess, "about us!"
Celestia was slightly taken aback but didn't say anything as the orange filly continued.
"You've been acting really weird towards me lately, and I wanted to know why!"
"Sunset, that's not-"
"It's true! It's like you're... you're..." Sunset shook her head, "it's like I'm one of those foreign dignitaries you don't like, but have to put up with and pretend to like anyway!"
Celestia furrowed her brows as the filly continued.
"I just wanted to know what I did wrong!" Sunset fell to her haunches and looked down at her hooves as her eyes began to tear up.
"I was gonna ask you why you hated me all of a sudden..." she muttered.
Celestia quietly observed the crying filly for a few moments, a contemplative frown crossing her face. After a minute, she made her way over to Sunset and sat down beside her, giving her a kind smile.
"Oh, Sunset," she said softly, "I don't hate you..." she hesitated briefly before speaking again, "I've just been... preoccupied lately."
Sunset sniffed and looked up at the Princess questioningly.
"W-What do you mean?"
Celestia rubbed Sunset's back reassuringly before rising to her hooves.
"I've been worried about the future," she cast a side glance in Sunset's direction, "and about what it means to be a Princess... to rule a nation as vast as Equestria for as long as I have."
"Oh," Sunset answered, not quite understanding, "so... so it's not my fault? You really don't hate me?"
Celestia smile and shook her head.
"Of course I don't hate you, My Faithful Student," she replied, "I could never hate you. I love all of my little ponies, and I'd do anything to protect them," she rested a hoof on Sunset's shoulder, "that, I feel, is what it means to be a Princess."
Sunset thought for a moment and nodded slowly.
"I... guess that makes sense..." she agreed. She idly swept her gaze around the hallway and her eyes once again landed on the eerie statues.
She shivered involuntarily.
"Um, Princess," she asked, eyeing one of the stone ponies, "what is this place?"
Princess Celestia looked from Sunset to the statue she was looking at and sighed.
"This, My Faithful Student, is known as the Hall of the Damned."
"The Hall of the Damned?" Sunset repeated in confusion, "what does that mean?"
The Princess slowly trotted away from the large door, motioning for Sunset to follow.
"When I said I'd do anything to protect my little ponies, I meant it," she said stoically, "all these statues you see here..."
She stopped in front of a particularly scary looking statue of something that looked like a cross between a wolf and a pony. She inspected it a moment before turning her attention to the filly.
Sunset found herself squirming uneasily under the Princess' gaze.
"...each and every statue here was once a living, breathing creature."
The orange filly's eyes widened in horror and she took several frantic steps back from the nearest statue. Celestia nodded as though she expected such a reaction.
"These creatures once posed a dire threat to Equestria long ago," she began slowly pacing around the scared filly as she explained, "but thanks to the tireless efforts of the brave ponies of the past, myself, and... another," she grimaced briefly before her stoic expression returned, "we were able to beat back the darkness that threatened our land and the ponies who lived in it."
Sunset glanced from the Princess to the statues. Her fear began to wane, curiosity taking it's place.
"So..." she surmised, "you turned all the bad ponies and monsters to stone?"
Celestia suddenly let out a bark of laughter that startled the filly.
"Oh no, my Student," she said with a wry chuckle, "these are just the ones we couldn't kill."
Sunset Shimmer stared at Princess Celestia.
"...Kill?"
The Princess nodded gravely.
"You have to understand, Sunset," she continued, "Equestria was not always the shining symbol of harmony that it is today. Back then, things were... different," Celestia looked off to the side as though lost in a memory, "those were darker days, My Faithful Student, and I had to do a lot of things I'm not proud of for the sake of my nation."
"And that door?"
The Princess turned back to Sunset and found her glancing back at the large sealed door. The orange filly looked to Celestia with a combination of nervousness and curiosity in her eyes.
"You said it was bound by a 'Runic Seal'... what kind of magic is that?" she turned back to the door, "I don't recognize it from any of my studies."
"You wouldn't," Celestia agreed with a nod, "that seal is a rather fine example of Runic Magic - a practice that has been lost to time."
"Runic Magic?" Sunset asked, facing the Princess. Her eyes widened in realization, "is that what you used when you made the wall disappear?"
"Very astute, my Student," the Princess complemented with a proud smile, "there were Concealment Runes etched into that wall that could only be activated and deactivated with my unique magical signature."
"Amazing..." the filly muttered in awe, "why haven't I heard of this magic before, Princess?"
Celestia's smile fell into a slight frown.
"As I said, it was lost to time-"
"But you still remember how to use it!" Sunset cried enthusiastically, "you could teach-"
"Absolutely not, Sunset Shimmer," the Princess interjected sternly, "there's a reason the practice died out so long ago."
Sunset shrunk back at the Princess' hard gaze.
"Why did it die out?" she asked meekly.
After a few moments, Celestia's frown softened and she sighed in resignation. She turned to stare at the sealed door as she spoke.
"There was another branch of magic that died out along with Runic Magic," she said quietly, "the other practice known as Summoning Magic."
Sunset didn't say anything, but her ears perked up at the notion of learning more.
"Like Soul Magic and Elemental Magic, Runic Magic and Summoning Magic were closely related to each other and quite a few of their spells and enchanments overlapped with each other."
She turned back to the eager filly with a blank expression that wiped Sunset's own grin off of her face.
"And, like Soul Magic, anypony could make use of these branches of magic - be they unicorns, earth ponies, or pegasi."
Celestia stepped closer to a now unnerved Sunset and lowered her head so that she was eye-to-eye with the filly as she spoke - her tone eerily flat.
"Do you know what those ponies of long ago chose to use this magic for?"
Sunset could only shake her head, not trusting herself to speak.
Celestia's horn suddenly sparked to life and - before the orange filly had a chance to do or say anything - the Princess vanished and everything within Sunset's vision cracked and shattered like a stained-glass window.
She was no longer in the Hall of the Damned.
She wasn't even in the castle anymore.
She was in a desert, surrounded by dry, cracked dirt and sparse, dead, blackened trees that stretched on for miles in every direction. An acrid stench hung in the air that made her nose run and her eyes sting.
Her ears were picking up a strange sound she couldn't quite place - something that sounded like low guttural growls that would occasionally turn into inequine shrieks that sent chills down the filly's spine.
Sunset Shimmer tried to move.
She tried to scream.
She couldn't do either.
This is what happens when ponies are left to do as they please with magic.
Sunset's eyes would've widened if they could at the sound of Celestia's voice coming from all around her. Without warning her vision shifted of it's own accord and she found herself facing a large gathering of cloaked ponies several yards away.
They were all standing in a large circle and the filly could hear low, incomprehensible chanting coming from each of them. Through a gap in the bodies, Sunset could see some kind of large magic circle sporting complex lines and runes beginning to glow an ominous red.
Watch carefully, My Faithful Student...
The circle started emitting a deep thrum that seemed to grow louder and louder in tandem with the ponies chanting.
Then everything went silent.
Sunset couldn't even hear the sound of her heart bashing itself against her ribcage - though she could certainly feel it.
This is what I had to protect my ponies from.
The ground began to shake violently.
Not just outside threats.
The circle of ponies began to scatter.
But the threats they posed to themselves as well.
The glow coming from the magic circle grew to an intensity that practically blinded Sunset.
This is what it means to be a Princess, Sunset Shimmer.
The ground exploded.
Every pony that couldn't get away in time was flung through the air and those that did were knocked to the ground by the result shockwave. The explosion died down and for a moment, everything was quiet once again - save for the pained moans and agonized screams of the ponies that didn't quite escape.
Then she heard it.
The growls and shrieks she had heard before were back, and they were getting louder. Where the magic circle used to be, was now a large, seemingly bottomless hole that cast an orange light from below. Every able bodied pony still near the hole began backing away at the sounds coming from the infernal looking pit.
Sunset could only watch in mute horror as one unfortunate pony who tried to turn and run was suddenly impaled through the back of his head by a sharp scaly black limb and dragged into the hole.
That was the cue for everypony present to gallop away screaming.
The filly tried in vain to scream again as she witnessed what looked like hundreds of monsters of all shapes and sizes crawl their way out of the pit and bound after the retreating ponies.
What followed next was nothing short of a bloodbath.
Ponies were caught and torn limb from limb, impaled, disemboweled and eaten alive. Not one single pony escaped the slaughter and the creatures themselves did nothing but growl, shriek, laugh, and gorge themselves.
And Sunset Shimmer stood frozen right in the thick of it.
The filly lost track of time as she continued to watch the brutality on display.
She lost track of a lot of things.
So lost was she that she didn't even notice the massive scaly maroon colored arm that reached up out of the pit and slammed into the ground - crushing pony and monster alike with it's sheer size.
The deafening roar that rose from the pit caught her attention however, and she slowly turned to face whatever new horror was coming out of the hole - not registering the fact that she was able to move again.
First came the black horns - they themselves as big as an average house - then the rest of the scaly head rose up from the depths and a bright green slitted eye the size of a full grown pony swept it's gaze across the scene.
A dragon.
No, that wasn't quite right.
As it lifted itself out of the hole, Sunset could see many things wrong with the beast. It had the scales, face, claws, and wings of a dragon, but it's lower half looked like it stretched on and on and on further down into the pit.
Sunset stared at the massive dragon like creature unblinkingly and the creature itself seemed like it was staring back. The few ponies that were still alive continued to scream in pain and the monsters continued to slaughter and feed as the filly and dragon beast started at each other.
Then it opened it's maw without warning and Sunset finally screamed as a jet of white hot flame washed over her. She thrashed and flailed as she felt her skin melt away, the sheer agony enough to drive her mad.
And then it was over.
The world shattered once again and the filly was safe and sound in the Hall of the Damned.
Not that she noticed.
Celestia stood in front of the filly, looking over her with a worried grimace.
"...Sunset?"
Sunset didn't respond.
"Oh dear," Celestia muttered, "I believe I might've gone too far."
Sunset continued to stand there staring straight ahead - her eyes clouded and unseeing as she played the gruesome scene over and over and over again in her head.
The Princess sighed and gave the filly an apologetic frown.
"Forgive me, My Faithful Student. I got carried away and..."
Sunset didn't react.
"You can't even hear me right now, can you?"
Nothing.
She shook her head and touched her horn to Sunset's.
"I truly am sorry," she lit her horn, "for now, this is the best I can do."
Her horn flashed and the horrible visions in Sunset's mind vanished along with everything else.