//------------------------------// // Admiring the Art // Story: Surviving Sand Island // by The 24th Pegasus //------------------------------// Rarity frowned at the carvings in front of her, her tail idly swishing back and forth in thought. So far, hers and Melody’s search of the sunken temple had been far from fruitful. They passed by most of the depictions and carved history in the walls, sparing them only cursory glances while they passed. While Rarity would have loved to spend some time to try and decipher the long and surely colorful history of the Ponynesian civilization, that was something that would have to wait until after the immediate threat of being murdered by the moon god had passed and they’d finally figured out a way to lower the barrier. There would always be time to check that out after she finished what she needed to. But now they’d left most of those behind, and the two sirens had slowed down as they approached the chamber where they’d recovered the figurine from. Now, they floated in place, back to back, as they tried to make sense of the carvings on opposite walls. Rarity’s looked like it depicted an alicorn shooting magic from its horn, magic that swirled around an island and started to drag it into the sea. There were some glyphs and runes carved into and around the picture, but again, they had no way they could make sense of it all. Rarity may have been bilingual, even going so far as to learn basic Gryphonnic for her upcoming (and now almost certainly cancelled) business propositions with the griffon fashion market in the Confederacy, but no language she knew could possibly help her with the ancient texts she saw in front of her. “I don’t think the answers are in this panel,” Rarity said, turning away from it. “It does show the avatar sinking islands, which confirms what we—or, I guess, you thought. I have to wonder, though, just how many islands there once were out here before all this nonsense broke out.” “I tried to count them once,” Melody said. “You can see the mounds and ruins beneath the water, rising out of the seafloor. Not all were as prominent as this atoll, but only because they weren’t nearly as large as the structure that was sunken here.” “Oh?” Rarity blinked. “Well, how many did you find?” “Only three others,” Melody said, “though those were just the ones inside of the barrier. Obviously, I couldn’t go outside of it to see if there were any more. But I think there likely were. A civilization wouldn’t be able to achieve such feats of engineering without room to grow and develop its brightest minds.” “I’m still amazed that they were able to accomplish all this,” Rarity said. “The mountaintop they leveled for their sun temple is beyond amazing. Not even the best architects and engineers in Equestria could hope to replicate their work. Everything is cut to perfection, and they shaped their shrines from the stone around them rather than cutting blocks and hauling them to their final destinations. It’s beyond impressive. It’s an art in its own right, and I certainly can appreciate art.” “I’d imagine that when you have nothing better to do with your time, you can accomplish quite a lot,” Melody said. “These temples and shrines took generations to build, and they were never really finished. Even if the Ponynesians hadn’t been destroyed by their civil war, I doubt they would have ever finished these structures. They obviously meant to keep adding onto them, and they only would have stopped when they were unable to build more.” “Which makes you wonder just how much more they could have built up this records hall,” Rarity said. “I’m going to make the logical assumption that you’ve mapped out the entirety of this structure, so you know how big it is.” “Yes, and it is very large,” Melody said. “The Ponynesians probably worked on it since they first figured out how to cut stone and support structures. Thankfully, they cut most everything to dimensions large enough for sirens to pass through, otherwise we’d have problems here.” Rarity nodded and swished her tail, feeling the fin on the end brush against the stone below her. “Thank Celestia for that. Though I do say, if we don’t find what we’re looking for soon, that won’t be much help to us.” “Yeah.” Melody grinded her beak and looked around, her hoof brushing over the stone in front of her. “This panel isn’t particularly useful, and we’re starting to run out of daylight. Our eyes might have good night vision, but it becomes pitch black down here awfully quickly.” “Hence why I assume you prefer to sleep in the water, as you mentioned last night,” Rarity said. Melody nodded and smiled. “There’s nothing better than sleeping under the moonlight, wouldn’t you agree?” “I’ve certainly gotten a new appreciation for it with all the time we’ve spent trapped on these islands,” Rarity said. “I tried to avoid it as much as I could before ending up here. Now, camping with my friends should be a breeze. Nothing I haven’t done before!” The two sirens chuckled, and Melody led the way to the next set of carvings. So far, they’d gotten a lot of history, but nothing immediately helpful to solving their predicament. The next set of carvings they stopped at seemed to show the war in its waning stages. Rarity saw a few familiar panels that she recognized from the shrine on the archipelago, giving an abbreviated history of the downfall of the moon god’s avatar and its subsequent dismemberment. She grimaced at the carvings, not so much because of their detail, but because of how casual it seemed. But then again, while the Ponynesians might have been great architects, putting emotion into their simple carvings was not exactly their strong suit. Still, they got the job done, and in a plain enough fashion that the events they depicted weren’t too confusing to sort out. “This is what I was looking for,” Melody said, stopping in front of a panel closer to the end of the hall. Rarity swam over to her side and scrutinized the carvings Melody pressed her green hooves against. “This is where they created the figurines. I’ve stared at this many times before, but I’ve never been able to figure out anything particularly useful from it.” She backed away, letting Rarity get a better look. The carving depicted three ponies standing side by side, one from each race, along with the severed head of the fallen avatar. In front of those three ponies stood crude figurines representing their races, with the crystal figurine in front of the head. Lines of power seemed to go from one to the other, and the ponies themselves seemed weak and struggling to stand. Glyphs and symbols surrounded them, but there was little else to help Rarity understand what was happening. The next panel over only showed the four figurines placed in a circle and surrounded by a wavy glow of power, presumably for when the barrier first went up. If there was a clue, it’d be here, but Rarity wasn’t exactly seeing it. “I don’t understand,” Rarity said. “Does any of this help us?” “I don’t know,” Melody admitted. “But it’s the best we have to go on. I’m not sure there’s much else that’s here to help us. I certainly don’t remember there being much.” Rarity rubbed her chin. “We might as well take one last look around and commit these to memory before we go back. And before we do, I want to take a look at that coffin I popped open yesterday. Just to be safe.” Melody nodded in agreement. “We’ll just have to open the doors again like we did before and hope nothing jumps out at us.” The thought of a headless alicorn corpse slipping through the door to attack her made Rarity shiver. “Yes, quite. On second thought, maybe we should leave the doors alone. It’s not worth it.” The two sirens shared a chuckle at Rarity’s joke, but it was an uneasy one at best. No doubt Melody wanted to keep the doors closed as much as Rarity did, but they had to open them one way or another, just to be safe. It was not particularly something Rarity was looking forward to.