Alicornae: The Legend of Starlit Sky
Part IV - Chapter 8: The Cratered Crypt
* * *
"Starlit?!" Sun called, having just ambled his way out of the endless warrens and tunnels to see a massive, frozen cityscape and his wayward companions not five yards away.
Sun quickly galloped down the slope, nearly losing his footing a few times and accidentally throwing Agateous off of his back. Starlit trotted toward him, and the two met in the middle with a massive hug.
"Ah, careful," Starlit said as she embraced Sun. "I think I cracked a couple of ribs in the fall."
"Oh, I'm so sorry!" Sun hastily apologized, quickly moving away. "Are you okay other than that? I think I hit my head on the way down, but I don't think I'm concussed.
"I'll be alright, but Rainbow Dash is going to be having some issues going forward."
Sun looked past Starlit to see Rainbow Dash seated in the snow and clearly favoring her left side. A cloth bandage was wrapped tightly around her thigh and flank, with a bit of dried blood staining it.
"I just took a massive ice spike to the leg and had to go through impromptu surgery courtesy of your friend to get it out of me, it's nothing major," Rainbow Dash replied dismissively. "Good to see you're not dead."
"Uh… you too," Sun answered, bewildered at Rainbow's nonchalance. "Are we… friends now?"
"I guess you could say that," Rainbow answered. "Starlit's really good at getting recalcitrant nags like myself to open up about their feelings, apparently. We talked out our differences."
"Yeah, she does have that effect on folks," Sun admitted before noticing that Starlit was walking off to where he had left Agateous.
"Speaking of new friends, who is this?" Starlit asked, gesturing to Agateous who looked neutral to everything happening around him.
"My name is Agateous," the gem-pony replied. "I helped get Setting Sun back to you, and now that we're all here we can get properly underway."
"Underway? We've been traveling for days and nearly died falling down an ice ravine, I think we could all do with some rest," Starlit retorted.
"If you seek the Crystal Empire, then you need to follow me now," Agateous countered as he started making his way down the slope. He came to a stop at the bottom where the crater leveled out into a long-ruined road.
"Is he always like this?" Starlit asked Sun.
"Like you wouldn't believe," Sun answered with a sigh. "He's a crystal pony, who was apparently created by Cadance to be her subjects or, vessels for love, or whatever. Either way, he says that there is this 'matriarch' that we have to speak with to understand what really happened here and how to get Cadance out."
"Wait, this isn't the Empire?" Rainbow Dash interjected. "This place looks pretty Empire-y to me."
"Getting answers out of him has been like trying to get blood from a stone," Sun continued. "He did help me find you after some really cryptic nonsense that I don't feel like discussing with him around us, but other than that and the fact that he can kind of predict the future, he has been a passive guide for me."
"He can predict the future?" Rainbow Dash cut in again.
"I'm going to have to agree with Rainbow's assessment of that last sentence," Starlit added, "that is just ridiculous."
"I'd be inclined to agree with you two if it weren't for the fact that he saved me from being decapitated by an frost worm lobbing a giant chunk of ice at me before I even heard it coming."
That last admittance proved to be the last straw, and Sun found himself being stared at by his companions like he had just admitted to being a serial killer in his spare time.
"I've been busy, what can I say?" Sun said sheepishly.
"Okay, prescient ponies and giant ice worms notwithstanding," Starlit said, shaking out of her stupor, "what should we do? Do we try to get rid of him, or do we play along and see where this takes us?"
"If I'm going to be honest," Sun replied, "for as cryptic as he's been he did help me get out of those caves and listened to me when I told him my plan to draw off the frost worm that was chasing us, so I've got no reason to stop trusting him now."
"Until it turns out that he's a windigo that's going to eat our bones or something," Rainbow Dash interjected. "At this point I'd say I'm being the one guided here so I'll defer to you two, but I'm gonna keep an eye out on that little crystal whatever until we can drop him like a hot rock."
"Fair enough," Starlit replied. "I'll go along for now, but once he's gone we need to talk about a few things as a group."
"Don't I know it," Sun said, remembering everything that Agateous had told him about curses and darkness. His words rattled around Sun's brain like a stone in a clay pot, and eventually he was going to crack if he didn't get his concerns out.
"Nightfall will be coming shortly," Agateous called from the bottom of the slope. "We should make haste."
"Right behind you," Starlit called back as she slowly made her way down the slope, throwing a quick nod to Sun before she did. Rainbow Dash carefully glided her way down, the crystals in her wings reflecting off of the sun as she flew, and Sun followed behind as fast as the treacherous surface would allow him to.
* * *
Starlit found the entire city unnerving as she made her way through its ruined streets; wind was blowing, always from the back, but it never made a sound. Snow crunched under her hooves, but everything else was disquietingly quiet.
The second thing was how empty it was. The only things that showed any sign that this place had once been inhabited were the empty buildings and the occasional skeleton preserved under the snow. Other than that the only portions of the dead city worth noting were the icicles that pointed inward toward the pillar of light at the center.
Nightfall swiftly fell, especially since the horizon was now above their heads, and Starlit prudently suggested that they all pile into one of the ruined abodes after the hectic and harrowing day they had all had, despite Agateous's protests.
As Starlit and Sun set up a camp in the ruined home Agateous posted up in the doorframe as if on watch. Looking around and seeing that her work was practically done, Starlit set her saddlebags down and moved over to him.
"Agateous, aren't you cold?" Starlit asked. "We'll have a fire going pretty soon if you need to warm up."
"I thank you for your concern, but I'll be fine where I am," Agateous answered, not even turning to face Starlit.
"I see. It must be nice to be made out of crystal then."
"It has its benefits and its downsides," Agateous replied as he held up one of his chipped and broken hooves. "I can't feel pain or cold, but I can't heal either."
"Goodness, how do you walk?" Starlit asked, settling in beside him. "Even if you can't feel that, it must be hard to balance with such an unstable surface to walk on."
"I manage," Agateous answered, eyes still locked to the horizon.
"Well, manage or no, we can't have you lagging behind because of your hooves. Here, let me see them. Do you give off body heat?"
"No, but I don't see what that has to do with anything," Agateous answered as Starlit quickly pulled her heavy cloak off and started tearing some small strips off of it with her sword.
"Good, that'll make this simpler," Starlit answered as she started to charge some magic in her horn.
"Starlit, this is unnecessary, and you need that cloak far more than I need my hooves," Agateous protested as he took notice of what Starlit was doing.
"Then consider it thanks for taking care of Sun for me," Starlit countered as she began to fashion some makeshift horseshoes out of small disks of ice she was carving from the ground with her magic. She took out her water pouch and, after positioning the ice disks underneath Agateous's hooves, splashed the water over them and let them freeze into the cracks on his hooves until they formed into a flat, circular pad. Then, in order to keep them firmly secured, she used the strips of cloth from her cloak to wrap up under his new hooves.
"There, good as new," Starlit declared. "Try them out, tell me if they feel right."
Looking down at the cloth wrappings, and then back to Starlit, Agateous slowly got to his hooves. The ice and the cloth easily added an inch or two to his height, and after a few moments of trying to get used to the suddenly much more stable walking surface Agateous cracked a smile.
"I will say that this is much easier to navigate," Agateous admitted. "You are quite generous to sacrifice some of your cloak just for this."
"I learned well from another pony I met in my travels," Starlit said. "She helped me to see the value of unmitigated generosity; she helped me when she had absolutely no reason to, and she even saved Sun's life after he had half of his body destroyed in an explosion. I owe her a lot."
"Setting Sun told me about that incident," Agateous replied. "He seems to be rather accident prone, doesn't he?"
"No more so than I am, I suppose. I've been nearly killed more times than I care to count, and I have a few busted ribs to show for my latest 'accident.'"
"Well, have you considered what might happen if Sun and his 'accidents' start to hamper your mission?" Agateous asked
A quick wave of anger shot through Starlit's brain, but she held it back if only because she didn't want to make a scene and potentially aggravate her injuries.
"I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean," Starlit replied. "Sun has been a stalwart companion since I started on this mission, and his intellect and skill makes him valuable enough to justify the odd misadventure."
Agateous looked to Starlit, an expression approaching confused starting to splay across his face. Finally he resolved into a more neutral, concerned expression as he sat back down.
"Starlit, the matriarch knows why you are here, and the service that you must provide to Equestria to stave off its end," Agateous said. "You can not afford delays in this task."
"Then it's a good thing that nopony I have travelled with has caused me any delays," Starlit snapped back. "You are welcome by the fire, but I would highly recommend you keep these concerns to yourself; Rainbow Dash doesn't like disloyalty and has a fierce temper."
Without another word Starlit stood up and turned to help prepare the fire, leaving Agateous in the doorframe with his new hooves. Starlit hoped that they would give him something to think about in regards to his concerns.
* * *
Exhaustion, Sun found, was proving to be the best sleep aid he had ever known. After a small meal with some of their left over rations, which Agateous politely declined, Sun found that he slipped into unconsciousness quickly.
He couldn't tell how much time had passed when he felt the thumping in the back of his head again, slow and rhythmic, but it was enough to rouse him to consciousness. It was still nighttime, and the ever-present glow from the pillar of light shine through the windows and cracks in the wall. Everypony else was asleep, including Agateous, and carefully Sun stepped around them as he followed the pull in his mind.
As he stepped outside he found that the wind had ceased, and the sky overhead was bright and cloudless. The thumping was pulling more towards the right side of his head, directing him away from the pillar of light and back the way that they had come to get to their shelter. Thinking no better of it he followed the pull, as if an invisible hoof was gently grinding him forward.
As he strayed further and further from the light he began to hear sounds, soft at first and then growing steadily more audible. They sounded like ponies going about their daily business, and the further into the dark he went the more solid these hallucinations became until it seemed as though he were in amongst them.
Another tug to the left, and Sun followed it just as dutifully. Now the auditory hallucinations were paired with apparitions of these ponies. They had the same ethereal quality to them that the ice ghosts that had attacked them had, but they were more concrete in form. They all looked like Agateous, with crystalline bodies and hair and the oddly geometrical eyes, but they were Sun's size and much more vivid in color.
The apparitions were miming the actions of regular ponies; conversing with each other in audible whispers, going to and from on business that would never be completed, entering buildings that no longer existed or were completely encased in ice.
One apparition, however, looked different from all the others, and it drew his eye as it stared at him. The pony, whose entire body was jet black and didn't share the same crystalline appearance as all the others, beckoned him to follow, and the tugging in his head gave him no reason to not follow.
Slowly, ponderously, they wound their way through the ruined streets, retreating further and further away from the light in the center until they were nearing the lip that led out of the crater. There the smoky apparition stopped and turned its head to face Sun. It slowly pointed a single hoof out of the crater, where Sun could now hear a rhythmic thrumming in time with the thumping in his head. He carefully but quickly made his way out of the crater to find a sight he never expected to see, now or ever.
Marching towards the crater, numbering in the thousands, was an army; festooned with glimmering golden armor and accompanied by massive machines the likes of which Ed never seen before, the army marched. Fires blazed in the night, and the torches that created them set massive balls of fire alight that were then launched over his head.
Sun's eyes tracked the missiles as they cut a fiery swathe into the calm blue sky above, and landed with thunderous impacts into a massive, walled off city. It's top spires we're made of immaculately carved crystal, it's walls from reinforced stone, and ejecting from the center of it, miles away from where it now rested, was the pillar of light.
As the flaming balls slammed into the walls and buildings the defenders responded in kind, launching back with massive arcane orbs that blew through the ground forces they impacted. Crystal spires fell with muffled crashes, siege engines splintered apart under the weight of magical barrage, and just when it seemed that this battle wound descend into a total bloodbath a massive blast of silver light echoed out from the city.
When the light finally abated the world around Sun's frame fo reference turned back into what it had been; no city, no army, and endless snow all around. The on,y thing that remained was the beam of silver light, now a sphere that streaked across the sky from its original resting place. It swiftly flew through the sky, leaving behind a long, thin trail of silver, until shifted its descent on a near perfect ninety-degree angle and slammed into its new home.
And for the briefest moment before he awoke from this dream, this vision of things to come, Sun saw the shape of an alicorn in the light.
* * *
The soft flapping of Rainbow's wings helped remind Sun that he wasn't dreaming, but after the oddly real dream he had had last night he found he was taking more precautions to ground himself in reality. Kicking the odd stone, checking to see if the wind was still blowing, and other such quirks in his behavior. He worried that he'd be doing this for a while.
"You've been quiet today," Rainbow Dash said as she matched pace with Sun. "You sleep alright?"
"Had some weird dreams," Sun answered, "but nothing too odd. Honestly. I should be asking you that question. How's your leg holding up."
"It honestly could've been worse," Rainbow Dash admitted. "Starlit had to hold me down to get the ice shards out of my leg, but I passed out before she really got to work. I'm starting to get back some feeling in the leg, but I can't flex my thigh muscles at all."
"Reminds me of the time I was nearly blown to pieces," Sun replied, unconsciously touching the left side of his face.
"You nearly got blown up? Pardon me if I find that hard to believe."
"It's true, and it was pretty much entirely my fault. I used some magic around a dangerously explosive material and accidentally set it off, got the whole left side of my body seared to a crisp and part of my skull caved in."
Rainbow Dash gawked at Sun as he described the extent of his injuries in New Selene to her, her expression growing more and more incredulous by the second.
"Well, you look great despite it," Rainbow replied, just a tad more cheerfully than was strictly necessary.
"I had a pretty good doctor that patched me up," Sun said.
"They must've had to use magic if you got a hole punched into your head," Rainbow said back. "We sometimes have bad injuries when ponies go out on patrol, stuff that conventional medicine can't fix, so we get a few unicorns together to put some magical power into it and it just sorts itself out."
"Hopefully they can get your leg sorted once we're done here," Sun replied. "That must've been horrific."
"Trust me, it was," Rainbow groused, "but if it weren't for Starlit doing this much I'd have probably had to lose it altogether."
"My ears are burning," Starlit called from ahead in the group. "Somepony say my name?"
"It's nothing, we're just busy extolling your virtues," Sun answered back.
"What about?" Starlit asked, giving them both a coy smile.
"Your skill with a suture, mostly," Rainbow answered, "but nopony likes a braggart."
"It's not bragging if you can back up the bragging with skill."
"That's what every braggart says," Rainbow answered back, "and trust me, I was one of those."
"You?" Starlit asked, turning back and walking backwards to face them. "Never would've guessed it."
"Don't get smart with me, Starlit," Rainbow sniped back playfully. "Yeah, I was a real bratty filly, always trying to prove that I was the strongest and fastest pony in the village. I would challenge just about anypony to just about anything to prove I was better than them at it."
"Were you?" Sun asked.
"More often than not, no," Rainbow curtly answered. "Got my flank kicked a lot as a kid, but Spitfire must've taken my youthful impetuousness for something else because once I came of age she gave me a spot as a trainee for the town patrol."
"It takes a big pony to admit when they're wron—"
Starlit didn't finish her sentence before bumping into Agateous within looking. The crystal pony had stopped dead in the center of the street, and when Sun looked to see what made him stop he realized that they were all standing in front of the mass of crystals in the center of the city. Sun didn't think they had walked nearly long enough to already be at the center, but there they were nonetheless.
"This is where I take my leave of you three," Agateous said as he turned to face everypony else. "The matriarch will see you now."
"What? What do you mean 'take your leave?'" Sun asked.
No sooner had the word left his mouth that Agateous turned around and walked into the mass of crystal. The multifaceted gems and spikes did not move at his touch like the ice in the tunnels had. Instead, he melded his crystalline body into the wall in front, his form completely subsumed by the crystal.
"What the…?" Starlit murmured as Sun and Rainbow approached the mass of crystal.
"Did he just become that crystal?" Rainbow asked, as if the evidence wasn't readily apparent but asking for confirmation all the same.
A sudden cracking sound in front of them was her answer. A large seam split down the center of a particularly large and smooth teal crystal, followed by a second a few feet away from it down the center of a large green crystal. With a horrendous grinding and scraping sound a swathe of crystals in between the two that had broken slowly and jerkily receded into the ground, leaving a smooth expanse behind that led into a truly alien sight.
At the dead center of an expanse of crystalline pony statues was the pillar of light, only a few yards away. These statues stood in positions that seemed to evoke reverence, with various poses of supplication and deference. The only thing that unified their poses was that none of them were looking at the pillar of light itself, with most having their gaze fixed onto the perfectly smooth ground and a few others actively turned away as if in pain.
The pillar itself originated from a small dais of raised pink crystal, no more than five feet across. The light felt like it should be seating Sun's eyes just to look at it, but it was a clam and soothing light that he didn't feel the need to turn from. Whatever this light was, it wanted him to come closer, and so he did.
"Sun!" Starlit called, "What are you doing?"
"This light won't hurt us," Sun answered back, his eyes still fixed into the pillar.
"How do you know?" Rainbow Dash asked back.
"Call it a gut feeling, but if this 'matriarch' wanted us dead, I think we'd be dead right now. Just trust me, please."
Sun didn't wait for an answer as he walked ever forward towards the pillar, and as he got closer another figure walked out of it. At first it was only the barest glimpse of a shadow within, but soon coalesced into a tall, lithe, pony-shaped form. Her hoofsteps clinked against the crystalline floor, her pale pink fur shone bright in the light of her home, and her purple and blue mane hung in bounteous curls that framed her horn and bright cerulean eyes.
As she fully formed from the pillar of light she extended her wings, which grew to a darker purple in gradient at the tips, as if to stretch them out after a long time without their use. This pony, this alicorn as Sun could now see, scanned the surroundings before letting her gaze fall softly onto Sun.
"Thank you for coming to find me," the alicorn said with a warm smile. "My name is Flurry Heart. I assume that you are here to kill my mother?"