//------------------------------// // It Came From The Other Side // Story: Forgotten: The Frozen North // by milesprower06 //------------------------------// Sunny took a slow, relaxed breath, sitting back against one of the many crates that had been loaded up into the back of the Scouticus Maximus. With everything they had brought back from their three days in the Crystal Empire, there wasn't much room to stretch out in the bed. Pipp and Zipp were in the back with her, with Sprout driving them on one of the final stretches back towards Maretime Bay, and Hitch and Izzy keeping him company. They were currently passing just west of the forest which contained Princess Twilight's castle, below Zephyr Heights. It was breezy, but was otherwise quite welcome mild weather, after the time spent up north. Sunny could almost fall asleep if it wasn't for the engine noise. "Come on, come on..." Pipp said, constantly staring down at her phone. "You're impossible, sis," Zipp commented with a chuckle, as she also leaned against another crate containing stacks upon stacks of books. It was clear they were going to have to make another trip, or two, back north for just books; they had barely made a dent in the library, and that wasn't even counting the castle library they had also come across. Without a doubt, ancient reading material was going to account for more than 90% of what they were going to eventually take out of the remains of the Crystal Empire. That was fine by Sunny. She would have to assemble a team to catalogue and republish the contents of an entire library. That was absolutely no small feat. They even got a fair condition set of Crystal Empire guard armor for the museum. She hadn't made up her mind if she would personally make return trips to the Empire, but even if she didn't, and stayed exclusively at the museum, there was enough work on this trip to keep her busy for weeks. More trips would turn that into months. "Finally!" Pipp exclaimed triumphantly, seeing a single bar pop up on her signal strength. A moment later, it nearly fell out of her hoof as it began to vibrate and ping with over a week worth of alerts, no doubt comment and subscription alerts from her countless fans. To her surprise, Sunny heard her phone begin to vibrate and ping in her saddlebag, just as frequently as Pipp's. Who could be messaging her that much? The ponies she kept in touch with the most were here in the Scouticus with her. She dug into her bags and pulled out her phone, swiping through the lock screen and looked at the dozen texts that had just come in over the last... ...Six hours? Sunny began to open them. They were from... "Thunder and Queen Haven?" Sunny asked, also noticing that she got a voicemail. She opened the message and put it on speaker. "Miss Starscout! Something came out of the castle!" Came the voice of Thunder, one of the Zephyr Heights royal guards who had been assigned to keep watch over the remains of the castle. He sounded borderline panicked, and struggling to speak calmly, sounding like he was at a full gallop. "A unicorn. We asked why she was trespassing in the castle, and she took off. She's headed up towards Zephyr Heights! She's transporting all over the place, we're having trouble keeping track of her, please tell me you're getting this!" "How would somepony get into the castle?" Pipp asked, knowing that there were plenty of guards down there to keep an eye on every angle of the structure. "There's not much left in there," Sunny commented, looking at the time the voicemail was sent, about six hours ago. "What would they be doing in there?" Sunny's and Pipp's eyes widened in shock at the same time. "Unless..." Their eyes met. "The mirror!" They both exclaimed. Sunny shot to her feet and scrambled over to the hatch on the roof of the cabin, yanking it open. "Sprout!!!" She shouted down, startling all three ponies in there, and Sprout hit the brakes. "Turn around! Turn around! Head towards Zephyr Heights!" She said frantically. "Are you crazy? I can't squeeze this thing through forest that thick!" Spout objected. "The river. This thing can traverse the river, right? Take it up to the mountain ascent, and we can take the new road from there." Hitch immediately countered. Sprout yanked the steering lever all the way to the left, and turned around, heading back towards the river and they were underneath the forest canopy within minutes. Unfortunately, Pipp had waited that long to try and call her mom and let her know they were on her way. "Horsefeathers!" Pipp said, hanging up her phone when she realized the forest was stopping any calls from getting up to the mountain. Sunny's mind was moving a million miles a minute, wondering who could have possibly come through the mirror. The constant splashing and sloshing of water around the vehicle's eight tires wasn't helping her thought process much. Fifteen minutes later, they had come to the bottom waterfall, and turned off onto the road. "So, what now? The road up to Zephyr Heights was built for carriages, not something like this. And if we come to an impasse, I promise you, we cannot turn this thing around up there." Sprout cautioned. "Wait here," Zipp said. "You aren't afraid of heights, are ya, Sunny?" Sunny shook her head as Pipp immediately realized what her sister was suggesting. They put Sunny's phone back into her saddlebags for her, then put each of her front hooves around their shoulders as they pulled the earth mare into the air, ignoring the road entirely, and instead directly ascended up the mountain face, towards the edge of Zephyr Heights. It was a slow, ten minute flight, but they managed it without incident, and came up to the closest street, and set her down safely. They set off for the castle at a full gallop, getting on the elevator and riding it to the top. The door opened, and they resumed their gallop, only to screech to a halt when a pair of alerted guards brought their spears to bear. "Whoa, whoa!" Zipp said, just as the guards recognized who the ponies were. "Apologies, Your Highnesses," the sergeant immediately said. "The platoon has been on edge ever since that unicorn came rushing through." A pair of guards accompanied them at a healthy trot as they continued up the main walk to the castle. "To say we weren't really prepared for something like that would be an understatement. The second we got a fix on her, she'd blink out to somewhere dozens of feet away." "Did she hurt anyone?" Zipp asked. "No, Your Highness. Made it all the way to the throne room before her horn finally ran out of juice. Queen Haven took her to the dungeon, and to my knowledge, she's been trying to get a hold of you ever since." "We just got back into signal range, we've been up north," Zipp told the guard as she dug out her phone, speed-dialing her mom. "Mom? Yeah, Pipp and I are here at the castle with Sunny. Coming in the front. Meet us on route to the holding cells?" The call was short, because Queen Haven offered a short reply, and Zipp hung up as they came into the castle proper. Two minutes later, Queen Haven met them around the third corner, and the two guards bowed, and Haven nearly ignored them. "Thank goodness. Sunny, I really hope you have some answers, for me, and for her," Haven told her, as they turned and headed for the basement in the dungeon. "Believe me, I hope so too." Sunny replied. "She seemed panicked, maybe even scared. We've been trying to assure her that we were frantically trying to get in touch with the one pony who could possibly tell her what she wanted, and in turn, she said she wouldn't talk to anypony except a 'Princess Twilight' or 'Princess Celestia'." One flight of stairs later, they came back down to what was probably the most luxurious dungeon Sunny had ever seen or been in. They came to the closed bars, and there she was; an amber unicorn sitting in front of the window overlooking the skyline. Her mane and tail were a vivid crimson with bright yellow stripes. "Excuse me, miss?" Queen Haven announced their presence. "This is the mare I've been saying could help you." The Queen motioned to Sunny, as the earth mare took a step towards the bars, as Zipp and Pipp looked on. As she turned away from the window towards them, Sunny saw her horn, almost a pearl white, and her moderate cyan eyes were full of uncertainty and worry. "I was quite clear; I wanted to talk to Princess Twilight or Princess Celestia," she said after taking a breath, walking towards the bars towards her visitors. Her expression softened considerably when she saw the six-pointed star on Sunny's wooden pendant around her neck. "But I'll make an exception for that." Sunny glanced down at her pendant when the unicorn pointed at it. "So where are Princesses Twilight and Celestia? Why is Canterlot full of pegasi? Why does the city look so different?" The unicorn asked. Her tone could be construed as accusatory. Sunny took a deep breath, and looked the unicorn directly in the eyes. "Alright... There's no easy way to say this, so I'll just be as direct as I can. To the few of us who know those names... They're ancient history. They're long gone, and I'm afraid I can't tell you how much time has passed, because I honestly don't know." The unicorn's eyes widened as she drew in a shaky breath. "They said you came out of the castle," Sunny continued. "Did... Did you come out of the mirror we found in there? The portal?" Sunny asked, and the look of surprise stayed glued onto the unicorn's face. "How could you possibly know about that?" The unicorn asked, bewildered. Sunny dug into her saddlebags, and pulled out her book containing the images from the memory gems. She flipped almost halfway through the book before coming to what she was looking for, then turned it towards the unicorn, showing her a picture of Twilight's castle in pristine condition. "My name is Sunny Starscout. My father and I have devoted our lives to learning as much as we can about Ancient Equestria, and about Princess Twilight and her friends." The unicorn's breaths started to become shorter as she took a single step back before collapsing into a sitting position. Sunny saw her eyes tear up, and she motioned for Zipp to hit the door release. Zipp got a nod of permission from her mom, and tapped the release, and the bars slid into their retracted states. Sunny slowly and calmly stepped into the cell as the unicorn began to softly weep. "Sunny. That's my name. Sunny Starscout. What's yours?" She asked her as calmly as she could. She had a feeling that deep inside, this unicorn's entire world had just collapsed. The unicorn took a deep breath, made no move to get up, but wiped her eyes, looking into Sunny's emerald green eyes. "Sunset. Sunset Shimmer." Sunny smiled softly at her, and offered her a hoof. "Sunset Shimmer, I have a feeling there is so much we can learn from each other."