"Hmm hmm, hmm hmm, hmm hmm, hmm hmm..."
Misty hummed a quieter, more subdued version of the festive waltz as she exited her bedroom and crossed the grand hall to the Dark Castle's throne room. She hesitated before the magnificent doors at the end of the corridor, releasing a sigh of trepidation, then shoved them open partially and slipped through the narrow gap.
"Misty!" Opaline greeted, dismounting her throne and leaping to the crystal floor below. Her polished hooves clopped raucously against the hard surface.
In the center of the chamber, floating nonsensically above the mana pool, hovered a sphere of magenta flames which illuminated and sufficiently warmed the room. Misty neared the pool and sat, gratefully extending her forelegs to warm herself. "Hello!"
"Can you believe what's happening this season? Snow, it's been falling! Falling from the sky! My sky! In my domain! Without my permission! It's practically a blizzard out there! Why, this hasn't happened since—" Opaline paused to think, tapping her chin with her hoof. "Since hundreds of moons ago. It must be a symptom of the return of magic."
"I like it. It's really pretty." Misty blinked as she realized she had uttered her internal dialogue aloud. "I - I mean—"
Opaline scoffed, forcefully interrupting. "Of course it's pretty, but it's sticky, freezing, and miserable. And I must expend extra of my scarce magic to keep us warm. Well, no matter. At least we have further evidence that magic is continuing to grow. When the time is right, I can pluck the fruit from the branch when it's most ripe!" She waved her hoof dismissively. "For now, though, we have other, more pressing matters at hoof."
"Right, other matters! Umm..." Misty stood to attention. She pursed her lips and tapped her temple as she racked her brain.
"No, no, not regarding our grand plot of stealing the ponies' magic. That can wait for the time being." Opaline approached and sat before the sphere of hovering magical fire, warming herself. "That melody you were humming..."
The hair along Misty's spine rose with alarm. She straightened her posture, sitting upright, and a nervous grin broadened across her muzzle. "W - What? Humming? Me? N - No! Of course not. Hahah! I could never hum! My voice sounds terrible!"
Opaline rolled her eyes. “Don’t try to lie to me, dear. You’re many things, Misty, but a sly liar is not one of them.” She illuminated her horn and extended her levitation magic into the great sphere of flame hovering above the mana pool, then extracted a small ball of fire and levitated it before herself. “Come along. I’d like to show you something.” As she walked, she levitated the flames beside herself in order to simultaneously warm them and illuminate their path.
Misty trailed behind, trotting to compensate for the fact that her companion, taller and with longer, more graceful legs, traveled a greater distance with each step. She led them to her storage cupboard and utilized her magic to deactivate the magical seal, then opened the door and passed through, her little sphere of fire cheerfully bobbing along through the air behind her.
“Don’t touch anything.”
“I know. You don’t have to remind me every time.”
Misty stepped through and gazed around in awe. Despite being colloquially referred to as a “cupboard”, the room was, in fact, gigantic, populated with shelves and countless boxes packed with junk. Despite living in the Dark Castle for many moons, she was rarely permitted access to the storage cupboard, so it and its contents were always an eternal mystery, likely containing wonders from ancient Equestria of antiquity beyond imagination or value. To regular ponies, of course. To Opaline, they were merely remnants of her history as a young alicorn and, possibly, who she was before her ascension.
“I swear I will ground you for life if you ever so much as stare at anything in here for too long. These artifacts are irreplaceable."
Misty examined the junk curiously as she trotted past. She paused to lift and examine a cobalt tiara which shined with a lustrous teal sheen from one of the shelves. “Who did this belong to?”
“Nopony!" Opaline quickly snatched the tiara from Misty's hooves and delicately rested it on the shelf where it belonged. “I warned you, you know!”
“It’s the same color as your leg bands. You wore it, right?”
“They’re called ‘armillas’." Opaline rolled her eyes, then glanced sidelong. She was quiet for a moment. "And, yes, I did. When I was a filly.”
Misty’s eyes widened. “Y - You—?”
“I was a filly at one point or another, yes. Is that so unbelievable?” Opaline cocked an eyebrow. She waited only briefly for a response before turning and continuing to travel forward, levitating the source of light and precious warmth with her. Misty was forced to follow.
“Perhaps I’ll tell you the stories, sometime. Skyros truly was a magnificent city. Before… well, you can probably imagine.”
“No. What do you mean?”
“Let’s just say…” Opaline paused. She gazed into the entrancing allure of the crackling and licking magical flames. “Skyros was a city of powerful ponies. And power, well, it has a tendency to corrupt. I was a previous resident, and look at me! A queen! A fire alicorn!” She smirked proudly. “But what are the consequences of housing thousands of supremely powerful ponies in one place? Eventually, something goes amiss. Like I said, Skyros was magnificent."
Opaline stopped before a round table and motioned to a device resting atop it. The base was rectangular and a brass horn which flared dramatically at the end protruded from it at an angle.
"Uh… is that a trumpet horn?” Misty cocked her head to the side.
"No, of course not! Don't be ridiculous. This is a phonograph." Opaline tapped her hoof against the phonograph's flared brass horn. "It's how ponies used to listen to music before the advent of modern technology. As for the song you were humming, I'm not exactly sure where you initially heard it, but I recognize it from my old record." She levitated a record from its dusty case and delicately slotted it into place, then lifted the arm and inserted the stylus, and finally flipped a switch.
Layered above a quiet drone of crackling and hissing played the familiar waltz Misty had heard from the radio in Maretime Bay. The record's version was peppier, merrier, encouraging the listeners to perform lively dances.
"And you danced to this with other ponies? You... danced?" Stupefied, Misty zoned out as she watched the record slowly revolve. She visualized a younger version of Opaline dance with a mysterious, faceless partner. In a dress. Opaline... in a dress?
"Yes, of course. And I'll have you know I was practically the star of the ballroom!" Opaline smiled proudly. "That was many moons ago, of course. When ponies referred to the holiday as 'Hearth's Warming'. When Skyros was still a prominent name on the map, inhabited by civilized ponies such as you and I. A time when I was not an all-powerful queen, even. You can likely scarcely imagine it. What a different world it was to today."
"You know what? I really can’t imagine it.” She frowned. “I’ve always had this image that comes up in my head whenever I think about you. In my mind, you're always so... tall." She examined Opaline from hoof to horn-tip. Her comparatively-short stature necessitated her to lean her head back.
"Yes. Indeed, the world of the past was quite different than the world of the present. Better in some ways, I admit, yet far worse in others. I quite enjoy towering over ponies nowadays." Opaline considered Misty's facial expression and raised an eyebrow. "What's wrong? You look positively glum. Aren’t you eager to watch some movies?”
“Of course, Opaline.”
She shifted the sphere of fire to the other side of her body as she rotated to face the direction they had come. Before she departed, she made sure to flip the switch to deactivate the record player. “Would you like your popcorn salted or unsalted?”
Misty trailed behind, sticking close to the levitating fire sphere for warmth. “Salted, please.”