The Scrolls of Harmony I: Dawnguard

by Sadie

3. Beneath Old Canterlot

It looked just as stunning as storybooks depicted it. Celestia’s personal chariot, gilded from sunlight infused gold. Absolutely breathtaking to see. And this was to be her transport to Ponyville, as well as the other main cities across Equestria. She had a basic grasp of teleportation spells, but nothing that could match the speed of the chariot of a Princess. Two fiery atronachs burst into life as she moved closer. Pulling such a vehicle was probably too stressful on mortal pegasi. “Well, I guess it beats taxis any day. I don’t suppose I can take it out for a spin?” Karliah, the indigo-eyed night pegasi smirked as she came to stand beside Twilight Sparkle. A firm brown mane cascaded over her dark grey coat. Truly a striking image, when she wasn’t almost entirely cloaked in black. The fact that Twilight could actually see so much of her was a very rare occasion.

“They do require time to recuperate in Tartarus after each trip. Try not to stress them out too much, young Dawnguard.” Twilight looked at the flaming horses again. The very nature of atronachs was incredibly fascinating to her, that ponies could actually shape elements of magic into their own form. “I leave Conjuration to the Crystal Wizards, but I take it you don’t share my interest in Illusion.” A shrug caused the shoulders of her sun-hallowed armour to clink lightly. “No matter, unicorns embrace different types of magic, just as much as earth ponies embrace different types of plant. Travel safe, Twilight Sparkle.” As if to demonstrate her interest in Illusion, Karliah’s horn glowed for a brief second, causing her to disappear altogether.

One of the guards approached at that moment with the single bag she had packed for the trip. It was a welcome distraction from the unnerving display of invisibility. “Thank you. I think I can handle it from here.” The glow of magic surrounding the bag handle changed from gold to purple. As it settled down on one side of the chariot seat, she looked up at the tallest tower of the castle again. Celestia was there, although by now Twilight had worked out that only she could see her. “Well, I guess that’s everything...” Twilight glanced at the guard again, standing to attention without fail. She could potentially achieve that level of concentration, if a book were in front of her eyes. But all in all, the job was far too rigid for her taste. “Tell your superior that Twilight Sparkle really appreciated your assistance, I’m sure he’ll think of some way to ensure that your diligence is rewarded.”

She took a nervous step onto the chariot. Celestia had reassured her that the trip was almost instant, and perfectly comfortable for a mortal unicorn. Twilight still gripped onto the back edges of her seat as the two atronachs began to gallop. As they picked up speed, she could feel the ground beneath quickly fall away, while the whole chariot rose up. “Just a thrill ride, just a thrill riiiide!” A bright point of light had opened up in front of them mid-sentence. In response, the elemental pullers suddenly went to a speed she hadn’t thought possible. The point of light engulfed the entire chariot in that instant.

Not two seconds later, the very same chariot came to a very smooth halt, right in front of what appeared to be Town Hall. Two streaks of fire trailed behind the vehicle, quickly fizzling out. Twilight had become fixed to the seat she occupied. A few strands of hair had sprung out of place as a result of her shock. The group of ponies waiting on a stage outside Town Hall looked over at the motionless pony in the chariot with growing concern. “Uh, excuse me, Miss Twilight? Are you alright?” It took several seconds for Twilight to move her eyes to the right, longer still to peel her stunned body from the chariot seat. When getting down onto solid ground, her legs almost completely gave way to strong waves of dizziness.

“Ugh... not really...” Her face met Ponyville’s fine, country dirt with a rather abrupt thud. Most ponies were hesitant to approach their unconscious guest, some because of the fiery escorts turning the grass they stood on to smoking char.

*

Light filled Twilight’s vision when her eyes opened at last. Hardly the sort of entrance she wanted to make, and the impression on her trainer would be poorer still. A white face came into her blurry vision. “Please tell me that’s not Zecora.” It turned out to be one of the nurses as her vision refocused. The obvious look of concern wasn’t very comforting. “Oh come on, I can’t be that bad off from a simple chariot ride through the sun?” When finally able to sit up, the overwhelming relief of seeing that she did indeed still have all of her legs caused her to lie back again. “Seriously though, I was just a little dizzy. There is absolutely nothing to worry about.”

A quick glance at the name badge on the nurse’s coat was all she needed to reaffirm her stance. Given how some of the other nurses in the room acted when she got up by herself, it wouldn’t take very much to impress them into letting her leave. “Nurse Redheart, I can assure you that as Celestia’s hoof picked representative of the Dawnguard that I am in perfect help. There is no need to pull faces at me, or try and put me back into bed without saying anything.” Pointing out the obvious flaws in her bedside manner didn’t seem to help her much in the way of correcting them. But at least they didn’t stop her from opening the wardrobe and retrieving her armour.

Even when she was wearing the entire set of armour once more, there was no word from the disgruntled ponies in the room. “Ookay then, I think I’ll be heading off to wherever I need to go then. Nice... talking to you all.” As far as first impressions went, Ponyville’s medical staff scared her to death, in that ending up in the hospital could very well be more dangerous than actual battle. And there was no telling how the rest of the town would act. “Just ask for directions to Zecora’s training camp, and leave before they say anything else. Simple.” Nopony in the hospital stopped her while she continued towards the main door. “Well, at least they’re smart enough to put these lovely colourful lines all over the floor to point me in the right direction.”

Upon exiting the hospital, several shots of confetti flew right at her face. Streamers began to catch around her helmet while colourful dots collected on the trimming. The whole shock had caused her to stumble back into the closed hospital doors. She was now quite literally trapped between a hospital of seriousness, and a town of overly excitable mental patients. “Hey hey! Back off already!” It wouldn’t really make a great report to Celestia if she had to draw her crossbow not ten minutes after arriving in Ponyville. “Before you all go party happy, could Zecora please raise her hoof?” Somepony practically took a pin to the mood balloon of the crowd upon mention of the name. “Oops.”

There had been the lingering suspicion that ‘Zecora’ wasn’t a pony native to Equestria. But it hadn’t occurred to her that Ponyville wasn’t quite comfortable with havin g a Changeling hunter living close to them. Given their very happy personality so far, it was probably likely that they didn’t like the idea of fighting at all. Exactly the sort of environment for training in hunting her enemy. One of the ponies finally raised their hooves, a pale cream with a rich red mane. “Her hut is south east from Town Hall, about fifteen minutes into the Everfree Forest. The only problem is, she went missing yesterday afternoon, and nopony else knows what’s in there.”

An armoured hoof smacked firmly into Twilight’s face, causing quite a bit of pain to her nose in the process. I swear Princess Celestia enjoys watching me suffer. These ponies are really out of their minds. “Fine! Just... save the party from when I get back. Okay? I didn’t come here expecting to start my stay with a pony hunt for Celestia’s sake!” Her harshness seemed to have an emotional impact on the crowd, a long, drawn out breath of disappointment shared by them all. They’ll get over it. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re back to partying five minutes after I’m gone. “I don’t suppose any of you have actually gone to her hut since yesterday?” All shook their heads.

Resisting the urge to hurt her face further, she made her way through the crowd back towards the centre of Ponyville. It was overcast by then, something that Canterlot rarely experienced. Either it was bright or sunny, or raining long enough to ensure all of the plants had water. But less weather control obviously came with a dominantly earth pony town. It only left her opinion of the town in continued freefall. “And I haven’t even seen the library I’m supposed to be bunking at. I may just have to grab a tent and sleep at Zecora’s to survive.” Town Hall came into view at last, the weather conditions only growing worse. It would rain soon, just what she could do without at that point. “A forest full of pony-eating creatures and highly toxic plants, versus a town full of crazy ponies. I think the choice is pretty obvious.”

A few drops of rain fell from the sky towards approaching the edge of the forest. The rain was holding out at least, probably to pour down on her at the most inconvenient time possible. Events so far made that a very likely possibility. At the very least, a rough, hoof trodden path was present in the general direction that she had been pointed. Trudging through thick scrub and being bitten by all manner of insects wasn’t her idea of training. “I swear, if this is all just a test... Whatever happened to spending three nights out in the middle of nowhere with nothing?” Isran had told her quite a bit about his experience in such an exercise. Up north near the Crystal Empire, with absolutely nothing to survive on. It certainly sounded far more appealing than the ordeal she was currently going through.

Another small burst of rain leaked through the tree cover before she finally arrived at a clearing. There wasn’t much that Twilight could do about her moistened mane, but then Zecora wasn’t there to notice. It was a good thing too, as Twilight couldn’t control her moment of repulsion upon seeing the ‘hut’ that Ponyville had so callously neglected to describe. At a glance, she could have easily mistaken it for a witch’s nest. “I hope she’s not a witch, because it’s going to be a very long few months if that’s the case.” Her attention then shifted to what was obviously the scene of a battle. Two contorted ponies, their faces twisted into some sort of rabid expression. From the large, purple welts that had formed on their heads, it wasn’t hard to work out what had done them in.

“So she fights with a stick. How exotic.” The burn marks on their skin puzzled her. It looked a lot like Zecora had tried to use the Changeling removal potion that most hunters carried; only this time it hadn’t worked. Either the Changelings had developed an immunity, or the bodies weren’t Changelings at all. Their odd poses and expressions pointed towards the latter. “Great, I bet there’s a disease in this forest which makes them go wild. Just great.” The thought of touching the bodies in any way to search for clues disgusted her quite strongly, driving her to move into the hut.

Impressions started on the outside only grew stronger inside. Even a cauldron adorned the centre of the room, surrounded by shelves full of potions and ingredients. An alchemist if there ever was one. “Now all I need is a set of black robes in her dresser, and I can officially call her a witch.” She had no intention of searching anywhere near her bedroom, purely out of fear of what she would find. Getting caught in the action simply didn’t seem that scary in comparison. After some observation, a bookshelf finally caught her attention. “Finally, something I can actually understand without help.” Most of the titles were in a language she only recognized on the surface. Zebraic. “Well, that clears up something about her identity.” A few were very old, written in more obscure and ancient languages. None of them had been written in plain old Equestrian.

“Of course, I finally get books, and they’re the sort which are going to take hours to read. Why did Zecora have to go missing in the first place after beating up some wild ponies?” On the desk below, several different papers and notebooks lay scattered. A single scroll however seemed to be resting on top of the mess, as if somepony had placed it down after the disorganization had set in. Somehow, it just didn’t fit with the clutter. “Well, if she doesn’t take care in organizing her observations, it couldn’t hurt to make sure that everything is messy. At least that way there’s consistency...” Purple magic began to lift it off the table. Twilight immediately recognized traces of magical aura on it. “A self-writing and sending scroll...” They weren’t too hard to come by, but nopony who could actually obtain them would use them except in an emergency.

“Maybe this is just another part of the test. Yeah, she obviously knows that I’d sense the magical aura, and this is going to have a clue as to where to find her.” At least she now had a reasonable excuse to explain herself in case that wasn’t the case at all. Drawing a long, deep breath, she began unrolling the scroll. From the first few lines of text, she could already tell that it wasn’t written in haste at all. “Oh dear, I hope this isn’t going to get me in trouble...

‘I have come across some sort of afflicted pony society. Those who have retained control of their mind seem to rule over those who have not. The distinguishing characteristic is their eyes, red irises with glowing amber whites. Sharp fangs may be a common factor too.’

Twilight shuddered right down to her hooves. “Well, at least I know exactly what to look out for. Thanks for having a very good way of summarizing things Zecora.”

‘It seems... that they are breeding the rabid ones. For what purpose I do not want to delve further into.’

Another shudder came, this time with a sick feeling too. That made two of them who didn’t want to think about it.

‘The society here appears to have a common taste in clothing. Perhaps there is more to this than simply breeding a race of feral ponies after all.’

“Well, I’ll be sure to ask them who their tailor is if I meet one.” The whole letter left a very grim taste in her mouth. And the last line especially chilled her already shuddering body.

‘I must inform Celestia of this discovery immediately.’

“And then she vanished...” Her idea of it being a test was quickly fading away, unless Zecora had gone to great lengths to prepare it. “I guess there’s only one way to get to the bottom of this.” She checked the straps of her armour again, adjusting the tightness around her waist. The Everfree forest was very large, and Zecora hadn’t left any notes about how long it took her to happen on the ‘feral society’. On that thought, she loaded a crystal tipped bolt into her crossbow. “Can’t hurt to be prepared. I just wish I packed more bolts first.” Her silver sword was still in pristine condition, though she still regretted not asking Celestia to apply some of her magic to it as well.

The back of her neck prickled briefly. When she looked over her shoulder, what could have been a fleeting shadow fled the window behind. “Oh, and I’m being watched too. That’s really comforting to know.” It did revive hopes of the test, even if Zecora wasn’t quite as good in Illusion magic as Karliah. This time she kept the strap on her crossbow quite loose, enough to pull it off with her magic in a pinch if need be. Carefully sliding the scroll into a pocket underneath her armour, she approached the open doorway in growing confidence. “I can do this; it’s no different from those hide-and-seek courses back in Canterlot. Only, I’ve got trees and vines instead of pillars and drapes to worry about here.” Her first step out of Zecora’s hut was still shaky. “Come on, you’re Celestia’s chosen student. What’s a colony of feral ponies really going to do against a crossbow?”

Most of the plants on the trail had recovered from being trampled the day before. Enough damage had been done to keep Twilight going in the general direction, almost certainly by one of the feral ponies mentioned. Zecora had probably tracked it from her hut. “And fallen into a trap that I could very well be following her into.” That didn’t stop her from continuing on for the next twenty minutes without seeing anything more than a mosquito. Just out of her normal field of vision however, she felt certain that the shadow in the window was still present. As the twentieth minute passed, it suddenly vanished from the area altogether.

Twilight didn’t have a spare moment to ponder why it had lost interest at that moment. Old Canterlot was spread out in a slowly closing clearing before her. Down a series of crumbling steps lay the courtyard, where several recently abandoned animal pens glared back in warning. There was no doubt that this was the place Zecora had stumbled onto, and it also seemed likely that her discovery had caused them to flee. “I don’t see any zebra skin hanging from rocks at least.” When she moved closer, a few bodies did come into view, all dressed in a similar fashion. “And they would be the sane ones... Lovely.” She took the moment to draw her crossbow before proceeding down the steps. Everything about the courtyard bore a dank air. Close up, she could see how crudely the pens had been constructed, and even evidence of what had been going on in them. The smell was worse, blood and other sorts of bodily fluids were heavy throughout the courtyard.

Finally, she approached the bodies. The clothes were definitely the most striking features, studded pieces of shaped leather over rich maroon cloth. A dark hood had been pulled back from their heads, presumably in the same motion that left a horrific slash on their faces. On closer inspection, many such slashes were scattered across their bodies. “Something really big and vicious attacked them; I just hope that it was running away.” All of their eyes were closed, but the paleness was enough to identify them as the ponies Zecora had described. The question became whether it was the ones before her, or what killed them that had taken her mentor-to-be. As if answering, a guttering breath of wind escaped the passageway leading down into the underground of the ruins.

Nopony she knew would willingly go down into a dark, abandoned city alone. Especially with the danger of feral ponies, and something that could slash them to bits lurking about. Twilight had a crossbow in this case, and a few observations about her potential enemy that so far had been of great use. Using her horn as a light source, she began down the staircase into the darkness below. With each step, she flicked her crossbow around in case a pair of glowing eyes stared back. “Come on Twilight, this isn’t too bad. So far, nothing has leapt out and grabbed your face, or tried to eat your hooves from underneath.” The descent felt very repetitive. Two walls on either side of the staircase, a dark cyan in colour with cracks from decay. A crumbling roof that barely kept out the dirt above. And the stairs that felt like they turned to dust upon contact.

At last, it levelled out into a hardened dirt path. From there, she could barely see the top of the staircase, and sunlight stopped quite a way back. Yet it wasn’t just the light of her horn that she could see by anymore. “Wow...” Several metres ahead, a large ring of rocks lit by torches surrounded a brighter ring of standing stones. The floor around the centrepoint had been carved into dozens of thin rings, with eight lines protruding from the middle. Each standing stone stood on one of the protruding lines. Magical energy practically poured from them, giving her a very good view of the ponies in the ring. Upon seeing the similar clothing, Twilight caused the glow from her horn to cease. “Time to do a bit of spying, an Invisibility spell would be handy about now.”

As she got closer to the mysterious ring, the two voices became clear enough to catch, but not to fully understand. Something about the way they spoke sounded out of place, archaic almost. It was rather jarring to her ears. “He will have our heads if you do not hurry up! We have already wasted time enough moving the herd to a safer location, time that could have been spent breaking the wards she put in place!” The male, with a rather dirty mane of black, seemed close to the point of strangling the female. Her mane too was an unkempt black. Both had pale grey skin, and both wore similar outfits to the bodies outside.

“Don’t you snap at me for being late! It was you who neglected to interrogate the zebra thoroughly enough. And Harkon knows where she escaped to!” Twilight let herself inhale silently in relief. At least Zecora was alive, but it didn’t make her feel any more comfortable about the situation before her. All the while, her crossbow was aimed directly at the male’s head. “Come on, let’s try this again. It has to break sooner or later, if you would actually put effort into focusing your magic!” At that point, the male growled at her very threateningly. She responded in similar fashion, only with more of a hiss to her threat. I’ve got one chance at this, steady Twilight. “You dare challenge me, when your effort could be put towards breaking that ward?”

A brawl broke out between the two. As hoods flew back, fangs protruding from their jaws flashed in the ensuing struggle. Hoofs flew at each other while their jaws locked in a death struggle. Describing them as having animal behaviour was surprisingly accurate. While the struggle went on, Twilight concentrated on aiming down the shaft of her crossbow. “Come on, just a little bit closer.” The male took a step back, giving her a clear shot at the back of his head. “Gotcha.” The bolt flew silently, plunging deep into the soft tissue at the base of his skull. It severed his spine cleanly, immediately stopping his entire body from functioning. In her frenzy, the female paid no attention to his sudden loss of movement while beating his face several times. When the body finally fell to the ground, Twilight had loaded the second bolt. “Say cheese.”

The female only had time to notice the bolt buried in her companion’s neck and look up before a second bolt drove right into her throat. Gurgling for life, she could barely hear the sound of a mechanical reload before a third bolt punctured her heart. “Two for three. Not bad, but could be better.” Once the female fell to the ground, Twilight jumped down from her hiding spot into the light. Both ponies were definitely dead, and this time she knew exactly how they had died. “Now, time to see what this commotion was all about.”

As she got closer to the magical ring, it seemed to react to her presence. An archway formed in the glowing wall, large enough for her to walk through. “Glad to see it likes Dawnguard at least, that’s something to be grateful for I guess.” Once she had taken a few steps away, it closed up again, only to re-open when she moved back. “And it isn’t trapping me in here either. I wonder if all wards are this polite.” Now she faced the problem of what seemed like a puzzle to solve. In the middle of the rings stood a bowl, filled with purple fire. The colour was identical to her magic, she even moved her crossbow closer to compare. “Well that’s not creepy at all.” From outside the ward, she had only seen standing stones on the lines around the centre. They too had become bowls filled with purple fire. “Why don’t I like the fact that they were disguised from the outside?”

After a few minutes of pondering, she walked over to the nearest bowl and began pushing against it. With some grating of stone, it slid out along the line set in the floor, settling down at a certain point away from the centre. “I can do this, what’s the worst that can happen? It was obviously designed to keep out... whatever those were.” Deep down, she still had the lingering doubt that what she was doing could only end in complete disaster. Insatiable curiosity drove her to begin pushing the next bowl. Trying to move it with her magic had no effect, a small flaw in the plan that required a little more physical effort on her part. When the second slid into place, a purple wall formed along the grooves between the two. “Great, this shouldn’t take long at all.”

When each bowl settled into place, another portion of the magical line lit up. At last, Twilight settled her hooves onto the last bowl. “If this was all for some lump of rock, I’m going to be very upset.” Teeth clenched, she began pushing the bowl towards the centre with an audible grunt. Her hooves and shoulders were sore from the ordeal, but nothing that could deter her from solving the puzzle. With a loud thud, it settled into place, allowing the two remaining segments of the twisting wall to form. Without warning, the entire circle began to settle down in segments around the central bowl. The shift threw Twilight off balance until her segment stopped just as quickly as it began to sink. It left a convenient ring of steps down towards the now exposed central pillar.

“Well, that was definitely cooler than I was expecting.” She took a step towards the pillar, taking time to examine it carefully. The stone it was carved from looked ancient, far older than the stone Old Canterlot was built from even. “They must’ve built the city over this place, but why?” On the northern face, she spotted a highly eroded indent. The shape seemed to match an average hoofmark. “Guess there’s only one way I’m gonna get the reward then.” Lifting her right hoof up, she very cautiously removed the armour piece protecting it until now. It felt cold after being covered up for so long. She bit down on her tongue when raising her hoof up to the indent. “Please don’t hurt, please don’t hurt...”

The moment her hoof slipped into the indent, a panel of the pillar in front of her slid down. A small, vain part of herself expected gold bits and gems to flow out into a pile. Most of her expected an ancient suit of armour with matching weapons to be presented, relics of one of Equestria’s great heroes. The literary part of her hoped that books and scrolls from the First Era had been preserved for her to find. But she had never expected for one moment... to see a unicorn stumble out of what she realized was a sarcophagus.

Dressed in clothing that resembled the ponies she had just slain, only with a far more elegant nature, a red amulet adorned her blue neck. As the coughing set in, Twilight could clearly see the trademark glowing amber eyes. But rather than reaching for her crossbow, she instead stepped back and waited for the entombed pony to recover. This is really getting weird... What is she? What were they? Why are they wearing similar clothes? At that moment, the eyes locked onto her. By her previous experience, she expected to see a feral violence in the red irises. Instead, she found only confusion. The sort of confusion that could only come from somepony who had been in there a long time.

“Azura? What are you doing here?” Twilight broke eye contact with the pony before her, long enough to see an object strapped over her cloak. A large Scroll... Azura? Who’s Azura, and why do I get the feeling that’s an Elder Scroll of Harmony?

Comments

[117dragon]

So. This is good. Keep it up.
That is all.

[Frostpaw]

Finally I found a MLP cross over with the Dawnguard DLC for Skyrim! I can't wait for this story to be updated.

[Sadie]

2707617

Hopefully that won't be too much longer, this next chapter is just a real pain to write because of the nature of it.

[Laluzi]

Accounting for Zecora's remark on Hircine earlier, I'm going to hazard a guess she's not just a zebra...

Hmm. This is really interesting, although the mix of lore strikes me as rather confusing and takes time to digest.