Trinity

by Freescript the Bard

Crossing Bridges

---

This is just too surreal... Cloudlight marveled as he circled the castle from the air. It was a little smaller than he thought it was when he had first seen it from the ground, but it didn’t take away from any of its majesty. The castle was actually an extensive complex of buildings, centered around a quadrisect garden courtyard, with a large centerpiece statue fountain. On the east side of the garden was the entrance to a palace or cathedral that once may have been the most commendable part of the ruined fortress.

Cloudlight investigated the statue from above, his avian eyesight allowing him to probe every detail. The statue had been untouched by the ruin that had befallen the rest of the castle, and no vines or moss could be seen on the fountain. On the round pedestal were carved reliefs of all three pony races, trotting counterclockwise around the circumference. On top of the stand were two stone alicorns, circling clockwise around each other with wings spread and their horns to the sky. In the center was a large column supporting a sun and moon over each alicorn respectively.

While he could see no difference between the two stone alicorns, Cloudlight found his gaze lingering on the figure below the moon. There was something about the statue that the white pegasus couldn’t quite place; like it reminded him of something, but couldn’t remember what it was. Why does that alicorn feel more significant than the other? he pondered. The thought pricked at his insatiable curiosity.

“Cloudlight, we’re within the walls,” Blaze’s voice interrupted his inner musings. “Do you have a general idea of the layout?”

With a groan, Cloudlight tore his gaze from the fountain. “One aerial view, coming right up.” He relayed the information he gathered from his reconnaissance, careful not to let too much detail into the idea of the statue.

---

“Thank you, Cloudlight,” responded Rowan to the flow of information from their eye in the sky. “If you see anything else, contact us immediately.”

“Can do, big guy,” the pegasus chirped back, his link becoming dormant once more.

Rowan and Blaze stood in what used to be the northern entrance to the citadel, in the wide tunnel beneath the gatehouse. The gate itself had fallen off its hinges, and the inner portcullis remained raised. Through the tunnel, according to the mental maps Cloudlight had given them, was the large avenue that ran through the city center to the south wall, where a similar gatehouse stood.

Exiting the tunnel, Rowan admired the cobblestone pathway. “It may have been a major trade road at one point,” the earth pony speculated. “A path this wide cutting through the city would have been useful for the quick import and export of products from either direction. Where there is now forest would have been an impressive highroad.”

“Rowan,” Blaze said, not entirely paying attention to Rowan’s idea. “Look up.”

Taking his gaze from the ground, Rowan tilted his head back. Suddenly, he did not feel as large as his peers made him out to be. Rowan found himself dwarfed by the tall spires and majestic architecture of the castle, however ruined it was. While Cloudlight had confirmed that the ground area of the city was smaller than they had thought, what it lacked in breadth it made up for in the towering height of the many towers placed seemingly at random around the citadel.

Rowan, the giant earth pony, felt puny.

“Humbling experience, isn’t it?” asked Blaze rhetorically. “Not that you needed any more humility...” The ashen unicorn looked ahead and began trotting down the road.

Rowan picked up his hooves to follow Blaze, but kept his gaze to the sky. The green earth pony became less surprised and more pensive as he walked, pondering the feeling of being small. I suppose we’re all insignificant compared to all of existence, he thought.

The two stallions quickly made their way through the street to the center of the city. Blaze occasionally glanced between the buildings and into thresholds. While he thought the ruins themselves were no more sinister or eerie in appearance than any other abandoned city would be, he couldn’t shake the odd feeling he had since setting foot on the teal grass. There was something there. Something in the walls and pavement of the castle, and in the very air around it. A kind of deep magic. Old magic.

The unicorn peered at a crumbling tower in passing. Something happened here, he concluded. Something terrible... It was almost enough to make him shiver. But he held his emotionless features, keeping his cold gaze on the shadows.

A loud growl sounded in the street. Blaze jumped back from the sound, gathering magic into his horn to defend himself against whatever fel beast would make such a horrific noise. An intense heat gathered in his chest as he turned to face his foe...

...Only to find Rowan looking down at his abdomen. Another low rumble confirmed to Blaze that the earth pony’s stomach was the source of the noise, and not a carnivorous beast on the attack. Rowan chuckled nervously with embarrassment.

“Damn it, Rowan! You scared me half to death!” Blaze angrily bit at the other pony.

Rowan sighed, looking bashful. “Sorry, I can’t help it,” he apologized. “I’m positively ravenous. I haven’t had anything to eat since we woke up, and I don’t believe we had full stomachs when we appeared in the tomb.”

A small growl from the unicorn’s own stomach reminded him that he was in the same boat. “Fine. Priority one is finding something to eat before we all starve,” Blaze said. He began sifting through Cloudlight’s information, looking for something to sustain them. To his dismay, he realized that any food that may have been stored when this castle had been populated would have long gone rotten or been eaten by the wildlife.

“Hey, guys?” Cloudlight’s voice interjected. “I don’t want to complain or anything, but have you found any food yet? I’m getting hungry from all this flying.”

“We’re working on it, Cloud,” answered Rowan. “We feel a bit peckish ourselves. When we find something, come down and join us.”

“You mean if we find something,” Blaze mumbled across the link.

---

“Luna?”

The Princess of the Night acknowledged the presence of her sister, who was peeking her head through the door, with a flick of her ear. She did not turn to greet Celestia, keeping her eyes on the view from her balcony. Luna’s gaze went over the expanse of Canterlot Valley, staring at the mass of fog in the distance that was shrouding the quiet town of Ponyville. With her powerful sight, she observed the pegasus weather team as they began the slow process of lifting the mist.

Celestia entered the room, leaving her guards at the door. The alabaster alicorn settled in next to her sister and followed her gaze. “Sister, it is nearly midday,” she said. “Why are you out of bed at such a late hour? Is something the matter?”

Luna exhaled in a drawn-out sigh, with an expression even the Sun Goddess could not read. “All through my night I have felt an odd sensation, dear sister.” The midnight-blue alicorn flicked her eyes slightly to the left, peering at a piece of the Everfree Forest that could be seen from Canterlot. “It began some time after I had raised the moon; a strange sort of feeling in my subconscious mind. I know not what it is, but it feels familiar. As if I were recalling something I had forgotten.”

If Luna had noticed the white wing that was being affectionately draped around her shoulders, she made no indication. “Memory is a strange thing, dearest Luna. Even for the two of us, who have walked Terra before Equestria itself was founded, it is an enigma that we cannot solve. Some things are forgotten with age. Others are forgotten because we wish never to remember them. Yet we both know that nothing is truly forgotten forever; lost, but never gone. Sometimes it takes but a whisper to stir that which we have forgotten or chose to forget.” Celestia paused for as much time as was proper. “Tell me, Lulu. What has stirred your subconscious?”

Luna opened her mouth slightly, but closed it again, searching for an answer. “I... do not know.”

---

CREAK!

With extreme care, Twilight put one hoof in front of the other, making slow progress across the rickety rope bridge. It was not so much the precarious nature of the crossing that made Twilight nervous, but the sheer chasm that dropped into an obscure mist below. One false step or too many rotten planks in a row could send her tumbling into the depths.

“Why did I ever think this was a good idea?” she asked herself quietly.

No. Bad Twilight, she reprimanded herself. This is for the sake of research! Knowledge! A spell even Starswirl didn’t know the purpose of! Are you going to let something like a slightly structurally-unsound bridge get in your way?

Twilight cast her gaze downward through the space between two planks, staring into the abyss. She gulped. “Maybe...”

May I remind you who single-hoofedly took down an Ursa?

“Me...” she squeaked.

Who was able to throw off the influence of Discord and reunite the Elements to turn him back to stone?

“Me,” she said with more confidence.

...and who saves Ponyville and Equestria from certain peril on a REGULAR BASIS?

“ME!” she declared defiantly, striking a pose. “I am Twilight Sparkle, protegé of Princess Celestia and Element of Magic! I will overcome all odds in the name of knowledge! I WILL--!”

Whoa! Slow down there, ace. You’re still on a rotten bridge over a bottomless pit.

The empowered unicorn looked down to find that she was, indeed, still halfway to the other side. “Whoops. Sorry,” she apologized as she trotted the remaining length of the bridge. “Thanks for the pep talk. I needed it.”

Don’t mention it. Now stop talking to yourself and go investigate that tomb.

Author's Note:

The Twilight viewpoint was... kinda pointless. But I wanted to have an update on her progress through the forest, so I did it in comic fashion.

Comments? Questions? Inferences?

Comments

[PhycoKrusk]

Heckuva place to stop. I must know more.

[Alicon Glactistar]

Write MOAR!!!
Ah
AH
shit

[RadarLakeKosh]

Much better than the old version.

Which is not to say the old one wasn't great.

Randomly FlutterRage with no purpose!