Chapter One
Chapter 1
The unicorn stood at the edge of the forest and said aloud, “I am the only unicorn there is.” They were the first words she had spoken, even to herself, in more than a hundred years.
-Peter S. Beagle, The Last Unicorn
In the valley of a nearly unclimbable mountain range, deep in thick woods, a unicorn mare lived alone. Her home was a small one-room tree house up high in the middle of a tree ring, carefully hidden within the branches. While it may see lonely to be isolated away from other ponies, the years she had lived away from her family had been some of the happiest of Amulet Azalea’s life.
Her daily routine was as follows: In the mornings, she worked on a small vegetable garden (grown entirely with by reading a book on growing food) and foraged in the woods for food. In the afternoons, she read and re-read her spell books while practicing and sometimes improving on them. Occasionally, Azalea used the spells to make Magical Amulets. Then when night fell she’d go to sleep once it got too dark to see- she couldn’t cast two spells at once, and the few candles she owned were for emergencies only.
Some animals lived in the valley, but the mare mostly saw them as competition for food, or pests that would steal from her vegetable garden (she’d put an illusion spell to make it look like an algae-ridden pond, but some animals would smell the vegetables, anyway). She was her own companion- and the hermit’s life suited her just fine.
After Azalea first came here in a series of teleports as a filly, she discovered the Earth Ponies who lived nearby the mountain range sometimes climbed the mountains, seeking adventure. It made Amulet Azalea nervous. While it is true the pony tribes didn’t get along, Azalea worried that if her family was still seeking her, they might eventually come to that town and learn about her hiding spot if the Earth Ponies spotted her.
To hide from these unwanted visitors, Azalea at first used concealing spell on herself when she heard ponies enter the valley, but the one time she didn’t hear a alone pony on a hike by himself, she was spotted. In a panic, she used a short-term memory spell on him to make him forget he ever saw her. He left the valley in a daze, and it gave Azlea an idea. She gathered pieces of amethyst she found in the mountain, inpowered them with a spell and buried them in a giant ring that encompassed the valley. Any pony that passed the stones- coming into and leaving the valley- would lose six hours of their memory.
As the years passed, she added spells that would make ponies feel unsettled as they neared, and would make an amulet Azalea wore light up if anypony crossed the ring. It drove away many more ponies that used to explore, and the warning made it so Azalea could relax. She had to visit the ring and renew the spells every day, and tried to do so right at sunrise so she wouldn’t be surprised, teleporting stone to stone to keep the process from lasting all morning.
She worried a little that sometime flying might spot her, but the trees were so thick, they’d have to be actively looking for her to catch a glimpse of her. She tried to wear green and brown cloaks whenever she was outside to make herself even more difficult to spot, but she rarely saw anything but birds in the air.
As the average earth pony wasn’t familiar with unicorn magic, she’d often hear them suggest to each other that the valley Azalea lived in was haunted- which suited her fine. Azalea actually discovered from one of the bespelled gems that had been unearthed by a rainstorm one day that she could see the captured memories of the earth ponies if she touched the gem. Apparently, many earth ponies of the town that had visited the valley warned the adventuring ponies that it was haunted, too.
So it must’ve been a particularly brave pair of earth ponies that shook up Azalea’s routine one day. Well, the larger dark green stallion seemed brave, leading the pair determined past her wards with barely a pause. He had a pig the size of a badger strapped to his back that seemed calm, like being carried this way was an everyday thing. The smaller, skinnier yellow stallion that trailed after froze at the boundary and looked like he wanted to run straight back home.
“You sure there’s some truffles up here? The meadow near the river we passed could have had some,” he suggested nervously.
“This valley has excellent conditions for truffles! Mild weather, plenty of oak and hazelnut trees… it’s true that it’s a little early in the season for them, but something tells me we can find some here. Don’t let some hogwash about ghosts scare you.”
“But what if it’s not ghosts? What if it’s that monster that gobbled up the unicorns?”
“That monster is hooey, too! Every pony knows the unicorns blasted each other into dust. That’s why their towns are empty.”
Azalea perked up from her hiding spot in a tree. Were they saying that the unicorns were gone? She convinced herself that she must’ve misheard- but decided to get closer to make sure. She put a cloaking spell on herself, climbed down from the tree, and silently trailed after the stallions. But after a few not-aws and uh-huhs, they changed the subject and began to untie their hog from the bigger stallion’s back. Once on the ground, the hog sniffed, and began following its nose. The stallions followed excitedly, and after a minute of talking about truffles with no change in conversation, Amulet Azalea snorted in frustration.
“Did you hear something?” the smaller stallion asked.
“Not again! There are no ghosts or monsters here!”
“That doesn’t explain why ponies can’t remember what the valley looks like!”
“Sure it does! All the thin air from the mountain tops we cross make them dizzy. It’s hard to remember things when you’re not feeling well. Hey, look- Daffy’s found something!”
The hog was pawing at the ground near the roots of an oak tree, so the stallions took spades from their saddle bags and began to help it dig. Azalea could see they were too caught up with their truffle hunting to bring up the unicorns again. If she wanted answers, she had to be more direct. But the idea of showing herself to the stallions put a knot in her stomach.
What if their presence was an elaborate ruse by her family that would reveal her location if she appeared now? What if the stallions attacked her? What if they were flat out rude to her? Azalea wanted to know about the status of the unicorns, but she just couldn’t open her mouth.
At the limit of her anxiety, she got an idea that seemed like a better idea than talking. To start, she used her magic to unbuckle their saddle bags. The stallions paused in their digging as the bags rolled off their hips.
“Wow, did my strap break?”
“You too? No, the straps look fine. Now where the heck did my spade go?”
“Mine’s gone, too.”
“Well, what do you know: pigs do fly.”
“Daffodil! That’s enough, unicorn! Put her down!”
Azalea levitated the pig to the ground. Why didn’t he think she was a ghost?
“You think there’s a unicorn around?” The small stallion said in astonishment. “But they’re all gone!”
“There’s at least one around.”
“You sure is isn’t a ghost?”
“I’ve been around dead unicorns, and trust me- they can’t use their magic after they’re dead. YOU’D BETTER STAY HIDDEN!” the large stallion yelled, making Azalea dart behind a tree despite her cloaking spell. The large stallion’s eyes glared furiously around him, and he added:
“You don’t have any kin to help you left!” Azalea stayed still and silent long after the stallions dug up their truffles and left the valley. As night began to fall, she went back to her tree house, and her body went through the motions of her bedtime routine. When she finally laid down in her bed, she stared at her ceiling, thinking about what could’ve happened to the others of her race.
She didn’t remember falling asleep, but she woke up the next morning and started her chores. Amulet Azalea’s routines continued like she had done this past near decade, but her mind kept on drifting back to the unicorn kingdom.
She found it hard to believe that there were no other unicorns in the land besides her. The day and the night were continuing as usual, after all. Maybe it was a tactic to fool the other ponies races? But what did they have to gain from fooling them? They already had trades in place for food and weather, and while the land was getting tight, it wasn’t like they couldn’t argue over borders like usual.
Azalea supposed it could’ve been a trick her family made to lure her out into the open where they could find her again, but as the last heir to the throne they didn’t really need her unless every other sibling of hers was… gone. It was more likely that they needed her for a marriage alliance, anyway.
She had many guesses, but none of them calmed her mind. So she told herself that she would visit the nearest earth pony town in disguise and ask around for some answers. It took her a week to muster up the courage to go. She packed for a week’s trip, despite knowing it only took a day’s walk to get there.
She passed her memory charms as she left the village, and wished that she could just forget what she’d learned and spend the rest of her days in peaceful solitude. But perhaps she would return sooner than she expected. She had reviewed the earth ponies’ memories and figured out the safest route down the mountains- walking was safer, as using magic outside of her valley could draw unwanted attention. At least all her years walking around the valley made her sure-footed and kept her muscles strong.
When Amulet Azalea finally made it to flat land again, she almost couldn’t handle all the oxygen and needed to rest. Under her dark green cloak, the mare blended well against the bush she sat next to, and she hoped it kept her unseen as she scanned the horizon. It was odd to see an unobstructed view, and if it weren’t for the dirt road, Azalea wouldn’t know which way the earth pony town could be. Besides the occasional bush and the mountain range behind her, there was nothing but millions of blades of yellow-green grass as far as the eyes could see.
She munched on her favorite food- a few mint leaves- for comfort before following the road. She had only been on this road once before as a brief pause during her teleportation spells to get to the valley in the first place, nearly a decade ago. It was a bright and sunny morning, yet Amulet Azalea found herself jumping at every bird call and grass rustle from the wind. After she stood up, every step forward filled her with anxiety, making her want to teleport back to the valley where it felt safe. But she had to know what was going on with the unicorns.
Her brothers and sisters certainly must all be married by now. She had left before her parents had announced a formal engagement for her, but she was sure that they had plans for her. The idea of marrying anyone filled her with dread. She liked her life the way it was, and if her parents managed to catch her again she would fight for it.
Her dark green cloak stood out amongst the bright colors around her, and was warm in the summer heat, but she had no other way to hide her unicorn features without a spell- and unicorns had spells to detect magic being used. She make sure that her hood was securely in place, and hoped any pony scouts that might be looking for her would assume she was a traveling earth pony.
As the grass began to be replaced by more dirt as the road widened, Azalea felt a little calmer. By sunset Azalea spotted buildings in the distance. She walked wearily towards them, her breath beginning to stagger. Her fatigue made her realize she walked less than she thought, and she hoped she wouldn’t have to travel much more for answers. Regardless, she kept doggedly walking towards the town.
It was still light out, but the sun had sunk out of view into the horizon by the time she made it to the rugged little town. All the buildings were sturdy looking wood, but plain, built purely for function over everything else. Most seemed to be households, but the street that crossed through the center of the town seemed to have a few shops, so she followed it.
The few towns ponies Azalea saw eyed her with suspicion, curiosity, or an intense look that Azalea found confusing, almost frightening. She walked faster, looking for an Inn or a tavern. While she tried not to make eye-contact with anypony, she felt more and more eyes on her. She decided that if she didn’t find a tavern in this dusty-smelling town in five minutes, she would teleport home.
Of course, in the instant she decided that, The Cayenne Tavern came into view. It was one of the few two-story buildings in town, with a porch on the front and its name hung on a painted sign above the front door. It looked well-kept, and slightly cosy. An old earth pony stallion sat on a rocking chair on the porch, and he glared at her as she approached.
“What do you want, stranger?” he rumbled at her. Azalea froze, realizing she wasn’t sure what to say. Straight out asking about the unicorns seemed suspicious- she needed more time for it to come naturally into conversation.
“Do you have a room available?” she asked. If she stayed here a while, surely some pony in the tavern would bring it up sooner rather than later. The stallion forced a grin, revealing several missing teeth.
“Sure do! Ask the bartender mare inside.”
She nodded at the stallion as she opened the door, but once she looked inside a wave of panic spread through her body. Between her and the bar on the opposite wall were twenty tables full of rowdy, gruff looking earth pony stallions and mares. A lot of eyes landed on Azalea, none that felt friendly to her. She weaved her way through the tables as direct to the bar as possible, ignoring the jeers, whispers and catcalls that followed her.
Amulet Azalea took a seat at the bar that didn’t have any ponies occupying the seats next to them, and tensely waited for the bartender to notice her. It seemed the mare had noticed Azalea all along, for as soon as the bartender finished pouring a drink she sauntered over to Azalea.
“Welcome to the Cayenne Tavern. I’m Calamity- what can I get for you, sugar?” the bartender was a dark brown mare with dark red hair. Her yellow eyes seemed curious, and not unfriendly- which helped Azalea find her voice.
“Apple Cider, please. I was told to ask you about a room?” The mare filled a glass from a barrel behind the counter while she answered.
“Yep. We don’t get too many travelers in this part of the Earth Pony kingdom, so you can have the pick of the litter. What brings you to these parts, anyway?”
“I’m… looking for somepony,” Azalea decided to say. It wasn’t a lie, but Azalea didn’t want to give too much away.
“Do they live in the area?” Calamity asked. Azalea shook her head in reply.
“I don’t think so- he was hired to farm in the unicorn territory, and I haven’t seen him for a decade.”
“Sounds like they got mixed up in that mess a decade ago. I’d count whoever you’re looking for for dead if I were you- no ponies who lived in that territory have ever come back. Ponies say the unicorn lands are cursed, and refuse to try to claim it for themselves. But the celestial bodies still seem to be rotating, so I doubt the rumors that they’ve died out.
“I see,” Azalea replied, processing this information. Calamity went away to serve another patron, and Azalea took a sip of her cider. It was a nice blend of sweet and spice, and she finished it off with relish.
“Hey there, pretty lady. Mind if I join you?” A stallion who resembled a boar asked Azalea. She didn’t like the predatory look in his eye, but was afraid of what he might do if she said no.
“I don’t own this bar, so you may sit if you like. But if you desire my company, well, I don’t intend on staying for much longer.”
“Aw, don’t be like that!” the stallion said, sitting down and moving close to Azalea. “I bet you’re as kinky as your parents!”
“What do you mean?” Azalea asked, leaning away from the stallion. Did he know who she was?
“With cloven hooves like yours, one of your parents had to have been a goat, am I right?”
“A goat am I?” Azalea replied coldly. She wanted to levitate everything that wasn’t nailed down in that tavern and drop it on the stallion’s head. But as angry as that suggestion made her, she didn’t think revealing herself as a unicorn in a tavern full of earth ponies was a good idea.
“No offense meant, little missy- I think goats are attractive, in their own way-”
“I think the mare would like you to leave her alone,” the bartender stated to the stallion.
“Aw, Calamity, I mean no harm,” the stallion protested.
“Well, if the look she’s giving you is any indication, you’ve done plenty. Buck off.”
“But-”
“Don’t make me bring this tavern down over your head,” Calamity threatened. The stallion stomped away, muttering. Amulet Azalea sighed in relief.
“Thank you,” she said to the bartender.
“It’s no problem- ponies don’t come to taverns where they can’t feel safe. Well, the right kind of ponies don’t.”
“May I retire to a room?”
“Sure thing. The room’s upstairs, the second door on the left,” Calamity explained, sliding a key across the bar counter to Azalea. They agreed on a price, and Azalea quickly paid with a gold nugget, heading for the room as fast as she could without cantering.
The upstairs was dark, lit up only with one lantern sitting on a table at the far end of the hallway of six closed doors. Azalea unlocked and entered the room she’d been given- immediately locking the door behind her. It was small, barely fitting a single bed, a bedside table with a lantern on it, and a three-drawer dresser. But on the opposite wall from the door, right above the bed’s headboard was a small window from which Azalea could see the stars beginning to fill the night sky. Some buildings in the town blocked the view, which made Azalea nostalgic for her mountain valley home. Collapsing in all her gear onto her bed, she quickly fell asleep.
She was woken up about an hour later by knocking on her door.
“Little goat girl, let me in. We’ll have some fun! Let me in, please!” It was the boarish stallion from before! Azalea quickly levitated her dresser in front of the door and hid under the bed. What would she do if he broke the door down? The window wasn’t large enough for her to climb out of it, and even if she could, the two-story drop wouldn’t be like falling out of her treehouse- the ground here was hard!
The stallion’s voice become slurred and angry, and he banged louder on the door.
“LET ME IN! LET ME IN!” Couldn’t Calamity hear the noise he was making? Even as that thought crossed her mind, she felt foolish for trusting the mare- Azalea could only really depend on herself, after all.
Despite wanting to hide her true nature, magical solutions were the only ones she could think of. The room was too small for a cloaking spell to be effective- he might bump into her while looking for her, and any sounds she might make would reveal her location. She only knew a few defensive spells, but she hadn’t cast them in years, and any mistake might mean he could get his hooves on her.
She could teleport somewhere, but where was it safe? It was dangerous on the roads at night, and something told Azalea if she went back to her valley she’d never muster the courage to leave it again. Any spell could lead to the earth ponies discovering her and hurting her, really.
The door cracked under the stallion’s hooves, and Azalea knew her thinking time was almost up. She looked around her room for any ideas when the bed sheet ignited a memory in her. Azalea tore the bedsheet off the bed, used her magic to move the dresser, and lay the bedsheet on the floor directly in front of the door. She had tried this trick on her sister, Emerald Gaze, once, but her sister was too intelligent to fall for it. But perhaps this stallion wasn’t.
The door shuddered in the frame, and Azalea quickly hid in the shadows against the wall. The door burst open, and stallion stumbled in.
“Where are you, goat girl?” he growled, eying around the room. The second all four of his hooves were on the bedsheet she yanked it, toppling him over.
“Hey!”
Not waiting a second more, she threw the rest of the bedsheet over his head and raced out of her room while he struggled to get out from under it. Back when they were kids, Emerald Gaze had immediately noticed the sheet and threw it over Azalea, using magic to tie it around her little sister. Azalea supposed she should thank her older sister for unknowingly preparing Azalea for this horrible situation. But the mare was still a little bitter than she had to wait all night for the maids to come and free her.
In the present, Azalea raced to the top of the stairs, and was surprised to find the tavern making even more noise than it had before. Ponies were singing, dancing, playing cards in an alcohol-infused joy. No wonder Calamity hadn’t heard the racket. The bartender herself was holding apart two stallions that were yelling at each other. Feeling more hopeful than before, the unicorn mare trotted down the stairs, and winded through the crowds towards Calamity.
She wanted to ask the bartender for help, but the stallions started throwing hooves at each other, and it didn’t seem like the issue would be resolved quickly. She huddled next to the bar, not sure what to do. The stallion would be coming downstairs any second! She jumped slightly when she felt a hoof touch her shoulder, and whirled around, only to see the elderly stallion that she had met on the porch earlier that day.
“Are you ok, lass?” he asked with a concerned expression. “You’re shaking!”
“Somepony broke into my room!” she replied, barely able to get her voice over a whisper in her panic.
“Eh? What’s that?”
She spotted her attacker making his way down the stairs. Azalea pointed at him with a shaking hoof. The elder pony squinted at the younger stallion.
“What’s he doing up there? He do something to you?”
Azalea nodded. The older stallion frowned, and stomped over to the younger one. She couldn’t hear their words, but she quickly saw denial on the younger stallion’s face. It was her word against his, she realized, and she was a stranger in town. Rather than face suspicion, she jostled her way through the crowd again and left the tavern.
She had nothing on her but her cloak and some amulets around her neck, but she had prepared for such an event. One of the amulets she wore was a quartz stone will gold wire twisted around it. Azalea had enchanted it to teleport her saddle bags back onto her back should they remain farther than three feet from the pendant for longer than seven minutes, Sure enough, as Azalea ducked into an alley beside the tavern, the bags appeared just like clockwork. Since she had been too tired to unpack, hopefully all her gear and rations were still in the bags, and not been stolen by the stallion.
She heard raised voices from inside the tavern seemingly calling after her, and knew she didn’t have time to check her bags. Whether or not the unicorn disappearance rumors were a trap made by her family or not, Azalea decided that at least teleportation would give her distance from any pursuit. She hesitated a moment to think of where she could go, then closed her eyes and pictured that destination.
The earth ponies in the days following swore that the mare that came through town was actually a ghost, since no trace of her was to be found. But Calamity still had the nugget that had paid for the room, and didn’t let that stallion in her tavern anymore.
Azalea was wet, gasping for air after she appeared under water and although disorientated, still managed to breach the surface of the lake. She crawled from the Lake bed onto the rocky shore, picking algae from her mane and casting a quick drying spell on herself.
She had cast a waterproofing spell on her saddle bags & cloak in case of rain before she left her valley, but still checked them frantically as she wasn’t sure if her spell would hold up after being submerged underwater. As it was, everything was slightly damp, but not ruined. She re-cast the spell to strengthen it, and began to make her way along the lake bank.
The last time Amulet Azalea had been to this lake the water had been lower- so the water must’ve risen since she’d seen it last. After walking a third of the lake’s edge, she discovered a beaver dam that blocked the flow of a former river- which definitely wasn’t here when she’d taken a break here nearly a decade ago on her flight from the unicorn kingdom.
Azalea wanted to go back to her home in the valley, but she still had no definite facts about what had happened to the unicorn race. She hated it, but knew now that the best way to find out would be to see for herself. But maybe she didn’t have to go all the way back to her family’s castle. Maybe the outer territories would cede enough information to prove how wrong the earth ponies were- they couldn’t be right.
A decade ago, Azalea had slept here under bush, exhausted after having used multiple long-distance teleportation spells in a row. She was too big to hide under that bush now, and instead climbed a tall tree with thick, twisty branches that could hold her weight. It wasn’t the most comfortable of sleeping places, but once again exhaustion helped her sleep.
Woken by birdsong the next morning, Azalea climbed down from the tree, stretched out and ate dandelion leaves she found growing nearby. When there was nothing else she could do to stall, she tentatively dug through her saddlebags, pulling an amulet out that had been buried at the bottom. It was the amulet that had been spelled to point to her mother’s location, the same flower-shaped compass she’d used to run away all those years ago.
It would still lead her to the Queen, but it couldn’t tell Azalea if Gilded Lily was alive or dead- something she now cursed her younger self for not thinking of adding. Azalea pulled on the amulet with her magic, activating the ray of light that pointed the way- a light only the wearer of the amulet could see. It still pointed towards the unicorn kingdom, like it had a decade ago, and a few other times she’d checked over the years when she’d been paranoid that somepony might have found her. Whether or not the unicorns had disappeared, her mother still was at the castle.
Sighing, Azalea pictured the next location to teleport to on the journey towards the unicorn castle and teleported there. She teleported multiple more times- in reverse of the trip she took to get away a decade ago- stopping every third jump to drink water and nap so she wouldn’t tire herself too much. At least this time she had visuals to go by. Her first time she teleported by focusing on the longitude and latitude numbers she’s gotten off of maps, which was much harder.
Finally, she was at the point where she was three jumps away from the castle, in the farmland of the unicorn kingdom. As teleporting right into the middle of the unicorn kingdom might draw attention, Azalea started to walk from here, putting her hood up to hide her face. She only needed to find one unicorn and she could go home, she told herself.
The unicorns were not as talented as the earth ponies were at growing things- many of the crops the unicorns grew failed, in fact. The successful farmers hired earth pony labor, but even duplicating their techniques didn’t yield delicious flora unless the earth ponies took part in the growing, somehow.
The long rows of farmland now seemed barren of any edible plants, either dry, cracked soil or weeds were present. After walking a while and not seeing a single pony on the road or in the fields, Amulet Azalea gathered enough courage to peer into a farmhouse window. It had a cooking pit on one side of the room, and the remains of a moth-eaten straw mattress on the floor, but no ponies. It looked like nothing had lived in there for many years now, as the small one room house was filled with cobwebs and dust.
She peered into the windows of a second and third house, finding them the same as the first. The curtains were closed on the fourth house she came upon, which gave her enough curiosity to ignore her anxieties and knock on its door. The door creaked open on her touch, clearly ajar. It, too, was empty of anything larger than a rat.
She made sure the door was shut firmly behind her as she left, and tensely trotted down the road towards a small village, ignoring the pain shooting into her aching hooves. It was the middle of the day when she reached the village, but no pony was shopping, cleaning, or simply milling about. There were no gossips, no drunkards, no merchants in the stalls. Not even a pickpocket to make her worry about her amulets.
Azalea knocked on the door of the first building she saw, and entered it when she found the door unlocked. The furniture here, too, had been eroded with time, but Azalea didn’t give up searching. She went into a second building, a third, and a fourth, growing more frustrated as she continued to get the same results.
The fifth building was locked, and Azalea knocked frantically on its door, pleading for somepony to open it. She even tried bucking it open, but her slender legs didn’t have enough strength to make the door budge. She backed away from the door, lighting up her horn in a spell that had been taught to the unicorn knights in the castle to push back multiple enemies on the battlefield. She had learned it inadvertently as a filly along with her brother, Granite Guard, when she had been watching him practice, hoping that maybe he’d stop and play with her.
The purple sphere-shaped energy from the spell blasted the door into the building, splintering it and any furniture it hit apart. But it was for naught, as this building too was empty.
Not caring anymore about being discovered, Azalea blasted the doors open of every building in town, not even bothering to check if they were unlocked or not, but there wasn’t a single hair that suggested the presence of a unicorn anywhere in this village. Exhaustion took over Azalea’s body, and the lone unicorn collapsed in the middle of a black smith’s shack.
When Amulet Azalea awoke, it was dark out. With a jolt, she remembered her quest, and gathered herself to prepare to leave. She knew that even though there seemed to be no living creatures around, that there could be nocturnal predators roaming on the road. But the empty village unsettled her in the nighttime even more than it had in the day. She activated her compass amulet once more, confirming her mother was still in the castle, then teleported again.
She had taken herself to the middle of her paternal grandfather’s serfdom, which it too was dark. Not a single candlelight of a night owl pony was on anywhere. It was as empty as the village had been. Guided by the light of her horn, she walked to the main fort, then teleported across the drawbridge when she saw it had been half-submerged into the murky moat.
She methodically searched the fortress room by room, finding nothing. Lastly, she climbed the stairs leading to the top of the watchtower, her fatigue making it take longer than it needed to.
When she was last here, Red Throne’s father was showing her how the royal castle was visible within the view of this tower, and how monstrously large the labyrinth that surrounded the castle was.
She was hoping at this point that maybe the unicorns were holed up within the castle walls. But she couldn’t make out any lights across the whole kingdom, only the moon and starlight from the sky. It took her a bit, but she finally found the silhouette of the castle in the distance, only it seemed like it had more mass to it than she remembered. Deciding she would look more carefully when she could actually see in the morning, she resigned herself to curling up on the stone floor and slept.
The warmth of the sun woke the mare as it rose halfway up the eastern horizon. Groggily, she lifted her head, and her memory of the night before sunk in as she remembered where she was. She stood with a jolt, snapping her head in the direction of the castle, now more visible in the daylight. It didn’t look much like a castle, rather more like a particularly tall part of the hedge labyrinth. The labyrinth itself looked like it had grown, too- expanding over more land and taller than it used to be.
It gave Azalea a little hope: perhaps her mother had bespelled the maze to protect its inhabitants against a siege of some sort. She didn’t see any catapults or anything that looked like army camps around the labyrinth, though. Given her limited perspective here, and without a telescope, Azalea needed to move closer to confirm anything.
She teleported right to what she remembered as the entrance to the labyrinth. The guard house stood frustratingly empty nearby, so she knew it was the right spot, yet there was no entrance archway in the hedge itself. As she walked closer to where it had been, she realized she was mistaken- the thick bushes had grown so the entrance was barely visible next to the ground, about the size of a fox hole. She checked her amulet compass again, which still pointed straight ahead through the small hole.
She got even closer, considering using her magic force spell to push her way in when the leaves of the hedge shook. Branches twisted back before her, until the archway widen into the size of door. A chill ran down Amulet Azalea’s spine as she got the impression she was being lured. The mare pondered if she should look for another entrance along the many acres of hedge maze, just enter the maze, or give up and go back home to her valley.
The maze only got it’s magic from unicorns powering it, meaning somepony had to be alive for it to be moving on its own. You could see the edge of the labyrinth from the tallest towers of the castle in the center, so somepony could’ve seen her by now. If she left for home now, there was a risk of her being followed and dragged right back.
She had the advantage of not being seen when she left as a filly, so nopony would think to look for teleportation magic until the magical traces had faded. Someone talented in spells- like her brother Treasure Tome- could probably follow her magical trail right back to the valley.
If this had been some sick plan to lure her out of hiding, Azalea had already fallen for it. She was too tired to fight it anymore. At least as an adult, it would be harder to control her as they had.
Eyeing the bushes, she entered the Labyrinth, watching them for movement. When she was completely inside, she turned around, expecting the entrance to close after her, but it surprisingly stayed open, not showing any sign that it had ever been any smaller than a door as minutes past. She didn’t trust it. Azalea ran outside, expecting it to shut before she could leave, but it was still a wide open archway from outside the labyrinth, too. She ran back in, and it still remained unchanged.
Azalea hadn’t consumed anything to nourish herself in a while, so she thought that maybe that was causing her to hallucinate. She withdrew an oatcake from her saddlebag and munched on it, pondering what her next step should be. But it wasn’t a hard answer, really. Finishing the dry snack, she activated the flower-shaped compass around her neck. A beam of light pointed towards the path to the left, and she followed it.
In the daylight, the maze didn’t really seem much different from when she had been a filly. Spells had been placed on the hedges, making them grow in box shapes to reduce the need to prune it. The spells made it so it would only grow longer, but it did somehow she higher than she’d remembered.
Azalea turned the corner, and remembered a day from her early filly years. Amulet Azalea, like the rest of her siblings before her, had a nursemaid that took care of Azalea- as the Queen couldn’t be separated from her duties for long. But Azalea really admired her mother back then, and though she could barely talk, managed to convince the nursemaid to take Azalea to the garden to watch Gilded Lily.
On that day, her mother seemed to be in the midst of watering while the ladies of the court chattered around her. Azalea caught her mother’s eye, and the Queen looked curiously at her youngest. Azalea felt shy about the eye contact and hid behind her nursemaid. But when she glanced back out to where her mother had been, she saw that the Queen had disappeared.
She jumped when the Queen coughed behind her, and they shared a smile. She beckoned Azalea to follow her, and led her to a little flower bush next to the castle wall.
“Do you know what this flower is? Gilded Lily asked her daughter. The filly shook her head.
“This is an Azalea flower. They bloomed the day you were born, so I wanted to use Azalea in your name. The name seer said you’d work with jewelry, so your father suggested ‘amulet’ as the first part, so it could be alliterative.” The Queen looked at the flower affectionately, and Azalea wished her mother would look at her like that.
“Can I water?” the little Princess asked.
“Maybe when you’re older,” the Queen replied, ushering her daughter back to her wet nurse. Azalea had been disappointed, but even back then expected what the answer would be. But that didn’t stop her from coming again and again, hoping the Queen would maybe play hide and seek with her in the Labyrinth. But the Queen never did, and Azalea stopped coming when she no longer needed a wet nurse.
In the present, Amulet Azalea chuckled at the irony that somehow, she was now playing hide and seek in her mother. But she refocused on her current situation when she felt her hoof brush against the hedge maze’s wall. Before, the hedges were wide enough that three ponies could walk shoulder to shoulder through them and still have a foot of space before touching the walls. Azalea was a petite mare, but now barely fit down the passageway without brushing her shoulders on the leafy walls around her.
Either she had gone down a smaller corridor that her mother had added after she left, or… Azalea began to trot nervously. Thinking back, Azalea supposed she had heard leaves rustling, but had assumed it was the wind blowing them. Focusing harder on the compass’ light so she wouldn’t miss a turn in her haste, Azalea was sure she heard more leaves rustling around her.
Azalea stumbled on a root that she swore wasn’t there before, and when she righted herself, the hedges were pressed against her, like she was squeezing through a tight passage. The compass’ beam was pointed straight through the dead end in front of her- it wasn’t supposed to do that. If the hedges were moving, it was possible they had sealed the exit.
Hearing a roar of rustling behind her, Azalea didn’t have time to worry about consequences. Extending a huge amount of magical energy, she released a half-sphere shield of fire, leaving nothing but ash and dirt ten feet around her as the flames faded away. The rustling stopped, and panting, Azalea walked out of the boundary of the hedge maze.
Azalea sat down, and looked around her: she was in the castle’s garden, though it barely resembled one. Vines and bushes were everywhere. None of the tidy rows of flowers remained, although some of the stronger breeds grew wild in sporadic spots alongside many weeds. The castle itself, standing tall in the center, was barely visible under the plant life that thickly covered it.
Azalea drank from a water pouch she had packed herself, then reactivated the amulet compass’ spell (which had shut off when she used her fire spell). The compass’ light pointed to one window on a higher level that had yet to be swarmed with climbing vines. As Azalea couldn’t fly, she circled the castle, seeking a lower entrance while stepped over and around the roots and fallen branches on the ground.
After ten minutes she had made her way to the back of the castle, and was shocked to see a giant tree slanted into it. Judging by the branches sticking out the of the windows, and the roof being slowly pushed open by the highest tree branches, it had been growing like this for years. The truck of the tree’s slant was so severe, that Azalea could climb up it like a steep mountainside. She wasn’t sure that she trusted touching it or any of the plants- they could share part of the Labyrinth’s magic, after all.
She felt she had a couple of spells left in her before she collapsed again, but seeing how the castle had been twisted by the plants over time, she wasn’t sure if she could teleport somewhere where the floor wouldn’t be missing or fall apart under her weight. She hadn’t seen anything move, nor had she heard any of the eerie rustling, so she decided to test the tree.
Azalea put one hoof on the tree, half expecting it to gain a face and try to grab her with its branches, but it remained still. That remained true as she added hoof after hoof to it, until finally she lay her torso on top of it, wrapping her legs around the truck. She felt no movement under the bark, so began to shimmy up the tree.
When she came to the point where the tree came through the wall, she looked down and saw that the stone floor was moldy and littered with leaves, but still intact. Azalea leaped down, and although she did stumble, managed to land safely. It was odd, seeing flora around here where only carpets, tapestries, and torches had been the decor in the stone castle, but anything pony made was in shambles. Many of the wood doors had warped due to moisture, and Azalea could spot lots of ivy that had creeped in through the windows.
This had been a hallway that wasn’t too far from her bedroom, but Azalea wasn’t curious enough to see how it had changed. Most of the things she cared about, she had taken with her in her teleportation spell back when she ran away. She expected she’d see bare furniture that had been destroyed by the elements just like the area of the castle she was in now.
But if Azalea’s theory that the unicorns were hiding in the castle was true, she supposed that they may have kept some of the rooms in livable condition. But this didn’t seem like a place a lot of unicorns could be, so maybe it was just the royal family that was still here. It was unsettling that she had run into nopony so far.
At least now she had a single unicorn to look for in one castle instead of any unicorn in the entire kingdom. She activated her compass, and was surprised when the light arched around and behind her. Azalea jumped, thinking her mother had snuck up behind her, but only saw the tree she’d climbed up on. But looking more closely, she saw something that disturbed her:
The upper half of a unicorn skeleton sticking out of the tree, almost like it had been growing out of the truck like a branch. It’s front legs had been pulled backwards, so the skeleton was posed almost like the figurehead of a ship. Most unsettling of all, a ring of pale blue magic the size of a tea saucer still glowed on its horn. How was magic coming from a long dead unicorn?
The amulet compass’ light pointed straight at the skeleton, no matter how many side steps she took and different angles she looked from. Her mother, Queen Gilded Lily, was dead.
Azalea was cold. She drew her cloak closer and sat on the ground with her legs beneath her, but she still felt cold. She withdrew a brown cloak she’d packed and every other piece of cloth from her saddlebags she could find, but nothing stayed the cold.
How could she get so cold from a sunny, windless day? It was one of many questions the mare had, including how her mother died, seemingly alone in the middle of their well-guarded castle. Where was the rest of the royal family? Where did all the unicorns go?
Azalea kicked out a hoof to position herself in a more comfortable position on the floor, and it hit something as big as a book, only lighter. A canvas painting stretched over a wooden frame. The picture was dirty- probably from many years on the floor, but Azalea recognized it to be the portrait her parents had commissioned of her on the day of her birth. Every child of the unicorn king and queen had one, and Azalea’s had been hung in her bedroom.
She hadn’t really wanted to take it with her that decade ago, so she expected it to still be in her bedroom, just as she had left it. What was it doing here in the hallway? Azalea wished there was somepony around she could ask.
But then an idea struck her: what if she could take memories from objects like her memory stones had? It was unlikely, as nothing here had been bespelled to trap memories, but since unicorns moved around objects with magic more than their own limbs, perhaps they unconsciously magically imprinted their memories into the objects, too. She withdrew her 11th Grimoire from her saddlebag and reviewed her notes. It was worth trying, if it could give her a clue as to what happened to the unicorns.
After fifteen minutes of altering the language of her spell in the Grimoire to better suit the situation, she had something she could try. Picturing the effect in her mind, her horn lit up and she murmured the spell over the painting, lightly brushing it with her left forehoof.
Her mind was taken over by a vision: somepony was looking down at the painting in their silver cloven hooves, in pristine condition compared to its present one. Azalea felt sad and fearful, tears running down her cheeks even though she felt weak to show them. But then the vision was gone. Who was crying? Unsatisfied with what she was shown, Azalea tried again, keeping her hoof fully on the painting this time.
She entered the vision again, the same scene replaying, only this time, Azalea could tell she was sitting on the bed in Azalea’s former bedroom. A couple of her tears dropped on the frame, and she felt a hoof rest lightly on her shoulder. She looked back to see her father, King Red Throne, determinedly staring at her.
“I sent all our soldiers and scouts out looking for her. Some of the nobles, and most of our boys are out looking, too,” he declared. The pony Azalea was experiencing the memory from sniffed, and Azalea was surprised she recognized the voice.
“She’s gone, my lord. Likely taken by bandits, or eaten by monsters,” the Queen replied morosely. “If only I’d made the maze defenses stronger-” the vision ended, and as Azalea had felt the frame being set down, she doubted she would get any more than that. But she tried again, slightly desperate to hear more, only to get the feeling of a burnt out candle back.
She needed something stronger if she wanted to know what happened to her family. Azalea had been avoiding looking at the skeleton, but it had been a living being once that carried memories inside it. She needed it. Having felt the emotions of her mother in the vision, she couldn’t help feeling that the skeleton seemed anguished. She had never known her mother to cry.
“Why didn’t you show me that you cared before I left?” Azalea asked her mother’s remains. Of course, the princess could never get a reply. Before casting another memory retrieval spell, Azalea studied the magic the skeleton’s horn still continued to cast. She didn’t know what it was doing, but didn’t want to risk clashing spells. She referred to her Grimoire, and found a spell that would let her see magic being used by other unicorns.
Once the magic vision was cast, she saw the pale blue magic being drained from the unicorn, and going into every single living plant around her. Somehow, the tree holding her was using all of her mother’s magical essence to keep the Labyrinth’s defenses running. Although she had no idea how it could continue doing so after Gilded Lily’s death, it was obvious that the magic would drain from the skeleton soon.
Azalea worried that a lack of magic would make retrieving memories from the dead mare impossible. But how could she free Gilded Lily from the tree? She began to peel away at pieces of bark closest to the bones, but stopped when she heard the rustling of leaves in the windless room.
Azalea darted to the side just in time to avoid a vine that had been creeping behind her. More vines and tree branches were growing out fast from the windows and through the cracks of the stone towards Azalea. The pieces fell together, and Azalea realized this had been a trap after all- the Labyrinth needed Azalea’s magic.
Perhaps it had been in hibernation, conserving the little power it had from her mother’s remains until a new magic source came. But now that Azalea was cornered, it could use the skeleton’s leftover magic freely to catch her. Azalea had no time left.
Azalea used her fire shield spell again to burn the plants nearest to her, then grabbed the skeleton’s skull. The tree, although now charred, grew taller in one last defensive move. Azalea nearly fell as the ground moved away, forcing her to hold on to the skeleton to keep herself from falling. She needed leverage to pull on the skeleton, feeling that just holding onto it wouldn’t remove it from the tree. She swung her back legs around until she could place them on the tree’s truck.
She gazed into the empty sockets of her skull, murmured softly, “I’m sorry, Mother,” and yanked. The forced the skull from the tree, and Azalea held tightly onto as they plummeted backwards. Before they hit the ground, Azalea closed her eyes and teleported to the closest safe place she could think of.
From on top of the tower on her grandfather’s keep, Azalea landed on her back- a little bruised but physically unharmed. She hurried to her feet and looked at the horizon to her family’s former home. Under the weight of the plants, the castle collapsed in a thunderous rumble until the horizon was mostly flat. Birds nearby scattered into the air, but soon all was still.
Azalea mostly had negative memories in that castle, but the fall of her former home left her feeling slightly melancholic. Assuming the rest of her family hadn’t died in castle and were still alive somewhere, they wouldn’t have a home to come back to. Which led Azalea’s thoughts back to the skull she was now caring in her purple magic aura. Would it have the answers she seeked in her memories?
Knowing she would be vulnerable outside when she experienced the visions, Azalea walked inside the keep and moved into a small receiving room. Shaking out the dust from a mostly intact rug within the room, Azalea laid it in the middle of the room and sat down on it so she was facing the sole door to the room, which she magically closed. She then put her mother’s skull on the rug in front of it and cast the spell.
In the vision, Azalea was back in the royal castle of the past. Ponies raced around in a panic, but Silver Sonnet, Copper Curls, and Precious Peacock stood before her, looking worried despite their rigidly determined postures.
“Don’t go!” Azalea said, her body repeating the actions of her mother back then.
“They want us. Maybe if we go, they’ll let the rest of the unicorns go,” Silver Sonnet replied bravely.
“But the Labyrinth can protect us! We can find another way!” the Queen replied. But the princesses were already trotting away.
“Maybe we’ll see you again, mother,” Copper Curls called back. The Queen fell to her feet and cried, her misery overwhelming. When it seemed like hours had past and the hallways were clear of any other unicorn, the Queen quietly sobbed;
“I’ll make sure everypony has a home to return to.”
To be continued….
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Does Amulet Azalea sound like Iggy Azalea?
8405891
Not sure I understand the reference, but it's pronounced
am-MEW-let AH-ZAY-lee-AH
I choose it so if you say it fast enough, it begins to sound a little like Amalthea- which is the name the unicorn adopts in the book/movie.