Sun & Moon Act I: Ascending Star

by cursedchords

Chapter 14: Burdens of History

“Although it has always been safer to maintain the status quo, true progress can only be achieved by those willing to strike out on their own and chart their chosen destiny, throwing caution to the wind before the judgement of a fickle universe.”

- Carnelian, Memoirs of The Equestrian Silver Age (2296 UIT)

Roiling tongues of flame lit up the deep mountain cavern, matched in intensity only by the hardness of Seraph’s gaze. The Order of Fire lives on. Standing high atop a foreman’s platform, he watched as more than a dozen ponies beneath worked the bellows of the furnace. The air rushed its way upwards through a suspended crucible of molten iron ore, burning off impurities. Soon, it would be pure enough to be cast into steel, forming the basis of the Order’s weapons and armour.

Though Seraph had been thrown out of Everfree, alone and disgraced, it had not taken him long to amass a new following. Equestria was filled with strong spirits like his, thirsty to do whatever they could to rid Equestria of Discord’s rule as soon as possible. Earth ponies, pegasi, even a few unicorns, all united in their desire for freedom. Together, they had built all of this, a future held in store for all ponies. It was infinitely more than the Resistance had done, hope instead of blind faith.

But hope it remained, unfortunately, until that perfect opportunity came along. For Seraph had realized that without a supreme advantage he could not move alone against Discord. The King was simply too powerful, and had too many allies both in Upper Eridian and abroad throughout the country. Any victory would need to be a swift decapitation strike, taking out the head and letting the rest of the apparatus shrivel and die. Otherwise, his revolution would be scuttled against Chaos’ grip on the country.

So Seraph had waited. Biding his time and his power. Continuing on in his research and his training, so that when that day came, he would be ready. A few of his followers had brought whispers of the events transpiring in the southern forests to him, and he had to admit that he had found the news heartening, if only for a moment. After all their years of work, it seemed that his old allies had found something to hang their hopes on to as well.

Seraph turned and began a slow walk back out across the factory floor. Sparks flew beneath him as smiths went to work on the latest round of the Order’s weapons. Seraph felt his mind drifting. It was in moments like these that he always thought back in time, to those happier days he had shared with his sister and his best friend. In their youth, freedom had seemed so close, resting on the edge of little victories here and there. The three of them had grown up together, matured into a group bound closer than any that had come before. Their skill sets had complemented each other perfectly, leading to success in their training and out in the field. Surely, he had thought back then, destiny was smiling on the Resistance.

Seraph shook his head to dislodge the wistful memories as he arrived at the entrance to the passage that would take him up out of the cavern and back into the grey lifelessness of Eridian. Such things were gone to him now, and no amount of nostalgia could ever get them back. He had chosen the difficult path of which they had not been capable: making the personal sacrifices necessary to ensure peace within his own lifetime, rather than waiting for help like a fool. Equestria deserved so much more than that from those who would pledge to protect it.

In truth, Seraph hated to have to leave his work behind at all. Given a choice, he would spend all of his time here beneath the mountain, forgetting the touch of sunlight and letting flame alone warm his heart. A world of metal, wheels and levers, this is what he would build for Equestria, a way forward from the ignorance of the past. An ascended species deserved just that right, the right to forge its own future amid the tumults of time, rather than lying vulnerable for the next force of nature to come along and take over.

But the situation remained complicated, and he still needed to keep up appearances so as to avoid suspicion. Thus, tonight was his night to keep watch over Upper Eridian, guarding the King’s stronghold along with whoever else on the sham court had been forced into the onerous duty. The job was usually rather slow, as it was well known among the population that those who ventured up into the secluded cloisters of Discord’s inner sanctum usually didn’t come back.

Once he had emerged out of his false root cellar, Seraph did something that he hated every time: he walked over to the front door of his house, and let himself in. The house was large and well-adorned, as he was actually forced to entertain guests here from time to time, in keeping with the tradition of wilful ignorance endorsed by the citizens of Upper Eridian. It never ceased to amaze him how much tragedy ponies could forget about so long as they had cocktails to drink and gossip to discuss. He hated this house along with everything that it represented, the barely concealed barbarism that Equestria had been forced to adopt. The idea that the only way forward was over the back of your nearest rival, and that the only chance of success was to win the approval of your betters, rather than achieving victory by your own judgement. Every time that he came in here, Seraph was filled by a desire just to lay the whole forsaken thing to the torch. But that would be to sacrifice all the work of the past years, all the struggle and personal effort. He owed it to Equestria to persevere.

Resting upon his kitchen table was the single piece of the uniform of the Eridian High Guard: a relatively gaudy earring. The jewellery was special, having been touched by a magic spell in tune with the fields of darkness permeating the entire upper city. It was a sort of warding magic, which alerted the guards whenever an entity in possession of its own magical powers was detected in the vicinity. Most of the time, however, the uncomfortable twinge that it generated in its bearer’s eardrum was a false alarm. Seraph had always secretly suspected that this was Discord’s way of testing his supposed followers’ loyalty, and making sure that none of them was slacking while on the job. Of course, it could also just be the tyrant’s idea of a practical joke.

And so, thus properly attired for the position, Seraph set out into the dullness of the city’s twilight. Another shift of tedium waited. It was only several minutes before his mind began to wander again.

---

Twenty Years Earlier

Lower Eridian

“Keep your heads down, both of you!” Aqua whispered sharply to her two companions, as the trio trudged sullenly up the steep path. “While these ponies may be the ones that we are striving to save, for the moment we have to regard them as potential enemies. We can never be sure where their loyalties truly lie.”

Seraph and Atlas both pulled their traveller’s cloaks farther forward to cast their faces into deeper shadow. The three friends were ascending a twisted path that wound its way ever higher up the steep face of Eridian’s mountainside. It passed as a primary road around here.

Since Atlas had once visited the city in the wanderings of his youth, he was leading the way, trying to pluck a sense of direction out of the foggy memories that he had of the place. At least for the moment, navigation wasn’t particularly difficult. All three were well aware that the path to their target was directly up, into the more affluent areas surrounding Discord’s castle.

Although each one of them was carrying a saddlebag, neither Aqua nor Atlas had any equipment of their own. Neither one needed any. But since Seraph was incapable of solely carrying his own burden of equipment, it made sense that they split the load. Dressed in plain, dull brown cloaks, neither one looked particularly dangerous, although of course the citizens of Eridian knew to keep their distance from anything strange or unwanted, and so the three had been relatively unbothered as they had trudged through the city. Nonetheless, the benign aura was far from accurate.

“When should we expect to start encountering real resistance?” Seraph asked in a low voice, pausing to adjust his cloak so that the dual throwing knives nestled against his front shoulders could slip into a more comfortable position.

“If all goes to plan, never,” his sister answered from the rear of the group. “We don’t have to get all the way into the inner sanctum, after all. The ruins of the old city should be accessible from some of the lower rings of Upper Eridian, and patrols are much sparser there, right, Atlas?”

“Yes,” the pegasus replied. “We only need to skirt about the outer walls of the city, until we can find our way down. We’re absolutely certain that they won’t have been removed from the ruins, right?”

“Of course not,” Aqua replied in a tone that just bordered on a scoff. “Discord couldn’t care less about our heritage or history, so it doesn’t make sense that he would put artefacts like these under any sort of security. And the chamber was at the very heart of the old Tower complex too. It should still be primarily intact, since Discord just built over top of the old city.”

The two males returned nods to her statement. This wouldn’t be their first raid on a securely held position, but it was their first time here in Eridian, so directly under the control of the tyrant himself. The air was much closer here, holding a perceptible tension, as if the sound of every hoofbeat could potentially alert somepony of their presence. It was very different from sneaking about in the more remote segments of the country.

After climbing out of the squalor of the lower city, Atlas finally stopped at a small switchback in the path. A short distance above, the track continued underneath a stone archway, marking the transition into the protected enclosure of the upper city. It was from that point on that the danger would really begin.

Since once they continued on they would be marked as intruders regardless of disguise, all three lowered their hoods. The cloaks would still help, allowing them to blend into the shadows, but it made more sense to leave their vision and other senses as open as possible. Aqua explained the plan one final time.

“All right. We know that from this point on, there are warding spells that alert the guards to magical presences, so I will be occupied shielding us from detection. That means that you two will be responsible for clearing obstructions and dealing with unfortunately placed guards.” Seraph unconsciously ran his hoof over the hilt of his other concealed weapon, a rapier sheathed by his right side. This earned him a disapproving glare from both of his friends. “Non-lethal force only unless absolutely necessary,” Aqua continued. “Remember that we are looking for a way down. Atlas has several older buildings dug into the mountainside picked out as possible places to start. We’ll go slow and stealthy. I’m certain that none of us want to see the inside of Discord’s dungeon tonight.”

Seraph hurriedly retracted his hoof following his sister’s rebuke, and adopted a steely expression as Atlas prepared to lead them onward. But inside, his heart was burning with determination. To be so close to the very center of the tyrant’s grip on the country set his youthful spirit ablaze. Tonight would be merely a test run of their ultimate victory, a mission that was just over the horizon, especially if they met with success in tonight’s endeavour.

The Resistance was being overly cautious, of that he had become very sure in recent months. As the three friends’ revolutionary exploits grew in fame throughout the land, so too had surged Seraph’s hopes for their final success. And yet still Terraria resisted, insisting that to move before the final confirmation of the Prophecy’s fulfillment would be a foolish risk. Seraph had buried himself within his studies, putting that fire of determination to good use, but always he had wondered what it would take to convince Terraria that they were the ones that would be capable of finally freeing Equestria from Discord’s grasp. It was during one of those long nights, as he had watched an experiment froth and bubble, that the idea for tonight’s expedition had come to him.

It was a simple task, yet its accomplishment was close enough to an actual strike against the King that it would be sure to convince even the most conservative of the doubters. Tonight, the three of them would venture deep into the heart of the old city, in search of the symbols of the old order they hoped to restore: the Triumvirs’ Circlets. The Circlets had been held in the central chambers of the old Tower of the Triumvirs, and since the Citadel of Everfree had been built as an exact replica, Seraph knew that it wouldn’t be hard to find their way around once they got inside.

As the trio passed under the archway, Aqua’s horn began emitting a pale blue light as she began masking their presence from the warding spells that permeated the area. Atlas led the group silently between shadows, snaking about to the right. The homes in this area were separated by relatively large distances, but they also had numerous outbuildings and hedges, which made cover plentiful. While crouched down behind a set of pitted doors leading into the earth, Seraph took a sniff of the wood and realized that it was actually a wine cellar. The thought that such affluence could possibly exist in the ruined Equestria made his spirit blaze all the hotter.

Finally, the three friends dashed across an open expanse of trimmed grass to come up behind an aged stone structure that was dug right into the mountainside. The door was locked with a rusted chain, but Seraph had it picked in a matter of moments, and they were in. Seraph immediately began tapping on the sole room’s wooden floor, listening for reverberations. The sound that came back was promising, slightly echoing in the silence. Without turning, he spoke to Atlas, “Hoof drill, in your right saddlebag.” Aqua meanwhile was doing her best to watch out for patrols, whilst also concentrating on maintaining her masking spell.

With practiced efficiency, Seraph drilled straight down through the floorboards, breaking through after only two inches. Once finished, he swapped out the bit to widen the hole until it was about three inches in diameter, wide enough to get a good view of the space beneath, if it could be illuminated. For that, he turned back to Atlas, once again gesturing toward his friend’s right saddlebag. This time, Atlas withdrew a short, metallic wire, which Seraph quickly lit with a struck phosphorus match before dropping it into the new hole. Within moments, deep orange sparks had lit up the lower area, and both Seraph and Atlas bent down to see what lay beneath.

Seraph felt his spirit soar. The stone chamber beneath them was rough and unkempt; obviously the floor had been laid over top of it without any consideration to what was being covered up. The rough rock walls were certainly the boundary of the mountain itself. But even better than that, he could see the beginnings of what appeared to be a narrow passageway, leading deeper into a shadowy blackness. With any luck, it was an entrance into the ancient city of old.

He got up and waved to Aqua. “We have our opening. Now you need to get us down there.” She drew in a short breath, and then let her masking spell die away. For an instant, she would be detectable by the warding magic, but in the next second, the three of them had teleported to the lower room, and were hidden again. Each one let out a sigh of relief. That was the hard part over with.

Aqua examined the passage, which opened out from a small recess in the mountainside. The orange light of Seraph’s sparkler cast its opening into deep relief, and amplified the blackness of its interior to appear darker even than the darkest of midnights. It also made it immediately obvious just how narrow the passage was. Aqua turned back to Seraph. “We’re not going to be able to fit through while carrying all of this gear.”

Although he was reluctant to part with his tools, Seraph knew that she was correct. He cast about his eyes, finally settling on a dark corner. “Okay then. Stash it over there, and we’ll pick it all up again on the way out.” After each of them had dropped their packs, the earth pony rifled through his own, covertly drawing out several small packets. He tucked them into a few pockets of his cloak, and also took a packet of his trusty matches. After all, unicorns had magic and pegasi had wings. An earth pony always had to have something up his sleeve, and for Seraph that had always been a bit of fire when he needed it.

Seraph tapped his cloak at his sides, making sure that each packet was securely in place. With a slight smile, he turned back into the room, only to find himself face to face with Aqua. His sister was not smiling. “What was that I saw you tucking away there? Another one of your secret side projects?”

Seraph brushed her off. “It’s important equipment that I absolutely cannot part with. We don’t know what we are going to find down there after all, so we should be prepared for anything.”

Aqua nodded once, but as the two of them rejoined Atlas by the cave’s entrance, she gave him one more reminder. “I respect your wanting to keep a few secrets, Seraph. Just as long as they don’t end up costing us more than they’re worth.”

“Fine.”

Atlas, who had been trying to see some way through the shaft with what light the now-dying sparkler could offer, turned around to face them once more. “Are we all ready? Once we get through to the ruins of the Tower, navigation should be simple. Still, we don’t know what could be waiting down there.” He extended one hoof out into the space between them. “For Equestria?”

They each reached out to meet him. “For Equestria,” they affirmed.

Aqua once again led the way, as her masking spell also illuminated the space in front of them. The passageway was very narrow, having been obstructed by rockfalls and natural decay over the years. Protruding rocks tore gashes in Seraph’s cloak as he pulled himself forward, but fortunately his concealed equipment remained safe. In some places the echo of dripping water reverberated through the shaft, evidence of the underground rivers that had once supplied the old city’s cisterns. Besides that, the trio crept forward in total silence.

Finally, Seraph heard the sound of his sister’s hoofbeats echoing off of smooth walls ahead. His hooves found a final purchase just in front of him, and he pulled one final time, emerging out into a square corridor. After a few seconds, Atlas broke out behind him. Aqua looked about the gloomy area for a moment, and then switched out her spell for something a bit brighter. With her face now cast in stark relief from the light on her horn, she turned back to face the others. “We’re far enough underground that we shouldn’t have to worry about being discovered, I think. How are you both doing?”

Each of the two stallions nodded, eager to get on. Atlas looked to be a little the worse for wear; he had a small cut across his left shoulder, the work of a particularly sharp rock. Nevertheless, he was clearly eager to press on. The hallway they had emerged into was wide enough for all three of them to walk down it beside each other, so it was likely close to the central, more important chambers of the complex. Seraph’s suspicions in this regard were confirmed when the three of them rounded a left turn, coming face-to-face with an exceedingly well-preserved portrait hung high on the stone wall. Even after so long, its colours still stood out sharply in the bright light of Aqua’s magic.

Seraph kept on walking, trying to make out the rooms ahead in the encroaching blackness. He had taken several steps before he realized that their light source was not coming with him. He whipped around to find that his sister was still standing enraptured by the art. Atlas had also stopped with her, unsure of whether he should stay with the light or push onwards. After a few more seconds, Seraph cleared his throat. “Might we move along?”

His voice seemed to startle Aqua, breaking her back to reality. After a moment, she shook it off and came back to him. “Sorry, I guess I kind of lost myself there for a moment. I wasn’t expecting the complex to be so well-preserved.”

As they penetrated deeper into the structure, they passed by some similar pieces, and each time Aqua stopped to admire them for several moments. Seraph felt a rising frustration with her.

“Why are you so drawn to these elements of our past, sister?” he asked after they had paused for the fifth time.

“Why?” Aqua replied with a confused look. “They remind me of the greatness that this country once had, and of the great nation that we shall be rebuilding once we are rid of Discord. They are symbols of the very things that we fight for.”

Seraph bristled at the reply. “Excuse me, but I thought that we were fighting for the ponies up there,” he said as he gestured toward the roof. “We’re going to build them whatever future they deserve, not just return them to the state they were in before.”

“And why shouldn’t we go back to the way things were then? The nation was happy and peaceful, after all.”

“And we couldn’t do a thing to stop Discord from taking over in a day,” Seraph returned briskly. “I think it’s obvious that something new and different will be required if our new nation is to last, Aqua.”

“Well, that doesn’t mean that we should just throw away everything that we’ve already accomplished! If anything we should treasure it all the more, since it has survived.”

Seraph turned to his best friend looking for help, but Atlas appeared uncertain. He glanced uncomfortably between each of the others, who were regarding him with expectant expressions. With a deep sigh, he lowered his gaze to the floor. “I… I think we should worry about that when the time comes. For now, let’s keep thinking about the task at hand. If my memory serves me, we should be drawing close to the central chamber, right?”

Aqua was all professional again. “Yes, in fact it should be right through this next hallway on our left.” Reaching the corner, she stretched her head around to light up the space, expectantly searching for the glint of the Circlets’ jewels in the darkness. Instead all three of them found the way blocked by a thick wall of boulders. The ceiling of the hall had apparently given out years ago, barring the path.

Atlas stood looking at the obstruction for only a second before he stepped forward and started trying to muscle the stones aside. “Give me a hoof, Seraph,” he spoke back to his companion. “We’ll have to clear this all out before we can proceed.”

Seraph looked over the rockfall again. Some of the stones looked to be heavier than both him and Atlas combined. There was no way they were going to be moved. “I don’t think that we’re going to get through by muscle alone, Atlas. But I think that I might have a solution,” he said, removing one of the packets from an inner pocket of his cloak. “Step aside.”

“What’s that you’ve got there?” Aqua asked as he went to his work, pouring out each packet into a growing pile of coarse, black powder.

“Just a small invention of mine. A powdered mixture of sulfur, charcoal, and fertilizer. One touch of flame and this should clear out the whole passage.” He stood up, and slowly poured out the final bag to make a trail that led away from the impromptu explosive. As he passed by each of his companions, he motioned for them to follow him. “You’ll probably want to take cover. This will be quite violent.”

“Are you kidding?” Aqua grabbed her brother before he could pass by her. “Do you have any idea what kind of damage this might cause? Some of the most priceless artefacts of pony history are behind those rocks. We can’t risk damaging them.”

“So what would you prefer?” he retorted, shaking himself free. “That we get the Circlets a little banged up or that we don’t get them at all? We can’t break through that pile any other way.”

“Perhaps there’s another way into the chamber?” Atlas offered up helpfully.

“And what if it’s blocked too?” Seraph recommenced laying his trail of black powder. “There’s no reason not to do it right now. I can’t believe that we’re even having this discussion, when we’re literally right outside the room with our objective in it. There’s no point in giving up Equestria’s future just to preserve a few pieces of its past.”

Seraph could tell that his sister still didn’t want to go through with it, but she couldn’t come up with a counter to his argument. For of course there wasn’t one. It would be folly to give up on their first real chance at success just to preserve a few old trinkets of a time long forgotten. He gestured at both of them to get behind him. Striking up his match, he touched the flame to the trail of powder, watching as it raced off down the hall. A second later, a thunderous boom and a shower of rock fragments came out of the hallway. Seraph uncovered his ears and turned to each of his friends. “See? Much easier than any other alternative.” Aqua would not return his grin. Instead she walked gingerly up to the corner, where smoke was still finding its way out of the wreckage.

She stood transfixed there a moment, such that both Atlas and Seraph ran up to see what held her gaze. When Seraph looked out past the nicely-formed hole, what he saw took his breath away.

Comments

[Yami Vizzini]

It lives!
I am now imagining Celestia or Luna forcing the nobles to participate in guard duty.
ECC?

[AppleTank]

Damn those breath stealing ghostn.