After an experiment with a seemingly pointless spell, Twilight unintentionally wakes three stallions from a magical slumber, with no memories of their past aside from their names.
One mid-spring night, Twilight finds a strange spell in the library that doesn't appear to do anything at first. But deep within the Everfree forest, near the old castle ruins and deep in a hidden garden tomb, the spell takes effect. Three stallions awaken, with nothing but their names and the ability to telepathically communicate with each other. Their arrival will unearth some of Equestria's dark and hidden past, and possibly their own. For as they discover their own unique and strange abilities, another power ebbs from the darkness of the past.
It was rare that Twilight was without a study topic, such was her curious nature. But that night, she had not thought of any sort of spell to attempt, nor any topic that had perked her interest throughout the day. So, in this rare segment of time, Twilight simply cast a randomization spell, causing a random tome to topple unceremoniously from its place among other such books. In this specific case, a book from the Starswirl the Bearded shelf slid out and tumbled to the floor. Twilight levitated the book to her reading stand, giving Owloysius a thankful nod as he flew over with a fresh quill and parchment for note-taking. Spike had gone to bed after reorganizing the books in the Magic Theory shelf. With the candles on the desk lit, Twilight looked at the moderately aged tome the randomization spell had selected.
"'A Compilation and Brief Overview of Archaic Spells and Charms by Starswirl the Bearded'," she read. The title was seemingly crammed onto the leather cover, as if printed in an over-large font size. Twilight wondered at the title. If these spells were ancient in Starswirl's era, then most of them will likely be lost to the ages, she thought as she opened to the inside cover, seeing that the book was a donation to the library by an anonymous benefactor before Twilight became the librarian in Ponyville. Turning to the table of contents, Twilight looked over the alphabetical list. 'Alchemical Enchantments,' 'Botanical Charms,' ' Battle and Combative Spells'... Twilight skimmed the list searching for a chapter to perk her interest.
After a moment, she came across a peculiar chapter title, 'Spells of Unknown Intent or Use'. The lavender unicorn slowly flipped to the respective page in the book, getting an idea of it's layout. As it would seem, the book was set in alphabetical order, giving the name of the spell, a brief sentence or two on the effects and an overview of how to cast it. However, in the chapter that Twilight chose, the descriptions were replaced with an account of where Starswirl the Bearded had discovered the spell. Twilight looked on in disappointment as the chapter was only two pages long, and most of the 'spells of unknown intent or use' were spells that had been discovered later after the great wizard's death.
Frustrated, Twilight was about to turn to the next page when she spotted something else next to one of the unknown spells. As far as she saw, it was the only illustration in the book. The drawing was that of three blades, crossing each other with the hilts equidistant from the next. Starting with the top going clockwise, the pommels were inlaid with a sky-blue sapphire, an orange-red ruby, and a forest-green emerald. Twilight glanced at the illustration once more before turning to the spell the drawing was adjacent to.
"'The Trinity: Discovered in empty tomb, approximately 150 paces North from the castle of the Two Royal Pony Sisters in the Everfree Forest'." Twilight read aloud, thinking back to the same castle in which the Elements of Harmony freed Princess Luna from Nightmare Moon. Her curiosity got the better of her, and she read and re-read the casting instructions. Twilight grimaced, realizing the spell would tax her energy levels in casting it. She looked at the clock on the wall. The librarian decided that, after casting the Trinity and making her observations, she would turn in early that night, as a result of the soon-to-come exhaustion from the spell.
Twilight closed the book and concentrated. Her horn began to glow a bright lavender as she let the flow of magic become entangled with her form. The ground below her became inscribed with the same image that correlated with the spell as she focused all her magic on the mental image of the symbol, impregnating it with power. A few brief moments later it was finished, and the magically exhausted unicorn collapsed, the spell having drained her body's energy. Twilight stood shakily and glanced around the library. It was exactly as she left it a minute ago, with nothing all too extraordinary having appeared or occurred. She took a glance at the mirror, and was disappointed to see that the spell hadn't transfigured her in any way. Dejectedly, Twilight wrote out her rather short observation report and walked slowly up the stairs to her bed.
•••
If Twilight had even thought about the tomb in the Everfree Forest, she would have trekked there and seen the results of her self-imposed lethargy. It would not, however, be what anypony, especially Twilight, would expect.
Within that tomb was a single, round room. The walls were etched with the language of Archaic Equestria, a time before Princess Celestia and Princess Luna first defeated Discord. On the floor of the room, a larger circle surrounded by three other cirles had been magically sculpted out of the black marble floor. Within the larger circle was the image of the Trinity, each hilt of the swords pointing toward one of the smaller circles. In clock wise order, the images in the smaller circles were a cog of cloudstuff, a ball of fire, and a tree with its roots wrapping around a boulder.
As Twilight finalized the spell miles away, the three images glowed fiercely. The painted jewels in the pommels of the three swords were transformed into the gems they represented, each glowing as brightly as their respective circles. Slowly, the glowing gemstones rose and floated out to their circles. As the gems entered the space within the three insignias, the glow of each increased to small suns...
•••
Cloudlight...
He opened his eyes groggily to the darkness at the name that ran through his head. It puzzled him at first. Why would a name be the only thing in his head? Yet as he pondered this, the name’s purpose simply revealed itself. It was his name. Something to identify himself with. This revelation gave him an inexplicable vigor, but increased the slight throbbing in his head.
My name is Cloudlight...
With his newfound strength, Cloudlight pushed himself to his hooves, dragging his body to a sitting position, and stretching his wings. Wait... wings? He turned his head around to find the outline of two white wings in the low light of... wherever he was. I’m a pegasus. Cloudlight didn’t know how he knew the name of his race. It just seemed to come to him, much like his name.
A groaning sound from within the room caused his ears to swivel toward the noise. Turning his head, he found two other ponies in the darkness of the small, circular room. A unicorn and an earth pony.
The unicorn was struggling to sit up as Cloudlight observed him. He was significantly smaller than the average stallion, about a hoof-length and a half shorter than the pegasus. A fiery orange and red mane topped his ashen head. Ruby eyes opened slowly, eventually turning their crimson gaze on Cloudlight. Upon the unicorn’s flanks was the symbol of three swords superimposed upon a ball of fire.
Blaze...
Cloudlight blinked as another name entered his head. Again, he looked at the unicorn, and saw him with a new perception. It was as if this unicorn, who he assumed the name belonged to, was somehow connected to himself. Within the pegasus’ mind, he felt the unicorn’s presence, his consciousness, and his emotions.
Blaze regarded Cloudlight with an analytic stare, making the pegasus curious of the specifics of his own appearance. Again, he turned his darkness-adjusted eyes over his shoulder. He was surprised to find that his wings were superfluously more massive than any definition of normal, spanning half again the length of himself from nose to tail-tip if they were at full-spread. Lifting one of the wings slightly, he found the same triple-sword image on his flanks, crossing over a cloudstuff cog.
“If you’re done looking at yourself, could we please focus for a minute?” Blaze’s voice- or what Cloudlight recognized as Blaze’s voice -nearly made the pegasus cry out. Cloudlight flicked his ears, but the voice was not a physical sound. Instead, he found that Blaze had directly sent the phrase via the connection between their minds.
Curious, Cloudlight focused experimentally on the link. He found the consciousness of the unicorn, but also discovered another, weaker link from the earth pony, who lay momentarily forgotten on the stone floor.
Cloudlight glanced at Blaze, and the pair made their way over to the slumbering pony. ‘Pony’ is an understatement, Cloudlight thought to himself as he looked upon the remaining stallion. He could be mistaken for a small hill! The earth pony had a forest-green coat and a cropped grassy mane and tail. On his flanks, the three swords crossed over a rowan tree, it’s roots strangling a large boulder. But what impressed Cloudlight the most was his sheer size. The stallion’s huge physique could have matched Cloudlight’s wings proportionally. Had he been standing, the green pony would tower over either of the other two stallions, and had a bulky, muscular frame to boot. Yet, as the earth pony stirred and emerald irises were briefly shown, Cloudlight was certain that this stallion was no giant of brute force and rampage.
Rowan...
Blaze and Cloudlight looked at each other as the name floated through their minds. Their link with the earth pony, Rowan, heightened to the same level they had with each other. On sequence with the stronger link, Rowan slowly woke, rising shakily to his full intimidating height. His mind, the other stallions noticed, was a state of wise calm. They both felt they knew him as well as anypony could
Rowan turned his gaze down on the two with soft-spoken eyes. “I would introduce myself, but that’s hardly an issue, I think,” the green pony’s deep voice spoke within their minds.
“This is so... weird,” Cloudlight concluded, probing the mental link. “We didn’t even know what we look like, so why do we remember our names and a general command of language?” No matter how the pegasus tried to look at it, this whole situation could not be explained. It annoyed the white stallion to no end that there was no answer to this strange riddle of their existence.
“Settle down, Cloudlight,” Blaze reprimanded coldly, reading the emotions of the pegasus. “We’re all curious, and getting anxious about it is not going to solve anything.” Cloudlight exhaled slowly, his irritation waning, but still present. The small unicorn nodded and looked between the other two. “Whatever the case, we can’t just sit here in the dark. We need a plan; something to focus our efforts on rather than standing around pondering our spontaneous existence.”
“Agreed,” Rowan replied. For whatever reason, Cloudlight found the earth pony’s mental connection more fluid and clear than Blaze’s. “However, we cannot truly analyze the situation until we know our bearings. My suggestion? Leave this room post-haste.” He pointed his hoof toward a doorless threshold, a shallow stairway ascending up and out of the room.
“I second the motion,” Cloudlight nickered.
Blaze began trotting for the door. “Come on, then. There’s no point in loitering here any more than we have to.”
Cheery little thing, isn’t he? Cloudlight thought to himself, taking care not to relay it across the link.
As the sunlight filtered through the circular windows of Golden Oaks library, it found it’s way across the room to the book Twilight had open on the reading stand. For the two-hundred- seventy-fourth time, her eyes studied the text of the spell with extreme discretion. Then, for the three-hundred fortieth time, she imposed the same studious gaze upon the image of the three swords, the pommels each exactly one-hundred-twenty degrees (two-pi-over-three radians) apart from each other.
Well I couldn’t have just dumped all that energy into nowhere! she grimaced to herself. A spell that powerful has to do something of consequence. And what does this insignia have to do with anything?
Her eyes flicked back to the information about the tomb where the spell was discovered, near the old Everfree Castle ruins. Princess Celestia had warned her against any further study of the castle, as it was more than likely riddled with traces of dark magic or things that should be left forgotten. The latter of the two reasons was vague, and prompted curiosity, but Twilight knew better than to contradict her mentor’s wishes. After all, the castle had been a great battleground in the War of Sun and Moon, and there was no doubt that the ruins held reminders of the deadly conflict.
As she read over the specifics once more, Twilight bit her lip. If Starswirl’s instructions are correct, then the tomb isn’t technically in the castle, Twilight reasoned. The Princess didn’t say anything about being near the castle. Besides, it’s for the sake of research! Closing the book, she made sure Spike was still asleep before quietly packing for her hike through the Everfree Forest.
“I don’t know what I was expecting, but I can tell you one thing...” Cloudlight thought to his companions as they stepped into the open. “It definitely wasn’t this.”
In the soft light of the sunrise, the three stallions stared in disbelief at the spectacle in front of them. A large citadel of a castle rose ominously out of the treeline. Crumbling towers and the skeletons of high stone walls broke the twisted and gnarled trees of the forest two-hundred paces in front of them. Even in it’s shambled state, the structures commanded a grandiose and elegance that seemed impossible. It left the beholders awestruck and speechless.
“Where in the name of Sun and Stars are we?” Cloudlight said, his metaphysical voice breaking the silence between them.
Rowan took a few steps forward. “Whoever built this place was an architectural genius,” the giant pony remarked, marveling at the construction. “A perfect combination of elegance and impregnability.”
“Whoever built this place is also long dead,” reminded Blaze in a cold honesty. The ashen unicorn scraped at the ground impatiently, looking at his two companions. “As marvelous as that glorified fortress is, we still need to decide on a course of action. For as far as we know, we have no food, no idea where we are, and no sense of geographic topography or direction.”
“The castle is directly south of us.” Blaze and Cloudlight looked at Rowan questioningly. The green pony was crouched low to the ground with closed eyes. Across the link, the other two could feel him channeling focus into the earth below. “Magnetic north is the structure we came from, behind us. That, and the sun is rising to our left, which is east.”
“Blaze, it appears we have a living compass in our company,” commented the pegasus.
Rowan stood, a little unsure of himself. When Blaze mentioned direction, he had only wondered which direction north was. Almost immediately, he felt a sort of... connection with the ground below, not unlike the connection he shared with the other two stallions. He had focused on the link, and made an unusual discovery. The ground was giving him information. Beneath his hooves, Rowan sensed the the particles of metal in the soil, and which direction they were polarized.
“While that is impressive, we still have unresolved issues,” Blaze cut in on Rowan’s thoughts. “Issues that need to be resolved sooner than later, if you please.”
“You are such a killjoy.” Cloudlight emphasized by rolling his eyes.
Blaze answered him with a cold stare. While no words were spoken, mentally or otherwise, it was enough for the pegasus to pantomime zipping his mouth shut. “Better. Now, our first priority is shelter, and the castle is the most obvious place. Any other ideas before we move on?”
“I could fly around; scout out the general area,” suggested Cloudlight, fluttering his oversized wings. “That way I can look for any food or water sources. I can even show you what I see through the link, so we can all get a better idea of our surroundings.” As he spoke, the pegasus moved to the center of the clearing and spread his immense white wings to their full span, which was easily longer than two Rowans stacked upon each other.
The two flightless stallions shared a look. “Cloudlight, you woke up in a dark room without even knowing you had wings,” Rowan noted pointedly. “Do you even know how to--”
A blast of air answered Rowan, effectively cutting him off. A single, powerful downstroke of Cloudlight’s massive wings propelled the white pegasus several dozen meters into the air, accelerating to an altitude well above the highest tower of the castle. Cloudlight held his wings horizontal, and began to glide around, hardly even fluttering them to stay aloft. Morning air brushed through his primaries, cooling the hollow shafts of the feathers. Air currents flowed around his aerodynamic form. A light breeze played on his face.
It was bliss. Pure excitement filled his weightless body. This was where he belonged. In the endless sky, the wind embracing him in welcome and the unfiltered sunlight kissing the small of his back between the wings. Freedom; that’s what the sky was to him. No constraints, no cares, no responsibility. Just him and the glorious infinity...
“CLOUDLIGHT!!!”
“AAH!” Cloudlight flinched as Rowan’s voice screamed at him, pounding against his forehead. The earth pony’s mind was powerful; almost impossibly so. His head reeled at the mental concussion that a simple thought had delivered to his head. “Are you TRYING to make me crash?!”
Blaze gave him a glare across the link. “How about this: instead of flying around in circles like an inebriated fool, you pay attention to the task at hoof. We don’t need your fantasies of acrophilia; we need information.”
Cloudlight grumbled to himself, whispering disdain toward his unicorn friend. From his vantage point, the pegasus looked around the open sky. The castle was no less wondrous from above, it’s spires reaching for the clouds that he sailed over. The surrounding area, however, was a less-spectacular forest of twisted trees that spanned for dozens of miles in every direction. Far in the distance, mountains dotted the horizon, along with a large cluster of peaks to the northwest. Anything past the southernmost end of the peaks was shrouded in fog. I hope there isn’t anything we needed over there, he thought to himself.
With a thought, Cloudlight relayed everything he saw to Rowan and Blaze, who had begun moving to the castle. “You want me to stay up here and keep an eye out? We don’t really know what’s out here. There could be perilous things in the woods.”
“You just want to keep flying, don’t you?” retorted Blaze.
“Wow. You know me too well.”
Emerging from the dense fog that shrouded Ponyville, Twilight came face-to face with the Everfree Forest. Looking behind her, she found her hindquarters comically veiled by the wall of condensation. Normally, the fog wouldn’t abruptly end at a boundary like that; the pegasus weather team would have made it thinner at the fringe. But as any citizen of Ponyville would know, the Everfree Forest was not normal. Weather from within the wild climate didn’t behave as it should.
Twilight shuddered at the thought of a lightning storm created from nothing but warmed air colliding with cooler air, and moving on it’s own accord. It was terrifying to think about.
Steeling herself, she faced the dark and twisted treeline. “I can do this,” she assured herself, taking a few slow strides toward the small break in the trees, which held the foliage-strangled path to the Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters. “I can do this.” Her form became enveloped by the shadows of the trees, and she silently wished that she had Pinkie Pie’s boundless happiness to help her through the horrific twisted branches.
“Wait a second... Blaze, did you see this?” Rowan asked, stopping in his tracks where the trees ended, a few meters from the wall, and peered suspiciously at the ground in front of him. The green earth pony kept the linked speech between Blaze and himself, so as not to distract the pegasus above.
The ashen unicorn stopped with him, following the green pony’s gaze downward. “Well, that certainly is disconcerting.”
Four meters from the wall, where the forest had been seemingly removed, there was an odd boundary in the flora. While the forest and undergrowth behind them was mostly greens and browns, the mossy grass between the forest and the castle was colored teal or deep purple, and grew in clumps from a sickly-gray topsoil. Experimentally, Blaze put his hoof across the divide into the discolored ground. It felt cold, like stone, but the sensation of his ashen coat on the plants was strange, and made the hairs on the back of his neck prickle.
There’s something... off about this place, Blaze thought to himself. He brushed his hoof through the plants, trying to make heads or tails of the feeling. Something deep... and very old.
Rowan watched as the unicorn’s hoof moved through the blades. His concerns didn’t match the unicorn’s, but was still wary of the phenomena. Cautiously, he took a few steps into the unusual terrascape. The ground beneath him felt dry and lifeless, but there seemed to be no lasting consequences of touching the plants or soil.
“I think it’s safe,” he said to Blaze. “Unnatural-looking and eerie, but harmless nonetheless.
The ashen unicorn looked at him with his usual expression of impassiveness that Rowan almost interpreted as worry, but couldn’t be sure. Blaze was veiling his emotions. “Look at us,” Blaze scoffed suddenly at himself and Rowan, looking down at the ground condescendingly. “Fearful of obviously diseased plants. Some stallions we are” Narrowing his eyes, he stormed past Rowan toward the wall.
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.
Cloudlight landed with a deep WHOOSH of air as massive wings caught his momentum and lowered him the last few inches to cobblestone ground of the garden courtyard. The unmoving ground felt strange on his hooves after being in the air for nearly an hour. A slight disorientation came over him without the free movement of flight, and his legs felt awkward as he walked. He decided that flying would take precedence over walking any day.
From the ground, the castle seemed to impose its lofty towers on the speck of white below. Not that Cloudlight really cared. Height to a pegasus was less negligible as horizontal distance was to earth ponies; flying ten meters vertically had the same plausibility as walking five on the ground. Vertical distance was a conquerable thing to a winged creature, and thus did not intimidate as it did his earth-bound friends.
The pegasus glanced about the vacant courtyard, lingering for a moment on the tall statue of the moon alicorn before moving on. Two of the four garden sections were on either side of him, bisected by the wide cobblestone path that led to the north gate. The gardens were unkempt, and the plants in them were colored the same odd teal that coated the rest of the plant-life in the castle grounds. It was unnerving, but Cloudlight didn’t mind. What could plants do to him?
”I’m at the gardens, guys,” Cloudlight reported to the other stallions. “Any luck on the food situation?” Another rumble from his stomach reminded the pegasus of how hungry he was.
“No such luck, I’m afraid,” Rowan’s soft baritone voice responded. “We’re searching within what appears to have been a marketing district. All the bakeries and other restaurants are clearly marked with wordless signs, so finding places that had food isn’t hard. The issue is...” There was a pause in Rowan’s dialogue that made Cloudlight anxious.
”The issue is that any food that was left is now piles of ash or other such matter,” Blaze finished. ”Any food that may have survived is gone, too. Probably either rotted away or eaten by pests. Likely the former; I haven’t seen any kind of animal life since we came here.”
Cloudlight groaned. Then again, did I expect any less? he asked himself. ”Alright. Tell me as soon as you find something please? Hunger isn’t exactly pleasant.”
”We noticed.”
Cloudlight chuckled as he put his mental tie to the link into dormancy. While he enjoyed the feeling of having his friends at his side at all times despite the distance between them and himself, he didn’t want to distract them from their task. Food is important, after all.
Silence dominated the courtyard. Only the sound of Cloudlight’s hooves striking the pavement rang throughout the ruins as he trotted closer to the fountain at the center of the citadel. Again, he felt an odd tugging at the corners of his mind, sparked by the figure of the alicorn below the stone moon. Why this one? he pondered again. Why does this specific statue make me feel so... strange? His large wings fluttered irritably at his sides, stirring the dust on the road. Something about being unknowing bothered him, his curiosity as hungry as his body.
Don’t let it get to you, Cloudlight. Just look away, and keep soldiering on, he told himself, steeling his constitution and shaking his head to clear it. The thoughts were still there, but lessened when he broke visual contact with it. I need a distraction, he decided, Something to take my mind off that... statue.
“How could there be NOTHING!?!” Twilight shouted exasperatedly.
The unicorn scholar had found the maze with very little difficulty; just by tracing the discolored grass around the north side of the castle, then following a faint trail north through the forest. It wasn’t long before she came upon the very tomb mentioned in the spellbook. Its construction was definitely consistent with the castle to the south, matching in architecture and style. However, instead of the gray stone masonry of the ruined castle, the tomb was constructed of marble and black slate.
Twilight was curious as to why the tomb’s architect didn’t conform the building material to the larger structure, or why it hadn’t been built closer or within the castle itself. The unicorn searched the surrounding area, but found no evidence of any graves or other burial sites to suggest that the ground had been used normal as a place to lay the deceased to rest. Twilight began to wonder if the tome was even originally intended for that purpose, and if the spellbook’s use of ‘tomb’ was actually correct. She made a note in her field notebook to study the construction’s history, or ask Princess Celestia the next time she saw her.
Then, reminding herself that the subject of study wasn’t the actual tomb, she proceeded through the entrance, casting a simple illumination spell from the tip of her horn, casting a bright lavender light down the slate stairway. She made a mental observation that the tomb was deeper than it initially appeared, possibly intentionally.
At the bottom of the stairwell was a perfectly round room, four meters in diameter and a two-meter-high ceiling. Twilight found that none of the exterior white marble appeared in the room, the walls and ceiling above her constructed from black slate. The floor was the most interesting part; to Twilight, anyway. It appeared to be a solid face of polished black crystal that she could not identify, and hazily reflected the unicorn’s lavender image in the magical light.
But otherwise, the room was completely devoid of features. No sigils or lingual characters, no inscriptions or artifacts... not even a coffin or place where a body would be kept, as would be characteristic of a tomb. The slate wall and ceiling were one seamless piece surrounding the room, and the crystal didn’t even carry any tool marks to suggest it had ever been cut.
“That doesn’t make any sense!” Twilight continued to shout at the dark stone. “The book said that Starswirl found the spell in this tomb, so there should have at least been some kind of writing somewhere!” She levitated the book out of her saddlebags, opening it to the page she had marked. ’Discovered in empty tomb, approximately 150 paces--’ But where!? There isn’t anything in here!
The unicorn scholar growled in frustration. Something was there in Starswirl’s age that allowed him to extract a spell from the tomb that wasn’t there currently. Maybe some kind of spell erased it when Starswirl found it... or it could be something to do with me casting the spell that had been found here. Whatever the reason, Twilight was not going to find it in the tomb, or anywhere else it seemed.
Downcast that her risky venture through the Everfree Forest had rewarded nothing but inconclusive information about the tomb itself, which was insignificant to her research anyway. All she gained from the expedition that the tomb even existed, and remained standing many centuries after Starswirl had encountered it.
Twilight stared dismally at the ground as she left the dark of the tomb and extinguished her horn-light. Perhaps she had her mood to thank for her next discovery, for if she had not been looking at the dirt path beneath her, she would have missed the three sets of hoofprints leading from the tomb.
Huh? Twilight investigated the side-by-side trail of prints, made by ponies that were going toward the castle the castle. They definitely weren’t hers, and no matter how hard Twilight searched, she found no evidence of anypony besides herself having approached the tomb. Why are there a group of hoofprints going from the tomb, but nothing but my own going toward it? Still puzzling over it, the curious unicorn followed the tracks toward the castle, up to the border of teal grass.
Twilight stopped, looking at the three tracks. One of the sets had split off and continued for a few meters before disappearing. So one of them is a pegasus... she deduced. Deciding that following an airborne trail would be next to impossible, even for her pegasus friend, Rainbow Dash, she trailed the other two into the blue grass, feeling a shiver go up her spine as she crossed the border. The two earthbound ponies had trotted up to the wall, then turned east along it, to the north entrance of the ruined citadel.
Losing the trail on what remained of a cobblestone road into the castle, Twilight bit her lip. It was obvious where they went, but the unicorn was unsure if she should follow them, and go through the gates. Princess Celestia had warned her of the dangers, of strange magic and remnant spells from the War of Sun and Moon, and of things that were meant to be forgotten.
If I go in, I’ll be taking a huge risk. Even bigger than going into the Everfree Forest... She looked up at the raised portcullis. On the other hoof, these ponies could know something about the Trinity spell and the tomb.
Twilight groaned. “Forgive me, Princess...”
Cloudlight pushed the massive wooden door ajar. Despite its size, it was surprisingly easy to open. Alright, let’s see what we have here...
It was a large, open room, perfectly elliptical in shape. To Cloudlight’s surprise, he found that the roof of the building had been torn completely off, with no signs of debris within the room itself; the only real significant damage to the entire castle that the pegasus had encountered yet. Around the room were six large pillars that once supported the ceiling, but have since become useless stone obelisks. There must have been a pretty big party here, Cloudlight joked to himself. But I think they took ‘raise the roof’ too literally.
He turned his attention to the center of the room. A statue, not as massive as the one in the courtyard, but large nonetheless, posed in the true center of the room. It’s base was the lower half of a four-sided pyramid, supporting a wide circular base, with a large masonry orb resting atop a marble pedestal. Six marble arms branched out from the pedestal, each ending in a base that Cloudlight suspected once held something, but they, like the roof, were missing.
Cloudlight flapped his wings, hovering up to the large orb. Aside from a generous coating of blue moss, the stone was featureless, and sat on the pedestal with nothing but a small indent and a dab of mortar keeping it from rolling off.
“Hmm...” the white pegasus hummed to himself, then began to smirk maliciously. I’d be an absolute shame... He pushed his hoof closer to the stone. ...if somepony were to push it over...
An enormous amount of noise roused Rowan and Blaze from their scavenging in an alley. The two stallions looked toward the source of the sound- something akin to thunder that was being drawn out over a long stretch of time. Both their jaws fell open.
Across the link, they heard Cloudlight’s panicked voice. ”I didn’t do it I didn’t do it I didn’t do it I didn’t do it!”
Twilight’s jaw dropped. She had barely made it three meters past the gate when she heard the noise. A noise that came from the top room of the palace. The room where she and her friends had found the Elements of Harmony.
The room that was now emitting a deep purple glow from its sundered roof.
As soon as Cloudlight had shoved the stone orb from its perch, it fell to the ground with such force, it shattered the stone tile around it, creating a crater for it to rest in. For a long moment, nothing happened, and Cloudlight snickered to himself at his apparent mischief and rebelliousness. After a few seconds of this, Cloudlight realized that his action had no consequence. Anyone would have cared was long dead.
Well... he sighed to himself. This was rather pointless and unfulfilling.
With a shrug to shake the unfulfillment from his shoulders, Cloudlight floated himself down and trot for the door, wondering if there was a kitchen in this palace where he could find food. Another grumble from his vacant bowels reminded him yet again how hungry he was. Yeah, yeah. I hear you, he silently berated his stomach. Yet the rumbling noise continued, and even began to increase in volume. Cloudlight stopped and flicked his ears. The noise was still there, but his stomach had ceased growling. If that isn’t me, then what...?
The white pegasus turned around slowly. The stone orb he had pushed over was shaking and bouncing in its crater, vibrating rapidly and making a clamorous rumbling. As Cloudlight watched, the intensity of the shaking and the volume of the noise increased, threatening to throw the stone from the indent in the floor. Around the orb, shadows seemed to collect into an amorphous mass, but did not hinder the visibility of the orb itself.
Following his better judgement, Cloudlight began a hasty backward trot for the door. Whatever he had started in his innocent vandalism, he didn’t want to be around to see the result. When it seemed the shadowy stone was about to fling itself from the depression, he turned and made a full gallop for the door.
Cloudlight was just about to exit to apparent safety, when suddenly, everything stopped. Blinking in confusion, he turned around to see the stone had ceased all movement. Even the shadows had disappeared. It sat where it was, still in embedded in the floor. “Whew...” gasped Cloudlight with relief as he smiled. That could have ended much more worse.
crack...
Cloudlight flicked his ear at the small sound. His face fell. Uh oh.
CRACKA-BOOM!!!
With a concussive blast of sound, the stone orb shattered in its crater. While the shrapnel only carried a few meters from the site, the noise it made was equivalent to something that would have leveled the palace. Cloudlight ducked and covered his head with his large wings, even though there was no roof to collapse on him. His ears folded back, the sound of continuous thunder blasting away at his eardrums, rattling his spine.
Cautiously, Cloudlight peeked out from beneath his wings. Several feet above where the stone had exploded hovered a point of intense deep purple light that stained his pure white coat and feathers. Around the innermost corona of the light, Cloudlight could make out the same shadows that had enshrouded the orb.
The light very wrong to Cloudlight, and very bad. Almost malevolent in nature. What have I done? He lamented as he crawled backwards through the open door and out of the room. Blaze is going to kill me...
“I am going to kill him.” The temperature around Blaze seemed to escalate with his frustration
Rowan raised an eyebrow at the diminutive unicorn. “Seems a tad dramatic, don’t you think?” The earth pony made his way out of the alley, leading the pair back to the main road of the citadel. Above them, the raging thunder from Cloudlight’s mishap continued. ”Besides, it might not be as bad as it seems. You shouldn’t be so hard on him.”
”And if he gets us killed?” Blaze challenged.
The giant earth pony considered this. ”Then you can berate him in Elysium.”
”Fair enough.”
Making their way back to the main road, the two ponies kept silent as they made their way closer to the sound as quickly as possible without running. Cloudlight hadn’t spoken to them since his panicked cry earlier, which either meant he was too busy, too scared, or too… dead, to communicate. Rowan shook his head. No, I can definitely still feel his mind. He’s alive. He took a moment as he ran alongside Blaze to probe the mental link with Cloudlight. Alive. Very scared and panicked, but alive.
The two continued until they reached the courtyard. By the time they reached the center, they could see a very clear corona of sickly purple light glowing from the top of the palace. The noise was still very loud and there was no sign of stopping, but the condition seemed to be steady, not increasing or decreasing any more than it had began.
Blaze couldn’t make heads or tails of the light. It made him feel strange and alert, as if it was intentionally causing him to be anxious. There was magic in it, obviously, and a lot of it, but no spell structure the unicorn was familiar with. Of course, no one would just put a spell that conspicuous on just anything. What purpose did it serve, Blaze pondered, and why were the theatrics necessary?
”Blaze,” Rowan’s interjection drew the unicorn out of his private thoughts. ”Somepony just went into the palace.”
”What!?” Blaze eyed the entrance just in time to see one of the two great doors close. ”Are you sure it wasn’t Cloudlight?”
Rowan shook his head. ”I can sense Cloudlight’s mind three stories above the ground floor,” he replied. ”Her mind is different, and there’s no connection between us and her that we share with Cloudlight. I can’t even sense it anymore; she’s too far away.” A few seconds passed as Blaze just stared at the earth pony. ”You look confused.”
”You can sense Cloudlight and that other pony, tell where they are, and discern their gender with a passing glance?”
Rowan blinked. ”...you can’t?”
There were a few additional seconds of silence between the two of them, only broken by the constant thundering above. ”We should get going,” Blaze finally said. ”Let’s get Cloudlight out of there before he sends the whole place crashing down.”
Twilight trotted up the stairs carefully, her initial panic at the strange noise long settled. She still felt uneasy when she heard it; an unnatural thundering from above. Even this close to the source of the commotion, and even with her extensive knowledge of magic, the unicorn had no clue what kind of spell would have an aftereffect this violent. Whatever the spell was doing, the resulting reaction was generating a lot of excess energy in the form of sound and light.
More importantly, she wondered why it was still continuing. Normally, the excess energy of any spell would fade very quickly... often instantaneously. But for the past few minutes, it seemed to Twilight that the spell had peaked and remained constant, which was extremely unusual.
Her mind flicked back to Princess Celestia’s ominous warning of magical traps that had survived from the War of Sun and Moon. Perhaps one of the three ponies she had followed into the castle had set it off. Perhaps, her logical mind reasoned, the unusual behavior of the spell is a result of centuries of arcane exposure, introducing stray bits of random magic into the spell’s matrix and causing an abnormal effect.
The scholar allowed herself a small smile. Magic rust, she mused. I should bounce that theory off Princess Celestia. She would enjoy that. SHe stepped off the stairway onto a landing, continuing to move forward up the-
WHAM! “OOF!”
“EEP!” Twilight jumped back in startled surprise as a large, pure white object slammed onto the landing, mere inches in front of her face. Instinctively, she leaped behind a pillar to conceal herself from the potential threat. The unicorn huffed and puffed, her heart racing as blood rushed to her head, carrying adrenalin to her synapses. Through one of nature’s earliest instincts, there were now only two things on Twilight’s mind: Fight or flight?
“OOF!” Cloudlight grunted as he hit the landing. In his haste in fleeing the strange lights and sounds of whatever he had set off, he had rushed a little too quickly down the stairs, and had little time to slow himself before slamming into the landing. Well that was less than graceful... he grumbled to himself.
Suddenly, his ears perked up, swiveling on his head. for a second, Cloudlight though he might have heard a small squeaking noise, then a soft scuffling sound on the stones. Probably just a rat... he shrugged, getting up and shaking his wings out, preparing to take flight again. Now to get out of here before something else happens to--
Before he could finish his thought, Cloudlight found himself scooped up off the ground by some unknown force and carried into the empty space in the middle of the spiralling stairwell, where the ground floor lay two stories below. “AAH!” he screamed, trying to move and escape, but Cloudlight found that his limbs, wings included, were restrained against his upside-down body. “What in the name of the Sun and Moon is happening!?”
“Maybe you could tell me that!”
Cloudlight blinked in confusion as he followed the voice to the landing where he had crashed. On it stood a lavender unicorn mare, glaring at him through purple eyes. The pegasus’s brain raced, trying to compute what his eyes were telling it.
“Guys?” he finally relayed across the link to Rowan and Blaze. “There’s a... mare.”
“...Come again?” Blaze asked, a little surprised.
Rowan however, simply let out a confirmatory vibe. “We saw her go into the castle when the noise started,” the earth pony reported. “What is she doing?”
Cloudlight glanced around, taking in the situation. “She’s got me restrained and hanging from my tail above a twenty-foot drop.”
There was a pause in the link. “My my, isn’t that going a little quick?” Rowan chuckled, much to Blaze’s unamusement.
“HEY!” Twilight shouted at the stallion above the ever-present thundering, trying to get his attention again. She wasn’t sure what to make of the odd white stallion. Even after she had threatened him and practically shouted in his face, he simply hung there, staring at her for a moment, then began looking around at his surroundings like a distracted colt in a lecture hall. “I asked you a question!”
When the stallion’s eyes snapped back to her, he gave a look that was more of confusion than shock. After a moment of further staring, he began to struggle against her binding spell again. “So... you’re going to try to scare a winged pony into submission by hanging them over a drop?” he asked curiously. “Not a very thought-out plan.”
Twilight simply glared. “That’s why I’m keeping you bound. It would be hard to fly without your wings.”
“Try me,” the mare answered, briefly releasing the levitation spell. Cloudlight cried out in fright as he plummeted a few meters, only to be snagged up again by the unicorn’s magical field. “Now, who the hay are you and what’s that weird light up there?”
“You scream like a filly.” Cloudlight was too panicked at that moment to make out who had made this comment, but made a note to find out.
“I swear, it was not me!” the pegasus claimed, wriggling in his bonds. “I mean... I didn’t mean to do it, at least! I just couldn’t help myself! How was I supposed to know that orb-thing would break so easily!? I’m a victim of curious ignorance!”
The mare blinked at the stallion. “Orb-thing?”
“A big stone thing on top of another big stone thing!” Cloudlight tried to clarify with little success. “I don’t know what it is! Now let me go!”
Twilight gave another look at the stallion. In her body, the levels of adrenaline fueling her rampant interrogation were slowly dying away, letting sense creep back into her brain. There was really no point in tormenting this stallion aside from getting what information she needed in a timely manner without risking hostilities from him. In fact, it would have been faster if I hadn’t done this... she thought bashfully. Stupid, dumb Twilight... you overreacted again!
Manipulating the magic field around the stallion, Twilight brought the stallion over to the landing and released him from her grasp. Unfortunately for the pegasus, she had forgotten to turn him upright, causing him to crash to the ground head-first. “Ow...” he muttered, rolling over and rubbing his head. “I understand you are absolutely mad, but was that really necessary?”
“Oops,” said Twilight with an embarrassed laugh. “Sorry. I tend to be a little jumpy in tense--”
That was when Twilight got her first good look at his gigantic wings. Her jaw dropped at the sheer enormity of the feathered appendages as the stallion stretched, the wings unfolding to their full length. At first, she simply denied that a pony of any proportions could even come close to their size, much less the shorter-than-average pegasus before her. Then, as reality came back to her, Twilight’s mind began to become curious about the odd stallion.
“...Tense...?” the pegasus prompted.
“Situations,” Twilight finished, tearing her gaze away from the huge white wings. “I’m Twilight, by the way. Twilight Sparkle.”
“Cloudlight,” the stallion grumbled. A sudden spike in the thundering noise caused them both to look up and remember the presence of the terrible commotion. “Well, that’s my cue!” Cloudlight spread his wings and leaped toward the stairs leading down the spiral.
...only to have his tail snagged by Twilight’s magical grasp. “OOF!” he grunted as his face hit the ground for the third time in the span of a few minutes. This mare is trying to kill me!
“Not so fast, Cloudlight,” Twilight stated, giving him a smirk. “You caused this mess, so you’re going to come with me and figure out what it is and stop it.”
Yes, Cloudlight thought morosely. Definitely trying to kill me.
“This is a bad idea,” Cloudlight warily remarked to Twilight above the thundering clamor in the room beyond. Since their altercation only moments before, the pair had ascended the stairway up to the top, where the noise and light continued. The stallion tried to flee only once before he was caught again in Twilight’s magic, an experience he decided was not worth repeating.
“Where the hay are you guys!?” he reprimanded Blaze and Rowan.
“Waiting on the first floor,” Rowan replied calmly.
Cloudlight blinked in confusion. “So you aren’t coming to help me?”
“As psychotic as this mare is, Cloudlight, she does have a point: you do have some responsibility for... whatever it is that’s happening up there,” Blaze offered in Rowan’s defense. “Besides, better one of us perish than all three, right?”
With a roll of his eyes, the pegasus sent a vibe of annoyance at the unicorn and earth pony. “Or both of you are too frightened.”
There was an instant of silence in the link. “We’ll think of something,” Blaze said. “Just go along with her for now, and we will be there presently.”
Twilight glanced back at the stallion, who to her had suddenly fallen to complete silence despite constantly groaning about going back into the room. “Are you coming, or are you going to try to fly away again?”
“Both,” Cloudlight said with a sly smile.
“Well hurry up with either,” she snapped, rolling her eyes. “Honestly, it’s like talking to a foal.”
Cloudlight frowned, approaching the door with the unicorn. “That’s hurtful.”
“You don’t do much to redeem yourself,” Twilight pointed out. Carefully, she took the rusted handles of the door in her telekinesis. Biting her lip, Twilight began to have second thoughts about entering the room. Beyond the oak of the door, the thundering noise continued, and the eerie purple light filtered through the seams in the wood.
“Well go on,” Cloudlight ugred. “You’re the one with the deathwish.”
“Says the one who caused an unstable magical phenomenon out of idiotic curiosity,” Twilight retorted, glaring at the stallion. “I should be making you open it.”
“Yeah, well, I have respect for the value of my life, something you seem to lack in its entirety,” the pegasus grumbled back, though he made a cautious step away to betray his fear of her. “What are you waiting for, madmare? Open the door.”
With a resorting sigh, Twilight nodded and steeled herself. Taking in an anxious breath, she hesitated a moment more. Then, taking the handles of the large door in her magical grasp, the tense unicorn exhaled. Here goes nothing... In the same manner somepony might remove a bandage, she threw the doors open. A blast of noise and light struck her.
The sudden movement startled Cloudlight, who immediately hid behind the threshold. Looking over, he noted Twilight had done the same instead of entering the room. So much for a deathwish, Cloudlight chuckled to himself.
Twilight took another breath in and out, trying to settle her nerves. “Hey,” she barked over the noise at Cloudlight. “Take a peek in and tell me what you see.”
“Aha! Yeah, right,” Cloudlight scoffed. “Like that’s about to happen.”
“You’re the only one who witnessed the event at its point of inception. In order to determine the escalation of the event and if it’s safe to observe closely, I need you to make an accurate comparison of the initial magnitude of the phenomenon to its present magnitude,” ordered Twilight with a commanding glare. “Plus, you caused it, so it’s your responsibility.”
Cloudlight groaned. “Fine.” The pegasus hesitated, taking a few breaths. “Here goes...nothing...” As quick as he could, Cloudlight peeked around the threshold, gave everything a quick once-over, then ducked back behind the wall. There was a very panicked look in his eyes, and Twilight could almost swear she heard him whimpering.
“Well?” the mare prompted. “What’s it like?”
“Still bucking big and still bucking scary!” Cloudlight yelled back in exasperation. “What do you want from me, an essay!?”
That would be nice, Twilight admitted to herself. “I mean how much worse has it gotten?”
Giving her a flat stare, Cloudlight blinked at the unicorn. “I just told you! It’s just as terrifying as the first time!”
Twilight stared back at the pegasus for a bit, analyzing what he just told her with what she knew already. Slowly, she began to piece together a situational analysis of the event, building a conclusion on the safety of the phenomenon environment. “Okay,” she stated calmly, emerging from her place of hiding to stride casually into the room.
Cloudlight was dumbfounded. Is she insane!? When she didn’t exit the room after a few moments, Cloudlight nodded to himself. Well, the crazy mare just killed herself. May you find peace from your addled mind, Lady Sparkle. That’s my cue to meet up with Blaze and Rowan to get out of this damned pla--
“Are you coming or not?”
“AAH!” Cloudlight jumped as the unicorn suddenly appeared from beyond the threshold, perfectly alive and looking at him quizzically. “How did--!? How are you--!? You’re not--!”
“It’s perfectly safe,” Twilight chirped with a smile. “Come on. I need a second opinion.”
“But but but--...” stammered the pegasus as the lavender pony reentered the room. After a few blinks in confusion, the pegasus sighed and followed after her. This can’t end well.
Just like the last time he had been in this room, there was the crater that once held the stone orb and, above it, the frighteningly malignant and thunderous sight of the purple light, the shadows dancing along the corona. Twilight sat a good distance away, peering at the anomaly with a studious look. With a wary pace, Cloudlight fell in behind her. “So, Ms. Crazy-Know-it-All, what in Tartarus is it?”
“I have no idea,” the unicorn answered, chewing on her lip thoughtfully. “It’s not giving off any kind of harmful magic that I can tell, so it’s not a trap of any description, so that rules out my theory about it being a protective measure for the Ele--whatever was kept here.”
“Something was kept here?” Cloudlight asked.
Twilight looked back at him and hesitated. The less he knows, the better. I’m still not sure if he’s just a looter attracted by the castle’s history. “If the large stone pedestal and the general location of the room is any indication, yes,” she lied. “Anyway, it’s still a mystery.” The unicorn tilted her head at Cloudlight. “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about magic, would you? A second educated opinion would be much appreciated.”
“Um...” That’s a good question, actually... he thought. Cloudlight couldn’t remember if he had any education, much less in magic. He quickly sifted through his bank of knowledge, trying to collect his overall understanding of magic or anything related. When he found nothing more than ‘unicorns use it to do stuff’ and ‘glowy energy,’ he shrugged. “I don’t really--” the pegasus began, but then paused as he had a thought. “Actually, I think I might know a thing or two.”
As Twilight gave him a skeptical look, Cloudlight reached out into the mental link to Rowan and Blaze. “Blaze, I’m gonna need some help with something,” he relayed quickly. “How much do you know about magic?”
“I’m not wholly sure,” the ashen unicorn responded. “What for?”
“Standby. I’m going to pass on a few observations of mine. I need your best input.” Cloudlight wasn’t entirely sure if his idea was going to work, but it was worth a shot.
“Oh really?” said Twilight doubtfully. She didn’t mark the somewhat-lackwit stallion as a pony of magical knowledge, especially given that he was a pegasus. “Just as a test, what’s the basic formula for magical energy needed to translocate an object?”
Cloudlight was silent for a few moments. “One-half the distance traveled times the square of the object’s aural mass.”
Twilight blinked in surprise. Auras are a bit of an older concept, although... “Well, I guess you can be of use after all. So what’s your initial hypothesis on this anomaly.”
Turning to face the thundering purple light, there was an even greater pause as he stared at it. He grimaced a few times for some unseen reason, but eventually nodded. “Maybe...judging by the...uh...consistency of the after-effect’s volatility, its...um...mana-pressure is mostly balanced.”
“Very educated conclusion, but...” Twilight bit her lip as she analyzed the stallion’s words. “Mana hasn’t been used a reference unit in over fifteen hundred years. I mean, I can always convert to thaums in my head, but whoever taught you what you know is far outdated.” Maybe that’s why he’s using the mana system instead of the modern adaptation.”
“Or is older than he looks,” frowned Cloudlight. “Why are you using ancient units again, Blaze?”
“I don’t have a sodding clue what a ‘thaum’ is,” Blaze barked back. “We’ll worry about my overdue magic knowledge later, when time and circumstances permit.”
“A lot about us doesn’t make sense,” stated Rowan.
“Anything else?” Twilight prompted, starting to drift into her own thoughts as Cloudlight’s input became less helpful.
“No, I...” Cloudlight looked at the terrifying anomaly again. Somehow, it looked...different this time. The pegasus blinked, shook his head, and looked again. No, there was something definitely changed about it. It’s like... he thought, squinting at the center of the light. ...like some kind of...piece...a part of something bigger...
Suddenly, he began to see more even pieces in his mind’s eye: the shattered fragments of the stone orb, the pedestal in the room, the castle as a whole, and finally, his own hoof. They floated around in his head as concepts; ideas of the objects that represented their significance. Gradually--though no more than a second had passed--the pieces slid neatly into their places of a complete whole, a string of concepts of things that had a cause and effect. In that moment, Cloudlight saw the entire finished puzzle in his head. It felt so obvious to him now... He had worked out the solution.
What if the huge light and noise aren’t an after-effect? He asked himself. What if...the purpose of the spell is exactly that? To make a lot of noise and noticeable sights?
In a eureka moment, Cloudlight’s sky-blue eyes became wide with revelation. “It’s an alarm!”
“Say what now?” Twilight asked.
“Say what now?” Blaze and Rowan asked, hearing his exclamation through the link.
“The whole purpose of the thing is to alert ponies to a threat to the important objects you talked about, like, say, if somepony accidentally knocked the big stone thing over. This noise and light is visible all across the castle, so somepony would be sure to investigate and make sure the objects are safe. Why it’s so creepy is beyond me, but it definitely caught our attention, huh?”
“Thanks,” Cloudlight responded. Then something occurred to him. “Hey, where are you guys? I thought you were coming to get me.”
Blaze hummed in amusement. “You’re as brilliant as you are gullible.”
“Yes, yes...” Twilight nodded, taking in Cloudlight’s words. “That...makes sense. If it was some kind of trap, it would run the risk of damaging the artifacts because of the unreliability of autonomous thaumic focusing systems.”
“Unless the magic trap was adjusted to focus on biological arcanum, rather than this ‘thaum’ unit she--”
“Blaze, you can stop now,” Cloudlight urged. “You’re giving me a headache.”
For a few moments, Twilight and Cloudlight stared at the anomaly. Despite their newfound knowledge, the noise and light continued to rage on unabated. “Now the only question is how do we stop it?” Twilight wondered out loud with a frown
“You’re kidding, right?” Cloudlight asked, a little disbelieving. “I thought you were a magical expert.”
“I am, yes, but to find out how to terminate the spell’s process, I’d need to know how the spell is built,” Twilight stated. “If we had the scroll or book the spell was written in, it would be no problem at all. Perhaps if I could perform a thorough examination of the spell’s ongoing matrix, I could find the termination system and--”
“Stand away!”
The unicorn and pegasus, wrapped in their thoughts, barely had two seconds to react to the sudden bark of command. When they did process the order, the two ponies dodged to opposite sides, scarcely escaping a speeding projectile, wreathed in a head-sized orb of orange-and-white flames, that flew between them toward the magical alarm’s epicenter. Upon making impact with the thundering singularity, the fireball detonated, consuming a small area of the room in billowing fire and bathing Cloudlight and Twilight in heat. When the explosion subsided, nothing remained but a patch of scorched cobblestone. The alarm spell was nowhere to be seen or heard.
“Well...” Blaze purred with the barest hint of a triumphant smile on his face and a trail of gray smoke guiltily rising off the tip of his horn. “Obstructing the manaflow of the spell with another form of energy, say, an explosion, exhausts the matrix’s aura, thus cancelling the effect,” the deminuative unicorn said dryly, turning his ruby eyes toward Twilight. “What can your ‘thaum’ do, hmm?”
“Blaze,” Rowan’s boisterous mind scolded. “There is no need to be impolite.”
Twilight simply stared, wide-eyed, at the newly-arrived unicorn. The unicorn scholar had never seen magic used in such a way. It was mind-boggling for her. Igniting something flammable with magic is one thing, Twilight thought, but creating fire from nothing to use as a projectile should be impossible! To date, only dragons have been able to control fire, but never on that sort of level! Just as Twilight was about to recover and launch a series of questions at the stallion, she caught a glimpse of something else. What is...?
Cloudlight, on the other hoof, was less than awestruck at the ashen unicorn’s spectacle. “What in Tartarus was that!?” the pegasus growled, flaring his massive wings in anger. The great white appendages made him look several times larger. In the room, a small breeze picked up, stirring the dust from the floor. “You nearly killed us, you lunatic!”
“But I didn’t,” Blaze pointed out calmly across the mental link, unfazed by Cloudlight’s threatening stance despite his smaller body. “Besides, I gave you a warning, did I not?”
“You call that a warning!? You barely gave us any time at all!” retorted the fuming pegasu, this time across the link as well. “Rowan, back me up here!”
“That’s why I’m down here,” the massive green pony said. “I would not have any part of this interruptive idea of his.”
“See? You’re the only one who thinks that was a good idea.” Cloudlight gave a victorious smirk.
Blaze shook his head. “A majority does not mean you are correct,” he retaliated. “If three of four ponies said turtles could fly, would that make them any less of fools?”
“Hey, who are you calling a--?”
“Who are you?” At the sound of the vocal question, the two arguing stallions turned to look at Twilight. The lavender mare was glancing between them, paying special attention to their flanks, now that Cloudlight’s was no longer hidden by his wings and Blaze was now generally present. “Why...what is that symbol on your cutie marks?” Her purple eyes met theirs, heavy with surprise. “Why do you both have the mark of the Trinity?”
“None of this makes any sense,” Cloudlight growled. The pegasus paced back and forth across the ancient palace room, a scowl on his face and his sapphire eyes narrowed in fierce pondering. Just as with the magical alarm, everything Twilight had said was recreated as fragments, waiting to be fit together into a whole understanding. However, there was simply not enough pieces. There were too many holes and not enough information to solve the conundrum. It irritated Cloudlight immensely, as if the missing pieces were jeering at his incompetence. “Why!? Just...” He let out a frustrated growl. “Why in the names of Sun and Stars would there be a spell simply to, what, create us from midair? What’s the purpose to us? What’s the motive!?”
“Cloudlight, calm yourself,” Rowan urged. “We are all perplexed by this. Being worked up is not going to help matters.” After the ordeal with the alarm, he had joined the group at the top of the palace to hear Twilight’s explanation as well. While he had been fascinated by the information, he remained silent for the bulk of it, watching Twilight’s eyes. For some odd reason, he felt as if he knew that she was telling the truth just by peering through her pupils and into her mind.
“Well I can’t help it!” exclaimed Cloudlight. “Do you realize how much these empty gaps are going to itch?”
Rowan blinked at Cloudlight’s word choice. “Beg pardo--?”
“It’s better than nothing,” Blaze abruptly interrupted. “There’s a lot we still don’t know, but at least we know what caused our awakening.” The diminutive unicorn looked to Twilight. He found it mildly annoying that even she stood half a hoof taller than him.
Twilight shook her head. “Still, Cloudlight has a point...” she sighed, looking down at Starswirl’s spellbook, open to the page with the offending spell on it. The three swords glared back at her. “Whoever made this spell, however many centuries ago, must have had some kind of purpose behind it. What I don’t understand is how simple the spell actually is to have caused you three to appear. It would take a much more complex matrix and an immeasurable amount of magic to create ponies from nothing. I doubt even Princess Celestia or even Discord could manage something like that.”
“You lost me at ‘complex,’” Cloudlight deadpanned.
“Really?” Twilight questioned. “With what you showed of your understanding of magic, that would have been a synch.”
“You had to open your mouth, huh?” Blaze sighed to Cloudlight across the link. “If I may, Twilight,” the unicorn stallion spoke aloud, “perhaps the spell was not a conjuration, but a reversal intricacy matrix for a banishment spell.”
“What?” Rowan and Coudlight looked at Blaze, confused looks on their faces.
“A banishment spell?” Twilight asked. “Cast on...the three of you?”
“The mana requirement for such a spell would be next to insignificant, as it would function much like a simple key to a banishment cage, such as the floor of the tomb,” continued the ashen pony. “It may be that the three of us were sealed there for some reason or another.”
Cloudlight shook his head. “No, hold on. Why would we be need to be banished?”
“We don’t remember who we were or what we did,” Blaze pointed out. “Maybe we were once criminals in some past life.”
“But why would you put the key-spell to unlocking a banishment on the actual banishment site? While it is a plausible theory, it would mean your jailors were not very sensible,” Twilight argued. He said mana...just like Cloudlight. Usage of ancient magic units.
“It also does not explain our telepathy with each other,” Rowan also observed, though silently. They had agreed to keep the Link a secret from Twilight, at least for now, on Blaze’s insistence that the unknown unicorn was still not deserving of complete trust. For now, the unicorn simply nodded subtlely up at Rowan in response.
Suddenly, a monstrous growl rumbled through the room, startling them all. Twilight glanced around frantically, wondering if they had accidentally triggered another magical alarm or something of more malignant nature. When another growl followed, her ears swiveled on her head to triangulate the source of the noise.
“...I sincerely apologize for that,” Rowan said with an ashamed blush, rubbing at his noisy stomach. “We still have not found anything to eat.”
On cue, another quieter rumble came from Cloudlight’s midsection. “Ugh, don’t remind me,” the pegasus grumbled. “All this flying, panicking, and pondering is making me ravenous.”
That was also when Twilight realized she was feeling a little peckish herself. All she had eaten for breakfast had been a sandwich and a few granola bars before venturing into the Everfree Forest. “Um...maybe we can take a break for now and head back to my place,” she suggested. “It’s getting late anyway, and I don’t want to be in this forest after dark.”
“Why?” Cloudlight asked. “What’s so bad about it?”
“Let’s just say that manticores would be the least of our worries after sunset.”
All three stallions stared blankly at her. Cloudlight scratched his head with the joint of his wing in puzzlement. “What the Sun and Stars is a manticore?”
“...and though chimaera are a relatively new family of magical creatures, there are veiled references of other specimens as the result of experiments with forbidden magics dating back to before the era of Discord’s--”
“Okay! Enough! You answered the question already!” Cloudlight exclaimed. “I did not ask for an entire damned lecture on freakish patchwork animals!”
Rowan sent a mental reprimand toward Cloudlight in the form of a mild headache. “There is no need for such vulgarity.”
“Ow! You know, someday I’m going to figure out how to do that too, and you’ll regret it.”
Blaze simply allowed himself a private smile of amusement at Cloudlight’s discomfort as he looked at the castle ruins around them. Twilight’s lengthy and detailed explanation of a manticore had lasted the entire walk down to the palace’s ground floor and out into the courtyard. Since their ordeal with the alarm spell, the unicorn found the crumbling city to be much less threatening than it once had been. Less of a trap-ridden mystery, it had become more of an echo of a past long ago disrupted.
“Hey, Twilight?” Cloudlight inquired suddenly. A pensive look on his face, Cloudlight had stopped and was staring up at the large statue of the two alicorns in the center of the courtyard. Across the Link, Blaze could feel something stirring in the cloudy-white pegasus head. “This...might be an odd question, but do you know who these ponies are?”
“Hmm?” Twilight turned to glance at the stallion, then followed his gaze to the two majestic alicorns. “I’m a little surprised that you don’t know this, but then again, we don’t know the extent of your current memories...or lack thereof,” she answered. “That’s Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, the immortal diarchs of Equestria. They have ruled for several centuries, since the establishment of--”
“Luna...” interrupted Cloudlight. “I...I think I know that name...” As he dwelt on the name, Cloudlight’s sapphire eyes became glazed and distant, as if focusing on something very far off. “Luna,” he breathed again. “I recognize--no... I remember that name.”
Suddenly, Cloudlight found himself plunged into a torrent of color and light, something coming alive in the depths of his mind.
“We have a...dilemma we wish to discuss with you, our friend.”
Cloudlight was taken aback by Luna’s sudden request. Nervously, he glanced around the extravagantly-decorated office. Outside the balcony, the trade district of Everfree Castle stretched out beneath, bustling with the activity of commerce and merchandising that came from being the capital of such a prosperous nation as Equestria. “I... I am always at your disposal, Princess,” Cloudlight stammered. “What would you ask of a humble Angel such as me?”
“Please, Cloudlight, do not think that we are so above thee that formalities may overtake our long companionship,” the midnight alicorn urged the pegasus with an amiable smile. “Princess we may be, but you remain our equal, if not in rank then in fellowship.”
“My apologies then, Luna,” Cloudlight replied with a smile, if still a little nervous. “A dilemma, you say?”
Luna nodded thoughtfully. “Many times thy talent for understanding has advised our rule well, and we call upon it again now,” she informed, then took a moment’s pause to sip her tea. As he watched, Cloudlight realized that the Lunar Princess looked very troubled. Her astral mane waved less fluidly than usual, and her expression looked slightly somber. “But this is not a matter of state, more of a personal request for the council of a trusted friend.”
“Of course,” Cloudlight said with a sympathetic nod. “What dilemma does weigh upon your mind, Luna?”
“One of belief, our friend,” Luna said, turning to look outside at the city. Sunset had fallen, bathing the spires of Everfree in a warm, orange glow. Below, the citizens were beginning their daily routine of gradually packing in their things, preparing to retreat into their homes as night began to fall. “Tell us, Cloudlight, what is the worth of one’s beliefs?”
“I...” Cloudlight began, a little puzzled by the question. “Perhaps this would be a better question for your sister? Princess Celestia is quite wise and--”
“No,” Luna insisted sharply. “For all her wisdom, she might misunderstand our phrasing. If you would please, the question.”
“Well, I suppose it has to do with how much worth you put in these beliefs,” the pegasus answered. “In my personal opinion, Luna, if you feel what you believe in is worth the effort of defending and standing up for, then perhaps that is what would best satisfy your heart. ‘Better to regret your misguidance than your inaction,’ my father always did say. A wise stallion, my father was.”
Luna took this in, silently contemplating this. “So you think that fighting for what you believe is right is the best course of action?” she asked.
“If that is how you want to put it, I suppose that is the essence. There is no greater cause than what you love or believe.”
“What if standing for what you believed was the most drastic of actions?” asked the alicorn, sounding somewhat desperate. “If doing so was to disregard the laws of our nation? To face those you oppose you, even if they were those you loved?”
Cloudlight was stunned by this series of questions. Suddenly, the pegasus found himself in the rare position of being the deciding factor in an inner turmoil with one of the most powerful ponies alive. His answer now could completely alter the way Luna ran her charge of the nation, forever shaping a new path for Equestria. So he took his time, dwelling over the question to form the answer that he believed was best for the sake of the state and its Princess. After all, what did this conversation mean if he did not respond with what he truly believed in?
“Then you would need to make a choice, my friend,” he finally answered. “To stand by, and watch as things remain unchanged; or to stand up, and change the world for what you believe is best.”
After another pensive silence and another sip of tea, Luna nodded. She looked surprisingly calm despite the depth of the discussion. “Many thanks, our dear friend,” she replied, smiling at the white pegasus. “You have lifted an inner burden from our shoulder. Our path is clear now.” The Princess waved a wing toward the door. “That is all for now; it is time for us to raise the moon. We wish you goodnight.”
With a smile at the improved mood of his friend, Cloudlight gave a small bow and turned to exit. “Same to you. I await our next visit.”
As he left, he heard Luna whisper after him: “It may perhaps be sooner than you think.”
As he resurfaced from the memory, Cloudlight gasped and nearly fell over. His legs felt shaky and unstable, still reeling from the sudden jerk back into the waking world. In trying to recover, the pegasus flared his wings out a bit to balance himself, only to accidentally throw himself to the other side. Had Twilight not been there to catch him in her telekinesis, Cloudlight’s face would have met harsh cobblestone.
“Whoa! Easy!” the lavender mare exclaimed, setting him upright.
“Grf...thanks, Twilight,” the pegasus grunted, finding steady purchase on the stony ground. He looked around, still disoriented and confused, and saw Blaze and Rowan blinking and shaking their heads, as if to clear their heads. Whatever Cloudlight had just experienced, they must have as well to a lesser extent. Across the Link, he could sense their puzzling over the scene.
“What in Celestia’s name just happened to you!?” Twilight exclaimed, looking a little frightened. “You just went rigid and your pupils glazed over for a few seconds! Were you having some kind of fit? A seizure?”
Shaking the last of the haze from his startled mind, Cloudlight glanced at the unicorn, then looked back up at the statue of Princess Luna. “I...” As he pondered over what he had seen, his eyes grew wide with realization. “I remember! I remember her!” Cloudlight exclaimed excitedly, a smile crossing his face. With a joyous cry, he pranced over to Rowand and Blaze, hopping up and down energetically. “Guys, I remembered something! I remember!”
“Yes, yes,” grumbled Blaze. “We heard.” Rowan simply gave the euphoric stallion a congratulatory smile.
“That’s exciting isn’t it!?” Cloudlight asked, still bouncing. “It means we’re not just meaningless entities! We were ponies with lives and memories and--”
“Wait!” interrupted Twilight. “Calm down for a second. You said you remembered ‘her.’ Do you mean Princess Luna?”
“Yeah! I mean, it wasn’t much,” admitted Cloudlight, ceasing his bounce. “It was just one conversation with her and it was really confusing, but hey! That’s better than nothing!”
“But what do you remember, exactly?” Twilight continued. “Where were you? What’s the context?”
Cloudlight took a moment to pause and think about this. “I was in her office,” he recounted. “It was in a really tall tower, overlooking the city’s marketplace. Really quite a beautiful city.”
“Do you remember the name of the city?” Twilight asked.
“It was...” The pegasus racked his brain, searching through the memory. “Everfree. Everfree Castle.”
Suddenly, Twilight’s face went from curiosity to wide-eyed shock. It was such a drastic change of mood, it was enough to dampen Cloudlight’s newfound spirit. For a moment, he wondered if he accidentally offended the lavender mare. “That’s...not possible,” Twilight started, her stare turning somber and apologetic. She turned toward the ruins, regarding them as one would a ghost. “These ruins haven’t been called by that name in over a thousand years.”
