Eager for more answers about Equestria's ancient history, Sunny Starscout uses one of her dad's maps to venture into a long-untouched forest in search of the past.
Eager for more answers about Equestria's ancient history, Sunny Starscout uses one of her dad's maps to venture into a long-untouched forest in search of the past.
Sunny Starscout slowly made her way through the trees, brushing past leaves and twigs with nearly every step. With her single saddlebag around her shoulder, she lifted the flap and dug into it, taking out the smartphone that Pipp had given her before she had started this trip down the mountain.
"I'm not entirely sure you'll get a signal all the way in there, sweetheart, but I just want you to have a way to head back towards the mountain if you get lost in there." The pegasus had told her.
Sunny softly tapped the screen, and the lock screen came up, letting her confirm that she had a single bar. It wouldn't be much good for a call, but it was good enough for GPS, and if worse came to worst, Pipp had also loaded up a compass app. At the very least, she would be able to get herself pointed northeast and roughly head back towards the mountain.
She couldn't be absolutely sure, because the canopy was dozens of feet overhead, and obstructed absolutely everything.
She slid the phone back down into her bag, and glanced at the other items inside. Zipp had insisted on her packing three different kinds of wildlife repellent, including a taser, a spray, and a snakebite kit. Along with that, was the last two items she had packed herself; her dad's journal, and something far, far older; a laminated ancient map of the area.
She had studied it on the mountaintop just before descending, and even up there, she wasn't sure how much of a help it was going to be. Apparently, in whatever era this map was from, Zephyr Heights was called 'Canterlot', and the forest below used to be much, much smaller. The map showed it on the other side of the river, and now, you couldn't even see the river, the forest was all the way up to the base of the mountain, and stretched to the horizon.
Somewhere in here was a town called Ponyville. Or rather, whatever was left of it.
She stepped over a fallen trunk, and continued following the river to her right, her absolute best point of reference, beginning to wonder what she would even be looking for in here. The trees, if they fell, would last a century or less before they became indistinguishable from the surrounding soil, so the chance of finding any intact buildings or artifacts was nil. Most of her father's collection had come from discarded museum pieces, or from inside stone or metallic buildings.
But perhaps she would get lucky. According to Queen Haven, almost nopony ever came down here. It was easy to see why; the trees were very disorienting, and she wasn't sure how far from the river she was willing to travel, as it was her only guarantee of not getting completely lost, and she didn't bring camping gear. She got a very early start to get as much use of the daylight as possible. She guessed it wouldn't be too long after late afternoon when this place became entirely pitch black, and she only brought one flashlight.
There were no paths or roads to speak of. She wondered what this place used to look like ages ago. Growth like this would have taken centuries.
The mare stopped to look around when she saw the river widen as it curved to the left. Just after the curve, on the other side, a large pile of boulders sat, a few of them having sunk into the river, moss growing on them. It had to have been a rockslide. Behind that, were several very steep hills, almost a mesa, and was clearly where the rocks had fallen from. There was no telling what used to be here.
Her gaze slowly moved to the left, to her side of the river, and then slowly traveled skyward as she took in the biggest tree she had seen in this forest yet by far. Masses of vines were draped from every branch, and smaller plants and vegetation had made their way up the trunk in their endless quest for sunlight.
Squinting her eyelids slightly, Sunny took a couple steps towards the tree, wanting to take a closer look. She could barely make out the tree bark beneath the countless vines and stems, but what had caught her attention was the odd way roots closest to her were shaped. They didn't go right into the ground, but seemed to be going perpendicular with each other several times before finally burying into the soil.
Was that... A staircase?
Sunny gingerly took several more steps towards the roots, and saw that they were covering something that was clearly artificial in shape. Stepping over them, she came to the base of the tree, covered in a layer of vines, and slowly reached out with a hoof. She parted what vines she could and saw a... surface. She couldn't tell what color it was underneath all the dirt and moss, but she could definitely tell it didn't match the tree bark. She took another careful step forward, reached farther through the vines, and tapped on the surface.
She was hoping the sound it made would help her figure out what it was, but what she was absolutely not expecting was the reverberation that she heard.
Was... Was this tree hollow?
She tapped again, slightly harder to confirm her suspicions, then stepped forward further to brush aside the vines, enough to tell it was a large set of doors. She pushed, and got nothing for her efforts besides creaking. Trying again with the other door provided no better results. Pulling down what vines she could to clear as much of this doorway as possible, she took several steps back, then galloped forward, putting all her weight into her left shoulder as she collided with the left door.
She was hoping the door would come unstuck, and come unstuck it did, as it broke off the hinges with a loud snap, and the earth mare lost her balance, somersaulting once into the pitch black of the interior.
Sunny landed with a thud after somersaulting end over end, her braid falling across her snout. Opening her eyes, she brushed her braid off of her face as she pushed herself to her hooves. As soon as she returned to a standing position, she took in a soft gasp, looking at where she had stumbled into.
This was no tree, or at the very least, it wasn't always one.
She stood in the front of a vast, cavernous room. She looked down at her saddlebag, lifting the flap and began to dig around. She came out with a slim halo-like device, and place it on top of her head, compliments of Hitch. 'The best lightweight hooves-free light a budding archaeologist and historian could ask for,' he had said when he gave it to her when she announced her intentions to explore the forests below Zephyr Heights.
Once it was resting comfortably around her head, she gave it a soft tap, and two white LED's turned on next to both of her ears, sending dual illuminating beams forward into the darkness, and her breath was taken away again as her lights broke through the pitch black and revealed more of where she stood; an immense two-story foyer.
The ceiling was at least fifty feet high. Spiderwebs spread from every nook and cranny. A balcony circled the outer walls of the room. What appeared wooden and tree-like on the outside was more along the lines of stone or crystal in here. Some of the stained glass windows were broken and some others were intact... not that it mattered, due to the tree bark obscuring any possible view.
The floor was a dirty, cracked, dark purple crystal, matching the tones of the surrounding walls and pillars. Though she would expect weeds and other flora to invade through the cracks, the complete lack of natural sunlight probably prevented that.
Backpedaling her sense of awe and wonder for just a moment, she dug out her phone, got it positioned on her hoof, aligned her head-mounted lights correctly, and snapped a picture of the staircase on the far wall, before turning and going back to the door. She put her phone away momentarily and attempted to right the unhinged door as best she could, before stepping back out onto the vine-covered staircase, getting her phone out again.
Pipp had given her a crash course on some of the more advanced features of her new phone, and she scrolled down to the group chat the social media expert had made for them, and pressed the speech-to-text button. Making sure it had gotten it right, she tapped Send.
Sunny You guys getting my signal all the way in here?
It took a few moments to confirm that it had been sent, due to the single bar of signal that she got down here, which probably vanished in the structure. She stood and waited, and a minute later, her phone vibrated.
Zipp Yeah. Is everything okay down there?
She again tapped the speech function.
Sunny So far, yeah. You won't believe what I found.
Once that one was sent, she uploaded the picture she had just taken, which took a couple minutes to upload due to the signal strength.
Izzy Whoa, wicked. What is that?
Sunny It's some kind of ruin, looks like a tree. I've only taken a look inside the front. Definitely ancient Equestrian. I'd love to explore it more, but I don't think it would be safe alone. It's also pretty big, so it might take awhile. You guys have any camping gear? Easy to carry food? You'll need lights too.
She swiped over to the Maps App and tagged her current location, took a screenshot, and sent it to the group chat. Once that had been posted, she went back to the map and made sure to bookmark the location.
Zipp Alright, got it. We'll get Izzy, grab what we can, and be there soon.
Figuring that she had a bit of a wait ahead, Sunny made sure her saddlebag was organized, she did a walk around of the base of the tree, and it took her about ten seconds to realize that this thing was a lot bigger than it had originally appeared from one angle. Coming back around to the front doors, she figured this used to be some kind of elaborate treehouse, almost like a castle, judging from what that first foyer room looked like. If most of the interior was crystal, she was hoping it would be easy to explore safely.
While she waited for her new friends, she dug out her dad's laminated map, and studied it some more. She wondered what this forest used to look like. According to the ancient parchment in her hooves, it wasn't a forest at all. Was it rolling hills? Homes? Businesses? How many ponies lived here? If it was on the map it had to have been significant. How did Zephyr Heights or, 'Canterlot' look back then? If all these trees weren't here, you could likely see it from anywhere in the surrounding area.
Sunny really hoped that Zipp and Pipp could come through with the camping gear; she didn't want to cut this short because they wouldn't have anywhere to sleep. If she really was the first one to find this in gods only knew how long, she wanted to search through as much of it as she could.
She passed the next thirty minutes taking in the ambient noise of the forest.
"There you are!" She heard a familiar unicorn's voice from above. She looked up, and saw pegasi sisters Zipp and Pipp slowly descend through the branches carrying an enthusiastic Izzy in their hooves.
"We were finally able to find a way down," Izzy said as she was set down onto the dirt and thick grass.
"The upper canopy is pretty thick. No one's been down here in ages." Zipp said, as she and her sister touched down as well, removing backpacks from their front shoulders.
"So, what is it you've found?" Zipp asked as she unzipped the main pocket of her pack, pulling out a couple compact tents, setting them aside.
"Ancient ruin of some kind. Crystal interior. I can't tell if the wooden exterior grew around it, or if it turned into wood at some point in the past," Sunny answered, helping Izzy unload the pack she had taken off. "Pipp, what is that?" The earth pony asked, watching the social media mogul put on some kind of strap, that looked like it held something against the front of her barrel.
"Hooves-free phone mount. If we're gonna be the first ponies in there in ages, it'll make quite the video series."
"It'll be fantastic to have a second camera in there." Sunny told her.
As Zipp quickly opened the pair of Quick-Set camping tents, Izzy peeked into the open doorway before turning back to the group.
"So no Hitch today?" The unicorn asked.
"Nope. He's busy with Sprout. Hitch has told him that he needs to go through a rigorous re-orientation if he wants any hope of keeping his job." Sunny replied.
"Surprised that he hasn't been run out of Maretime Bay, honestly." Pipp chimed in.
"Yeah, I can understand that, but maybe that's not the best course of action to take when we're trying to spread friendship and forgiveness across Equestria. Does he deserve this second chance? Maybe, maybe not, but regardless, I have a feeling if he keeps his job, he'll be nothing less than a model deputy."
Sunny knew that her friends didn't know Sprout quite as well, but she had to admit that it would be quite the jarring change if Sprout actually managed to make changes up to Hitch's standards and became nothing less than a model deputy. She knew Hitch felt partly responsible for leaving him in charge, as did his mother for not reining him in at the first sign of genuine trouble. But they had to give ponies a chance to find their footing and floruish in what was essentially a fresh, friendlier Equestria. Maretime Bay even had a few new pegasus and unicorn residents, with CanterLogic going in new, wild, non-paranoid-protective product directions. Even Zephyr Heights and Bridlewood had also seen the start of racial diversity. The superstition was still there in the latter's case, but it was slowly being worked on.
Once Zipp had the tents securely staked down, and Pipp had her phone strap set and ready to go, the four of them stood together at the large doorway.
"Okay, until I can take the time to map this place out, and make sure it's safe, it's best if we stick together. It'll take longer, but it's safer." Sunny said, getting nods from the other three. "Alright, everypony. Let's go."
Sunny was the first one through the doors again, stepping into the darkness, lightly tapping the dual LED band around her head to turn them on. Zipp did the same, while Pipp turned on her phone's light just below the camera lens.
"Ooh ooh!" Izzy exclaimed excitedly. "I was hoping there'd be an opportunity to try this out. I've been practicing!"
The lilac unicorn closed her eyes in concentration, and her horn began to glow. There was a short spark of light, then it snaked up her horn to the tip. More motes of light quickly followed, and gathered to a small orb of light. After several moments, Izzy opened her eyes, and smiled ecstatically.
"Yes!" She squeed. "What do you think, huh? You've seen headlights, but now? Hornlight!"
"Far out, Iz." Zipp complimented. The unicorn's illumination spell didn't do much for distant lighting, but it did a great job of brightening up their immediate surroundings as they stepped into the cavernous foyer.
"Yeah, that picture didn't do it justice, Sunny." Zipp commented.
"Me and my friends have just stepped into a long-forgotten ruin from ancient Equestria. What awaits us in these derelict halls? Let's find out together." Pipp narrated, getting slow, panning shots as they made their way down the middle of the foyer towards the stairs.
"Have you ever done a video series like this before, sis? Normally it's make-up how-to's, song performances, and ads for your latest fragrance." Zipp teased.
"Nothing wrong with mixing it up a bit. Who knows, might even expand my audience a bit with this."
Sunny was the first one to get to the stairs, and put the weight of one hoof on the first one, finding it stable and solid.
"This is an awful lot of stone and crystal in one place, for a forest where you don't really find them." Izzy commented as they climbed the stairs.
Sunny knew Izzy was right; crystal outcrops were absolutely everywhere in Bridlewood. But on her walk in here, there wasn't anything close to resembling these crystalline shades of purple and blue.
"This is definitely less of a treehouse and more of a treecastle, am I right?" Zipp quipped as they came to the halfway point of the stairs, where it split to the left and right, to circle the foyer balcony, as well as continue deeper inside with four hallways, one to the east, one to the west, and two to the north.
"Well, Sunny Starscout, as the discoverer of this site, you choose where we go first. Which way?" Pipp asked, turning towards the earth mare, who drew herself away from her surroundings just long enough to give a short smirk at the camera.
"Let's go up the right stairs and then more towards the back; I'm guessing the most important rooms are in the center, and the side halls are bedrooms and the like." Sunny answered, as she climbed the right set of stairs, and immediately turned left into the hall.
The crystal pillars, walls, ceilings, and floors made their light sources considerably more powerful then they'd normally be, as they reflected and spread the beams of light farther. It was just as well; due to the shell of wood that surrounded this place, it was unlikely any natural sunlight would ever reach these halls again.
The hallway she had chosen continued down for another twenty feet, before it met another hall; this one curved slightly, and if the curve was steady, it went in a large circle, likely surrounding a large room in the center. Sunny made another left, followed closely by her new friends as the hall curved to the left. When they came to another smaller set of double doors, she had a feeling they were in the middle of the structure again.
"Hope this one is unlocked?" Izzy asked.
"It may not have anything to do with locks. This place has had gods knows how long to settle, so they might take a strong push to open regardless. But yeah, I'm hoping we don't have to break every door in this place off its hinges. That doesn't seem very respectful." Sunny answered as she approached the doors. There were oxidized metallic door handles on each one, but they seemed stationary, with no turning or latching mechanism at all. After studying the door frame as best as she could in these lighting conditions, she felt that it was probably best to push instead of pull. Carefully getting the tip of her hoof in between the handle and the door, Sunny slowly began to push, trying to apply more force as evenly as she could.
Luckily, this door hadn't endured nearly as much exposure to the outside elements as the front doors had, and after some creaking, the door gave way, rotating on it's rusted hinges, and Sunny luckily kept her balance this time. Back on all four hooves, she gently pushed both doors all the way open, and when her friends saw her eyes widen, they came up peer into the room, and immediately had similar reactions.
The cavernous chamber didn't quite rival the foyer, but it wasn't the size of the room that had grabbed their attention, but the diamond-shaped gemstones scattered all over the room, all the way up to a large stone round table in the middle of the room, surrounded by six chairs.
"Whoa, jackpot!" Zipp said, bending down to pick up one of the gems. Sunny turned and watched her turn the gem over in her hooves, and thought she saw something.
"Wait, wait..." Sunny said, stepping over to the white pegasus who was holding the gem. "Do... Do that again. Turn it slowly."
Zipp did so, and when their lights hit the facets just right, an image appeared in the center, as if it was frozen in the gem. Sunny squinted her eyes, and made out a familiar purple unicorn and a pink earth pony standing in a library among a dozen other ponies, and her eyes widened.
"It's... It's like a crystalized photograph, and those are..." Sunny's sentence trailed off as her eyes widened even more as her attention turned to the table and the surrounding chairs. Taking the utmost care to avoid the gems scattered all over the floor, she made her way to the closest throne, reached up, and brushed the layer of dust away from the top back of it, and her mouth dropped open for a moment as she gazed at the trio of apples that had been immaculately carved into the back. Her head immediately turned to the next closest throne to her left; this one had another smaller chair just to the right of it. She reached up again, gently wiped off the dust from the back of it, and when her eyes saw the ruby six-pointed star, she bit her bottom lip as tears rapidly built up in her eyelids.
"Sunny? You alright, sweetheart?" Pipp asked, shining her phone's light in her direction.
The earth mare turned towards her three friends with a smile as her tears spilled over, running down her cheeks.
"The... The Guardians of Harmony... They were here."
The pair of pegasi and one unicorn watched as Sunny carefully went around the table, sidestepping gemstones, going to each crystal throne, and brushing off the back, revealing an insignia on each. The closest to them was the trio of apples, then going counter-clockwise from there, it was the six-pointed star, a cloud with a rainbow lightning bolt, a trio of pink butterflies, a trio of yellow and blue balloons, and finally, a trio of cyan diamonds. Curiously, there were no marks of any kind on the smaller throne next to the six-pointed-star one.
By the time she worked her way back to her three friends, she had wiped her eyes and gotten herself under control.
"There's over a hundred gems in here, easy. Are you going to go through them all?" Izzy asked as she continued to rotate the first one in her hooves, watching the still image fade in and out.
"Absolutely. I need a way to transport all of these safely. If I just toss them into one bag, they might get scratched." Sunny said, as she picked up a second one, slowly rotating it in her hooves, and finding it contained an image of the guardians of harmony gathered around a picnic table with bottles of juice.
"These must be... Memories. Of the six of them." Izzy said as she gently set the gem down.
Pipp took a moment to think as she put a hoof to her chin.
"Zipp, you're faster than I am. Think you can get home and back before we lose the sun? My room, right dresser, third drawer on the left. You'll find a pile of silk patches. Bring as many as will fit in your bag. Sunny can wrap the crystals individually."
Zipp nodded at her, then turned back out into the hall, retracing her steps back out to the front, loving absolutely any excuse to take to the sky.
Pipp resumed filming while Sunny and Izzy began to collect the gems and organize them, putting them on the outer edges of the large stone table to get them off of the floor.
"We've discovered what appears to be some kind of throne room, with a large round table in the middle, and dozens upon dozens of these little gems, each with a still image inside. Was this how ancient Equestrians took pictures?" Pipp asked, talking to her future audience when she got these videos uploaded. She began to assist the unicorn and earth mare in getting the gems organized. There seemed to be three colors; topaz, cyan, and rose quartz, and Sunny began to wonder if it had to do anything with the memory they contained, or if it was just for aesthetic.
"What were these doing all over the floor in here?" Izzy asked carefully levitating another two gems over to the table.
"We have no idea how much time has passed. If it's not crystal, stone, or metal, it probably didn't last much longer than a century in here. For all we know, these were hanging all over the ceiling, and at one point fell all over the floor and table." Sunny said.
"Well, luckily we haven't come across any broken ones yet." Pipp replied. Indeed, some were a little scratched and scuffed, which was why Sunny wanted to handle them with great care to not damage them further.
Almost an hour later, Zipp came back with another backpack on her shoulders, and by that time, they had gotten all of the gems in the throne room on the table and organized, but hadn't had the time to look at them quite yet.
"Wow sis, how many silk scraps did you pack?" Pipp asked.
"Hopefully enough. By last count, we've got two hundred and twenty-two gems here." Izzy said, waving a hoof to the organized gems on nearly half of the table.
"Not just silk, you guys. I figured if we were spending the night down here, we could do with a good dinner, so I got stuff for carrot dogs, and some charged portable batteries for our phones; you probably haven't stopped recording since we got in here."
Hearing 'carrot dogs' made Sunny realize that she hadn't eaten since her late breakfast just before coming down here.
"Here ya go." Zipp said, handing Sunny a pile of square silk scraps.
"Thank you so much." Sunny said, accepting the stack of silk and setting them next to the first group of topaz gems. Next up out of Zipp's pack was a small plastic tub so she had something to put them in.
"When I got outside, the group chat got a few texts from Hitch. He said he'll try and make the time to swing by tomorrow after breakfast." Zipp said.
"Awesome, I'll send him a text when we get out by the tents. He could bring a new notebook so I can catalogue all of these. Oh, and Zipp..." Sunny paused, turning to the table and picked up one of the gems, and brought it over to her. "I found one I think you might like."
Sunny walked over and gently put the cyan gem into the pegasus' hooves, who then slowly rotated it. Her eyes widened and a smile slowly grew on her face when she saw the memory contained within; it was a cyan pegasus with a rainbow mane, who was definitely posing for this picture. She recognized the navy blue flight uniform and goggles all too well from the metallic poster in the Zephyr Heights airship terminal. She believed they were called 'The Wonderbolts' or something. She recognized the pegasus as one of Sunny's wooden figures, the 'Guardians of Harmony'.
Zipp tore her eyes away from the crystalized memory, and smiled at Sunny as she handed the gem back to her.
"Must have been quite the world they all lived in." Zipp said.
"We can only imagine. At least for now." Sunny replied.
"With ponies like you, I doubt we'll have to imagine forever. Well, I'll let you get started getting these wrapped up. Meet me back out front in fifteen for some fresh fire-roasted carrot dogs, complete with all the toppings you could want."
It was a little over twenty minutes before Sunny finally pushed herself to put the gems and silk scraps down and made her way back out into the hallway, to the foyer, and out front, where Zipp, Pipp, and Izzy were gathering rocks from the river and the rock slide to make a fire ring close to the river and far enough away from the surrounding trees and bushes. Once they got the stones placed and kindling placed under the thicker branches, they had a roaring campfire and carrots on skewers ready to go.
The smell of campfire smoke and fire roasted carrot dogs brought Sunny back to earlier times, mostly of school camping trips along with Hitch and Sprout when she was younger.
"So how do you take yours, Sunny?" Zipp said, pulling the two carrots from the sticks and placing them in the warm, lightly toasted buns.
"Onions, relish, and mustard, please. Just the right amount of crunchy and flavor."
Using her wings, Zipp quickly spooned up her requested portions, and offered the plastic plate over to Sunny.
"Smells delicious, thank you so much."
Sunny had barely taken her first bite, when the bushes rustled behind her, followed immediately by a snapping twig caused her to nearly choke as she leaped up, and the four of them shrieked as they turned their lights towards the disturbance.
"Whoa, whoa, sorry!" A familiar male voice immediately shouted over the screaming, as the amber-coated earth stallion put his front hooves to shield his eyes from the light beams.
"H-Hitch?" Sunny said, gulping down her bite of carrot dog that she had nearly choked on. "You got here fast."
"Yeah, I guess my texts didn't go through, I don't get a good signal out here. My service is through Trot."
"Evening, Sheriff," Zipp greeted, putting another two carrots on the skewers. "Just in time for dinner. Have a seat."
"Sorry again about that, guys. There's no paths around here to speak of. How'd you even find this place all the way out here?" Hitch said as he took a seat next to his childhood friend.
"One of my dad's old maps. There used to be an entire town here. This forest used to be a quarter of this size." Sunny told him.
"How do ya take'em, Hitch?" Zipp asked, nodding towards the roasted carrots she was removing from the skewers and placing into buns.
"Just mustard for me, thanks." He said, glancing at the laminated map that Sunny had pulled from her bag. "Not exactly the most detailed topography, now is it?" He said, noting the map's rather simplistic design. But Sunny did have a point, this forest, which now reached the base of the mountain, used to be a lot smaller.
"Oh, before I forget..." Hitch dug into the left satchel of his double saddlebags and came out with a new notebook, ink pen, and marker. "I had to make a quick stop up in Zephyr Heights, didn't get your text until I was already halfway here."
"Thanks so much, Hitch." Sunny said, accepting the items as she finished off her first carrot dog. "So how are things going with Sprout?"
"As well as they can be, I suppose. He's making a genuine effort, I will give him that. And I'll be pulling the cost of the repair to your home from his salary for the next two years. That's scheduled to begin next week, by the way."
"That's awesome to hear. I hope I haven't been too much of a burden on you these last few weeks." Sunny said.
"Absolutely not, and even if you were, it would be a deserved burden. I shouldn't have left Sprout in charge the way I did."
When she hadn't been out in the wilds looking for ancient Equestrian sites, Sunny had been staying in Hitch's spare bedroom while he made arrangements to repair the lighthouse where she had lived nearly all of her life, which had been rendered uninhabitable by Sprout's immature and prejudice-driven rampage.
Sunny quickly finished off her second carrot dog, and went to go rinse off her plate in the river, before setting it to dry on the small table Zipp had set up for toppings.
"So how long will we be staying here?" Hitch asked.
"As long as it takes to get everything valuable safely packed up and moved. I imagine once Pipp uploads her footage, this place might get a few more visitors." Sunny answered.
"Oh, I would never disclose the precise location for a find like this. I'm no archaeologist, but I know how important it is to keep things like this protected." Pipp assured her.
"Thanks, Pipp. Well, I'm going to see how many of those crystals I can catalogue and wrap up before I get too tired."
With that, Sunny put the notebook, pen, and marker into her saddlebag, put the dual-LED band back on her head, tapped it on, and headed back inside to the castle foyer. Once Hitch was finished with his meal, he thanked Zipp for the food, rinsed his plate off in the river, then took off his saddlebags and set up the one-pony tent that he had packed once he had read the text messages from earlier. Once his campsite was set up next to the other two tents, he grabbed his lantern and turned to the others.
"So where would I find her in there?" He asked as Zipp was starting to put away the toppings and Pipp was editing a video on her phone.
"Probably the throne room. Up the stairs, first hallway on your left, another left, and it's the first door on the right." Izzy told him.
Trying to keep the directions straight in his head, he turned his lantern on, stepped over the vines and roots, and headed in through the open door.
He immediately gave an impressed whistle. The single pic she had shared in the group chat didn't do this place justice. He headed all the way back to the stairs, went up and to the right, and went down the first hallway on the left. The next intersecting hallway curved gradually, and he made another left, soon coming to the open door, where the first light source he had seen other than his own since coming in here. He peered in side, and there was Sunny, sitting on a tall crystal throne, currently studying a gem with a magnifying glass. After a few moments of mumbling to herself, turned her attention to the open notebook, scribbled a quick note, then carefully wrapped the gem up in a scrap of silk, then carefully wrote a number on the silk with the black marker, setting the wrapped gem in the plastic container on the smaller throne next to her, before grabbing another gem, and the process started again.
"Wow..." Hitch commented, stepping into the cavernous throne room, seeing the dozens upon dozens of gems that had been arranged on the large round table. He stepped up to the table, and around the throne Sunny sat at, which had a six-pointed purple star on it, a symbol he saw all too often growing up hanging out at Sunny's house.
It was quite surreal, seeing something he had always dismissed as a foal bedtime story be quite real.
As he didn't want to disturb Sunny's concentration, he silently glanced at the open notebook, looking at the entries she had made so far:
Purple unicorn, pink earth pony, party in a library?
All six, fancy dresses, fashion show?
White unicorn, yellow pegasus, red earth pony, light yellow earth pony, light blue earth pony. Singing group.
Purple unicorn with wings, large white unicorn with wings (ruler?), purple dragon with green spikes (smaller throne?)
Purple unicorn with exact duplicate. Twins? Time travel?
Cyan pegasus and a turtle. Pet?
"Quite the find you've got here, Sunny." Hitch commented as she started penning a seventh entry.
"Yeah, I'll shay," Sunny answered with the pen between her teeth.
"Any thoughts as to what you're going to do with all of these once you've got them all wrapped and catalogued?"
"Yeah. I have been giving it some thought." Sunny replied once she dropped the pen and began to wrap the gem up. "I think I might try and open a museum devoted to this time period. Now that Equestria's becoming more united, I'm betting more and more ponies are going to be interested in what it was like back then. It's gotta be better than selling smoothies all day. I've only just started looking at all of these, and I think it might be quite tricky to discern the amount of time covered by all of these. So far, the only difference I'm seeing so far is the purple unicorn, with the star mark... She got wings at some point. What do you even call that?"
"You mean like what those crystals did to you?"
"To be fair, that was for barely twelve hours. This looked to be a little more permanent. It's more than the gems. My dad found art of her. It was her mark on some of the stained glass windows in Zephyr Heights."
Hitch also remembered her dad had frequently worn a wooden charm with that six-star mark carved into it.
"It's incredible... The drive that you inherited from your dad." Hitch told her as she finished wrapping up the crystal then wrote a '7' on the silk before setting it down in the container.
"My dad was an amazing pony." Sunny said.
"He made you an amazing pony, too, Sunny." Hitch told her, enough to pull her eyes away from the next gem and give him a smile. "I'm serious. The unity and togetherness that Equestria is slowly coming into is because of you."
"And him. And us, too." Sunny added, before turning back to the next gem. She looked at it under a magnifying glass for just a moment before her eyes widened.
"Wow..." She whispered, astounded.
"What is it?" Hitch asked.
Sunny carefully slid the gem over to where he was standing, and gave him the magnifying glass, making sure her LED headband was properly angled.
"That's what this place used to look like..." She said.
His eyes widened as well, when he saw the distant image of a pristine crystal castle, six ponies standing at the front stairs, dwarfed by the towering structure. What was more, it was not forest, but rolling meadows beyond it.
"Incredible..." He said, handing the magnifying glass back to his friend, who began making the next entry in her notebook.
"Well, I'm not quite tired yet, so I'll start mapping out the halls of this place. Don't stay up too late." Hitch told her, retracing his steps out of the throne room.
As a law enforcement officer, Hitch was absolutely used to being up at the crack of dawn, and alert thirty minutes later with a cup of coffee.
Though there was that one morning where he had gotten to the precinct and Sprout had eaten all the donuts...
But out here was far, far more silent than a city like Maretime Bay. There was always the ambient noise of CanterLogic's night shift, and any longtime city resident was long used to it.
But out here... Out here it was silent, save for the crickets and occasional scurrying critter. So he almost didn't hear his phone's alarm. With a stretch, he crawled out of his sleeping bag, and unzipped the entrance to his tent, stepping out into the misty, foggy morning.
"Rise and shine, sleepyhead." Zipp greeted. Hitch noticed that there was already a pot of coffee heating up over the campfire, and the scent of the roasting beans woke him up a little. He glanced over to the tent that Izzy shared with Sunny, and saw his friend's sleeping bag neatly folded and undisturbed.
"Say, did Sunny ever come out last night?" He asked.
Izzy glanced over at her sleeping bag.
"Hm. I don't think so. Think she fell asleep in there?"
"I'll go check on her, looking forward to that coffee." Hitch said, unplugging his fully charged phone and electric lantern from one of Pipp's battery packs. He switched on his lantern and headed inside. Once you were in here, there really was no telling what time of day it was.
He quickly trotted up the stairs and retraced last night's steps to the throne room. Sure enough, just as he was worried about, he entered through the doors, and found it pitch black, along with snoring echoing off of the walls.
Sure enough, when his lantern light reached the table, there was Sunny in the six-star throne, hunched over the table, sound asleep. He stepped up to the throne, and placed his right hoof on her shoulder, and gently roused her.
"Hm?" She asked, her eyes fluttering open, letting out a yawn. "Oh no, what time is it?" She asked.
"7:30... AM." Hitch said, softly tapping on the LED headband on her head, which didn't turn on. "Yep, that was what I was afraid of. Sunny, it's pitch black in here without lights. That would have been a real problem."
"Sorry, Hitch, really. But some of these gems are tantalizing. These two have creatures I've never even heard of before." Sunny said, turning her friend's attention to the two gems in front of her. He turned to look, moving his lantern closer as she got them angled correctly.
The first gem was taken in front of a very similar-looking building. It was a set of bleachers out front, looking like a class photo. There were three rows. Front and center were the six guardians of harmony, plus another heliotrope unicorn that had been in a few more memories so far. The top row was also ponies, and in the middle, were a dragon, and four creatures that she was completely unfamiliar with.
The second gem was even more perplexing. It was a group of... Bipedal creatures. They seemed to resemble the guardians of harmony, save for the one in the middle, who had brilliant red and yellow hair. Even more odd, they seemed to have what looked like equine ears on their heads.
"This is what's so exciting... And frustrating, about archaeology. Every answer you get frequently brings along five more questions along with it." Sunny admitted.
"That's all well and good, but the point is that it's pitch black in here no matter what time of day it is, so we either need to stop coming in here alone, or making sure we always have an emergency light source ready. So, let's go get some breakfast."
Sunny grabbed her phone, dropped it into her saddlebag, got up, and followed Hitch back out front, where coffee and hash browns were being prepared on the fire, getting their lights and phones plugged in to recharge while they ate.
Zipp knew that for as long as she could remember, it had been continually debated as to whether or not exploration was a science, but she had to admit, this was some of the most fun she had had in weeks. While Sunny was continuing to catalogue gems in the throne room until lunch, Pipp took the second floor, and Hitch took the first floor, so here she was, in the basement, which she was sort of amazed wasn't flooded or made impassable with tree roots.
The hallways down here were cobblestone, which made the pegasus a tad bit nervous; she was guessing that was a tad less stable and long-lasting than the crystal walls and pillars up above. She also dabbled in a bit of science, was also trying to figure out several things about this structure. From one of the memories in the gems Sunny had gone through, the entire exterior of this place used to be crystal, with enough windows to let natural light in from almost all angles. So did it change to a wooden exterior to blend in with the forest, blocking out all the windows, or had the forest flora merely grown around it when it had been abandoned?
The first room on the right had been open, no door to speak of, and on the floor she found a rusty set of chest armor. It looked strikingly similar to the royal guard armor that the Zephyr Heights guards wore. Seeing how this was a castle, it stood to reason that they likely had ponies to guard it.
The next room down had two bunk bed frames, but no mattresses or pillows to speak of; likely long gone. The passageway then began to gradually curve much like the second floor hallway did around the throne room, and she wondered if she was coming to an equally large room. Sure enough, after making a left at the gradual curve, she came to a set of double doors. Taking hold of the handle, she pushed, hard. The door gave way with a shrill creaking sound, and the pegasus stepped forward, and saw she had stepped into another crystal room, just a little smaller than the throne room above.
The shelves, which encompassed the entire length of the walls around the room, were bare. It didn't really surprise her; if this place had been abandoned, ponies likely took what they could. But then why leave the gems? Were they considered so meaningful or sacred to be untouchable? Or had this place simply been moved out of before whatever calamity caused Equestrians to lose their magic?
Zipp didn't dwell on it for long, because against the very back wall, reflecting the light across the room back at her, was a oval full length mirror, but it wasn't like any mirror she'd ever seen before.
The frame was an elongated horseshoe, and it was atop a pedestal, patterned with upside down horseshoes. There were bolts, and rivets, and all manner of metallic parts scattered around it, and it made her wonder if it was part of a greater contraption. She stepped up to it, and set the lantern down, taking in the details of what was left. The reflection staring back at her was faded and dull, and even the best polish in the world wouldn't bring it back to it's former glory. The pegasus let her hoof fall away from the reflective glass, got the lantern better positioned, then snapped a picture with her phone to show Sunny, then picked up the lantern again.
As she turned to leave the room, she continued to wonder what it could have possibly been like back then.
Having finished cataloguing and safely wrapping up each and every gem had taken Sunny just about half of the day, with a short break for lunch. But the task was complete, and they were packed and ready to take to Maretime Bay.
Hitch had mapped out all the halls, and while they hadn't gotten to every room yet, what rooms they had explored had almost nothing in them, save for the throne room and the basement. After Pipp had done a short clip on the mirror, they elected to leave it where it was. While intriguing, it was likely too unwieldy and fragile to move.
So before they broke again for dinner, Sunny decided to check the one place no one had been yet; a tower that was effectively the castle's third floor. The only means of access was a crystal spiral staircase behind the throne room. Checking to make sure her headlamp and phone batteries were good, she slowly ascended the stairs, checking for cracks or anything else that might be a sign of structural weakness along the way.
At the top of the spiral, she came to a door, no hallway, just a simple yellow and purple metallic door. She gave it a push, and it rotated on its hinges with creaking objection.
It was one of the smallest rooms in the castle by far. The view was probably spectacular, had shrubs, vines, and bark not completely obscured the window, as it had with every other one in the structure.
She tried not to be disheartened by one of the last, highest rooms in the castle being just as barren as most of all the others. The throne room gems had been an absolute treasure trove, an incredible look back into the Guardians' era, one that would keep historians busy for weeks and months. The mirror was more of a mystery than anything, but she had a hunch it was some kind of magical portal, due to gem #174, which showed a similar glowing mirror with the purple unicorn and her dragon friend. She felt it was best to leave it where it was for now. Even if they had a way to power it back up again, with how much their world had changed, it probably wasn't the best idea to open some magical portal if they had no idea what was on the other side, or how it had changed with the passage of time.
The only thing that seemed out of place with this room was that a section of the left wall was beginning to crack. With a soft sigh, she turned to head back downstairs, but at the last moment, did a double take at the left wall.
Those weren't cracks... It was an inscription!
She trotted towards the wall and dug out her notebook and pen, flipped through all the notes on the gems, to the next fresh page, and began to copy as she read silently.
I have no way of knowing how much time will pass before this is found, if it is found at all. Already I can feel myself fading away, unable to hold this corporeal form much longer. So I'll keep this brief.
I believe I finally understand why they did what they did; why they invariably linked Equus' connection to Aetherius, the source of all magic, into those crystals.
Because they knew that nothing lasts forever, and realizing that, that it would be unspeakably cruel to leave the beings of this world, friends or enemies, to the mercy of the Windigos, not when they had an alternative; a way to contain them.
My greatest fear for years was that everything we have accomplished, all that we have become, could be forgotten. That Sunset, Starlight, Luster, Fizzlepop... All of those who followed in her stead, everything that they have done to carry that magic forward could be for naught.
But on the other claw, that wouldn't exactly be fair, would it? For it to only be up to us? Of course we have done amazing, incredible things for ponies and creatures everywhere here and now, and can give forthcoming generations hope for a better future, but it will be the burden of each and every generation yet to come to take up the mantle of friendship and cooperation, to realize that better future for themselves. There is no answer that lasts forever. Just as we evolve and grow, so do the forces that seek to divide us.
My life has stretched for eons, yet the relationships I have developed with these Equestrians over the last few decades has brought me genuine pause the last several years as I have witnessed this nation collapse; causing me to wonder if I have had the willpower to go on without them. Is this what Celestia went through during her rule? Perhaps it is finally time for me to cross over into whatever is next; vanish into the ether and see if I can find them again.
To whomever finds this, I wonder if you can imagine the unity that we experienced, just as I will wonder what Equestria will look like generations from now. All things change, so they will inevitably change from what they have become now.
Whoever you are, I wish you the kind of luck that only unfettered chaos can bring.
-Di
"Hey, Izzy. Can you go and get Sunny? I think she was looking at the tower up top. Tell her that her favorite camp meal will be ready in ten." Hitch said as he stirred the pot that was hanging on the tripod above the fire. Giving him a salute, Izzy lit up her horn and trotted back into the castle, heading up the stairs and down the front right hallway.
"Sunny! We're breaking for dinner! How's it going?" She called, taking the long way around the curving hallway to the rear door, which was already open. Her lively prance up the spiral staircase was slowed and halted when she heard soft weeping coming from above.
"Sunny...?" She asked, coming up the rest of the stairs and looked into the tower, seeing her friend sitting in front of the left wall, her notebook sitting open in front of her, as well as her phone, which had a picture that she had taken of the inscription before them.
Sunny Starscout's sparkle was definitely dim right now.
"Hey... What's wrong?" She asked, coming up to her crying friend. Tears running down her cheeks, she looked up to the inscription on the wall.
"A... Carving?" The unicorn asked. "We finally found something else, that's awesome! Why are you crying?" She asked, sitting down next to her friend.
"Yeah... And whoever wrote it, did so as they were fading away, as they were dying. They didn't even finish signing their name."
Sunny pointed a quivering hoof at the bottom of the inscription. It was definitely ponish. A 'D', then an 'I', and what looked like part of an 'S', but that was the end of it, as if the scribe had indeed vanished suddenly.
"What could have possibly happened, Izzy?" Sunny asked as a fresh wave of tears began. "We've seen those gems. These ponies did amazing things... And it wasn't enough."
Izzy sat silently, putting a leg around Sunny's shoulders as she took a moment to read the inscription on the wall herself.
"Maybe it was enough... For them." Izzy said, looking over to her friend. "We don't know how long ago this was, but whoever this was, they were absolutely right. Things change, they always do. Sometimes for the better, and sometimes for the worse. And Sunny? You are the best change I think I've ever had in my life."
The earth mare wiped her eyes, and smiled over at her friend.
"You remember what I told you about your sparkle? Your luminescence?" Izzy asked.
"Yeah... Yeah you said it was lavender."
"Yeah. Pretty close to what our purple unicorn in those gems looks like. She and her friends clearly did amazing things for Equestria, and if you think we haven't, then you need to take another look. Yeah, things got bad, clearly. Sometimes they do. But you're fixing it. We're fixing it. Together."
Sunny sniffled, swallowed her tears, turned, and threw her hooves around her unicorn friend, who immediately returned the hug.
"And I have no idea what Windigos are, but they obviously thought that putting our magic on the line was preferable to whatever they were going to do. The point is, we're doing what we can, and, hopefully, so will everypony else. The generations that come after us will also have to do their part. Hoof to heart." Izzy added.
Sunny released her from the hug, and gave her another smile as she closed her notebook and dropped it into her saddlebags.
"Thanks, Izzy. So I'm guessing you came to get me for dinner?"
"Ooh yeah. Hitch said it was your favorite camp meal ever."
Sunny chuckled.
"He's probably talking about his Maretime Bay Minestrone soup. Alright, let's go chow down."
Sunny awoke with a yawn and a stretch, with the roof of the tent coming into view. Sitting up, she removed the top half of her sleeping bag and rolled onto her feet, seeing that Izzy was already up. She walked out of her tent and saw the Zipp and Pipp already over by the fire with Izzy making hay cakes for breakfast, and Hitch was coming out of his one-pony tent and immediately went for the coffee.
Aside from what they just needed to prepare breakfast, they had spent the latest part of last night packing up and getting ready to return up the mountain. While there was undoubtedly more to go over in there, they had already collected just about as much as they could reasonably carry; the gems combined weight, even when split amongst the five of them, increased the weight of their packs considerably, and the rough forest terrain was nowhere near suitable for a wagon. That, and Pipp's battery packs were beginning to run low, which meant light sources were becoming quickly finite in there.
"Smells delicious, thank you." Sunny greeted as Zipp passed her a plate, and Hitch came over and poured himself a cup of coffee.
"Don't know about you fillies, but I am looking forward to getting back home." Hitch said, sipping the steaming beverage.
"It's certainly been an enlightening couple of days, that's for sure." Zipp agreed.
"It's a good thing I have those gems to get back to Maretime Bay, otherwise I don't think I'd ever leave." Sunny admitted.
"Well, you've certainly showed me what is so exciting and adventurous about archaeology and history." Pipp told her. "Let me know when you've got everything ready in that museum, and we'll be the first in line."
Their breakfast was interrupted by the sound of approaching hoofsteps...
...Armored hoofsteps?
Indeed, their attention was drawn to the north, and a pair of golden armored pegasi, one sky blue and the other mint green, came through the treeline, coming up to their campfire and coming to a halt. The gear on their backs suggested they were here for awhile.
"Can we help you, sirs?" Sunny asked.
The guards exchanged curious glances, if but for a moment.
"Apologies, ma'am, I assumed we were expected. Zoom Zephyrwing, Detachment from the Fifth Zephyr Heights Regiment. My partner, Thunder." Zoom said, motioning to the sky blue pegasus.
"Ah, now I remember you two. From... Before." Sunny said, recalling her first time coming to Zephyr Heights, and proceeded to excitedly bombard Thunder with questions about pegasi during the elevator ride up to the castle.
"Ooh yeah, the shield!" Izzy enthusiastically added.
Zoom gave a curt nod. "Yes ma'am. I hope you're doing well. As this forest is within the Zephyr Heights provincial limits, Queen Haven has elected to mark this... tree... And the surrounding area, as a site of historical significance. We are the first of four rotating shifts that will keep watch over it around the clock, until a suitable traveling path can be made through the forest."
"Surprise," Pipp told Sunny. "I knew you were a little nervous about me posting my videos about this place, so I asked mom what we could do to keep an eye on it."
Sunny smiled at her friend.
"That's really awesome. Thank you so much, Pipp. That does put my mind at ease a little."
"Hope we're not going to crowd you." Thunder said.
"No worries. We're just about ready to break camp. We'll be out of your manes in about an hour." Hitch told them, as they went to unload their gear in the next closest clearing.
"I don't know about all of you," Izzy began, finishing off her hay cakes. "But when I get back up there, I have an appointment with the dungeon."
"Izzy, have you ever thought of, oh I don't know, an actual spa?" Zipp asked.
Sunny Starscout had started her little expedition in the early afternoon. It had been a half day's trip to Zephyr Heights, where she spent the night with Zipp and Pipp. After that, it was another half-day's trip to get safely down the mountain into the forest. Then once she had found it, it was a day and a half of exploring and camping, which ended with Queen Haven sending down a detachment of guards to keep the ruins safe and undisturbed. Then it was a hike back up the mountain, and an evening spent relaxing in Zephyr Heights before leaving for Maretime Bay the next morning.
As she moved through downtown Maretime Bay at a healthy trot, taking in the sights and sounds of her hometown for the first time in nearly a week, needless to say she was happy to be home. She still felt pride well up in her chest every time she saw a unicorn or pegasus on the streets, enjoying the tourism that their city had to offer. She admittedly hadn't seen a whole lot of Sprout around, but maybe that was for the best. She had to assume that there was a decent portion of the town that was none too pleased with him right now.
She made a right turn before the main drag towards CanterLogic, towards the older structures of the downtown area, and went down to the third building on the right.
'The Maretime Bay Museum of History'
The earth mare stepped up to the front door, where a sign hung on the other side of the glass.
The Maretime Bay Museum of History is currently closed for remodeling and renovations. We are very excited to welcome you later in the year when the rest of Equestria has finished sharing their treasures of the past with us, and we with them. Thank you very much for your understanding.
Sunny dug into her saddlebag and came out with a silver key, which she placed into the lock, turned once, and pulled the door open, making sure to reset the lock before removing her key.
"Mister Cinnamon! I'm here!" She called, her hooves echoing off of the vast empty lobby. Various glass display cases lined the outer walls as well as spaced evenly throughout the rest of the room, creating rows and aisles for patrons to filter through. Half of them were currently empty and open, awaiting new items.
Like most of the businesses of Maretime Bay, the town's Museum of History was undergoing something of a culture shock. What was once hall after hall containing relics of solely Earth Pony origins, as well as unicorn and pegasus relics with completely falsified backgrounds, the elderly owner of the museum, Mystic Cinnamon, had reached out to historians in both Bridlewood and Zephyr Heights, offering to share his collection, so that each and every establishment could enrich and diversify their histories.
Understandably, it had thrown more than a couple wrenches into operating hours as the logistics were figured out over the coming weeks.
"Ah, there you are, Miss Starscout. Just in time." Mystic Cinnamon greeted his newest employee. He was a light gray elderly stallion with neatly combed white hair, and his dark purple-framed glasses matched his eyes.
"I'm guessing the gems are ready for me to take over to Canterlogic, boss?" She asked.
"Now, Miss Starscout, what have I told you? I am the owner of this place, but I do not consider myself your boss. We are each students of history, you and I." He corrected her in a firm, but friendly tone.
"Sorry, Mr. Cinnamon." She apologized.
"To answer your question, yes, I've selected three of the gems you've brought me, which images I believe have been sufficiently copied and backed up. But even so, please tell Ms. Cloverleaf to take great care with them. But first, I'd like to show you something. We've been busy while you were away gathering those relics at that old castle."
Sunny followed him down the hall, and her eyes widened when she saw what he had done in her absence.
The entrance to the left third of the building had been completely re-done. Above the wide open entryway was now the six-pointed star, with the lettering "Guardians of Harmony Wing" expertly carved into the polished wood below. On the right side of the entry arch, a table had been placed temporarily, with two polished oak boxes, one a bit larger than the other.
"The larger box contains the gems, but that's not all. Please come here, and close your eyes." The older pony requested.
Sunny did as she was asked, and stepped up towards the right side of the entry arch, where something had been mounted to the wall, and concealed with a cloth. He directed her to stand in front of it, and then she closed her eyes. He then silently lifted the cloth away.
"And open."
Sunny slowly opened her eyes, and her breath was immediately taken away as she saw the oak and gold plaque on the wall.
Guardians of Harmony Wing This wing of the Maretime Bay Museum of History is dedicated to the memory of ARGYLE STARSHINE Who never stopped reaching a hoof out in friendship when his surrounding society would not.
Sunny felt her throat tighten as she raised her right hoof and softly touched the photo.
"I... I don't know what to say." She said, struggling to fight back tears in the corners of her eyes.
"Well, I do," Mystic began. "I'm a stallion who's recently entered my twilight years, and I have no qualms about admitting that I, like most of us, have spent the vast majority of my life in the wrong. Argyle had a better heart than all of us."
"I'm honored." Sunny said, swallowing her tears again.
"No," Mystic countered. "The honor is mine, to share the care of this museum with the daughter of the most kind, selfless pony I have ever known."
Mystic Cinnamon took the smaller of the two hinged oak boxes, and presented it to Sunny.
"Your tenacity and integrity in the face of the adversity that this town showed you time and again has done nothing less than humble me, Miss Starscout. The honor is mine."
Sunny took the box from his hooves, and opened it, and this time, she could not stop the tears from spilling over as she gazed down at the simple golden nametag within.
Sunny Starscout Curator
Sunny bit her lip and wiped away her tears.
"I won't let you down, Mister Cinnamon." She said, her voice shaking.
"I know you won't. You never have. Now, get these over to Ms. Cloverleaf and see what she can do."
Sunny sniffled and wiped the last of her tears away as she was handed the larger oak box, which she tucked carefully into her saddlebag along with the smaller box that contained her new name tag, and headed out of the museum and towards CanterLogic.
If Sunny was completely honest with herself, she wasn't quite used to being able to just waltz right into CanterLogic through the front gates yet, after being thrown out and banned so many times. But this time, security recognized her and let her right on through with a Level 3 Visitor's Pass.
Even though the annual show was eleven months out, the CanterLogic factory was as lively as ever. She had been here enough times to know to stay behind the yellow and black lines, and to keep an eye out for forklifts as she made her way towards Phyllis Cloverleaf's office, which overlooked the entire production floor. Cutting off to the side, she made her way past three idling forklifts, and climbed the iron stairs up to the wide-windowed manager's office. She knocked a couple times, and her hoof was on the doorknob just as she heard "Come in, come in!"
She turned the knob and pushed the door open, being greeted by the smiling face of Phyllis Cloverleaf.
"Sunny! How have you been, sweetheart?" Phyllis welcomed, getting up from her desk and walking around to give her visitor a hug as the door swung closed, greatly muffling the hustle and bustle noises of the production floor.
"I can't complain."
"I hear the permits to fix up the lighthouse are being approved any day now, and I'm very proud to say that just this morning, I've got our first unicorn applicant." Phyllis stated proudly.
"Really? That's fantastic!" Sunny replied.
"So how was your trip?" She asked, leading her guest over to one of the cushioned chairs on the opposite side of the desk.
"Productive. That's actually why I'm here." Sunny answered, reaching into her saddlebag, coming out with the oak box, placing it gently on her desk and sliding it towards her.
The factory director opened the box, and her eyes widened at the three glimmering gems resting securely in the box; topaz, cyan, and rose quartz.
"Oh my. What have we got here?" She asked.
"Look closely, there's an image embedded in each one." Sunny told her.
Phyllis adjusted her glasses and leaned in towards the box. As she crossed the specific angle, she saw the image of a small purple dragon helping put together some kind of broken statue in a ballroom in the gem on the right, her eyes widening in surprise. She then looked over to the one in the middle, and saw the same dragon, along with four ponies on a boat, with a large sea creature in the background. Lastly, she looked at the one on the left side of the case. It seemed to be a... Sporting field of some kind. It was a cheerleading squad, and some of the cheer squad were not ponies.
"Incredible... Was this how they took pictures back then?" Phyllis asked, looking back up at Sunny.
"I don't think they're photographs. I think they're memories, enchanted into the individual gems. We've got two hundred and twenty of them, and each one is unique, so please treat them with the utmost care." Sunny replied.
Phyllis nodded in understanding.
"Absolutely, but, what would you like me to do with them?" She asked.
"In order to keep the gems, and the memories inside them, as safe as possible for an untold number of museum patrons, I'm wondering if you could design a... Projector, of sorts, to display the image contained in the gem up on a wall display or screen."
Phyllis took her words to heart before looking back down at the gems in question, putting a hoof to her chin in thought.
"Hm. I can give Facet down on Seaside Drive a call. In order to be absolutely safe, I think it will be best if we start with replicas that can take a few dings. Sunny, I'll get R&D started on this right away, and we'll give it our absolute best shot. I'll let you know as soon as we have something concrete."
Sunny smiled at her.
"Thank you so much, Phyllis. So... So how's Sprout?"
The mother's face became a bit more somber at the question.
"Oh, well... Well, he's trying. He really is. I've got to give him that. I realize it's going to take him a very long time to make up for what he did, and I think he realizes it too. I just hope he's prepared for how long it might take." She said, as she softly closed the oak case containing the gems.
"As long as he gives it genuine effort, I hope he's treated fairly. Well, I won't take up any more of your time, Ms. Cloverleaf. Thank you again."
With another trio of sprays from the bottle of window cleaner, Sunny began to gently wipe the cleaning solution across the top glass panel of the still-empty Guardian wing's fourth oak and glass display case. It streaked at first, but after about thirty seconds of rubbing it in, it looked absolutely crystal clear. With that done, she set the cleaner aside, and grabbed the wood polish, dousing a fresh rag with it, and slowly made her way around the wooden beams and supports.
There was nothing in here except for the lighting and empty cases so far, and to be honest, they weren't entirely sure how or even if they were going to use these so far. CanterLogic hadn't gotten back to them yet about a projection method for the castle gems, and for all she knew, they could be utilizing their own display cases to speed up development.
She knew she would have to find places to put all of her dad's collection, most of which thankfully survived Sprout's assault on the lighthouse. But she knew she wanted the gems to be the centerpiece of this wing, so she'd have to figure out how they would be getting displayed first. So for now, and every day for the past two weeks, she was happy to go over every inch of this empty wing and clean to her heart's content, so when the time came to begin sorting and organizing, she would be absolutely ready.
"Miss Starscout!" She heard Mystic Cinnamon call as he came in from the center hall. "Ah, there you are. You have a visitor waiting at the front desk. Sheesh, you're going to put my custodian out of work."
Bundling up the rag and tossing it on the floor next to the bottle of polish, Sunny got to her hooves and sauntered out into the center hall, where a bit more progress was being made with donations and relics from more recent years, or just as old, but not directly related to the Guardians of Harmony.
She came to the front of the building, out of the center wing and saw the front admissions desk, where a familiar face was standing and waiting patiently.
"Alphabittle! How have you been?" She enthusiastically greeted the Bridlewood tavern owner. The stout unicorn stallion likewise gave her a warm smile.
"As well as I can be. It's great to see you, Sunny. I've been spreading the word about your museum, specifically the wing you've been put in charge of, and I've got a donation for you. I considered it important enough to not trust with ordinary mail."
Sunny nodded in understanding. Nationwide courier service was still in the very early stages, and delays and mis-handlings were common. It was mostly the reason deliveries to the museum were taking as long as it was, as museum curators were relying instead on independent couriers, but it was better to be safe than sorry.
"That's amazing! What do you have?" She asked.
Alphabittle ducked behind his side of the desk, and it sounded like he was unlatching a chest. He came back up with a rectangular item that was wrapped in several pieces of cloth, and set it gently on the desk.
"Who do we have in Bridlewood to thank for this?" She asked, as she slowly began to unwrap the pieces of cloth.
"Gloomy Sonnet. She was the poet in my tavern that called out our dance rounds during our little competition. She credits her great grandfather, who was very adamant about keeping his family collectibles in mint condition." The stallion replied.
Sunny smirked up at him.
"I'm totally down for a rematch one of these days." She said. He returned the smirk.
Her eyes widened as the final piece of cloth was pulled away, and she stared down at the semi-transparent vacuum-sealed bag, looking positively ancient all on its own, never mind the dark purple hardcover-bound book contained inside it.
Her heart skipped a beat when she saw the six-pointed amethyst star on the front, surrounded by a horseshoe patterned with five other gems.
She slowly raised her head to look up at Alphabittle, her mouth having dropped open in absolute shock.
"I'm assuming that you have a little bit more of an idea of what we've got here." Alphabittle replied, taking in her expression.
With hooves moving like lightning, Sunny dug into her saddlebag and came out with her smartphone, swiping through the lock screen and hitting the speed dial, putting the phone to her ear.
"Hello, Phyllis? It's Sunny. No, no I'm not calling about the projectors, I know these things take time. We need a clean room and a high-resolution camera as soon as absolutely possible. Can you make that happen?"
The unicorn stallion noticed the earth mare was nearly quivering as she listened in to the other side of the line.
"Really? Amazing. We'll be right there."
Sunny tapped the end call button and dropped her phone back into her saddlebag.
"Mystic! I'm headed out! Don't expect me back today!" She yelled back into the center wing, before turning back to Alphabittle.
"Well, this is certainly... Different," Alphabittle remarked as he fidgeted in the white multi-piece "clean room suit" that he had gotten into, honestly a bit surprised that they had had one in his size.
He and Sunny had returned the sealed book to it's cloth wrap and chest, and taken it straight to what was clearly the biggest employer in town, a large production factory named CanterLogic. They were each given visitor passes, and their chest was taken through security while they were taken to get changed. The suit consisted of white booties, body sleeve, and a hood that covered their mane and came up to their faces. A face mask covered their snouts, leaving the only part uncovered being their eyes.
"We don't know exactly how old this book is, or how long it's been sealed in that bag. The longer the better, if the seal has held. Worst case scenario is, we open that book, and the pages start coming apart with every turn. A better case would be if it's in good enough condition to get pages turned and get them photographed for copying. Best case scenario is it's in good enough condition to put on display in the museum. We're taking it to a clean room, with minimum contamination factor, so if it's in good enough condition to be photographed and lightly handled, it can stay that way for as long as possible."
"You're the expert," Alphabittle replied.
"I wish."
Once they were fully dressed, they went through a set of double doors, where they immediately felt the change in air pressure. The mat they stepped onto was sticky, and was likely meant to get any last contaminants off of their hooves. They crossed through another set of double doors, and suddenly the air seemed a bit lighter. A CanterLogic employee was waiting for them in the brightly lit hall.
"You were the two with the book? Right this way, ma'am, sir," the equally clad earth pony said, and led them past several doors with glass observation windows, and stopped at the fourth one.
"It's right in there, take as much time as you need,"he said, then proceeded down the hall. Sunny and Alphabittle looked into the room through the window, and saw that the book had been removed from the chest and cloth wrap, and sat on a simple, plain table, still sealed in the bag.
She opened the door, and the pair of them stepped in. A high resolution digital camera had also been set up, attached to a bracket that kept it suspended a foot and a half above the table, and also plugged into a screen that was on a separate stand next to the table. Next to the sealed book, was a set of tweezers, and a retractable precision blade, presumably to open the bag. They stepped up to the table, and looked at their donation. Taking a deep breath, Sunny extended the blade by just a quarter of an inch, got the handle in the notch in her right hoof, then ever so lightly glided the blade across the top of the bag, then making two more cuts long ways on both sides of the book, intending on peeling the top of the bag away with minimal movement of the book.
With the cuts complete, she retracted the blade and set it down on the far side of the table, taking the top of the bag and peeling the new flap towards her, exposing the book for the first time in unknown centuries. She got the top flap of the bag rolled up, and slowly and carefully pulled the bottom portion out from underneath, setting it aside.
The camera had already been turned on, so it was just a matter of getting it positioned, the camera took care of the focusing, and she promptly snapped a picture of the cover, which came up on the screen seconds later.
Taking another deep breath, she got the tip of her right hoof underneath the right corner of the front cover, and lifted it, rotating it on the binding, bringing it to rest on the table.
The inside cover had a signature on it, elegant and curvy enough that she couldn't make it out. 'T' something...
The first page was the title.
The Journal of Friendship by Princess Twilight Sparkle, Pinkie Pie , Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Fluttershy and Spike the Dragon
Sunny stared longingly at the names below the title, almost forgetting to take a photo with the above camera.
"Their names..." She whispered. "I finally know their names..."
She took the tweezers in the notch of her hooves, got them perfectly under the first page, and turned it, to the Table of Contents and the Preface.
She quickly snapped a photo of the Table of Contents, then slid the camera over to the Preface, snapping away before actually taking the time to read it.
Preface
When Princess Celestia sent me to Ponyville all those years ago to study friendship, I was tasked with writing her letters about what I had learned. But soon I was learning as much from my new friends as they were from each other, and we all began to write letters.
Inside these pages are the combined lessons that we have all learned during our time together, compiled so that anypony out there can learn the same lessons we did and understand the true magic of friendship.
Thank you for taking the time to apply these stories and life lessons to yourself and those around you.
Sincerely, Princess Twilight Sparkle
"I don't believe it. This is amazing, this is amazing, I can probably use this as a cross reference for the gems!" She said excitedly, turning to the unicorn standing to the side. "Alphabittle, I won't keep you. This is going to take me hours."
"Don't worry about it. I was planning on spending a day or two here anyways, see the sights of the coast," the stallion replied.
"Well, I certainly hope you enjoy yourself, and when you do get back to Bridlewood, please, give Gloomy my gratitude, and tell her that if there's absolutely anything I can do for her, to not hesitate to ask, because there is no way I can repay her for the insights she has just revealed to us. I would love to have you both at the re-opening."
Alphabittle smiled down at the earth mare.
"I'll do that, and we'll try our best to be here for that. And when you're back in Bridlewood, I believe I'll take you up on that rematch."
With a final smile, he turned to leave the room, and Sunny immediately turned back to the open journal, carefully turning the page, and getting the camera lined up.
Hitch walked down the hall of his one story house on the west side of Maretime Bay, carrying a plate containing two slices of veggie deluxe pizza, fresh out of the oven, and a cup of soda. He came up to the second door on the left, knocked twice, and received a "Come in!"
He opened the door to the guest bedroom.
"And dinner is serv... Did my temporary roommate turn into a conspiracy theorist?" He asked. There sat Sunny, in the middle of the bedroom floor, a large bulletin board leaning up against her bed, with a dozen sheets of notebook paper pinned to it, and laminated sheets of paper scattered all around her. Each of them looked to be scans of... book pages?
She turned to smirk at him.
"Ha. I'm finally starting to make sense of a bunch of those memory gems we found in the castle. Like the party in the library? That was Twilight's welcome party when she first came to Ponyville. And her very first sleepover. And the one who carved his final message into the wall; his name was Discord! And that mirror in the basement was a portal to another dimension! Hitch, it's amazing, it's like discovering them for the first time all over again," Sunny excitedly told him, pointing to several different pages strewn about the floor.
"Still no idea how long ago this all was?" Hitch asked, setting the plate and cup on the nightstand.
"No, and that answer may not be in here," Sunny said, getting up and carefully stepping through the copies on the floor to sit on the bed and start into her pizza. "You might enjoy reading about Fluttershy, Hitch. She seemed to be a rehabilitative therapist of some kind for small woodland critters. Now where have I heard of a pony like that before?"
"They follow me around everywhere. Hardly speaks to my ability to care for them to a degree like that," Hitch retorted.
"So I hear it's official? Construction and repair work started on the lighthouse today?" Sunny asked.
"Yep. Mayor's office finally finalized the permits and the last of the red tape was finally gotten through. Hope it goes smoothly, and doesn't take too long. And don't get me wrong, I love having you here, but I know you like having your own place."
"I just hope they don't have to change it too much to make it livable again," Sunny said, finishing off her first slice.
"Seeing how it's a local landmark, I do think there are certain things they are required to keep the same. Don't worry, I'm sure it'll look better than it did before this whole mess started."
"Here's hoping," Sunny replied, raising her glass.
Three days later...
Now armed with an arsenal of names and places, Sunny was finally beginning to mentally prepare how she wanted to organize the Guardians of Harmony wing in the Maretime Bay Museum of History. Regardless of the way the display cases would be organized, she knew she'd likely commission large cutouts of these six legendary friends to hang on the walls.
She was also highly considering getting the Journal of Friendship republished and have copies available during the reopening.
"Ah, Miss Starscout, just the pony I wanted to see," Mystic Cinnamon said, strolling into the still-barren hall, hoofsteps echoing off of the walls.
"What can I do for you, Mr. Cinnamon?" She asked, turning her attention away from the far wall.
"Well, I'd like to know how you feel about replicas."
"Replicas?"
"Why, yes. I think a museum shouldn't solely be about preservation, of storing ancient relics and showing ponies what they look like now, but also giving them a look back in time, showing them what items looked like back in the day. What do you think?" Mystic asked.
"Hm," Sunny began, putting a hoof to her chin and taking a look around the wing. Truth be told, not too much had come in just yet, and they were currently just working off the memory gems. "Yeah, replicas are probably the perfect way to fill out this space. Where do you think we should begin?"
"I've been looking at those gems you brought in, and I think having a miniature replica of Princess Twilight's castle would be a great piece. And I'd bet a replica of one of those Wonderbolt uniforms would look pretty flashy, especially if we could get a hold of a mid-flight pegasus mannequin, that we could hang from the ceiling. Although, to be fair, CanterLogic's pegasus test dummies may not be the most accurate thing in town, so we might need to have them update the model. Maybe have the same pegasus fit for a custom uniform and be the template for the new mannequin?"
The proverbial light bulb came on over Sunny's head.
"I think I might have just the pony in mind, Mr. Cinnamon."
"Thanks for doing this on such short notice, Zipp," Sunny told her white flying friend as they made their way down one of CanterLogic's many corridors along with Phyllis Cloverleaf and her new unicorn employee.
"A week is short notice? That's news to me. I'm just surprised to have gotten a call for a model before Pipp did," The pegasus responded, fluttering her wings momentarily.
"Well, to be fair, this is probably a modeling gig that is a bit too... Shall we say, extreme, for Pipp's likening," Sunny replied.
Zipp raised her eyebrow.
"Color me intrigued. This place is pretty big, what else do they do here?"
"We used to design and mass-produce devices that, um, protected Maretime Bay citizens from hypothetical abductions and attacks from unicorns and pegasi. No, I am no longer proud of it, and we are still going through a massive rebranding as part of the reunification," Phyllis said.
"Aren't we all," Zipp agreed, remembering how Zephyr Heights was going through quite some significant changes as well now that the entire populace could fly. The royal guards were getting a crash course in all possible meanings of the words 'air traffic control.'
"You haven't told me a whole lot about what this is going to entail, Sunny. What gives?" The pegasus asked as they turned a corner.
"I figured I'd try and surprise you. You'll love it, trust me," Sunny told her.
They came to a set of large double doors, obviously built that way to move immense devices in and out. The room was largely empty, save for a workspace in the corner, and several devices mounted to frames on the walls, that didn't look entirely out of place in one of Pipp's performances.
"Alright, Zipp," Phyllis began. "This is our scanning room. We're going to scan your body so we can produce a mannequin for the museum. Then we'll take those same measurements and use them to make uniforms to put on them."
"Uniforms?" Zipp asked, and Sunny nodded.
"Mystic Cinnamon and I have decided that we want to make some replicas to show how some things looked back in the Guardians' era. One of the first things we'd like to try is the old Wonderbolts flight uniforms. Not only that, but I also found some images of dress uniforms as well."
Zipp's eyes widened with excitement.
"Seriously?"
"Yep, and you were the first pony that I thought of," Sunny told her. Zipp, unable to keep the corners of her mouth from curling up, jumped forward and brought her earth pony friend into a hug.
"You. Are. Awesome! Alright, where do we begin? Where do you want me?" She asked, nearly trotting in place.
"We'd like you to hover up there in the middle of the scanners," Phyllis told her pointing up to the laser devices that her unicorn employee was now turning on from the workstation.
Zipp glanced at her curiously.
"Just... Floating there? Hovering in place? Are you sure that's going to capture the Wonderbolts? From that poster in the Zephyr Heights terminal, they were a serious flying team. Extremely high speeds and thrilling stunts," Zipp objected, albeit politely.
"That's true. Everything in that journal about the Wonderbolts confirms that they were an extreme flying stunt team," Sunny told Phyllis.
"We can certainly make adjustments for the experts. What did you have in mind?" Phyllis asked, only getting a sly smile from the pegasus in return.
Just over an hour later, they had finally gotten started, after turning the scanning room into a hastily-put-together wind tunnel, having brought in three of the largest industrial fans they could find on the other side of the factory. Stacking two on top of each other and setting them in the front of the room, and the third one directly under her facing up. Turning all three on raised the ambient volume of the room considerably. The unicorn had to telekinetically catch a stack of papers that had not been weighed down, but that was the only mishap, aside from the noise.
Zipp donned the pair of safety goggles they had supplied her, leapt into the air, and after some mid-air adjustments, got into a comfortable gliding position.
"Alright, crank it! And then scan away!" Zipp shouted down to the corner where the three others were standing and watching. Turning the fans to their max level increased the noise to nearly deafening, but not quite, as they heard the pegasus scream out an excited "Whoo!!!", leaning more into the wind as the laser scanners went live. Suddenly, the pegasus' white body looked like the floor at a night club as lasers danced over her hooves, body, and wings as her dimensions were fed into the computer.
Above all the noise, Sunny noticed the pegasus' phone vibrate on the metallic desktop, it's screen lighting up and showing a picture of Queen Haven along with the words 'INCOMING CALL'.
As it rang, slowly sliding towards the edge of the desk, Sunny grabbed it before it tumbled over to the floor, and trotted out of the double doors into the hallway, where the noise was significantly reduced, before sliding the tip of her hoof over to the green phone icon, and putting it up to her ear.
"Queen Haven, your majesty. It's Sunny, Sunny Starscout. Zipp is a little... Preoccupied, at the moment. Can I give her a message?" Sunny greeted, as she heard another scream of exhilaration over the fans.
"Oh, that's perfectly alright, dear. I actually called to talk to you, and I don't have your number yet," the Zephyr Heights ruler replied.
"Really? What can I do for you?" Sunny asked, intrigued.
"The progress on the road to those castle ruins you found is proceeding well. We even managed to bring in a group of unicorns that have become proficient at levitation magic. Over the last two weeks, they've been carefully clearing away the rock slide near the castle just on the other side of the river. There's not much left of the structure underneath all of the rubble, but they did uncover some sort of underground passageway. Since you discovered the area, I'm calling to see if you'd like to come back over here for the first look."
When the scanning process was done, CanterLogic had templates for five poses of pegasus mannequins. Once they had the uniforms made and fitted, they'd send them down to the museum, and also send a complimentary uniform up to Zipp.
Then as they headed out of the factory, Sunny told her friend about the phone call, and that she'd be coming back with her to Zephyr Heights.
"Already found something else down there, have they?" Zipp asked as Sunny came out of Hitch's house with her saddlebags, packed with the low-light gear she had explored the castle with.
"Apparently. Your mom asked if I wanted first look, and I jumped at the opportunity. It's odd; the memory gems and the journal; there's nothing in any of them about this structure." Sunny told her.
"Maybe there's something down there that'll shed some light. Perhaps being under all that rubble helped preserve something," Zipp offered.
"Here's hoping. Figure I'd crash in a hotel, and then get an early start in the morning," Sunny told her as they left the town limits of Maretime Bay.
"Ha. No way. No friend of mine is paying for a hotel. Princess' orders. You'll get one of the guest suites at the castle. The trip down the mountain shouldn't take as long now, not with the paths being made to get even rough dirt roads built down there."
A month ago, when Sunny made her journey down the mountain, it was truly a venture into the unknown. Even now, retracing her steps, starting at the top, the sprawling forest below looked exactly the same. It wasn't quite as solitary, with Zipp by her side, and making their way through the forest would be easier on several points; due to not having to rely on the marker on Sunny's GPS, they knew exactly where the castle was due to the large tree poking up above everything else in the canopy, as well as the dirt road that was now curving through the forest.
"So, you think you'll try to reform the Wonderbolts team?" Sunny asked.
"I've honestly been thinking about that. On one hoof, I'd love to re-ignite Equestria's glory days like that. But on the other hoof..." Zipp trailed off, pausing.
"Yeah?" Sunny asked, encouraging her to continue.
"Pegasi haven't flown in generations. You saw how awkward everything was coming back into town. Having our magic back hasn't been all sunshine and rainbows, Sunny. We haven't even figured out civilian traffic flow. Hospital admittance has tripled due to midair collisions. Flying becomes riskier the faster you do it."
"Well, true, it probably wouldn't be going right back to the glory days, but you have to start somewhere, right? Have to trot before you can gallop, right? If you can get a few ponies flying at the same speed at the same height, I'd say that's a great start."
The two ponies greeted the group of pegasi and earth ponies that were working on the road at it's latest point, and then dug out their phones to look for Sunny's map ping. It was ten minutes on the path, and fifteen minutes on the forest floor before they spotted the ZH Royal Guard campsite in front of the castle.
"Ah, Princess Zephyrina, Miss Starscout. Welcome back." Thunder said.
Zipp's cheeks lit up at her legal name being spoken in front of her friend, but she didn't seem to notice or care, as her attention had been drawn to where the rock slide used to be.
Something had been under all the boulders and rubble. Not much remained, but there were the cracked, broken foundations of crystal pillars. Some sections of broken stone walls, not even coming up to chest height.
"Queen Haven said there was some kind of underground passage?" Sunny asked as she stepped over the stones to the other side of the river.
"Over here in the western quadrant." Zoom Zephyrwing replied, leading her over the crystal tiles that strongly resembled the floors in the castle. She brought the earth pony over to an area that had been reasonably cleared, and stopped near a hole in the ground. What was odd about it was that it looked perfectly square.
"That... Doesn't look natural," Sunny said, digging into her saddlebags and putting on her LED headband, switching it on and shining it down into the passage.
"That was our thought. We know you and your friends explored the castle thoroughly, so if that passage didn't connect with anything in the castle, that you should have the first look, Miss Starscout," Zoom told her.
With a nod, Sunny peered down into the hole. It wasn't quite a staircase, but it seemed to be a... zigzagging glowing root of some sort.
"Alright, let me see how far down this goes," Sunny said, sliding down on the root. Before going down any farther, Thunder handed her a substantial coil of rope while keeping hold of the other end.
"In case it starts to fork in there," Thunder said.
Smiling in gratitude, Sunny turned back toward the passageway, and continued down, pulling the rope after her. After several moments of careful sliding, her hooves touched stone, and she found glowing crystals that lit up the area fairly decently. Starting forward, she noticed that as she continued down the dark path, the crystals lit up brighter the closer she got to them, as well as more crystals farther down the passage beginning to glow dimly.
Were... Were they reacting to her?
She shut off her LED headband, realizing that the crystals were more than sufficient illumination. The passage slowly bent to the left. It was a good thing she had been supplied the rope, because less than one hundred feet in, the passage forked, and she made another left as it slowly continued to descend underground. She had a fairly good sense of direction, and she was fairly certain that these catacombs were lower than the castle basement, and thus was the reason why they didn't find any of this when they had mapped it out last month.
After another bend, she came to a slightly elevated archway. Something artificial? All the way down here? She stepped up to the arch, and gazed down, her eyes widening.
It was a large crystal chamber, almost as large as the castle throne room. Six crystal pillars surrounded the center of the room. The outer walls looked artificial, and she saw a dimly glowing orb of light in the center of the chamber, in the middle of the six pillars.
The passage curved to the right and descended the outer edge of the chamber in a flight of stairs. She turned and slowly took them down to the ground floor of the chamber, crystals lighting up as she went. As she came closer to the floor, she saw the orb's glow slowly increase in intensity. The stairs wrapped around a third of the chamber as they descended, before Sunny finally touched the floor, and the six pillars began to glow brighter. The spherical shape of the orb began to ebb and flow outward, expanding as it became brighter and brighter, and began to float ever so slowly towards the room's new occupant.
Sunny stayed where she was, but brought her hoof up to shield her eyes from the almost-blinding light, and as soon as her line of sight was blocked, the light began to dim. As she lowered her hoof, the glowing orb shifted and shaped into the form of a pony... An earth pony that walked towards her as the light formed into hooves.
Sunny's eyes widened and her breath left her as the orb's light continued to dim, and she saw an all too familiar figure slowly approach.
The light dimmed almost entirely, leaving the illumination of the room to the six crystal pillars, and the light blue earth pony with a blue and purple mane gave her a gentle smile.
"Hey there, Sunny Bunny."
Sunny Starscout managed to barely draw in enough air to breathe, and enough of her voice came to her to let out a whisper.
Sunny stared dumbfounded at the father she had only seen in photographs for the past five years as her mind struggled to make sense of the situation she found herself in.
"You... You can't be real," Sunny said, half-confidently. "You're not my dad."
The semi-transparent Argyle smiled gently at her and shook his head in confirmation.
"You choose what you see, not me. Argyle Starshine was always the embodiment of harmony to you, Sunny Starscout."
Sunny took a deep breath.
"So, what are you, some kind of spirit?"
Argyle nodded once.
"What is this place?" Sunny asked.
"A nexus; one of several places around Equestria that is so closely connected to the magical energies of Aetherius that you could reach out and touch it, given enough effort, though certainly while risking your corporeal form," Argyle told her.
"You knew the Guardians of Harmony?"
The spirit nodded again, turning to the six pillars that were still glowing around the center of the room.
"Charity, optimism, integrity, compassion, devotion, leadership, laughter, generosity, loyalty, kindness, honesty... The core tenets of harmony have gone by many names in the eras that have passed. Princess Twilight learned about these, and then spread them as far and wide as she could. Although, I cannot tell you how long it has been since her reign, because I honestly do not know. I do know I have been asleep for quite a long time, the world above no doubt looks quite different."
"The castle above is the only structure left standing. The town? Ponyville? It's long gone. It's nothing but forest out there now," Sunny told the spirit.
"An extension of my energies. No doubt the supernatural forest had quite some time to grow and expand unopposed before it too had its magic fade away."
"How... How many have there been? Since... The fall? Ponies like my dad?" Sunny asked.
"Not many, but they have been scattered throughout the countless years since Princess Twilight's reign. Think of it like waking up for barely a moment in the middle of the night. That is how it felt. That is how I knew there were still creatures who sought harmony."
"It's... It's so frightening. So much unity, and still, Equestria was fractured," Sunny said.
"Change is constant throughout the eons, Sunny. Just as the sun sets, it will surely rise again. Argyle may have known that restoring Equestria's unity would not be possible by one pony, or one generation, so he pointed you in the right direction. I hope you are proud of your father, Sunny Starscout, because he is undoubtedly proud of you. He may have shown you the path, but you and your friends are the ones who had to continue walking it without him. You are the dawn of a new day in Equestria."
Sunny smiled at the spirit.
"Remember, Sunny, gathering and preserving relics and tales of the past is a noble pursuit, but don't focus on it so much that you lose sight of the here and now."
Zipp frantically followed the rope deeper into the caves, the crystals faintly glowing as she passed them. As she was royalty, she didn't set foot in here without Zoom and Thunder right on her tail. She followed the rope until it came to a light source She peered over the ledge of an archway, and saw Sunny standing in a large chamber several feet below, among six glowing pillars.
"Sunny!" She called, and her friend looked up at her, and she made her way down the stairs.
"Sorry I was taking so long," Sunny apologized.
"Yeah, I was starting to get a little worried. But hey, another amazing find!" Zipp said, taking a look around.
"There's a spirit in here, Zipp. Of Harmony. It said this place is an aetherial nexus, a concentrated source of magical energy. The spirit has been asleep for a long time, but our actions to reunite Equestria have started to wake it up!"
Zipp looked around at the chamber as Sunny began to take pictures with her phone.
"I know Izzy is already working on the model of the castle up there, but maybe she'd like to do this too." The earth pony said.
"Did it say anything to you, the spirit?" Zipp asked.
Sunny nodded, turning back to her friend.
"That if we stay true to ourselves, there is no limit to what we can do for Equestria."
Sunny Starscout could barely contain her excitement as she stepped out of the Maretime Bay Museum of History for the final time before it would be officially open. The exhibits on all three races were ready, and the Guardians of Harmony wing looked positively stunning. As soon as she was determined to go back to Hitch's for a good night's sleep, the excitement only continued to pile on as she was told that repair work on the lighthouse was officially complete, and that she could move back in at any time.
So as the preparations for tomorrow's re-opening was finally complete, she now headed back towards the lighthouse at almost a full gallop, eager to see what it had looked like. She had kept herself so busy at the museum that she hadn't really made any time to go check on construction progress the past few months.
She got to the town's outer streets, and her breath left her in a gasp as she came over the crest of the first hill, and saw what had been done.
She was sure there were some details that would go unnoticed under the clear night sky, but the first thing she had noticed was the light at the top was fully functional again, and cast out a brilliant beam of light out to sea. She trotted up the path and found the moon bright enough to notice the fresh coat of paint on everything. It probably looked brand new in the light of day.
She came up to the front door and dug her house key out of her saddlebag, and brought it up to the doorknob, but found that it didn't go in, and it made her realize that they likely went with brand new locks as well.
"Looks like tonight isn't over yet," Sunny surmised, guessing they probably dropped the key off at her temporary address, which was Hitch's place. She turned and trotted back down the hill, and saw another pony come over the hill, and they met in the middle, before Sunny finally recognized him in the moonlight.
"Oh, Sprout!" She greeted.
"Hey, Sunny. The construction foreman couldn't find you, so he gave the key to Hitch... He said I should bring it by so you didn't have to walk all the way back into town. Here," Sprout said, tossing the metal key, ring, and tag over to the mare, who deftly caught it in her right hoof.
"Thanks," Sunny told him, giving him a smile.
"So, yeah. See ya," Sprout replied, turning quickly to head back down the path.
"Hey, not so fast," Sunny called after him, causing him to pause in his trot. "I haven't seen you in months. It almost feels like we've been avoiding each other. How have you been, Sprout?" Sunny asked, taking a few steps towards him.
The red earth pony slowly turned around, his ears low.
"I mean, as well as I can be, I guess. I keep reminding myself how lucky I am to still have my job with Hitch... Instead of having to take something at CanterLogic, staring at a conveyor belt for hours on end."
Sunny noted how Spout wasn't making eye contact, and was poking the ground with his left hoof anxiously.
"Hitch has said you've turned over a new leaf, and how much of an improvement you've been making."
Sprout nodded softly, again avoiding her gaze.
"Look, I know you have that museum opening in the morning, so... I won't keep you," Sprout said, again trying to excuse himself, but only got halfway turned around before Sunny spoke up again, and he realized it wasn't going to be that easy.
"Sprout, wait."
Sprout turned again, letting out an exasperated sigh.
"Look, this isn't going to work, alright? I know you're trying to make nice, and act like it's all water under the bridge. Thanks, but... You don't know how others look at me now. Every single day," Sprout told her, finally looking her in the eyes, though he had to bite his lip to do so.
"Yeah, I do know. That's why I'm doing this. I wanted to see how you're doing, ask if you're okay," Sunny told him, dropping the key into her saddlebag.
"Am I okay? Really? Do you know how hard it is to get out of bed in the morning sometimes? How ashamed I feel every hour of every day now? How can Hitch ever expect me to serve this town when I can't even look at any of them?" He asked.
"It's not entirely your fault, Sprout."
"How can you say that? Of course it is."
"Not really. You, and all of Maretime Bay, were a product of your surroundings. We took the same classes, read the same history books..."
"And you're the only one who didn't turn into a paranoid, constantly frightened moron. You know why? Your dad. You listened to him, and nopony else did. That's not a very good excuse for the rest of us."
"But it is a reason, Sprout. Yeah, I listened to my dad and his research, but do you know how often I felt like doubting him, and got tempted to just go with the flow? More than you might think."
"Really?" Sprout asked, and Sunny nodded immediately.
"I also know it can be a little frustrating when your life doesn't quite turn out the way you think it will. I remember you always talking about being sheriff of Maretime Bay. Well, you didn't get it. Hitch did, and you probably have a better idea than anyone of how hard it can be to live and work in the shadow of somepony like that. When he went chasing after me, you saw it as a chance to re-capture your dream, and maybe didn't know where to stop." Sunny told him.
"That doesn't excuse what I did," Sprout said matter-of-factly.
"I'm not saying it does."
"Then what are you saying?" Sprout asked, the frustration becoming more apparent in his voice.
Sunny took several more steps towards him.
"I'm saying I forgive you, Sprout," Sunny said, slowly raising her right hoof and offered the stallion a hoofshake.
Sprout's eyes widened.
"J-Just... Just like that...?" He asked, barely above a whisper. Sunny nodded, and he slowly looked down at her outstretched hoof, his breathing slowly quickening.
He gritted his teeth, and swatted her hoof away, then proceeded to stomp at the ground.
"N... No! No! That's not fair! Y-you lost your dad, and... And after that this town gave you nothing but grief over your beliefs for y-years, and then... And then I nearly demolished your home! You're s-supposed to hate me! You... You can't just...! You can't...!"
Sunny heard his breaths come to him in unsteady gasps, noticed his ears pin flat against his head, and saw the tears rapidly accumulate behind his eyelids. He turned to gallop away, but before he could take a single step, he felt himself get turned back around and pulled into a firm but gentle hug.
"It's okay, Sprout," Sunny told him.
Spout shuddered as he felt something squeeze at his chest, and quickly build up to an unbearable pressure as it demanded release, and release it did in the form of a wailing cry as the burning hot tears finally spilled over, and he collapsed to his haunches as he lowered his head and sobbed into Sunny's barrel.
"I'm s-sorry..." He choked out between his guilt-stricken hiccups. "I'm-I'm so sorry..."
Sunny said nothing more, and held the Maretime Bay deputy as his shoulders heaved, casting aside the weight that he had been carrying these past few months, along with the guilt that had been eating him alive inside.
They stayed like that for several moments, sitting on the dirt path, illuminated only by the moonlight and it's reflection in the sea as it made it's nightly journey through the sky.
As he began to calm down, Sprout sniffled, then took a deep breath, gently pushing away from the hug.
"Thank you, Sunny. For what it's worth, thank you. I won't keep you up any longer, I know you've got a big day tomorrow morning," Sprout told her, wiping his eyes.
"Will you be alright?" She asked.
"Yeah," Sprout answered, nodding and sniffling again. "Yeah I think I will. Have a good night, Sunny."
Sunny's eyes opened up and saw her ceiling as her 7 AM alarm blared out like clockwork. She reached over and shut the alarm off, and sat up, stretching as she swung her hind legs over the edge of the bed. Tying her hair in her signature braid, she went over to her closet and pulled out the black cloth vest that served as her uniform for museum curator. Her name tag had been polished last night, and the small buttons featuring the cutie marks of the six Guardians had been transferred over from her saddlebag to all four sides of her name tag.
She thought about throwing it on and heading out right away, but the museum didn't open until 10 AM, and she didn't need to be there for final checks until 9, so she had a bit of time to play with. Putting a hoof to her chin, she took the vest off of the hanger and took it downstairs, laying it over the back of the couch while she went to the kitchen, and preheated the oven while she started to go through her baking supplies...
Sunny was nearly overflowing with excitement as she stood in the middle of the Guardians of Harmony wing, refurbished, refilled, and ready for the opening in five minutes. Upon stepping into the wing proper, the first thing to grab your attention was the amazing miniature-scale crystal replica of Princess Twilight's castle. Izzy took her arts and crafts very seriously, and took every available reference image in the memory gems to carve and chisel a near-perfect replica of how the castle looked back in its prime. The unicorn was fully prepped for the day with notes and facts about it and the surrounding town of Ponyville for curious patrons.
"It looks amazing, Izzy. The best unicycling I've ever seen," Sunny told the unicorn, who stood proudly next to her exhibit.
"Eh, I'd say it's more uni-chiseling than unicycling this time around. But I'm glad you like it! I hope everypony else does too!" Izzy replied.
To the left of the central castle exhibit, was the Wonderbolts display, containing three pegasus mannequins. One had the Academy recruit uniform, which was quite simple, covering the barrel and neck of the left mannequin.
Next to that was the formal dress uniform, which consisted of a white dress shirt, black neck tie, and a dark navy blue coat, with all manner of ribbons and insignia adorning the chest. Finishing off the mannequin was a pair of aviator shades.
Finally, hanging from the ceiling above both of them was the 'in-flight' pegasus mannequin, fully clad in the Wonderbolts flight suit. This covered the entire body, legs, hooves, and only had openings for the ears, wings, tail, and muzzle. Completing the uniform was the opaque flight goggles tightly wrapped around the head.
Standing next to the exhibit was Zipp, clothed in a second dress uniform.
"Looking sharp, Captain Storm," Sunny told her.
Zipp gave her a smirk.
"Gotta say, I could get used to hearing that," the pegasus replied.
Sunny walked over to the right of the castle model, where an oak and glass display case sat in the open, containing the Journal of Friendship. A gold plaque was mounted on the front of the display, titling the item inside, thanking the town of Bridlewood, as well as Gloomy Sonnet specifically, for donating it to the museum.
In the back corner, a replica of the crystal wall with Discord's final inscription was lit up on display. She and Mystic had debated for a few days on whether they should complete Discord's signature on the wall, before ultimately deciding against it, as Sunny believed patrons should realize that he had written this message with the very last bit of his energy, not lasting long enough to finish his name.
Pipp was currently in the center wing, livestreaming with her phone before the doors opened for everypony else, and Hitch was outside on crowd control. Apparently, word had gotten around, and this museum re-opening was the biggest event in town, and Mystic Cinnamon was currently figuring out the best way to make sure they didn't bypass the building's occupancy limit.
The castle model, Wonderbolt exhibit, and Journal display took up the center of the wing, and CanterLogic's new gem projector displays took up the outer walls.
The wood and glass display cases were not needed, as CanterLogic's solution included their own. Each case held fourteen crystals safely underneath a macro lens, which positioned itself perfectly above a gem that museum patrons could select with a simple button panel, mirroring the layout of the gems in the case. Once a button was pressed, the lens moved into place, and the image was sent to a monitor built into the top of the case. A smaller display below the buttons displayed any info that had been gathered about the memory contained in the gem.
There were sixteen identical cases ringing the outer walls of the wing, and Sunny had decided to sort them by the guardian they focused on, providing large cutout art mounted on the walls above the cases to inform patrons what the cases focused on. From left to right, stills of Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Rarity, Twilight Sparkle, Pinkie Pie, and Applejack all looked proudly into the distance.
"And that concludes our pre-show of the Maretime Bay Museum of History Re-Opening!" exclaimed Pipp, coming back into the Guardians wing with her phone still live. "Again, sorry if you couldn't be here, as things are looking to be quite lively and crowded today. Check back later, Pippsqueaks, because I'll be doing interviews with donors and museum curators throughout the day. Later!"
Pipp tapped the record button to stop the feed, then pocketed her phone and turned her attention to Sunny.
"Alright, pre-show is done. You ready for this crowd?" She asked the earth pony.
"I sure hope so. That crowd is more than twice what I was expecting, wow!" Sunny said, glancing out past the front desk to see Hitch patrolling down the line, making sure everypony was staying orderly.
"Alright," came the voice of Mystic Cinnamon as he came out of his back office. "I've done the numbers. We can have thirty patrons to a wing at a time, thirty standing by in Admissions, and no more than one hundred twenty in the building at any given time. Think we can keep things moving?"
Sunny glanced to the exit, where a second semi-circle desk had been added to keep track of the patron count, as well as double as a gift shop. Two stacks of identical books, containing four dozen new copies of the Journal of Friendship waited to be bought for five bits each on the way out, with all proceeds going to the upkeep of the museum.
"I think we are, yeah. This is so exciting!" Sunny said, glancing down at her vest, making sure it was even, and making sure her name tag was level.
"Alright, then I guess we'll say a few words, and we'll start letting them in," Cinnamon said, walking out to the front area, taking one last look at the clock on the wall, watching the second hand tick over to 10 AM. With that, he walked out to the front steps, as Sunny and Pipp waited in the lobby.
"Ponies of Maretime Bay and beyond, welcome to the re-opening of our Museum of Equestrian History. Please let me take a moment now and thank the museums in Bridlewood and Zephyr Heights for participating in an exchange of artifacts that has lasted the past few months, and the couriers, several of whom are here today, for getting everything here safely, as we strive to correct our histories and learn more about ourselves and each other as Equestria continues to reunite."
Cinnamon paused to allow for cheering and stomping from the crowd.
"Me and my staff will admit, today's turnout is well above expectations, so it will take time to get all of you through our exhibits. We will give groups enough time to take everything in, and rest assured, we will get all of you in here to look at what we have managed to gather. Thank you again, and please enjoy your visit."
With that, he stood aside and Hitch began to let them file in. Mystic greeted each of them as they passed through the doors, as did Sunny, shaking hooves until she saw a familiar unicorn walk in. She had a light gray coat, a black mane concealing her right eye, a red scarf around her neck, and a scarlet beret around her horn and covering her left ear.
"You must be Gloomy Sonnet. It's so nice to finally meet you." Sunny said, coming up and hugging the unicorn mare.
"I'm glad so many others can see that heirloom now, instead of it collecting dust in an attic," Gloomy replied.
"It's on display in the Guardians wing. You have no idea how helpful it was to my research. It was in such good condition that we were able to republish it. In fact..." Sunny paused, quickly going over to the stack of books, and taking the top one, coming back over to the unicorn, and offered the book to her.
"Compliments of the museum, and with my enormous gratitude. Thank you so much."
Gloomy gave her a smile, accepted the book, and nodded respectfully before putting the book in her saddlebag and continued on into the central wing, letting the line behind her to continue filing in.
Sunny greeted a dozen more ponies as they filed in and began exploring the central wing, and then she paused again when she saw Sprout Cloverleaf come in, and his gaze immediately met hers, and he smiled as he stepped up to her with a smile.
"Good morning, Sunny," Sprout greeted, shaking his friend's hoof.
Sunny smiled back.
"I was hoping I'd see you here today, Sprout. I prepared a little something before coming here today." Sunny told him, before stepping back to the main desk, and returning to him with a platter that got his memory jogging. With a smile, she offered him the platter.
