(My Little Pony is copyrighted to Hasbro Inc. I take no credit in its characters. Enjoy.)
Whatever happened to Celestia once she explored the tunnels of the fallen city of Zion? Why did she emerge from the ruin’s depths cold and shivering from the blasted unknown? Had she saw a haunting object, figure, or entity of horrible enigma? Whatever she saw had distracted her drastically from her duties as her psyche became poor with paranoia and obsession to explain what horrors resided in those depths.
Since the death of Luna and Twilight’s descent into insanity, she had no time to focus on other strange events that had befallen upon her country. The abduction of foals, her bearers of harmony mysteriously disappearing, and the nerve racketing of the strange cult that formed within the dark forest of the Everfree. It was too much for the princess of the sun to take. She decided to ignore everything and focus on the horrors within the tunnel that she kept hidden from her guards and other ears of her social class.
She became a hermit, studying day and night about the legends of Zion and its forbidden secrets discovered from the tunnel. The knife that had engraved marks of the Zionist alphabet rested upon the table while pictures of slabs and hieroglyphs were scattered on the surface. She of course had time to raise the sun and moon, but no time to attend her sister’s grand burial, telling her subjects she was too busy to do such things. They pitied their princess’ descent into madness and made up lies that she was too grieved to attend.
It became rare nowadays to see her exit out her chambers, but sad when she returned quickly after leaving the library down the hall. Her servants were granted only little time to be in her room and were granted only permission to leave her food and water while also dusting off a few bookshelves and other types of furniture she left alone. One guard that guarded her door every single hour of the day heard strange languages not of any Equine coming from her room. He was too nervous in checking into her room, worry that her health had was in danger physically than it had been mentally.
On the next day, she finally emerged out from her sanctum and proceeded down the hall angrily. Servants were terrified at the maddening glare she was casting on anypony on her path while nervous from the sheathed ancient blade strapped to the right side of her stomach. She rushed into Cadence’s room and demand she come with her to the vile tunnels of advent doom. The young princess had no way in objecting her aunt’s orders, frightened from the powerful glare, raise of tone, and sneering teeth.
She made sure to take a few guards with her to the tunnels, even a few archaeologists so that they would assist her in her returning search for whatever resided inside the blasted tunnels. Her servants, advisers, and Cadence herself insisted that she worry about the occurring problems going on in her country and that she take strong action towards it. But the mare’s tone remained cold as her attitude became callous: “Why should they be suffering if I am trying to save their lives?” Her response made no sense or it just remained mysterious to the ears she opened her mouth to. Whatever was down there, she wanted to meet it again.
When they made their way to the ancient ruin’s tunnel entrance, the subjects and the young alicorn princess quivered from the sight of its dark descent. Celestia remained still, not showing any sign of fear her subjects were expressing. She was calm, staring into the darkness with reminiscing reminder of her madness that robbed her of her sanity. Cadence stared at her aunt, nervous about her the most than being afraid of whatever horrors waited for its prey to walk down the steps. Celestia had not been herself. What she became had only been dug in deeper than it had been before.
“What are you all afraid of,” Celestia asked, “if you do not stray you will survive and speak of your discovery on the next day.”
The ponies watched their ruler walked down the steps, not bothering to cast a illumination spell to provide her light. It was as if she knew where to go.
Cadence and a few unicorn guards were kind enough to provide light with their horns for the fellow ponies travelling with them through the odorless cold tunnels. Celestia remained quiet the entire walk, taking turns once every minute she reached the end of the tunnel. None dare questioned her where she was leading them, due to the fact her attitude and lost mind might resort in either getting them harmed or worse.
“Who would have guessed this place existed? The city is gone, but the tunnels remain settled.” One unicorn guard said.
“I hear that an old Canterlot folk that goes by the name, “Shh!” Cadence hushed the guards as she stopped and looked ahead. Celestia stared at a wall, her eyes darting across every crack spotted on the surface. The ponies waited for their princess’ next move, but were greeted by the tunnel’s abrupt tremor that caused their only path of escape to become impregnable of escape.
Panic was beginning to arise, but then silence had taken its toll again when the wall before the princess of the sun slid open. Beyond it was not just ancient flights of stairs descending down, but the blasted scenery of unspeakable imagination upon vividness critique. The archaeologists were puzzled, ecstatic personally, but blown away beyond potential. Cadence remained on her guard with guards as they watched their rulers begin walking down along with the archae-ologists.
The scenery of the horrid city of Zion brought unspeakable questions that were fear to only bring troubling answers. Buildings made of what appeared to be a variety of creatures, reaching up to the sky on the arches in agony. Towers made of obsidian coated with green vines that had descended down from the growing trees on the sides of the rocky walls. What was haunting to look at the most of all, was the obelisk that stood in the center, pointing straight up into a hole of darkness located in the ceiling.
When all the ponies made their way to it, Celestia had unsheathed the ancient knife and levitated towards the obelisk. Suddenly, the pillar twisted in a one-eighty-degree, allowing the knife to impale into a slot. The blade twisted right and soon, ancient symbols began glowing brightly on the surface of the ancient obsidian stone. It gave off an ear-piercing cry, as if thousands of creatures, alive and speaking in various languages, shouted out in their own din. Celestia did not move or became faze by the unspeakable horror that her subjects were being painfully subdued in.
Cadence had begged to Celestia to end this suffering, unable to concentrate in using her magic to protect the subjects from the terrible cacophony of agony that wailed. The place began shaking; stalagmites fell from the ceiling, bringing down a few of the trees that were grown from the walls. Instead of the buildings being destroyed along with the decaying roads, it was the stones themselves that were destroyed. Terror had been sprouted into the ponies minds as they soon saw something from the dark ceiling coming out slowly.
When Cadence managed to gain little focus on what was descending, her eyes became widened and her mouth gaped wide. Insanity was but expected as her mind cursed out lies against reality that what it was that came down was not real, but there! IT WAS THERE! It was something she could not attempt to physically describe.
When it landed on the tip of the pillar, the old mare spoke in the ancient tongue that the guard had heard. Whatever it was, its vile appendages slithered down from the sides of the pillar, making a strange clicking noise that overpowered the wails of the victims of the ruined city. Cadence was the last to stand, watching as the guards and archaeologists collapse unconsciously onto the ground. The mare was beginning to feel weak and when she fell, she felt her vision blur. The last that she saw was too hard to describe. They, the appendages of whatever horror it was, grabbed her gently and when it descended down to her face, what she last could picture the deformed thing was it looked almost like Luna.
The mare and the rest of the ponies that passed out found themselves outside of the tunnel, drained of their sanity and frighten from the calm look of their ruler that sealed the passage. What had they encountered was too much to speak about. Celestia was fully aware of this and decided that it was best for them to keep secret of whatever happened. She advised them that they would be consider mad and endanger their own lives than their family the most if they began talking about what they encountered within the tunnel.
The princess of the sun decided her job for her country had to be worked on and see that whatever trouble that sprouted out from the roots of her absence be handle quickly. But what she did not tried to hide was her change of nature. The mare pointed out critique remarks of every kingdom; creature, subject, religion, and ideology…even her own so no pony could consider her a hypocrite.
What Cadence could at least try doing was keeping the tales of horror she encountered from everypony, even from her husband Shining Armor that still failed to lighten up after finding out his sister’s incarceration into the asylum located in Fillydelphia.
-Fin-
Author's Note
This was done in an one hour and twenty minutes or so. I just had to fill up that hole I left behind on that story, adding the Lost and Not Found into the sequel of those three "horror" stories. Hopefully it gave some interesting value, it really would not matter. It was made for your enjoyment. Have great day and holiday, stay safe on the streets, you never know what you might encounter or witness.
