Strange Alchemy

The still and silence was disrupted by a sudden surge of magic. The plates of metal that held the castle sealed shook, and then collapsed into liquid under the heat of solar plasma. Her horn still burning from the trivial expenditure of magic, Celestia stepped through into the dark halls beyond.

Carefully, she surveyed the area, and then released a small piece of magic from the tip of her horn. It floated into the blackness and erupted into a tiny star, filling the halls with light that somehow still failed to fully penetrate the darkness that crawled within this ancient space.

As the white alicorn entered, a second, smaller alicorn entered behind her. Although both of them had lived and ruled for nearly three thousand years, Luna had aged slowly. Even after millennia, she had barely progressed from a small filly into a blue-maned teenager on the cusp of marehood.

Luna looked into the darkness, her eyes far better suited to peirce the blackness than Celestia’s.

“What be this place?” she asked.

“I do not know,” said Celestia, proceeding into the dark hall slowly, the shoes of her golden armor clicking on the floor, the sound seeming to vanish upon the dark walls without an echo. “But this is not a good place, sister.”

“It is only a darkened castle, sister. Nothing more.”

“No,” said Celestia, shaking her head. “Can you not feel it? This place reeks of dark magic. These walls have seen secrets that no mortal was meant to know…”

“Neither of us are mortals,” noted Luna.

“True,” liked Celestia. Indeed, she believed that she herself might never face death, but her dear sister Luna already had. It was only a miracle that she could not remember it, or the lives that they had lived during the War.

How this place even existed, though, was a mystery to Celestia. It had been buried for a tremendous amount of time; from the architecture, it was apparent that it predated ponies significantly. What truly worried Celestia, though, was how close it was to the City of Ruin, how it had escaped her sight for centuries as she reigned over Equestria from the ruins of the ancient Tower, her first castle.

Those had been dark times, and even being this close to the Tower filled Celestia with dread. That City was drenched with eons of pony blood. For hundreds of thousands of years, ponies had fought over that place. It was impossible to even the shallowest grave there without striking the bones of ponies. Millions had died in the War of the Seven Races, and yet no one had managed to claim the fallen Tower- -until Celestia had taken it with ease.

From that site, she had ruled all of Equestria with little Luna at her side. As a soldier in the War, she had seen terrible things, and done far worse, things that haunted her whenever she slept. What she had done as Princess had been far worse. By her power, she had ended the War- -but at a cost. She had singlehoofedly exterminated two of the seven great pony races, and murdered ninety percent of what remained. All alone, she had slain the armies and battled legions. She had crushed all resistance, and tortured any dissident who dared to stand against their immortal Princess, all in the hopes of creating a better Equestria.

And she had succeeded. Now, in the time since then, she had retired. Her and her sister had constructed a new castle, one where they could live together in peace. The politics were left to the puppet states that Celestia had created. Only in dire times would the two alicorn Princesses ever need to interfere.

This, she believed, was one of those circumstances. For the past month, Luna had been plagued by strange dreams of a crystal tree and of glowing lights. Celestia had eventually scoured the land, and found a source of magic emanating from beneath the shore of a dry lakebed. It was unlike anything she had ever felt, and she could hear it calling to her. She knew that anything that powerful must be dangerous, and that it must be crushed for the good of Equestria.

They passed through the dark and ancient halls, feeling the eternal silence surrounding them, pressing in as though it were attempting to drive them away. Eventually, though, they reached a large, wide room.

Celestia moved her light to the center. Against one wall, she found, was an overgrown mass of crystal, which she realized was ice. Even the heat of her plasma sphere seemed to have no effect on it, aside from illuminating the silhouette of a cryogenically preserved pony within.

The ice, however, was not the source of the magic. Whatever lied within there was long dead. Rather, the magic came from the center of the room. Five narrow stone cylinders stood, each holding a stone of a different shape. The stones seemed to be lit from within, producing a beacon, a kind of call. The light was not visually perceptible, but instead, Celestia felt it inside her mind. She could feel that they were indeed powerful, perhaps immeasurably more so than even her own alicorn magic. At the same time, she felt calm, knowing that they were not a threat.

“Sister, look!” said Luna, pointing to the base of the podiums.

Celestia looked down, and saw what she at first thought was blood. As she looked closer, though, she realized that it was some kind of viscous black substance, like tar. More threatening, though, was the fact that it had been streaked across the cold tile floor, toward the darkness at the corners of the room.

Slowly, Celestia moved her light in the direction of the streaked substance, and suddenly saw something move. Both of the alicorns immediately charged their horns, preparing to attack. Then Celestia saw what her light was illuminating.

“Wait!” she cried, putting her hoof on Luna’s silver armor.

Slowly, Celestia stepped toward the thing that had moved, and positioned her light over it, revealing a tiny, pale colt barely out of foalhood.

The colt cried out as if he had never seen light before, and scampered across the ground, hiding behind an outgrowth of frost, whimpering in terror.

“A child,” said Luna, looking wide-eyed at her sister. “How is this possible? Perhaps he hath entered this place to find shelter?”

“Impossible,” said Celestia. “This facility has been sealed for almost one million years. Nopony could have gotten in…or out.”

Luna looked up at her sister, confused by the final whispered phrase of her statement.

Celestia attempted to approach the colt, but the child cried out and squeezed himself even tighter against the wall.

“Please,” he squeaked in a tiny voice. “Please, do not hurt me.”

“Hurt you?” said Celestia, hurt far more than she should have been by his words. Ponies still looked upon both her and her sister with fear, but not the terror that this child beheld her with. His expression and wavering voice reminded her of the fear that she had once seen in the eyes of her subjects during the First Era, so long ago- -a fear she had at first basked in, but now resented with all her being. “Why would I…”

Something crackled against her hoof. Celestia stepped aside, and below her, she saw the half-melted remnants of a metal toy. She lifted it in her magic, causing the child to cower even more deeply in fright, and examined it. It seemed to be a tiny mechanical pony. Its parts were corroded, and its body broken, but the craftsmanship was magnificent.

Celestia smiled at the brilliance of its design, and then charged it with her own magic. The parts of its body that were broken were replaced with constructs of solar light, and the tiny pony opened its detailed mechanical eyes. Celestia set it on the ground, and it began to dance, its tiny hooves clicking on the tile floor in an out of toon song. It slowly jumped over toward the colt, and he watched it. Seeing it calmed him, but something in his eyes also became immensely sad.

“How did you get here, child?” asked Celestia.

“I…I don’t remember,” he said, pausing as if confused by that fact. “I…I woke up here. And it was dark. I was afraid.”

“You have nothing to fear now,” said Celestia, smiling and bending down toward the colt. He gasped and recoiled, but not as strongly as he had at first.

“Careful, sister!” said Luna.

“There is no need to fear,” said Celestia to both of them.

The colt’s eyes widened. “You…you are the ones…from the back of the coin…”

Luna and Celestia both looked at each other, not understanding. Then Celestia turned back to the colt. “Tell me, child. Do you have a name?”

The colt seemed to think for a moment, as if he could not really remember. Then he seemed to recall.

“Starswirl,” he said. “My name is Starswirl.”