As Opaline trotted north up the Equestrian coast, the dark orchid alicorn couldn’t help but feel like she was on a leash held by her cutie mark. It was not hard to keep pace with the sphere as it floated northward, but she was unable to stray from following it. It matched whatever pace she moved behind it, but when she tired of the sand and tried to head farther up the beach to the hills of grass and dirt, she was overcome with a squeezing, freezing sensation that overwhelmed her and chilled her to her bones.

Needless to say, in her current powerless state, she was not keen on experiencing that sense of dread again, and so resigned to trotting through the sand, tinted a light blue by the moon overhead; the sound of the late night tide her ears’ only companion.

Opaline had silently played through the events that had led her to this mysterious predicament of hers. Curiously, vengeance was farthest back in her mind right now; centuries of research, decades of planning, weeks of scheming, and at last, when all the magic in the realm was hers to control… She was cast down with a song.

‘~Don't look now, things will get better
So, hold my hoof 'cause we're growing together
We've got the strength to take on whatever
'Cause we've got the magic, we've got the magic in us’

She cringed as she recalled the hundreds of singing voices from across Equestria emanating from her Together Tree, shortly before that hatchling used the dragonstone to undo weeks of work.

‘And what is friendship, Opaline?!’

That had been Sunny Starscout’s final question, and though it was very likely rhetorical at the time, she had to admit that she honestly did not know. Friendship was magic, but what kind of magic? What kind of magic could overpower generations’ worth of research and artifacts?

Just as she didn’t know what kind of magic could keep her tethered to her floating cutie mark, moving on its own accord to an unknowable destination, and she had to follow it or face… Again, she knew not. But it wasn’t something she was willing to test. The chill she got when she distanced herself from her mark frightened her beyond measure, and she felt defenseless enough as it was without it being on her flank.

She must have been walking at a steady trot almost all night, because the sky to the east was barely starting to brighten with the very early dawn, when her cutie mark started to drift to the northeast. She followed it up the hill, grateful to get her hooves out of the sand and onto grass.

Opaline followed her mark over the crest of the hill, and stared down into an unremarkable looking valley.

It would be some time before the sun came over the distant hills to the east, so she watched her footing as she descended the hill, and noticed her mark pause momentarily next to a sizable white-gray boulder.

Erosion had taken its toll, to be sure, but she was still able to make out the barely-noticeable engraving.

Welcome to
SILVER SHOALS

She raised an eyebrow curiously; was this a village? Or rather, had it been? There was nothing but grass stretching out across the entire valley. Any unmaintained, non-enchanted wooden structures would have succumbed to the elements and rotted to soil long ago; any distinct paths in and out of the valley were now overgrown.

She silently gazed up at her mark expectantly before it resumed its slow journey into the valley.

As the descending hill began to level out, her ears twitched. Were those… Whispers?

Opaline carefully scanned her surroundings, looking for the source of the sounds while she still followed her mark towards the valley’s center. It did not take her long to conclude that it was taking her to the source as the pair of whispers slowly became more distinct, and she heard them call her name.

“Opaline… Opaline Arcana…”

They sounded neither benevolent or malevolent, but just… There. Present.

The ground had leveled out entirely by the time she saw them; a pair of… Candles? No, torches?

No… Two distinct flames, hovering next to each other above the ground at chest level about two dozen feet away; all to easy to spot due to the darkness that was still prevalent in the early morning.

Her mark was heading directly for them.

The flame on the left was almost pure white, while the one on the right gave off a glowing, smoky aura of a midnight blue hue.

When the alicorn had closed to ten feet, her mark floated up above head level, and began to glow brighter as it came to a stop above the pair of flickering flames.

In the brightened glowing light of the floating sphere, two transparent, fully grown alicorns faded into view around the flames, one white with a flowing cerulean, turquoise, and cobalt blue mane with pink streaks, and one dark blue with a flowing sapphire blue mane.

Opaline’s gait came to a halt, and her eyes widened as ancient memories flashed in her mind.

“Opaline… You are here.”

Author's Note

Art by maren