//------------------------------// // Beyond the Stars // Story: Legends Never Die: Friendship is Magic // by bookhorse125 //------------------------------// “Skyros.” Sunny paced back and forth on the deck. “Skyros… The ancient city of alicorns? Are you sure that’s what she said?” Imara nodded. Her expression was neutral, but her eyes were a raging storm of anger, guilt, and sorrow. “She said that they had gone to Skyros, and that they were going to be unstoppable.” “How did they get there?” Sunny wondered out loud. “That portal leads to Ancient Equestria.” “Maybe they changed it,” Twilight suggested. “Now it goes to Skyros instead of Ponyville. Especially if it’s connected to the magic of the… what did you call it? Together trees? If they can go anywhere, and Grogar connected the portal to that magic, then he could make it go wherever and whenever he wants.” “And Opaline was trapped inside that tree,” Sunny recalled, glancing behind her at the tips of the together tree’s branches. “Some remnant of her magic is still working there, working against us. I felt it when I tried to use the tree to escape. Misty said that she felt something wrong with the trees, some kind of dark magic inside them. I don’t find it very hard to believe that whatever’s left of Opaline would want to work with Grogar.” “So Grogar’s in Skyros.” Twilight frowned. “I’ve never heard of that before this whole thing.” “From what I’ve discovered, Skyros is an ancient city of alicorns from a long, long time ago,” Sunny said. “That’s where Opaline grew up. I think that’s where the first alicorns came from, back in the early days of Equestria, during the Second Age. It eventually faded from history at the end of the Second Age, and disappeared for thousands of years.” “What’s the Second Age?” Imara asked. “It’s from when Gusty the Great defeated Grogar for the first time to when Celestia banished Nightmare Moon and claimed the throne of Equestria,” Twilight explained. “The Third Age lasted until my friends and I claimed the Elements of Harmony, and the Fourth Age is still going.” She cleared her throat. “Well. Where I’m from, at least.” “Oh.” Imara nodded, but Sunny could tell from her expression that she really didn’t care that much. “So we go to Skyros,” Sunny said. She started pacing again. “Grogar wants to use the ancient alicorns to build up his army. So we get to them first and get them to help us defeat him. I can’t be the only pony in the entire existence of Equestria who can fight these guys, right?” “Right.” Twilight nodded. “Except. Grogar’s already there.” “So we go now.” Sunny turned and called, “Hugo! We’re going into the portal! Get the zeppelin in the air!” She turned back to Twilight as she said, “And we’ll figure out a plan on the way.” Twilight nodded, but she still looked a bit uncertain. “I don’t know anything about ancient alicorn civilizations, so I guess we’re going in blind here. It would be nice if we could get a sense of where we’re going and what it’s like before we just…” “Imara, can you go get Flurry Heart, please?” The changeling nodded and flew off as the zeppelin’s deck beneath their hooves lurched, and the ship began to rise into the sky. “When we get there, some of us need to scope things out, I agree,” Sunny said. “And in a city full of alicorns, a couple more alicorns there wouldn’t make much of a difference, right?” Twilight understood what Sunny was saying. “Right. You and I and Flurry Heart go see how things are. Just be careful not to completely ruin the timeline as we go. Minimize interactions. Unless the shadow wolves are already there, and we have to start fighting them right when we get there.” “Yup. But we don’t know, so we’ll find out when we get there.” “Literally every ounce of my being is screaming at me that we need to have a better plan than ‘we’ll see’.” “Me, too. But we don’t have any other option.” The zeppelin gently descended into the fathomless depths of the portal. Now that Sunny wasn’t falling through it at a hundred miles an hour, she had more time to appreciate the awesome beauty of the way that the magic swirled around her, dancing on her skin and making it tingle; the way that ribbons of purple light wound around each other and twisted into intricate designs that faded away in the darkness; the way that, despite everything, it felt wrong in a way, because that portal shouldn’t be there. It was unnatural and it felt like it. Sunny felt like a dozen tiny spiders were crawling under her skin, which put her nerves on edge. Apparently everyone else felt the same, because they all kept to themselves, hanging listlessly in their hammocks or pacing restlessly on the deck. Inside the bridge, Hugo took a deep breath. “Well, here we go,” he said, unable to stop his voice from quaking a little bit. He fiddled with the dials and switches before he set the zeppelin to continue its descent at a constant speed before he left the control room. Midnight was sitting down below, his eyes shut and his brow furrowed in concentration, both of his hooves grasping the crystal moon-shaped pendant that hung around his neck. Comet looked up from where he was and noticed what the Crystal pony was doing. “What are you doing?” he asked. Midnight was silent for a moment before he finally gave up and let the crystal drop to his chest. “I’m trying to see something. Anything that could help us on our quest.” Comet’s eyes widened. “You can do that?” He shrugged. “Sometimes. When it works.” Comet stood up and walked over, sitting down beside Midnight. Holding out his hoof, he asked, “Can I… see that?” Midnight looked at him questioningly but set the crystal in Comet’s hooves, though the chain remained around his neck. Comet leaned closer, adjusting his glasses as he turned the crescent-moon shaped stone over. He could sense a powerful magic coming from it; he had spent his whole life surrounded by crystals, after all, and he knew that all of them had some kind of magical signature. But this one was especially powerful. “Where did this come from?” he asked. “Um… I was given it.” Midnight didn’t really feel like sharing the specifics of its origins. “It has the power to allow me to… see things. Things that may not have happened yet.” “Wow…” Comet whispered. “Has it shown you anything recently?” Midnight shook his head. “No… Well, once. It showed me Grogar. That was how we realized who was behind all of this. But it hasn’t shown me anything clear since then.” “What do you mean?” Lukas had been listening, and now he looked up from the book he was reading that he had brought. Recently, he had trimmed his bangs, and now his bright green eyes could see clearly for the first time. “What do you mean, it hasn’t shown you anything clear?” “Lately, I’ve been having these… dreams.” Midnight bit his lip. “Just glimpses of stuff. It’s all really blurry and hazy, but… I see stars. So many stars. And I saw Sunny. And then all the stars went out, but Sunny glowed brighter and brighter, and then… then I wake up.” He looked down at his hooves. “There’s bits of other stuff, too. There’s a big city, which I assume is Skyros, and we’re all there, and we’re fighting. And there are a few other ponies there, too, that I don’t know, but the shadow wolves are there, and Grogar, and it’s all just a blur. But I see a cave. There’s a cave and three ponies and lots of magic.” He shook his head. “None of it makes any sense to me, either.” “So, what do we do?” Comet finally asked after a period of silence. Midnight shook his head. “I don’t know.” Zipp Storm was itching to fly, but Sunny had instructed all the winged creatures to not leave the ship for safety reasons. “We don’t know where you might end up,” she had said to Zipp upon seeing the crestfallen expression on her face when she heard the news. “We don’t know if Grogar might have made this whole thing into a trap. Wherever we go, we’re going together.” Of course, Zipp understood where Sunny was coming from, and she quietly agreed with her that it was best to stick together. But that didn’t stop her from being grumpy about it. Zipp moaned and dropped her head to the railing. “It’s like in Daring Do and the Quest for the Sapphire Statue,” said a voice beside her, and Zipp turned her head to see Rainbow Dash leaning against the railing, staring up at the abyss above them. A tiny glimmer in the distance was the opening that they had come through, and it shrank by the minute, which did not make Zipp feel comfortable. “What?” Rainbow Dash looked at her. “Have you never read Daring Do?” “Nope.” Zipp shook her head. “I’ve never even heard of that.” Rainbow’s eyes widened, and her mouth dropped open in shock. “Never heard of Daring Do?” she nearly shrieked. “Oh my gosh, she’s just about the most awesome pony ever - besides myself, of course - who goes on all of these adventures in ancient temples recovering lost artifacts before-” “Wait, I think I remember that now,” Zipp said hurriedly, mostly to get Rainbow Dash to stop talking. “But you were saying?” “Oh, right.” Rainbow looked up again. “I was just saying, not being able to fly. It’s kind of like in the first Daring Do book, because she injured her wing and-” “It’s the worst,” Zipp agreed, hoping to stop another rant about how great Daring Do was. “I spent my whole life wishing I could fly, and now that I can, it feels like things just keep happening where I can’t. We lost magic again with the whole memory stone business, then my wing froze in the Crystal Empire, then the Legion of Doom stole our magic with Grogar’s bell, and it started flickering again when ponies were arguing, and now we’re here.” Rainbow nodded, but even she was impressed. “Wow. That’s a lot of adventures.” Zipp snorted. “You don’t know half of it,” she said, rolling her eyes. Suddenly, she sat up. “Uh, Rainbow Dash? Tell me if I’m going crazy, but…” “What is it?” the blue pegasus asked, joining her at the railing and looking down. “Is that light getting bigger?” Rainbow looked where Zipp was pointing. She frowned and tilted her head. “I think so?” She called over her shoulder, “Sunny, get over here!” “What’s going on?” Sunny asked once she had joined them. “I think we’re almost there,” Zipp said. Sunny noticed the gradually-growing light below them and nodded. “Alright. I’ll assemble everyone on deck.” She turned and dashed away. Rainbow Dash stared after her as she ran down the steps at the other end of the ship. “So, you guys don’t really have princesses and rules of all of Equestria like we do, right?” Zipp nodded. “Yeah. I mean, I’m technically a princess, but only in Zephyr Heights.” “Well, you should bring the old system back.” Rainbow nodded in the direction Sunny had gone. “Sunny would make a great princess.” The zeppelin inched closer and closer to the bright light, until finally they emerged from the portal into a world full of stars. There was deep blue sky in every direction, and hanging against the brilliant backdrop were bright, glimmering stars that shone with an otherworldly ethereal light. Gentle, thin wisps of clouds drifted to and fro. The air was perfectly cool and seemed to be alive with a kind of tingling sensation that was immediately recognizable as magic. Below the ship, stars were arranged in a kind of twisting pathway that stretched over the empty sky around them into the distance. Twilight’s eyes widened. “I’ve been here before,” she whispered. “This is where…” Her voice trailed off as she looked around, her wings twitching. “I didn’t know…” The zeppelin gently landed on the starry path, which should not have been possible, and yet it was. As soon as it had safely come to a stop, Hugo dashed out from the bridge to meet everyone else on the deck. “So… what now?” Fluttershy asked. Sunny closed her eyes, and golden light swirled around her, taking the form of wings and a horn. “Now, we scout it out,” she said. “We’ll come back as soon as we can so that we can formulate a plan. Hugo, does this ship have camouflage of some kind?” He nodded, his eyes wide. “I want you guys to hide, in case Grogar is around. No one leave this ship. Got it?” There were nods of consent all around, though some expressions were less-thrilled when Sunny said that. She took a deep breath and nodded, taking a step back. “Alright, then. We’re off. We’ll be back soon.” Sunny, Flurry, and Twilight all spread their wings and flew off the ship, landing on the starry path. Flurry tested out the path’s sturdiness with her hooves. “This is so weird,” she said. “I can’t shake the feeling that I’m about to fall.” “Come on,” Sunny said, taking the lead down the path towards wherever it led. As they went, the sky began to gradually get lighter, and the stars dimmer. The path under their hooves faded so much with the growing light that they could barely see it, and more than once one of the mares took a misstep and nearly lost their balance. The clouds became thicker and bigger, until the path rounded a particularly big column of cloud and opened up on a beautiful sight. “Woah…” Sunny’s breath fell away. “Skyros.”