Skyros was a city floating in the sky. A large island hovered in the distance, looking like some unicorn had grabbed a chunk of land and thrown it into the heavens, where it remained ever since. The city had levels, like a tiered cake. Buildings were made from marble and pale white stone that glimmered in the bright light that seemed to come from the city itself, glowing brighter than the sun. Columns and arches lined the cobblestone streets and courtyards decorated with fountains. Trees and bushes grew in clusters, and vines twisted around the columns and up the walls. Almost everything was open to the sky, and the few things that weren’t had huge domed roofs adorned with silver. Waterfalls cascaded off the edges of the city and into the endless abyss below. Huge, puffy clouds floated here and there, some sporting more columns and arches, surrounding the city in a field of white. On the edges of their vision, the stars were faintly visible, but dimmed in the glorious light of the ancient city. Magic seemed to pour from within, swirling around the area and making the air tingle. Tiny, glowing bubbles floated around the city, sparkling with magic, bouncing off of anything they touched.
It was paradise.
And, most importantly, it was swarming with alicorns.
Ponies were flying from one floating platform or cloud to another, or soaring around columns, or racing each other through the streets. Their horns shone like the stars as they practiced new spells in the courtyards or cast magical illusions of light into the sky. Some of them were sitting under the shade of trees as they studied scrolls or ancient books in small groups. There were occasional flashes of alicorns demonstrating their powers, manipulating water into intricate shapes or summoning the wind into small whirls or causing plants to spring from the earth and soar into the air. Every pony could do something different, and every single one of them had it mastered down to a science. They made all of the unicorns and earth ponies in Sunny’s time look like cheap amateurs.
“I can’t believe it,” Twilight said softly. “This is incredible!”
“How did this happen?” Flurry whispered. “How did this city go from a thriving metropolis to something that none of us have ever heard of, much less seen?”
“I don’t know,” Sunny answered, “but Grogar doesn’t seem to be here yet. I think we still have a little time to-”
“To do what?” Flurry turned to her. “Warn them? Do we tell them we’re from the future? How well do you think they’ll take it?”
“I don’t know.” Sunny bit her lip. “If Grogar isn’t here yet, then maybe we still have a chance to stop him. But if we need to, then we have to warn the alicorns. With all of them together, they should be able to create some kind of defense to hold him off long enough for us to stop him.”
“Do we have any idea how we’re going to stop him?” Flurry asked, her voice taking on a bit of a desperate edge.
“They have libraries,” Twilight pointed out, gesturing to the ponies that were reading. “Spells and enchantments that time has forgotten. There must be something.”
Flurry closed her eyes and nodded. “Sorry. I’m just… really nervous.”
Twilight put her arm around her niece and pulled her close.
“Well,” Sunny said, rolling her shoulders back, “we’re not going to get anything done by just standing here. Let’s go.”
The three alicorns wandered the streets of Skyros, which were fairly empty since most ponies were taking advantage of the always-perfect weather to go flying or practice their magic with their friends. On the rare occasion that another alicorn did pass their way, Sunny, Flurry, and Twilight were quick to duck behind a column or into an alcove or behind a waterfall. They were trying to disrupt the timeline as little as possible.
“What are we looking for?” Flurry whispered as they walked along, just in case any ponies were eavesdropping or happened to hear their conversation.
“Anything.” Sunny stuck her head in the open door to a domed building, glanced around real quick, and then pulled out again before any of the alicorns inside could catch a glimpse of her. “Anything that could help us stop Grogar.”
Twilight glanced up at the level just above them, her eyes sliding from one building to the next. Suddenly, her eyes widened, and she gasped.
“Wait, that building up there!” She pointed to a building, sitting at the top of the city, larger than all the rest, its gleaming dome sparkling in the light. “That mark on the doors - I’ve seen it before! That’s Starswirl the Bearded’s cutie mark!”
Sunny squinted and tried to make out the symbol that Twilight was talking about. The tall doors of the building were made of a light gray material, and painted on them in darker gray was a swirl of stars, which, she guessed, was appropriate.
Flurry gasped. “Hide!” she hissed.
The three ponies ducked inside an archway, pressing themselves against the sides and concealing themselves in the shadows. A group of alicorns passed by, laughing with each other. As soon as they had passed, they relaxed.
“But how is Starswirl the Bearded here in Skyros?” Flurry asked. “I thought it was a city of alicorns, and, last time I checked, Starswirl isn’t an alicorn.”
“Celestia and Luna said that Starswirl was their mentor,” Twilight said, thinking out loud. “Maybe they weren’t his only students! Maybe Starswirl trained up more alicorns to help protect Equestria, and Skyros is his school!”
“So that means that all of these alicorns are being trained by him,” Sunny said, peeking out from the alcove.
“But the Second Age lasted for centuries - how old is he?”
“He’s Starswirl,” Twilight said, her voice sounding strange. Both Sunny and Flurry looked at her questioningly and saw that her eyes were shining. “He can do anything!” She finally noticed the strange looks that her friends were giving her and shook her head, setting her expression as a more serious one. “If there’s anywhere we can find a spell or something to protect Skyros from Grogar, it’ll be up there.”
They made their way through the winding streets and up the staircases as they passed through the many levels of Skyros to reach the top. The further up they went, the larger and more elaborate the buildings became, the larger the gardens and more frequent the courtyards with fountains trickling happily in the centers, and the fewer ponies they saw. They sensed that they had passed from one section of the city into another, although what the difference was they weren’t quite sure.
“Here we are.” Twilight stopped outside of the massive building that bore the image of the swirl of stars on the door. She took a deep breath and reached up a hoof to push the doors open, but before she could Sunny let out a cry of warning, and they were forced to duck into a bush as hoofsteps passed them by. Once they were sure that whoever it was had gone on, they forced their way back out, pulling sticks and branches from their manes and wings.
Twilight raised her hoof once more to open the doors, but hesitated, her hoof hovering over the door.
“Wait. What if it’s magically booby-trapped?”
“Can we still get in?” Sunny wanted to know.
“Of course,” Twilight said reassuringly. “I just need to…” She lit up her horn, frowning with concentration as the doors were surrounded with bright pink light. She shut her eyes tight and was silent for a moment before the doors slowly swung open silently.
“Are you okay?” Flurry asked, noticing that Twilight stumbled a bit when she took her first step.
Twilight gave her a tired smile. “I’ll be okay. Starswirl is a genius, and his spells are really hard to undo.”
The inside of the building was dark and cool, without much light, in contrast to the rest of Skyros, which was pretty much all open to the bright skies and the clouds that floated by overhead. The door opened onto a long hallway, lined with two little streams on either side that trickled by, filling the oppressive silence that seemed to be everywhere, broken only by their quiet hoofsteps on the smooth, cold floor. Sunny glanced down and saw intricate designs of stars and constellations drawn on the floor, connected by looping swirls. The walls were a light grayish-blue and seemed to radiate a faint light that was just enough to see by. They were broken up from time to time by archways that led into other rooms, rooms filled with books and tables set with candles and quills sitting in ink pots that held down the corners of half-written scrolls. Some of the rooms had windows that looked out on the city, or they would have, if they hadn’t been closed. In one room there was a telescope, and the ceiling was a detailed mosaic of the night sky. Sunny found her hooves wandering toward that room until Flurry stopped her.
“We can’t just go wherever we want,” she reminded Sunny in a hushed whisper. “We just need to find what we’re looking for and get out.”
As they went, they became more and more aware that it sounded like more than just three sets of hoofsteps were echoing in their ears amidst the silence. The three mares found themselves glancing around every once and a while or stopping occasionally, looking behind them and into the doorways of nearby rooms. Though they didn’t know why, they felt like they were being watched - and they didn’t know if the watcher was friendly or not.
Sunny got the same uncomfortable feeling that she’d had when she was walking through the halls of the Zephyr Heights palace on the night that the shadow wolves took her friends. She wondered if the shadow wolves were in Skyros already, and if they were following them even then. But before she could voice her concern to her friends, they came to the end of the hallway and stepped through the towering archway into the largest room they had yet seen.
The domed roof stretched high above them, so high that Sunny felt like she could fit her entire lighthouse inside with room to spare. The walls were covered in dark purple, velvety curtains, punctured now and then by the appearance of a golden rope and tassel, that made the room feel smaller despite its magnificent size. The two little streams that trickled down the hallway found their source there, with a small stone basin at the other end of the room from the entrance. The rivers overflowed out the sides and into the small grooves that had been carved out for them before making their way around the entire room and through the door. Off to the side was a table, cluttered with ancient-looking spellbooks, half-filled scrolls, ink pots and quills, and candles that had burned down so much that they were struggling just to stay alive.
In the center of the room was a device that was strange to all of them. It was a massive ring, upright so that one could walk through. It was at least five ponies wide, and made out of a strange silver material inlaid with the occasional crystal around its rim. A large heap of purple fabric lay beside it, obviously meant to cover it when it wasn’t in use. A set of stairs led up to the giant ring, and beside it was an open book lying on a pedestal.
“What do you suppose this is?” Twilight asked, stepping forward as if in a trance.
Flurry Heart walked over to the book and looked at it, tilting her head and frowning. “I’m not sure - but I think it’s a portal of some kind? Maybe this is how you get from Skyros to the rest of Equestria?”
“It’s so strange, and so beautiful,” Sunny said softly. Before she knew it, she was at the top of the steps, and the whole ring seemed to hum quietly. The crystals seemed to glow with magic, and both Twilight and Flurry looked up and seemed to realize for the first time where Sunny was.
“Sunny, no-”
“I wouldn’t touch that, if I were you.”
All three of them spun around at the fourth, unfamiliar voice. Standing in the doorway was a young pony, an alicorn. She looked only a few years older than Cozy Glow and had a dark magenta coat and a pale mane that was coiled into braids around her ears and hung in curls on her shoulders, streaked with stripes of bright blue. Her blue eyes were bright and the color of fire.
“Who are you?” Twilight asked. Flurry and Sunny didn’t say anything. They already knew.
The pony stepped forward. “My name’s Opaline. Opaline Arcana. I don’t think I’ve seen you around before.”