“It’s a hill.”
The colt blinked, as though that would reveal this castle that everypony had been talking about for like forever. But no, it was just a hill by a pond in the middle of an otherwise complete barren field. There was simply water and dirt. It didn’t even smell like dirt, it smelled more like dust than anything else.
“We’ve been flying for days to see this?” he continued after he was sure that he hadn’t missed anything. “Couldn’t I have just stayed home if all I’ll be doing is dust duty?”
Long distance flying had never been his strong suit. His wings were sore, his back was sore. His… well, he wasn’t entirely certain what that was, but it was sore too. Now that he was here, he could tell that this would be lame. Completely, totally, mind-numbingly lame. The cool trips were the ones where the buildings were still sorta intact. When everypony had to dig everything out, the most anypony would find would be a couple of bits, a sharpened rock, or maybe a horseshoe or something. Then everyone would get together and gush about how exciting it was to find a sharpened rock. Seriously, who goes around sharpening rocks?
“Don’t worry,” a much larger pegasus stallion said as he gracefully landed a few steps behind. “There’s a lot more to this than meets the eye. And you’re not getting anywhere near a dust brush after last time.”
“They were just rocks, rocks are supposed to be dusty,” the colt muttered to himself as he fell in behind his father. On a good day he looked like a male Daring Do, (he even had almost the same job) but little Fuchsia Flash couldn’t help but think that the books glossed over all the lameness that seemed to make up like the whole job. Well, he was here now, like a bajillion miles from anywhere, not much he could do about it. Maybe begging to come along for weeks and weeks wasn’t a great idea after all.
The two of them rounded the side of the hill towards the lake, revealing an already set up camp: six tents in a semicircle with all the comforts of one would expect in a dirt field in the farthest corner of Equestria so far out that weather management hadn’t been handled in several centuries. The younger pegasus was less than enthralled by the scene.
“Do we really have to stay in this dump?” Fuchsia Flash groused.
“If you really don’t like it, then set up your own camp,” an elder feminine voice retorted. The speaker, a tawny earth pony old enough for her deep brown mane to begin to turn grey, came out of one of the tents. “It’s good to see you, Professor Grayscale. I’m surprised that you decided to bring your son along. No matter, we can use all the hooves we can get.”
“Thumper! It’s great to see you,” the elder Pegasus exclaimed. “I’d say it’s time to get started, but I’m afraid that what we’re after out here wasn’t included in the invitation. I don’t even know who is paying for all this.”
“Who is paying for all of this, I wonder?” a new female voice came from from behind.
Grayscale tensed up at the first syllable, he didn’t have to look to see who was addressing him. His colt felt the immediate souring of his father’s move and turned to see. There was a very tall and proud looking tan unicorn mare not too far behind with a silver unicorn filly in tow. Fuchsia was confused as to why his dad seemed so upset. They were pretty prissy ponies, but Dad dealt with pretty prissy ponies all the time when it came to those boring parties at the university and museum.
“Marchesa Mezzotint, it’s a delight to see you again,” Professor Grayscale said through gritted teeth. Fuchsia Flash could feel how forced that was. He turned and noticed the little one behind. “And you’ve brought Bluebood’s get with you, I see.”
The tall unicorn froze mid-stride, and after half a heartbeat her eyes perceptibly narrowed. Thumper just put her face in her hoof. But the silver filly bound ahead of her mother before more unpleasantries could be exchanged.
“You’re just jealous because Mama beat you to the Golden Claw of Treva the Renewer,” she just about yelled at the stallion. Fuchsia couldn’t let that one just slide. She was a pretty prissy pony and he couldn’t just let her away with that. Ignoring his soreness, he lept forward letting his wings flair in a way that all his friends said was very impressive.
“That’s an arch-e-o-logical treasure and belongs in a museum,” he retorted. “Not in some prissy pony’s collection.”
“Mama’s conservatory gets more visitors than your Dad’s museum!”
“Nuh-uh! Not last year.”
“That’s only because he cheated to get the crystal exhibit, featherbrain!”
“Writing letters to the Princess isn’t cheating! It’s strategy, you rye-no-cer-ouse.”
“ENOUGH!” Thumper shouted, stomping hard enough to cause the ground to shake a little. Everypony looked to see her give that special stare that only very annoyed professors can pull off. Fuchsia suddenly became aware that there was no comfortable place in his mouth for his tongue, each and every feather on his still flared wing was moving independently in an otherwise imperceptible breeze, his jaw had weight, and that there was an itch on his lower back. He desperately wanted to look away but he just couldn’t break the eye contact. For her part, the little unicorn filly felt the same physical discomforts only she could suddenly taste a faint metallic tang. If he had a more adventurous taste in foreign food, she would have recognized it as silver. It took her a few seconds to realize that it was the flavor of her own magic.
“Look,” the tawny earth pony said over the tension. “With that recent dust up in Canterlot, I didn’t even get confirmation that I could come out here until last week, and the royal grant was only written to go until next week. The two of you are the best at what you do, but I don’t have time to dance around the fact that y’all haven’t gotten over that mess yet. So let’s all put on our adult pants and see if we can find any sign at all of Rainbow Keep or the origins of the Early Migration Period. But first the two young-uns need to actually be introduced to one another and the rest of us need to get the equipment set up.”
“Go on, Mimi, introduce yourself the way we’ve been practicing and I’ll see you in our tent in a bit” the Marchesa said to her daughter. With that she shot a pointed look at the Professor and charged her horn. In another breath she had teleported out of sight, presumably to wherever Thumper needed her.
Professor Grayscale muttered something to his kid before leaping into the air and gliding after Thumper’s lead. Fuchsia Flash didn’t really understand, but assumed it was something to the effect of get over there and say hello. He really didn’t want to, there were already too many prissy ponies at school, but at least she wasn’t pink. The last thing he needed was a prissy pink pony princess. He relaxed out of his “fierce” stance and tucked his aching wings away. At least she was walking over to him.
“I am Mimi O’Graph of the Intaglio line out of Marchesa Mezzotint, and Heiress of the Easternmost Marches. Pleased to meet your acquaintance,” the unicorn filly said with practiced grace. The little hair flip she tried to add at the end didn’t go according to plan, but that didn’t throw her off her stride. She then offered her hoof, which did leave her a little off balance.
“Ah,” the pegasus colt said, eyeing the proffered hoof suspiciously. He hadn’t the slightest idea what he was supposed to do. So, he decided that shaking her hoof while introducing himself was the right move. “I’m Fuchsia Flash. Professor Grayscale is my Dad. Spear Flash is my Mom, she’s guarding Canterlot.”
Whatever Mimi was expecting, shaking hooves was the wrong answer. She huffed and turned towards the tents. Fuchsia didn’t understand her reaction, but after a moment of being perplexed he followed after. The adults were not in the tents when they arrived, but neither of the foals went looking. While they couldn’t make out exactly what was being said, they had been in school long enough to recognize the patterns of something getting a lecture after getting in trouble and understandably decided to not get involved.
Nopony noticed that there was now a single blade of grass where Thumper thumped to restore order.
***
The sun was set before the tools were fully set up and ponies could go to bed. But the day’s work wasn’t done, not quite yet. For something was still troubling Mimi from the fight much earlier. She was still a little pony, but yet she already was exposed enough to “high society” to realize that not all questions were questions that should be asked in front of other ponies. When they were alone, she felt as though she could finally ask.
“Mama, what’s a ‘blueblood git’?” she asked, with eyes full of curiosity. Clearly the pegasus had meant her, and meant it to wound, but she hadn’t the slightest idea what it could possibly mean.
Mezzotint flinched at the words, and didn’t quite look at the filly in the room. She was quiet for such a long time that Mimi was increasingly sure that she had done something wrong.
“I can’t tell you that quite yet,” her mother said, finally. “But I can tell you a different story before bed. A fancy story at that.”
All the worry and stress just melted away; she loved stories. and fancy stories were the best yet. Those stories weren’t fancy because of the words; they were fancy because of the magic. As the long legged unicorn lay down, there was just enough room for a certain little filly to curl up in the middle.
“Once upon a time, there was a unicorn mare who was smart, beautiful, and oh so very magical,” Mezzotint began. As she did so, her horn glowed ever so slightly, and a pink image appeared on the wall of the tent. It suggested and implied a pony, but never actually resolved any of the details. “She knew exactly what she wanted. She wanted to be a princess, so she spent years learning and practicing how to be just that. One day, she got a chance to go to the Palace at Canterlot where she knew a real prince was going to be.”
A blue image joined the pink under a silvery roof, but whenever the pink image approached the blue it fled away. Mimi thought the shape of the blue image was familiar, like it was somepony she had seen somewhere, but there just wasn’t enough detail to be sure.
“She put on her prettiest dress, and wore her prettiest smile. But no matter how hard she tried, she could never convince him to treat her like a princess. Still, that very special mare knew exactly what she wanted, and thought she knew a way to get it.”
Suddenly there was a darkness on the wall. Well, there was a lot of darkness, as it was night time, but this was a much deeper darkness, a thing that actively consumed all the light that entered. Mimi couldn’t see any shape to it other than being a simple writhing mass. She immediately decided she disliked that thing, but that concern didn’t seem to be shared by the pink figure.
“One day she did something foalish; being unable to win his heart the normal way, she resorted to magic. Ancient and scary magic, but magic that seemed to be exactly what she wanted.”
A bit of the darkness sparkled (or maybe it was the exact opposite of sparkling) and shot out towards the pink figure. The pink figure didn’t try to flee or avoid that darkness like Mimi expected. Instead, a bit of that sparking darkness intermingled with the pink figure.
“But, no amount of magic can truly change who a pony is on the inside. Even though she had achieved everything she set out to do, he still didn’t make her feel like a princess.”
Suddenly a bright, golden image phased into existence on the tent wall like the sun coming out from behind clouds. It was obvious that the Princess just involved herself. There was a flash the darkness, both in the roiling mass and inside the pink figure,and both vanished.
“Soon, the Princess came to explain, sometimes what you think you want isn’t what you really want or need. And just because a stallion is a prince doesn’t mean that he’s your prince. They were things that the mare should have known all along, but lost sight of some time before. Fortunately, the Princess had a plan to give the mare exactly what she wanted and needed. The princess gave the mare a daughter and sent her far away from her mistake, where she discovered true princes and princesses who themselves went through something similar.”
Next to the pink image appeared a smaller but much brighter pink image, and the silvery roof and golden princess were soon replaced by soft yellow ruins.
“And whenever the mare spent time her daughter or shared the stories of those ancient princes and princesses, she truly felt like a princess.”
The story finished the images on the tent wall faded out. Mimi, being a smart little filly, figured that this story was more than just a story, but it was also past her bedtime and she was very sleepy. Rather than do something as mentally strenuous as tease out the deeper implication of a story, she just drifted off to sleep.
***
Note: Marchesa is a feminization of the title Marquis. As a Countess rules over a County, a Marchesa rules over a March, the difference being that a March is always on a national border whereas a County may or may not be. A Marchesa is usually expected to have to fight the first few weeks of a war by herself while the rest of the nobility gather their forces and organize into a coherent army, and as such a Marchesa is expected to build far more castles (and therefore have more vassals, troops, and power) than her Countess peers.
Professor Emerita Thumpelina Granite of the Fillydelphia Granites was a pony of substance. She was born to a family that was expected to lead, and for the duration of her career she had tried to live up to the same sort of standards that her sisters did. But she never did manage to puzzle out why tenured Professors with multiple doctorates and similarly qualified noble ponies wound up behaving exactly foals in a playground when left to their own devices for five minutes.
“I’m telling you that she’s up to something,” Professor Grayscale prattled on about the same thing he’d been prattling on about for years. “I’ve seen what she does when she schemes, and she doesn’t stop at anything to get what she wants…”
“I have heard the story,” Thumper interrupted. “Your survey found the only known site of ground-dwelling pegasi during the Migration but prior to the founding of Equestria. You got Prince Blueblood to fund a trip, on the condition he partially staff the expedition with agreeable mares, just in time for Marchesa Mezzotint to have her episode. You have never forgiven her for ruining your only chance to study the site before it was destroyed during Discord’s little tantrum. Yes, I am aware. Now, if you would quiet down I need to quiet to do my survey.”
Why are all the really good archeologists never able to just let go? The professional rivalry hadn’t helped much either, but that episode was what? A decade ago? Ponies change, and if Grayscale spent more time in the classroom and less time looking at rocks, he’d know that. Maybe if he was an Earth Pony, he’d really understand how even the rocks change, too. At least he knew enough to shut up when told.
The last thing the she had done before going to bed the previous night was prepare this spot. Thumpelina preferred to go by Thumper among friends for a very simple reason; while she was a pony of many skills and talents, she was always best at “thumping”. Over the years, she had found many, varied, and unusual ways to do what she does best. She thumped against the packed earth and then stood perfectly still.
“There’s a fortified structure here,” she said, eyes still closed. All of her focus, attention, and even her sense of self was in her feet and the ground beneath them, sensing for the different reactions of the different materials below. “Intact, mostly. Inside the hill. Buried intentionally, probably.”
She kept stock still with her eyes closed longer than was strictly necessary. It was good to know that he was still professional enough not to interrupt a complex process he didn’t understand. Maybe inviting these two wasn’t the right move after all. She sure hoped not, that would mean that her husband was right. The old coot never got to say “I told you so” very often, so he made a point of celebrating when the opportunity presents itself. Well, so far so good. She opened her eyes to see Professor Grayscale visibly talking himself through implications before he noticed that she was finished.
“What makes you say that it was buried intentionally?” he asked, absentmindedly shooing away a fly.
“There were no interior gaps where there should have been; it’s like the rooms were filled before the outer walls were covered,” she replied. “There aren’t any rivers to deposit silt with flooding, so that’s out. Can you think of another reason for the rooms to have been filled solid?”
“Not off the top of my head,” he replied with a shake of his head. “But doesn’t that imply dangerous artifacts? Why else bury a fort, especially with how important control of farmland was during Migration?”
“There’s no reason to send word back to Canterlot now. After all, they’ll just block access to the site for years while they run the same scrying they did before they approved this dig to begin with.”
“Illpacana,” Professor Grayscale said in an uncharacteristic deadpan. The fly drifted lazily between them.
Thumper shivered involuntarily. That had been a bad scene, and only the most recent in a long history of disasters in their shared field. That’s what the permits, that’s what the waiting lists, surveys, and scrying was about. Archeologists were generally trained to handle artifacts, decaying enchantments, and collapsing structures, but nopony could have been ready for turning up the Alicorn Amulet like that, or the swath of destruction it caused before vanishing into some other hole somewhere. The rules were maddening, but they were there for a reason.
“Fine, we get Mezzotint to send a message, but we don’t stop the dig,” Thumper stated with all the authority she felt. “We still don’t know who ‘they’ are, or if this is a Migration site to begin with.”
“Agreed,” Professor Grayscale said. It was a two minute spell for Mezzotint, but a day long walk for anypony else after all.
Neither noticed that there was a single cloud drifting lazily some ways off, nor did they note where that fly had come from.
***
Mimi O’Graph was still very unused to being away from a town. There was so much to do out here, but nothing for her to do. Well, she helped Mama out with setting up that expensive-looking equipment for a while, but that got boring and hard. Eventually, she’d just asked if she could go and play and was given permission to go if she didn’t wander off too far. But, what was there to do?
She was still pondering the question when she noticed something that wasn’t the brown of dirt, the blue of sky, or the different shade of brown of the tents. There was a single blade of grass in camp. She didn’t remember there being one there yesterday. Moreover, there was something sort of off about that grass.
Mimi slowly moved closer and closer to the grass. As she neared it became apparent that the grass was shining, but also just a bit transparent, like it was a very thin strip of muslin cloth bedecked with glitter. That couldn’t possibly be right.
So, she moved a little close. But that sense of strangeness only got stronger. It was more than just the grass, but she couldn’t quite put her hoof on what it was It took her a few moment to realize that it was that the world no longer smelled like dust. Instead, it smelled much more like a town where ponies didn’t bathe as often as they should.
***
Fuchsia Flash was practicing his flying. There was never enough for assistants to do when setting up. Everything needed to be set up under the oversight of the experts, and as long as they were busy, he could get out and do pretty much whatever, as long as he stayed close enough to be notified when they finished up with whatever they were doing and needed more hooves.
The sky was totally empty, which kind of made him sad but made the big gliding loops he was doing easy. Clouds were always fun to play with, good for naps, and useful for making stuff. Without any at all, the only safe landing was the ground, which was much harder and less rewarding than collapsing into a fluffy cloud. He couldn’t even play the games he could at home without clouds, even if they did often get in the way if he wasn’t paying attention.
His dad said it was because there were costal villages or border towns in every direction the wild winds could blow in, and that made wild clouds impossible. And since no pegasi were taking care of the weather here, there simply weren’t any. Sunny skies all the time were bad for many plants not under the care of a farmer pony or something, and so the whole plain was essentially an empty wasteland.
He was completing another loop when he first noticed it. A cloud, one that simply hadn’t been there a moment ago. Something didn’t seem quite right about it, but he had to check it out. As he got closer he noticed that it seemed really, really thin for its shape. Like, he could almost see through it thin, but it had the puffy shape of a cumulus cloud.
There was just so much odd about that cloud, rather than continuing his routine he winged over to the cloud. He looked closely at it from every angle he could think of, but there is only so much somepony can learn about clouds by looking.
He dove into the cloud, suddenly finding himself enveloped in white. It was strange, he could just about see through it when outside the cloud but inside it blocked vision almost completely. The whole cloud seemed to be getting warmer the longer he was in here. He tucked his wings in tighter to dive faster, but he didn’t seem to be coming out the other side, which caused him to begin to panic. This couldn’t be right. Then everything got even whiter.
***
Mezzotint strolled back towards the others. It was a lot of tedious work getting the equipment set up and putting the cores of the wards down. But they would be glad to have the ability to run tests and safely handle ancient and decaying magic when they started digging tomorrow. Well, they would be if Dam Thumpelina turned up anything in her survey.
“So, what’s the news?” Mezzotint asked as she approached.
“We found something, but it was intentionally abandoned,” that gruff Professor Grayscale answered. Well, at least he was being civil now.
“We’re going to have to send a message back advising that there might be an artifact here,” Dam Thumpelina added.
“Shall we still dig?” Mezzotint asked, it was never a good idea to mess with ancient magic without having an idea of what to expect.
“Of course,” Dam Thumpelina answered with a snort and a flick of her tail to shoo away an offending fly. “I’ve been here three days, and the rest of you have been here two. If there was an artifact here we should be seeing signs by now. I haven’t, have either of you?”
“I can’t say that I have,” Professor Grayscale replied promptly.
Come to think of it Mezzotint felt there had been something a little off… That annoying fly buzzed oh so very close to her ear and she felt a need to shoo it away. What had she been thinking? She couldn’t remember, it wasn’t very important.
“No, I haven’t seen anything out of place,” she answered. “In any event the wards should be coming online just about now.”
That annoying fly flew past her ear again, she started to use her magic to shoo it away a second time. In that moment between her charging her horn and actually casting the spell the almost imperceptible wave of the wards coming online passed through her. And when she went to shoo the fly there wasn’t one.
***
Mimi gasped. Like a pony emerging from underwater her breaths came deep and ragged. For a second she stood still trying to gather herself. She needed to tell Mama. It was essential that she do so. She opened her eyes, realizing it was strange that she hadn’t noticed they were closed. There was no blade of grass in front of her, but as she turned to go back the way she had just come she noticed that the field was green with grass outside a very clearly defined circle around camp, the hill, and the town. Town? No, that crater-pond just off to the side of the hill.
OH! She had to tell Mama that… She had to tell Mama… something. It was important to tell her…
Mimi found that the grass caught her eye and she just couldn’t remember whatever it was. Something was forgotten, but that wasn’t important.
***
Fuchsia Flash woke to his wings snapping open reflexively. He was falling. He shouldn’t be falling, he was flying. Or, last he remembered he was flying. No, wait, he was in a cloud. He flapped his wings to regain some control and opened his eye. Strange, he didn’t realize they were closed. He looked back for the cloud he should have just burst through, but there was nothing there.
There were several more clouds in the far distance of varying size and shape, but all thin enough to almost see through. Something about that thought made him seize up a little. He had to remember to tell dad.
He corrected his path back to camp where dad should be. The cloud far beyond caught his eye. He needed to tell dad about the cloud and the wall. Wait, what wall? It was a wall that… He scrunched up his muzzle trying to remember but whatever it was just wasn’t coming back to him.
As he approached the ground he remembered that he had forgotten something, but that wasn’t important.
***
“Anyways,” Professor Grayscale continued. “We’ll need you to send the message as soon as you’re ready.”
Mezzotint nodded and turned to trot back to her equipment. There was something about that fly that just didn’t sit right. No matter how hard she tried to recall it just would not come. Deep in thought, she barely noticed when she reached her tent.
She carefully wrote the advisement to the government in Canterlot. Such things a bureaucratic task that fell to the unicorn and noble simply because they were better suited to such things, but she expressed far more concern between the lines of the dry and overly formal report than her colleagues would agree with. Too much wasn’t lining up for it to be nothing, but not enough for anypony to be sure that something was wrong. Such feelings should not be ignored, if she had ignored that feeling when exploring the tomb of the legendary dragon Dromar the Banisher she would probably have a much better idea of what Zebrica was like this time of year. Without any delay she sent the report, with a promise to send another when they had more information.
When she stepped outside little Mimi was there. When her little one saw her Mimi’s eyes lit up, like she remembered something important. The filly ran over to her mother.
“Mama,” the filly started excitedly. “I have to tell you that..”
Suddenly, the filly’s muzzle scrunched up, like she just forgot what she was going to say.
“I have to tell you that…” whatever it was just wasn’t coming back to her little one. “Something.”
After a few moments of awkward silence, and a glance to the field beyond the camp the filly spoke up again.
“Never mind, it wasn’t important,” the filly said.
“Yes, not important at all,” Mezzotint agreed.
