Trixie tipped up her canteen, emptying it over herself. She then closed it, let it refill, and did it again, and was about to go for a third time when the fuschia magic of Twilight snatched the canteen away. "Hey!"

"What have I told you about running up my water bill?"

"But it's sooooo hot! There's sand in places there shouldn't be sand, and I feel like I'm dying out here! Why can't we travel at night?"

"Because the night is only like six hours long out here, and we need to travel for more than six hours a day." Twilight thrust the canteen back towards Trixie, "Just suck it up."

"You mean the water, or..?"

"Besides," Mayfly chirped happily as she buzzed around on her newly recovered wings, "it's really not that bad."

"You would say that, wouldn't you?" Trixie grumbled at Mayfly.

"It reminds me of home, only with less rocks, and changelings, and insects, and tatzlwurms, and other things that try to kill you on an hourly basis, and... with considerably more endless plains of sand."

"So... not at all then."

"It's mostly just the temperature, yes."

"How you doing Moondancer?" Sunset asked, not minding the temperature as much as the others herself.

"Remind me again why I came on this stupid adventure."

"Because of some innate sense of responsibility towards the world, where you could help save it instead of leaving it to other ponies?"

Moondancer pushed her glasses up her nose, "Yeah, the me that thought that was an idiot."

Trixie snickered at Moondancer, "Unlike the actual you that got turned on over the thought of getting credit for finding Starswirl's secret retreat. I know which version of Moondancer I find more believable."

"I find myself struggling to disagree with that," Moondancer said. "Sans the getting turned on though."

"Alright, why am I here then?" Daring do asked, her shirt wrapped around her head to keep the sun off, and her helmet placed over it. "I don't remember agreeing to come here at all."

"Maybe because we saved your ass back in Saddle Arabia?" Trixie said to the pegasus. "Or because we got you out of being deported back to Equestria while it's at war? Or because we got you out of prison, where you would've been stuck for a long time after the attack on the city? Maybe we thought an archaeologist might be useful where we're-"

"Ahahahaha!" Moondancer laughed suddenly, making the rest of the group look at her funny.

"What?" Daring Do and Trixie asked simultaneously.

"Are you serious? Daring Do is to archaeology what a... wrecking ball is to architecture! You use zero scientific procedure, and destroy more than you discover! How much ancient knowledge, and how many long lost temples have been destroyed by you just to get some silly trinket?"

"I'm saving lives by doing that!"

"Yes, so you're a hero, but that doesn't make you an archaeologist in the slightest."

Daring Do flapped her mouth as she tried to think of a way to defend herself. "A lot of the stuff I've destroyed you wouldn't want to discover! I'm talking about really dangerous stuff here."

"Still doesn't make you an archaeologist."

"Oh come on! You guys are with me, right?" Daring asked, looking to the others. "Come on Sunset, you're cool, you know I'm right."

"Actually, I've not read a lot of your stories, but what I have does kind of make it sound like Moondancer may have a point. Besides, aren't you more like an author?"

"As a secondary profession!" Daring stopped as she looked at every individual in the group, "So none of you really think I'm an archaeologist? I wouldn't be able to do half the things I do if I wasn't one!"

Twilight cleared her throat politely, "You are quite knowledgeable about historical subjects, but you do have a tendency to destroy things, which isn't exactly what a true archaeologist is about, even if you are saving the world by doing it. I'm sorry Daring, but Moondancer does have a point."

"Well great! I save the world a couple dozen times, and all the thanks I get is you lot calling me a phoney. Thank you so very much. Time well spent."

"You'll just have to prove yourself when we reach our destination," Sunset said to Daring. "An ancient city should present plenty of opportunities for you to show us the archaeologist you really are."

"Yes! And I will, assuming we ever find it in this hellacious sand pit." Daring let her wings droop, their tips tracing lines in the sand as she walked. "How anything even managed to live here long enough to build a city is beyond me."

"According to Starswirl's writings it wasn't always like this," Sunset told her. "It used to be lush and green once."

"Not any more," Trixie said back. "At the very least, I do find it refreshing that nothing is actively trying to kill us for once."

Twilight groaned loudly at Trixie, "Just go and jinx it why don't you? Anyway, I'm pretty sure this desert's been trying to kill us since we got here."

"And that's why we've got to be smarter than it."

"And how do we do that, Trixie?"

"By only travelling at night, when the desert is sleeping."

"For fuck sake Trixie..."

"I see something!"

All of the started peering around at the shout from Mayfly, but none of them could see what she did from the ground, as pointed out by Trixie when she said she couldn't see anything.

"It's something sticking out of the sand. This way!" All of them followed after Mayfly as she flew ahead towards whatever it was she saw. They crested a sand dune, finding a single pillar jutting out of the sand below them. As they got closer they could see half of a pillar next to it, just peeking out of the sand.

"Wow," Trixie said sarcastically, "good job guys, we found it. Go on Daring, archaeologicify it."

Daring ran a hoof over the vertical ridges running down the pillar, "It seems reminiscent of the early Saddle Arabian architecture from around one thousand b.e, but considerably older. Thing is though, and this could be from exposure over time, but this pillar appears to have been carved by magic, rather than by tools like the Saddle Arabians would've used. Also, judging by the lack of nearby buildings, or any further masonry, I guess this might've been used to demark a boundary, or since there's two, a gateway into something." Daring smirked at the others, "Good enough for ya?"

"There's more further along," said Mayfly.

"Then they might have lined a road. I suggest we follow the pillars."

"Sounds like a plan," Twilight agreed.

As Twilight could work it out, it was roughly a mile between pairs of pillars, and it wasn't until they'd past the tenth set that things started to get interesting. The sand had been growing less prolific, and the wind that blew it about weaker and weaker, enough so to not bury everything, including the stone road they now walked upon.

"I think this is even fucking hotter than the sand," Trixie complained.

The ruined outlines of buildings were more easily seen now, and as they came closer to their destination, the buildings became less ruined all the time, save for sections having crumbled down, although Daring had a different theory.

"I think there was a battle here, or a fight, or something." She pointed at several holes in an otherwise solid stone wall, "That sort of damage is more like something magic would do."

"A war over resources perhaps?" Twilight said after Daring shared her idea. "Whoever lived here getting desperate as the desert crept in, fighting over food and water?"

"That sounds more like a free-for-all," said Trixie. "Even if there were sides in that kind of battle, those sides would still fall apart after a while."

"I think ponies lived here," Sunset said, poking her head out of a building she'd wandered into. "Come have a look at this."

The building she led them into appeared to be a bathhouse, if the large, square, pool-like sections were any indicator. Sunset led them past the empty pools to a wall covered with a badly damaged mosaic. Although damaged, it wasn't too hard to make out the pony-like creatures it depicted, as they played and frolicked happily. Some obviously had wings, and some horns, and all of them had a stature more akin to Saddle Arabian ponies, but the damage was too severe to pick up anything more than that.

"This is amazing!" Twilight squealed. "This suggests that not only did the ponies of Saddle Arabia come from here, but they once had unicorns and pegasi in their ancestry!"

"Then why don't they now?" Moondancer said to Twilight, tempering her joy. "Let's not get too far ahead of ourselves in assuming these are early Saddle Arabians we're looking at."

"Right, of course. Perhaps we should head deeper into the city and see if there are any images more intact than these."

"And also if there's a mirror somewhere," Trixie reminded them.

"We'll probably find both those things close together," said Sunset. "I would like to know more about this place though."

"I'm afraid this is all pretty new to me," said Daring. "Which means learning about it like a proper archaeologist," she added meaningfully, "not destroying it."

As they expected, the city was more intact the further they travelled into it, although there was still plenty evidence suggesting that fighting had broke out, although it wasn't until they found an entire building that had been melted into an obsidian-like substance that they realised the ponies that lived here had access to considerable magic, beyond what most ponies could do today.

"This entire places feels wrong," Mayfly whispered nervously. "It's not that it's empty, but it feels... dead. More than dead. Completely lifeless, like a void. The entire desert was the same, but it feels worse here."

"I know what you mean," Twilight said. "There's no birds, or insects, or anything alive at all. The magic here feels strange too. I can feel something powerful up ahead, but here and in the desert there's nothing. There's always magic to some degree everywhere, but not here, like it was destroyed, or taken away."

"So it's a spooky dead city," Trixie scoffed dismissively. "Frankly, I think we've dealt with worse things. Let's just find that mirror and get out of here."

Moondancer frowned at Trixie, "Do you really not care about any of this?"

"I'm not saying I don't care, or that it isn't interesting, but it's been here for thousands of years, and will continue to be here for thousands more. Right now we have bigger priorities than something you can all study later."

Twilight sighed, knowing that Trixie was right, and that academic discoveries took a serious back seat to saving the world. "She has a point. Let's head to the centre and start searching for what's left of the mirror, if there's anything left to find."

It hurt Twilight to not be able to investigate the city's history, especially as the destruction became worse in the centre, but for a very different reason. A massive circular design sat in the centre, and the buildings appeared to have been destroyed to make room for it, and in a hurry too as the rubble from the half destroyed buildings had been piled up everywhere, rather than removed with the rest of the buildings.

More significant was the circle itself. The entire thing thrummed with power, and appeared as new as the day it was made. It was intricately designed with images and runes, and as Twilight started to try and read through them, she kept finding familiar symbols for binding. This wasn't just a design. It was a design with a purpose. It killed her to not be able to study it.

"It's going to be hard to detect the mirror through the magic this thing is putting out," Twilight said to the others, dragging herself away. "Assuming it's still here of course. We should split up and search everything we can while we still have a few hours of daylight."

Moondancer glanced nervously around the destroyed city, "Are you sure splitting up is a good idea? Maybe we should go in pairs?"

Twilight tried to hide her sigh, but felt she made it too obvious that she was trying to hide it. "Alright, you and Sunset can stick together, I'll go with Daring, and Trixie, you're with Mayfly. Meet back here in two hours."

"I keep getting the feeling something bad is going to happen," Daring said as she and Twilight searched through one of the buildings near the city centre.

"Nothing more specific than that to say?"

"What do you want from me? We should definitely expect a lion attack? Something that specific?"

"That seems rather unlikely." Twilight poked at a wooden door, the wood collapsing into fragments around her hoof. It might've been thousands of years since the building was used, but to her it still felt like an invasion of privacy. This had been somepony's home once.

"In my experience, you should never discount anything happening, ever."

"Auhizotl's dead, so you never have to expect an attack off his cats again. Although you might, since they were suspiciously absent when we killed him."

"Still can't believe Trixie killed him," Daring grumbled. She picked up a pot, dropping it as the part she was holding broke away from the rest. "That doesn't count! That was an accident!"

"I don't think anypony is going to penalise you for breaking a pot by accident," Twilight tittered. "Just try not to destroy the city."

"I am not that bad!"

Twilight giggled and smirked at Daring, "Perhaps we should stay away from any temples."

"Ugh, first you destroy my career, and now you're making fun of me. Some friends you are." Daring walked into the next room, sighing when she found nothing. "I think we're going to have to think bigger than searching through these ponies homes."

"Yeah, I know. There was a nice temple-y looking building a bit further on."

"Oh har har, very funny."

"I'm being serious actually."

"Uh-huh. Aren't you afraid I might destroy it?"

"Not really. If you made a point of destroying things like that I might be worried, but generally speaking, it's rare that you intentionally set out to destroy anything, so I think we'll be fine."

Daring said nothing, instead letting Twilight lead the way to the temple, keeping up as the alicorn trotted up the few steps to the entrance. A bit of sand had built up around the pillars lining the entrance, but that seemed the to be the only detractor from what was an otherwise totally intact building. "These buildings must've been built magically to last like this."

"That wouldn't surprise me since there was unicorns living here," Twilight replied, stopping as she passed through the entrance. The temple opened out into a large room, with columns of pillars supporting the still intact room. There were no decorations or images inside, but there was an unusual colour scheme to the chamber where the left side of the room was dark and shadowed, and the right side light and airy, meeting and blending in the middle. All of it was accentuated by an altar at the far end of the chamber, decorated by three decorative, bowl shaped braziers that contained three different flames, although it wasn't fire they were holding.

Twilight cautiously walked towards the altar, mostly because Daring was acting like she expected a booby trap at any moment, but also because she had no idea if what she was looking at was dangerous in the slightest. She headed towards the middle brazier, watching the orb of magic that floated above its surface burn with wispy flames that changed between blue and purple, although all the colours of the rainbow could be seen flickering in its light.

"What is that?" Daring asked as Twilight stared deeply into the fire.

"It's magic," Twilight replied simply.

"Okay, that's nice, but what is it?"

"Magic, like I said. Raw magic." Twilight reached with her magic, intermingling it with that of the orb, and taking hold of a piece of the flame. She gently teased it out of the brazier and held it close to her, feeling the tiny pulse it gave out. It sputtered, then burst into a ray of light much like the aurora that the Crystal Empire could create with the Crystal Heart, before getting drawn back into the brazier.

"Maybe you should not mess with things like that," Daring suggested calmly, picking herself up and dusting herself off after diving for cover.

"Sorry," Twilight said, finally pulling herself away from the flame. "This really is amazing though, to think these have been burning here for thousands of years."

"I'm pretty sure burning implies a need for fuel." Daring glanced between the three braziers, "These just... are. What are the other two flames?"

Twilight went right towards the light side of the room, towards the brazier that held a shimmering orb of yellow light. She knew it was light magic, and her horn told her it was, but something about the way it was kept here told her the inhabitants of the city had regarded it as something more. The same went for the dark, sputtering flame at the other end of the altar that burned with blacks, greens, and purples, although it seemed less tumultuous and painful to the eye than the dark magic Twilight knew and recognised.

"I'm guessing this is supposed to symbolise some kind of balance between light and dark?" Daring said hopefully as Twilight continued inspecting the three flames. "I don't really know since I can't really do magic. It all tends to be a bit beyond me."

"It seems to be," Twilight said unsurely. There was still something about this that suggested something different.

"And I'm guessing that's supposed to be harmony in the middle?"

Twilight quickly shook her head, "No, harmony is the balance between order and chaos, not light and dark. I'm not sure this represents a balance at all, but rather three different aspects of something. This might be a bit of a stretch, but this entire civilisation might have based themselves upon magic."

"Even the non-unicorns? Life must've been a bitch for them living here."

"Perhaps, but I still feel like I'm missing something." Twilight looked around the chamber, seeing the entrances to two antechambers leading off it. "Maybe there's some clues in these other rooms."

"And maybe a mirror?"

"Uh, right, yes." Twilight grinned sheepishly at Daring, knowing that she'd been sucked into the mystery of the place. "You should definitely look for a mirror as well while you find out whatever else you can." She pointed towards the doorway on the dark side of the temple, "You go that way."

"And why am I going that way?"

"Because dark magic has a tendency to mess with magic users, and I'd rather not take the risk. I'll be over here." Twilight pointed towards the light side antechamber, then started walking towards it as Daring grumbled and headed to its counterpart.

The large antechamber was mostly intact, and pleasantly light as large windows let in the sun from outside that shone against the white marble. There was even furniture in the room, although it wasn't in a very good state. Most curiously was the small holes in the floor, three of them in a row, and big enough to hold two ponies at a squeeze.

There were decorations on the wall, but none seemed to give an hint as to the nature of the room. For all she could tell, it was a room for bathing in, but since there were actual bathhouses in the city, why have one here in the temple?

"Huh, neat. Birthing pools."

"What?" Twilight looked at Daring Do as the pegasus inspected the three holes. "These are birthing pools?"

"Yeah. Was it not obvious?"

"Not to me! How do you know what they are?"

"I've seen similar, although they weren't thousands of years old. In fact, these are the only ones I know of older than a hundred years at most. Whoever these ponies were, they were way ahead of us in some ways."

"Birthing pools," Twilight said, ignoring Daring. "Birthing pools and beds... meaning this must have been some kind of maternity unit. Huh..." Twilight returned her attention to Daring, "What was in the other chamber?"

"Judging by the stone slabs and the holes in the walls, I'm pretty sure it was a morgue."

"A morgue?" Twilight tapped a hoof to her chin, a line of thought starting to form. A morgue could be firmly associated with death, which could loosely be connected with dark magic she supposed, but the maternity chamber was harder to associate with light magic... unless the ponies here thought of it as something else. "Life and death."

"Excuse me?"

"They didn't view it as light and dark magic, but the magic of life and death. The morgue is fairly obvious to figure out, but here, what could be a greater expression of life than birth? They must have worshipped, or embraced at least, the cycle of life and death! Ooh, this is so fascinating! Why in Equestria did Starswirl keep this discovery to himself?" Twilight asked rhetorically as she walked back out to the main chamber. "There's just one small problem with this theory."

Daring rolled her eyes, "And what might that be?"

"Dark magic is more than just death, and light magic is more than just life, so why treat them that way?"

"Just a pegasus, Princess, so I have no idea. Maybe we should get on with finding that mirror, and leave the mysteries to another time."

"I guess so." Twilight kicked a hoof at the floor, "Typical, we find the discovery of a lifetime, and have to ignore it as we search for another."

Trixie had made a beeline for the largest building in the city, not far from the circle, suspecting it to be a palace, and therefore a site containing at least a moderate amount of riches. She also made sure it was a beeline, and not a direct route, because Mayfly was with her, and Trixie had to be Trixie.

"What are you expecting to find in the palace?" Mayfly asked, flying just back from Trixie as she trotted swiftly.

"The mirror, obviously. What else could I possibly be looking for?"

"You should stop trying to lie to an empath. I can tell you're looking for more than the mirror. This one suspects you might be trying to find valuables."

"The mirror is valuable."

"I haven't stopped being an empath in the last ten seconds, Trixie."

"Wha-at?" Trixie whined. "It's valuable!"

"Doesn't mean it's all you're looking for."

"Alright! I'm going to attempt to multitask in the finding of things, okay? I also happen to think that the palace would be a good place for Starswirl to use as his camp, on account of how intact it is."

"I cannot fault your logic there at least." Mayfly soared past Trixie, flying up the stairs to the palace as the unicorn clambered up them. "It does seem to be the most hospitable place to live while here. Could use some cocoons to really make it homely though."

"That's disgusting," Trixie said absently, taking in the sight of the palace. Like many of the other buildings here, it featured pillars in abundance, although that was less interesting to Trixie than the large number of blast marks and molten patches that covered them. The massive doors had been torn off their hinges and cast aside as well, making it clear that the palace hadn't escaped the fighting that had seemed to engulfed the rest of the city.

"Why is everything so well preserved here?" Mayfly asked, stomping a hoof on the massive doors. "These should be rotten at least."

"You need water for things to rot," Trixie answered, "and there's not a lot of water in a desert."

"In that case, if nothing rots here, where are all the bodies of the ponies killed in the fighting? Ponies had to have died, otherwise what's the point of fighting if they didn't? Their skeletons should still be here at least."

"That... is a very good point." Trixie turned to look back at the city, catching sight of Twilight and Daring Do as they headed towards one of the larger buildings in the city. From her vantage point she could see a lot of the destruction caused by the fighting, so there had to have been some bodies somewhere. "Wait a minute, I'm getting sucked into this. Let's just look for the mirror, and get on with things."

Trixie continued on her path into the palace, taking in the damage on the walls, but paying no mind to it, or to the large patch of floor that had been obviously melted at some during the battle. The rest of the room was too good to ignore in favour of the damage. Golden chandeliers hung from the roof where they hadn't fallen, gilt furnishings lined the edges of the room they were in, and at the far end, raised above it all, was a large throne made of the same white marble as the rest of the palace. The cushion was non-existent after so long, but Trixie hopped up into it anyway.

"Nice," she said with a nod, surveying the room. "Very nice. These ponies clearly knew how to treat their royalty." A golden bowl was resting on the right arm of the chair, and Trixie tipped it towards her, finding that whatever it had held had long since mouldered away to nothing. Then it occurred to her that it hadn't moved for millennia, and she was the first pony to touch it in as long. She felt oddly ashamed of that, and put it back where it was, then slinked back out of the throne.

"Okay, back to business." Trixie breathed deeply, and set to searching the palace, totally losing Mayfly in the first ten minutes of doing so as the changeling seemed to be in a world of her own as she meandered about.

It disappointed Trixie that there didn't seem to be much to the palace. There were plenty of rooms, but many of them were empty of all but destroyed furniture, and none of that really had any value to Trixie. Whoever had stormed the palace had made a point of destroying as much as they could, except for the throne apparently. Trixie was more than ready to give up, when a shout from Mayfly caught her attention.

"What's up?" Trixie asked Mayfly, having followed the shouts to their source.

"Could you open this door?" Mayfly asked sheepishly, pointing at the heavy stone door behind her. "I can't do it."

Something about the room smelled of treasure to Trixie, so she readily agreed to open it, although there was a small issue as to how. Force seemed to yield little in the way of results, and there didn't seem to be a lock she could find for her to manipulate. All the door had was a purple crystal set in its middle, that refused to acknowledge her attempts at using magic on it.

Trixie was beginning to get frustrated that all Twilight had taught her was getting defeated by a door, and so she resorted back to what she had taught herself. Her horn bubbled with the queasy looking miasma of dark magic, and she grabbed hold of the door, only for the crystal to absorb her magic and turn black. There was a grinding sound, and a moment later the door ponderously swung open.

"That's odd, and a little bit worrying," Trixie said, the magic on her horn dying down. She shrugged and dismissed her concerns as belonging to somepony with less treasure to find.

Trixie strode into the darkened room beyond, her magic lighting the room up to reveal a treasure trove of, well, treasure. Gold and jewels glinted off every surface in the room, leaving both unicorn and changeling staring open mouthed at the display.

"Mayfly, I think we're gonna be rich."

"While I only have a passing acquaintance with the concept of wealth, I think you may be right."

Trixie walked to the nearest shelf, finding it to be totally intact, and as good as the day it was made since it was made of solid stone, which was handy because there was a lot of stuff on it. She picked up a diamond, inspected it, then crammed it into her bags, along with a few others, and a small statuette of a dragon with tiny rubies for its eyes. She moved on and picked up two tubes of brittle black cloth. It took her a moment to work out they were a pair of black, thigh high socks.

"Seriously? I mean... seriously?" Trixie tossed the socks away, and was about to pick up a few more bits of treasure when a large golden statue at the far end of the room caught her eye. It appeared to be an alicorn, but not one that Trixie recognised.

"That's weird," Trixie murmured as she slowly moved closer, taking in the details of the statue. It was standing on its rear legs, its Celestia sized wings spread out to the sides of its body, which was shorter and more compact than Celestia was. A long leonine tail snaked out behind it, a lengthy tuft of hair on the very end of it. Cloven hooves adorned the ends of its legs, and the legs had a tuft of hair on the back above the hooves. Most significantly, to Trixie at least, was the horn that sat in the middle of its forehead. It was curved.

"No freaking way..." Trixie pulled the statue out, turning it around to inspect it from every angle. "What kind of alicorn is this?" she asked out loud.

"A common kind, for here at least," Mayfly answered her. "Come see this."

Trixie gave one last lingering look at the statue, then headed to where Mayfly was. The changeling was standing in front of a tattered but still whole tapestry, depicting a large number of creatures like the statue. Every single one of them had a horn and wings, along with the cloven hooves. They were also all pale in colour, with only small variances compared to the colours of Equestrian ponies, except for their manes and hooves, which were just as colourful.

At the highest point of the tapestry was an alicorn larger than the others, her long green mane covered in flowers. From the way the other alicorns gathered around her with what could only be reverence, Trixie concluded that she had to be the head honcho of the alicorns.

"An entire nation of alicorns." Trixie tried to think of the implications, but couldn't. Instead she shrugged it off as fascinating, but ultimately useless. "I wonder what happened to them?"

"I guess most of them vanished," Mayfly said.

"What do you mean most of them?"

"There's something else in here." Mayfly gestured with a hoof, leading Trixie deeper into the room, and stopped in front of something scattered across the floor. Trixie stared at it for a moment, then grinned as she had a terrible, terrible idea.

"This is going to be so much fun."

"So," Moondancer said.

"So," Sunset said back.

"I don't suppose you have anything of interest to say about all this?"

Sunset shook her head, "Not really."

Moondancer tapped a hoof on the edge of the massive sheet of black, weather worn glass in front of her, watching the ripples of sand as they were blown across it. "Whatever lived here sounds terrifying. The kind of power needed to create something like this is- is... astounding!"

"You got that right. Still, this is good. Starswirl mentioned staying near a sea of obsidian, so I'm guessing that this is it, even though it isn't really obsidian. We must be near his campsite now."

"Any idea what we should be looking for?"

"In the lee of several buildings, near the sea of obsidian," Sunset quoted. "I'd say calling this a sea is hyperbole, but it's the closest equivalent we have. All we need to do now is find a space between several buildings."

"Okay, so that gap over there looks promising." Moondancer pointed to a gap between two buildings. "If we use this spot as a point of reference to search from, we'll find his campsite in no time."

Sunset cracked a grin at Moondancer, "That's oddly optimistic for you."

"Sorry, I meant we're bound to find it eventually."

"Nah, I preferred the optimism." Sunset smirked as Moondancer huffed at her, then started walking towards the gap between the buildings. As soon as she made it through she knew this had to be the spot as three buildings formed a small courtyard with plenty of shade during the day. Unfortunately there was a small issue with sand from the desert blowing in as the edges of the courtyard was piled up with sand that blew around in an eddy that constantly shifted the sand around. "Ah, shit."

"I wouldn't say it's as bad as you think." Moondancer pulled at the edge of something beneath the sand with her magic, dislodging the sand to uncover a tattered sheet of white canvas. "This looks like a tent to me-ah!" Moondancer screamed and jumped away as something screeched beneath the fabric, but it sounded like no animal either of them could name. Both of them jumped further back as something black started to eat through the tent, chewing a large hole through it until something went bang and golden light exploded out of the sand with a sound like the singing of angels. The two forces clashed, creating a shockwave that knocked the two ponies over. By the time they made it back to their hooves, there was no sign of the two magics, save for a scorch mark on the stone of the courtyard.

"What was that?" Moondancer asked, keeping her distance as she adjusted her glasses.

"That... that was a direct conflict between light and dark magic. And Starswirl kept that in his tent," Sunset added with a disbelieving shake of her head. "I can't believe he was experimenting with dark magic. I hope that didn't damage the mirror if it was in there."

"Something tells me we should get the immortal to poke around this," Moondancer suggested. "I certainly don't want to."

"I agree. These clearly aren't forces we want to be messing with if they can do that. Let's head back to that circle thing and see if Twilight's around."

It wasn't too far to get back to the circle at the centre of the city, and life was made easier when they found Twilight there, using her magic to blow the sand off the circle, uncovering it. Daring was nearby, watching the alicorn with suspicion.

"What are you doing Twilight?" Sunset asked as they joined her on the circle. She was surprised to find it was cool to the touch.

"We didn't find the mirror, and time was getting on, so I thought we should come back here and have a look at this while we waited for you. I can't believe how amazing this place is Sunset! Look here." Twilight led them across the circle, pointing at a large number of figures carved into its surface. "They're alicorns! All of them! But they're different from alicorns like me though."

Sunset studied the images, trying to work out what Twilight meant, and it was fairly obvious really, considering they had strange tails, tufts of hair on their legs, and curved horns... "Wait, curved horns? They used dark magic?"

"And light. From what I found in the temple over there, they revered the cycle of life and death, and what we call light and dark magic, they considered life and death magic! Or so I think." Twilight smiled happily, "Isn't this all so fascinating?"

"What are these?" Moondancer asked as she peered at the images on the circle. She pointed at some cloud-like beings, their wispy, ethereal nature not well portrayed by the stone images. "They look like ghosts."

"I thought so too, but then I saw these." Twilight led them towards one of the outer rings of the circle. "There's none of those things here, but there are plenty of the alicorns, and they seem to be using both life and death magic, which suggests a lack of taboo on the death magic. Anyway, if we move in a couple of rings... here. Have a look."

Moondancer twisted her head, trying to make sense of the image. It appeared to be a fusion of an alicorn and one of the cloud creatures, but she couldn't decide if it was meant to depict the alicorn dying and it's spirit coming free, or the alicorn directly turning into it.

"I don't know either," Twilight said as Moondancer asked about it. "I'd say they turned into them though, because if you look here, the ghost creatures are fighting with the alicorns, which has to mean that it wasn't something that was meant to happen. The only question then is if that change was something they did to themselves, or something that was forced on them?"

"So these ghost... things fought the alicorns?" asked Sunset. "Is that why the city is so damaged?"

Twilight shrugged at the question, "I guess so, but that doesn't explain how they had time to create this thing if they were at war. I suspect this might've been created by the survivors as a warning."

"Does that mean the survivors just stayed here and died then? I've never heard of alicorns like this before."

"I don't kn-eep!" Twilight crouched as a booming, gravelly voice echoed around the buildings, sounding like it'd been inhaling the smoke from the fires of Tartarus for a thousand years.

"You... dare disturb our rest?!"

"Oh shit," Twilight cursed quietly. She cursed again as a skeletal form walked into view from the direction of the palace. Cold blue fire burned in its chest, and poured from its eye sockets. Its extended wings crackled with flames that acted like feathers, and its horn burned with that same cold fire.

"You will pay for your trespass!"

All four of them backed away as the skeleton stepped onto the circle, its bony hooves echoing on the stone. Twilight spread her wings protectively as she kept the others behind her. "It was not our intention to disturb anypony. Please, return to your rest, or I will attack."

"All will pay the price for coming here, and the price is death!"

Twilight lashed out with her magic, catching the skeleton on its leg. Rather than remove the leg, or even make the creature stumble, its leg stretched out, pulling the bones apart, and then refused to go back to where it was. Instead it spun about like a skipping rope held vertically, the bones within clattering as it bumped against the other front leg.

Twilight cocked her head sideways in confusion, "What the..?"

"Oh come on! Stupid animation errors."

Trixie trotted into view and over to the skeleton, catching the leg in her hooves and returning it to its proper place, her horn glowing the entire time. It didn't take a genius to work out what was going on.

"Trixie!"

Trixie held up a hoof, "Hold that thought Twilight. Mayfly, can you say something? I don't think I'm syncing the mouth movements to your words."

There was a shimmer in the air next to the skeleton, and Mayfly faded into view. "Okay then, this is a terrible idea made worse by you standing there."

Trixie hung her head, "I know." She turned around and smiled at the four ponies she'd been trying to scare, "'Sup bitches? I found a totally awesome skeleton, and a whole bunch of treasure. You guys find anything?"

Twilight sighed at the blue unicorn, "That's somepony's remains Trixie, show some respect."

"Aww, Bonesy doesn't mind, do ya Bonesy?" Trixie nudged the skeleton, then whined as it said nothing. "Maaayflyyyy..."

Mayfly rolled her eyes and sighed theatrically, "No Trixie, not one b- You know what? I'm done with this silly façade now. I'm not playing along any more."

Trixie pouted at the rest of them, "You're all no fun. Anyway, more on topic, all the ponies that lived here were alicorns, but different to us. Pretty cool huh? I also think they used dark magic for stuff, which is also pretty neat. I'm guessing that's why their horns are curved."

"There's no discolouration, and the twists are still visible," Twilight pointed out as she observed the horn on the skeleton. "That suggests to me that it's natural, although, I have once heard dark magic be referred to as alicorn magic by my zebra friend Zecora. I didn't know why she called it that at the time, but maybe legends exist of this place in Zebrica, and these alicorns were the original practitioners of what we call dark magic, hence alicorn magic. Interesting. Where did you find that skeleton?"

"In a sealed room that was locked by a gem that I unlocked with dark magic," said Trixie. "Also, does that mean I've done alicorn magic?" Twilight nodded at Trixie, "Cool. Still destructively bad, but also cool. So the magic twists its users to look more like its original users?"

"I suppose so," Twilight admitted, not really knowing. "I'm still wondering about something very important."

"What's that?" Trixie asked.

"How you found an alicorn skeleton."

"It was sealed in a room. I don't think many ponies could survive that for long."

Twilight raised an eyebrow at Trixie, waiting for the other shoe to drop. She gestured to herself when it didn't seem to be dropping in a hurry.

"Oh shit! Alicorns are immortal! Twilight, how do I have an alicorn skeleton?"

"I think we can only conclude that these alicorns aren't immortal," Twilight said. "But if that's the case, why haven't we found more remains? Why is this the only one?" Twilight looked down at the circle they were stood on and sighed, "I really wish we had the time to figure this out. It's going to bug me for ages now. Did any of you find the mirror?"

"We did find Starswirl's camp," Sunset said, still eyeing up Trixie. "He was experimenting with light and dark magic there, and there was a bit of an explosion when we disturbed the tent. After that we thought it was best to get you Twilight, since not dying permanently is probably a bonus in case of more explosions."

"Good thinking, and good work." Twilight picked up her bags and hoisted them over her back, and gave one last lingering look at the circle, a faint whine of disappointment escaping her throat as she pulled herself away to follow after Sunset. She only made it ten steps when the clattering of bones made her sigh. "Put the skeleton down Trixie."

"But-"

"Now."

"Ugh, fine."

Twilight gently sifted through the sand as she searched the courtyard for the mirror. Sunset was sat nearby, flipping through a brittle, dried up journal that Twilight had found in the remains of the tent.

"Oh hey, this is interesting." Sunset cleared her throat, "I know not why my beloved never made mention of this place as she must surely have known of a race of alicorns. Was she disgusted by their dalliances with dark magic, or was there more to her silence? One could assume ignorance on her part, but this civilisation is ancient, having perished long before the founding of even the old kingdom. There could be no way she was unaware of it."

"I'd rather assume Faust was ignorant of it myself," Twilight said as Sunset fell silent. "I'm also sceptical of this place having died out over four thousand years ago."

"He said before the establishment of the old kingdom, rather than the ponies themselves. That's probably less than four thousand years."

Twilight shook her head, "Not really. The old kingdom is currently believed to have existed over two thousand years before the Exodus, and its been one and a half thousand years since that, making a total of three and a half thousand years at least. This place couldn't possibly be older than that."

"Why not?"

"Because- Because I don't want it to be," Twilight grumbled. The idea of this civilisation being as advanced as current civilisation four thousand years ago didn't sit right with her. "Does he at least say anything about what happened to the ponies here?"

"Not that I can find. He says they vanished, and says he found no remains, which means he must still think them to be immortal like yourself and the princesses. To think Trixie discovered more about that by accident than Starswirl did with months of research."

"Sometimes all you need to be is a lucky idiot." Twilight returned the gesture as Trixie stuck her tongue out at her from across the courtyard. "Any mention of the cloud creatures?"

"I'm not sure. He refers to something he calls 'shadow beasts' quite often, but I have no way of telling if he means the cloud creatures, or something else. Honestly, his penmanship is terrible, which doesn't help." Sunset closed the journal with a slap, and tucked it into her bags, "As fun as this is, we're actually meant to be looking for a mirror, so maybe we should get on with that."

"Easier said than done." Twilight wiped the sweat from her brow with a hoof, "I've been through this courtyard twice, and I haven't found even a hint of a mirror being here."

"Okay, but I really think we need to get on with it."

Twilight peered suspiciously at Sunset, "Why are you so concerned with finding the mirror all of a sudden?"

"I've always been concerned, thank you very much, but right now I'm thinking of it a lot as the sun hasn't moved for almost two hours. Something tells me we should be concerned about that."

"What?" Twilight looked up at the sun, although she quickly regretted it. "Ah! Damn it!" Twilight blinked the dots out of her vision, "Why didn't you say anything Sunset?"

"Because last time something like this happened you told me to not worry about it. I figured you'd only say the same again."

"I said that we can't do anything about it. Not to not worry about it."

"Uh-huh, right, well the sun's not moved for a while, so maybe we should get on with finding that mirror?"

"Actually, we've found it," Mayfly reported, flying over to them. "Although Moondancer wishes to convey that you might not like what we found."

Twilight's heart sank, "Oh, okay. Lead on Mayfly."

Mayfly waited for them to grab their stuff, then led them out of the courtyard and around the corner of a building that faced directly out to the desert. Moondancer was waiting there, with an expression that Twilight couldn't decipher. It seemed to be a mix between happiness, and being afraid of getting scolded by teacher.

"Where is it?"

Moondancer pointed to a crumbled alcove, where the sun shone directly down on in. In the alcove was a mirror, whole and undamaged, and seeing as how it wasn't reflecting what it was pointing at, but was instead a dull grey reflection of somewhere else entirely, Twilight could only assume it was fully operational, and had been since Starswirl left it there.

"Motherfucker!" Twilight swore, surprised at herself for how angry she was getting for finding an undamaged key to their salvation. "So all the rest of the shit we did to get here was completely fucking pointless?" Twilight sat and covered her face with her hooves, only to end up screaming into them.

Sunset patted Twilight on the back, mirroring Trixie who did the same. "There, there, Twilight, I know it's a little annoying, but this is exactly what we need right now."

"I know, but-" Twilight tore the sack of mirror shards out of her bags and waved them in front of Sunset "-all the crap we went through just to get these bits has been for nothing!" Twilight threw the sack at the wall, splitting it and spraying bits of glass everywhere. "Urrgh!"

Trixie sniggered at Twilight's tantrum, "Quit spitting your bit and pull yourself together. Seeing as you had no idea if you could really fix a mirror if we had to, maybe we should count ourselves lucky this is here."

Twilight breathed in deeply, released it in one, then tried again. "Okay, you're right. We have a mirror, which is the important part. Now we can move on with our mission." Twilight stood and walked calmly over to the mirror, holding a hoof out to touch its surface, only to have it pass through. Nervous about what was going to happen, Twilight took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and bravely stepped forwards.

Author's Notes:

>tfw mirror dares to not be broken

Hooray mystery city. Buh-bye mystery city! It may be brought up again at some point.