The journey through Sanctuary was made in relative silence. Spike and Flurry led the way, with the alicorn opening and closing tunnels as needed with her magic. Scarlet only paid them enough attention to keep up. The rest of her thoughts were dedicated to observing the city around her with great interest.

It was larger than she had been expecting, reaching well beyond that first chamber. Each one they passed through appeared to have a different practical purpose, between subterranean plant farms, housing, and other such necessities for a community to be entirely self-sufficient. It was, all in all, incredibly impressive. Were it not for the countless changelings flitting about, chattering amongst themselves in those hauntingly distorted voices as they worked, she might have even found the hidden colony beautiful.

But she couldn’t bring herself to see it that way. No matter how many times she told herself that these creatures were not at all like the demon that had stolen Crystal from her, she couldn’t help but imagine them in that light at every turn. It made her sick to her stomach, both out of guilt and out of disgust. No doubt the changelings could see it, given the number of odd, borderline-fearful looks she received as the group passed through.

Eventually, the wall before them opened up into a wide, empty tunnel. Scarlet looked around to find a dead end to her left, while farther down the tunnel to her right the cave wall was marked with an elaborate series of glyphs and runes written in Old Ponish that softly glowed in the darkness.

Flurry stepped forward and placed her horn against the wall, muttering some kind of incantation under her breath. When she pulled away, the wall shuddered, the runes glowing brighter with arcane energy. Then, with a deep rumbling and the scraping of stone, that wall, too, peeled open to reveal a chamber that Scarlet had not been expecting.

The vaguely dome-shaped ceiling was easily fifty feet high, while the large floor space was enough for two dragons the size of Spike to chase each other’s tails in a circle, while still leaving just enough room for a few ponies to huddle together in the center. A smooth, round table, made out of delicately carved obsidian, rested in the heart of the room, surrounded by six ornate thrones. On the backrest of each was an engraving.

A bundle of three balloons.

A fluttering group of butterflies.

A trio of diamonds.

A collection of apples.

A cloud with a lightning bolt coming out of it.

And finally, a six-pointed starburst that Scarlet recognized immediately as the symbol of Princess Twilight Sparkle.

“Woah… what is this place?” Primrose asked curiously, lifting a few feet into the air on her wings to get a better look around.

Spike settled down onto his belly in the back of the chamber. He glanced around with a far-off look in his eyes. “...These are the Thrones,” he said quietly. “They serve as a memorial… and a promise.”

The hole in the wall closed up shut behind Scarlet as the last of the group slipped inside. A quick spark of magic from Flurry’s horn caused a chandelier of blue crystals on the roof to light up, filling the chamber with a gentle, soothing illumination that set Scarlet’s heart at ease. Flurry then made her way over to Spike and sat down in front of him, facing the new arrivals.

Her eyes fell on Scarlet, and the various bandages that were just barely keeping her multiple bite wounds from troubling her. Flurry cringed before addressing the group as a whole. “I imagine you all have a lot of questions and, to be frank, so do I. But you can all go first. Spike will answer any questions you have for the moment. In the meantime…”

Flurry stepped up to Scarlet, her ears lowering. “I’m so sorry, but in all of the confusion, I totally missed how injured you are. Here, let me heal you…” she said while her horn lit up.

Scarlet wasn’t going to say no to that. She lowered herself onto her belly and got comfortable. Flurry immediately set to work, gently pulling away her bandages and applying a steady stream of magic to the first of her injuries.

“Now, then,” Spike began, resting his chin on the ground. “Seeing as Flurry volunteered me for the task… ask your questions, and I shall answer.”

Primrose fluttered back down to the ground alongside Sclera. They shared a brief look before the elder of the two spoke up. “What is the lamp? What is its purpose? And how did it come to be?”

Spike closed his eyes, letting off a low rumble of a hum. “...Tell me, all of you. What all do you know of the Fall?” he asked.

“Er, well… we know that it was when Equestria fell apart at the hooves of a swarm of changelings—ferals, I imagine,” Lens recounted slowly, tapping at his chin. “It was how the Five perished—or, well, most of the Five, at least. The damage caused by that calamity had devastating repercussions for the entire world. Griffonstone collapsed, the dragons retreated into their own territory and became reclusive, the capital of Yakyakistan was buried in an avalanche, the hippogriffs of Aris had to rebuild a lot of their country from scratch, the Kirin went extinct…”

“In every sense of the word, it was an apocalypse,” Scarlet summarized with a wince as the bite wound on her shoulder began to stitch itself shut. It was an incredibly unpleasant experience, and the itch was excruciating.

Spike nodded along slowly. “I see… then I suppose it’s time for a history lesson,” he said. He slowly rose up into a sitting position, ruffling his wings as he went. “This may come as a surprise to you, but back then before the Fall, changelings and ponies lived in harmony. They had once been bitter enemies, but after an impromptu coup d’etat dethroned the tyrannical Queen Chrysalis, relations swiftly improved under the guidance of King Thorax…”

Spike trailed off for a few seconds, closing his eyes. When he spoke again, his voice was considerably lower. “But Chrysalis managed to escape with her life. For years, she roamed the wilds of the world, all alone and tormented day and night by her rage, indignation, and loneliness. Try as we might, we could never find her, nor bring her to justice. She had vanished.

“Years came and went, and Equestria was to be ushered into a new era of harmony and prosperity. Celestia and Luna were planning to retire, and Twilight Sparkle was to take their place as the ruling monarch of Equestria. Everything seemed to be going well…”

Spike opened his eyes, and Scarlet couldn’t help but wince at the fire she saw burning within them. The dragon let off a low, quiet growl. “...Until Chrysalis returned to her hive. With naught but her hatred and spite to accompany her in those desolate corners of the world, her mind broke down. When she arrived, her horn spat dark magic… and in a few short hours, seventy percent of the changeling population was corrupted by the feral curse she had designed. All of them were deprived of their minds, of their sense of self, and turned into willing slaves to her will… not even my friend, Thorax, survived the initial spread...”

Primrose’s hooves drifted up to cover her muzzle. “Oh my gosh…”

“That’s horrible,” Lens whispered, his eyes lowering. “She did that to her own kind…?”

Spike nodded. “Once upon a time, she had wanted to feed them, although her methods were twisted and self-destructive. But she had long since stopped caring. She didn’t want to feed anymore… she wanted to kill. And with an army of changelings bound to her will, she set forth to do just that. Over the coming year, she steadily worked her way north, tearing through all resistance, razing settlements to the ground, slaughtering ponies by the thousands once she had stolen their strength for herself, and rendering the earth barren so that we could not use it again. She sought to end our world… and at every turn, we were failing to stop her.”

Scarlet grimaced as Flurry got started on the next bite wound, pouring healing magic into her hoof.

Spike continued. “With every step of ground we lost, Chrysalis’ advances became bolder and more destructive, driving us farther and farther back. Worse still, she had learned of our mightiest weapons, the Elements of Harmony, and stole them from their place in the Tree of Harmony. Bereft of power and allies, we were scrambling for a method of keeping her at bay.”

“What did you do?” Primrose asked, shaking somewhat.

“Everything we could think of to stop her. But alas, in her madness and wrath, she was always one step ahead of us,” Spike replied with a sad shake of his head. “Soon enough, it became exceedingly apparent what her next step was. She was going to come to Ponyville… my home… and burn it to the ground as well. Her goal was to slaughter Twilight Sparkle and all of her friends in front of the one who had cost her the throne… Starlight Glimmer.”

Scarlet thought on the name for a moment, trying to remember if she had ever heard of it before.

Before she could, however, Lens spoke up. “Starlight Glimmer… wasn’t she a really powerful sorceress?”

Spike nodded. “That she was. One of the mightiest mares I ever had the pleasure to call my friend…” he looked down, his spines drooping. “In the end, we had to flee. Ponyville was evacuated and razed to the ground. Canterlot fell next, torn from the mountainside, and sent crumbling to the earth below. We had nowhere else to run but the Crystal Empire, where we would make our final stand…”

“And let me guess…” Scarlet started as Flurry moved on to the bite in her hip. She met Spike’s gaze with sympathy. “...You lost.”

“That was certainly the most likely outcome we could see at the time,” Spike admitted solemnly. “We were beaten, broken, battered. Morale was at an all-time low and our numbers were so reduced that we were all but defenseless against the swarm. When they arrived, it would be the end of the world as we knew it. Everything was doomed to change…”

Spike turned his gaze to Primrose, his expression softening. “But then, Starlight, ever the genius with a penchant to overdo things, came up with a plan.”

“What?” Sclera asked curiously.

“The changelings were, at the end of the day, only as dangerous as they were because of Chrysalis. She had full control over the feral swarm, directing them as one body with her mind. If we could erase her from the picture, then it was our hope that those under her thrall could be set free — or at the very least, mitigated as a threat.”

“So, the plan was to focus on Chrysalis and kill her, thus stopping the war in its tracks?” Lens ventured carefully. “Considering she was the head of the swarm, I imagine she had herself pretty well protected.”

“She did, to the point that it would be impossible to reach her without significant losses,” Spike went on, grimacing. “And the only ones we had who possessed the might to reach her and destroy her were the very ones she sought to slaughter above all else. Twilight Sparkle, Celestia, Luna, Cadance, Shining Armor, and Starlight Glimmer. Regular ponies would be torn to literal shreds long before they could get within spitting distance of the queen, much less cut her down.”

“They knew there were going to be unavoidable deaths in their number,” Flurry picked up, pulling back from Scarlet for a moment. “Whether they were a part of the battle or not, Chrysalis would not suffer them to live longer than her if she had any say in it whatsoever.”

“Precisely, and so Starlight proposed that some of us were… temporarily removed from the equation,” Spike went on, his eyes falling on Primrose again. “And so it was that she came to us with the lamp, forged from the roots of the Tree of Harmony and imbued with the power to safely hold those six mares whom we would entrust our future to.”

Scarlet gasped, feeling as if her heart had just stopped in her chest for a second. She had heard legends of the Tree of Harmony before. It had been mentioned from time to time in religious scriptures she had read through prior to the war. According to them, it was long gone, but if what Spike had just said was true, then not only was the lamp made from its roots, but all of the crystals that were used in Arcane Engines were as well.

But that surprising revelation paled in comparison to the implication Spike’s words had carried. “W-wait. You mean to tell us that…?” she trailed off, her eyes lowering to stare at Primrose as she pulled the lamp out of her saddlebags.

Spike nodded. “I do. Princess Twilight Sparkle and her five friends were sealed within, albeit with some protest. They were only to be released when the battle came to an end, and it was safe for them to return; that they might work to pick up the pieces. It was entrusted to a Free Changeling named Ocellus, a good friend of mine, and I was assigned to safeguard her and Flurry Heart at all costs by Shining Armor and Cadance.”

“Only a few ponies were taught how to undo the seal,” Flurry said. She rested a hoof against her chest. “And I was one of them. I was only a few years old at the time, so it’s all kind of hazy for me, but… I do remember my part.”

“Starlight and the other Princesses were the only others to know how to unlock the seal,” Spike went on. “But just in case they failed to defeat Chrysalis, I was to take Flurry and Ocellus as far as I could from the fighting and protect them with my life until such time as we were to set Twilight free…”

Flurry’s ears drooped, her eyes becoming glued to the floor. “Unfortunately, things didn’t quite go as planned…”

Spike sighed, shaking his head. “The swarm came faster than we had been expecting. Flurry, Ocellus, and I were barely able to escape the first clash with our lives. Some few changelings saw us running and came to stop us, and in the chaos… we lost track of Ocellus. And she had the lamp…”

Flurry sighed before looking down at the last of Scarlet’s bite wounds. “We never saw her again. Chrysalis was defeated, but the Empire had been reduced to rubble. Once the dust settled, Spike and I spent years roaming our brutalized home, trying to find Ocellus. We found a few free changelings here and there, but none of them knew where she was… and many of them were murdered by ponies who had survived the war, driven to fear and paranoia by all they had been forced to endure.”

Spike growled low in his throat. “Eventually, we realized that those feral changelings who had survived the final battle were still operating off of Chrysalis’ final orders to them… to kill me, Flurry, and anything and everything that was not another feral changeling. Our search for Ocellus only painted a target on our backs, and soon we were being accosted almost daily by Ferals. It got to the point where I couldn’t search for Ocellus and keep Flurry safe at the same time, and so… we fled… and eventually, we found this mountain valley.”

Flurry pulled back from Scarlet, having finally closed the last of her wounds. “Once I was old enough to take care of myself, Spike started venturing out into the world to look for Ocellus and the lamp again, but… he never found either. And before we knew it, it had been decades.”

“I did find a few free changelings, and I brought them back with me,” Spike elaborated with a roll of his wrist. “But they had all been mere nymphs when the Fall took place. They knew nothing of Ocellus or where to find her…”

“And so we came up with a plan,” Flurry went on with a tiny smile. “A way to help those changelings who survived the Fall, and hopefully bring the lamp back to us without us having to show ourselves to the feral changelings that still hunt us to this day.”

Primrose gasped and took a few steps forward. “Sanctuary! You started telling others about Sanctuary!” she exclaimed in realization.

Flurry nodded. “We did. Disguised as a unicorn, I went on a few personal expeditions into the world, finding free changelings wherever I could and telling them about this mythical place where changelings could live peacefully and happily, and that it was protected by two powerful guardians.”

“A few of the free changelings we sheltered here volunteered to spend their remaining days spreading the word, as well. We didn’t give a precise location, though,” Spike pointed out with a snort. “With ponies as violent towards our desired population as they were, we needed to keep it vague, so that only changelings who found the rare, scattered clues would ever be able to find it. And so it became a fable… a legend. A story that just so happened to be true.”

Flurry smiled a warm, tender smile, slowly trotting up to Primrose and Sclera, her eyes affixed to the lamp. “And it worked… it took four hundred years, but finally, the lamp is here… my aunt is here…”

Lens trotted over to the two changelings with an awed expression on his face. He adjusted his glasses before an enormous, giddy smile broke out on his face.

Scarlet braced herself.

“By the Five, this is incredible! You have got to tell me everything about what Equestria was like before the Fall! There is so much we could learn from you, so many ways we could improve life in the modern world! Technology, culture, history, philosophy! You were Twilight Sparkle’s assistant, so I am sure you know all about it! Wait, hang on, I think I have a-”

“Okay, first of all, stop,” Spike cut him off in a deadpan. “Secondly… why ask the assistant when you can ask the mare herself?”

“It would take a few days to open the seal,” Flurry pointed out with a thoughtful hum. “I need to get familiar with it again, and then I need to actually undo the convoluted thing. But I can totally do it!”

“Th-the mare… the mare hers… aha… ah…” Lens began to babble incoherently, swaying in place.

Scarlet rolled her eyes and stood up, offering up silent thanks for the lack of agony she experienced at the motion. She trotted over to Lens and gently tugged him to the side. “Lens, Lens, hey. Eyes over here,” she instructed, focusing the stallion’s attention. “Breathe. You know how to do that, I hope?”

Lens began to take deep breaths.

Spike chuckled in amusement. “Ha. You know, that pony reminds me of Twilight in a lot of ways.”

“Nevermind him,” Scarlet called over. “He just gets… excited.”

“I can see that,” Flurry giggled.

A few amused noises went throughout the room before Sclera suddenly spoke up. “So… Ocellus fled the Crystal Empire with the lamp, and the lamp has been in my family for generations. And Spike, you said that there was a family resemblance you recognized... Does this mean that Primrose and I are descendants of Ocellus?”

The laughter died down somewhat. Spike adjusted himself before lowering his head to be at the changeling mother’s level. He smiled. “I saw it the moment I laid eyes on you. There is no doubting it… you are the distant grandchildren of one of my oldest friends… you have carried on her legacy for all this time, and I can only imagine how much you all suffered as a result…”

“Yet still you have it,” Flurry added in a gentle voice, smiling down at Primrose. “Through all of the loss and pain, you have carried on your grandmother’s duty… and now…” she gently lifted her hooves as if to accept something. “You’ve seen her mission to its end. I can take it from here, if you will let me...”

“If I let you…?” Primrose echoed in confusion. “What do you mean? Isn’t it your lamp?”

Flurry shook her head. “It means the world to me, yes, but… at the end of the day, it was never me, nor my family who gave our lives and our happiness to keep it safe. That has always been you and yours. If you wish to hold onto it, then… I will not force you to give it up…”

Primrose’s eyes widened. She looked down at the lamp for several long seconds. She turned it over in her hooves several times, tracing its edges and looking at the long-faded runes etched into the base. Then, with a smile, she lifted it up and placed it delicately into Flurry’s hooves. “I’ve lost family after family for this thing… I don’t want their deaths to be for nothing,” she whispered before backing up into Sclera’s waiting hooves.

Flurry stared at the lamp for a moment before giving a stiff, dumbfounded nod. She smiled and bowed her head. “Thank you… from the bottom of my heart, a million times, thank you. I can finally get my family back...”

“And maybe,” Spike added, reaching out and gently draping one of his fingers over Flurry’s back. “Just maybe, we can finally start to make things right…”

Primrose nodded with a quiet ‘mhmm!’ of confirmation. She then let out a quizzical chirp when Sclera pulled her back into her chest.

Sclera leaned down to offer her foal an affectionate nuzzle, cuddling her close to her heart. “We did it, Protea,” she whispered, closing her eyes as tears began to leak out of them. “You did it… I know your father and brothers would all be very, very proud of you… and so am I.”

Primrose nodded, returning the hug and closing her eyes.

Scarlet watched the two for a moment, smiling widely at the tender scene. She trotted over and reached out to ruffle Primrose’s head as if she still had hair. “I’m proud of you too, Prim… for whatever my pride is worth.”

Primrose cracked open an eye to look up at her. “To me? Everything,” she whispered.

Scarlet recoiled slightly. “...Truly?”

Primrose lifted up a hoof as in invitation. “Like I told you back in the inn… you’re like another mother to me,” she said with a tearful smile. “Even if you were kinda mean that day…”

Scarlet’s heart twisted in her chest. Barely stifling a sob, she staggered forwards and fell into the embrace. Her entire body relaxed as both Primrose and Sclera wrapped their hooves around her, surrounding her in warmth and affection. A second later, another pair of hooves joined the pile from behind her, and she heard Lens giving off a quiet hum of contentment.

Scarlet knew that their troubles weren’t over just yet, but… for this one, magical moment, she was able to forget all about that and just bask in their accomplishment, and the loving warmth of the most important creatures in her life.

So, it goes without saying that Discord never pulled the whole Grogar thing in this timeline. In essence, this story was conceived before the final season went live, and so it doesn't include that stuff.

But yeah, there you have it. All of the answers about that friggin' Lamp. Twilight Sparkle and her five friends are sealed within, and it now falls to Flurry to see them released.