A metallic clang echoed off of stone walls. Something heavy shook in response, followed by a solid thwack. The hissing of dust and ash dropping from cracks in the bricks filled in the void between impacts, and then, for a brief moment, everything became quiet again.

With the painful grinding of ancient and frozen metal, the halls shook with noise again. Ice splintered off of ancient hinges as a pair of massive doors creaked open. A sliver of gray light, as blinding as the sun in the complete darkness, pierced through the veil of dust and shadows inside of Castle Black for the first time in millennia.

Twilight stuck her head in first, sweat running down her forehead for brief seconds before it simply froze to her fur and muzzle. She drew her heavy winter coat tighter around herself and carefully stepped inside. Rainbow Dash hesitantly followed her friend with the edges of her wings angled outwards in worry. The two rebels, Safe Haven and Yóumín, entered last, with the prowling tigress taking up the rear. Bracing themselves against the doors, the four intruders forced the doors open a little wider. The dull gray that passed for ‘light’ in Stalliongrad flooded into the crypt that was Castle Black.

“Creepy…” Rainbow Dash muttered as she looked around. Ghostly banners of ancient silk and gold hung limply from the ceiling, torn with holes and chewed up by fires long since extinguished. As she walked along, Rainbow accidentally brushed into one, yelping in alarm as if some specter had tried to grab her shoulder. The banner came apart easily as she jumped away, the silk dissolving into dust before her eyes.

“Wow!” Twilight whispered, her eyes glittering with excitement. “Would you look at everything? This place feels like it’s been preserved for thousands of years!” She bounced a few inches off the ground, her hooves crunching the ancient dust and ash every time they hit the ground. “We’re standing in something that’s been untouched since the age of Star Swirl the Bearded!”

Reaching into his saddlebag, Safe Haven fumbled with numb hooves for a few seconds before pulling out some torches. “How about we light it up so we can see a little bit better,” he suggested. He hoofed over the torches to Yóumín, who grasped them in one paw and held them up to the stone bricks. With her other paw, she extended her claws and scraped across the stone, creating a shower of twinkling sparks that set the torches ablaze. She then passed the three lit torches back to Haven and began to prowl ahead, her tail swishing back and forth behind her.

“Uh, don’t you need one?” Rainbow asked as she clenched a torch between her teeth and began to walk.

Yóumín shook her head. “Unlike ponies, we tigers can see perfectly fine in the dark.”

Twilight began to walk forward as well, instinctively clutching at the torch with her magic before wincing sharply and collapsing against the wall. “Right…” she grunted to herself. “Void dust.” After recollecting her breath, she turned to where Rainbow was anxiously watching her and waved her hoof. Stumbling down the hall, she made it over to Safe Haven and grabbed the torch he held ready for her. Together, the three ponies walked down the dark corridors, trailing Yóumín’s black and orange pelt.

They advanced together in silence, taking in glimpses of the shadowy scenery decorating the castle. At some places along the hall it was easy to tell that the bricks were actually gray, not black, but the thickness of the ash covering the rest of them cared little. The farther into the castle they delved, the more signs of a fire they saw: half-burnt books, blackened beams of wood, heavy piles of ash, and warped metalwork. Twilight was so preoccupied with taking in all the details she could that she missed the pile of blackened bones until she tripped and fell right into them.

“Oof!” she gasped as she slammed her shoulder into the bones underneath her. They cracked and splintered into tiny gray and black fragments which rattled across the stone floor. When she opened her eyes, Twilight could see an ancient femur rolling away from her, clattering until it came to a stop by Safe Haven’s hoof.

“Are you alright?” he asked as he hooked a hoof under her foreleg and pulled her up. Twilight blinked her eyes several times to clear the dust out of them and spat out the granules of bone meal that had made it into her mouth. They left an acrid, gritty taste behind, like a combination of ash, sand, and spider webs.

“I’m fine,” she answered him when she finally stopped gagging on the taste. The entire left half of her body and winter coat was covered in tiny shards of bone and flakes of ash. Grimacing, she tried wiping them off to little success.

“Yeesh,” Rainbow Dash said as she walked over to the bones. She could see half of a skull staring at her with empty eye sockets, its teeth and brittle jaw open and hungering for flesh. “Whoever burnt this place out didn’t really clean up after themselves, did they?”

“That they did not,” came a voice inches away from Rainbow Dash’s ear. The pegasus squeaked and jumped to the side, hugging Safe Haven for dear life. Turning her head, she saw Yóumín standing next to her, amusement stretching across her face from whisker to whisker. Smiling sheepishly, she let go of Safe Haven and dropped back between him and the tigress, trying to calm her racing heart.

Haven cleared his throat and looked further down the hall. “Let’s get going again, then. The sooner we’re done with this little field trip, the better.” Placing a hoof on Twilight’s back, he ushered her down the hall.

“I shall try and give you more warning next time,” Yóumín said as she passed by Rainbow Dash. She flicked the pony’s ear with her tail, leaving the pegasus behind. Rainbow quickly galloped forward so that she was back with the rest of the group, shaking her head as she went.

They soon entered what must have once been the grand hall. Twilight found herself imagining it as the home of grand feasts, roaring fires, and plentiful company. Now, however, it was home to frozen hearths and barren tables, dead banners and dead bodies. Several pony skeletons lied slumped over in their seats or across the floor. Occasionally, the group spotted a pegasus skeleton still clad in ancient Cirran armor, but those were few and far between. By the time they made it to the center of the hall, Twilight was practically bursting at the seams, itching to rush over and document everything.

“Calm down, Twi,” Rainbow said as she steadied her friend with a hoof. “One thing at a time. We don’t wanna go falling into any more skeletons, despite how funny that might have been for some of us.”

Twilight spared barely a millisecond to glare at Rainbow before trotting over towards one of the armor-clad skeletons. “Look at this, Rainbow! It’s Cirran armor, completely intact and everything! Why, this is in even better condition that most of the armors I see in museums! You could almost fight in this, if it weren’t such a valuable relic.”

“It looks pretty swanky,” Rainbow said as she walked over to Twilight’s side. With a hoof, she poked at the metal, feeling its chill yet also its strength as well. There was hardly a speck of rust on the skysteel, and even the wingblades still clung to the skeleton’s bony crests. It was strong steel, and undamaged, too. A splintered arrow wedged in the vertebrae of its neck was all that remained of the wound that had killed it. Rainbow had the urge to try on the helmet, but she eventually pushed it away as Twilight lost interest and went to some other find.

Looking around, Rainbow walked towards one of the tables. Yóumín and Safe Haven were talking in Stalliongradi off to the side as they examined a surprisingly intact tapestry. Twilight was busy collecting samples of bone and ash in a plastic bag she had produced from somewhere. Yawning slightly, Rainbow set her hooves down on the table and looked lazily over a charred pile of books in front of her.

Brushing the ash off of the bench underneath her with her tail, Rainbow sat down and pulled one of the books over to her. Opening it, she winced at the splintery crack of dried parchment splitting in two. Much more carefully this time, she used the primaries of her wings to gently nudge the pages open one at a time. Most of the ink was faded and unreadable, and the symbols that weren’t didn’t make much sense to her. Grumbling, she set the book aside and pulled out another one, only to be greeted with the same result.

She was just about to abandon the search when she saw something red sticking out of the side of the book on the bottom. Raising an eyebrow, she pushed aside the other books on top of it and pulled it closer to herself. The binding was strong and the pages sturdy; already she could tell it was in much better condition than the books on top of it. Locating the red thing, she opened the cover to the page, and gasped when not one, but two feathers fell out. One was red as blood and slightly frayed with age. The other was a creamy blond and smaller, though its edges were smooth and crisp.

“Uhh… Twilight?” she called, unable to take her eyes away from the feathers. “I think I found something… again.”

The hurried clopping of hooves on stone brought Twilight over in a matter of seconds. “What did you find, Rainbow? More…” she stopped as she saw the feathers Rainbow had in front of her. “…feathers?”

Picking the feathers up with a hoof, she held them to what little light there was to examine them carefully. Soon enough, her eyes widened and widened until Rainbow was sure she was going to blind herself somehow. “Twilight? What is it?”

“These are…” she gently set them aside and reached for the book, which Rainbow gave to her. She gently nosed the pages around, and Rainbow could see her eyes sliding back and forth as she read the pages. “Incredible.”

“Mind filling me in?” Rainbow asked, turning around in her seat so she could face Twilight directly.

Twilight cleared her throat and began to read off of the page:

“By writing these words, we hope that we can honor the spirit of our father, and remember him in the way that he truly was, not in the way that Celeste and Lūn wish to remember him. Long after we die and the world moves on, what really happened will have been forgotten to time, but as long as this last piece of evidence remains, the truth can still be separated from history’s ‘truth’.

May our father, Hurricane, the only Commander Maximus of Cirra, rest in peace, knowing that we remember him and, through us, others may as well.

Ante Legionem nihil erat, et nihil erit post Legionem.

Commander Typhoon and Commander Cyclone.”