Nothingness! For what was probably only the most miniscule fraction of a second—but seemed like an eternity to Wind Whistler—she felt the sensation of no sensation. She was nothing but consciousness. No sense of physical presence, not even anything telling her she existed. Perhaps this was the sensation of death, to be separate from your hold on the physical world.
Then her senses started to return. Her vestibular sense was first, telling her the location of parts of her body in relation to each other. Her four legs ended in hooves that were all parallel as the legs themselves crossed over. She must be laying on something. Her sense of pressure confirmed it as one side was against something flat and hard, and gravity was pulling her towards that side. It was cool, smooth, and hard as well: a floor. There was also that irritating feeling of her wing having fallen asleep under her. Something seemed to be tied around the dock of her tail too.
Some smaller muscles answered her. She pivoted her ears, but heard nothing. There was no smell of note entering her nostrils either. She could hear her heart slowly beating, confirming she was in fact alive. Why she felt like she had ceased to physically exist and was coming back slowly like this escaped her.
Opening her eyelids felt like forcing open lead doors on rusty hinges. Her eyes were out of focus, everything was just blurry masses of light and color. It took a second or so for things to come into focus. The masses of color gained definition as ponies lying on a tile floor like her.
She finally had enough control to roll over on her belly to bring her legs under her. Her wing immediately felt like thousands of tiny needles were repeatedly jabbing it as blood and feeling returned to it. A pink haze also covered much of her left field of vision as her forelock took its usual place partially covering her left eye. She craned her neck to the right to look back at her tail. What she was feeling was a white ribbon tied in a large, perfectly even bow around its dock. She was not sure how that got there or how she got here for that matter.
She got her hooves under her and stood up. That turned out to be a mistake as she immediately felt lightheaded. The edges of her vision darkened and she could feel herself losing her hold on the ground. She threw her legs out to brace herself before she toppled over. She waited for the flow of blood to return to her head and feel confident enough in her sense of balance before she brought them back under her.
She took in her surroundings, taking note of every detail. It was a large ballroom with a massive, crystal chandelier hanging down from the pinnacle of its domed ceiling high above her. Marble columns as thick as mature oaks supported the ceiling, and there was a large pool filled with water in the middle of the floor. A red carpet led from a platform with an oddly-shaped, upholstered chair on it around the pool and up a grand staircase to a balcony.
Wind Whistler tried to think of how she got here. However, trying to remember what she was doing at the exact moment she lost consciousness was like trying to remember just falling asleep. It was a blur. She might have returned from lunch, but she was not sure. Though, she knew she was not here—wherever here was.
Canterlot? Canterlot's palace was known for its grand ballrooms. However, those ballrooms had huge windows, and there was not a window to be seen here. The decorations and details were also too ornate for the ballroom of a hotel.
There were also the other ponies who were still unconscious on the floor. She made a quick count, coming to thirty-one including herself. Twelve were earth ponies, ten were unicorns with fluted horns protruding her their foreheads and streaks of different colored hair running through their manes and tails, and the remaining nine were pegasi like her with wings covered in rich plumage of feathers. They were all mares, most around her age with one, but one of the white unicorns appearing to be much older. They all had a ribbon tied around their tail like the one around Wind Whistler's but different colors. One of the earth ponies—white with her dark pink mane tied in a bun—wore the blue dress, white apron, and cap of a nurse. A yellow pegasus with both her mane and tail—streaked red, yellow, green, cyan, blue and magenta—also tied in tight buns was dressed in a white leotard, tutu, ballet slippers, and crown. Some of the others had accessories in their manes like more ribbons, sunglasses, hairpins, and fake flowers. They were all strangers, ponies Wind Whistler had never seen before.
Some began to stir, groaning softly and twitching pasterns. They rolled over and some stood up quickly only to stagger as they suffered from similar vertigo Wind Whistler had. Others were more cautious in standing. One by one, the ponies rose to their hooves and looked around in bewilderment.
"Where am Ah?" the nurse asked in a pronounced but refined Mustangian drawl.
That question and others were echoed throughout the ballroom. Ponies asked who each other were, some fretted about appointments they were going to miss because of this, and more than a few panicked about how they were going to be fired for missing work.
"Everyone, please remain calm," Wind Whistler said loudly over the din.
The conversations stopped and several ponies looked to her. Wind Whistler felt the hairs on her back stand on end as she realized how much attention she had just garnered. "I mean, we will accomplish nothing if we succumb to blind panic."
"The young pegasus is right." The older unicorn leapt onto the platform, tossing back her blue mane streaked with brilliant white. She was much older than young mares making up the rest of the group. Creases around the corners of her mouth and eyes gave her a distinguished air about her. "We need to keep our heads about us." She grinned. "We kind of need them."
"But where are we?" the nurse asked again. "Ah was just heading back to the hospital." She scratched at the back of her head. "At least Ah think Ah was. Ah might have still been on lunch."
"I was preparing for a rehearsal," the ballerina added. "I'm not sure how I got here."
"I can tell you exactly what happened." A white pegasus with a curly mess of orange hair for a mane straightened the green, horn-rimmed glasses perched on her nose and smirked. "We've been abducted by aliens?"
Several ponies gasped.
A blue earth pony with yellow ribbons in the sides of her long, curly, dark pink mane and white freckles on her cheeks stepped forward. "Don't be absurd."
The pegasus gave her quick glance but turned away. "I've read all about it in sci-fi magazines. This isn't really a ballroom. We're on the mothership of little green ponies—"
"Hey!" a green pegasus interrupted angrily.
"—little green ponies from another planet," the white pegasus continued.
She turned to a group, including the nurse, huddled together. She crept towards them. "They brought us on board"—she lowered so she took every step like a spider on a wall—"so"—another step which made the ponies huddle closer together—"they—can—subject us—to their horrific EXPERIMENTS!" She reared up and kicked her front hooves over the group who cowered and whimpered in her shadow.
"Knock it off! There's no such thing as aliens!" The blue earth pony stamped her hoof as if it would give more emphasis to her statement. "Sci-fi stands for science fiction. As in not real."
The white pegasus sauntered up to the blue earth pony. "Then how do you explain us being here?"
"While I believe there is extraterrestrial life somewhere out there," Wind Whistler interjected, "I highly doubt they are culpable for our current predicament."
The two ponies turned to her. "Thank you!" they shouted at said at once.
"Why don't we actually go outside and see where we are?" the ballerina suggested.
"That sounds like a great idea." The blue earth pony turned away from the white pegasus.
Everyone filed up the grand staircase to the balcony. Wind Whistler took her usual position in a crowd: its fringe.
"Good to know someone else believes"—the white pegasus walked beside Wind Whistler—"in aliens at least."
"I figure it is a matter of simple statistics," Wind Whistler replied. "Given the sheer number of stars out there, at least some have to harbor planets capable of supporting life."
The pegasus frowned, apparently expecting a more definitive answer than Wind Whistler was able to provide. "I'll take it. I'm Paradise."
"Wind Whistler," Wind Whistler replied as they started ascending the stairs. "A reader of speculative fiction?"
"A reader of everything," Paradise answered. "Sci-fi, fantasy, romance." She heaved a sigh. "Real life can be so boring I wish I could live all the stories I read."
"So, being abducted and experimented on by alien ponies is a case of wish fulfillment?" Wind Whistler asked.
Paradise grinned sheepishly. "Yeah, I guess you could say that." The grin broadened, and she raised her posture. "Of course; we make our daring escape, arm ourselves with their advanced weapons, and fight our way to the hangar to steal a shuttle—escaping just before the whole thing goes up like a Summer Sun fireworks display."
Wind Whistler allowed herself a grin. "Why alien ponies? Why not go for broke and make our space-travelling captors giant robots that can transform into vehicles while we're at it?"
Paradise chuckled. "Let's not be silly."
They came to the top of the stairs and onto the balcony, and Wind Whistler looked to either side. To the left was a dead end, but to the right was a pair of large doors made of stained and ornately carved oak. The ponies gathered around it.
"So…who wants to open it?" a pony whimpered.
"I'll do it." A pink pegasus with a short, electric blue mane pushed her way to the front. She hooked her pastern on the elongated handle and pushed down. The door popped open slightly, and she pushed it open enough to crane her head out. "In Celestia's name!" she shouted.
Several gasps came from the crowd.
"What is it?" a vibrant pink earth pony with sunglasses sitting in her curly, equally vibrant yellow mane yelped.
The pegasus pulled her head back in with a lopsided grin on her face. "It's a hallway."
Exasperated groans came from the other ponies. The two doors were pushed open for everyone to make their way out. A white unicorn with a streak of bright red running through her otherwise dark green mane and tail hit the pegasus upside the head as she passed by her.
"Yow!" the pegasus yelped and rubbed the back of her head. "What was that for?"
The green pegasus with a long, curly, green mane stopped next to her. "That joke was really wasn't called for," she said in her soft voice.
Beyond the door was a hallway extending straight out. The tall ceiling was peaked with chandeliers hanging down from its central beam and sconces on every column. Both the chandeliers and sconces appeared to have glowing crystals where light bulbs or candles would be. A number of doors were also set into the walls.
Wind Whistler hooked her pastern on the handle of the nearest door to her left. The door popped out slightly so she could pull it open and look in. The room beyond had walls of books on shelves. Several chairs and sofas were arranged around a fireplace, and a desk was off to one side. "I think I found a study."
There was a large, tan globe in a wooden frame. The landmass facing her seemed wrong for Equestria, even more wrong than the antiquated maps and globes of before reliable geography had been established. It did not go nearly far enough north and much too far south. It was also too big in general and there was no sign of the nearby landmasses around it. She took a step towards the globe. Perhaps she was just facing the wrong side. She took another step, but she felt a gentle yet definite yank on her tail.
A yellow pegasus with a curly, yellow mane had her tail in her mouth. She spat it out. "We can check things out later. We're looking for a way out."
"Oh. Yes." Wind Whistler turned back to the door. She stopped to glace at the odd globe before following the yellow pony out.
"This is a sitting room," a particularly tall and slender, white unicorn with a bright blue streak in her dark purple mane said from a door further down the hall.
A pink pegasus with a curly, dark pink mane walked out of an alcove between Wind Whistler and the unicorn. She had her face scrunched up with disgust. "Of course I would find the lavatories," she said in an overly dramatic tone. "Granted, they're in impeccable condition, but still."
A pinkish-purple earth pony with a curly, pale pink mane stepped out of a double doorway in the opposite wall. "This is a dining hall."
A white earth pony with a curly, aqua mane stepped out of a doorway further down. "I found a scullery with a door into a kitchen. It's positively huge with everything you could want," she swooned as she leaned against the doorway.
"This is great and all, but how do we get out of here?" the pinkish-purple pony asked.
"Head down the hall, of course, my little pony," the old unicorn said as she trotted past.
The hall ended at a "T" intersection with another. It was the same with more doors in its walls and doors at the ends. Wind Whistler was more aware of her internal compass and could sense magnetic directions. This first hallway went from the ballroom in the north south to this intersection. That meant left was east and right was west.
"Which way?" a pony asked.
A yellow earth pony with a pink, star-shaped hairpin in her green mane stepped to the head of the crowd. "Let's split up and check both ends. I'll lead the group going right."
Wind Whistler decided to join her. Paradise was right behind her, but stopped to open a door. Wind Whistler stopped when she heard Paradise gasp. "What is it?"
Wind Whistler looked inside and saw the doorway led into a huge, two-story library with shelves crammed full of books. Desks with lamps were arranged neatly in one area and sofas around tables were in another. A balcony went around the perimeter with a number of spiral staircases connecting it to the ground level. Heavy drapes covered the large windows, but bright light was making it through narrow gaps between them.
"I've died and gone to heaven," Paradise swooned.
Wind Whistler instinctively felt her chest to confirm her heart was still beating. "Please utilize more caution when conveying metaphors considering the present conundrum before us."
Paradise looked to Wind Whistler with a furrowed brow. "Did you eat a thesaurus for breakfast?"
"Sorry," Wind Whistler apologized. "I have accumulated an extensive vocabulary, and it can get away from me sometimes."
Paradise shrugged. "Okay." She turned back to the library and looked on longingly. "Look at all these books. Imagine all the stories in them."
"Imagine all the information they hold," Wind Whistler added.
A door further down opened and the white unicorn with the red and green mane stuck her head in. "Anytime you two want to join us."
"Oh! Right!" Paradise backed out of the doorway.
At the end of the hall was a pair of large doors much like the ones leading out of the ballroom. There were also simpler doors in either wall which led into plain-looking hallways lit by very simple light fixtures in the square ceilings.
Two ponies pushed open the main doors and they all stepped into a foyer. Stairs led up to a balcony and another set of doors above them. There were some tables and sofas off to the sides, and light poured in through tall, narrow, stained glass windows on either side of an even larger set of doors.
"I think we've found the way out," Paradise said.
"Then let us go forth," A pink pegasus with a light purple mane said in a thick Trottingham accent.
She turned the handle and pushed the door open. It was like opening the door to a blast furnace as hot, humid air rushed in from outside along with glaring sunlight. Wind Whistler had to squint to give her eyes a chance to adjust to the light and stinging heat.
Outside was a courtyard. A flagstone path led from the stoop the doors opened out onto to an opening in a tall wall made of pink stone. To either side were what had to have been a lawn once but were now wild with yellowish-green grasses and wild flowers. The opening was blocked by a blue wall of boards with a pair winches to the sides.
Wind Whistler stepped out and immediately felt the sunlight beating down on her. Even her light blue coat and pale pink mane heated up under the brilliant light. She tried to look up at the hazy sky, but it hurt her eyes even when not looking near the sun.
The courtyard was trapezoid-shaped. The castle made the short parallel side, and the perimeter wall made the long side. The two other sides were long buildings with three stories of evenly spaced windows the lead from the corners of the castle to cylindrical towers with blue, slate roofs on the perimeter wall.
The lawns had a few patches of milkweed, an isolated common mullein here and there where they were well removed from the larger plants, and a few aspen saplings had made the overgrown grounds their home. Rows of some artificial feature also came out of the ground along the walkway. They were painted metal with a cone-shaped top and had a narrow opening under it. They looked almost like modern chimneys or oven vents on a building, only coming out of the ground. Wind Whistler passed them off as strange art for the moment but compartmentalized their presence. Perhaps they would make sense in the future.
She looked to the perimeter wall which had battlements at its top. She spread her wings and leapt into the air to fly to the top. The wall had a walkway, and she landed after what was only a short flutter. She gazed out and could only gasp.
Beyond the wall was a huge valley. The rolling hills of the broad floor were covered in lush meadows with clusters of mixed forest. Some trees closest to them were more orderly like an orchard. The broadness of the floor and the steepness of the cliffs bordering it suggested it was glacial in origin.
A waterfall cascaded down a nearby cliff into a large pond that fed a wide stream. The stream passed in front of the wall—that blue wall being a drawbridge that would span it when lowered—and joined another stream coming from the opposite direction to spill over a small waterfall into a large lake. The lake fed a river that snaked its way around the hills to towards the foot of the valley.
Wind Whistler turned back to the structure. It was a large castle with towers at the corners of the perimeter wall. The wall enclosed an area of at least a hectare. She flew up for a better view, seeing two more long buildings connecting the two back towers to the keep like the front ones. The north trapezoid was also mostly taken up by a square extension attached to the keep at one side and the perimeter wall at the other. It had a dome roof, and given the relative position of what they traveled through, Wind Whistler figured it was the ballroom they first woke up in.
The keep was several stories tall with the foyer protruding out slightly and large windows above where the long buildings connected. The highest story had a balcony with doors and windows leading into what were no doubt the royal bedchambers. The top of the keep was flat and covered by blue slate with an elongated skylight leading to the glass dome. The long buildings also had skylights running along their centerlines.
Behind the castle, the valley continued up and curved to the right. This again suggested a glacial origin. She could picture the ice sheet turning to follow the path of least resistance as it carved out this valley untold millennia ago.
"This is gorgeous." A voice brought Wind Whistler back to the present. It was the yellow pegasus with the yellow mane. She furrowed her brow. "But I've never heard of a castle in the middle of nowhere like this. Well, aside from the Castle of the Two Sisters."
It could not be that castle. The Castle of the Two Sisters was still a ruin in the middle of the Everfree Forest which this was not. However, the valley seemed untouched except for this one castle. They had also not run across another soul—pony or otherwise—since they awoke. Yet, the castle was well maintained.
A low rumble caught Wind Whistler's attention. She looked west and saw a massive wall of dark gray emerging over the mountains. It was cloud, but more massive than any she had ever seen and moving quickly towards them. It towered kilometers in the air and extended past her ability to see either direction. Another, louder rumble came from it.
"I don't like the look of that," the pegasus said.
"Neither do I," Wind Whistler replied. "I suggest we seek shelter immediately."
The cloud passed over the mountains and Wind Whistler could see the rain shafts spreading over the western border of the valley. She spiraled down to the courtyard and the other ponies standing there.
"What's going on?" the yellow earth pony asked.
"A storm is approaching," Wind Whistler said. "Everyone needs to head inside right now."
The earth pony turned to the others. "You heard her, inside."
The ponies ran back inside the castle. The high clouds thickened and Wind Whistler could watch them moving quickly from west to east. This storm was strange, its size, its speed, nothing like the rainstorms Cloudsdale put out. There was a flash followed a few seconds later by a loud crack into a rumble that resonated in Wind Whistler's chest.
"Are you going to follow your own advice?" the yellow earth pony asked from the door.
Wind Whistler ran up the stoop and inside. The earth pony pulled the door closed. A heavy click signified the door was closed, and Wind Whistler felt she could relax. The light from the windows faded away until light from the chandelier in the ceiling reflected off their textured surfaces.
Another flash came from outside followed by loud thunder. There was also the sound of wind whistling and moaning around the castle. Everyone was silent with their ears straight up.
Finally, the first sounds of rain hitting the roof came. It was gentle patter for maybe a split second before it became a thunderous bombardment like a herd of buffalo were stampeding across the roof. More flashes and thunder came from outside.
Then came a sound completely unexpected. It was a dull thud like something solid had hit the roof. Everyone flinched at it.
"What was that?" the earth pony with the sunglasses shrieked.
More sounds like it joined in with the rain. Wind Whistler tried to look outside, but it was too dark and the stained glass was not exactly designed for viewing the outside.
The pegasus with the Trottingham accent hooked her pastern on the door. "No!" the yellow earth pony shouted, but it was too late. The pegasus pushed down the handle, and the door flew open.
The air that rushed in was not as hot as before, but still warm as well as soggy. Outside, it was as dim as twilight and the grass and weeds whipped in the wind. The sheets of rain were practically going sideways along with chunks of something white. They bounced off the ground as they hit and many that struck the walkway shattered. Most were two or three centimeters across, but some were four or even five centimeters across. Thunder roared, its full volume making rattling the chandelier and booming in Wind Whistler's ears.
"Well, since it's open anyway, we might as well grab one to see," the yellow earth pony shouted over the deafening storm.
"A larger specimen that has been broken would be ideal to examine its interior structure and composition," Wind Whistler added.
A purple unicorn with a red streak in her white hair summoned a purple aura around her horn. A similar aura surrounded the fragment of a larger chunk and levitated it inside. Once it was inside, three ponies grabbed the door and strained to get it closed. Everyone relaxed once they heard the click.
The unicorn held the fragment to her nose and quickly pulled it back. "It's ice!"
"Ice?" the yellow earth pony asked. "It was just a million centagrades out there. How could there be ice?"
"I bet some punk on the local team did it as a joke," the white unicorn with the red and dark green mane grumbled.
Wind Whistler examined the fragment. It had roughly concentric circles to it. They were layers suggesting several stages of water accumulating and freezing went into its formation all while suspended to get that kind of shape. An awfully involved process for a simple joke, especially with so many out there.
"A strange castle in the middle of nowhere. Ice falling out of summer thunderstorms." A boom of thunder sent the earth pony with the sunglasses backing into a space under the stairs. "Where are we?"
Sparkler strolled through one of the hallways, admiring the glowing crystals. She had seen and collected many lovely gems of different colors, shapes, sizes, and even unusual properties—but none that could be used like a light source like these. They could go for a handsome price in Canterlot or Manehattan, after she added the best specimens to her private collection of course.
She rounded a corner onto an odd spur to the sight of a white pegasus with a curly, vibrant yellow mane hanging off one of the sconces and appearing to yank on it. She was going to leave her alone when she realized she could damage the crystals in the sconce.
"We haven't been in this castle for an hour, and you're already trying to break it?"
The pegasus stopped and looked at her with an expression that was probably meant to be stern but looked more like pouty. "I am not!"
"Well it looks like it to me," Sparkler replied.
"I'm looking for secret passages." The Pegasus braced her hind hooves on the wall and threw herself back. "Castles and mansions always have secret passages."
Sparkler rolled her eyes. "Are you that glasses-wearing wackjob going on about aliens in the ballroom in a wig or something? You're certainly as loopy as she is."
The pegasus ignored her, jumping to the next sconce and pulling down. This one pulled away from the wall with a piece of metal keeping it attached. The panel next to it pulled in and slid away to reveal a set of metal doors. A chime went off, and the door parted to reveal a good-sized elevator.
"You've got to be kidding me," Sparkler grumbled.
The pegasus leapt down from the sconce. "Told you. I'm Surprise, by the way."
"Sparkler," Sparkler replied.
"What do you think it is?" Surprise asked.
"A service elevator," Sparkler answered with barely a thought. "Those supposed secret passages were halls and stairs servants used so they could move through the mansion or castle without being seen."
"Let's see where it goes!" Surprise stepped into the elevator.
Sparkler heaved a sigh. She might as well go too since she had nothing better to do. She also did not trust this pegasus moving through the walls. She stepped in and took in the small space. The ceiling was an opalescent glass picture of a lavender bush with some kind of light above it. She looked to the control panel, but there was just one button labeled with up and down arrows.
"That's odd," Sparkler mused aloud. "How do you select floors?"
"Let's go!" Surprise pushed the button. The chime rang and the doors closed.
Sparkler expected to be carried up higher into the castle, so it was a shock when the elevator began descending and quite rapidly. "We were on the ground floor. What could be below us?"
"Maybe it's the dungeon where they have a torture chamber." The broad grin on Surprise's face made her suggestion all the more macabre.
Sparkler let that sink in for a second before she found words. "You're warped. Has anyone told you that lately?"
Surprise shrugged. "Not lately."
The elevator slowed and came to a stop. The chime sounded again and the doors opened. Whatever was out there was shrouded in a darkness that was practically tangible. The light from the elevator barely penetrating into the gloom.
Surprise bounded out, and even her white coat disappeared into the darkness only a few meters in. Sparkler was more cautious stepping outside the elevator. The floor was covered in a thick layer of fine dust, cushioning her hooves with every step. The air was also stale, but not musty. It was just stagnant with no motion and that unique smell saying it had been so for a very long time.
A chime sounded and the doors closed, shutting out the light completely. Sparkler jumped and her heart pounded in her chest. She took a deep breath and summoned her magic to form a spark on the tip of her horn. It did not light much, but it was something.
"Get a hold of yourself," she said quietly. "The doors just closed automatically. There's nothing to be worried about down here."
She turned to Surprise almost nose to nose with her. The harsh shadows caused by the spark made her look unearthly. "SURPRISE!" the pegasus shrieked.
Sparkler jumped a good half meter into the air and a full meter back. It felt like her heart was going to burst from her ribcage. "What possessed you to do that?!" She heaved a breath. "Trying to give me a heart attack?!"
"I'm sorry. You seemed really high strung so I figured a good surprise would break the tension," Surprise replied. "You know, get it out of your system all at once."
Sparkler glared at the grinning pony. "I was wrong before. You're not warped. You're deranged!"
"Okay. No one has ever called me that." Surprise turned away and again disappeared into the darkness. "There's a power switch next to the elevator, by the way."
Sparkler looked to the wall and large "Y" switch marked by a lightning bolt. She shot a glare in the general direction Surprise had disappeared in. "Then why didn't you throw it, you walking short circuit?" she grumbled under her breath.
Sparkler took the handle in her magic and threw it up. Dull clunks resounded around them and she could feel a slight breeze begin blowing through the air. The stale scent subsided, but she sneezed as dust seemed to be replacing it. The ceiling then illuminated—the whole thing behind an ornate metal grating.
The ceiling of light lit up everything with barely a shadow to be seen and Sparkler could finally see what they had stepped into it. It was huge camber with massive columns supporting the ceiling. They were standing on a raised platform with the main level below and accessed by stairs to the sides. The walls and columns appeared to be made of dark gray metal with absolutely no luster to it. The columns were tapered, narrowest at the top and fattest close to the bottom. Where the columns were their thickest, there was a black band with white crescent moons and ray-casting suns in relief on them. However, there were two moons for every sun, each bending towards the adjacent sun and away from the adjacent moon.
At the end of the platform was another one of those strange chairs in front of several panes of glass and a table or counter of some kind. Surprise jumped into the chair—sending up a cloud of gray dust—and pushing off to make it spin.
After a few times around, she stopped to face Sparkler. "Isn't this castle awesome? It's full of surprises."
"Speak for yourself," Sparkler grumbled. She never liked surprises unless it was running across a stray jewel. Ironically, it drove her curiosity as she wanted to find something before it found her.
She looked through the glass panes at the main floor which was at its widest in front of them. There was a large, circular hole bored into the wall with large, metal rings built into its rim. A ramp also led up into it, but it all just suddenly stopped a few dozen meters in.
"Why go to the trouble of making a tunnel like that only for it to stop at a dead end?" Sparkler asked aloud.
Surprise shrugged. "Made sense to someone."
Sparkler looked at the counter in front of Surprise. It was lopsided to the right, like a part of it had been removed or otherwise left out. It was so covered it dust it was hard to tell anything about it. She used her magic to brush it aside, but pushed over something else. It was a cover of some kind and underneath it was a set of controls. She pulled off more covers which revealed a keyboard, sets of sliders, dials, levers, and other controls. However, all of the labels were symbols made of straight lines.
"Cool! It's some kind of machine." Surprise reached for the largest button which happened to be red. "Let's turn it on and see what it does."
"Don't!" Sparkler shouted.
It was too late as Surprise's hoof smacked the button. Sparkler winced waiting for something to happen. However, she was met by silence. She cautiously opened her eyes and saw that nothing had changed.
"What gives?" Surprise smashed the button a couple times until Sparkler caught her hoof in her magic.
"Why don't we go back up and tell the others," Sparkler suggested.
Surprise pulled her leg back and crossed it with the other over her chest. "Fine."
Sparkler looked down at the controls with the odd symbols. "This castle just took on a whole new dimension of weird."
"Magic Star is not a name I expected for an earth pony," Wind Whistler said to the yellow earth pony as they stepped into the elevator.
"My father was a Canterlot unicorn," Magic Star replied. "He said he could sense I had a close connection to magic even if I wasn't born with a horn. I might not have unicorn magic, but I seem to have a sixth sense about it.
"Besides—" the star-shaped hairpin flew out of her mane and hovered in front of her. The star grew larger and the pin widened and lengthened into the shaft of a wand. "This magic wand I made is as good as any unicorn's horn." It shrank back into a hairpin and returned to its place in her mane. "Stores better too."
"I see."
They began to descend and Wind Whistler tried to picture the strata they must have been passing beyond the walls of the car and shaft.
"What about you, Wind Whistler?" Magic Star asked. "What do you do for a living?"
"I've been in various positions at the weather factory," Wind Whistler said. That was putting it nicely. She felt a pit forming in her stomach at the thought of how unstable and unfulfilling her life had been, but she hid her discomfort as best she could.
"Not happy with your place in life?" Magic Star asked.
Apparently she did not hide it well enough. "The weather factory just does not seem like a good fit." That should be enough of an answer to satisfy Magic Star's curiosity.
"I hear you," Magic Star said. "I figure if I wasn't born into the family I was, they would have shoved me on a farm or something like any other earth pony." She shook her head. "No thank you.
"When we get back, maybe I can hook you up with some friends of mine in Canterlot. You seem smart, and they're always looking for another brain."
Wind Whistler's mood brightened a little. "That's awfully generous. Thank you."
Magic Star shrugged. "Equestria seems to love pigeonholing ponies, and isn't kind of those of us who don't fit neatly. We misfits need to stick together."
The elevator slowed and came to a stop. The chime sounded and the door opened. Wind Whistler stepped out into the chamber and opened her senses to it as she walked forward. Stepping into the chamber was like not just stepping into a whole other building from the castle above but a whole other civilization all together. The tapered columns—as opposed to straight—and dark gray walls of metal were nothing like the warm colors and delicate decorations of the castle. There was the ceiling of light instead of any particular light fixtures like the castle had in abundance, and the only decorations here were the suns and moons on the columns. The suns and more plentiful moons were what really made it seem like someone other than the builders of the castle made this because there was no reference to celestial objects in the castle's décor at all.
Beyond the jarring change of architecture and ornamentation, the most notable thing was the very slight breeze and the air only being faintly stale. Fresh air had to be coming in from the surface somehow. She saw that between the columns were louvered vents in the walls. They were the most likely entrance and exit points for the air, but there had to be something at the surface where the air could enter and leave. She then remembered the metal objects which looked like they could be vents. She marveled at the system for being both practical and inconspicuous. Those not thinking would consider them just lawn decorations without realizing their true purpose.
The older, white unicorn—Blueflower—stood next to the chair Surprise was sitting in. She looked up to them. "Good of you two to join us. Care to try your hoof at our mystery machine?"
Wind Whistler looked at the control panel. The controls were rather generic with a double slider being the largest control of them all. There was the lopsidedness of the setup, but there could be a hundred explanations for it. She looked more closely at the labels. She had never seen anything exactly like them, but she had seen something similar.
"See something, my little pony?" Blueflower asked.
"You see it too?" Magic Star asked.
"If you think they're runes," Wind Whistler said, "then you and I are along the same line of thinking."
"I noticed it too," Blueflower said.
"Runes?" Surprise asked. "What are runes?"
"Letters, but made of straight lines so they could be carved into wood or more easily written with hooves," Blueflower said. "Earth ponies used them before the Equestrian unification and all three tribes adopted unicorn script."
"However, these aren't earth pony runes," Wind Whistler said as she examined them more closely. "They're similar but still unmistakably different."
"And what does that tell us?" Blueflower asked.
"It says nothing to me," Magic Star said.
Wind Whistler stared at the control panel intently as she considered everything else. The runes were like the globe, just not right. Then there was the strange weather and ice falling out of the sky. However, there was milkweed, common mullein, and aspen trees. There was also the question of how it could possibly happen. They conflicted with each other, so she was not sure.
"What about you?" Blueflower drew in close. "Something seems to be on your mind."
"There is a logical explanation, but it is highly improbable," Wind Whistler replied, still mulling over things in her mind. "Really, it should be impossible."
"As they say, when you eliminate the possible, the impossible must be the truth," Blueflower said.
A logical argument, but it did not help Wind Whistler's confidence in her conclusion. For one thing, it might send these already frightened and confused ponies into a panic—an unneeded and unproductive response, especially if it turned out she was wrong.
The chime went off again and the doors opened to let Paradise leap out. "The storm's over and the sky's cleared out," she got out between heavy breaths.
"That's what usually happens after a storm," Blueflower said sternly. "What has you all worked up?"
"It's what's in the sky," Paradise said, breathing more evenly. "You need to come up and see."
Wind Whistler stepped outside onto the stoop. The air was much more pleasant, the heat and humidity were gone and the air smelled fresh after the rain. A few chunks of ice were still scattered across the walkway and in the grass but they were little more than lumps and would soon be completely melted.
Several ponies were standing on the south perimeter wall and gazing to the south. Wind Whistler flew up to them and Blueflower and Magic Star with her wand in her mouth appeared in showers of sparkles. They joined in other in gazing up at the now brilliant blue sky with the last of the gray stratoform marking the back of the storm on the eastern edge of the horizon. With the sky cleared of haze, she could see a massive arch spanning the southern sky. It was divided into bands separated by a narrow gap with a smaller arc well removed and above the others. The larger bands looked like they had grooves in them like a vinyl record.
"What is that?" Magic Star asked.
The pony with the sunglasses turned to her. "That's what we were hoping you could tell us."
"Look at the moon, too!" Paradise pointed towards the east.
Wind Whistler looked to just south of east at a moon just past its first quarter several degrees above the horizon. Even with the partial moon visible and having to contend with daylight, Wind Whistler could make out dark patches on it that seemed to be the wrong shape and in the wrong places. Though, there was the more obvious problem with it. "What's the moon doing out during their day?"
"If you think that's something, look right of the sun a bit over the southwestern horizon," Paradise said.
Wind Whistler spread her wings to hover to see better. The sun was more than halfway between its noontime zenith and setting. Wind Whistler held out her hoof to block it out and looked just to its right. About thirty-six degrees of arc from it was a sliver like a waning crescent moon. She looked back to the first quarter moon and then to the sliver. Picturing the discs they would form, she figured the sliver would be half the apparent size.
"Do you see it?" Paradise asked.
"Yes." Wind Whistler descended and set her hooves on the ground. "It appears to be a second moon."
"But, there's only one moon," the pony with the sunglasses said. She shuddered. "Imagine if Princess Luna had a twin."
"Equestria has one moon," Wind Whistler said. That was all she needed to confirm her suspicions. Really thinking about it, the gravity was ever so slightly less and the magnetic field was slightly stronger here. The sun was also slightly brighter despite being slightly smaller in apparent size. "As improbable as it sounds, we're not in Equestria anymore—or even on our home planet."
"What?" the pony with sunglasses squeaked.
Wind Whistler nodded her head. "There are two moons in the sky, and I believe the arch is in fact a ring system circling this planet's equator. I have no explanation of how or why, but we have been removed from our world and brought to another."
Gasps came from the others followed by hushed conversation.
Wind Whistler felt some sense of relief for getting that out and knowing it was true. The mystery of where they were had been solved, but it led into countless other mysteries. Thinking of an entire world unknown to them out there everywhere, Wind Whistler felt both elated and absolutely terrified.