A nightly guardian

Chapter 4

Ambush

It had been two days, since Lyra had last heard a story about Zeo from Princess Luna. This mostly was because, she wanted Lyra to learn some spells as well. According to the Princess, Zeo had a part in creating those. Lyra could understand what the Princess had meant by that. The scribblings she had given her to study were nowhere near anything she had seen before. All of them were handwritten, with several diagrams and crossed out sections.

At first, Lyra didn't understand a word that was written there. It was only when Luna had told her to look at it from an Earth ponies point of view, that she had started to understand. The scrolls talked about mana as energy, about focus as regulator and about the magical strands that formed a spell, as layout. There were other differences, but soon Lyra had been able to translate it into terms she knew. Still.... One of the spells the Princess had wanted her to learn was for something called "Phase shifting". Lyra did not know what that meant. Sure she had heard of "Shape shifting", but this was not what was described here.

It described frequencies and other stuff that Lyra did not understand. When asking the Princess to maybe demonstrate it, she had been unable to. At first that had discouraged her, but Luna had explained that she simply couldn't do it because she was an Alicorn. A lesson on Alicorn magic had followed this. Lyra had never known that each and every spell an Alicorn used, had to be adjusted for their use. Unicorn spell books were just no use for them. And this was a spell developed by a human....

At the evening of the second day, Lyra had understood what was meant after finding a book on frequencies and wavelengths. According to that book each and every thing had such a frequency. In theory, another object would be able to pass through, if it's frequency matched the one of the object you wanted to penetrate. Using a spell she had already memorized, she tried it out on a door. The result was stunning. In her mind numbers and pictures of moving waves appeared. Combining it with the other spell, she tried to match her own with that of the door. It proved complicated, and resulted in the destruction of the door, and a major injury to her left foreleg.

Thinking she got it right, Lyra stuck her foreleg out and tried to push it through the closed door. At first it had worked fine.... but then complications had come up. The waves in her mind had began to fluctuate, and her concentration had been thrown off by Luna stepping into the archive. As the spell fizzled away, her hoof had melted with the doors wood. Hearing her scream of pain, Luna had immediately rushed to her side, and freed her by blasting the door apart. The damage was done however. A portion of her lower left foreleg was fleshless, and it had required a lot of magic from the ruler of the night, to make it heal. Still, it would take a while until she would be able to walk on that leg again.

"I am so sorry Lyra. I should have stayed with you during your studies on that spell. I knew it was potentially dangerous, but I thought you could handle it...", Luna apologized for what felt like the hundreds time.

"It's OK Luna. I almost had it. Something went wrong in the last moment however, but I think I can make it if I try it with two objects that are not part on my body. But I'm wondering... what are these spells actually for?", Lyra repeated herself.

"They are for medical purposes.", Luna said, while looking everywhere but Lyras eyes.

"Medical.... I mean I know one of your domains is healing, but you said you were unable to do this spell...."

"This spell was originally developed as a substitute for surgery. The healer would be able to just reach into his patient and fix whatever was wrong with them. Even removing germs would be possible in theory. If you could master it, you could do much good for Pony kind.", Luna explained much more exited now.

"Wait! So you say you are teaching me to be a healer? My special talent is music!", Lyra complained.

"That doesn't matter, and in fact qualifies you even more. Music is an act of control and precision, just like these spells. Besides, there are diseases that we have no cure for. If you were to master some of these, we would finally have the means to fight them. You could teach them to other Unicorns, and Equestria would truly become an Utopia."

"But then why are these scrolls gathering dust down here? If you wanted them to be known, then why didn't you teach them to somepony before me?", Lyra wondered.

Luna averted her gaze again, and looked straight into the fireplace of her private study.

"Because you are special. These spells are created by a human. Only somepony that is willing to learn about them as well, will be able to master them, of that I am sure. There have been great Unicorn scholars who have sat where you are sitting now. They all wanted to know about Zeo and his research into magic. But all of them just wanted to know the facts. They would not try to understand what kind of person Zeo i... was. That is why I locked all the knowledge about him up down here. I think understanding him is very important, if you want to understand his work. You are the very first one to come here with exactly that intend Lyra. That is why I chose you."

Lyra was stunned. Sure she wanted to know about humans, and what they were like, but she had never looked at it this way. Thinking back to their previous conversations however, she found it to be true. Already she was thinking of Zeo as an old friend, instead of a mythical creature, of whom she wanted to know more. She wanted to understand him. She wanted to understand what drove him forward, and what made him write all these books. But aside from all of that, she wanted to know what kind of.... "person" he had been.

The two mares sat there in silence for a while, when Luna finally broke the silence.

"So..... Lyra... do you still want to study under me, now that I told you all of this?", the Princess asked.

"Are you kidding? OFCOURSE I WANT! But please tell me, I thought humans were unable to do magic...", but Luna just shook her head.

"That same question was asked by Starswhirl the bearded, so long ago. Same as with him, I will not answer you. Not until we reach that part on his story at least. Starswhirl lost his patience with me at this point and left. I hope you will stay.", Luna said hopefully.

Lyra nodded, and waited for her mentor to continue.

"Well.... I wanted to tell you about something else today. Zeo had been accepted by most of the Ponies in Canterlot, and surely was making friends with many of them rather quickly. Some of course just wanted to take advantage of him, since he was my mate, but he saw through those right away. The downside was, that he had also made a habit to party with them all night in a local bar...."

Luna was trotting through the streets of Canterlot. At her side were six royal guards, all of them Unicorns. Each of them wore a mageblade. Celestia had insisted on that escort, and Luna was not sad about it. Ever since she was attacked that night when Zeo had come into her life, she had not left the palace. But ever since they had made his presence public, he had spent more and more time outside the palace. Mostly in the evenings, in a bar close the local airship docks. There all the sailors turned in, and it was considered bad company. Rumors about how much he was able to drink, had already spread and Luna intended to put a stop to that. Even so he never returned too late, and was never drunk, she didn't like it. He spent most the bits he got from the treasury there, and that was just asking for trouble. As the docks came into sight she halted.

Half an hour until midnight. He would soon come out of the bar, and make his way home. That was when Luna intended to confront him, and tell him she didn't want him to come here again. Sure the bite mark on her neck had been a misunderstanding, but that didn't change the fact that his actions threw a bad light on her. The group waited for a moment, when suddenly all six of her guards dropped to the ground around her. Luna knelt down to investigate and found a crossbow bolt in the neck of the closest guard. Backing away from the dead stallion, she slipped on the blood that was now spilling on the ground. Six dark hooded Ponies emerged from the shadows between the buildings, and surrounded her. On their belts she could see the crossbows that had most likely killed her guards.

"You were quite stupid to leave the palace with only this many guards, you silly little filly.", a cold female voice said.

"You did not only refuse to step down, but now you are also mating with that.... monster! You are a disgrace to all of Pony kind!", a male voice to her right spoke.

Zeo was sitting at a table near the window of his favorite bar. The stuff they served was not bad, even if it was only the taste he liked. The Ponies that drunk it were throughly trashed after one or two jugs. For him, it was even less then a beer but it tasted delicious. Taking a look at the clock at the far wall of the room, he saw that it was almost time for him to go. That was, when he threw a glance out of the window, and saw...

"Luna?", he muttered to himself as he got up.

Some of his drinking buddies saw what he had seen, and also made their way out of the bar. Zeo threw a glance at the barkeeper, giving him a serious look. The yellow and blue coated stallion understood immediately that something was wrong, and soon most of the patrons made their way to the doors.

Luna was frightened. She did her best to fend her attackers off with her magic, but she was unable to do more then levitation and pain blocking charms.... That was when the doors to the bar where thrust open so hard, that they almost fell off their hinges. Out came....

"Zeo, watch out!", she called out, as her attackers shifted their attention to the sudden noise.

Zeo saw the dark hooded Ponies, that surely did not just want to have a nice chat with his friend. Without asking what they intended, he grabbed one of the Cider barrels that stood next to the entrance, and threw it at them. He did not wait until the forty liter barrel hit the ground in front of them, and shattered, before he charged in. They were distracted by the splashing cider for a moment, but that was enough for him. He rammed into two of them, that had blocked Lunas path.

"What are you waiting for? GET OUT OF HERE!", Zeo shouted, as the two surprised Ponies were still laying on the ground.

Another one of the Assassins grabbed one of the mageblades in her magic, and attempted to attack Zeo from behind, when she was tackled against the wall of a building by a red Earth pony stallion, with short black mane and tail. He had only one eye, but that one eye stared at her in utter furry.

"Da think ah would let ya attack mah buddy from behind? Da thought wrong!", he snarled, and pressed the Unicorn mare even harder against the wall, until she stopped struggling. The remaining three of the attackers now slowly started to back away, as they saw the mass of Ponies rushing from the bar. All of them coming into their direction. Soon the street, that had been almost deserted just minutes ago, was filled with Ponies, with Zeo towering over them and barking orders.

"Find them! Don't let them escape! I'm tired of this kind of thing!", he shouted, and his friends spread out to look for the three escaped Assassins. Then he turned to Luna, who still sat there in shock. Carefully he embraced her, and began to stroke her mane.

"It's OK now Luna.... You are safe....", he whispered into her ears, as she began to cry, and weakly beat her hooves against his chest.

"I was only here because of you! You idiot! I wanted you to stop drinking! Idiot! Idiot! Idiot! Idiot!", she cried, while sobbing into his chest.

Zeo took all the insults she was throwing at him, and all the hits she dished out with her hooves, without complaining. He just knelt there in front of her, holding her under the light of the moon, while his friends took the three captured Ponies to the nearest guard station.

"Wow! So they tried again to kill you? The first attempt would have been able to pass as an accident, but... this would have been plain murder!", Lyra said outraged.

"Well... they certainly tried. We never were able to find the three escapees that night. The three we captured however, were not very talkative either. We were able to find out why they were so good with weapons however. They all had been special operations Ponies during the war of the races. Rouge soldiers in other words.", Luna said with a sigh.

"So.. was that the end of the attacks on you?"

"Sadly... no. For a very long time I was unable to leave the palace without a massive amount of guards at my side. But I can assure you that this night changed my opinion of Zeos friends. They didn't know me, but I was Zeos mate and that was enough for them to help me. They didn't even ask why these Ponies attacked me. All that mattered was that they were going after their friends mate..... A good many of them, as I found out later, had also been soldiers during the war. As by Zeos request, I recruited them all as my personal body guards. You see.... at the time, the royal guard mostly consisted of unexperienced Ponies. My sister didn't really want soldiers in the guard, but I talked her into it. That was how the royal night guard was formed. Not the most prestigious company I can assure you. They were all rough, and many were alcoholics, but they never once neglected their duties, or disobeyed an order. In a way, they were the finest guards this castle has ever seen. Their loyalty to me did not come from my title, or anything. It came from their friendship to Zeo.", Luna explained with a distant look in her eyes.

"Sounds really great! So they were able to keep you safe?", Lyra wanted to know.

"Yes. I would love to say that none of them got hurt in the process, but some of them were even killed. I had to deal with those attacks on my life for years, and it was very taxing. But what I wanted to tell you actually, was what happened that night, after we got back to the palace. Of course, Celestia was upset about what happened, but she was happy that we were safe...."

After Luna and Zeo had their little talk with Celestia, they returned to their shared bedroom. Luna was still looking very sad, and let her head hang while she walked. Never once did she look at Zeo, who was rubbing his chest. Luna had not struck him hard, but there would be bruises later. Her hooves were pretty hard compared to the soft hands of a human girl.

When they entered the room, Luna suddenly came to life once again. She turned on Zeo with her wings extended.

"Hadn't you not gone on one of your drinking sessions again, this would never have happened!", she screamed.

"I am sorry about that, and I swear I won't do it again. But Luna....", he said softly, approaching her carefully.

"...It would have happened either way. If not tonight then some other night. They are still after you. We got amazingly lucky this time, but you must be careful. I don't want anything to happen to you.", he added, as he stroke her face with his right hand.

Liking the touch, Luna pressed her face against his hand, before she realized what she was doing and that she was still not done being mad with him. Abruptly she drew her face away, regretting it the instant she did it.

"What does it matter to you? You are only here by accident anyway! For you I am nothing more then another HORSE!", she screamed in tears.

Zeo scratched his head. A gesture, Luna had seen on him often when he was embarrassed or confused.

"I must admit that I was not too happy when you first summoned me here. And yes I was more then shocked to find a world inhabited by Equines, but no. Over the last two months I have learned that you are not a horse. You are an Alicorn. No you are no mindless animal, but you are Luna. You can do magic, and you can fly. You are sweet, kind, compassionate and you care about my well being. May it be because you really like me, or feel guilty for uprooting me, I do not dare to judge, but you care either way. I may not have been the best guest so far, but I assure you that I am willing to change if that is what you wish.", he said, kneeling in front of her.

Luna felt her rage subside at his words, and her wings folded to her sides almost out of their own accord.

"I... I don't want you to change, neither do I want you sorry. I want you to understand, that some of the things you do and say, hurt me. You are right. I am no animal. I am an intelligent being, capable of feelings and thoughts. Also of self awareness. I am glad you understand that.", Luna said, tears still in her eyes.

What came next however, Luna would never have seen coming. Zeo brought his face close to her own, stroking her neck with one of his hands. The touch itself made her shiver. They stayed like that for a while, both just looking into each others eyes, before Zeo stuck out his tongue and liked her nose. Luna began to blush.

"Did I do something wrong? I assumed it was the right way. I saw other Ponies do it and thought it was the equivalent to a kiss.", Zeo stuttered. Luna didn't respond with words, but instead began to lick his face in return. To his surprise, it wasn't unpleasant either. The two of them continued like this for a while until Luna finally stopped it.

"You get better at Pony customs.", she chuckled, the blush on her face even showing through her fur.

"I am a good observer is all.", he said, chuckling a little himself.

"So what was that "kiss" you mentioned earlier? You learn our ways, so I would like to know about yours as well.", Luna explained with her eyes half closed.

Zeo thought for a moment. The difference in anatomy would surely make the attempt alone quite difficult. Not to mention that her snout was much larger then his mouth. Shrugging his shoulders, he gave it a try and leaned in, pressing his lips on hers. The difficult part came shortly after that. Carefully prodding her furry lips with his tongue, he made her open her mouth. Lunas eyes shot wide open at the invader in her mouth, that started to play with her own tongue. Soon she realized what was expected of her, and tried to fight back with her own tongue. Both of them soon danced between their mouths. Once Zeos tongue was intruding on hers, while on some occasions she pressed past it into his.

Zeo was the first one to break the deep kiss, to catch his breath. A small trail of saliva connected them, until it broke. Lunas eyes were vacant, and she was breathing hard. This had been something she had never felt before. Sure she did have a colt friend before, but she had never felt like this. Licking each other, was considered the most intimate thing, aside from actual intercourse....

"So what happened next Luna?", Lyra asked excited.

Luna blushed, and looked away.

"Let's just say, that this night, Zeo truly became my mate.", Luna said smiling.

"Awww... no fair!", Lyra pouted.

"I tell you everything Lyra, but this is a little too intimate for comfort.", Luna reprimanded.

"But wait! If you mated... So I guess humans and Ponies really aren't genetically compatible.", Lyra sighed.

"Quite the opposite. Some research we did in later years, discovered that we Ponies don't differ too much from humans. And I actually got pregnant. The foal however was born dead, and I became unable to conceive another one after that. It was not Zeos fault, but those damn Assassins. In fact I was poisoned, close to the delivery of the foal. I survived, but the little one did not. My ability to give birth has also been affected by that poison. Zeo was very supportive the whole time, and put up with all my mood swings. Celestia was not too happy about it, but she came around eventually. Also he got very determined to find those Ponies, after the foal was born dead. I don't think I have ever seen him so angry ever again. I am sure, had they been in the room with us, he would have killed them all.", Luna sighed.

"But how? You said there were Unicorns with that group. Surely he was not immune to magic.", Lyra wondered.

Luna began to laugh.

"No he was not. But our... connection..... had consequences. Not only my pregnancy....."

Luna awoke in the middle of the night. Something was shining more then bright, right in front of her closed eyes. As she opened them to find the source of it however, Luna could only see the silhouette of her mate, lit by the moonlight. Closing her eyes again, her magical senses once again replaced her eyes, and she realized what she was seeing. She was staring at her mates magical circuit that was slowly drawing in more and more magical energy. In a panic, she shook him to wake him up.

Zeo felt strange. Usually it took him quite some time to wake up, but now he awoke almost instantly. Lunas touch had hurt as if she had frozen the place where she had touched him. Also his body seemed to burn, while his blood felt as if it was boiling in his veins. Looking down on his hands, he saw a pale blue aura radiating around them like flames.

"What... What the hell is this?", he shouted in a pained panic.

"Your drawing in mana! You must stop or you will hurt yourself!", Luna urged him.

"Easier said then done! I don't even know how I am drawing all this energy into myself!", he said with a frown. The pain in his body grew stronger, as his body caught up with his waking mind.

"Go to the balcony! You must try and release as much as possible!", Luna screamed, worried about his safety.

Zeo, naked as on the day he was born, jumped out of bed, and into the cold night air. The cold air felt nice on his burning body, but he began to shiver.

"Quick!", Luna said urgently.

"I don't know how!", he retorted.

"Point your outlet to the sky, and just let it flow out! There, it's in your left hand. DO IT!", she said, nudging his left elbow with her muzzle.

Reluctantly Zeo raised his hand into the sky, and concentrated on the burning sensation in his body. Slowly strands of pale blue energy formed in front of his inner eye. The burning feeling in his body went out like a candle, as he forced it to leave his body. Hurting all over, Zeo fainted onto Lunas back.

What Luna saw, left her muzzle hang open. Out of Zeos left palm came a whirlwind of pale blue mana, that rose up into the sky. The amount was not as much as she would have expected, but the intensity was impressive. It shone brightly enough to illuminate the courtyard in front of her balcony with ease. The light illuminated a dark cloaked Pony, that quickly ran away as it's cover was no more. Luna wanted to give chase, but Zeo collapsed on her back.

The next morning, Zeo was still unconscious when Celestia examined him.

"Luna... I would usually not ask this, but... did you actually mate with him?", Celestia asked, with her eyes closed to be able to see his magical circuit.

Embarrassed, she nodded.

"I thought so. From the day you introduced him to me, I knew he had a magical inlet and outlet. The problem was that he was unable to use magic. Both were crippled and not connected to the circuit. I can only assume that his kind was once able to use magic, but lost that ability over time. Your connection with him, forced some of your raw magical energy into his crippled circuit. Unable to get out again, the magic connected and healed the in and outlet. Since he is not used to using magic, his body began to absorb more and more magic, until it woke you up. But I think he will be out for a while longer. His circuit is not used to hold any magic at all, so this could take a while.", Celestia explained.

"So you KNEW this might happen?", Luna said in shock.

"It was only a theory, and I had no proof. It could just as easily been, that nothing at all had resulted from this. It was even way more likely, that his body would refuse your magic all together. That's why I didn't think i needed to say anything. But it seems I was wrong, and I am very sorry about that. For now, I will seal his inlet, but once he awakens he will have to take magic classes with you."

"Celestia... this could have killed him easily. Wouldn't it be better to seal his inlet permanently?", Luna pleaded.

"I don't think so. If we did that, there is no telling what the results may be. You remember the slumber spell I put on him a few nights after he arrived here? It didn't wear off like it was supposed to, and he was weak for several days after. Our magic apparently has a very different effect on him, then we are used to.", Celestia explained, opening her eyes.

"So you are saying he has to start learning magic from scratch like me?"

"That is exactly what I mean. I just hope his body can take it. The burns on his skin aren't that bad, but the internal injuries to his circuit worry me a bit. He will most likely never be able to do strong magic, but some basic things should be possible."

Luna was scared for her newfound mate, and lay down in bed next to him, resting her head on his chest so she could hear his heartbeat. Celestia smiled at the display, and left to take care of some very important things. Lunas teacher would not be suited for Zeo, but she had the feeling that her sister would want to learn together with him. So she would have to find a new mentor for the both of them....

"So your... ehm.... shared night... reanimated his magical circuit? But I thought something like that would be impossible. I mean, my dad is an Unicorn, and my mom is a Pegasus. She can't do any magic, just because they slept with each other.", Lyra wondered.

"That is because Pegasi and Earth ponies have no inlet. They do have an outlet for magic, and absorb it like any other creature when they breath, but they can't direct the energy. For Pegasi, this passive absorption gives them the ability to walk on clouds, while Earth ponies are a little stronger then the other two races. Zeos kin however, as he told me later, had legends of great spell-casters. He had always assumed that they were just that, legends, but now knew that was not so. Some event in the evolution of his kin had caused their in and outlets to become crippled. Zeo wrote down many books of human history once he did not need my help for that anymore, so maybe you can find out what it was. He always told me that he was clueless, of what it might have been."

"Wait.... So you tell me that he wrote some of those books before he learned magic?"

"As I told you, he used to hold my horn and I wrote down what his mind transmitted to me. Actually several books at a time sometimes. He may not have been the most intelligent being I ever encountered, and his thoughts were unorganized and scattered, but that's why he often thought about several topics at once. We started that, only a week after he came here actually. He was bored and so I suggested it, since I had already noticed that Pony kind could learn much from him. Some of the things he described were far above our technological level at the time. Even today we don't have the means to reproduce things like his cellphone, or other wonders he described. But that was also because Zeo himself had no idea how they worked in detail. Some things, like cranes, trains and elevators however he could describe to us and we could rebuild them.", Luna explained patiently.

The two mares talked for a while after that, and Luna asked Lyra not to try and use the Phase shifting spell in the near future. Just as Zeo all those years ago, she was to let her injuries heal, and then continue with her studies. When the mint green Unicorn left her study, Luna sighed. She was sure that she was on the right way here, but it would take a lot of work. Lyra was likable enough but also a little reckless. Before she taught her any more magic, Luna wanted to make sure that fact changed. She liked her very much, and would not want to loose her like....