Dawn Star: Fear of Night

A shiver went down my body as I trotted down the snow covered cobble roads of Canterlot city, it was winter now and deadly cold out. I had a wool hat and coat on yet still the freezing pierced  my skin. Icles had grown off the sides of buildings and snowponies littered the streets where fillies and colts had made a large enough army of snowponies to overrun the city. Although a well placed fire spell Or a sudden movement of the cloud layer abover Canterlot would soon put an end to any snow uprising. I smiled at that thought and shivered again, these were the kind of times I wished I had wings instead of magic so I could just fly up to the cloudlayer and kick it all away and let the sun warm my skin. But there were various flaws in that plan. I don't know how I could cope without magic, brushing my mane, holding things, mainly I don't know what I would do on those long nights during heat without magic. I mean.

The reason I am out in the Celestia-damn cold is because a member of my new team up here in Canterlot is well, sleeping. Again. I will give my team one thing, they cast spells very well wen they want, but when they start casting sleeping spells on ponies so they sleep through Hearths Warming isn't very practical. They do make me laugh however. My team is considerably smaller than in Manehatten, from about twenty I now control four, young, powerful mages. Two stallions and two mares. I am currently tracking down a mare by the name of Skyla. I was hunting her down because I was the only one who had thought about creating a counterspell to ever prank spell my team casts. I shouldn't complain though, they cheer me up and I am far from innocent in all these magical pranks. We aren't at work until after the holidays anyway. Why not have some fun?

I could see Skyla's house from here, a light green colored house with the most percuilar looking roof in Canterlot. It wasn't a proper square, or triangle, or circle. It was very odd. But unique. I trotted toward the doorway of her house and knocked, then quickly put out a hoof near the only torch hanging at her doorway. It was dim and not very effective, but it gave some feeling back to my one from hoof that I still had, the other, the, the one I lost. Was now unfortunately made of wood. It felt strange walking on it and gave me a limp every time I stepped but it was better than not having a leg and I was getting used to it. It was unbelievable how may fire retardent wards I had to place on this thing though. One spark and it was alight like the sun. Even when wet.

I couldn't hear anything from inside and punched a hoof into my face at how long it took me to figure out why. I cast a quick spell and the door unlocked, I swung it open.

Inside it was freezing! No better than outside, I lit the dead fire with magic and left the burnt wood to smolder as I moved through the mouse, there wasn't much interior to Skyla's place apart from a few chairs and ornaments. I soon found the stairs and ascended toward the sound of snoring. There were only two rooms upstairs, a closed door, presumably Skyla's bedroom and the other the bathroom, I quickly used the later one. I trotted toward the closed door, limping as I went. My wooden leg making a strange sound on the creaky floor. I opened the door and steeped inside. There she was, Skyla was sleeping soundly in the double bed of hers, the blankets were twisted and thrown about like she had had a fight with them, and promptly lost by the looks of it. She was younger than I by a good few years with a shorter, blue mane and a bumblebee colored coat. Her cutie mark, clearly seen where a bit of blanket had been thrown about, was a blue magic energy ball weaving in and around a red cross, showing her talent for healing spells. She was definitely a valued member of the team of mages conducting experimental and highly dangerous spells. Skyla had probably saved more of us from certain injury on more occasions then I could count. Three I think.

Besides the obvious war with her bed, the yellow made looked rather peaceful asleep. I was almost tempted to leave her, but if left until the spell faded at the very least she would need to pee very, very, very, very badly. So if I woke her now, she would just have a minor hangover and some confusion.

I began to cast without even thinking about the spell now, these past few months of practice in the castle has definitely boasted my magical ability. I could successfully cast more than one offensive spell against a target without passing out. That I still didn't quite understand, Celestia did attempt an explanation, that one requires nearly double the amount of magical focus to actually cast a spell against a living target, it's pony nature. We aren't meant for war. But with the 'volunteers' that turn up from time to time has helped, thankfully I haven't killed anypony and missed every shot deliberately, but I dunno what that would mean in the later run, if there is another threat. Skyla stirred suddenly and I focused again on the spell. I saw eyes slowly open and I released the spell. Skyla looked up to me with those emerald eyes.

"Oh. Dawn?" Skyla said, her voice squeaky and young. "What are you doing here?" She asked. I smiled as she sat up, putting a hoof to her head slowly.

"Sleep spell, don't worry, Tanko is cleaning up for the rest of the month, til after Hearths Warming." I replied.Skyla smiled and stood up, shaking her head slowly.

"My head." She grunted.

"Indeed, one of these days young Skyla, you will actually feel like that for alcoholic reasons, not magical." I muttered in response, she wasn't that young, hell if she was, she'd still be at school, but she seemed to have difficulty consuming alcohol. Or do anything besides study, and that has given her no help of good.

"I don't like it though, has a strange taste." Skyla muttered, clearly upset.

"That's the alcohol hun." I muttered. Skyla was silent for a while, just getting her head together I presumed. She smiled suddenly and fully stood up.

"Well we heading back to the castle?" Skyla asked.

"Well on paper we have the day off-" I began.

"But I wanna practice!" Skyla insisted,  I wasn't liking this, why did I have to wake her up. "Can younteach me your orb spell?" She asked, by that she meant that glass orb full of fire that thus far only I could conjure up, the thing that burnt Manehatten. I hadn't used it in a while but sat up in the darkness of night thinking what to call it. I still had no idea. Flame Orb came to mind, but seemed a bit, mundane. I made a mental note to think of a name later. I began to walk away, to lead Skyla back to the castle, then realized I hadn't actually answered the question.

"Not today Skyla, I've been shooting all day so far so am a bit crippled in my might." I said, not really. I had done buck all all day so far, just really wasn't up to it. Especially with Skyla, as nice as she was and a valued member of the team, she was still the most annoying. And, not going against her, I was pretty sure she was gay. For me, and I didn't like that, once was enough.

I walked Skyla downstairs, she went slowly at first, but sped up as she went, the headache fading and reality kicking in. She immediately lit the fire again with a quick spell and sat down. Staring at me.

"Well if it's a day off and you won't teach me the orb spell, I might as well read." She grunted at me, stropping clearly. She levitated a book toward her and opened a page at random, the began to read.

I had to ask. "What you reading?"

"A Starswirl book; On to Topic of Immortality." She replied, ah, good choice. With all things considered for Starswirl he was a genius for his time, nowadays we know that near on all his theories were wrong but for his time he was centuries ahead. Saying Equestrian needs another Starswirl would be wrong, but saying Equestrian needed a researcher like him would be more correct. Starswirl was actually pretty dangerous, most of his spells he kept secret and the ones he did share had the potential to destroy the world. His most famous, DawnThief, a spell that could literally blow up the sun. Celestia was not best pleased.

Skyla giggled from her chair, should I go? I didn't know. Might as well, not doing anything. I stepped toward the door.

"Listen to this Dawn." Skyla muttered, I looked at her, if she was about to quote a book I had read about a thousand times I was going to get annoyed. She coughed, clearing her voice. Yep, she was. "During my research in prolonged life, I have discovered that it is only Alicorns that can become immortal, their combination of wing and horn gives them that immortality, not magic or genes. So no normal pony can actually become immortal unless they suddenly grow wings and a horn." Skyla said, with her best act of a stallion best she could make.

"Where was that going?" I asked. Skyla smiled.

"Its just funny how, he was classed as a genius back then but now we know it is actual alicorn magic that makes them immortal, they control purer magic thus don't become corrupt with disease and old age. The purer the magic, the healthier one is. That's why unicorns live longer than other races." Skyla said. Well first off, no. Alicorns aren't actually immortal, only Celestial and Luna are, a gift their mother gave them years and years ago. Nopony is sure how Faust is immortal, some rumours say its because she moves around so much, Death gets lost and gives up for a while. Secondly, only some unicorns live longer, Starswirls wife, an Earth pony. Lived nearly twenty years after his death, besides the fact the only reason he died was because of either a failed spell or jealous adept mage who murdered him, its not really known. Skyla studied hard yes, just with all the wrong things.

"Well, I'm going to go. I'll see you tomorrow at work. Bye Skyla." I said, before she started getting stuff wrong again.

"You could stay for dinner if you want?" She offered, oh mother of Celestia no.

"Erm, no thanks Skyla, I left the furnace on when I came up here." I replied quickly.

"Oh. Okay." She sounded disappointed. She paused. "What are you doing tomorrow? For Hearths Warming?" She asked.

"Working, like everypony else, then going to the castle for a meal with the princesses as I normally do." I replied, for once, the truth.

"I'm going to be alone tomorrow, after work." She muttered. I had a feeling she was hinting at something but I had already said I was going alone, plus I really didn't want to show up with my plus one being a mare, let alone this one. So I just nodded and left, trotting home as flakes of snow began to fall and the sun made its final approach at setting.

By the time I made it to my room in the castle the moon was out and the night guards were on duty. The day had gone surprisingly quickly but I supposed I had done a lot today. As I reached my room I remembered how I hadn't actually eaten anything. I turned to trot down to the food court I came face to face with a royal guard.

"Miss Dawn?" He asked.

"That's me?" I replied. Miss Star, my last name is star.

"Come with me, trouble down at the tower." He said, meaning the mage tower I presumed. I nodded and he led the way. His voice had been, I don't know, cold? Like it wasn't his own. It was a bit odd, I also noticed the lack of cutie mark on his thigh. This guard was very odd and was most likely a new recruit the way he stumbled a little in the heavy armour. I had warn it once, and it felt very strange so I couldn't blame him. I limped forward on my wooden leg as he lead the way through the castle.