Bitter Cold and Bitter Feelings
The trees around him rose towards the the empty blue sky, as if reaching for it. The beauty of a tranquil forest can bring a feeling of calmness to many. The circumstances, however, are important. He sat up. There were no others around him. He was in the middle of a snow covered forest. He was in his college-issued pajamas. The college was in a desert meaning the skin coverage of his sleepwear was meager.
Panic would have forced him to start sweating, had it not been freezing. Traditional logic of staying put and waiting for rescue only applied when one had the proper equipment to survive a while in the environment one was lost in. The boy set out walking. The base probability of finding help was equal no matter what direction he took so he didn’t waste time considering which way to go. It boiled down to whether or not fate was on his side.
The concept of fate was comforting, unless he thought about the possibility that he wasn’t fated to survive. That kind of thinking was not helpful in this situation, it was downright depressing in fact. He focused on moving. Putting one foot in front of the other.
There’s a sort of sense some people naturally have that alerts them to danger or when they’re being watched. Luckily “some people” included the boy because on a slightly paranoid whim he turned around to see seven large bird-faced creatures roosting in the trees, watching him. The beasts were the half lion, half eagle, and all terrifyingly effective predator known as a griffon.
His jaw dropped. The distance made it hard to judge their exact size, but they were definitely at least a bit larger than the boy. His jaw dropped further when they began speaking.
“He must have keen ears to have heard us,” one said to the rest of the group, “that must mean he’s a hunter of some sort. Do we kill other hunters?”
“Keen ears don’t make a hunter, good hearing means he’s prey,” retorted another. “Sharp eyes mean he’s a hunter.”
“Well now that you let him know that keen eyes mean he’s a hunter he’ll probably pretend to have sharp eyes so we don’t kill him.”
"He's got his mouth open. I can see incisors and canines."
"That doesn't automatically exclude him from being prey. We kill foxes and wolves."
"He's bigger than a wolf, he might be more trouble than he's worth."
"What, you afraid of the hairless biped, Talon?"
“If he is a hunter, lets just pretend we snuck up on him and didn’t know,” one said.
“I don’t even know what he is anyway,” another said.
“What are you?” one of the griffons asked.
“How do you even know if it can speak?” the griffon next to it interrupted.
“I thought we said it was a he, why did you call it an it?
“We don’t even know what it is, how can we know if it’s a he or she?”
“Why don’t we find out if it can speak first,” the largest of the them concluded.
All of their eyes turned towards the boy. The thought of escaping while they were bickering had only just came to him.
“I’m humani,” he answered, still mentally kicking himself for not escaping when he had the chance.
The creatures fell silent as they contemplated his answer.
“What kind of name is ‘Human Eye’?” one of the them asked, turning to his group.
“No, that’s not—” the boy tried to say.
“It has the word ‘eye’ in it. Maybe he has really good eyesight.”
“Ha, good eyesight, he is a hunter.”
“Hold on, what’s a ‘human?” another interrupted. “I haven’t even heard of that before.”
“My name is Laxise Kass, and I’m a humani!” the boy shouted, his face beginning to flush, “Humani is a race, not a name, you feather-brained idiots!”
The mistake Kass made was fairly obvious to him a second later.
______________________________________________________________________________
Stunned silence is often something that can be felt. This particular silence had enough “stunned” to wake a man. He opened his eyes to find himself surrounded.
Now being surrounded in any situation is bad, but what one is surrounded by makes a difference. Many miniature horses was not something the man was especially worried about. Their colors were, perhaps, a bit bright but it was nothing he couldn’t handle.
“Um—, Hello, I’m Anax Lamaine,” the man said to no one, as he began to sit up.
The eyes of the horse creature began to widened in panic.
Lamaine stood up fast and grabbed a vial from his belt and dipped his index fingers into the liquid it held. He proceeded to draw on his opposite palm.
The eyes of all the horse creatures remained locked onto him, as though if they stared hard enough he would simply disappear. The man held up his painted palm in front of him and a ball of light rose from it. The ball exploded in a flash of brilliance.
The stunned silence was broken with the crowd’s sigh of relief. Tranquil smiles covered the faces of the horse creatures. Lamaine walked in the direction with the least amount of them to block his path.
He was suddenly bathed in a purple glow and lifted off the ground and found that he couldn’t move any of his limbs.
“First of all, what are you?” a voice behind him said, “Second, what did you do to everypony?”
______________________________________________________________________________
The frigid wind bite at Kass’s under-dressed body. He couldn’t focus on such a trivial thing as temperature at this very moment. Staying alive trumped comfort. He had been running for only a half an hour, though the cold made it feel like days. It was an odd sensation. His skin was numb from the cold, but is muscles burned because of his recent spike in activity. To make matters worse, he was being chase by frightful beasts.
The creatures having the ability to speak was a bit of a sidenote when considering all the other factors involved. Communication between the now hunted boy and the talking griffons could have been civil, had insults not soiled the conversation.
There was an aura of lifelessness in the trees that seemed to make the entire forest deathly quiet. Save the pounding of Kass’s feet on the snow-covered ground the noise of boy’s pursuers lazily flapping their wings. The chase on which this boy’s life depended was nothing but a game to chase away the griffons’ boredom for a while.
It was apparent the beasts’ apathy towards efficiency was the only thing keeping this chase alive. As much as he wished for more favorable circumstances, he had only one option. Whether it succeeded or not he would probably die.The only difference was how.
Hypothermia seemed a more attractive option than being devoured by talking beasts.
His mind raced, almost as fast as his body ran. All he needed was ink and a couple seconds to concentrate. He wasn’t carrying any of his vials however when he was transported. He would have to improvise.
The flapping behind him quickened as the griffons also grew tired of this chase. He raised his thumb to his mouth and bit down, drawing blood. He coated the tip of his index finger and sketched a symbol on his opposite palm.
The boy never considered the fact that he could be caught so unprepared. Always being ready was something taught at the college. It was something preached. There were plans of action for being caught by surprise, but nothing for being completely blind-sided. He probably was lucky to have even survived this long. He was sprinting barefoot through a snowy forest in his sleepwear, being chased by what is most likely a top predator. Putting all his hope in one act that would probably only save him from dying at the claws of those beasts.
“It’s better to die with a bit of success” , he thought.
He began to slow until he came to halt in the middle of a small clearing. Four griffons landed in front of him. He hoped the others were hiding in the trees behind them. He had one chance. He would have to put about a quarter his power into one shot and hope he got all of the griffons, then heal his still bleeding thumb before it got infected. He would almost be completely drained after that.
He raised the hand with the symbol drawn on it and focused his energy. A bright flash erupted from hand and screeches filled with fear began to ring throughout the forest. The griffons fled from him in terror.
The boy re-coated his index finger in blood and drew a new symbol on his now empty palm. His brow furrowed and the symbol on his palm began to glow. He pressed his wounded thumb into the light. When the glow faded he pulled his hand back and examined his now healed thumb.
“Might have been a bit irresponsible to waste energy healing such a small wound,” He thought, “but I don’t recognize most of these plants and I can’t risk getting it infected.”
He sat down in the middle of the clearing and looked around at the sparse forest that surrounded him. Only in this moment of silence was he able to fully ponder the nature of his current situation. He was alone, in an unknown land. He had no provisions, no weapons, and no knowledge of the area. There were terms to describe his current status, but they were neither helpful nor appropriate.
The cold began to sting, but there was no material for making a fire. The snow-covered ground was devoid of any kindling and the branches on the trees were too high for him to grab and break off.
He was lost and alone. He began to think of home because it was the only bit of comfort he had left.. He did not choose his home, but given other options, he would keep his life the same. The chance to learn magic and maybe even change the world was too great a thing to pass up. How could one waste what was essentially destiny. The ability to use glyphs was a somewhat rare ability. Add a little higher level of spiritual power than average and a hero is born.
The world needed heroes. Perhaps not as much as it did a hundred years ago, but it still needed them. It was his calling. What he trained since birth to become. And now he was freezing to death.
A loud chuckle burst from his mouth. His eyes were wide and his laugh, without mirth or joy, was unnerving. He fell into a kind of madness. The cold no longer numbed his skin and the burning he felt while running had also disappeared. His bare feet, which began to show signs of frostbite, no longer ached. His cackling stopped suddenly, and Kass's face lost all emotion. A thud was the last sound he heard before his sight faded into blackness.
______________________________________________________________________________
Lamaine was turned around. He to see a purple colored horse with wings and a horn looking at him.
“Who said that?” Lamaine asked.
“I did,” the purple horse answered.
“By the stars, a talking horse!” he thought.
“Oh— hello…”
“What did you do to everypony?!?”
“I simply calmed them down so I wouldn’t get any trouble,” he replied.
“You used mind manipulating magic?” the horse shouted, “That’s against the law.”
“Oh my, less than five minutes in and I’m already breaking laws,” he thought.
“Terribly sorry about that. I didn’t know my magic was illegal.”
“How is controlling minds not illegal everywhere? Where are you from?” Twilight asked, “Why are you here?”
“Before I answer those, may I ask how you resisted my magic?”
“Alicorns have a resistances to magic, your spell wasn’t strong enough to affect me,” she replied, “What kind of magic was that? I haven’t ever seen or heard of a spell being done in that manner.”
He needed time to think, something to stall her long enough for him to formulate a plan.
“Lets start over, I am Anax Lamaine, Arch-Wizard of the Glyphromancer’s College and part of the race called humani.”
“I’m Princess Twilight Sparkle, and I haven’t heard of the college you mentioned, or even the species you call yourself,” she replied.
“Well I apologize for anything I did. I am unfamiliar with the laws of this land and if you would just let me go princess, I’ll leave straight away and you won’t have to worry about my species or any colleges I preside over.”
“You run a college?” Twilight asked.
“I did say I was the Arch-Wizard.”
“You teach magic?”
“I typically leave that to other people, but yes, occasionally.”
“You run an entire school dedicated to mind-manipulating magic?”
“If you have a point I’d appreciated if you’d make it.”
“How does your society allow that? Are there so many magic users that there’s an even playing field? How can a society function when there is an entire establishment for learning how to control minds?”
“You make it sound like I’m running some kind of tyranny factory.”
“That’s what mind-control is.”
“Ok, first, very few glyph users have the power to actually overpower a mind, let alone multiple ones. Second, the whole ‘drawing a glyph and having it shoot off a flash of light’ thing isn’t very subtle. Meaning it can’t be effectively used to control anyone.”
“If that’s true then—”
“I wasn’t finished.” Lamaine cut her off, “Children are given at birth to the college if they are identified as glyph users, and are taught when and how to use the glyphs. They go on to use their magic as wizards in service to a wealthy house or they become physicians. I will not accept you spouting ignorant claims that I am running some sort of crime syndicate that teaches people how control others!”
“I’m sorry for jumping to conclusions, but you said that very few could control even one mind. Yet you just pacified an entire crowd.”
“I’m not the best example of the average strength of glyph magic.”
“Well it doesn’t really matter what the average strength of glyph magic is, because you’re the only user here, so you set the average strength.”
“I suppose you’re right.” Lamaine relented and sighed, “What’s to be done with me then?”
“I’m going to send a letter to Princess Celestia and ask for her guidance, but until she replies I think I would like to hear about this glyph magic of yours.”
“I suppose that’s fair. Though magic is a bit hard to explain, could you, perhaps, explain your magic a bit first so I can have a frame of reference when explaining mine?”
"It'll be fine, if I need you to clarify I'll just ask."
"Ok, so you caught that lie, what I really meant was magic takes a while to explain and who knows how long I'll get to talk to you after you contact your princess friend. I actually was curious about your brand of magic also and since I probably won't have a lot of time after telling you about mine when your princess friend will probably want information on my magic too. Maybe since you'll probably have access to the information that other princess gets you could, well, got first."
“ Ugh, fine, but pay attention, I’m going to be brief,” Twilight replied, “If we’re going to start with pony magic, I guess we should start with Solid Spell’s theory of natural magical resonance….”
______________________________________________________________________________
Darkness covered Kass’s vision and the crackling of a fire filled the air. He was bound and blindfolded but covered in what felt like a blanket. A dull ache covered the back of his head. He was captured. Hopefully the fact that he was still breathing was a good sign.
“Why are we even keeping it alive?” the voice of one of the griffons from earlier said.
“He used some kind of magic earlier. The king wants all undocumented magic species captured alive for study.”
“Can’t we just kill it and let them study the corpse Talon? It’ll probably try to escape once it wakes up and more than half of our company is terrified of it.”
“Exactly, that thing disabled most of our squad in a matter of seconds. It probably would have got all of us had we been in front of that thing he did. Imagine what our armies could do we figured out that had that kind of magic. He needs to be alive so those damn half-breed hippogriffs can try to figure him out.”
“Fine but you’re carrying it.”
Kass kept still despite the panic growing in his mind. The griffons had figured out enough about his magic to bind his palm in addition to his wrists and ankles together. His mouth was also covered, meaning drawing blood would be impossible. Theoretically, if he could get some kind of ink, or some kind of blood, and draw a glyph onto a flat-ish surface he could probably draw enough power to incapacitate the remaining griffons. Though he would need to do so quickly, before the fear glyph he used on the other griffons wore off.
The bindings took away any chance for a coordinated effort to escape. Kass needed to get rid of these ankle bindings and he needed to do it fast.
______________________________________________________________________________
Learning about “pony magic” was both enlightening and somewhat terrifying. She could teleport, perform telekinesis, and many other things completely beyond the scope of his own magic. Extremely powerful users of glyphs could do small things, heal wounds and such. Anax was one of the most powerful glyphromancers in history, and he could create small fireballs with the glyph of burning that he discovered by setting himself on fire and constantly healing himself to keep himself from burning completely for 3 hours straight. In his own world he was without equal. In whatever world this was, he was probably painfully average.
They had walked to a large tree with a library inside. Lamaine did not speak the entire way there, not that he needed to. Twilight had been talking about the inner workings of the different types of pony magic the entire way. At least her attitude towards him seemed to brighten when he listened intently to her lectures. All of the pony races had some kind of magic. Weather control, agriculture magic, telekinesis, and the list went on and on. Battling head on would be tough with the sheer variety they possessed.
Lamaine’s shoulders desperately wanted to slump and the weight of his eyelids was staggering. He was perhaps embellishing a bit, but pretending things were a lot more extreme was just a habit he picked up when he was still being taught the beginner glyphs. Acting like some of the experiences he was getting were extraordinary helped him find the new glyphs.
Lamaine couldn’t really believe that he never thought to try and find a drowsiness glyph before. Ordinarily, if he had done it at the college, he would have simply forgone sleep for as long as possible. That would probably get him a glyph closer to one of exhaustion though. Drowsy was much more subtle. Both hopefully they would both have the same end result and simply make the target sleep. It was clear that in a straight up fight he was out-classed. Normal glyph magic was too slow to set up. He needed to escape and find a way to get back home.
“What if you just plead with the ponies, they have teleportation magic, they could probably get you back home easily,” Lamaine thought to himself.
A valid point, though they might also not want to help at all, or they might demand a price. There was too many factors to consider. It was better for him to do it alone.
Lamaine’s over-dramatized feeling of sleepiness bore fruit right at Twilight finished her lecture.
“... Well that about covers the basics, can you tell me about your magic now?” Twilight asked.
“Of course,” Lamaine answered, “ My magic is a magic based mainly in sharing experiences.”
"Oh wait, hold on," Twilight said quickly as she grabbed parchment and a quill and began to take notes.
Lamaine needed an opening to cast a glyph.
“That doesn’t sound too bad.”
“Well, you see, the users of my magic, or glyphromancers, project our experiences and emotions onto others. Like I used a calming glyph on the crowd earlier today. The method is simple really, some of our kind are born with the ability to use glyphs and—”
“Kind of like unicorns are the only race that can use telekinesis.”
Lamaine’s right eye twitched slightly. He was unaccustomed to being interrupted.
“Exactly, so the glyphromancers use symbols, called glyphs, which can be drawn in ink, though blood works better, and focus on their experience regarding a particular symbol while drawing from a reservoir of inner power.”
“That sounds simple enough, is that all you magic can do?” Twilight asked, “Is there a glyph for different elements, like ice of fire?”
“There are glyphs for cold and burning, but only extremely powerful users can actually summon fire or ice with them.”
“Interesting,” Twilight said, “What do these glyphs look like?”
“That depends on the glyph. We haven’t really been able to identify a pattern to any of them,” Lamaine answered.
“Could you draw one? On a piece of parchment, in ink, or course.”
“You don’t trust me?”
“Not in the slightest,” she responded cheerfully.
“Fine, hand me a quill.”
“What you a quill?”
“I said han— Give me a quill please.”
He grabbed the quill she levitated over to him and dipped it in the inkwell. He sketched his new glyph on the parchment Twilight laid out on the table.
“What glyph is that?” Twilight asked.
“It’s fairly new actually, just discovered in fact. It’s a drowsy glyph.”
“How’d you discover that one?” she asked.
“When a glyphromancer gets a strong feeling or emotion a symbol for that particular feeling can become clear to him.”
“So how did you learn the drowsy glyph?”
“Well, funny story, while I was listening to you talk and, well, I got really, really sleepy.”
Lamaine touched the glyph and a ball of light rose from the parchment and exploded in flash of light filled the library.
“Did it work?” Lamaine asked.
A look of sleepiness cover Twilight’s face. Her were eyes completely glazed over.
“Success!”
Twilight’s head hit the table in front of her and she began to snore.
“I’m just gonna go.”
Lamaine walk out of the library, closing the door behind him. He turned and gazed into the window, looking back at Twilight.
“I may have put a bit too much energy into that, hopefully she’ll wake up after I’m a reasonable distance away, but before she dies of old age…” he thought.
“We have been watching you creature,” a loud voice boomed behind him, “Your ability to tolerate boredom is most impressive, few can sit through a lecture of magic done by Princess Twilight.”
A slightly larger winged and horned horse creature stood before him. Except this creature was indigo in color instead of purple.
“It was a challenge, I assure you,” Lamaine replied.
“Now, if you value your existence, you will come with Us ”
“First off, there is only one of you, second, why?”
“You are to be be imprisoned for the use of magic on a member of royalty.”
“I hate this place…” Lamaine thought.