Published by Equestrian Educational Authority
Limited edition primer
Authorized by royal request of H.R.H Princess Celestia year 1984 Celestial era

Aethon

The eponymous firesteeds and original flavor hotheads aethon are rough and rambunctious breed.
Characterized by crackling flamelike emanations of personal empathetic magic that apparently takes places of manes and tails amongst the adults of the tribe, aethon are by and far the most extroverted of all equinity.

Their personal magic being so closely tied to their emotional state it is no wonder that the effects of their fiery manes wary depending on the predominance and intensity of their emotions.
Thus, for example, an aethon in boiling rage tends to light up every single hair on their body in white hot flames, wile a melancholy one tends to have the ends of their manes and tails barely flickering and blue-tinted.
In spite of the traditional beliefs it has been conclusively proven that in the neutral emotional states - such as during meditation or detachment - the 'flames' do not go out completely. While their manes and tails do mostly go back to hair of the same coloration it had during their foalhood, the key word there would be 'mostly'. Even in states of absolute tranquility induced by the kelpies, the flames persist, at the ends of hairs, but in colorations outside of visible spectrum for ponydom.

Their habitats are the northernmost of all Pony tribes and they live in harsh, unforgiving environs of northern slopes of Ponylaris mountains, and expanding tundra all the way to Everice, and thus are the first line between the savage Arctic canines, and the thinking peoples of the south. This in part explains the extremely short lifespans average Aethon experiences. It is no exaggeration to say that peaceable death is something aethon at large are unfamiliar with. Despite that, it is theorized that, what with their active personal magic cycles, aethon should normally be comparable to that of earth tribes at the very least. Others have postulated that, since all other tribes have matching life expectancies across paired elemental affinities, it is not unreasonable to expect that aethon could match the extreme, multicentenial lifespans of their nocturnal counterparts lampae. Whatever theory proves right in the fullness of time, the recorded oldest aethon to ever live was one Amber Scythe who lived and remained hale to the age of 130, before he fell in battle.

One of the two pony tribes whose natural magic expresses itself in outward directed manipulations of energy into spells (the other of course being the nocturnal-earthtribe unicorns), aethon have been responsible for the movements of the sun for as long as there has been ponydom. Even the oldest surviving records prove that as they still are, they had always been politically separated into twelve clans - traditionally one for every hour of sun's trek over the sky with clan territories arrayed from east to west.
The Twelve clans being in order:
Daybreak, Dawning, Wake, Sunrise, Morn, Sunhigh, Midday, Feasting, Sunfall, Evening, Dusk and Twilight.
In practical terms in these modern times however, for all practical purposes there are only seven active clans. Clans Wake, Morn and Evening exist only in name and ancient clannholds, consisting mostly of unrelated freeholders and/or small families banded together for extra survivability, clans Sunhigh and Midday having more or less merged together some five centuries ago, and clan Dusk being absorbed into clan Twilight shortly after discordian times and the rise of Diarchs.
Being the two clans who respectively began and ended each days daylight cycle, it is not surprising that clans Daybreak and Twilight had close relations with unicorns whose tribal domain was after all the movement of the moon and night cycle. This fact alone allowed them to weather hardships much better than the other ten clans, and even prosper when most others went into decline. Clan Twilight is especially notable for the fact that for their entire history it had as many unicorn as aethon members. This might explain why clan Twilight has been and remains a fundamental factor in the politics of frozen north and dominant power within Ponylaris federation.

On the nature of Aethon magic manipulation, there have been many treatises written, many studies conducted and many theories proposed; all of them boil down to the same thing any adolescent aethon could have told you - aethon magic is art not science. Whereas unicorn spellcasting follows clear, rigid, mathematically describable set of rules that are equal across the tribe and make spells (theoretically) learnable and repeatable, each and every spell any aethon performs is unique in and of itself.

Another important point of difference between unicorn and aethon spellcasting is in mana economy. Whereas unicorns have slow buildup but can regulate their output, aethon regenerate their entire manapool in rapid succession, but likewise will empty it with usage of even the simplest of spells.

Due to being locked in near constant state of war for millennia, aethon design and manufacture tends towards spartan, stark and strictly utilitarian, despite their mastery of steel-working and especially armor and weapon-crafting.

Author's Note

Yes, I know this is weirdly/badly/confusingly written.
Ironically for journalist's child I am tragically awful at writing reports and articles. Sorry about that, but I don't really have an idea at how to fix it.