29 Hearts, Ace of Spades

by Lapis-Lazuli and Stitch

Rating: teen
Tags: Princess Celestia, Slice of Life, Lyra, Gore, Original Character, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Trixie, Sunset Shimmer
Length: 22220

Sunset Shimmer is ready to start he education at Princess Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns, but there are things about magic she never even thought to imagine, never mind what just knowing can do to a pony.

An Inky Jay story

A new school year is starting at Princess Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns, and Sunset Shimmer is more eager than anypony else. She's to be taught by the princess herself too, and life away from her hometown of Trottingham is a dream come true. But she never counted on the power that came before magic. The power of understanding magic. And what raw, unfettered knowledge can do to even the innocent.

Author's Note: Cover art is stand in until official art is ready.

Published 2014-07-28 05:30:03 UTC
Last updated 2014-08-27 02:30:30 UTC

Our Four Suits

She was sitting in the window seat of the fastest train she had ever been on, watching with a growing amazement in her eyes as the scenery gradually faded from the plains of the inner Equestrian lowlands to the mountain pines of the Canter mountain ridge. And she wasn’t the only younger filly piled around the train’s rather small, blurry windows. Even if they were still winding their way through wilderness, everypony knew they were close to Canterlot now. Close to what would perhaps be the biggest stepping stone of their lives. Though she was pretty sure she was the only one thinking about it that way. Everypony else on the train was raising her voice, shouting about this tree or that river and other bits of scenery that didn’t fly by in a flash.

But she didn’t join in with them, mostly because she didn’t want to cause a scene of gaggling ‘admirers’. And she hadn’t really lost her little tinge of a Nottingham accent. She had a good feeling the colts would ogle her a bit more if they heard it come out strong in one phrase or another. She really had too much on her plate at the moment, what with the small, well read letter in her lap and the changing scenery to gaze at. The Royal Isles had hilly bits, sure. Even sheer cliff faces that dropped hundreds of feet into the ocean. But there was nothing quite like this back near her old little small town schoolhouse. A steep drop through a gangly pine forest to a rushing river on one side and a solid granite incline on the other was awe inspiring, and a little intimidating.

But like all the changes in scenery she’d experienced on the trip, the building mountains eventually ceased to capture all her interest. She faced back to the front, and tried her best not to read that little letter for the upteenth time. But she couldn’t help it, and it was floating up to her eyes in sky blue magic with but a wisp of thought.

Dear Student,

No, that was the wrong sheet of parchment. The one everypony on this train had received at some point or another. She shuffled through the various pages of that first letter, and eventually extracted her prize. It was more valuable to her than anything else she’d ever owned, even the bag of brand new magical theory and spell books tucked beneath her set. More than the express train ticket that was now up front with the conductor. She really did compare it to the doll her mother had hoof stitched for her, Ms. Smarty Pants, who was currently stowed in her small travel bag. She brought the parchment to eye level, again admiring how clean and elegant the hornwriting was…

Dearest Sunset Shimmer,

I know you have never met me in person, especially living in such a faraway place from Canterlot as the Royal Isles, but I want you to know that ever since you started your extra magic classes in preparation for your new school, I have been taking a special interest in your reports and those of your tutor. They intrigued me so, the way your wrote and the things you observed, and I shall admit I was quite tickled reading some of them. You, Sunset Shimmer, have an aptitude for magic that I am always on the lookout for, and your desire to change the world for the better through magic, what with all your small suggestions, is something I more than look for. I admire ponies with that mindset. So, it is with great enthusiasm and anticipation that I invite you to become my personal student while you are at school. It is my sincere wish you will accept and will be as eager to learn all that I have teach as I am eager to teach it to ears which will gladly listen.

Your’s in Harmony.

Princess Celestia Aegis

A slight, excited giggle escaped her lips as she swung her hind legs in place and brought the letter closer to her chest. Becoming the princess’s personal student? Little her? From what amounted to no-where land? It wasn’t even something she’d dreamed or wished it was so far fetched. And yet there the letter was, really inviting her to be that special pony so many other fillies and colts living closer to Canterlot wished they could be. What had she written, or better yet, what had Madam Dove Light written to the princess that had intrigued her so? Perhaps it wasn’t anything in particular, just her enthusiasm. She’d made sure to have that, even if the subject had been as boring as listening to her mother describe how to cook. Of course, there had been times when she could barely contain her excitement, and it was probably those reports the princess had liked.

She shook her head with a small sigh. She really couldn’t rationalize or figure out why she was particularly special to the princess. She watched all the fillies and colts still clambering around the windows, some of them beginning to argue over what the clouds looked like today. Maybe it would all come out in the classroom. She tried just leaning back and relaxing, maybe take a nap, but it was silly to imagine that would happen when she was so close to the school, and she’d not been able to do it the whole trip.

Still, leaning her head back and closing her eyes did seem to help to calm her anxiety a little. “You from around here? The mountains don’t seem to fascinate you like everypony else.” Sunset jolted up, eyes wide and looking for the pony that had managed to sneak up on her like that. But when she looked to the seats around her, there seemed to be nopony around. Her brows furrowed, already disliking this pony’s idea of a joke until… “Up here you.” Sunset whipped her head back and sure enough, there the source of the voice was, curled up and looking rather comfortable in the baggage rack. “There ya go,” she said once Sunset had fixed her blue eyes on her. “Well? You from around here?”

“No,” Sunset said, and immediately looked away and clamped her hoof over her mouth. Her accent wasn’t that strong was it?

“Ooooo! You’re all the way from Trottingham?! That’s so neat!” the filly above her said.

“Not when all it gets you is stares from everypony,” Sunset mumbled and ended up sighing. Yes, it seemed her voice really was pretty strong on the Royal Isles side.

“I think your voice is kinda pretty,” the filly said. “Oh! Forgot to introduce myself…” Sunset darted her eyes back up at the sound of magic, but the filly above her had already teleported off the rack and… ! Sunset winced and looked back to the end of the end of the car where she was plastered against the door. “Heh heh heh…” she muttered, falling back to the floor. “Forgot about the train’s speed…”

“Are you okay?” Sunset asked when she had wandered back over to Sunset’s spot and taken the spare seat next to her.

“Oh, that’s not the worst I’ve done,” the filly smiled, and now that Sunset could see her properly, the smile was a perfect match for her. She was a royal pink, with a deeper pink mane with white stripes running through it. It was long and rather bubbly and her eyes totally clashed with everything else in bold forest green. “I’m Flora von Arts, by the way, but I’d like it if everypony just called me Arty. What about you, Trottingham filly? What’s your name?”

“Royal family huh?” Sunset asked, reaching out with hoof to shake the one offered. “I’m Sunset. Sunset Shimmer.”

“Oh, not anymore!” Arty sputtered in amusement. “A long, long, long time ago, yeah, but I’m just from a family of unicorn sculptors. No good at it myself to be honest.” Arty sighed expressively, probably reminiscing. “What about you?” she asked. “I don’t know jack squat about the Isles. What’s it like there? What’d your family do?”

“Oh…” Sunset said, trying to figure the best way to avoid the latter part of the question. “Um… it’s rainy, kinda dreary, but there’s always something of a sea breeze, so that’s nice. The Isles aren’t really as great as everypony makes them out to be.”

“Awww,” Arty whined, seemingly to be genuinely disappointed. “Well, I just wanted to be sure you were alright over here by yourself Sunset. You looked kinda lonely and stressed out.”

“Just a lot on my mind. It’s no big deal, honest,” Sunset found herself smiling. This filly was a lot like Dad that way.

“Well, don’t lose that cool voice you’ve got, being around all us mainlanders,” Arty said, standing up and looking back at Sunset as she meandered back the crowd of others. “We’ll actually have something unique about our class if we’re in the same one!” And she skipped away, cheerful as ever and leaving Sunset with a nice ghost of a smile on her lips. Things might not be so hard to get used to with ponies like her around, but Sunset idly wondered if she was the only one who had read most of her textbooks beforehoof if Arty was any indication of the type of filly and colt she was going to run into at Princess Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns.

* * *

“Corrugan! Oh, for the love of…! Could you at least try to look like a professional?”

“I am a professional, Ocean,” Corrugan replied drearily, refusing to not nibble on the arm of his glasses as he looked over the roster and also not look a bit more than relaxed in his chair. “Just not your kind of professional.”

“You are an absolute terror to the School, Corrugan,” Ocean Sky said, indignant, like she did every semester when a new class of students arrived. Well, not every semester. Just the semesters when he was to get a new class.

“Keep saying it, and maybe one day the princess will believe you,” Corrugan said absently. After three years teaching at the school, this was pretty much routine. “Hmm, make a note of the colt named… Inch. Let’s see… yes, Star Inch. From the same place in Baltimare as Incense from last year.”

“Noted,” Ocean answered briskly. A brief silence endured between them, and Corrugan continued shuffling through the roster’s many finite details, his yellow eyes never leaving the sheets of paper. On some levels, he considered this part of his job to be close to the most important. There were things he would be teaching these fillies and colts… he couldn’t take chances with them. “You seem more melancholy this semester,” Ocean spoke up, surprising Corrugan enough with the sincerity in her voice to bring his attention away from the roster. “Something bothering you?”

“Not in particular,” Corrugan answered, turning back to the papers. “Honestly, everypony would like for their classes to finish with less than a sixty percent attrition rate.”

“I thought you liked it when you completed a class run with the best in the school?” Ocean smirked. “Or are you finally becoming normal like the rest of us?”

“Don’t patronize me Ocean,” Corrugan nearly growled from behind the glasses he had returned to his face. “If you’re just trying to remind me of Spoke from my last class right before I get a new group, that’s a new low even for you.” She humphed and looked away. Good, he’d disarmed her for the moment. Kept her from leading him on. He really didn’t need to be thinking about Spoke right before the train arrived. He had been a unique case, and the liklihood… Whatever. He wouldn’t think about it.

And thankfully, a certain somepony chose that moment to at last show up on the train station platform, yanking him out of the downward spiral that vindictive bitch Ocean had sent him into. “Princess!” Ocean reacted immediately, while Corrugan’s own eyes only further half lidded against the backdrop of the roster. Of all things he had earned over the years, an ease in Celestia’s presence was perhaps the most relaxing, especially when other ponies didn’t have it. Ocean gave a courteous bow before turning to watch for the coming train again.

“Evening Ocean,” Princess Celestia responded with that soothing serenity that seemed to make the whole world more quiet. “Are they still on schedule?” Corrugan’s eyes flicked up momentarily when Ocean’s horn lit in its pearly magic, but returned to the papers almost immediately.

“Ahead of, actually,” she reported. “Anything else you require, Princess?”

“Time with Corrugan and the new students,” Celestia answered, just as Corrugan flicked his roster closed and brought the stack of paper into his lap. “You can head on back to your office and be sure the rooms are all in order again if you like, but if you want to go home for the day, Corrugan and I can sort out any mishaps that come up.”

“I’ll do a final check,” Ocean said with another bow before trotting off. Silence. The princess strode up to the bench where he sat and watched the tracks as calmly as he did. He still couldn’t be sure if he had picked up it up from her or if her look had changed being around him. Still, he was glad she understood when silence was better than words, encouraging or not. They simply watched together, waiting.

But, as peaceful as he would like it to stay, he had a new class of bright and eager unicorns soon to be arriving, and there were still some questions he needed answered. “You gave me yours again,” he said, coughing a bit from the odd way his voice seemed to sound after having not said anything for a good couple hour. “Is there anything special about her that I should know about?”

“That’s all you want to talk about? My new student?” Princess Celestia asked, a note of surprise and concern in her tone. “I’d have thought -”

“I don’t let it bother me by not bringing it up,” Corrugan cut her off. “I understand where both he and I went wrong, and that’s all there is to it.”

“But you still haven’t forgiven yourself,” she observed, appearing as all-knowing as always.

“I don’t think I can, nevermind whether or not I should,” Corrugan said. “It won’t happen again. I know the signs now. Is that all you wanted to talk about?”

“No,” she smiled at him. “Are you ready for this round? I hear the foals get roudier with each generation.”

“Heh, you would know, having taught me, wouldn’t you?” he chuckled back. “Yes,” he sighed, “I suppose I am ready to get back to teaching. I’ve missed it really. Things’ll be better this semester.”

“That’s the Corrugan I know,” she said softly, and he felt a great deal of his tension drain with the touch of her feathery wing embrace. “You’ll be okay. She’ll take a shine to you I think, having read her reports.”

“One can only hope,” he smiled. “Ah… The roster checks out by the way. No hiccups, besides needing to watch a few based on their hometowns, but only one needs actual official watch. I can keep an eye on the rest.”

“Good to know,” Celestia said.

“So… other than that, we just have to wait for the train to get here,” Corrugan nodded, and he sidled out from beneath his old mentor’s wing. “And I think it might be best if they met you inside, instead of on the platform.” He grinned. “Awe-inspired paralysis isn’t a great way to start the semester after all.”

“Cheeky,” Celestia answered and returned his grin. “But true. Don’t scare them too much.”

Corrugan removed his glasses with a hoof and twiddled on of the arms in his mouth and winked. “Of course not. Have to save that for the classroom.”

* * *

“There it is!” somepony shouted, and Sunset found her eyes opening with a bleary slowness. They fluttered a bit before she loosed a massive yawn and lifted her head off the train car’s window sill. “There’s the school!” the same somepony shouted again, and any sense of waking aches and stretches vanished from her body. She nearly threw her face at the window, peering out into the inky darkness that was midnight on a mountain road. And sure enough, there were pinpricks of light winking from up ahead. They weren’t close enough to form a visible outline just yet, but whatever the shape, it was definitely large. And the way those lights could be seen from so far away, they were too.

Sunset wasted no time, her magic lighting up her horn and everything around her. Suitcases came off the rack, letters were refolded and stowed, her blanket was tightened back up into a neat bundle, and she arranged it all in a compact stack in the seat next to her. It was all ready to go to get off the train when they got there, and… everything was also oddly still. She turned her head away from her stack, and there was everypony else in the car, quite literally staring at her. Some had open mouths, but most were just wide-eyed. “Um… Hi?” She laughed nervously. Everypony just blinked, and she tried nodding to them but it felt like it ended up weird.

Instead, she ended just back in her window seat, luggage stacked neatly beside her while everypony else on the train slowly broke out into conversation again. She huffed and closed her eyes, forehooves in her lap. That had been a close one. Levitation wasn’t all that hard, but… yeah, maybe she shouldn’t have done everything all at once. Luckily, everypony was content to just point and mutter at her, which she preferred over attention, either good or bad. But despite being on that verge of ponies trying to talk to her just because she was good at magic or had an accent, the glimmer of the lights from the school kept her mood up. There were teachers there, books there, and everything that had just plain been out of reach in a little earth pony village like Trottingham. And of course, Princess Celestia herself was there.

She eventually ended up pulling her book on the history of magic out when the school ended up being quite a bit farther away than anypony had anticipated. So while the other foals were bored out their minds and complaining almost constantly, Sunset continued on from where she had left off in the book, coming to a fascinating little bit on griffons discovering magic and ways they could use it. The chitter-chatter from them that would have driven her crazy back home eventually joined the drone of the train on the tracks, a rhythm good for reading. So good in fact that she was almost startled up when the squealing of the brakes announced their arrival.

For once, she was just like all the rest of them. Clambering and nervous and trying to be sure she hadn’t forgotten anything in her seat. They all filed out with their luggage, levitating it out with a rainbow of magical auras. She had been told every car held a full class, and when she stepped out onto the platform, looking left and right in wonder at how regal everything looked even the flickering light of massive fire bowls, she wasn’t surprised. Hundreds of colts and fillies from all over Equestria were taking their first steps onto the school’s grounds and the noise level felt appropriate. Sunset wandered through the mass, trying to get to the front to see if the princess was there to greet them all. But it seemed she wasn’t alone in that desire, and the flood of shoulders eventually sent her into the pavement.

It stung, but wasn’t terrible, and at least it hadn’t been on purpose. And she’d held onto her levitation field, so that was a plus. She winced and fought back the tears of the throbbing she could feel in her nose and took a deep breath. This was just to be expected. Once she got to her room, once she started classes, it would all be so much better than Trottingham had been. She shook her head to clear it and continued to attempt to make her way up closer to the front. But she and everypony else was stopped when a massive blast of magic sounded across the platform, a pulsing, brilliant yellow amalgam of shapes glowing directly before the entrance to the path leading to the school proper. Not a few fillies (and colts, she thought) screamed and even more stacks of luggage could be heard collapsing on the ground. Otherwise, everypony had quieted.

And it disappeared as soon as it had flickered there for a while. But standing behind where it had been was a stallion, a deep grey with what Sunset thought was more appropriately a gorgeous mare’s mane. “So!” he called out. “Now that you’ve all shut your traps and decided to pay attention to something other than being someplace new… we can begin.” He paused and walked to one side of the path’s entrance. “My name is Corrugan, and I am one of the instructors here at the Princess’s School. For every train full of young minds that come through these gates, an instructor meets them here. Most greet them, let them know how welcome they are, and on, an’ on, an’ on and so forth.” He took a deep breath and paced to the other side. “I do say welcome, and I want to wish every one of you good luck in choosing to take on this challenge so young. However… I want you to know that before you step with me onto these ground… the things you will practice and learn here are not to be taken lightly! You will be taught techniques that some of the greatest, blood-thirsty mages used at the height of their power! This course in life is not only exclusive for the talented, but exclusive for the strong willed. So with that warning of what you will encounter, you will all follow me in rows of six up to the school proper.”

And without any further acknowledgement, he turned and began walking, leaving many of the ponies in the front scrambling to organize the way he had instructed. Oh yes! Sunset just shuffled along with the crowd, her mind flying through thought after thought with little effort. This was the home of the greats! The place where so many ponies had learned the basics before going on to improve upon the world. And if she had anything to say about, Sunset was determined to follow faithfully in their hoofsteps. And really, she couldn’t imagine anypony better than Princess Celestia herself to show her how walk that road.

* * *

Sunset had been expecting grandeur of the kind that was spoken about of Canterlot Castle, not the complete mind bend of this school’s main hall. Rather than be constructed like a hall, it was more like a tower, and she and the other new students were now crowded inside the central portion. White, gold, and violet decorated everything, with windows adorned with sill flower beds letting in the cool summer air and sound of crickets and frogs. Ahead of them, a single massive spiral staricase ascended, with branching stone catwalks extending off from it at every floor. This was going to be home for almost a year. She found herself absently shaking her head in disbelief and didn’t bother correcting herself.

Murmuring conversations were breaking out from the foals who had managed to stick together now, and the instructor, Corrugan, wasn’t anywhere to be seen. At least, she couldn’t see him. She milled about for a while, but it seemed that general uncertainty had settled over the entire crowd. Well, until Corrugan seemed to just appear again. Sunset cocked her eyebrow in curiosity. Was he really that quiet or was there some kind of teleportation magic that was designed to be silent? She’d ask him once she’d gotten settled in. “Everypony, listen up!” Corrugan shouted, and just like when he had flashed the emblem in the air outside, they all let their voices die down. “These are going to be your teachers for the next year,” he motioned to a stern, serene group of mares and stallions descending the main staircase, and continued, “They have the names for the ponies who will be in their class, as do I. But before we split up and take you to your rooms, there is a certain somepony who wants to speak to all of you…” His voice went from commanding to fond for only the briefest moment, but Sunset caught it. She’d heard the same thing back home often enough.

But any thoughts of well, anything, floated away when she stepped into the main well. Princess Celestia. She almost seemed to cast her own white glow against the darkness of the night, as if the fires dimmed to her superior light. She was tall, regal, and far more imposing in person than Sunset had ever thought possible in a pony. And quite suddenly, she found herself wondering if being under the tutelage of somepony so beyond her was the blessing of a lifetime or something else entirely. But then she spoke, and Sunset saw her eyes, and that worry melted. “Is everypony tired or just nervous?” she asked, an almost foalish glee entering into her smile.

“Nervous, Princess,” the general consensus made it’s way from the mouths of the few braver ones.

“Well, nothing will help nerves like a good night’s sleep in a soft bed,” the princess replied. “I just wanted to see you all at least once before everything really started, and you were all too tired to be excited. So, I imagine Corrugan here gave you some dire warning about the education you will receive here…” Sunset’s eyes darted to the stallion, who seemed to smirk in appreciation of her jab, “and I want to add to that. While you are here, and even after when you are among the world’s most skilled mages, be the pony that would make me, Equestria, and the world proud to know you.” She smiled at them all, and Sunset could have sworn she winked directly at her, though she could have known who or even where she was seemed absurd. “Get a good night’s rest. I’ve been told you new students get put through quite the wheelhouse the first week.” A little laugh escaped her lips before she whispered something to Corrugan and returned back up the stairs, taking her beautiful glow with her.

“A’right!” the stallion brought everypony out of the awe from seeing the princess so close. “I’m calling out my class first, and want you to make your way to me so I can show the wing for our class! These other guys’ll take over for their classes all down the line. Now! First on the roster!

“Shimmer, Sunset!”

Shuffling the Deck

Shuffling the Deck

While Sunset was more than glad to be permanently away from Trottingham, she had to credit the place with one thing. Being a unicorn in a town full of earth ponies, she was pretty used to feeling like the guinea pig… to the point that it only bothered her a little. Sure it was unnerving to be the first called and be the first to be directed by Corrugan (she needed to learn his second name… it felt wrong to keep thinking of him with his first) to the place he wanted the gathering class to wait, but not so much she was shaking in her hooves just from the experience. She silently waited and watched as ponies separated themselves from the crowd at the sound of their names and came to stand beside her.

They were quite the diverse group, even disregarding their names. Arty was among them, almost seeming to move between her classmates, eagerly asking to hear their names the ‘right way’ and repeating the question if she couldn’t remember at first. There was a teal pony named Lyra Heartstrings who didn’t even have her cutie mark yet, though didn’t seem to be bothering her mood any. Sunset idly shrugged at the idea. Maybe she was like Sunset herself, growing up in a town that knew next to nothing about magic, but just… less willing to experiment than Sunset. Trixie Lulamoon too. Sunset couldn’t get the look of curiosity on her face out of her head. Her eyes almost seemed perpetually widened, and Sunset honestly couldn’t be sure her mouth had shut yet. There were plenty of colts in the class too, but unicorn or earth pony, she was proved right that colts were all the same. Guffawing amongst themselves about all of the fillies. She rolled her eyes when they drifted to the tight circle of males.

“Okay! That’s everypony! Before we go to our section of the school, I’ll call roster one more time to make sure we’ve got everypony!” Corrugan yelled, shuffling his sheet as he did so. He muttered something under his breath even Sunset couldn’t pick out, despite how close she was standing to him, then returned his attention to the cluster of fillies and colts. “When you hear your name, call out the next number. We’ll take roll in class that way each day, so remember your number! For the love of Celestia, remember your number!”

He sighed, and before Sunset could really process why, Heartstrings sidled up beside her with a little nudge and whispered, “Is that a past issue I hear?” Sunset snickered, but she wasn’t able to reply, as her name was first.

“One!” she called out, and the sequence began with no small number of pauses from tired and distracted ponies. But luckily, there wasn’t anypony missing from their new class, and Corrugan folded the roster rather haphazardly with a satisfied nod.

“Lady, yours’re next up. All of us are still meeting down in the lounge once they’re all settled, yeah?” Corrugan sped off, Sunset arching her eyebrows, wondering if he naturally spoke that quickly.

“Yes, Corrugan, we are,” a white unicorn with dual emerald green mane and glasses replied, half irritated. “And if you feel you must call me by my first name, at least call me Elegant when students are around.”

“Ah, whatever,” Corrugan waved a hoof in her direction. “You’ll get over them teasing you like always. Ah… So…” He turned back to Sunset and the rest and gave them a quick, scrutinizing sweep with his yellow eyes and sighed again. Sunset blinked rather exaggeratedly, the effects of being awake well past midnight descending on her almost all at once. Maybe the prospect of a bed being so close was making her brain work less… Yeah, that was probably it. “Aright squirts, let’s go,” Corrugan said, significantly less boisterous, but no less audible.

And they all stumbled and shuffled into two rows behind him, taking the central spiral up to the third level, and feeling (if it was even possible) even more tired than before. Corrugan stepped onto the third level, backing up to allow everypony in their newly minted class to file onto the level properly. Sunset glanced behind her as they all crawled up, scowling a little and half-tempted to harp on them to hurry up so everypony could go to sleep. Oh wonderful. Yes, she definitely needed to sleep. She could feel herself growing moody. “Okay kids,” Corrugan addressed them in far more normal tones than below, “this is the third floor of the school, and while you are here, this is our floor. Our classroom, my office, and your dorm rooms are all located on the outer edge of the circle. We’re taking a tour of the whole campus tomorrow, and I’ll be explaining everything in much better detail then. But… for now… I want to sleep, you want to sleep, so we’ll go ahead and get your rooms assigned.”

He yawned and rubbed at his eyes, and several of the others followed suit. “Gleah,” Corrugan mouthed before going on, “It’s simple. You’re in pairs per room, one odd one even, and they’re numbered with both numbers in order. So… yep, go on, find your room and your roommate and have a good night’s rest. I’ll tell you welcome tomorrow.”

And with that, he walked away, stretching as he did so. The bundle of fillies and colts around her began to mutter and shuffle, trying to get where and with whom they needed to be without expending any more energy than necessary. Sunset turned her head from side to side, attempting to find Lyra Heartstrings, the second pony on the roster, and was grateful when she quite nearly bounded up to her. She was somehow still full of excitement and didn’t look the least bit tired. “You look like you need a pick me up,” she said as they wordlessly moved off from the rest to the door marked ‘1-2’.

“What I need is a bed and quiet,” Sunset drawled, opening the door manually and not even caring that the drag in her tone seemed to highlight her Isle accent.

“It’s cool,” Lyra replied, following her inside as Sunset rolled into the bottom of the bunk bed. She didn’t even care about snuggling into the sheets and comforter, and from the moment her head rested on the pillow, she began losing full track of everything Lyra was saying.

“... mind if I stay up a little while?” Sunset caught her asking through the growing sleep haze.

“Just don’t wake me up…” she mumbled as her eyelids and brain simply refused to stay open and active any longer that night.

* * *

Sunset was fairly certain somepony had cursed her head sometime when she was small. Her mother, as it happened, was also of the same mind. No matter how little sleep she’d gotten the night before, her brain stubbornly woke her at six in the morning, almost on the minute. And despite having very nearly collapsed on the bottom bunk and forgotten most of what her new teacher had told them the night before, Sunset’s eyes blearily cracked open at, sure enough, six A.M. She stared and blinked at the metalwork clock hanging on the wall of her dorm room for a while, just trying to be sure it was so early in the morning. And she groaned and threw her face back into the pillow when the clock hands didn’t shift.

But as per the usual, she wasn’t able to go back to sleep either. After a few minutes of stretching and yawning and more groaning, she rolled out of her bunk and lit her horn with a simple ball of light. Finding the chandelier was as simple as looking up and a flick of magic and thought shifted her little ball of light into actual flame that swirled around the candles until they all flickered, and it puttered out. Sunset nodded to herself at the job and eyed the room more closely.

It was… small. No, more than small. It was tiny. It took her all of three steps to move from the bunk bed in the corner to the vanity sink. There were two desks on either wall within those paces as well as two bookshelves mounted above them. The vanity area had a closet on one side and a bathroom on the other. And… that was it. A little twitch entered one of Sunset’s eyes as she took it all in again. She was supposed to live in this room… with another filly no less?! Her room in her family’s cottage back home had been bigger than this, and they… well, it wasn’t the biggest house in town.

However, she wasn’t given much time to dwell on her stunned thoughts. Heartstrings let out a very stallion-like snort before sitting up in the top bunk and rubbing her shadowy eyes with both hooves. She smacked her lips a little before turning to talk to Sunset. “Didn’t think you’d be up before me,” she drawled out, going cross-eyed as she stared disapprovingly at her mouth. “You were dead-on-your-hooves last night.”

“Couldn’t help it,” Sunset replied, glancing around, unsure of what else to say. “Um… you know where our things went?”

“I’d guess they’re being checked somewhere for any dangerous stuff,” Heartstrings said, and Sunset jumped when her horn lit and she warped down from the bunk with a sharp crack. “What?” she smiled with a giggle at Sunset’s probably surprised look. “Can’t teleport yet?”

“No… I,” Sunset swallowed, regaining her composure as Heartstrings casually strode to the vanity and started opening cabinets and procuring a toothbrush and toothpaste as if she’d been living in the place her whole life. “I from Trottingham, if you couldn’t tell. It’s an earth pony town. I’ve never met all that many other unicorns, not to mention ones who could teleport properly.”

“Oh,” Heartstrings replied with a nod around the brush and foaming paste. She turned back to the mirror and finished, spitting rather spectacularly into the sink. “Yeah, don’t take this the wrong way or anything, but I’d get over that quick. Most everypony here can probably do it,” she said, wiping her face clean with a towel. “They’ve got oats in the desk drawers for us for breakfast I think,” she added. “But yeah, I wouldn’t even bring it up. Like, in Baltimare where I’m from, you never wanna get in a magic contest in the yard. Not good if you lose.”

“Well, that’s a fine way to wake up in the morning, isn’t it?” Sunset replied, falsely cheery. She rummaged in the desk drawers a bit, and sure enough, there were indeed oats. Not the best thing in the world for breakfast, but she didn’t even know if the school had a galley.

“Twenty-four seven three sixty-five,” Heartstrings answered matter-of-factly. “But from what my mom-”

“You mean your mum?” Sunset asked with a touch of a raised eyebrow.

“Yeah,” she replied with a little smile. “I forget you’re not from the mainland. Anyhow, yeah, her. She told me that when she was here, it was crazy every day. The stuff we get to play with…” Heartsrings shivered in place and did something of an awkward dance. “Ooo! I get tingles just thinking about it. They keep us on our hoof-tips apparently.”

“Well that’s good,” Sunset said, closing the package of oats. Another odd silence spawned between them, though her roommate seemed completely unperturbed. She hopped over to her own desk and took to examining it, fiddling with this or that and trying to look at every part from every angle she could manage. Sunset just quietly sighed and shook her head, turning and smoothing out her bed sheets with a dust of magic before throwing the door open and sticking her head out into the morning air.

Everything was bathed in the soft light of the just risen sun, and the school itself had a thin layer of dew clinging to everything. Nopony was in sight, and Sunset idly wondered if the school worked on a much later schedule than Trottingham. “Watcha lookin’ at?” Heartstings whispered scratchily and conspiratorily, her head joining Sunset’s, but near the top of the doorway from leaning out from the bunk bed.

“Nothing, pretty much,” Sunset replied, pulling back inside but enjoying the natural air too much to shut the door. And Heartstrings’ head also still happened to be in the way. “I’m up too early again is all.”

“Wouldn’t say that just yet,” she said, also bringing her head back inside to look at Sunset. “That Arty girl’s comin’ this way.” Sunset scrambled up and was going to poke out to see if it was indeed her, but Arty was around the bend and inside their room before her flank even left the floor.

“Morning you two,” she said, slipping past Sunset and settling in the middle of the room. “I couldn’t sleep at all last night, so I figured I’d check around if I was alone or not.”

“You an’ me both, sister,” Heartstrings nodded emphatically. “I got maybe three hours, but that’s pushing it.”

“I need coffee,” Arty half-whined. “I won’t make it through the day without some. And I really hope they don’t ask us to perform any spells just yet. I need some good nights before I’m ready for that.”

“Yo, Sunset, I like this filly,” Heartstrings smiled at her from atop the bunk. “We should hang with her.”

“I’m just trying to figure out how you two can just act like you know each other,” Sunset sighed. “Isn’t that what we’re doing right now? I mean, it’s not as though we’ve got anyplace else to go just yet.”

“Yeah, that’s what I’m sayin’,” Hearstrings nodded. “I was thinkin’ of kickin’ her out for just barging in like that, but she seems decent enough.”

“Aw… that’s not even funny as a joke,” Arty frowned while Hearstrings snickered under her breath. And even Sunset couldn’t help but smile.

“And we could use her full name to expel her properly,” Sunset added and Heartstrings broke into a full laugh. “Flora von Arts! You are hereby excommunicated from room 1-2!” Sunset declared grandly, sweeping her hoof from Arty to the door. And her face was too funny for Sunset not to giggle.

“Is that seriously your name?” Heartstrings guffawed to Arty, to which she nodded with the most severe frown. “Hooo! That’s brilliant! Sunset! You realize we are the official creators of class joke number one!”

“Oh yes, let’s enjoy celebrating how high-and-mighty my full name sounds,” Arty glowered, but her eyes stayed bright. “Why don’t we give it to Sunset to match her Isles’ voice?” she suggested with a wicked smile.

“Daaaamn!” Hearstrings exclaimed, and they all descended into fits of giggles. Yeah, Sunset could live here, small room or not. These two fillies alone were more fun to be around than all of Trottingham.

“Phew… glad we got that out of our system,” Sunset said when she’d regained enough composure to form a full sentence. “Imagine if we’d been laughing like that during class?”

“You don’t think we’re sent to the princess to be punished since this is her school, do you?” Arty asked, mortified. “I am so dead if that’s the case.”

“Ah, chill out. The princess’ probs got some kinda, oh, what’s the word…” Heartstrings said, motioning to the air with her hoof.

“Dean?” Sunset offered.

“I guess,” she replied. “Somepony stands in for her I’m sure. GAH! Sunset! Arty’s -!”

“What!” OW!” Sunset screamed as her head was yanked back by her mane.

“Why do you have it cut so short?” Arty asked from behind her, and Sunset was able to catch a view of a brush and comb hovering in Arty’s magic. “And in a braid? It would look so much prettier all long and grown out.”

“Long and grown out also means it’s infinitely harder to take care for,” Sunset huffed, yanking her braid away from Arty and turning back to the door entrance only to have her heart feel like it would explode out her chest. Corrugan was standing in their doorway, eyes shifting to each of them in turn with an amused smirk on his face.

“Hey, Sunset, what’s… motherbucker!” Hearstrings swore, scrambling upright on the bed when she caught sight of their teacher. “No offense prof,” she said, “but those eyes are wicked creepy.”

“Morning sir!” Arty waved from behind Sunset.

“Good morning yourself, Flora,” he replied. “And to the rest of you as well. Miss Lyra, you are not the first nor will you be the last student to say as much.” He chuckled, and Sunset gradually let her heart rate stabilize where it was supposed to be. “I have to admit, I was beginning to wonder if I’d have any early risers in this class. You three ready to start today?”

“Aren’t we going to wait for everypony else to wake up?” Arty asked, curious.

“Oh, don’t worry about them,” Corrugan waved his hoof. “I took care of it. They’re awake and getting their brains put together if they weren’t already up. But that’s not what I asked.”

“I am… sir,” Sunset replied a little awkwardly. “I want to start classes as soon as possible, but one day never hurt I guess. What is your second name, sir? It feels awkward to only call you sir.”

“Hah! I don’t have a second name!” Corrugan laughed. “I’m adopted actuallly, so I never had one. And don’t worry about calling me anything official. Just Corrugan is fine. Makes things easier on all of us. Plus it annoys everypony else on staff, so that’s always a nice bonus…” He sighed and looked the three of them over again. “This is gonna be a year…” he mumbled with a faint smile. “Okay then, since you three are obviously ahead of the curve… or just nervous out the backend, you can go ahead and walk on over to the classroom. We’re all meeting in there before we head out.” He paused and half turned away before leaning back and adding, “And since you three were up and about before everypony else, take me seriously and don’t go anywhere without me or another teacher until I’ve given you the all clear.”

And he was gone, leaving a fast beating heart in Sunset’s chest at the prospect of such strong magic being on campus that they weren’t even allowed to wander alone just yet. Maybe a day of touring the campus wouldn’t be so bad after all. “I like that teacher too,” Heartstrings stated straightly. “This is not gonna be like regular school.”

Author's Note

So, since I know a lot of you guys are more Lapis' readers than mine, I figure I'd give you an update schedule for this fic since that is a thing Lapis lets everypony know. 29 Hearts, Ace of Spaces will be updated every week, on Saturday or Sunday, depending on how soon I finish the chapter.

That is all. Thankee.

Inky Jay

The Sound of Cards

The Sound of Cards

When Sunset finally stepped out onto the suspended stone circle she already found herself referring to as home (which wasn’t all that odd when she thought about it), the morning dew was fading away to be replaced by a light layer of fog. The sun cast orange rays through the many small gaps in the school’s castle walls, creating a hard but beautiful stained glass effect on everything. Sunset allowed herself a few moments to just drink it all in with a deep breath before trotting on after the lively Arty and Heartstrings. It was ironic in a way, at least to her, that of all the ponies she could have really ‘met’ first, the two ahead of her were likely the least like her on the whole campus. She’d known ponies like them back in Trottingham… but she actually enjoyed the company of Heartstrings and Arty. That might change of course, but even with as little as she’d been around her, Sunset believed that she wouldn’t be able to shake Arty.

A little giggle escaped her as she sped up her pace to catch the other two. Imagining Arty like the hound puppies around Trottingham was just too cute. “All I’m saying,” Hearstrings was insisting to Arty when Sunset caught up to her other side, “is that of all animals, bugs probs’ve got the least amount of internal magic.”

“Just a second ago, you were saying they didn’t have any at all, and were good hoof fodder,” Arty mocked scolded her with a vicious grin.

“Say, what are you two arguing over now?” Sunset inserted, confused.

“Bugs,” Heartsrings piped up. “She seems to think they are overlooked magically.”

“Because they are!” Arty insisted, and Sunset got the distinct feeling she was back at the beginning of an argument that was only bound to move in circles.

“I’m afraid I can’t add all that much,” Sunset shrugged. “Never thought about them really.”

“See, exactly my point,” Arty humphed and held her chin high.

“That’s not really a…” Sunset began, only to stop when Heartsring’s hoof tapped her shoulder and she shook her head while rolling her eyes. “Hee. You should ask the professor, Arty.”

“I think I will,” she said. “You two go on to the classroom. I’m going to see if he’s in his office.” And her tone was quite clear they had no choice in the matter. So Arty peeled off while Hearstrings and Sunset wandered into the classroom. It had no door like the other rooms on the level and was quite a bit more spacious than everyplace else. Or it was a normal sized room and their dorm rooms really were that small. Sunset was privately of the latter opinion.

The classroom was already hosting the other ponies in their class, though it was clearly not full. Roommates milled about together or friends from before quickly found one another and stuck quite close. Between all the moving bodies, Sunset found her eyes captivated by the walls and boards at the back of the room. Fully labeled charts, diagrams, runic alphabets, lists, and everything in between hung in any place a hook could be nailed into the stone wall. Even the pristine black board already had drawings in a variety of colors and equations etched onto its surface. And they were the most… “Heartstrings… those drawings on the board… they’re perfect,” she whispered.

“Ayo, it’s just Lyra,” she answered with a nonchalant wave of her hoof. “But yeah, what’s your point? I mean, wouldn’t the princess want only the best teaching here?”

“No, no, no!” Sunset shook her head vigorously, excited and frustrated all at once. “Come here!” she said, grabbing Lyra’s hoof and nearly dragging her through the other students to reach the board.

“Blegh… I think I just accidentally licked somepony’s coat,” Lyra mumbled when Sunset let go of her to hop on the teacher’s stage. “What’s got you all worked up?”

“Watch,” Sunset said, and with a simple nudge of her magic, she cast a grid of light against the board. “Look! Everything on here is perfect! It’s all symmetrical.”

“Damn…” Lyra muttered to herself, gazing onto the board, eyes darting over all the markings with new… No she wasn’t. She was looking at Sunset. “You’ve got some skills on you,” Lyra smirked, “moving the chalk marks like that.”

“What… no I didn’t… they were already right,” Sunset trailed, glancing back between Lyra and the board, cutting the spell.

“Everypony quiet!” Corrugan’s voice resonated through the space. “Whether you feel like it or not, this is a school, and we have a lot to get through this first week.” He strode through the center of the room, almost parting the students as they scrambled to clear a path. “So behave, for the love of the moon, like the ponies the princess believes you can be.” Sunset sidled off the stage as inconspicuously as possible, clearing the way for him to step into his place. Lyra helped in her own way, grabbing her with magic and pulling her onto the floor with a little more force than Sunset thought was necessary. “So, roll call!” Corrugan shouted out to them.

Sunset glanced around at the rest of the ponies, wondering why they were taking so long to do something so simple until… “Oh! Um… one,” she said, doing her best to hide behind Lyra as the sequence rattled off.

“Aright,” Corrugan sighed when they had all finished the roll call. “Take your own seats for now, and I’ll figure out who I want where as we go on. Go on, let’s move some flank. I wasn’t kidding around when-!” And before he could finish his sentence, Corrguan seemed to go into a half spasm before appearing to lock in place. “Just - go - one second,” he managed to wince out, stumbling to the teacher’s podium and taking heaving breaths for several seconds before shaking his head and looking no worse for wear. “Ah, yes,” he said with a rather sheepish smile and looked them all over, almost amused. Sunset glanced back, and while she was certainly taken aback, she wasn’t letting it show show as much as so many of the other students. “Nothing to worry about. Just an unfortunate side effect of a little magical accident when I was young and inexperienced. But that’s why you’re here. So that sort of thing doesn’t happen to you when you get out into the world. Okay, so, yes, take seats.”

Like she expected, the ponies around her broke into inaudible muttered conversations as they all milled about to find their friends and desks where they thought they’d be least likely to be called on. Sunset just decided to stay where she was despite Lyra’s earnest grunts and tugs for them to get to the back. Instead, she found the aisle closest to the front and planted her flank in the chair, adjusting her braid so it wouldn’t be squashed against the back of the seat. Eventually, Lyra gave up staring at her disapprovingly and plopped down next her with a huff. Arty managed to find them and sit on Lyra’s other side, but she looked mildly depressed (Sunset had a faint feeling bugs weren’t all that magical).

“Okay,” Corrugan said, striding to the center of his stage. “So I’m sure a lot of you know at least some of what’s written on all of these posters of mine. And we’ll get to that, maybe even start the first lesson today if we can manage it,” he tapped the board with his hoof, “but for now, I have to show you the campus instead of just letting you explore it yourself. So, that said, I want it to be very clear that we measure your progress and knowledge by the number of weeks you’ve been here. And, everything around campus is designed to help you learn in a more practical way. Which brings me to the point that everything out there is marked. If your week number isn’t high enough, don’t touch it. Plain and simple.”

“What happens if we do, just out of curiosity?” asked one of the colts farther in the back, and everypony ahead of him turned to see who had asked such a, well, Sunset herself thought it was retarded.

“Dumbass,” Lyra muttered under her breath to Sunset, and she nodded back.

“There’s always at least one of you lot of colts that asks,” Corrugan smirked. “A lot of the other teachers wouldn’t be so blunt, but let’s put it this way, if you don’t know what you’re doing around some of the structures and markings on campus, dying will be the least of your problems. I’d like to avoid that, you’d like to avoid that I hope, so until you know beyond a shadow of a doubt what something is and does, you’ll keep your grubby hooves off. Clear?”

“Yes, Mr. Corrugan,” the colt said, looking embarrassed as a filly being asked on her first date and his colt friends already beginning to knock his shoulders and trying to contain their snickers.

“Does anypony else have any more questions before we go?” Corrugan asked, ignoring the colts.

“Yeah, I do,” Lyra raised her hoof, and Sunset’s brows went up without any conscious decision of her own. Lyra really hadn’t struck her as the type of pony to ask questions in a classroom unless she absolutely, completely didn’t understand something or couldn’t figure it out any other way.

“Go ahead then,” Corrugan replied with a hoof motion.

“Yeah, so how many ponies out here are actually proxies?” she asked blankly, and even through her own wince, Sunset could feel the collective intake of breath from the class. Corrugan’s face grew dark, but the question didn’t seem to have phased him as much as everypony else. Instead, he just eyed Lyra for a long while, and Sunset had the odd feeling he was looking for something normal eyes couldn’t see.

“Baltimare?” he asked her.

“Sure,” she snapped back with a touch of pride.

“This school is not the underground fantasy world of your home town,” Corrugan said, voice hard as steel. “Ponies out there don’t fully understand what it means to become a proxy, and as such, you will not even attempt the process while you are here.”

“Sheesh,” Lyra answered, leaning back. “I wasn’t tryin’ to be a plothole. I just thought there might be some here since it’s all about weird magic and stuff.”

“Lyra Heartstrings, you and I will talk later,” Corrugan said. “Right now, we’re late, and I’ll not hear the end of it for a while. Everypony! Three lines from the doorway! Let’s chop it!” There was a mad scramble into the lines, and before Sunset was even fully aware of the directions they were taking, the class was out of the main tower into the courtyard behind the school.

* * *

Mountain air was crisp and fresh no matter which way she thought about it, but Sunset felt that when they were outside with the sun shining brightly on everything breathing the mountain air, there weren’t really any better ways to describe the purity of everything. And between that and the arrangement of all the constructs in the courtyard, her senses were nearly overwhelmed. Even her attunement to magic was buzzing in her horn, either from the magical nature of all the objects around her or the sheer amount of magic that been practiced in the courtyard over the years. There wasn’t anypony around now except their class, but Sunset could almost see the ghostly outlines of ponies in the air whenever the wind blew. It was truly as if magic had become part of the visible world.

“Everypony stop staring around so you don’t run into the flank of the classmate in front of you,” Corrugan barked from behind the line. “Circle up right here! Yeah, that’s right Mayflower, bring the line back around.” Everypony broke out of their little formation, Arty and a smirking Lyra coming up on Sunset’s sides as they all grouped around their teacher. “Okay, now that we’re out here, let me explain how all these things out here work. There are four separate courtyards in addition to the one we’re in now, and until we move on into more advanced subjects, I want you to stick to this courtyard. There’s nothing that says you can’t go to see what more advanced students are working on, but you certainly won’t be allowed to participate, and chances are, they’ll only get annoyed that you’re in the way.” He took a deep breath and continued on, “That said, these courtyards are where you’ll do most of your homework. Respect the structures out here. Some of these are one of a kinds, built by the princess herself. Be careful. You all have thirty minutes to wander and investigate. Get familiar. I’ll be over here, and I can answer any questions you might have. Shoo.”

Everypony was all too eager to begin exploring, loud voices cropping up almost instantly as some of the fillies immediately ran off with their friends to things they’d seen walking in. Sunset wanted to see everything more clearly though, and took the chance of the dispersing class to check the place over with her eyes first. If it stuck up from the ground in a weird shape, there were ponies around it, and with that said, Sunset took her stride toward an apparent blank space in the courtyard. “Sunset! Wait for me!” Arty called after her, but there didn’t seem to be a need, as Sunset didn’t make it all that far.

“Heartstrings, Shimmer, Arts, stay a moment,” Corrugan’s quieter, more personal voice called them all back. “Shimmer…” he addressed her first with a drawn, tired look on his face. “You weren’t picked for the princess’s personal student for no reason. Have you been talking with them about proxies?”

“What!? No! Absolutely not!” Sunset answered reflexively, too shocked she would insinuated in something like that to care too much that her accent flared or that he spilled her little secret to the two ponies beside her.

“Whoaaaaaaaah,” Arty said in a hushed voice, eyeing Sunset with something close to awe.

“Heh, makes sense,” Lyra commented.

“Then how would you know about proxies, Miss Heartstrings?” Corrugan asked with a scrutinizing air. “Even if the darker parts of Baltimare have their fair share of the things, even most of the underworld doesn’t know that much about them if they know they exist at all.”

“Oh, yeah, that,” Lyra scratched at her leg, the first time Sunset had seen her worried. “I… I kinda helped make ‘em for some guys… yeah. I don’t understand how it works… they just told me what to do and how… I had to put food on the table after Pops lost his job an’… I’m not gettin’ kicked out am I?” She was almost pleading now, a simple question stripping her down completely. Yet where before in Trottingham she would have done her best to just leave as fast as she could, something she couldn’t explain or rationalize kept her there. Right next to her.

“Hey now,” Corrugan said, smiling a bit and his voice becoming softer than any stallion’s voice she’d heard before. “Don’t make me watch you lose your head. Buck up, I didn’t say anything about that. I just wanted to know how you knew about proxies. Maybe another teacher would have sent you to the princess, but not me. You left that behind willingly, and let me just say, you would have begun making a name and bits for yourself had you stayed there. That’s enough for me. My only requirement is that you not share the technique with anypony else, whether you understand it or not. I do a lesson on proxies, but I don’t teach you how to make one. And that’s on the princess’s order. We good?”

“Yeah, sorry,” Lyra’s voice cracked a bit. “I won’t bring it up again.”

“Don’t apologize for knowing advanced magic,” Corrugan lightly scolded her. “Just learn how and when to use it.”

“Could she come with me when the princess wants to do special lessons so she could learn the concepts behind the spells?” Sunset piped in, the word escaping before she’d had time to catch them and think about whether she should let them go or not.

“Tall order,” Corrugan replied though he continued to smile in an amused way, “but no harm ever came from asking. I’ll see what she says. Now off with your three. Explore. Learn. Or whatever.” They turned and walked off, Sunset leading the way toward the flat area she’d been going toward before, and when they were far enough off, she turned to a still staring Arty.

“Don’t say a word,” she said, only Lyra said the exact same thing with her, and when they all glanced back and forth between each other, little giggles became full laughs.

* * *

His office door shut with a small, light click and locked with an equally quiet sound. And as soon as he was sure he was alone, he let the ruse fall and collapsed against the bookshelf. His breathing was shallow and rapid, and he silently began running through his mixing procedures from that morning. What with a new class coming in and all the stresses and distractions that came with it, he wouldn’t be surprised if he’d missed a step or ingredient or something else. But nothing in his mental run through seemed out of place, which would mean he’d need to do an analysis before he made his conclusion. Privately, he already knew what the issue was.

He dragged his way across the various chairs and tables until he plopped into the one behind his desk, using what little reserves of energy he had left to initiate his desk’s rings. The wood flared to life in a deep orange array of casting rings, all turning at various rates and directions, some even rising away from the wood to turn on a three dimensional axis. He looked up to check they were all in proper working order, and was frankly unsurprised to see her standing there. “Teacher,” he managed to breathe out, a self-reflecting smile on his face. “Amazing how many times you walk in on me when I’m like this.”

“Corrugan…” Princess Celestia said, ever concerned. “Rumor in the dining hall has it you had a seizure in class today. What happened?”

“Eh, that’s not rumor,” Corrugan shrugged, his limbs shaking now as he moved to extract the bottles from the desk drawers. “I did. Just a small spasm though, nothing scream inducing like last year.”

“Where did you go wrong with the formula this time?” she asked him, walking forward and analyzing his casting ring array.

“I don’t think I did,” he replied with a grunt, pouring the liquid into one of the triple rings and watching as the magic took control. “But we’re about to find out.” He nodded to the rings as spell after spell flashed from the rings and their movements became every more complex and erratic across the wooden surface. After only a few moments, the entire array shifted from orange to a hazy light blue before fading away and dropping the liquid into Princess Celestia’s waiting magic aura. “Just what I thought,” Corrugan sighed, choosing to just fall back into the chair for the moment.

“Little Corrugan, you cannot continue to insist this is not addiction when this will be your fifth increase in potency in the past month,” Celestia admonished. “Let me help you the way I know how. There’s no reason you have to live this way, and if things keep going like this, I will have to decide if you’re still an acceptable teacher.”

“You do things your way, and I won’t be fit to do much of anything,” he said. “You should stop worrying so much about me, even though I know you can’t.” He smiled. It helped soothe her when he smiled.

“If only,” she returned the expression. “You know you will eventually kill yourself with that concoction of yours.”

“Knew it the first day I took it to save my life,” he replied stiffly. “Look, I know I’ve done things you didn’t expect out of your personal student, but that’s the past, and I have to pay for it everyday. And with that being said, I know you didn’t come find me on cake eating hour to scold me again.”

“No, you’re right, and I have decided to eschew cake for the month thank you,” Celestia said mock offended. “How is Sunset? I really want to meet her personally this evening. It’s been long enough.”

“Ha ha ha hah!” Corrugan loosed a hearty laugh despite how weak he felt. “She is definitely Princess Celestia student material. Already found the crazy one in the class and the one with the smarts she shouldn’t have. It’s like looking the mirror honestly, and she wants to bring Miss Heartstrings to her lessons with you.” And with that he down an entire bottle of his solution, feeling the warmth and cramping sensations grip at his throat, head, and stomach. He clenched, but forced himself to relax. It would be enough to get him through the day, and he had enough stored up to make it through yet another retooling. Celestia was accustomed to the effects of the solution by now, and simply waited (for how long he couldn’t tell) until he was able to speak again. “Gah, anyhow. Yes, Heartstrings knows how to build a proxy apparently, and Sunset would like it if you taught her the theoretics behind the spell.”

“Discord have mercy…” Celestia trailed off. “She’s how old and can already do something like that?”

“She hasn’t got a clue what she’s doing,” Corrugan replied, feeling his voice drop into its normal range and tone as the effects of his solution began to take their effect. “She knows how to produce a result in the right conditions, nothing more. Which is why Sunset wants to bring her along.”

“And your opinion on the matter?” Celestia asked severely.

“Do it,” Corrugan answered without hesitation. “Nevermind whether Heartstrings needs to know about it or not, she could build one regardless. It’s Sunset’s impression of you that’s important.”

“Is she really that brilliant?” the princess asked, a fondness entering her eyes.

“I was watching her in the courtyard,” Corrguan said. “She went straight for the analysis cubes, even brought them to me asking what they were. You teach her right, and that filly has the potential to build entirely new spells, nevermind theory.”

“Oh good,” she sighed. “I’ll take her request regarding her friend as well. It will be a good cautionary lesson for them both. It seems I’ve lingered too long,” she added after a pause, ears twitching toward the dining hall. “Lunch is over.”

“Collection time then,” Corrugan grunted, standing and testing each of his limbs for strength before walking around his old teacher to the door.

“Corrugan,” she stopped him just as his hoof was about to turn the handle. “Promise me you won’t forget to keep yourself safe while doing as much for them.”

“I make no promises like that,” he grinned, stepping outside. “Each one of those fillies and colts are my job to take care of, and if that means I don’t make it with them but they go on to change the world for the better… Well, that’s my job now.” And he didn’t give her the chance to rebuff him, closing the door to the office and setting off down the curling stairs to retrieve his class. Only, as he passed a small puddle of dew water that had escaped the sun’s rays, he stopped and gave himself a reminder of the pony he was. For his teacher’s sake. She wanted him to remember what he couldn’t forget.

Face Down on the Table

Face Down on the Table

Sunset didn’t think she’d been more eager for anything else in life. Even the letter, even the chariot and train rides here… none of them could really compare to the jittery excitement she felt with her books stacked in front of her and the silence of a uncertain class waiting for its professor. Her hoof was tapping incessantly under the desk, and for the fifth time in as many minutes, Lyra whacked it with her own hind hoof. “Cut it out will ya?” she whispered to Sunset. “You’re actin’ like your high on somethin’.”

“But we are all high on excitement!” Arty hissed with a deep breath. “Just think of everything we’re going to get to be doin-!” She meeped a little as the door swung open and slammed shut just as quickly, most everypony joining her in jumping in place. Corrugan strode down the lane of desks, an iron look on his face that didn’t seem quite right on him. But even if they weren’t all seeing what Sunset saw, she wasn’t alone with her head following his every step. He rearranged some things on his podium, with his hooves instead of magic, before turning to the class and fixing them with an iron gaze. Sunset tried to hold it, but his eyes never drifted directly to hers before his eyes softened and a chuckling sigh escaped his lips.

“We are here to learn the art given to us as unicorns,” he said. “But as much as it is my responsibility to teach and educate you in the many facets of magic, it is also my personal belief that I keep you from becoming like the pony you just saw. For you see, magic can accomplish great good or evil and work wonders on the world, but so often we ignore what happens in here.” He tapped at the base of his horn, and a panicked revelation forced Sunset’s eyes wide and her hooves and magic to scrambling through her supplies. He was beginning the lecture without telling anypony and her note taking paper hadn’t been ready! She rapidly cleared a space, shoving some of her quills to Lyra’s desk to the humph of the filly and giggle of Arty and began scratching away with as much as she could remember.

There was more than a significant pause in Corrugan’s words, and Sunset suspected he was waiting for her. And true to assumption, when she had finally stopped scribbling (the scrawl really wasn’t worthy to be called anything more legible) he began again. “You know,” he gestured to the class, walking off the stage, “if I don’t correct one of your classmates taking notes, don’t you think it might be that she’s onto something? Hm?” Silence reigned until most everypony was shuffling around their things, even if Lyra groaned into her books. “Yes? And your name, I need to learn them,” Corrugan addressed somepony, and Sunset craned around to see one of the colts raising his hoof, but still without the proper note-taking materials. She tsked under her breath.

“Sir, if you don’t mind me asking… what exactly are we supposed to be taking notes on?” he said.

“Huh, good question,” Corrugan spoke above the volume of shuffling parchment, returning to the stage. “See, your question really does embody what I’m talking about. We unicorns so often see magic as something we can just do. Something innate to ourselves. And we forget that as much as it is one of our natural bodily functions, so too does it have it’s consequences on the part it is linked to. There are techniques and spells you will learn here that if properly utilized have the ability to bring entire kingdoms to ruin. You will learn how to set traps, disarm them, cast spells without being seen or otherwise detected, save life itself… All of these things and more have a profound effect on our minds, especially those of us in this room. These things are not beyond our reach…”

Sunset actually stopped writing, choosing, for the moment to just listen and transcribe later. There was a strange feeling in the air. She felt that despite her every instinct telling to grab the quill and record the words, these were things she would hear again. Things that would repeat themselves and remind her, time and again, in a way. Just to be aware of them, for the moment, was the important part.

“And as such, the power and our own capabilities will more easily warp our minds into something more hideous than something from Tartarus than any other race to walk our world,” Corrugan continued. “So as we go through the things reserved for you, the next generation of skilled mages, it is both my and your responsibility to watch over yourself and those around you. We keep ourselves and our kind in check when nopony else can. Good?”

Collective nods circulated around the class, and Sunset nodded a bit longer for herself, jotting down a few words to remember that capture the essence of what Corrugan was imparting to them. She rolled her eyes in amusement and slid her paper closer to Lyra when she leaned in close trying to read Sunset’s notes.

“So, now that you all are reasonably eager and filled with anticipation, I’m going to take it all back now,” Corrugan said flatly. “The practice of magic is the embodiment of the term controlled chaos, and I have rules for this room that will keep things in order. Now all of you, groan, like I know you want to.” He swept out a hoof at the lot of them, and most everypony complied with the most insincere groan Sunset had ever heard. Though she did suppose the effect was compounded when some of her classmates giggled over groaning.

“Ah, it’ll do,” Corrugan carried on. “Anyhow, yes, my rules. They are few and simple. Firstly, your homework, as it is, will be done outside this classroom. Let me repeat. Homework is done outside the classroom. It’s mostly practical application of what you’ve learned, which means you’ll need to use the devices in the courtyard anyhow… just don’t do it here. The last thing I need is being jarred out of meditation because one of you weren’t accounting for a spell’s required area. Huh… Second, if I tell you not to try something, it’s because it will kill you if you do. No exceptions. And lastly, if you have any questions… this isn’t so much a rule as it is a suggestion, but find and ask me first. Some of the other teachers here might be offended if you ask about some things whereas I won’t. But again, just a suggestion. That’s all for that. If I happen to make up a rule because I slept wrong of something, just roll with it. I’ll be good after lunch.” He smiled and collective chuckles went around the class.

Sunset only sighed. She’d been mildly hopeful they’d actually begin lessons without any delay, but it didn’t look as though that would be the case after all. There would probably be a week or so of introductions and such before they moved on to real studies. Pearls of wisdom from her teacher aside, he wasn’t likely to start off every day in such a manner. Ah well, at least she’d gotten to touch and play with real, genuine analysis cubes today. That was a treat she had not been expecting. The little gadgets individually were astronomically expensive. And a full set like what the school had… she didn’t even want to think about the cost. The princess herself may have gone to the trouble of building them herself to avoid the bits it would drain to commission their construction. She sighed a little dreamily, imagining hauling them around examine everything she could get her hooves on.

But she was snapped from her reverie when Lyra vigorously shook her and motioned to the stage. “So, for official introductions, I am Corrugan, your instructor until you graduate here, and a former student to our fair Princess of the Sun. Take that for what you will.” And Sunset did. She found herself sitting a little straighter and watching his every movement more closely. Perhaps this was why the princess had placed her in his class. Now, even when she wasn’t receiving instruction from Princess Celestia, she had somepony to emulate. She was certainly eyeing his bearing a little more closely now at any rate.

“What was it like being her personal student?” some filly behind her asked.

“It takes a special kind of pony that I was not at that age to be the student to Princess Celestia,” Corrugan replied. “I learned a lot, true, but only what I wanted to learn as a sixteen year old colt. And that hurt me in the long run. How’s this? You all make it through, and I’ll show you all something I earned as a result. Deal?”

“Deal,” the filly replied. “Oh, and I’m Trixie by the way. Trixie Lulamoon.”

“Noted, Trixie,” Corrugan said. “Okay, if everypony is good on the rules, let’s get started.” To which Sunset only was able to mouth ‘no way’. And when nopony raised their hoof or offered any objection, Corrugan stamped the stage in approval. “Good times. Okay! So, let’s start with basics. For you as mages to cast or generate spells of any larger size, complexity, or with multiple and simultaneous stages, you will need to understand Domans, Flows, and Arcs. Some of you may have heard these terms before, and some of you may even have an idea of what they are, but for the larger majority, these are terms you will only here in this school and in much higher level casting discussions and debates. Nevertheless, it is necessary that you understand them so that you do not misuse them.

“So for starters, Domains contain all of the magical energy in the universe. All. No exceptions of any kind. And there are five general Domains mages have identified. Every spell you ever construct will will draw the majority of its energy from one of these five Domains.” He paused while everypony scratched away, and Sunset did a little dance in her seat. Oh, if Domains was the first topic, she could barely imagine the intensity of later topics, nevermind the things the princess would teach her, and hopefully Lyra.

“We’ll be talking about the specific Domains as the week goes on, and possibly into our second week, but for today, I want to stick with the essentials. A taste of the waters so to speak. Aight, so, the five Domains are composed of two different entities we call Flows and Arcs. And it is one of these two entities within the Domain you draw upon that the power for your spell truly originates. And breaking it down even further, until you’ve taken time to meditate and understand the difference between Arcs and Flows, you will all tend toward drawing on the Arcs. A more skilled mage would use Flows for the greater purity, but we’ll get there in a moment.

“Right now, we’ve established the most base magical components. To safely use our magic with that specific knowledge guiding it, we need to understand the universal laws these components abide by. And really, it’s only one rule, but ah, whatever. We theorists enjoy sounding smarter than we are most of the time. Anyhow, the singular rule of Domains, Flows, and Arcs is that Domains and their components cannot come into contact, either naturally or unnaturally, with other Domains and their components. Underline that or something. There are ponies who became famous simply for how badly ignoring that rule destroyed them.”

“What do you mean when you say they got destroyed, sir?” somepony asked, and Sunset breathed out a silent intake of breath. She was writing frantically, unexpectedly being thrown far more information at far greater a pace than she’d thought possible in a schoolroom. She knew about Domains for sure, but all this was so much more in depth than anything she’d found even in books. Somepony interrupting the lecture with a question was a gift from the princess herself, as it gave Sunset time to catch up. When she finally had, a frustrated scowl darkened her brow as she looked to both Arty and Lyra’s notes only to see the the three categories written down with most basic of definitions.

“It means nature corrected them. Harshly,” Corrugan answered him darkly. “Ask me again when you’ve been here longer, yeah? And just in general for you all, call me Corrugan. I’m your teacher, not your overlord. Now, moving… Oh wait… Any more questions before we move on? I’m about to draw up some diagrams, so get your questions out now.” He waited a while, but when nopony raised her hoof, he shrugged and attended to the board behind him.

* * *

“This has got to be the easiest homework assignment… evarrrr…” Lyra drawled out behind Sunset, her legs all tucked beneath her with her reading assignment flipped open on the courtyard cobbles. A pause. “And yo, I think Arty agrees with me. Right Arty?”

“It’s soooooo boring!” the filly whined, and Sunset couldn’t help but swivel her head to see Arty sprawled on her back, her book suspended in levitation magic over her face. Sunset only rolled her eyes and returned to her analysis of the Phase Rings. She hadn’t gotten to examine them early that day, and since their sole purpose was to show the flow of Domains within their area effect, Sunset felt learning how they were operated wasn’t a waste of her time.

“But I do gotta give it to ya, Sunset,” Lyra idly commented. “Comin’ out here right after class was a pretty good idea. Wonder how long it’ll be till somepony else shows up.”

“Give them about an hour, I’d say,” Sunset said, running her hoof over the runes in the surface of the stones. “It takes about that long to write a letter home or something like,” she continued, looking up to Lyra as she fiddled around in her saddlebags for the rune dictionary. “And you two don’t have to stay if you’d rather not. I probably won’t be back in the room until… late.” She sighed. “I’ve already done my reading and the next two lessons ahead, so… yeah…”

“Damn,” Lyra blinked. “Ya know, I didn’t bring it up before to be polite an’ all, but since you kinda just brought it up…”

“Yes?” Sunset inserted with a touch of impatience, already suspecting the question that was coming next. Not from the pony who asked it though.

“When did you meet the princess, Sunset?” Arty asked for Lyra, earning her a scowl from the teal filly.

“Never,” Sunset said simply, beginning to circle around the Phase Ring and scribble the runes into her notebook. “I don’t know why I’m her personal student. I mean, honestly, I’ve not even met her personally since we got here. I really thought it would be made a big fuss, and I’d be ferreted away before the classes were decided.”

“But ya got some talent, obviously,” Lyra pointed out, not even pretending to read her textbook anymore and watching Sunset with a curious look. “You read the books fast enough.”

“That doesn’t make me a talented magician,” Sunset countered before plopping down with a frustrated growl. “I can’t concentrate on the runes,” she mumbled. “I just… how could the princess know I should be her student just based on my reports? What if I’m just decent as an essayist?”

“Woah, woah, slow up,” Arty waved her hoof at Sunset, she too having discarded her book in favor of sitting up and talking. “Don’t tell me you don’t want to be the princess’s student! It’s the chance of a lifetime!” Her enthusiasm was enough to light a little smile on Sunset’s face, even if her dreamy, fantasizing eyes were a touch much.

“I know that,” Sunset managed to say. “But when I got that letter, I thought it had to mean I was a better magician than everypony else on the train. And when I get here, there’s not a spell I’ve known that somepony else hasn’t used. I’m no more skilled than anypony else.”

“Ha! Correction,” Lyra jabbed a hoof and raised an eyebrow at her. “You’re a way better magician than I am. I confess, I am bucking stupid as a rock. Momma was shocked when I got the letter.”

“You are not stupid Lyra,” Arty defended her from… herself. “You know how to build those proxy things after all.”

“Chill it with that,” Lyra hissed before returning to a normal tone. “You know what you’re doin’, Sunset. I just kinda point and shoot and hope my horn knows what the buck I want it to do.”

She nodded and breathed out long and hard, saying, “I suppose. I thought I’d settle in well this morning, but something happened and now I feel so pent up for some reason.” Both Arty and Lyra turned to each other with knowing, amused looks before staring back at Sunset even more so. “What?” she asked.

“I can’t believe she can’t even diagnose herself, Lyra,” Arty said conspiratorially.

“Sunset. You. Are. Such. A. Nerd!” Lyra burst out laughing. “Come on! It’s no wonder you’re the princess’s student if you feel pent up after that long ass lecture, reading three times as much we were supposed to, and fiddling around with that thingermajig! You’re a bucking nerd you!” She rolled onto her back in laughter, and Sunset was unsure whether to be offended or complimented. She ended up eyeing the giggling Lyra stiffly until Arty came up beside her and wrapped a hoof around her neck.

And in the most prim and proper voice said, “Sunset, Lyra is a little rough around the edges. Let me be a little more refined about this. You are… flubbers…”

“She’s a nerd!” Lyra burst out again. “I mean, come on! In a good kinda way, but still!”

“Alright, Lyra’s just trying to say that you are very smart, and that the princess must have chosen you not because you are any better a magician, but because you’ll become skilled faster than the rest of us,” Arty continued, still remaining comedically uptight.

“Sunset, you gotta chill,” Lyra said, regaining her composure but remaining rather inappropriately splayed on the ground. “Ya trust the princess, right?”

“Of course!” Sunset said.

“Then trust she’ll take care of all of us,” Lyra replied with a nod. “I sure as hell gotta.”

“Why don’t we got back up to your two’s room for now then?” Arty suggested. “We’ve all already done our homework -”

“Even if I don’t understand much of it!” Lyra interrupted, falsely cheery.

“ - and play some cards or something,” she concluded, not even bothering to fix Lyra with a withering stare.

“I could use the relax - What in Tartarus!?” Lyra began, only to break into a yell that was punctuated by Arty’s genuine scream of terror. Sunset only sank into a defensive stance, trying to keep her brain from freezing on defensive spells. The entire courtyard’s assortment of gadgets and relics had all flashed a cacophony of lights, sounds, and colors - spewing magical auras as they all came to life seemingly of their own accord. Sunset’s eyes darted around, both she and Lyra edging toward each other. But all their apprehension was for naught, transforming into breath taking awe.

Princess Celestia herself was striding out into the courtyard, coat and mane faintly aglow of their own accord as the magic engulfing her horn slowly sank the sun behind the mountains to cast the light of sunset across the world. It was like elegance, grace, and soft strength had all come together and taken physical form. “She’s… beautiful,” Arty whispered from between Sunset and Lyra.

“Agreed,” Sunset replied in as much a hushed tone while Lyra only nodded slightly.

But rather than simply continue out through the courtyard to some unknown destination, it seemed the courtyard was her destination. The golden magic slowly faded from her horn and her violet eyes drifted around the mostly empty but quite magically lively courtyard until they settled on Sunset. It was almost like she was looking into Sunset’s soul, even from the distance, and the sensation actually bringing Sunset’s hoof to her chest. She strode toward the three of them, a gentle smile gradually lifting her lips as she came close enough to recognize Sunset’s friends. “Good evening, my little fillies,” she said, her voice like the down of angels’ wings. “Don’t look so frightened. These curious objects here are very sensitive to changes in magic in the area. My inner magic sends them into quite the fit.”

“Uh… hi?” Lyra proposed, her voice a little shaky.

“You must be Lyra Heartstrings,” the princess guessed. “I hear my student would like to have you sit in with her in some of our lessons.”

“Um… yeah, that’s me,” Lyra said, even more shakily than before.

“Don’t be so nervous,” Princess Celestia smiled cheerfully, ruffling her hoof in Lyra’s mane. “I’m not going to bite. And just so you know, I’d be happy to teach you. A unicorn with your skills needs to know what she’s doing after all.”

“Th - thank you,” Lyra gulped, and Sunset was beginning to feel the start of a giggle at watching her until the princess turned her attention to Sunset.

“And this must be the student whose first lesson with me is long overdue,” Celestia said. “Sunset Shimmer, yes?”

“Ahhhh…” Sunset tried to speak, but only her incoherent nerves seemed to answer before the princess gently shut her mouth with a little touch of her hoof. Sunset swallowed hard and tried to not concentrate on how hard her heart seemed to be slamming around in her chest. “Princess Celestia…” she shook out with a light bow. “I am the student you selected to learn under your own wing.” Ugh, that sounded awkward even in her head. Why had that been what came out of-

“Then shall we?” the princess interrupted her self degrading thoughts with the simple question. “I don’t want to keep you from time with your friends, but a short meeting should suffice for us to get to know each other a little better.”

“Oh! We don’t mind at all, Princess Celestia!” Arty burst out, clamping her hooves over her mouth in horror almost before she’d finished saying it.

“That’s very sweet of you Miss Arts,” Celestia smiled to her, “but I’m quite certain you’ll be happier having her around than not. I’ll keep it as short as I can. Sunset, shall we?” And the princess offered out one of her regal white wings, which Sunset walked beneath, shepherded along by the graceful feathers as they walked back within the school proper. Sunset did her best to control the shaking in her legs, trying to shove her nervousness into a corner of her mind that would distract her. She needed to be intelligible before the princess after all. And maybe it was true that her ease of understanding magic had been the reason for the princess selecting her, but the more she tried to keep from being so paralyzed, the more she wanted to be that pony she thought the princess had been looking for.

* * *

Sunset had honestly not thought Princess Celestia would have an office at the school, or that if she did, it would be protected by the Royal Guard whether she was present or not. She had not been expecting a little room on the ground floor that was only slightly bigger than their classroom to accommodate for Princess Celestia’s greater height. It was rather sparsely adorned, bookshelves being the prominent furniture as they coated the walls. There was a small table near the door with a glass container rested, filled with pearls. And the chandelier had been replaced by a glowing sundial that was clicking away despite being indoors.

Sunset’s steps slowed as she entered and the princess seemed to glide past to her. It was simple, but Sunset guessed it was only a place infrequently used by the princess and could forego the usual trappings of royalty. And besides, her desire to see what sort of books the princess kept for herself was almost shoving away her anxiety of being alone with her for the first time. “Go on,” Princess Celestia said with a suppressed giggle. “They’re there for you after all.”

Sunset nearly tripped over her own hooves, eager but still worried about making a fool of herself. Her head whipped to the princess, where she was situating herself behind the desk in the back of the office. She nodded to Sunset, and with that final barrier removed in her brain, Sunset nearly sprinted over to the nearest shelf, running her hoof along the spines, eyes flicking over titles and authors. And most of them were names she’d never heard tell of. “Anything you see there that you’d like to take back to your room to read?” Princess Celestia asked, and Sunset jumped a little.

“I - I don’t even know where I should start,” she said, feeling a bit uncomfortable at making eye contact with the princess just yet. “These have to priceless.”

“A lot of them are, but not all,” the princess replied. “I’m sure you’ve already had ponies compliment you on it already, but your voice is very beautiful.”

“I don’t - don’t like to draw attention to being from the Royal Isles,” Sunset said. “But thank you,” she added hastily to avoid coming across as rude.

“Don’t worry about it so much,” Princess Celestia soothed. “You are from there, and you can’t change that even with Starswirl’s genius. Be proud of it.” She paused while Sunset soaked in the words, but continued on a few moments later. “Come and sit for a little,” she said, motioning to the chairs in front of her desk. They were quite comfortable as Sunset situated herself in their cushions and tried not to think too hard about what sorts of things the princess might ask her. “So, Sunset Shimmer, I want you to be my personal student, to learn everything I can teach you. But it will be hurtful to both of us if you do not want to be my student. So before we carry on any farther, be truthful with me. Do you want me to teach you?”

The question was so absurd, Sunset found her voice dip a little as she burst out, “Well o’ co-orse I do!” She coughed and tried to forced down the heat she could feel rising in her cheeks. “Sorry,” she said, more quietly and controlled.

“It’s quite alright,” the princess only smiled, vaguely amused. “But I’m glad you’re so enthusiastic. Sunset Shimmer, my name is Celestia Aegis. Pleased to meet you.” And she extended a boot-less hoof out for Sunset to take. Sunset couldn’t breathe properly, feeling as though she could barely get enough air as she reached her own hoof out to gingerly tap it against the princess’ own. The full weight of greeting the pony most Equestrian citizens dreamed about just seeing in so commonplace pressed into her shoulders. It was almost too much. She let out a large sigh and began breathing a little more rapidly than normal, just trying to set her brain straight.

“Goodness!” Princess Celestia chuckled. “Don’t be so nervous!” And with that mild admonishment, the princess pressed her hoof into into Sunset’s chest just as her horn glowed. Almost immediately, Sunset felt her breathing return to normal and the nervous energy drain from her system. It was relief unlike anything she’d felt before. Her anxiety was still there she could feel, but her body was mercifully no longer acting on it. “Better?” the princess asked.

“Much,” Sunset nodded. “Thank you.”

“Don’t worry about it in the slightest,” Celestia answered. “Some ponies get used to being around me faster than others, but I do what I can if somepony is nervous like you. Can you carry on speaking?”

“I’m okay, I promise, thanks to that spell,” Sunset said.

“Wonderful. So, Sunset, I don’t teach every one of my students the same way, you know. I help them along the path they choose as best I can. What do you want to learn to be?” Princess Celestia asked, her hooves coming up so her chin could rest in them.

“I -” Sunset began, only to stop herself before she’d really begun. “When… when you sent me that letter,” she restarted, her voice becoming a little more somber, “I thought I’d been chosen because I was the most talented mage my age in all of Equestria. But when I got here, almost everypony could do the things I thought that had made me special.” She paused, trying to figure out a way to make her thoughts not come out as lame as they sounded in her head. But there seemed to be nothing for it, so she pressed on, looking down into her forehooves. “But I want to be that pony I thought I was. Just, even better. I want to be that heroine that ponies look up to to help them solve the problems they can’t. The one they trust. Sorry if that sounds way mushier than what you normally hear,” she added, hoping to mitigate some of it.

“Not in the slightest,” Princess Celestia replied with earnestness. “Sunset Shimmer, your dream of yourself is both noble and strong, and such a dream is one I don’t hear from too many ponies. If this is the pony you wish to be, I can most certainly teach you how to become her.”

“It’s not too, fairy tale like?” Sunset asked, still unhappy with her explanation.

“Sunset Shimmer,” Celestia said, soft and caring, “it’s those whose hearts are as pure as fairy tales that can truly change the world for the better.”

All Hands Dealt

All Hands Dealt

“Soooo… You guys ever look at music based magic?”

“What the…? What the bloody hell did that come from Lyra?” Sunset asked her, taking a moment to look up from their homework to eye her friend.

“Well, Sunset may be overreacting,” Arty corrected affluently, “but it is a bit odd.”

“To answer your question, no I haven’t. ” Sunset continued. “I’ll leave that to ponies who understand how music works all on its own thank you very much.” She huffed, tired. She mentally convinced herself she was indeed cut out for this school. And not for the first time in this long, long first week either. Granted, she didn’t have a point of comparison off which to judge Corrugan, but he was definitely pushing the boundaries of her stress levels. And they were still only working with Domains.

“My momma, er… you know who I’m talking about Sunset… anyway, she tried to get me to study music for a little while, but everypony gave up when I couldn’t stay in my seat for anything but school,” Arty replied, giggling and effectively keeping Sunset from getting her attention back to her textbook. She growled under her breath and pulled out and flipped open her journal, something she could do while talking with the other two.

“Ya know, ya don’t gotta be all huffy when somepony distracts you, Shims,” Lyra said, irritated. “The intensity is getting to all of us, aight?”

“Sorry, really. Sorry,” Sunset sighed while planting her head on her book with mild frustration. “I just don’t why this is all so hard. For me, I mean. Don’t the princess’s students just have a knack for this sort of thing?” It was hard to keep the irritation out of her voice, but she managed… barely.

“Sure!” Arty affirmed without a second’s hesitation. “But maybe Domains and stuff just isn’t your thing.”

“You’ve got a buckin’ sun as your cutie mark,” Lyra drawled. “Maybe it’s got to something to do with light and dark magic. Corrugan said we’d be covering that later on… yesterday right?”

“Could be about aether based magic,” Arty postulated, almost to herself now more than Sunset.

“Look,” Lyra said, placing a hoof on Sunset’s shoulder. “it doesn’t matter what your specialty is. You can’t have a talent in just magic, so ya gotta work through the tough bits to find what you’re really good at.”

“Thanks,” Sunset smiled back at Lyra, leaning back up against the central dais in the courtyard and propping her books in her lap. “It’s kinda my fault I guess. I was always so good at pretty much everything I tried…”

“And I sucked at most everything, so doing well for once feels nice,” Lyra cut her off. “Difference in specs,” she shrugged. “But that’s why I brought up music, actually.”

“Very good wheel around,” Arty approved. “Ah… you girls mind if I check out of school work for a little? I wanna take a nap before finishing up.”

“Sure thing,” Lyra said. “Looks like Shims’s gonna need a bit to get to where she wants to be anyway.”

“I’ll be certain to wake you for dinner,” Sunset grinned back at her. Sunset turned back to Lyra as Arty gathered up her things and trotted off. “Funny how the tables get turned when the exam gets closer, isn’t it?” Sunset chuckled nervously.

“I see it as returning a favor,” Lyra all but crowed. “So, I’m guessing the Cosmic Domain’s got you all up in a knot?”

“How did you guess…?” Sunset stammered, but having her concentration restored to her book and studies as opposed to idle chatter and journal ignited what had been slowly grinding her patience away all day long. But Lyra only burst into mirthful laughter.

“Damn, Shims,” she said through giggles, “it’s no wonder you’re the princess’s student! You can’t do anything without understanding every last tasty bit of it!” She stuck out her tongue, only to laugh even harder after a few seconds. Sunset assumed her face looked rather bewildered and confused for Lyra to be so giddy. Then, it didn’t take much to make Lyra snort or snicker, even in class. “Okay, okay,” her friend gradually calmed herself down. “It’s the equation isn’t it?”

“Of course it’s the bloody equation!” Sunset burst out. “We spend three days going over Domain and Flow equations and what symbol, or letter or whatever, meant and how to find it and everything! Then we get to this and the constant the analysis cubes give us we’re just supposed to accept! He explains everything else and then… then… This!”

“Good?” Lyra asked flatly, one eyebrow above the other.

“Yes,” Sunset glowered, not meaning it in the slightest.

“See, I had a tiny moment of brilliance and thought this might be getting under your coat,” Lyra elaborated, “which is why I brought up music based magic.”

“How does that help me at all?” Sunset asked wearily.

“Because music based magic is almost exactly the same,” Lyra said, more excitedly. “There are just certain assumptions you have to make about the music’s effects. They’ve never really nailed down why it works that way, but it does. There are just some things about music we know. Like whether it’s good or bad or a slew of other shit.” She paused with Sunset’s lack of a reaction. “You still want to know what it means don’t you?” she asked, on the verge of outright frustration. “I mean, I’m trying to help you down the easy road here.”

“I know,” Sunset sighed, closing her book. “And it’s a creative way of looking at it and helps you obviously. But… I took the offer for the hard road for a reason it seems. Do you think Corrugan would be able to explain it?”

“Sure, if ya wanna know that badly,” Lyra shrugged. “I’m just glad my math works out personally.”

“I just get so hung up on not knowing,” Sunset grit her teeth, trying one last hurrah to understand it under her own brain power, only to once again meet with a wall in the knowledge she’d been given. “Will you go with me?”

“Uh… sure? I don’t got anything else to do. I’m mostly just twiddling my hooves here. What I’ve got in my noggin’ is all I’m gonna get in my noggin’,” Lyra said, standing with an exaggerated yawn and stretch before stuffing her things into her saddlebags, Sunset not far behind. She hoped Lyra and Arty were right. That her stumbling block just happened to be in the beginning rather than the middle. She shook her head, trying to clear it of negative thoughts. She refused to think about what happened to drop out students, but she knew that they’d have to drag her kicking and screaming if they tried sending her back home. This was home now.

* * *

Corrugan admitted to actually liking Friday evenings. The bright future of not having to teach for the next two days was always a plus, as was the chance to use that time to pursue what he had left in the way of hobbies, but neither were the main attraction to Friday evening. No, it was quiet. Blessedly quiet. All of the older students who had obtained permission earlier in the week were off in Canterlot enjoying themselves. Which gave Corrugan time to enjoy himself in peace without ever having to exercise a hoof in travel.

He sucked in a deep scent of the evening air and let it out again, casually taking the spiral staircase even further up than the students were allowed. The lock on the ceiling hatch was undone, and several names flew through Corrugan’s mind even as he slowly pushed it open. The well-oiled hinges made no noise as he came to the top of the central tower proper, the light of the moon and stars unimpeded save for the dome of metal pipes extending over the tower’s cap. A small huff of amusement escaped him at the site of the silhouette already gazing into the distance.

“Curiosity finally got the better of you, I see, Ocean,” Corrugan said, coming to stand at the cap’s edge alongside her. “Got a nag in your mind?”

“You,” she snapped back.

“My voice isn’t actually all that good for nagging,” Corrugan replied, noting idly he enjoyed needling Ocean far more than he should.

“It’s close enough,” she grumbled. Corrugan just shrugged and waited. Whatever was on her mind, she would either tell him or she wouldn’t, in which case she’d leave afterward anyway. And he had all night after all. But either Ocean was an exercise in patience he hadn’t suspected she would be, or she was genuinely thinking about something. He stood on the tower beside her, not moving or speaking for an entire hour as the pure darkness of the night fell into place. And when the moon and it’s ever present mare seemed to reach the extent of her glow, Ocean’s mouth opened again.

“I… I can’t believe she let you teach here,” she whispered, disgust layering every syllable.

“What? You see some kind of bias between myself and the princess?” Corrguan asked, mildly offended Ocean would suggest something of the sort about Celestia. “I may have been her student once, but it’s not as though other, better qualified - ”

“Shut up!” she screamed, and Corrugan’s brows furrowed in wary concen. “Stop pretending to be a pony, you monster!”

Shit, Corrugan mentally swore. But he would remain impassive, like the princess had shown him all those years ago, and he had put to good use in quite recent memory. “You looked at my social file I’m guessing,” he said, remaining as still as ever while Ocean had backed away and was scowling at him with more than a little distaste. “I’m not angry at you, for the record,” he added before she could rant on defensively. “You’re the school’s secretary. It’s your job to handle all our paperwork.”

“I’m going to have words with the princess about you,” Ocean growled. “I knew there was something off about you, but… to let something like you teach our foals! The princess is out of her bucking mind.”

“You won’t convince her of anything, that I’m sure of,” Corrugan said, now turning to face her. “And don’t you think it’s a better idea for me to be teaching? I know where things go from skill and research to obsession. It is the princess’s position that who is better to steer them from that path? You think you can convince her otherwise?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Ocean spat back. “If the princess won’t listen, there are hundreds of others in the world that would agree with me. And they’d help me get you away from these innocent minds.”

“As if,” Corrugan almost laughed, but restrained himself. “I don’t think they’d be counting on the Princess of the Sun interfering. Go to bed, Ocean. Chat into Celestia’s ear if your conscience insists you do, but don’t expect anything.”

“I’ll see you kicked from these grounds at the very least,” she growled before shuffling off, slamming the hatch down harder than was necessary. Corrugan waited for a few moments to collect himself, several good sighs escaping his lips as he did so. It seemed he could add another pony to his relatively small list of those who knew of his condition. Not that Ocean’d be able to do anything more than make his life somewhat more cumbersome. The trick would be the same it always had been. Help them forget. Which, he found, even the most vicious of his enemies did indeed do after a time. He would just act and be normal, like he was, and only residual tension would be left.

Still, the lengthy talk Celestia was likely to want to give him wouldn’t be pleasant. She’d always want him to do the same thing she’d wanted for the past five years. And he’d have to deny her, insist he was determined to make a positive mark on the lives of the young before he entered the beyond. It would be depressing, and not a little frustrating, what with having had to convince her he was still stable earlier in the week.

Whatever, they were thoughts for another time. For now, he had far more important work to do. He sealed the hatch with a flick of magic and seated himself in the center of the tower’s cap. He allowed his eyes to slowly drift shut. Not so slow that he fell asleep, nor too quickly that his mind was too distracted. It was a meditative action. And now situated where he liked in his mind’s eye, the sky seemed to fly around him, turning from night to day in the briefest of flashes. There was wind in his mane, but that soon disappeared as he mercifully let the shroud be taken away by the magic imbued gusts.

The world changed and altered at his call all around him, and somewhere between his meditative conjure and reality, he could hear the flashing and connecting of the metal as the magic found its many marks and flowed through his design and met with other such strands. In the end, the magic coursing above him was no longer just above. It formed a loop, circulating magic from his construct, through the world, and through him before beginning again. And sensing this, he opened his eyes and stood.

The dome around him was no longer dead and lifeless metal. Instead, it was a gorgeous collection of magic, warped and controlled by the hundreds and hundreds of casting rings engraved on the surface of the metal, some even projecting out larger, more complex rings. Colors of every hue, every brightness flashed around him, small beads of multicolored light flashing and moving around in instants or at miniscule crawls. A tingling rush spiked through Corrugan’s form, and a contented thought drifted through his mind. It was here, in this place, he was home. Ocean wouldn’t be able to take him from this.

But all the same, as much as this was his element, it was also an important part of his job, and he set about his routine, waiting for the princess to show up as she always did. Or perhaps she wouldn’t for a long while. Sunset was here on the grounds now where a veritable army of the most skilled mages Equestria had to offer would protect her. There wouldn’t be much for Corrugan to interpret from his array when those around her would know and alert somepony if something went badly just as quickly as Corrugan could. Perhaps he could use it to relax. Just observe in general.

Then again, she had only been on the campus for a week. “May I enter the array, Corrugan?” Princess Celestia’s voice asked from behind.

“I am assuming you have the armor on?” Corrugan replied, not even looking away from a particular fluctuation near Canterlot. His eyes darted around, drawing in multiple light-constructed casting rings. He winced as the princess entered the dome’s maelstrom of energy, connected as intimately as he was to it. “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to you being late to the activation process,” he mused, eyes shifting around at a lightning pace. The assembled rings aligned and spun with one another, altering the dome’s assembly of moving lights. The princess came up beside him as he strolled within the confines of the array, searching for a more exact point of the fluctuation. It was likely nothing, but following little trails like so kept his skills sharp.

“And I don’t think I’ll ever become used to how claustrophobic this stuff is,” the princess answered, her voice muffled by the helmet.

“I always invite you to try entering without it,” Corrugan said, trotting off in the opposite direction, still searching. “I know the output isn’t healthy for normal ponies, but alicorns aren’t exactly spilling out the walls for me to test… Not that I ever would, mind,” he added after a teasing pause, not even having to see the princess’s face to know the look she had given him. “What are you…?” he mumbled as she clanked past, likely watching a different cluster. He was closing in on the source of the fluctuation, but the more magnifications he performed, the more the anomaly seemed to condense. His rings narrowed into the Arts District, to a specific neighborhood, to a specific street… and even to a specific house.

And there it was still, isolated and distinct in a humble little house. “Teacher…” he said apprehensively, leaning his head over his shoulder but still keeping his vision trained on the pulsing magic detected by his array. “When I first built this array and you tasked me with searching for the pony that I found to be Sunset… there should have only been one like her, yes?”

“The details are a little more complex than that but, yes, why?” Celestia asked, moving to where Corrugan was staring and bending to see the fluctuation through the protective armor.

“My array doesn’t lie,” Corrugan said, almost as though reassuring himself. He flicked his eyes away briefly, sending a multi layered sky blue ring careening toward them before stopping between them. A touch of thought later, and Corrguan had the ring disassemble, expanding down to reveal a swirling, almost organic set of magic beams. “This is a constant monitor of Sunset Shimmer’s Domains,” Corrugan said, “and it was the highest connection rate between the Fundamentals I’d ever seen. But this thing…” He eyed the pulsing magic dot, only a representation in his array, and before he could convince himself otherwise or let the princess stop him, a set of similar rings encircled the light.

The process was complete in a matter of seconds, which only deepened Corrugan’s confusion. Hesitantly, he shifted it alongside Sunset’s expanded ring and duplicated the effect. But rather than reveal the complex interwoven Domains, only a single, thick beam of violet light could be seen. “The buck is in Canterlot?” he asked aloud, not expecting a ready answer from the princess.

“By Tartarus…” she whispered in something like horror and awe. But her voice became the hardened tone of a leader with the next words she spoke. “Corrugan, destroy this record. And do what your array can to hide - !” Both Corrugan and Princess Celestia winced and braced, the princess even screaming a little as a massive shock wave shook the entire tower.

“Who the bucking blazes -?!” Corrugan yelled upon recovery, collapsing the monitor rings and spinning the stationary rings at their maximum. The array flung outward, surveying the whole of Equestria. But even with the range so large, the ripple it detected was obvious immediately. Another blast shook the tower, and with it’s second impact, Corrguan felt what the array depicted. Domains were attempting to cross.

“It has to be one of the students, Corrugan!” Celestia yelled before shedding the armor in a burst of cosmic fire and disappearing into the distance. Corrugan growled in desperation, taxing his array until he found the exact location, shut the entire thing down, and warped as close as he could manage himself. He hoped she wasn’t beyond saving.

* * *

“Shims, the teach isn’t in his office,” Lyra repeated for the third time while Sunset knocked in as many times. “He’s probs off doin’ teachy stuff.”

“I think Corrugan would have told us when he would be out, especially if it were something scheduled,” Sunset said, stepping back and waiting again.

“Then it probably innit,” Lyra insisted, now rather impatient. “C’mon, let’s go drag Arts off her fat flank, get some grub, then you can give it another shot. Hell, maybe the colt had a date and’s out to dinner with ‘er. Ya never know.”

“Does Corrugan really strike you as the type of colt to attract a mare? Or pursue one for that matter?” Sunset asked, disbelieving, despite turning and following Lyra around their inner balcony back to their room. She was at least right about getting something to eat. The food wasn’t exactly the same as the things from the Isles, but it was tasty all the same. And if she were being honest with herself, thinking about food was making her hungry.

“Sure!” Lyra said, an evil look in her eye. “He needs a filly that’s smart as him, but’s got way too much of an idea of what romance is like. ‘Cause I see ‘im as the kinda colt that’d fall into it for her.”

“You think about this sort of thing too much,” Sunset decided.

“And my oh so elegant response is that you don’t think about it enough,” Lyra said, punching her in the shoulder. “C’mon… You know that accent of yours would earn you a date from any colt here. Don’t tell me you’re not even interested.” They both slid their bags off in the room, Sunset neatly stacking hers in her desk while Lyra simply levi-threw hers onto her bunk. Sunset didn’t even bother sighing. Lyra did as Lyra was. Or perhaps that saying was the other way around… Or… Oh, flub it.

“Most colts are idiots,” Sunset replied simply, restraining from holding her head up and sniffing. “And I haven’t seen one here at this school that is a decent exception.”

“Picky, picky filly…” Lyra sing-songed as they stepped out and rounded on around to Arty’s room. “Well at least I have a mission now,” she said happily with a notable spring in her step.

“No! Absolutely not!” Sunset protested.

“Ah… Just you wait. We get to the potions part of school… Mmm hmmm,” Lyra grinned helplessly, licking her lips. “Hell, I’m pretty good. May not even take me that long.”

“Have I reminded you how much I hate you today?” Sunset rolled her eyes.

“Twice,” Lyra answered matter-of-factly. “But I shall have to discuss this with Lady Arts. She will be a fine and willing assistant.” Lyra winked cheekily at Sunset, prompting another eye-roll, though she couldn’t hide her genuinely amused smile and sigh. Both of them rapped on Arty’s door, waiting for the royal pink mare to answer the door, bleary eyed and mumbling nonsense. Only she didn’t and after Lyra and Sunset eyeing each other in concern, Sunset tapped the door again.

It opened at last, but only her roommate, the pastel blue filly Sunset vaguely remembered as Lulamoon answered the door. She looked rather like Arty did after a nap, oddly enough, eyes puffy and half closed, but the sniffle was clear enough. For whatever reason, she’d been crying pretty hard, and Sunset felt the heat rising in her face. “Um… sorry,” Lyra managed to say, but she sounded as awkward as Sunset felt. “Your roommate, Arty? You know where she went?”

“Ha- Haven’t seen her all day. Bye,” Lulamoon answered as rapidly as possible with her sniffling and slammed the door shut again.

“Dammit,” Lyra muttered, and Sunset nodded in agreement. “You ever feel like that sort of shit only happens to you?”

“All the time,” Sunset replied. “Bloody hell… well, we might as well go eat. She might already be down there, and it’ll be easier to search for her on a full stomach.”

“Not with the way I eat it won’t,” Lyra countered, though she followed Sunset down the central spire anyway. The meal was some kind of vegetable cassarole which Sunset privately thought was the chef’s excuse to get rid of all the leftovers. But she couldn’t deny he was a good cook. Cassarole or not, it tasted delicious, and Sunset would have taken second helpings (at which point Lyra was already half way finished with her third) had her twinge of a headache not continued to strike wincing pains in the base of her horn. She couldn’t exactly place it, but thought it’d started sometime around when they’d started off for supper in the first place. And even with the constant merriment that was the dining hall, it had progressively started growing worse, to the point Sunset couldn’t even use Lyra’s sloppy table manners to distract herself anymore.

“Lyra, I think I need to go see the nurse,” Sunset winced, talking making the ache worse. “Ah!” she yelped, holding her hoof to the base of her horn. “Just something for my head…”

“Hey, you aight?” Lyra asked, concerned. “Hey. Damn, yeah, you look pale as a Windigo. Sheesh. C’mon. You can walk, right?” She dismounted from the table and popped over to the other side with a quick teleportation, holding a hoof out for Sunset to grab as she slid out of the chair.

“Hee, thanks, but I don’t feel that bad,” Sunset said with grin she could muster. “Just a pretty bad headache.”

“And I’m sayin’ you look a whole lot worse than just a headache,” Lyra fired back, more insistent. “The last thing we need is you fallin’ down the st- !” Everypony, Lyra, Sunset, everypony screamed as the entire school shook with all the power of an earthquake. Sunset sank to the floor, yelling more than screaming as the headache intensified in a matter of seconds. Another blast ripped through the school, this time whiffing out candles and chandeliers with a gust of air. Sunset screamed, tears coming from behind her tight eyelids, the headache migrating solely into her horn. “Sunset! Shims!” Lyra’s panicked voice came from the darkness, and it was something Sunset could latch onto in the chaos of pain and terrified yelping.

“Lyra!” she called back, and almost immediately the filly’s rough grip found her waist. “Lyra!?”

“Yeah, yeah! I’m here, Shims! I’m here. You okay?” she asked, her rapid breathing and fearful tone not enough to mitigate the reassurance of the presence of a friend.

“Something’s wrong, Lyra!” Sunset yelled over the growing cacophony, and was only able to buckle and wail when the third shock wave slammed into the school. “Follow… follow me,” she breathed through the haze of piercing pain. “And don’t… don’t let go.” Her horn discharged far more easily than it ever had before, and without even her conscious directing, she was dragging Lyra through a teleport unlike any other. She wasn’t directing them or her magic, just letting it take her where it would.

And when they landed in a rolling heap, in dewy grass, a maelstrom of magic blocking out the night sky and pulsing and crackling all around them, Sunset eyes wished she had just been stronger and endured the pain.

* * *

Corrugan had traveled the world, seen the strange and wonderful in his quest for magical knowledge, but nothing ever set his heart to beating in both pity and fear more than the spectacle before him. A wall of electrified clouds were slowly climbing in a cylindrical shape only feet from him. Wind whipped around it and raw Elemental Domain energy pulsed out from it. Trees and grass warped inward, and his own magic even felt as though it were tugging against his mind, attempting to separate and join the maelstrom.

He grunted and braced, lighting up a good number of his rings despite their ability to pierce his shroud. Princess Celestia was nowhere in sight, nor was the massive burn patch he had expected. And without her, he would have to cut through the magic storm himself. Only, in proved entirely unnecessary as a filly’s terrified wail cut through the cascading, dissonant sounds like a scythe. And almost as if in response the entire magical warp fell away in a crash of dust and mist. A simple ring cleared it away, and what he saw clenched his heart harder than the fear of the magic ever would be able to do.

* * *

And before Sunset could even cry out, somepony else did first, a supernatural wail that seemed to cut through everything else. It silenced the chaos around them, but everything about her changed. “Art… Arty?” Sunset could barely whimper.

“Help me Sunset! For the love of Celestia! Help me! Pleasse!” she pleaded, screaming the final word. And she broke into horror driven tears, her hiccups echoing over the grass. “Please…” she whispered. “Somepony… anypony…” And she screamed in nothing but what Sunset could describe as other than pure agony. The hoof Sunset had been slowly extending out to Arty she yanked back almost on instinct. And the wraith-like tendrils Sunset had thought she’d seen before shot alight with a demonic blue pulse. They were waving and protruding from…

“Arty… are… are…” Sunset stammered, trying to comfort her, to help somehow, but everything was locking up. Her mouth, her eyes, her legs. All of it. She was shivering all over, unable to look away from the gaping tears in Arty’s spry little body. The rent and hanging fur and skin, the building pool of blood and the oozing drip seeping from where the tendrils exited her body.

“Sunset! Shims! C’mon Shim! C’mon!” Lyra was shoving against Sunset, her voice cracking into a whimper as she tried to pull Sunset from her stupor. “We gotta help her! C’mon!”

“Lyra! Do something! Please! I’m sorry! I’m -” Arty began screaming again, only to be cut off as the tendrils rigidly extended outward, seemingly to nothing. But Arty bent over as their extension rent her small sides even more severely, and her head keeled down, blood spilling out her mouth in uncontrolled retching.

“Oh Celestia!” Lyra cried out, sinking down but trying to crawl to Arty’s side regardless. “Tell me what to do Arty,” she sobbed, holding her head straight. “I don’t know how to help if you don’t tell me… Sunset! Snap out of it! Help me!”

And for whatever reason, Sunset’s stupor broke, and her shaking legs gingerly carried her to Arty, who was barely breathing and her eyes rolled back in her head. “We… we have to get those things out…” Sunset shook, only able to piece together fragments of thought. “Magic… I can use magic… yes. Of course.”

But she never got the chance, as the tendrils pulled farther out from Arty’s body, and she convulsed with helpless whimpers. “Hold her! Hold her!” Lyra screamed, and even as Sunset moved to wrap her hooves around her friend’s body, Arty coughed again, blood some other kind of fluid spraying out all onto Sunset’s hooves and chest. It was warm, and she could feel every small drop as it soaked her coat and dripped away. And what Sunset had been able to somehow gain in coherence evaporated. Her shaking worsened, she couldn’t breathe, and nothing seemed to work properly. Words wouldn’t even form in her brain.

But even as she felt herself about to collapse, a warm glow enveloped her and Lyra and gently pulled them away. “NO!” was all Sunset’s mind could process, as Arty began thrashing and screaming and reaching out for them. “NO!”

“Look away fillies,” a soft mother’s voice said above them as the glow slowly faded from around her. “Look away. This is not something you need to see.” She didn’t know who was talking, or who was holding her still. All she could see was Corrugan striding up to Arty, just where she and Lyra had been moments before. Sunset felt some kind of clarity return to her. Her teacher would know what to do. It was his field of expertise He’d save Arty from whatever creature had attacked her. He’d heal her. Make her better.

But even as Sunset’s hopes began to rise in her chest, her fading daze could see Corrugan’s eyes. His narrow, tear streaked eyes and thin mouth. “Look away you two!” he said, his tone harsher than anything Sunset had heard from him. “Take them, Celestia. This is my responsibility. I’ll make it quick.” And it all fell into place for Sunset.

“NO! NO! YOU CAN’T! NO! ARTY! STOP! PLEASE! PRINCESS NO! YOU CAN’T LET HIM!” she screamed. She flailed and kicked, and screamed and cried, pulling away from the princess’s hold. Corrugan’s gray body flared with dozens of circular lights, and Arty’s hopeful, bloody face turned to one of horror. And Sunset let out a final wailing scream as heat, light, and raw magical force sent her into unconsciousness, Princess Celestia teleporting her away, and Arty’s tiny yell of pain permeating even so far into her mind.