Chapter 1: Phoenix Feathers and Happenstance
Something stirs far away in a place long forgotten. A single tree black as pitch stands alone somewhere silent; a clearing with grass of dull light, hills of clouds endlessly seething and moving in rhythmatic strokes, a melody that seemed to posses the entire wood.
From the gnarled bark of the ancient tree a shape emerges, first a horn, long and notched and of a brilliant blue deep as the reaches of space. Then a body, slender, tall, regal. Hooves of the darkest dark, thin and mighty brushing noiselessly against the flowing grass as the figure stands wings outstretched seemingly touching the heavens. His body swirls and seethes like smoke on the sea, a deep void against the sky, bending and swallowing light. He stands there drinking in the absolute silence that hung like fog in the glade, ethereal mane forming and blending with the nebulaic environment, framing his form in a silhouette. His almond eyes shone brilliantly as though two lone stars twinkling in the void that made up the pony, the only light to be had from the celestial alicorn.
He began to walk across the glade, moving as nothing more than a shadow across the earth. Reaching the tree line effortlessly in two deep strides, he is instantly swallowed by the shade of the breathing forest...
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Rabbits scrambled and birds took flight as the dazzling white unicorn colt happily trotted down the long path leading from his family's villa to the lean river that ensured its isolation. The sandy curls of his mane flowing all the way down his neck onto his back, bounced with each step.
As the young pony continued on his way, he was humming a particularly joyful tune almost rivaling that of the birds, who were still sulking in the trees after having been chased off. The continuous clop of his pearl like hooves against the pressed dirt of the path added even more of a rhythmic quality to his fanciful song as he marched down the road inhaling the sweet summer air along the way.
When the path finally ended, as most paths do, it came to a small wooden bridge which existed as the only thing breaching the river's steady waters. This bridge was the unicorn's favourite place to play, he would often sit leaning against the wooden railings with not but his imagination, pretending he was on some epic adventure off away in the far depths of Equestria. But today was different.
As he approached the bridge, he spotted something in the water trapped by the reeds that grew along the shore. He got closer to inspect it. The object was long and thin and it seemed to almost have a glow about it, a hazy golden halo.
He strained himself trying to look closer, digging his hooves into the moist soil. What was it? If there weren't so many reeds in the way he would have known by now.
The colt edged farther and farther over the waters, which soon proved to be an unneffective tactic. As he was on the verge of giving up and just resigning to his play, he suddenly looked upwards, remembering his horn. Of course! He could use magic to try and dislodge the mysterious object!
Feeling only a little foolish, he braced himself. Concentrating hard. Visualizing the magic flowing through his body and out of his horn, trying with all of his might to levitate whatever might be hiding behind those plants.
But being such a young unicorn, he had not had much success in his previous magical pursuits. In fact he was limited to little more than a spark on a good day.
So, sweating and shaking tremendously, the colt dug his hooves deeper and deeper into the shore. And as he felt the rush of magic permeating his bones, with his eyes squeezed shut, teeth gritted, horn aimed at that infuriating enigma of an object! The young pony lost his footing and plunged head first into the gurlging water.
Which was much deeper than he had imagined.
And like all sensible ponies, his first instinct was to flail his limbs around helplessly hoping for the slim chance that he'd somehow sprout the gills and tail of a seapony. But unfortunately that wasn't going to be the case.
Amidst his panic he glanced up and noticed something floating at the surface of the water above him. The object of his investigations. It was a feather, a phoenix feather. But the unicorn didn't have much time to fawn over its beauty and his, maybe a tad prematurely conceived, luck because at that moment he had the most terrible urge to breathe. The water seemed to be compacting his lungs forcing him to desperately inhale. He coughed and choked on the water, but with each painful retch more and more of the liquid invaded his lungs and he floated down closer to the riverbed.
It felt like an eternity as he watched the shinning splotches of the sun grow farther and farther away. It must have been really dark down at the bottom of the river too because as the colt descended, a blackness began closing in from the outer reaches of his eyes.
Maybe he really would turn into a seapony, maybe falling asleep was just the first step in the process. The pony's eyes began to close, a small smile on his face from the slightly delusional tinge of hope that had begun to grow. How does a seapony use the bathroom anyways....?
He never got the chance to find the answer, because right as his eyes finally closed something poled through the water and smacked him hard in the skull. It was a pole in fact, or at least a stick of some sort. It waggled around frantically, giving him a few more smacks for good measure before he was finally able to grip the end with his teeth.
He felt himself being pulled upwards towards the surface, glancing down quickly to assure he still had back hooves, and was hoisted out of the water landing with a wet splosh on the wooden deck of the bridge.
He lurched and gagged expelling the liquid from his lungs, finally able to breathe again. As he lay there gasping dramatically he spotted his savior. It was a filly. A young earth pony filly. She stood there watching him, a slight smirk on her face.
She had a ratty straw hat on that looked to be made for someone three times her size, the brim hung low on her brow covering most of the auburn mane underneath. Behind her, propped up on the bridge railing, was a fishing net with an unnaturally long handle. Her deep sea-like eyes studied him, almost sizing him up. It wasn't until he noticed that he'd been staring at the filly for quite some time that he started to become embarrassed about the whole situation.
"You'd think with such a big horn on your head you'd be able to wish yourself up a bigger brain!" She giggled, putting a hoof over her mouth in a feeble attempt to hide her amusement
The unicorn proceeded to spit out the last of the river sludge he had inhaled,
"Bleck! It doesn't work like that..."
The filly raised her eyebrows, pursing her lips.
"Magic is a serious art that takes one years to master, there's no wishing involved!" he slammed a hoof down to emphasize the word "years".
"Does it always take so much groaning and panting? I thought you were about to keel over back there..."
His face grew even hotter when he realized that she had probably been standing there watching him the entire time. In fact judging by the small fish occupying the straw basket by her side she'd been there long before he'd even arrived. He hadn't bothered to check the bridge before becoming immensely distracted by the feather.
“W-what are you doing out here anyways? Fishing?” Both of their eyes went to the basket and it’s wriggling occupant. The blatantly obvious question had burst out into the awkward silence without much thought. A last ditch effort to change the subject and distract from his still ever-growing embarrassment.
“Uh, well yeah. I fish by the shore a lot.” She kept a steady gaze into his shifty eyes as she spoke, having the upper hand in the conversation being the one who hadn’t just been saved from their stupidity. The sopping colt tried his hardest to stare back into the depths of the sea behind her eyes, but it was like trying to drink in the ocean, sooner or later he had to come up for air.
“Oh, I’ve never noticed you before.” He began to scan the shore nervously trying to locate the filly’s possible roost amongst the trees, as she watched him with an interested amusement.
“I’ve seen you playing on the bridge a lot, though.” She finally said. His veins ran cold with embarrassment remembering all of the times he had probably made a fool of himself on this soggy deck, whilst cloaked in a perceived privacy. “I’ve thought about saying ‘hi’, but you always seemed so happy playing alone.” Her eyes finally shifted to the ground, “And, well I’m not really supposed to talk to… unicorns.” Her voice gave way slightly at the mention of the word, as if forbidden to even speak it.
This didn’t ultimately surprise the colt though, even he was instructed to stay away from the earthpony settlement and its inhabitants. A rule he rarely heeded, given his adventurous spirit. But he had never met an earthpony filly before, his only interactions with the race were constrained mostly to the maids and groundskeepers on his father’s villa, all fully grown, and all fully sad.
He could never understand their sadness, this token of earthpony life. His mother would try to explain it to him upon his asking, but it would always just serve to confuse him more. Different. Different how? Unblessed. She would always look up and at the moon when she said this, as if that glowing orb held all of the answers to his burning questions. And when she did so he could always perceive a different kind of sadness from her, a sadness for them, a sadness for a sadness.
Because of this the colt had always tried to be as nice as possible to the earthen that adorned his house, trying his hardest to re-fill the light that seemed to have left their kind, to splash some color on their gray. But he could tell the spunky young pony before him was different. She seemed so full of life, as if all of her kind’s happiness had come together and taken residence inside of her tiny form, and her rough and tumble appearance only added to her alluring strangeness. But catching the filly’s gaze once again he noticed that, if he peered deep enough, he could see that same sadness lurking far back in even her brilliant eyes.
Author's Note
This chapter isn't done yet, thought I'd stop for the night because it's 8 am.
Buuut yeah, I'm really not too sure how far I'm going to with this fic, I don't want to give too much away before the webcomic comes out, because there are some preeeetty juicey surprises awaiting in this little story.
