Flame Wing was settled under a tree. Everglow was not a safe place, especially for a lone flutter pony, but his abilities afforded him some amount of safety. Flicking his wings, he turned just as the goblin came at him, the dirty and half-bent blade it carried coming in for his face.
The tree was suddenly on fire, the goblin too as the oracle grunted at the pain of the blade. But his wound closed, his wings seemed to flow like flame as they reformed into those of a bat. His form swelled and where before a dull-brown colored flutter had stood, now a creature right out of a pony nightmare stared at the rest of the small band of goblins.
He flicked those wings out, fire rushing down their lengths as he began to intone a spell. The curve of his lips spoke volumes about how much he enjoyed evoking fire.
Just as the fireball formed, one hoof raised to aim it and it streaked forward.
But darkness welled up around him, even his own wings didn't push it back.
Where do you want to be?
He laughed at it, trying to cast a burning jet of flame into the air. It didn't work.
The words hovered before the stallion and he tilted his head at it. "Where would I like to be? Anywhere else. All those I came to care for have passed from here, all I bear now is Her will."
You may bring one thing with you.
He looked at his things, he was still wearing all he owned. "Do I not get my equipment?"
You may keep everything you are carrying, do you not own anything else?
Flame laughed and shook his head, wings ruffling at his back where the burning, bat-like extensions smouldered against his flesh. "If I get all my things, then I am ready for what the fate…"
There was a twist, the entire universe seeming to interrupt his words as suddenly he was in bright sunshine, in the middle of what seemed to be a very brightly colored village. It reminded him of where he had lived, but the ponies here were odd. Even as they approached him, he picked out dozens of little things that set them as being wrong. He let go of his grip on his bestial nature. "… wills…" He finished what he was saying and closed his mouth.
The ponies were all about his size now, at least. The one thing he had bid his goddess to never ask him to do, was to harm his kin. "Um, hello? Uh, are you a breezie?"
He turned to see a yellow pegasi mare, pink mane and tail, naked, addressing him. "Breezie? I am a flutter, where am I?"
She looked a little more worried when he admitted not being what she thought. "You… you are in Ponyville." He wasn't quite sure why but he liked her, her nature just screamed at him of timid, but she had braved a very strange thing indeed to step up and…
"I thought I felt another human!" Another mare winged down. Flame Wing immediately gave a gentle bow. "You're not human." It was like an accusation.
"Of course I am not, I am Flame Wing, servant to the Night Mare and…" He trailed off his words as several of the ponies around had the giggles. Something was very wrong, in all of Everglow, none would react like this in front of a worshiper of Her. "I want to know the meaning of this immediately. I wish no harm upon you, but I insist you do not besmirch my goddess' name."
"Twilight. Princess Twilight Sparkles." The name clearly should have meant something to him, by the way she spoke it. "Welcome to Ponyville. Where are you from?" She gestured with a wing toward a nearby castle that looked, well, made of magic. 'Sorcerer,' he thought, 'for sure.'
"From Everglow. Why did they laugh at my mention of the Night Mare?" He stepped along with her, letting her stand a little ahead.
"That is complicated, it sounds like your world could be quite similar to ours… hold on, you knew what humans were?"
"Tall, furless, clever fingers and annoying habits?" Flame Wing tilted an eye toward her, noticing her slight blush of embarrassment at the last. She nodded. "We have those, they don't live nearby."
"You have magic?" He thought it sounded rehearsed and stepped forward a little to see she had a list out, quill held in her magic too, reading down and writing his responses.
"Magic, yes. Gods, yes. Technology? Some worked with the dwarves to make a train, some also use guns and things."
Twilight startled at him, her quill quickly working as she sorted through the answers. "Oh, here, so since you know of magic, does it work here?"
The stallion grinned wide and lifted a hoof. A burning gout of flame shot nearly twenty feet into the air, but didn't so much as a single hair on either of them.
"That's a check." Twilight looked a little surprised, this was strange and destructive magic. "Are you… are you a nice pony?"
"I have done bad things. I have been a scourge to a race that still lives in fear that I will return to their lands. But I have never harmed a pony, my goddess asked much of me, asked me to bend my nature almost to the breaking point. But that I would never do." She had backed a little away from him, but stopped at his promise. "My goddess didn't send me here, you have no fear of my darker side. But please, I would ask no one try to harm me."
She nodded at this, the ache to examine a whole new species waring with caution. For Twilight, of course, that was a battle all too one sided. "No one with hurt you, not while you are good." She began to trot toward her castle.
"Also, I ask one thing. Do you have a dungeon?" His words startled Twilight again and she turned. "I… have bad nights. I am not sure if tonight will be one, your world has odd changes, so it would be safer if you could lock me up."
"Will you be dangerous?" Her instinct to examine and study had left Twilight, more important things having come to the fore.
Lowering his head and giving a sigh, the stallion gave a nod. "I will be, if I change."
Twilight looked up, spotting the sun as near to evening as Luna should be waking to begin her duties. "Then lets move. Thank you for telling me."
No more words were exchanged as the alicorn mare led the way first into the castle, then down spiral stairs to what was her laboratory. There was a side door, half hidden behind some cabinets. She worked down there to where a barred cell sat. She had needed to keep some odd creatures in here, thankfully it was empty. "In here."
Flame wing first shucked out of his things, setting down all his precious and likely, in this world, priceless equipment. "I warn you now, some items I carry are very dangerous, please don't handle them before morning."
She nodded solemnly, her curiosity burning clear as day. She locked her new friend up and made sure the door was secure. Pulling over a couch, Twilight settled on it. "While you are still with me, want to continue my list?"
"I have nothing else to do. Fire away."
She asked questions, mostly about he himself, all mundane. But eventually she had to just ask it outright. "What are you so afraid of at night? Do you turn into some kind of bat or something?"
Twilight had said it as a joke, of course it was a joke. He was silent.
"Flame?"
"Yes, a bat. A very large bat. I can mostly control it, but when the full moon calls my beast answers and… I don't want it to answer."
She heard the pain, the struggle in his voice. "It is past full dark, do you think it is safe?"
The answer was swift coming, fangs, claws, a heavy body, all smashing against the heavy door.
Twilight screamed, she hadn't even heard the creature take over him, one minute Flame Wing had been chatting to her, the next the creature his body had become was doing everything it could to get to her and… she was sure it would hurt her.
So she sat, she heard when the creature subsided in it's attacks, panting and giving the most awful of screeches. A burning heat radiated from inside the room, the reinforced wooden door blistering on the inside but it seemed Flame Wing couldn't sustain that for too long.
"Princess Sparkle?" Twilight was jolted from her sleep by the sound of the stallion calling to her. "Please, the night is over, I am safe to come out."
She rose up, her back feeling sore where she had been laying on it wrong. "Are you sure?" Her voice was a little shaky.
"I am, I also have some questions for you I…" She unbolted the door, throwing it open to reveal he looked just like he had when going in. "Thank you. I need to ask this, who is Luna and why does she stand where my lady, the Night Mare, used to?"
"You are asking a question with a long answer. In short, Nightmare Moon was a darker, corrupted side of Luna, in our realm." He sat down, snout open. Her words had shaken him badly. "She… it was me and my friends who freed her of the influence."
"She… but… her influence is gone from me…" Flame seemed both joyous and at a loss. He had worked so hard to be the right wing of the night. He had done so much in her name that to have it all wiped clean, to be told he no longer needed to serve, to be strong…
Twilight watched as he slid down to his belly, Flame Wing crying tears that seemed unable to stop. What was unclear, probably to both of them, was if they were tears of joy or loss.
He took some time to regain his faculties, Twilight left him to recover and excused herself to fetch food.
Flame Wing, cheeks still wet with the tears, gathered his things. All the weapons of magical destruction, his armor, it all seemed silly to him to have. But he took it all up anyway. There was something about Twilight that he seemed to just know would cause her to poke things until they broke. And wands were not good things to break.
Climbing the stairs out of the dungeons, he could smell something cooking. Half closing his eyes, the flutter made his way to the source and located the castle's kitchen. "Almost done!" Twilight called and, sure enough, a moment later she trotted out with two big bowls of oat porridge. "Still warm!"
His belly rumbled, after the bat took him, Flame Wing was always hungry. He looked up into her deep purple eyes. "Thank you, you had no reason to take me in, but you did."
The mare just smiled at him. "It's what friends are for!"
Sounds devolved into two hungry ponies eating breakfast. He finished first, his hunger driving him to gulp the food down, but he sat and waited for Twilight to be done as well.
"So." The alicorn tilted her head to him. "You said Luna has taken your goddess' place? What does that mean?"
He almost startled out of place. "Oh, I… my goddess defines my nature, breathes power into my magic, is the force that leads me, is the will that binds me." He gave a little shrug.
"Luna is a nice princess." Twilight said, misunderstanding a fair bit of his statement. "She is a touch old fashioned, but she was imprisoned for a thousand years. Hay, we should get you to meet her."
Flame Wing couldn't hold back his surprise. His body trembled and grew, great dark bat wings spreading, fangs pointing just clear of his lips. Twilight was stunned, worried that he would revert to the monster from the previous night.
Instead, the stallion folded his wings back down, ruffling them. "Well, uh… we can visit her? She lives… here?" He seemed to struggle with something , grunting a little and twisting in place.
"Silly, not here. She lives in Canterlot. We could fly there if you feel up to it." Her words just prompted his wings to flare up again. Twilight couldn't help but giggle at his state of almost constant surprise.
"Okay, no joking to me, please. But you say a goddess lives on this plane, among you?"
"Well, her and her sister. Luna takes care of the moon and Celestia the sun." Twilight warmed to the topic. "Each day they have to raise and lower the sun and moon, keeping the world in balance and… Flame Wing? Flame Wing? Oh dear…"
The stallion had lost the last grip to his faculties and passed out on the frilly little couch cushion at the table.
Author's Note
Whoa, where did this come from? A strange creature from a strange land with strange problems.
I did say I had planned to write some more things at odd times. This will be one of them.
Incidentally, this character was how David first realized that templates, all of them, are broken.
http://users.on.net/~damageinc/Flame%20Wing.pdf
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