Chapters Prologue - Lukas Spiritfeather
As I walked through the crowded streets of Björn, a small but populated village towards the borders of Norhay. Hrókr, his faithful companion, and friend shrieked in rage and flapped at the cage he was held in. Four large adult ponies had trapped me in ropes, as well as carrying Hrókr. As we were walked up to a stage that was prepared for my exile, I saw the disgust and hate in the eyes of many of the ponies in the crowd as I was roughly tossed onto the stage, and my wings were spread out. As I lay on the cold and snowy platform, I heard ponies start muttering amongst themselves about me. I couldn't help but overhear what they were saying. I was like they *wanted me to hear what they were saying.*
"Hey, there's the freaky pony with wings"
"How did he even get into the village anyway?"
"I don't know or care. I also heard that they were removing some of his feathers from those wings of his anyway."
"How are they going to do it?"
"I don't know, but here comes Torvald"
The ponies gathered fell into a sudden deafening silence, as the leader of the village, Torvald approached me. Torvald was a large white unicorn, with a pale blue mane and lion's tail, with darker blue highlights. As Torvald approached me on the platform, I shuddered, knowing what would happen next. It had happened to many other pegasus ponies before me, and I had seen it happen many times when I was much younger. * " Lukas Spiritfeather"** Torvald thundered*
" You are hereby exiled from this village for giving unwanted knowledge to the foals of this village and the ones around it"
"B-but-" I stammered, only to be cut off
**"As proof of your exile, your wings will be clipped and you will be banished from this village" * Torvald thundered, but with a look of sorrow in his eyes. Before I could say anything, I felt feathers being torn away from my wing, which elicited a painful scream from my throat as my secondary feathers were forcefully removed from my wings. Most ponies in the crowd jeered and laughed at my pain, and Hrókr screeched in fury at my tormentors but was helpless as he was caged. Some of the ponies who didn't were Elin, my little sister. I could just about see her through my haze of pain. Another pony who didn't laugh at me was Torvald. Some of the ponies gathered must've asked themselves why. I knew, as did the rest of my family. Just before the pain enveloped me, I heard him whisper* "Forgive me, My son..."
(1 Year later- The Badlands)
I screamed at the nightmarish memory that I re-lived almost daily as it plagued my sleeping mind. As I got my breath back and ate some of the meat that I had for breakfast when my companion Hrókr, approached from the skies with a letter. He cawed at me as he held out the letter. Cautiously, I took the letter and started reading it. As I read it, I could feel my eyes widen in surprise. "Really?" I muttered to myself before looking over to Hrókr before saying to him
"Come on Hrókr, we're leaving this place," I said to my companion as I showed him the letter, which was a map of the place I was in, and the areas around it. According to the map, I was in a place called the Badlands.
As I looked around my cave-like home, I found my mind drifting back to when I had found a dragon corpse (recently died, and of natural causes) and had quickly said my prayers to Baldur for desecrating a corpse, before cutting it with one of its own teeth, and cutting up and using as much of it as I could. The parts of the dragon that I didn't use (nor did I want to ) I had buried in a marked grave. I had used the dragon's skin to make some saddlebags, using my old ones (that for some reason had been exiled with me) as a template. Hrókr's hoarse cries and tugging at my ear brought me back to reality, as I got started on packing what little belongings I had into my saddlebags, before heading towards the high cliffs of the badlands.
For hours I walked, sometimes hiding from shadows that passed overhead, only to realise that it was only Hrókr flying overhead. An anxiety I had from living in the badlands made me jumpy whenever a shadow flew overhead, as it was a constant reminder that some gryphons liked hunting in the badlands for some ponies that were either travelling or just extremely unfortunate ponies that somehow ended up in the Badlands like me. After walking for miles and hours, the sun started to set, and the moon rose to take its place in the sky. When I noticed this, I realised that I desperately needed to find somewhere to sleep for the night, or I would end up as gryphon food, and so would Hrókr. As the moon rose, I searched frantically for a place to sleep, finally spotting a small cave next to a glittering body of water. I galloped towards that small cave, in the hopes that it wasn't already occupied and I could sleep there. Thankfully, the cave had no other creatures living inside and Hrókr and I both started to settle for the night.
When I awoke, I felt sore all over and my muscles felt cramped. In response to this, I stretched every inch of my body to loosen my muscles so that I could feel everything properly, as well as eating some food that mostly consisted of dragon meat (the last of it) and some fish that I had managed to catch in the lake. I looked over to Hrókr to see that he had just started waking up as well, and had fluffed out all of his feathers and started to preen his wings. Following his example, I started preening mine before leaving the cave and walking towards the small lake that I had galloped past in my desperation to get to the cave. Peering into the watery depths, I could just about see my reflection, and it wasn't pretty. My dark navy-blue coat was stained slightly red by the dust in the badlands, the white diamond shape on my muzzle was barely visible under the dust, as well as there being some blood from the meat I had just eaten covering my lips. My sandy-coloured mane and tail that had two streaks of a grey-ish blue in it were now not only messy but also covered in the similar dust that now covered my body. My wings, however, seemed as though they had less of the reddish soil on them, despite them being larger than the wings of other pegasi I had seen in my village. Snorting at my appearance in the lake water, I decided to take a quick bathe in the water, to rid myself of the dust that covered my body. Just before I could, however, Hrókr appeared from the depths of the cave and dove into the lake with a joyous cry as he flicked the water over himself. At this action from my companion, I couldn't help but laugh as he looked ridiculous. In response to my laugh, he shot me a look that said 'you try doing it without looking ridiculous then.'
"Alright, challenge accepted" I smirked, thinking that I could do it better than him as I started copying him, flicking the water over myself with my wings, drenching myself most effectively, making me look like a drowned rat. I felt ridiculous and embarrassed at my mistake, and my embarrassment only increased as I heard short hoarse cries from my corvid companion.
"Yeah, yeah laugh it up..." I grumbled as I blushed a bright red after I realised that he was laughing at me in the same way that I had previously been laughing at him. Dragging myself clear of the water, I shook myself like a dog with the water flying off me in all directions as I effectively dried myself. Hrókr let out a hoarse cry as he flew upwards to escape the water flying off my coat as I shook myself dry. Hovering above me after I shook myself dry, Hrókr gave me a dirty look that just said 'I'll get you back for that.'
"I don't doubt that you will" I replied as I started to place my saddlebags back on myself, preparing to set off towards the cliffs, which were now much closer than before. At about midday, I had reached the cliffs after a few hours of galloping to make up for the lost time we had spent playing around in the lake. Looking at the high cliffs, and the mountain range that stood on the edge. I started hating myself for not being able to fly up and above the mountain range and the looming cliffs before me. As I stared at the cliffs, I looked for an easy path to climb up. After finding the path, I started to jump from ledge to ledge, looking for any hint that the ledge I was about to jump to wouldn't collapse underneath me.
Making my way up the cliffside, I had managed to reach the top of the cliff just as the sun had started to set. Glancing around for somewhere to sleep, I found an indent in the base of the mountain in front of me which wasn't quite a cave but was deep enough into the mountain to make me feel safe. As I made myself feel comfortable in the hollow, I found my eyes had started to close. Just before I fell asleep, I felt Hrókr land on my back and sort of curl up into my back, which made me smile sleepily before I drifted off into oblivion. As the sun rose in the morning, I felt myself jolt myself awake, covered in sweat as I re-lived another haunting memory of my time in the village. As I jolted, I heard a startled cry from Hrókr, who had nestled on my back.
"Sorry Hrókr, I just had a bad nightmare, that's all" I muttered to him as he looked at me in a concerned manner, almost as if he knew something was wrong, although he let it go, knowing that I wouldn't let him pursue it any more than that. Starting to leave as the sun rose, I looked at the mountain in front of me and started to climb upwards towards the snowy peak at the top of the mountain. By midday, I had managed to reach the top and started my descent down the other side. Unfortunately, at this point, I had almost no strength left to carry on, and just slid down the mountain on all four hooves with my wings spread in front to create air resistance in the hopes that it would slow me down. When I had reached the bottom in quick succession thanks to sliding down, my front hooves tripped and slid under my body, causing my head to slam into the ground, making me start to slide into unconsciousness as I heard the thundering of hooves nearby.
As I woke, the first thing I realised was that I wasn't outside anymore, and Hrókr wasn't there. The second thing I realised was that I was in a bed and that everything I could hear was covered by a large blanket, effectively muffling my hearing. My friend, Hrókr not being there for me doubled with my senses not working correctly made me panic slightly as I suddenly opened my eyes, only to just as quickly shut them at the bright light that glared at me. As my eyes got used to the light, I looked around and realised that I was in some kind of building. I guessed that it was a house or something similar due to the vague colours I could pick out. Looking around the room, I saw everything as being fuzzy but slowly getting clearer. Near the doorway of the room, though I could just make out a few coloured shapes. The shape closest to me, I guessed was a pony (going by the shape) with gold coloured fur and a slightly darker gold mane and tail. I couldn't quite make out the shape opposite the pony, other than it being a shade of brown with two white feathers on its head before feeling myself start to drift off into sleep, despite my efforts to not fall asleep, in my fear of the coming nightmares that had first started after I was exiled from my village in Norhay.
(Nightmare section)
I woke up screaming and thrashing, as tears ran down my face from the nightmare I had. During the small fit caused by my nightmare, I could just about hear the clopping of hooves over my yelling and a pony talking to me. Unfortunately, I didn't understand what they were trying to say and I was terrified of other ponies in that short time so I didn't really pay attention to the other pony. I was starting to get dizzy, probably because I was screaming, so I tried to get myself to calm down and think clearly by thinking 'It was only a nightmare'. After I had successfully calmed myself down, my eyes slowly came into full focus and I saw that there was a pony a few inches from my face. Startled by the sudden proximity, I slammed my head back on the bed before looking closely at the pony. From what I could tell, it was the same pony that I could vaguely see before I had fallen asleep, only now I could tell that the pony was male and that he was trying to talk to me, and had also backed away slightly. At this point, I realised that the reason I didn't understand was because I didn't speak the same language.
"I'm sorry but I don't understand you..." I started to say before noticing the look on his face "... judging by the way you're looking at me, you don't understand me either...". As I was about to try and solve the communication problem, before noticing that the pony had left the room, and my cutie mark had started glowing. I looked at the mark on my flank for a minute and tried to work out what it was doing before I realised that I could take the opportunity to look for Hrókr. So, I got off the bed I was on and started to look around the small room before heading over to the only window in the room to try and call Hrókr, just so I knew he was there. I had been given Hrókr as something to help me cope with my mom's death, so losing him scared me a lot, which is why I panicked when I couldn't feel or hear him close by. As I got close to the window, I saw that Hrókr was hovering close to the window. Just as I was about to reach out towards the window, I felt something touch my back, which made me jump halfway across the room and also making my wings and fur fluff out in fear and instinctually I pulled back my lips to reveal my canines, before realising that the same pony that had left before was now in the room with me.
"Ah'm sorry, did I startle ya?" He asked me
"yeah, just... don't do that again please...." I squeaked, before realising that I could understand him. He looked just as surprised as I before asking: "How did ya do that?"
"you mean.. me understanding you?"
"yeah"
"I.... don't know. This is the first time something like this has happened..."
"Well, what happened just before you could understand me?"
"....My cutie mark started glowing..?"
"Huh, never heard somethin' like that happenin' before. Maybe it would be best to ask somepony experienced in magic like that, like a unicorn..." He started muttering under his breath.
"Ummm... you know, I don't even know your name.." I started to say.
"Ah guess you're right... we can discuss this later right?"
I nodded in response. "Good. Well, Ah'm Braeburn. Who're you?"
"Lukas... and I'm 16...."
"Bit of an unusual name, ain't it?"
"...Really? It's a normal name where I come from..." I muttered
"Ah'm sorry?" Braeburn looked at me, and I knew he hadn't heard me from the look he gave me. "N-Nevermind I was just t-talking to myself" I whispered.
"you're talking too quietly, ah still can't hear ya," Braeburn said. At this, I squeaked and looked down at my hooves, like they had just appeared.