"Our [trump cards], we thought to be infallible; ponies and creatures that represented the ideals of our great nation, that represented loyalty, kindness, generosity, laughter and honesty. However, due to past events, we have decided that such a thing as infallible good in any creature is a lie. That such an idea is naive, foolish and catastrophic to believe in."—Preamble of the Aurora Concordat, Chancellor of the Equestrian Council
Three mares.
The wind beat against their shadowed coats, fumes of black mist wafting off of them. Ducking down, the cloud layer fading away, they saw them, the Sister's Towers in the distance, touching the clouds over the Tartarus Pit—and the towers saw them; energy arcing, thunder-cracks shaking at the mares' bones as the lighting from the towers coiled round and round and whipped right between the three. They veered out of its way, twisting their bodies nimbly around it, the lesser arcs licking after them.
As they neared closer to the towers, little specks known as unicorns could be seen on walkways around the towers, rising up the entirety of the structures. They started to wink, little distant lights streaking from them to the mares.
Boom! Boom! Boom! The streaks of light exploded as they shot toward the mares, faint bubbles shielding them as they curved their flights around the explosions. The middle sized one darted towards the pearly tower, ignoring the sparking bolts of energy burning at the bubble around her. Energy built around her horn before punching into the wall. Glowing purple fumes grew across the impact, purple sparks bursting from tiny cracks in the wall.
She slammed into the weakened wall, her hooves crumbling the marble until it gave. Her body cleared through the rubble and skid across the catwalk that spiraled up the tower around the white beam of energy. The smallest mare flew over her, landing briefly on the railing of the walkway. Bracing precariously on the rail as momentum caught up with her, she took flight, following up the beam.
The middle sized mare started after her, ignoring the unicorns yelling and blasting at them. She and the smallest mare landed on the highest catwalk. As thundering hoofsteps came from either side the middle sized one flicked her horn to both sides, putting the encroaching unicorns in temporal lock.
The tallest mare flew up and landed, and the three formed a triangle around the beam that poured out of the bottom of the sphere, and pillared into the sky through the glass dome overhead. Energy built around their horns, a shimmering purple layering over the middle sized mare’s horn, and the other two both had a light blue glow; small white lines curling out from the threes’ horn tips and weaving around the white sphere, which sat invariably in the air above them. The beam feathered away, the orb falling slightly in their magic.
Boom! The glass ceiling of the tower exploded, knocking the orb out of their magic and down the centre of the tower. The middle sized one dove after it, her and the orb neared closer and closer to the ground. She grabbed at it with her magic, but her regular telekinesis slipped off it like hooves on oil. The tips of her hooves nudged at it, just out of grasp, and she refocused her telekinetic grab to the air itself. Flapping her wings to ease her descent and condensing the air underneath the orb, despite the popping in her ears as the pressure changed, she slowed the orb down just enough for her hooves to slip around it.
Pop! She teleported, purple energy wavering in the air as she returned back to the top of the tower. She settled on the catwalk, near the other two mares, and released the orb; the smell of burnt coat filling the air as she shook the char off her forelegs.
Above them glistened a light blue dome, polygonal shapes giving it a multiple image effect. Venatores; Alicorn Hunters, unicorns suited in magical armour fitted with artificial wings. A group of five stood atop the magic shield the tallest and smallest mare held, with several others in the air above.
The three looked at each other for a moment, before the smallest touched her hooves to the orb; freezing cold crystal spreading out from her hooves, encasing the side of the sphere and her hooves. Crack! The other two touched hooves to her back, the threes’ horns glowing, Crack! as the thundering of anti-magic blasts ate away at the shield above them. Pop! Five suits of armour fell in, four landing on the catwalks and one tumbling down the tower centre. The trio had teleported away, the dome having disappeared as its creators left.
"Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell on this earth forevermore. Still, I walk beside the still waters and they restore my soul, but I can't walk on the path of the right because I'm wrong."—Shawn James
The strain of holding the shield faded. My forehooves were cold, numbing from the skin inward as the cold crystal encasing them slowly gave my legs frost burn. At least it kept them from being scorched by the near molten heat of the sphere. The floorboards of our bedroom sagged underhoof as the sphere slammed to the ground; a burning smell filled my nostrils. “The floor!” Mom yelled. I yelped; my rearhooves burned as I fumbled them backward, the orb charring and burning the rug it sat on as flames licked at my underside.
I panicked, my crystal encased forehooves holding me over the flaming floor like a marshmallow. “Grab the air, the orb is arcano-phased!” Aunt Twilight yelled. The air shimmered blues and purples; Twilight and Mom were lifting it off the floor as I tried to pull away, my rearhooves sliding towards the rug. I closed my eyes, pointing my horn at the freezing crystal surrounding my hooves and shooting destructive magic at it.
I fell on my back away from the sphere, crystal shards peppering my face and forelegs like shards of broken glass. I whimpered, everything I heard was being drowned out by a high pitch whine. I rolled over and dusted the shards of shattered crystal out of my eyes as I crawled away from the orb and the burnt floor. I felt cuts all over my legs, neck, and face, each one stinging painfully.
The whine lessened as I opened my eyes, red stains on my legs. I took short breaths, reality setting in slowly. “Flurry, help!” Twilight hissed; I looked up to her. Her horn glowed white-purple as the air around the orb shimmered brighter with the same colors. “It’s okay, it’s okay, I promise those cuts aren’t deep, I can fix them as soon as we handle this, but we need your help right now!”
I stared, my breathing slowing to just above normal rate. I swallowed and nodded. “What do I do?”
“Freeze it!” Mom said, panting lightly.
I licked my lips, tasting iron, feeling my magic flowing to my horn. I tried and grunted, my magic faltering. I didn’t have enough magic to cover it entirely with chilled crystal, but ordinary ice… I tried pulling in the moisture in the air, but the orb was glowing for a reason; it was very hot. I couldn’t chill the small amount of water around it fast enough to overcome the heat of the orb. “I–Uh–It’s too hot! I don’t–” I glanced to the door, “Keep holding it!” I galloped over and slammed through the door
I ran over to the sink in the kitchen, turned both faucets to full and attempted to grab the water in my magic, but it fell through the magic like it was a strainer. “Uhhhhhh…?!” I furrowed my brow, growling at it under my breath. “Why is holding water with magic so much harder than it looks?!”
I grabbed a pot from under the kitchen counter and dumped water into it. I considered it for a moment before sighing and just taking it in my magic and turning back, spilling it this way and that as I rushed back. “Here, here, um…” I winced, looking from the pot of water to the ceiling. I couldn’t exactly freeze it in the pot, I needed the water to be spread out in some way to freeze it into snow, which would be far easier to manipulate. But getting the water in the air without magic would be… messy. I glanced at the furniture and random notes scattered around the room.
Throwing it in the air would be best, but I don’t think I have the skill it would take to freeze all of it quickly enough. If it were on the ceiling it could rain down at a slightly slower pace at least, so I threw water up in the air, intentionally splashing it on the ceiling. I sent my magic at it, the water freezing into snow on contact with the faint blue haze. I grabbed the snow, spreading it around the orb until I couldn’t see it, and I compressed the snow, trying to send more and more magic to freeze it as the orb melted it. It steamed, towers of the white vapour pouring out and bubbling through the snow angrily.
I yelped, my focus waning as searing steam erupted from the surface of the snow burned my hooves and cheek. “I don’t think I got enough water..” I murmured, trying harder to keep it cold.
A stream of water arched through the air and splashed against the side of the orb. A purple haze guided it in loops around the orb, coating it evenly. Glancing back, Twilight was visibly straining. Her eyes squinted shut and her brow furrowed deep. Did I forget to turn the sink off? I thought a small thank you, freezing that water and adding the ice and snow to the rest as best as I could.
The steam calmed as I formed layer after forced layer of ice around it. I felt the spells fading in my head, my every thought softening to a foggy resemblance of itself. “I.. Can’t think... “ I murmured, closing my eyes, trying to shut out everything and think harder. It was freezing, but not fast enough. I felt I would faint before I could freeze it entirely.
Lightheadedness overtook me, what was I thinking? Why was I thinking it. I couldn’t breathe. I gasped for breath, breathing deeper, in and out. Where did all the air go?! I bent down, pressing my brow against the floor, it hurt. “Ahh!” I screamed. My horn burned, feeling as hot as the orb itself; pain throbbed from the center of my skull.
“Just a little more!” Twilight’s voice cut through the haze, it sounded strained and hurt. Pain throbbing my head at every syllable. I thought through the formulas of the spell again, pain pounding against the inside of my head, louder, harder. What in Tartarus was trying to get out?! I’ll let it out, give me the keys! Point me to the door!
All the complex maths wandered by my mind’s eye, dark and hazy—What was the cube root of 273.15?! How could I forget! I use it nigh constantly! What was happening to my head? Why wasn’t it working? “That’s enough!” What’s enough?
My magic waned and sputtered out, every last gasp of freeze-y thoughts stabbing me. Looking down, I saw myself. Oh wow, that looked like it hurt a lot... Mom trotted over and touched my head–Oh Sweet Celestia that hurt! I cried, curling away from it, but Mom held me close and the pain faded slightly. “Shhh… It’s okay… Empty your mind, sweetheart… Let the thoughts go away.”
“Let them fade out.”
I hummed to myself, saddlebags stuffed to the brim with baked goods and flowers—Daisies and daffodils, loaves of bread and muffins.
“At the Sisters’ Towers?”
My ear twitched, ponies chattering as I passed. Gossip, nothing more. I stopped at a newsstand, slipping the stallion a couple bits and taking a paper under my wing before continuing on my way.
“They did what?!”
I trotted around a crowd stuffing themselves into a nearby tavern, hushed tones of gossip around what was presumably the talk of the town. City. Whatever. Big difference.
“Only one left?”
Only one cookie left at home, I’d better get another bag on my way back.
“Will they be able to keep the cycle stable with only one of them?”
Passing by the pastry shop, a sign marked in bold red letters, ‘SALE’, sat in the window; I reassessed the severity of the cookie famine.
“Monsters!”
Pie won that assessment, pushing cookies to the side. While, granted, it wasn’t exactly on the list of goods I’d been tasked to get, cookies weren’t either and my aunt, mom and especially Gran might like the pie instead of the cookies. And like, it technically had bread and fruits in it, which sounded pretty healthy and I had extra bits so... Extra bread and fruits never hurt anypony, right? Daisies and daffodils, loaves of bread and muffins. And pie.
“Where were the Venatores?”
I rounded a turn, the shine off an armored suit in the distant crowd catching my eye. Almost home.
“Isn’t it their job to deal with them?”
I pushed through the door to the apartment building with my hoof and shuffled down the cramped hall.
I passed a unicorn stallion up in his years, sweeping the hall outside his apartment. I ventured a smile and a nod, which he returned as I passed him. I grabbed the key around my neck, unlocking the door marked, ‘161’, and pushed inside. “I’m home!” I called, pushing the door closed with a rearhoof and trotting into the kitchen. I dropped my saddle bags to the floor and stretched a bit, my spine popping loudly. I sighed as I started to put the food from my bags on the counter.
I felt a hoof touch my shoulder and glanced back. “Welcome home.” Auntie Velvet said, leaning past me as her sniffer sniffed around. “I smell something tasty and not at all on the list...” She hummed. “It smells delicious...” She felt around the cabinets with her magic as I giggled softly, gesturing to the pastries and baked goods cabinet.
She found the pie. “I thought we could all share it; was on sale,” I said as I glanced between her and the pie. “Thought Gran might like it too.”
Auntie nodded, “I’m sure she’ll love some after dinner.” She sat the pie back in the cabinet closing it up. “Which I haven’t exactly decided on yet, but we’ll get there, right?”
I gave her a queer look. “...Auntie, you probably have the week’s lunches and dinners planned out in a formal flowchart. I’d be surprised if the only thing you didn’t do was send it in for approval from the head chef over at The Lucky Stallion,” I deadpanned at her.
She paused briefly. “Well, I’m not the pony who nags at certain ponies for being prepared.” She murmured. “That would be your mother. So, I’ve been trying to be more spontaneous.” She sighed, a page slipping under the bedroom door and fluttering up in front of me. Her shorthoof was lost on me. I hadn’t gone through the trouble of memorizing the strange half letters yet, but the bold titles of the papers and subtitles said it all.
“You can’t write out a carefully devised plan for being spontaneous.” I said softly, squinting at the chart, managing to make out a few equations that made a bit of sense. “...Even if it would probably work.” I said, glancing back at her as she put the page away. I furrowed my brow. “Where is mom anyway?”
“Her and Gran are talking about some things in the bedroom.” She said with a gesture over to the door in the corner of the apartment. She glanced at the paper held to my side with a neutral expression. “Anything interesting?” she asked, turning and trotting over to the couch.
I shrugged, trotting over and sitting beside her. “Haven’t looked through it yet,” I mumbled, pulling it up and unfolding to the front page. I glanced over the titles of the articles, skimming closer on the interesting ones. “It’s fairly close to what we expected, and not really news,” I said and shrugged as I hoofed Auntie the paper. “Everypony in the market was gossiping about it. Anypony who left their house to pick up the milk has heard about it.” I sighed.
Auntie Velvet muttered something I couldn’t quite make out, her eyes scanning the paper intently. I heard a door open, and glanced over to see Mom trotting out of Gran’s room. “Hey, Mom.” I waved a bit.
Mom noticed me, pausing for a moment. “Mi Amore…” She said, and then sighed, trotting over to me. She rubbed her hoof across my mane. “Dinner?” She asked.
I smile and nod, “Yeah, dinner sounds nice.”
I sighed, resting my head on my pillow. Mom and Gran were sleeping across the room, Gran snoring softly. I heard Auntie Velvet shuffling about the living room, the scratchings of quill on paper seeping through the closed door. I rolled over, facing at the center of the room, specifically the faint dark circle where a now very distressed rug used to be. I blinked, my eyes growing heavy. I blinked again, Gran shifting across the room in her bed.
My eyes closed, I felt my limbs fall numb as I fell into an imaginary void. Thoughts faded, the scratching in the other room drifted away. I clenched my eyes closed as pain beat through my skull like a thumping heart. “Sweet heart...” I winced, curling in on myself and whimpering. The pain racking my skull felt distant, as my skull itself did, as my consciousness floated out of my body and along the currents of my thoughts. Somewhere I felt my back being caressed, and heard mom. “It’s okay… Don’t worry, I know it hurts…”
I shook my head, and felt the pain dulling as I jarringly slowly fell back into my body. Mom shushed me, holding me tighter. “Don’t worry honey. You’re going through a severe strain on your psyche from the magic fatigue. It’ll end soon...” I groaned, crying softly into my hooves as the pain moved from dull to piercing again.
“How is it? Stable?” Mom asked as I tried to tune her out. The act of using my ears to engage in the fine art of hearing made the pain spike like needles were tossed into my skull. I could feel imaginary needles dancing around my skull and turning my brain to pudding.
“Stable enough for now…” Auntie Twilight murmured, which was much less painful to my tender thinking apparatus. “We’ll need to wait for Flurry to get past the strain before we can open it and get her out… Who knows what will happen when we break the seal, we’ll need everypony in top condition.” Top condition? Me? In any reasonable time frame? That sounded like a fantasy. I felt like I was dying, from like… A brain tumor. That was on fire. And had a sword. A sharp sword made of more fire.
They faded, voices echoing into silence. “She’ll be ready soon, Twilight… Then we can fix everything.” Mom whispered, or at least I heard it in whispers. It was probably whispers.
“Soon enough for–” My eyes cracked open, the phantom pain fading. I sat up and looked over at the scorch marks on the floor.
A dream… Another dream of that day a week ago. I sniffed, rubbing at my eyes more, and glanced down to my hooves. Little faint pink cuts all over them, Auntie Twilight had healed them but… For some reason that didn’t seem to help as much as it should’ve.
“Amore?” I looked up, Mom was peaking in. “Good morning, Sweety… It’s time to get ready for school, okay?” I nodded and she closed the door to a crack. I shuddered, stuffing the dreams away; hiding the scorch marks on the floor from myself.
Rain patted down into puddles along the street; stalls were equipped with overhanging tarps to shield the goods from the weather. My coat was dampening slightly, but my innate pegasi magic kept me mostly dry. I slightly resented my large wings; forcing me to hide my horn instead of them. “Too large to reliably hide them,” Mom had said. “The level of concentration is too much to be worth the public use of magic with your current magical ability,” Aunt Twilight had said. As if! I could really do with some public use of magic to, say, keep the rain off me right now?
“Amore, over here!” I looked over and smiled, my three friends from school were waving me over. I trotted over, Amber tugging me under Caramel’s rain bubble. “How’ve you been since last weekend? We haven’t seen you in awhile.” She asked, glancing from me, to Caramel, then to Blueberry.
I looked away from them. “Just family stuff, Amber.”
Amber glanced over, tilting her head. “Family stuff, huh?”
“Oh, speaking of family stuff, oh my stars, my brother is such a jerk.” Caramel scoffed, “I caught him rooting through my things this morning and…” I tuned her out; my feeble immortal mind not prepared for yet another hour long rant about Caramel’s brother. I thanked her silently though, the relief of not having to elaborate on that was more than worth the small torture on the walk to school.
I glanced around, spotting Onyx and Marbles trotting a ways back from us. Either they were rightfully steering clear of Caramel’s neigh-saying, or they were hoping to snag a moment to themselves on the way to school. “Yeah,” I answered absently, the farthest back part of my mind having picked up on the fact I should agree.
“Oh I know.” I chuckled a little, I even gave her a little nod and a smile. Caramel kept goading us for responses and we gave her what she wanted. Blueberry hadn’t said much this morning, but he might be following the silence tactic of the Caramel Avoidance Guide. It had roughly a eighty-something percent chance of working, which was pretty good. “Totally.” But vacant responses were usually better for brother-related rants, since she’d poke and pester for ponies to agree or disagree on some matters.
Caramel nagged her absent brother all the way to the steps leading into our school, Greeter gave us a sympathetic look as we passed by him. I smiled back at him sheepishly, trying to silently apologize for her. “I know.” I murmured, glancing left and right to either side of the entrance.
“Looking for He-Who-Shan’t-Be-Named?” Amber murmured over at me. I flinched, looking over at her smug glance.
“No.” I glanced left, “...Just looking for… um…” I scratched my neck.
Amber giggled, “Thought so.” I blushed softly, staring at her. “Well… Don’t look now but…” She nodded back towards the entrance.
I snapped my head around as I caught sight of gold mane and tan coat. I heard muffled snickering and glared at the yellow-coated filly. “Shut up,” I growled at Amber, turning away from her.
“...that was my morning.” Caramel finished, and sighed. I could almost hear the smile in her voice, but I was too busy glaring angrily down the east hall to look. “Erm… Did I miss something?”
“Nothing important.” Blueberry piped up. “Besides the fact we’d better get to class.”
“Right.” I muttered, “Hope you girls have fun at magical theory while me and Blue here have to trudge through social studies.” I grumbled. Aunt Twilight was a great teacher, but she taught at way too high a level for me most of the time, and despite it being a subject I enjoyed, her teachings were often… frustrating at best.
“We will!” Amber sung, still snickering slightly. “Say hi to Gold for me, alright?” She whispered with a wink.
I sighed, trotting away quickly and snagging Blue with my wing to drag him along. “Oof… Stop pushing me!” I ignored him, shaking my head at Amber’s teasing. I know she was only playing, but it was aggravating with Gold being just down the hall. “I get that you’re mad, but I can walk just fine!”
I sighed, pulling my wing back. “Sorry…” I glanced back a little. ”Guess I let my temper get the better of me.”
“You don’t have to be so defensive about it, it only makes it more obvious how you really feel,” he murmured, “If you tried to play it cool, everypony else would be cool about it. But you make it fun for ponies to poke fun at you about it.”
I pushed through the door. “I can’t help but be defensive about it, Blue,”
“You could if you put your mind to it.” I heard him murmur.
I sighed, looking over at Gold’s desk. “Sorry about my emotions messing up your plan for my happiness.” I trotted to the other side of the room and sat in my seat, Blue sitting in the one beside me. “I could do a lot of things if I put my mind to it, but I left it in bed this morning.” I snorted, tugging my textbook from my saddlebags and sitting it on the table; ‘Modern Society’ embossed on the cover in gold with an eight point, two-toned star under the title. I leaned on the desk, rubbing my forehead—careful not to bump my invisible horn or move my mane in just the wrong way.
Blue laughed a little, “Well, you must do your homework in bed then, if your grades are anything to go by.” He sighed as Mrs. Pas trotted in, Gold not far behind her as he went to his seat. I glanced around the room, definitely not using this opportunity to steal a quick glance at him.
“Good morning, class.” Mrs. Pas said, sitting down slowly, her thin frame creaking quietly until she rested in her seat. “Please turn to chapter eight and we’ll get started with today’s lesson on the Aurora Concordat.”
”Deep cover is not a place, it’s a state of mind. To have your heart go incognito and hide away for awhile.”—Man Man
