The Heir of Winter

Heir of Winter

Chapter 2

Magical Explosions are the Bomb!

I often find myself questioning a lot of things that have happened in my life; like falling off the top of an eight foot slide when I was just four years old and landing on my head onto solid cracked ground without very much of a scratch to show for it. Or maybe there’s just the strange case of myself not remembering a single thing behind that age. I had often wanted to call myself a mild amnesiac, being when the first thing I ever remember was a dream.

This dream was, for the better part, strange in every essence of the word. I was sitting on a small platform in the middle of four seemingly endless holes in the ground leading into nothingness. In the middle of this platform was a ladder going up into a great and unending light, around that ladder hovering in one of the holes was another platform with some kind of person playing on it by jumping up and down. I wanted to play as well so I looked around the holes for something to amuse myself with, eventually ending my search at the far back left hole at a box filled with toys.

That was my mistake as I ended up falling over the box and into the abyss of the hole; strange how I don’t recall myself screaming about it, though I do recall seeing a seemingly unending amount of open and closed doors on the side as I fell down deeper leading to many places I could only wonder about. Eventually, the hole ended with nothing other than spikes at the end with me crashing down right into them. That woke me up with a startle, myself now looking outside of my room's door to see this strange faceless red blob looking at me. One blink later and it was gone, myself falling right back into a dreamless sleep.

The few days after had been even stranger for me as I didn’t even remember my own name or anybody in my family. The entire world was new to me, as if it had been my first time seeing it.

My mind stirred as I slowly awoke from the sleep I had on the book I was planning on reading. It took me a few moments to recall where I was.

Equestria, inside Princess Twilight's library. I lifted my head off the book, now noticing that I had been covered in a blanket after I had elected to sleep after reading for most of last morning. I took a moment to look around the room and found Twilight had also fallen asleep on a large pile of books, that gave me a slight chuckle. A look outside a window I had only just noticed showed it was still rather early in the morning, the sun just barely now starting to peek over the great mountains in the distance.

A loud snort followed by a long and drawn out, “But Celi, I wana read it.” made me fall over laughing on the floor. “Gah!” Explained one book pony Twilight whom had been startled awake by my laughter, herself having fallen over onto her back with a book landing squarely on her face. Neither of us had seen the Pegasus that had fallen off her own sleeping cloud in laughter as well.

I couldn’t help but snicker for the next few minutes while Twilight had excused herself to one of the many castle bathrooms. I occupied my time by opening up the last book on my list, ‘The Legend Of The First Alicorn’. The first thing I noticed upon opening was a note that had been left inside it addressed to Twilight.

My dear Twilight,

If you are reading this now then there is many things that I, as an Alicorn, need to explain a many detail as to how such a transformation occurred to you. But first I must let you know something of a worldly secret, something that you should tell nopony else other than the other Elements, is the fact that there’s quite a many more Alicorn than just myself, you, Luna and Cadence. In fact I would be willing to estimate that there’s well over a hundred of our kind scattered across our planet of Equis.

As you already know, I myself am directly connected to the sun while Luna and Cadence are connected to the Moon and the emotion of Love respectively. While I, unfortunately, can only guess that your friends will eventually become Alicorn as well because of their close ties to you and the Elements of Harmony I can say that other Alicorn hold close to other aspects, such as the seasons themselves.

The pegasi may make the weather now days but Equis made the seasons well enough on its own back in my time before I became Alicorn with Luna.

I have not in fact seen these other Alicorns myself aside for my own mother, Faust, for over the one thousand two hundred fifteen years I’ve lived and ruled over Equestria; that is aside Luna, Cadence and yourself. Such a thing worries me greatly as Tirek is not the only being that can steal away an Alicorns magic from them. Though limited in my knowledge of the areas of Equis that have yet to be uncovered and of the world on the other side of the mirror portal, Equis itself is roughly twelve times larger than Equis G as you may know already from your own studies.

Regardless, my dear friend and student, ever since Tirek escaped Tartarus I’ve had this unnerving feeling that his kind of work was far from over.

I would like to speak with you as soon as possible after you’re finished reading this book over as well, there’s many a more thing that I need to fill you in on that paper can not hold value.

Yours truly

Celestia

P.S: Please bring some of Sugar Cube Corners apple cinnamon cookies with you, you know how much I love them.

P.P.S: Also please do burn this note after you’re finished with it.

I closed the book immediately. Twilight was more right about not letting others read that then she realized. It could have been that she simply hadn’t read or opened the book yet for some reason, though I could also assume that she simply thought she wasn’t ready to read something so important yet.

Much to my own luck Twilight came back with two sets of pancakes and drinks soon after, “Figured you wouldn’t say no to breakfast.” she stated, no sooner then that we both helped ourselves to an amazing set of pancakes that had been made courtesy one of Spike the Dragon. Breakfast now finished I told Twilight that I had second thoughts about the book and pushed it back to her, stating that it would be better if she read it first if it was something that important. Funny enough she stated that she had been putting it off for almost a full year now as Celestia had sent a ‘second’ note with it stating to read it in her own time or when she felt she was ready.

I asked her why she hadn’t read it yet.

“I know it’s been a long time since the Princesses gave it to me but with how much I’ve had to go through after becoming a Princess as well as the cleanup from Tireks disaster I suppose it’s simply sat on the bottom of my list of things to do. There’s a lot more to being a Princess of Friendship and Magic then just giving out lessons.” She lamented, her face scrunching slightly as if remembering a bad memory. “Though, on that note, I haven't had quite as much to do as I usually do being the Cutie Mark Map hasn’t sent any of me or my friends on a mission in quite a while for some reason.”

“A Cutie Mark Map?” I asked, it was my first time hearing about it. Though as luck would have it as soon as I mentioned it Twilights Cutie Mark of a five point star began to glow and pulse fiercely. Twilight jumped up and flew out the door before I could even ask what was going on, I promptly followed her as fast as my legs would let me while carrying the book in my mouth.

We both arrived in a large room with six throne like chairs and a table sitting in the middle, said table showing six floating Cutie Marks hovering around what looked to be the capital of Equestria. Canterlot. I made a mental note to read almanacs more often. No sooner than my arrival, five other mares soon came into the room.

One extremely pink earth pony mare with a trio of balloons for a mark. Her mane and tail looked like she had stuck a knife into an electrical socket. The mare gave me a wink on her way into the room. “Possible party goer, more than likely on too much sugar.” I thought. Taking a mental note to talk to her later if I got the chance. She was more then likely a pony that knew her way around better than anyone else, or at least that’s what I figured at a first glance.

The next was an earth pony mare who had an orange body with sandy mane and apples for a mark, she sported a sexton hat and looked like she had been in the middle of a hard day's work. “Possible farmer.” Was put down for her. I couldn’t think of anything else.

A yellow bodied and pink maned Pegasus mare with butterflies for a mark walked in slowly behind the others; I found her to be pleasing to look at though I figured it rude to stare.

A marshmallow colored Unicorn mare with a finely curled purple mane and a trio of diamonds for a mark. “High class maybe?” I figured. She could very well be somepony of importance. More than likely wealthy.

The last was a cyan bodied Pegasus mare who had used a window to let herself inside. Her mane looked akin to a gay pride flag with a rainbow lightning bolt for a mark, she looked like somepony who wanted to stand out or at the very least be noticed by others. “Strange for so many different classes of pony to be walking in.” I thought, wondering what could bring such a mismatched number of ponies together out of seemingly nowhere.

Spike also followed into the room holding a scroll of parchment. “Twilight what’s going on?” He asked in bewilderment.

“I don’t know Spike, but that letter may shed some light on it.” She said while floating the letter out of spikes grasp and over to her, opening it up. She already looked both worried and confused.

“Well Twi? What's it say?” said one apple pony in question.

“Bring the book and your friends Twilight, it’s time we discussed its contents. P.S: Bring the cookies.” Twilight stated aloud. I had a feeling I knew what book it was talking about as I elected to place the book I brought with me on the table in front of her.

“More than likely this book.” I said aloud. Twilight looked at me in wonder.

“Well, I guess that would be around the right choice in books wouldn’t it.” Said Twilight, picking the book up in her magic.

I didn’t get to stick around to listen to them for all that long, Twilight stating that the contents of the book were more than likely not for common pony eyes after all. I simply agreed and left the castle without so much as bothering to say that I had read the note on the inside, figuring it would only get me into trouble if I did. It was easy to tell what Celestia or Luna more than likely wanted to speak to the elements about.

One short trek back to Cheerilees house I invited myself inside to see hear her upstairs, more than likely working on grading homework. For now I focused on what the note said as I sat myself down in her living room. Equis was a massive super planet alright, with much more to show for it then earth did. Magic was in the very air, animals that I never even heard of lived everywhere imaginable, food tasted much better here as well. I wouldn’t be too surprised if magic was in the food as well. Alicorns governed their aspects much as the gods of Olympus did in Earthen Mythology, I wouldn’t be too surprised to hear that some had children though one could only guess what race the child would be born into when the parent has three major qualities of the different pony races.

My brain already hurt enough from all the extra info so I went to something different. Attempting to figure out how unicorn magic worked, as something Twilight said to me set a large bit of a warning about it and my own last night, “It’s rather rare for a Unicorn of your age to not be able to use magic yet and a lot of other Unicorns aside myself would be rather judgmental on you for it, though from what you’ve told me I can understand why you don’t have it working. Either way I would work on trying to get your horn working for starters. Though a word of fair warning, a Unicorn's magic is like a muscle and a cork all in one.

“The cork keeping it from spilling out is the horn while the muscle is your experience in using it. Mana is magic essence and that magic essence tends to build up over time when a Unicorn isn’t using it. As such, when you do try to get your horn working I suggest a safe out of the way place for it as you’ve more than likely got an immense amount of magical buildup from not using it for so long. A few miles from civilization should do. On that note there’s a place up north where I fought Tirek at that would work well for you should you try to get it working.” Stated Twilight as I had been reading the book on magic she had given me to read last morning.

Not wanting to wait around much longer I let Cheerilee know I was heading out.

She gave me a strange look on my way out, I tried not to question it.

Twilight wasn’t joking around about it being a few miles away. On the bright side it didn’t seem like my new legs minded the long walk one bit. Upon reaching the area Twilight mentioned the first thing I noticed was how wreaked up the place was. Massive craters littered the ground, half a mountain laid in waste from being torn down the middle and a giant scar laid in the ground looked like it went on for miles. The place was a wreak sure enough but it would do just fine.

“Now then, how do I even go on about doing this?” I asked myself aloud while looking up at my horn, prodding at it with a hoof and sitting myself down on the cool stone underneath. I wasn’t too sure how much pent up magic this body could have had if I only had been in it for a day. The book I read really wasn’t helpful to me as it seemed more like a spell book for already practiced mages; I was going to have to go with my gut. I had some understanding of magical energy from reading books back home, old books and adventure stories mostly, though in actual usage I had no idea what I needed to do. I tried to feel out where the energy in my body laid dormant, not really noticing anything for the most part until I felt a slight twinge of pain at the base of my horn.

Not thinking of anywhere else a possible magical energy could be, I focused on where I felt the twinge at and tried to push it outwards.

That resulting focus hit me like a truck going warp ten through a wormhole as my horn flared up on its own in a massive blue and white light. I felt the energy inside it and panicked, It feeling like a giant water balloon tanker that had been filled with nitroglycerine. All I could do was push on it and try to get the pressure out, though the pressure only became that more immense as whatever backlog of magic I had was now working it’s way to the surface. Causing me to break out into a cold sweat.

Funny thing about nitro is that it likes to explode.

That's exactly what my world did as whatever pressure in my horn and magic could take no more and exploded outwards from every pore of my body. I couldn’t even feel the ground anymore as everything in my vision went white washed, the energy inside feeling almost endless as it poured out from my body in a massive explosion that would be felt for hundreds of miles.

-Canterlot Castle - Celestias' Bedroom-

Celestia had been meaning to talk to Twilight and her friends about that book for a long time now, she had been putting it off until she felt they had been ready but now she couldn’t wait any longer then she already had. She knew the weight of the book more than anypony else aside her sister and niece. She sighed deeply as she rested her head on her balcony, looking far out in the distance at nothing in particular as she had just sent word to her student to bring the book as well as her friends with her to Canterlot.

She was just about to head back indoors to the Hall of Memories when she felt the world around her shake, causing her to fall over onto the ground having lost her balance. “An earthquake?” She thought to herself, not having experienced one in over a hundred years. Only now did she see the bright white light shining in the distance.

She had almost thought that the sun had fallen from the sky just from the light's intensity, though she knew better. Thankfully for her the light died down, as did the shaking. Giving her time to get back up and collect herself, only for a massive snowball to smack directly into her face causing her to backflip back onto the ground from the force.

Celestia was a tough mare but that took her entirely by surprise, not only did said projectile catch her off guard but it also got past her magical wards. She had no idea what to think of such a thing. “Well then, it seems I have more to do today then I had planned.” she blinked, wiping the snow off her face.

My head hurt, a lot. I was sure I was knocked out from the explosion my magic caused, It was still in the earlier of the morning so I didn’t think I was out for very long. I rubbed my aching head and looked around the surrounding area. The entire area was covered in snow, along with the crater I was now lying in. I could have sworn that there had been a mountain nearby but as far as I could tell the only things around now was just me, the snow and the crater I was in. “Did I just level a mountain?” I asked myself aloud, only now noticing that I was entirely covered in snow.

I brushed myself off and looked back up at my horn, glad it was still there and not damaged, I would rather not find out how long it took for a horn to grow back just after having got here. I experimentally pushed energy into my horn a second time, noticing that it felt much easier now. In fact it felt cool, as if a smooth winter breeze was flowing through it with no pressure on it at all. A white aura flowed freely around it. “Magical backlog is no joke!” I laughed out at the ridiculousness of what just had happened while making my way back to Ponyville, not noticing the new Cutie Mark I had just gained.

By the time I got back to Ponyville I noticed a lot of panicking ponies running around. That was pretty much my fault all things considered. “My fault everypony, magical buildup explosion!” I yelled out, every single pony stopped at once and looked at me for a moment or two before going on about their business. I internally shrugged at the fact they got over it so quickly. Maybe that kind of thing was just normal for unicorns? Who knows, but I wasn’t going to worry about any longer, as far as I knew, I had my horn under control now.

Knowing full well that I was going to need money eventually I looked around Ponyville until I ran into the town hall, I was thankful to see a job board sitting just outside the main door to the building. Though I found it odd that not many ponies gave it as much as a glance and those that did seemed to be clad in armor or carrying weaponry.

Walking up to it, I gave the board a once over. The quickest thing I noticed was that it seemed to be a board pertaining to adventuring, exploring the far lands or slaying monsters that had been deemed too dangerous to relocate. “There’s an adventurer's guild here?” I asked aloud to nopony in particular.

“Eeyup.” said one deep and masculine voice that made my tail twitch on instinct. I turned around to see one red bodied, orange maned, largely framed and muscular stallion that had somehow managed to sneak up behind me without so much as making a sound. Some part of me couldn’t help but look underneath their large frame. She was hung like a freight train carrying redwood trees, such a thing would tear a mare in half. I could feel my face turning red just from the sheer girth of the thing. It wasn’t even erect!

The stallion didn’t seem to notice my peeking and continued, “Adventurers guild got made about a month after Tirek came to town, all sorts of creatures got riled up an’ ponies had to step up to keep them in check or get eaten ourselves. Or worse.”

While I did hear what he stated about the guild, I had already left him long behind. Running myself all the way back to Cheerilees house, plunging myself in the couch, thrusting my head into a pillow and repeating the words,” Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope.” over and over for the next half hour.

A part of me found humor in the fact I was acting embarrassed about seeing a giant cock when I had had one to begin with, but the other part of me said I was a girl now through and through and getting a massive dick shoved up your snatch was an ok thing.

Back when I was human and male I always liked to call myself a lesbian, though more often than not I found that wasn’t entirely the case when it came to porn, being I always imagined myself in the girl's position. Regardless of that fact, something I told myself ever since I was just a kid is that I would have been better off being born as a girl.

I never bothered telling my parents about those feelings, knowing full well their thoughts on the transgender community. Religion made that problem for me just that more prevalent. It makes it hard to be able to say anything in your family when both your parents, your sister and even your relatives are all Christians. Such a thing would make a person bitter; and it did.

I’m more than sure it’s my family and the world around me that made me as bitter of a person as I was. I had a lot of anger problems growing up and even more problems being bullied in school all the way up to twelfth grade. However, I did grow out of my anger problems in that same twelfth year of school; even though I have no idea why. Every hard feeling I had toward the world suddenly disappeared as I suddenly found I just didn’t care about anything anymore, as if my very soul had flat lined out of pity for my well being.

Though to say I didn’t have feelings anymore would be a stretch. I do have them, it’s just a lot harder for them to come out any more. But when they do it’s nothing but a waterfall right off the bat.

Regardless, It took a while to calm myself down. Frankly I have no idea why I acted the way I did, though staying inside forever and not getting things done wasn’t so much as an option as it was back home. I liked the idea of joining the Adventurers guild, it would let me explore the world and hopefully land me some cash on the side. Though I still had a ways so go before I would have enough experience to protect myself if need be, “As that big guy said; the wildlife got randy. If they wanted they could tear me in half and then some.” I said aloud, reaffirming my situation.

“Aren't you a bit young to be worrying about things like that?.” Cheerilee said, coming down the stairs from the second floor; it seemed she had finished grading her school's work for the day.

“You know, you did write down that you forgot to ask my age.” I stated. Pointing over to the note that still laid on the table.

“And I’ll forget to again apparently.” She sighed, brushing her frizzled mane out of her eyes while moving herself over to the refrigerator. “I suppose I’ll ask now.” She said, taking out a bottle from the fridges bottom shelf then sitting herself on a chair next to the couch I had been laying on. “How old?” She asked, pulling the cork off the bottle with her teeth.

“Twenty four.” I stated, expecting the same response I had gotten from Twilight.

Cheerilee raised an eyebrow at me, looking me over for a few moments. “Can’t say I’m surprised.” She said, downing a fair part of the bottles contents.

“What?” I said aloud. That was certainly the farthest response I was expecting to hear.

“I noticed you had gotten a bit taller when I last saw you. I put it off as me just being sleepy from working all night.” She yawned out, “Not many ponies take notice of it but there comes a time in a pony's life that they grow like a weed. Usually around the same time or after they get their cutie mark.” She raised an eyebrow at me, looking me over again. “Like it seems you had gotten while you were out.”

“I did?” I asked aloud, looking back at my flank to see a mark of a snow pony minus the carrot nose surrounded by blizzard of snowflakes. “So I did.” I stated, not really taking it in. “Must have happened when I got my magic working earlier today.” I added.

“So that explosion was you then?” Cheerilee asked, I nodded to her in affirmation.

“That took a while to clean up you know. May’s well of been an early winter wrap up from all the extra snow we had to clear. Gave the workers at the weather factory a good scare too; thinking Rainbow Dash had broken the Winter Machine again.” She said, giving me a short glare.

“Rainbow Dash?” I asked.

“Yeah, Rainbow Dash. Second in command of the Wonderbolts, Captain of the weather team, Element of Loyalty and self proclaimed Element of Awesome. Or better known as Ponyvilles second best prankster next to Pinkie Pie herself.” She said. Taking a large drink out of the bottle with a sigh.

“Rainbow mane with a cyan body and a rainbow lightning bolt for a cutie mark?” I ask.

“That’s her alright. Saw her leave with the other elements on the train earlier this morning. Probably for a friendship mission.” See put in, pointing out to the train stop you could see from outside the living room window.

“Last I saw, Twilight got a letter from Celestia while I was at the castle. Stating to bring her friends and cookies.” I stated.

“More than likely left for something important then.” She sighed, “Most likely going to be gone for a while, along with everypony else.” She added, taking another large drink from the bottle. I was starting to wonder if It was alcoholic as she had slurred a few of those last words.

Cheerilee went to bed shortly after finishing more of whatever had been in the bottle. I took a sniff at it after she put it away, it smelled like very strongly spiced apples.

I still had more of the day left and I planned to make the most out of it, regardless of my prier feelings to the large red stallion I had ran into. Though on a second thought, I didn’t have much else to outside the house that I felt comfortable doing.

Channeling magic through my horn again I thought of what I could do with it, the possibilities were as much as I could imagine and more. Not that I actually knew how to use it to begin with but I could at least try something. Couldn’t I?

Then again, using magic indoors maybe wasn’t the best idea until I had finer control over it. Considering what happened before, I took a long walk back to the crater I had made outside of town and went to work on thinking of its applications.

Levitation seemed simple enough in my head, all you had to generally do was reach your magic out to an object and treat it like you would if you were picking something up normally. In this case I found a small stick to try and pick up. I tried to reach my magic out to it. I understood how to get my horn working but aside from that I didn’t know what I was doing in the slightest.

I sat in the snow for what felt like a good half hour, just staring at a sick. The very thought of staring at a stick for that long made me feel silly. It was right around then I noticed a blue strand of light coming out of my horn that had just been floating there. I focused on that instead and found that I could move it around rather easily, though not really understanding how. I moved that strand down to the stick, not really having any better ideas of what to do with it.

When the strand connected to the stick I felt a short electrical ‘plink’ before I felt the weight on the end. I experimentally lifted the line to find the stick stuck on the end, it now floating mid air.

“I have literally no idea how I’m doing this right now.” I thought to myself, floating the stick around in the air. I tried to push the line farther from myself to see how far it could go. Evidently pretty damned far, as the stick was now floating at the far edge of the crater. I reeled the line back into my horn, only to feel the stick bump into my nose.

“Now how do I detach this thing?” I asked myself, no sooner than thinking it the line let go of the stick. “Apparently like that.” I state aloud, dumbfounded. At least I figured out how it works, more or less that is. Right around the same time I took notice of a second line of white coming from my horn. Not thinking it any different than the last one aside the color, I moved it down to the stick and touched it wit hit.

Said stick froze solid no more than a split second later, including the ground immediately underneath it. “Ice magic?” I thought to myself. “Maybe different color strands mean different elements?” I made the mental note not to touch any living beings with the white strand unless it was in self defense. Though that did give me some form of protection for taking jobs from a certain board.

There was one last thing I wanted to try before heading back to town, though it was a rather large stretch that it would work at all. I pulled out the white line and carefully touched it with a hoof, hoping it wouldn't freeze my own body. Surprisingly it felt warm to the touch so I went along with my idea. I put the white line into my mouth and breathed outward.

Out came breath so cold it made a form of frozen fog in front of me, freezing the ground and whatever was around it in an area of around ten feet or so. I then ended my magic channeling, figuring I had done more than enough magic for the day. Frankly I was surprised that my idea had even worked, through at least that opened an extra door for keeping myself safe later down the line after I joined the adventurers guild.

Heading back into town, I felt like I may as well at least stop by the guild to see what kind of ponies I would expect to hang around the area and take the time to register myself to the guild.

Asking a passing mare in town for directions, I made my way to the guild which was evidently right next to the town hall.

I made my way inside the building. Getting ready to register myself to a life of violence and adventure, I walked up to the mare I thought was taking care of registry and said. “My name is Wispy Spirits, I’d like to register to the guild.”