A new spell, a new friend
Sunlight’s Rising
The tale of a young mare who showed amazing magical prowess, perhaps the greatest of all pony kind.
- Chapter one : A new spell, a new friend
The sun dazzling the skies in the early morning, and in every morning one filly would always wake just before the sun rise, just to have the slightest glimpse of the Mare she idolized more than any other pony in the history of Equestria. She was a young ivory coloured unicorn with brilliant yellow eyes, and fiery red hair to match, and around her neck she wore the only thing that she has ever owned, as this filly lost her family long ago. She had no clue as to where her family was, as though they had never existed. Every pony shunned the idea and tried to distract her with questions of her study and if she had met any knew friends, which she always answered truthfully seeing as she had many friends, but when your an orphan it was hard to make friends with other children, a heart sore even when they have a family to go home to. None the less this didn’t stop her from befriending every pony she met, There was something about the absence of a family that drove her to make as many friends as she possibly could, this was mostly because she enjoyed the attention she would receive from the amazing magical spells she could produce at such a young age.
Her dream in life was to study in Canterlot, under the supervision of Princess Celestia, who she saw as the most power mare in all of Equestria.
Her day from then on became one she would remember for her entire life, tomorrow was the day that Princess Celestia would be visiting her home town of Ponyville where we were hosting the Summer Sun Celebration, one of her favourite holidays where the princess would be bringing forth the Sun for the 300th year since Nightmare Moon’s banishment. She’d also been reading up on a rare set of artifacts known as the Elements of Harmony, though she didn’t fully understand what these artifacts did but from what she gathered they granted the user immense power, but she doubted ever being able to see them as they were guarded in a place only Celestia could access, and they haven’t been seen since they were last used to banish Nightmare Moon. The filly didn’t remember much of what happened, other than what she had heard from other ponies in Ponyville which they always began describing that every day was shrouded in darkness with nothing but the moon lighting the land. Each year passing a new town is selected, the filly saved all her bits last year to travel to Fillydelphia to attend the event. Though at last minute she was found out by the orphanage, and was unable to go but she was going to make up for it this year, she had been practicing her magic diligently. On average unicorn standards she was as talented as a full grown mare who would have been practicing all her life, with her goal in mind which was to impress the Princess with her magic, as so Celestia would take her under her wing, to teach her how to help all pony kind with a flick of her horn.
“Tomorrow! Finally Princess Celestia comes to our home town!”, Cried the little ivory filly jumping on her bed, only stopping to stare out the open window. She’d been waiting for this day for a long time, and finally it had arrived as she had even volunteered herself to help out with the ceremony, she was to help the local dress maker with sewing together ceremonial decorations. She hoped off her bed and flung her favourite scarf around her neck which she wore not because she wasn’t cold or anything, it was jus that she just didn’t want to damage her necklace, which happened to be the only thing of her family she owned. She had no memories of her parents you see, she had no clue if she had any siblings, and technically she was not born in Ponyville. She set off for the Dress Maker’s home, the walk was not far but she decided she would stop by the library to pick up a book she had been looking forward to re, which was a tricky spell but she believed she had it in her, what with all the other spells she had already mastered why would this one be any different.
The library was not nearly as large as the library in Canterlot, but she only felt that seeing as she had read nearly all of its contents. Ever since she learnt how to read she poured over every book she could find, which was all she ever did. Being raised in an orphanage didn’t raise many opportunities to go out with family or friends but she didn’t mind as much as you’d think, in her mind she imagined that once in was training that she would have plenty of time to make even more friends, and she’d have the freedom to do all this when she wanted. After a brisk walk in the summer’s daylight she arrived at the library’s entrance. The library was a giant tree with multiple windows sticking out of it at many different places with the stone steps that led to large wooden doors, by filly sized standards at least. With her magic she effortlessly opens the door to reveal a large circular room with walls lined with hundreds of books. There were ladders leading to higher platforms which contained piles of dusty old books, most of which she had already read seeing as she figured they might have been the more interesting books to read as they seemed hidden away but all that was really contained in the pages of these books was mouldy illegible scrawls and moth balls. No pony lived in the library as it had been empty for quite some time, this mostly according to the rumours that the librarian who used to live here, vanished without a trace but she felt no fear in the words of scared little ponies.. This also led to the library generally being left empty.
It felt strange that for awhile she could not find the book she was searching for, which was strange due to the fact that she was positive she is the only pony that ever visited the library. At that moment the large wooden doors creaked open, and in walked a blue filly unicorn with long white hair that dragged on the ground all covered in dirt. At first they were both shocked to see each other and the blue filly almost turned to leave, but the ivory filly always looking to make new friends decided to talk to the blue filly, especially friends that liked to visit libraries.
“Hey! Hold up”, yelled the ivory filly walking over to the blue filly but at first the blue filly seemed surprised that another filly was there, and with her own magic the blue filly closed the door behind her.
“Hi! I didn’t know anyone else in Ponyville ever came to the library. Are you from around here?”, Asked the ivory filly, while the blue filly took a second to think about what she was going to say, as if to not make any mistakes during her first encounter with the ivory filly.
“My family only moved here yesterday, we’ll be moving into this library. My father encouraged me to take a look at the new place before we moved in”, said the blue filly quietly. At this the ivory filly felt a little disappointed, on one hoof she has the possibility of making a new unicorn friend (one that was talented with magic), and on the other hoof she knew that this meant her library time would be cut down because of the new family moving in. At that she noticed the other filly was carrying a bulky saddle bag with what looked liked a large book inside of it, with a closer examination she noticed that the book was the exact book she had been looking for. The blue filly picking up on her eager eyes staring at the book, she magically pulls the book out of her saddle bag laying it in front of the ivory filly.
“I borrowed it last night, in Canterlot we never had a copy of this book that wasn’t always on reservation”, said the Blue filly scratching the wooden floor with her hoof. The ivory filly smiled widely, another filly who had the same interest in books as her. This felt like this day was starting off as the best day ever for her in a long time.
“Did you manage to learn any new spells out of this book?”, Asked the ivory filly eagerly and again the blue filly took her time to respond, this almost feeling awkward for the ivory filly as she had just realised what time it was. She had to be at the dress makers in ten minutes and she wasn’t sure how long it would take to get an answer out of her. Politely she waited for the blue filly to answer.
“I learnt one new spell. It let me change a twig into a quill. I wanted to transform it into a flower, but my mother came in and considering the spell requires you to be thinking of the object you want the first object to turn into. She kind of ruined my concentration”.
The ivory filly chuckled, smiling back at the blue filly who returned a weak smile.
“That’s the spell I wanted to learn from this book”, looking up at the clock she hastily said, “I’m sorry I can’t stay and chat, I promised someone that I would help out with the decorations for the Summer Sun Celebration”.
The ivory filly magically lifts the book into the air, whilst the blue unicorn opens the door for her.
“It was nice meeting you, I hope you and your family won’t mind if I stop by now and then for a good book or two?”, Asked the ivory filly.
“No” said the blue filly with a small smile. As the ivory filly exited she closed the door behind her and sped off for the Dress makers home.
After running for at least 15 minutes as fast as the ivory filly could, she finally reached the Dress maker’s extravagant home featuring amazing architecture. Golden tiling, and sparkling jewels in the eyes of the marble statues outside of the porch. The door was always open for any pony customer with a heavy pocket looking for a new fashion change, though she didn’t quite understand why the sophisticated mares and stallions of Canterlot liked to dress up in these fancy pants and dresses but she wasn’t quick to judge them as these are the pony folk who she would most likely be around when she lives in Canterlot. She briskly walks in through the door to be greeted by fabrics and thread scattered all over the walls ceilings and floors.
“Hello dear, I was wondering when you were coming”, came a voice from behind a large stack of fabric. Shuffling through the many patterns and designs laid out on the ground the filly found her way behind the big stack of fabric. Behind it was a beautiful pure white mare with violet hair.
“Morning Ms Belle, sorry I’m so late. I got caught up at the library and-” before she could finish she was hushed by Ms Belle.
“I understand. There’s lots to be done now so please dear, can you begin sewing together the Gold and Blue patterns over there with the spare machine. Thank you darling”, before she knew it the little ivory unicorn was sewing away.
She didn’t consider herself much of a fashion designer, but she knew how to use magic and for sewing without magic the sewing machine was hardly useful and would require hoof stitching the patterns together. After several straight hours of sewing she was given a break, Ms Belle provided her with a nice lunch, before continuing on with their sewing crusade. The ivory filly was enjoying herself , this was the first time she had been allowed to use her magic for an extended period of time. Mrs. Pie didn’t approve of rogue spell casting when inside of the orphanage, It was hard to get funding as it was, though the owners managed to get by.
The Pie family were not exactly strict or miss-treating, they just cared a lot about the poor little filly’s and colts that had no home or family, whether due to illness or other reasons. During these hours of sewing she was also reading the new book she had picked up from the library. There was many spells throughout the book, from teleporting to changing the colour of your hair, why such spells are in the same book she didn’t know but at least in the end of she found the spell she was looking for. It seemed relatively simple but it required a lot of prior knowledge to, thankfully she’d read a lot of required books before hand so she took small breaks from the sewing to test out the spell. It didn’t seem to be working even though she was trying to turn needle into a thimble, but given the fact that Princess Celestia was hours away she was panicking that she might not have learnt enough magic to impress the princess. Her concentration was so focused on the spell she hadn’t noticed that Ms Belle had been watching her (whilst sewing her own portion of the decorations) for the last 20 minutes.
“Dear, you don’t have to help out anymore if you have other places to be, what you’ve done has helped me out more than enough” she says kindly to the ivory filly, at this the filly jumped and sent a needle flying through the air and into a nearby mannequin.
“Heh, well. The Princess is coming and I really really want to impress her” she says slumping down onto the ground. Ms Belle plucks the needle from the mannequin, sets it down on a table and walks back over to the ivory filly.
“Whatever for, dear?” Ms Belle says, comforting her and stroking her hair away from her face.
“Well-” starts the ivory filly taking in a deep breath and straightens up, “I really want to impress the Princess because I’ve always wanted her to teach me herself, I want to be able to help all of Equestria someday like she did with Nightmare moon. So I figured that if I studied extremely hard that one day she might take me under her wing to show me how to use magic to its fullest capability. I thought this spell might impress her if I could turn something bigger than just a dinky needle into something amazing”, she pauses to breath in and slumps down again.
“That’s quite an amazing dream, dear. I did hear that the Princess was looking for young candidates who can one day help her with the bringing forth the Moon. Many unicorns have already tried to impress her but lacked a certain heart to fro the job, doing it for all the wrong reasons”, at this the ivory unicorns tiny ears pricked up listening intently to the rest of what Ms Belle had to say, “I think that maybe, if you were sincere to the Princess you might just be able to be chosen. I can tell you now dear that you already have as much magical talent as half the Unicorns in Ponyville. You just need to show you have the spark to be ready for the responsibility”, finishing her sentence by picking the little filly up on her feet. The ivory filly beams up at Ms Belle with glistening tears in her eyes and the widest smile on her face. At that she picks up her book with her magic and bolts out the door with a spring in her step.
She had decided to practice her magic some where else other than the orphanage as they didn’t like magic spells being cast here there and everywhere so she began searching all over town for a spot to practice, she didn’t have very long until the summer sun celebration started, she thought she might give the library another go, mostly just wanting to see if the blue filly was still there or not, as to get some help with the spell. So she headed off to the library, pouncing on small rocks and twigs along the way, as to see if the spell came along spontaneously or not. As to be expected all this led to was doubling the length of time it took to get to the library. For the second time today she found herself in front of the big wooden doors, though this time she knocked and waited. Her hopes sank a little as the door was opened by a Large grey stallion with no hair on this head but a large brown moustache protruding from this upper lip.
“Hello there little filly, what can I do for you?”, He says smiling kindly, and for a moment she froze and couldn’t find her voice.
“Umm, well I normally visit the library for books you see, and this morning I met-” she froze there for a second as she had just realised that she hadn’t even learnt the blue filly’s name yet.
“Ah, did you meet my daughter, whilst here earlier?”, He asks sensing she had lost her train of thought, leaving the ivory filly to give a weak smile and nod.
“She headed over to... The Apple family’s orchard? Just on the ridge of the Apple Family’s trees. She wanted somewhere quiet to read her books”, he says proudly as if no other parents child was this dedicated to their study.
“Oh, thank you very much, sir”, with this she steps down off the porch and heads for the apple family’s orchard. It wasn’t too far away, but it was enough to make a young filly wish she hadn’t spent so much of her time running around looking for places to study when the obvious place to go was a quiet orchard that few people venture out to.
She arrives at the orchard after a quick stop off at the bakery to get something for her new friend and herself. It wasn’t long before she spotted the blue filly sitting by a particularly large apple tree which cast a large shadow for the blue filly to hide under, so she trotted on over to greet the filly.
“Hello again” said the ivory filly walking up to the blue filly who slowly looked up from her book, as if it were a crime to interrupt someone whilst they were reading.
“Oh, hi there” she says quietly before pouring back over her book. The ivory filly didn’t think much of this as an insult, she guessed this must be how she is with new ponies, she decided to make it her goal to change that by the end of the day.
“I’m sorry to interrupt you with your reading, but I bought you this from the bakery, I thought you might like it” awkwardly she magically lifts out of a small box a chocolate sprinkle covered cupcake.
“Oh um, thank you” she says, just as awkwardly receiving it, she placed it down beside her without actually eating any of it. The ivory filly creeps behind her to see what she was reading. It was one of Starswirl the Bearded’s classic book of spells, covering a fair amount of research in the lore of time travel, though all theoretical to anyone other than Starswirl himself, that being said due to the books vague description on how to cast the spell. The blue filly looks around with an awkward and some what bothered smile.
“Is there something I can help you with, maybe?”, Asks the blue filly shortly, the ivory filly steps back a few to circle back around the front of the blue filly whilst clearing her throat, she asks desperately.
“Can you please show me how to do the transformation spell, you know, the one that lets you turn anything into something else?”
“-Of equal mass” adds the blue filly. The ivory filly stares blankly at her for a few seconds before replying.
“Pardon?”, She asks bluntly. The blue filly lifts the book out from behind the ivory filly with her magic, suspending it in the air in front of the ivory filly. Opening the book to the transformation spell, with a nearby twig she points out the very small writing that was scrawled at the bottom of the page. The ivory filly read out loud, “Note: This spell only allows the caster to transform the object into something of equal mass. Any more or less and the spell has no effect.” The ivory stands there for a second before reacting to this.
“Thank you so much! I must have overlooked it before when I was helping Ms. Belle with her decorations” she gives the blue filly a wide smile, the ivory filly began jumping up and down with joy, before settling down and lifting out her own cupcake from the box and placing it on a nearby stump. She stares at it intensely thinking of something that could equal the mass off this cupcake. Then it came to her, she backed up a little and pointed her horn at the cupcake. Concentrating hard on what she wanted the cupcake to transform into, her horn sparks a little, then a magical red glow started to emit from the tip. The glow shot a beam of light at the cupcake which began to float in the air and spinning around rapidly, and with a flash of white and the spell was over. Slowly a muffin fell down onto the stump, again she found herself jumping for joy, crying “I did it!”, On each bounce. The blue filly giggled at how silly she looked from being able to do the spell she thought wasn’t all that interesting.
“Thank you so much for all of your help! If it wasn’t for you I’d still be failing the spell till dawn” says the ivory filly calming down and walking back over to the blue filly.
“Oh and before I forget, my name’s Sunlight, but you can just call me Sunny. What’s your name?”.
