Of Gems And Ponies

Chapters

Rutile
Diamond
Pearl
Admirabilis
Ventricosus
Phosphophyllite?
Twilight
Antarcticite
Ice
Antarcticite Part 2
Equus
Heliodor
Heliodor Part 2
Phosphophyllite
Cinnabar

Rutile

Doing nothing bothered Phosphophyllite. It made him feel useless, and after three hundred years, he finally had something to do. He still couldn’t believe it! And yet, it seemed so boring. The cyan unicorn didn’t know where to start, and so, he sat in the common room of the Great Oak, looking at his entry about Rutile; how could he show this to the Princess? She could only laugh at how he failed even this simple task.

“Oh wow, you haven’t written anything else in 2 days?” Asked the pink-maned figure who’d appeared behind Phos.

“Hey! I just have no idea where to begin!” Phos whined defensively, hiding the clipboard with his magic. “I’m the youngest one around here so I don’t even know everyone yet. My only friends are, like, the Princess and uh, this tree.”

“Well you could ask your senior around, most of us don’t even know each other that well. Yellow Diamond and the Princess are the only two who actually try to befriend everyone.”

“Yellow hates me since I rebuilt his hooves upside-down so that’s a no,” remembered Phos. “And Princess Twilight will again lecture me about how I need to do this on my own if I ask her.”

“If you have to learn about the older gems there’s Cinnabar that can tell you about them” Goshenite intervened. “By the way, Morga, the Princess wants us on cleaning duty for a year.”

“WHAT! So unfair, we were just trying to not bother the rest... “ Morganite complained.

Phos ignored Morga’s comment and responded to Goshe. “Cinnabar? You mean that Cinnabar?”

“Yeah why don’t you ask him, he’s been here longer than anyone else still here.”

“No way. He’s super creepy and hides from the rest of us, how could he know anything?”

“Well like I said, he’s the oldest, excluding Padparadscha, and he wasn’t even such a loner a few centuries back. Wonder what changed?” Goshe thought out-loud before leaving Phos and dragging Morganite to the main room.

Ugh… Cinnabar, thought Phos to himself, why do I have to resort to this... Well, I’ll ask the others and get to Cinnabar last.

Phosphophyllite went around the Great Oak asking gems about themselves and trying to make reports about them. It turned out that writing good reports on this topic was much harder than he’d anticipated. Most gems were too busy with their work to take the time and answer Phos’ many questions about themselves. And so, he quickly gave up on that idea.

“Ugh… Why does it have to be so difficult. No one seems to have the time to help me with my report,” complained Phos, sitting inside Rutile’s workshop while the older gem was working on making white powder.

“How about asking the gem who don’t have anything to do, then? I’m busy and unless you want to look yellow, please let me work in peace,” answered the doctor coldly.

Silence fell in the room as Rutile continued working on the white powder that covered the gems’ body. Its main purpose was to hide their natural reflection so that they didn’t blind everyone. Phos sat on the wooden floor, pondering about his records, wondering who to report on next.

And so, after a few more minutes, Phos broke the silence: “Hey Rutile, tell me about your cutie mark.”

Rutile looked at his flank, there was a set of carving tools as his cutie mark. “Well, it’s been a while since I told this story. Why do you want to know? Want to have the same?” teased Rutile.

“Well, not really, I really want to do a good job for the Princess, and I thought I could add more to your entry than that.” He pointed at Rutile’s entry, it was indeed a pretty silly entry and Phos knew it. Maybe he could learn more about people by finding out how they earned their cutie marks. “So? How did you get it? Was it while you were cutting open a gem?”

“Believe it or not, it was while helping a gem” Rutile started, as he put his tools away and sat in front of Phos. “You know Padparadscha right? I mean, obviously not personally, since he hasn’t woken up since you were found, but you’ve already seen me working on him, right?” Rutile pointed to a wooden box in the corner of the room. Phos knew that inside was Padparadscha’s body. “When he was born two thousand and four hundred years ago he had some pieces of him missing. Seven pieces to be exact, mostly from his chest. For a time, the princess took care of him, doing her best to keep him awake by filling the holes in his body with other gems.

“But as time went by, it became harder. About a hundred year after I got here, I teamed up with Padparadscha for about fifty winters before he fell asleep once more.” Rutile sighed with sadness. “He was the first want to fight with me. He taught me to take care of all of the other gems as he had seen old friends get taken by the lunarian.” Rutile paused for a moment, lost in thought as he just looked at Padparadscha’s box. “It took me a hundred and thirty years, but I managed to wake him up for about three years before he collapsed again. When I woke him up the second time, I received my cutie mark; the tools I’d used to carve the gems that filled his body.”

“Can we wake him up now?” Phos asked innocently.

“If only it were so easy,” laughed Rutile. “Maybe if we find something pure and close enough to his type he might. But each time it’s harder than the last.” Again, Rutile sat without another word, saddened by the memory of her old friend.

After what felt like an eternity, Rutile spoke once again. “Well, now that you know: get out! Go find Cinnabar of someone else to bother!” Phos felt himself getting lifted up by Rutile’s magic and thrown out the room in an instant. “And remember to make a good report about me!” And with that the door to Rutile’s workshop was closed on Phos.

Phos went to his room. He rarely spent time there. It was a cozy place, sure, but he always preferred the outside and bathing in the sun, rather than staying in his room. After all, he already spent his nights here as the gems were motionless without sunlight to power them. Before dark, Phos changed his report on Rutile. He may not have been much of a scholar, but he made sure to write something good enough for the princess. He then trotted to her office and simply slid it under the door. No need to talk about it today, he thought.

While fighting off sleep, he saw a shimmer of light on the southern beach from the window of his room. Tomorrow he’d have to ask around again and find someone else to report on…

Name: Rutile

Mane color: Red and Yellow

Age: Around 800 years old.

Hardness: 6.5

Cutie mark: A set of carving tools.

Personality: Rutile is a former fighter who learned from Padparadscha to care about the other gems and started fixing them after discovering her cutie mark, which she got trying to wake Padparadscha up.

Author's Note

Short chapter this time, next one is longer don't worry.

This time Phos do a better job and submit his first report to the Princess.

Alternative Title: Report.

Diamond

It was a beautiful day outside once again, the uneventful day only marked by the Princess declaring Phos' new job to the other gems and asking them officially to aid Phos as he tried to make reports of everyone.

Phos decided to use his first day "on the job" to rest inside the common room of the Great Oak, watching Goshenite and Morganite clean and organize the thousands of scrolls and other homemade book that contained all of the gems' knowledge since the time of the first gem. Older books and scrolls were kept by the Princess herself, but Phos never bothered to ask what they contained.

As Morganite placed a row of scrolls on a now clean shelf. He looked at Phos and asked "So, how’re the reports coming along? I can see that you're hard at work, as always."

"I'm thinking about it. I still don't have a cutie mark, and I wonder how a cutie mark about making reports would look like."

Another silence.

A gentle, almost feminine voice suddenly said behind Morganite "I'm sure it would be lovely regardless, Phosphophyllite." It was Diamond, one of the nicest gems according to Phos, he was like a big mom for everyone, always gentle and encouraging. His appearance reflected his attitude too: short hair so brilliant he could illuminate a room by himself with its gentle light. He was a fighter, too. His partner - the cold Bort - was the strongest fighter of the island.

Diamond also didn’t have a horn. Instead, he had great wings that unfortunately couldn’t carry his dense body. They made for great protection, however. Phos had heard the stories of Diamond’s fight against the lunarians with Bort - how the two of them were unstoppable.

Phos turned his attention to the new speaker and responded “How I love your kind words, Dia, but I just wish I could get a fighting cutie mark like you all.” He pointed vaguely to the flanks of Morganite, Goshenite and finally Diamond. Respectively, a pair of crossed black swords, a club, and a damaged shield. “I’m sure all of you got yours doing some awesome fighting.” Pouted Phos.

“Phos my dear…” Said Diamond, while curling next to Phos in the main room. “Would you like to come with me and Bort to take a look at us fighting? Maybe you’ll change your mind then.” Proposed Diamond in his sweet voice. He could have asked Phos to go inside the ocean and never come back, and that voice would have persuaded Phos to do it.

“Yeah, why not,” simply responded Phos. He really didn’t want to go and actually do anything but it has been a while since he’s seen an actual fight. Had he ever even seen one? He couldn’t remember for now and didn’t care that much.

After a few minutes of waiting in front of the main entrance of the Great Oak, Diamond and an irritated Bort arrived. Bort had a very long dark mane, which seemed to flow behind him as he walked. He too had useless wings.

With heavy step, Bort passed in front of Phos and started galloping through the field to the east of the Great Oak. Diamond stayed behind with Phos and stated in a dull voice: “I’m sorry about Bort, he’s not that happy that I decided to bring you with us. I’m sure you’ll get to learn a lot; Onyx spotted a sunspot over the eastern part of the ravine.” With this, Phosphophyllite and Diamond took to the east themselves. Although it was more of Phos giving his utter best as if his life depended on it, while Dia was forced to canter to match poor Phos’ speed.

The roughly ten minutes long run felt like an eternity to the green unicorn, before they finally arrived in front of the eastern ravine. Starting near the south shore, it ended abruptly midway through the moon-shaped island the gems lived on, as if nature was told to stop there. Phos knew the place as the Princess kept telling the gem not to go there.

Right near the northern end of the ravine, a small sunspot seemed to slowly grow larger and larger, forming a strange shape akin to a pitch-black mandala folded in on itself. The terrifying music of the Lunarians started to come through, as what appeared to be a white vessel emerged from the sunspot. The Lunarians were just the same as last time: three rows of unicorns. The first was playing several types of instrument, producing an enchanting tune, while the second immediately started firing magical beams at Diamond and Phos.

Phosphophyllite was enthralled by the spectacle the Lunarians were giving and didn’t notice the first magical arrow coming straight at him. Fortunately, Diamond extended his left wing which endured the magical arrow and deflected it, producing an earsplitting sound as it deflected onto the hard surface. “Please be careful, Phos. I’ll deal with them.” Dia said, pulling out his black sword from under his wing.

Diamond started galloping, this time at full speed, in the direction of the Lunarians, whose ship was still flying about twenty meters above the ground. He had their attention. Phosphophyllite watched as Diamond either dodged or deflected the incoming arrows, his body weathering the damage like it was nothing. The only indication of the bolts even hitting were the high-pitched sounds, as they didn’t even slow him down. At an incredible speed, Diamond jumped, and with the aid of his wings, reached the lunarian platform. With expert precision, he cut the biggest Lunarian at the center in half. Everything above the lunarian’s neck disappeared into thin air, but instead of disappearing too, the rest of the body shot a hard arrow with a red tip straight at Diamond.

This new arrow didn’t get deflected. Instead, it pierced through Diamond’s right wing, shattering it in the process and making him lose balance. The broken wing fell on the platform, and some of the white figures started picking up the pieces with their magic, and hugging them close to their bodies. Dia let himself fall down back to the edge of the ravine, where a scared Phos had been watching the fight. He’d never seen anything like that… Lunarians were a pain in the neck, but still relatively easy to destroy. Dia was supposed to be one of the best, right? He’s a 10 after all...

Phosphophyllite was lost in thought at the worst possible moment as the invaders started shooting again, and this time at him! Once more, Diamond’s remaining wing came and blocked the arrows coming at Phos.

“It’s okay Phos, I got this.” He reassured.

Another wave of red-tipped arrow came but this time, a long sword came into view and stopped them, deflecting them to their senders. An angry-looking, black-maned pegasus held it with his mouth. Bort.

Shooting dagger from his eyes, he looked at Phos and Dia and simply frowned before facing the Lunarians and moving towards them. The arrows he’d deflected back at them seemed to have taken care of most of the lunarians casters. With ease, he jumped to the lunarians platform, which then came down just a few meters above the ground. He then proceeded to cut the main Lunarian and the whole platform in two vertically. The entire platform and all of its occupants promptly disappeared into steam.

“He seems to get stronger every fight. I guess I should just accept it. He’s just a better diamond than me,” sighed Diamond.

The pieces of diamond wing fell just at the edge of the ravine, just in time for Bort to gracefully catch them on his back. He trotted back to two impressed gem, watching in awe at his strength. He spat an angry shout as well as his sword: “You!” He pointed a hoof at Diamond. “Why are you fighting like that again! Lunarians learn from us. We must do better than this! It’s too risky to use your own body like that!” He loudly berated. “You’ll get taken one day if you continue like this! Look, you already lost your wing because of it!” He put down Diamond’s wing near him.

“Hey!” Phos shouted, hiding behind Dia. “Stop that, he saved me and he could have totally kick them off without you!”

“Shh Phos. It’s alright, he’s right.” Declared a saddened Diamond. “Look, Bort, Phos wanted to see what it’s like to fight so I showed him. He wants to get a fighting cutie mark one day!”

“I’ll help you, then,” Bort said, grinning angrily. “I’ll turn you to dust and maybe you’ll get your broken cutie mark, after all it’s all you’re good with your measly three point-”

He stopped mid-sentence staring at the sky behind Phos and Diamond. As they turned to face it, they saw another sunspot. This time, its shape formed a full mandala in the sky and grew way faster than any other sunspot any of them had ever seen. A giant black ship came thought it, but before any lunarians came through, the platform started flying towards the Great Oak.

“It went right by us.” Bort declared, dumbfounded. “Even though there’s two diamonds and a useless here.”

The three of them watched as the vessel floated in direction of the Tree.

“I think it’s okay. The Princess should see them coming and she’ll take care of them easily, I’m sure.” Diamond commented.

“Isn’t she studying something in the basement though? I don’t know if she’ll notice, since no one is allowed down there.”

Phosphophyllite’s comment sent Bort and Diamond into panic. No one was indeed allowed to bother the Princess while she studied in the basement. She couldn’t possibly see the lunarians arrive. And because every fighter except Morganite and Goshenite was outside, the gems incapable of battle were at the mercy of the Lunarians.

“That’s not good… Right?” Phos whimpered, looking at the panicked Diamond while Bort was already rushing to the school.

Name: Diamond

Mane color: Light Rainbow Colors that shines when exposed to light.

Age: More than 600 years old. Less than Rutile.

Hardness: 10

Cutie mark: A damaged blue shield

Personality: Want to be more like Bort, is pretty and nice and loves cute things.

Author's Note

Fighting! Phos learn what it's like to be a diamond.

Next chapter's gonna be a long and interesting one.

Alternative title: Fight.

Pearl

Over the course of several years, Pearl grew up surrounded by the love of every gem, Phos especially. He liked Pearl, and often helped the Princess and Alexandrite in educating him about their world and the other gems. This job mostly took over Phos’ reports over the time, though he still made one every once in a while. Either with the help of Cinnabar, whom he visited diligently each day, or by himself. Admittedly, the latter was quite rare. The occasional Lunarian attack was always repelled by the fighting team as usual, and life went on for some time without any incident.

While relaxing in the main room of the Great Oak one day; Phos, Pearl, Morganite and Rutile all noticed the Princess come out of her room, a smile on her face.

“Morganite? Could you gather every gem in the common room? I have an exceptional announcement to make!” Twilight declared, visibly excited.

Without a word, Morga trotted to the top of the Great Oak, to Onyx’s observation room, and rang the bells six times.

“What could this be about?” The opaque white unicorn asked Phos.

“Dunno…”

One by one, the gems arrived in the main room, taking their places, waiting for everyone else to come. As usual, the last gem to arrive was Bort.

With the twenty eight gems present, Twilight began: “Good day everyone, I have interesting news to share. Pearl has officially finished his studies and will soon be looking for a job among us."

Bort groaned, probably upset because he’d had to come back just for this.

What? She could have just told us that in the morning briefing. Phos thought.

But before any of the gems could voice their complaints, Twilight continued: “Also, it is time for me to visit the Admirabilis once again—it has been one hundred years after all—and I will be taking two of you to spend a few months in the ocean to help me look for them. Of course, we will return before winter as always.”

Pearl’s lesson on the Admirabilis hadn’t been that long ago and Phos had assisted with it, so he remembered it quite well. They were the second lifeform to have appeared after the last asteroid’s arrival at the planet. Twilight had discovered them a few millennia ago by complete accident. Back then they’d only been slugs who communicated by drawing. Each century, the Princess would go and look for them again in hope that they would have evolved into sentient beings. Yet they had never met again after this. It had become a habit for Twilight to go into the ocean each century, and look for them with two other gems for a few months. She usually took non-fighters as the rest had to protect each other.

Multiple hooves shot into the air. Some gems chanting for her to pick them, while others, like Bort or Phos didn’t care about it in the slightest. They would just let Euclase and Benitoite go as always. Phos zoned out and waited for it to be over.

His attention snapped back as he heard the Princess call his name: “...And so I have chosen Phos and Pearl to come with me this time, as they both do not have anything to do at the moment."

Phos’ ear perked up on the declaration and he became aware that the entire room was staring at Pearl and himself. This was unexpected.

After some complaints from the crowd, some more childish than others, Twilight spoke out once again: “It is how things have been decided, everyone. Pearl didn’t come from our island so it’s likely he was born in the ocean somewhere. We must look for his birthplace and maybe we’ll find the opportunity to save gems. Who knows how many have been taken by the Lunarians before they even had the chance to come to us."

“And what about Phos then? Surely he’ll just mess things up one way or another?” Jade complained, even though he was rather glad that Phos wouldn’t be around to cause trouble for some time.

“Phos will come with us because the two know and trust each other very well already,” said Twilight. “There will not be any more complaining, and we are leaving in a few hours.” She looked at her two unwilling volunteers. “Phosphophyllite, Pearl, please get your things in order. You don’t have to take anything with you. Just meet me outside when you’re ready.” Twilight turned back to the rest of the room. “Everyone else can continue their duties as usual. Jade and Rutile will be in charge until I return.” Finally, with a more delicate voice she added: “I hope to see you all again in a few months.” The Princess returned to her chamber while the main room’s gems went back to work.

Phosphophyllite stared blankly into space. The realisation he would get dragged into the sea with Pearl and the Princess slowly sinking in. Rutile interrupted his thinking by picking him and Pearl up with his magic. The white gem looked rather shocked, yet excited, by the news.

“Come on, you two. You’re going to the sea, that means you’ll need special powder.” Announced Rutile as he floated the pair to his workshop.

“Why should we get ‘special’ powder?” Asked Pearl.

Rutile finally dropped the two on each of his workbench. “Because your current powder will dissolve in the ocean. Thanks to Euclase’s last trip with the Princess we now know a way to make special white powder that will stick even in the ocean. Problem is, it’s more of a gel. It’s sticky and it’s hard to make, so we only have a small quantity.”

“Why can’t we just go like that? Pearl is naturally Opaque so it’s not a problem and I don’t even shine that much,” reasoned Phos.

“Because you’ll get the Lunarians’ attention.” Rutile sighed. “You’re about the one they want the most, especially because of your rarity. So you’ll get this powder put on you whether you want it or not.” He began taking out a white gel with his magic from a pot sitting on a shelf near him and applying it on Phos.

"What will we do in the ocean with the Princess?" Pearl asked, ever-curious.

"The Princess will do most of the searching, and you'll mostly just have to listen to her and remember her findings. It's been a long time since they've found anything there so it's mostly going to be a months-long walk."

"Do you think we'll find some Admirabilis? Or maybe the birthplace of Pearl?" This time it was Phos who spoke, still held in Rutile's red magic.

"Well, I don't know, really. As far as we know, gems like us can only be born from a cavern inside the eastern ravine. Only the Princess is allowed there and she regularly checks it for new gems." Rutile finished applying the 'powder' on Phos' body and hesitated a second while looking at Pearl.

"What's up with you anyway? Did I ever put powder on you?"

The foal just sat calmly on the worktable, smiling. His short hair was as white as his skin and his skin was as white as the gems' powder. Neither Phos nor Rutile could tell if it was his natural colour or powder. Just in case, Rutile applied the special powder on him too.

The two finally went outside of the Great Oak and found Twilight playing with a small pearl necklace. "Oh! You're here! We can go then." She started trotting south towards the beach, with Pearl and Phos following closely. "A few things first. I'll probably swim faster than you can walk so I'll probably leave for a few hours from time to time, to search more efficiently. I brought each of you a sword just in case, but I really hope you won't have to use them. I'll probably move the Sun so the days are longer and you two can move more, but it's gonna mean more Lunarians. Also if you find anything please wait for me too…" The Princess' rambling was akin to some of Pearl's. It was as if a really curious and eager to learn person had replaced the Princess Phos knew.

The ocean was a spectacular place for Phosphophyllite and Pearl. Being used to the same views from the Great Oak and the island in general, they had the chance to explore a completely new environment. Instead of the old grass they walked on usually, they now moved through algae. The sandy bottom of the ocean was just close enough to the surface for sufficient amounts of sunlight to reach them. Twilight had used her necklace to transform into a sea-pony form that had a melusine where her back legs had been. She always swam just in front of the two gems, leading them.

They spent some time doing a simple routine: admire the view, look around on their own while the Princess was going by herself, then wait for her to come back when night fell. At first, and unsurprisingly, they didn’t find any traces of the Admirabilis or any life whatsoever. It even appeared that most of the glowing jellyfish didn’t leave the island’s proximity.

Twilight bore a smile during their entire long walk, something that struck Phos as pretty strange, given that the Princess always seemed so serious back at the island.

“Princess Twilight? Where do I come from?” Asked Pearl one day out of the blue.

“Well Pearl, I don’t know,” answered Twilight honestly. “You are the first gem that I know of to be born offshore.”

“Alex told me I come from the moon people and so maybe I’ve been born on the moon,” explained the petite unicorn, while lifting a seashell with his magic and observing it curiously. “Do you think gems can be born from the moon?”

“Well... No, I don’t think so,” she said, “But I know that you are someone special. Even if the Lunarians left you to us it must mean something and I hope we’ll find out one day.”

One day, while Twilight was out exploring without them, Phos and Pearl found something. Or rather, something found them. Bigger than the usual jellyfish, looking at them from afar, there seemed to be some kind of creature following them today. Doing as if nothing was amiss, Phos and Pearl separated to try and confuse the onlooker. After only a few minutes away from Pearl, Phos turned back and managed to get a clearer view of the stranger. It kind of looked like a pony at a closer inspection, except its body was pink-ish and see-through. It had a messy mane that floated in the water.

Pearl approached it from behind, and Phos advanced towards the creature as well, both of them curious. It noticed them but didn’t move at first, only observing both gems as they moved closer.

Pearl finally tried speaking with it. “Hey! What are you? Why are you following us?” Phos simply stared at the thing. He carried the sword that the Princess had given him on his back, always ready to defend Pearl.

The shape waved a front hoof to them amicably but didn't speak. Could it even speak? Phos didn’t know, but he tried anyway. “Are you the Admirabilis that met the Princess a few thousands years ago?”

The pink pony-shaped creature shook its head, then looked at Pearl and approached him. Startled, Pearl took a step back but finally stood his ground in front of the thing. It moved just in front of Pearl, and Phos couldn’t see clearly what was happening. The shape seemed to… nuzzle Pearl? Phos tried to draw his sword but just as he managed to unholster it telekinetically, the pink-pony had already disappeared. Pearl’s flank became illuminated as a Cutie Mark appeared on top of it, shining even through the white ‘powder’. Phos became the only blank flank once again.

Twilight came back soon after with a big smile plastered across her face. Noticing Pearl’s new Cutie Mark she insisted to know how it came to be. She was somewhat troubled by the events, but overall happy for Pearl. On his flank was a slightly open seashell from which multicoloured lights poured out.

After the excitement over Pearl’s Cutie Mark was over, Twilight smiled at the two. “I have more great news! I have found the Admirabilis again!”

Name: Morganite

Mane color: Brilliant Red

Age: At least 700 (Same as Goshenite.)

Hardness: 7.5

Cutie mark: Crossed Black Swords.

Personality: A bit entitled, he’s a good fighter when he works in a team. He really likes Goshenite and spends most of his time with him but these days he seems to get along with Phos and the others too.

Author's Note

In which the ocean is explored.

Alternative title: Ocean.

Admirabilis

Twilight enthusiastically led the way where she had found the Admirabilis again.

"They seemed able to speak our language, too! I have so many questions about them but I want you two to be the witness of this discovery!" She said, visibly excited by the events.

Phos walked behind his joyful companion along with Pearl. If what they’d seen just before wasn't an Admirabilis, then what was it? Why did it behave like it did? Why had Pearl obtained his cutie mark before him? He quickly chased the thought away and focused on where the Princess was taking them.

The Admirabilis lived in a sort of village. From the outside, it could be mistaken for a normal rocky submarine terrain but once they came closer, it was clear there were openings in the ground all around. The locals apparently lived in houses built in the rock-hard ground.

As they approached, they sensed eyes watching them from the holes in the ground, as if scared by them. Finally, an Admirabilis came up to them, it looked like Twilight but more… fleshy. Their skin seemed smooth and had a faded blue colors and, unlike Twilight, they didn’t seem to have a cutie mark. The last part made Phos smile somewhat.

The creature bowed before Twilight and said: “Oh Great Goddess, thank you for gracing us with your presence. My name is Convallarius, I am the leader of our people, how can we help you, O Guardian of the Stars?” He looked the same as the rest, but a little bit taller and with a darker shade of blue as his skin. His mane was like a chunk of flesh full of holes, as if something had been eating it.

Twilight’s cheek burned red. “Oh please! No need for so much formality, I have been looking forward to this moment for eons!” She said with a gentle smile.

“Please, it is our honor to welcome you to our home. Your arrival was prophesied for a long time in the story of our people.” The Admirabilis explained. “We shall prepare a grand feast for you, though I see that you’ve brought food yourself.” He said pointing to Phos and Pearl.

The two gems glanced at Twilight with a worried look. Phos almost reaching to his sword with his magic. Twilight quickly spoke again: “Well, Phos and Pearl aren’t food, what made you think that anyway? They’re my friends, and they’re the representatives of the other life form of this planet beside you.”

The Admirabilis looked confused for a moment but then nodded to Twilight. “I see. I am sorry then to have assumed this. I thought you knew that our people eat gemstones to survive, your friends would have fed the entire village for years. We are still thankful for your presence and will throw a party for you, as well as your friends.”

Phos relaxed as Twilight smiled at him, before turning her head back to the Admirabilis. “Yes, I’m sure a party will be perfect. I was also hoping to speak to you about yourself and your people. Phosphophyllite here is kind of a scholar and, if possible, I’d like him to meet some of your citizens.” Phos didn’t like the idea of being alone with anyone from a species that would like to eat him, but if the princess asked him then he would oblige.

The evening passed without any trouble. The Admirabilis, once they came out of their underground homes, seemed to welcome the arrival of Twilight and the gems. A party was organised before Twilight raised the Moons. Convallarius himself prepared decorations with the help of Pearl who quickly grew attached to the mysterious creatures. They played music with the help of shells; a tribal rhythm of percussion animated the evening as Twilight talked intensively with the leader of the Admirabilis while Pearl laughed and partied with the rest of them. Phos kept to himself all evening, mostly staying by the Princess.

The sunlight woke Phos up the morning of the next day. He and Pearl had slept on the ground outside the village, protected by Twilight’s magic, like every other night in the sea. As he woke up, he noticed Twilight’s sparkling horn as she lowered the moons. A serious expression on her face and with her brow furrowed.

“How come that, even though you control the moons, the lunarians still come and attack us?” Confronted Phos to Twilight, who was also surprised by the statement.

“I do not know why, Phosphophyllite, but no matter where I place the moons, they still come during the day,” said Twilight with a sigh, as her horn’s glow faded. Her face relaxed as she continued: “It used to be much simpler. It feels as if something is trying to prevent me from moving the Moons, and I do not know who, how or why. Maybe it’s the lunarians or maybe it’s me.”

Twilight moved closer to the cyan unicorn. Sitting in front of him, she put a hoof on his shoulder. “I have a job for you Phosphophyllite, I need you to find out why the Admirabilis were hiding from us and also why they reappeared now of all times.”

Phos broke his silence to complain: “But why me? Why do you give me all these responsibilities? Why can’t I just live peacefully and do a normal job like everygem else? Why do you want me to do all of this?”

“Because I believe in you. I believe that you are more than you think you are and maybe you’re why the moons are becoming harder to move,” the Princess bit her lips before continuing: “When I told you before that you need to become stronger, I meant it. Doing things on your own will help you grow stronger. Just think of it as a report. Pearl and I will talk to Convallarius today, I am counting on you to talk to the rest of the town and find out what’s wrong with this place.”

“O-okay.” meekly replied Phos, unsure of what to say beyond that. It was the first time the Princess seemed so vulnerable, or even vulnerable at all. Like she talked to a friend and not to a student or a useless gem who did nothing all day.

Twilight smiled at Phos for some time, before Pearl finally woke up. The three went back to the Admirabilis village, where Phos separated from the other two in order to work on his quest for the Princess. He had been entrusted with something very important. Important enough for Twilight to show her weak side to him. He was going to find out what was going on. For the Princess.

Name: Convallarius

Mane color: Black but full of holes, as if eaten from the inside.

Age: Unknown

Hardness: Unknown

Cutie mark: I don’t think they have one

Personality: He’s the leader of the Admirabilis, he doesn’t seem that of a good guy, he tried to eat me and Pearl when we met at first but thankfully the Princess saved us. As Twilight said, the Admirabilis seem to be hiding something and since he’s their leader, he must be the one to hide the most things from us. But I’ll figure it out. Twilight asked me personally after all.

Author's Note

Things are happening. I hope the wait didn't bothered you all too much.

Next chapter will be out saturday 14.03.2020 and I'll keep the pace at one chapter a week from now on.

Ventricosus

Sword on his back, Phosphophyllite was walking around the small village of the Admirabilis spotting the holes in the ground that marked the entrance to their homes. After asking around all morning, he’d managed to find the closest thing to a library the Admirabilis had. Entering the unusually large hole in the ground, he arrived in a room lit by strange crystals. It was just as big as Rutile’s workshop, with some bookcase-like storage carved in the rocky walls. Strange shells were lined up all around. A single Admirabilis, with the same light blue skin as the rest, was floating in the middle of the room, with a shell pressed against its ear.

“Excuse me…” Phos said, almost in a whisper. The creature looked at Phos and put the shell back with the rest. “I’m one of the visitors with Princess Twilight, I’m looking for information about how you live your life and stuff,” he finished.

“Well, welcome to the archive of my people then,” said the Admirabilis with a noticeably feminine voice. “I am Ventricosus. Do you need any help? Something for the ‘Goddess’ maybe?” She said with a dull voice.

“The Princess sent me indeed. She was hoping to find out more about your people. Do you know where I can find any books on you all?” Said Phos, as he took the sword off his back with his magic and placed it near the entrance.

“Well, If you haven’t noticed, books don’t take water that well. You are standing in the middle of our most accessed records of the past,” she answered, waving to the walls full of shells of various sizes.

“Those are your books…?” Asked Phos.

“Well, I don’t know how your species works underwater but clearly even a blind Admirabilis would see they’re shells,” sassed Ventricosus. With a more serious voice she continued: “My people have the capacity to store our voice inside the shells here. We record our wisdom for future generations to learn. We do have some books, but our chief keeps them safe. It is said that it was the Goddess herself that gave them to us.”

"As for what we have here, well it's not much, but I do hope you can find what you're looking for," she finished

"So… I just take one and put it to my ear and it'll just work?"

“Essentially, yes. I’ll stay here if you need any help.” Ventricosus added.

Going through the many records of the Admirabilis’ past, Phos discovered nothing of interest. Most of the records seemed to be messages from dying and elderly Admirabilis left to the next generations. Advice, tips about making homes, and cooking recipes. All the while, Ventricosus watched from the other side of the room.

After a few hours, Phos finally complained: “This is all useless. This is filled with junk information that doesn’t even make sense. Some of them are, like, if they were from Admirabilis who knew they were going to be taken to the moon. How come they’re so depressed and all?” He asked no-one in particular.

“Taken to the moon?” Asked Ventricosus, curious.

“By the Lunarians you know? Cause we’re all so beautiful and all,” Phos said, trying and succeeding to look adorable.

“The Lunarians?”

“You know, crazy unicorns that play music and come during the day?”

Noticing Ventricosus’ blank expression, Phos asked: “You… don’t have Lunarians come and take you?”

“I am afraid I never heard of such creatures. At least not here, maybe you’ll find traces of these Lunarians you speak of in the old archives,” answered Ventricosus.

“There are archives with older stuff? Why didn’t you tell me before?”

“Well you didn’t exactly ask for anything specific. I told you these are just our most accessed records,” said the Admirabilis.

“Can you take me there, then? Pleeeeeaaaaase?” the useless unicorn whined.

Ventricosus sighed, then reluctantly nodded and asked Phos to follow her before she led him outside and started swimming in the direction of the other archives. They were situated outside of town and Ventricosus had to wait for Phos to walk as the Admirabilis could move much faster under water—perhaps even faster than Twilight!

As they walked, at first in silence, Phos tried to make small talk.

“So, do you know why you look like the Princess, Ventricosus?” Asked Phos. The Admirabilis indeed looked like seaponies, same as Twilight, except their whole race shared the same blue coloration.

“Well, we do have stories of why we look like the Goddess, yes.” Ventricosus began. “Our people have this story about the ponies of old. The one who were here before the meteors visited the planet.”

“Among the ponies, there were six goddesses, mighty and all powerful, they all had an aspect associated and they were revered by the ponies. Before the meteors came, a dispute among them started. Two of them took refuge inside the earth with a third of the ponies and made a pact with Equus to become immortals. Our people say that you are their descendants. One went into the sea with another third, they kept the cycle of reproduction and death and evolved into us.” She marked a pause in her story and sighted.

“Two of them however, went into the stars with the rest of the ponies. Last, the only goddess who couldn’t leave her home stayed and tried to stop the meteors. We do not know which of them is your Princess, but she does match the description of the one who went into the sea.” She finished.

“Wait, so if a third became you, another, us and the rest took off, doesn’t that mean they became the Lunarians? If so, why would they attack us and not you?” Phos asked, trying to keep up with Ventricosus as she swam a little faster.

“I do not know, Phos. These are stories of my people. They could just be stories and not truth at all, so don’t take my word for it.”

“If you say so…” Finished Phos just before silence fell once again as the pair walked some more.

They had been walking for some time, an hour and a half or so. Leaving the village, there were only the plain, sandy bottom of the ocean and the occasional algae. The sun was setting and Phos was already feeling weaker from the lack of sunlight when Ventricosus finally stopped.

“We have arrived,” she announced.

“Good then, I’ll stop for a bit.” Phos stated. “I am so tired…” He complained as he lay down on the sand, letting his sword fall next to him.

“You know, I am sorry for not introducing myself properly before. For our people, and for you as well it seems, the Goddesses all bore the title of Princess. In our culture we still have one. One who leads the Admirabilis and has to help them survive, whatever the cost.”

Phos didn’t understand why he was being told all of this, he just wanted to sleep a little and get back to his mission when the sun rose again tomorrow.

Ventricosus continued: “When we created Pearl, we thought it would be enough to buy us the safety we seeked.” Phos looked at the Admirabilis at the notion of Pearl, wide eyed. “It wasn’t. Let me introduce myself again. I am Princess Ventricosus of the Admirabilis, daughter of Aculeatus, descendant of the Goddesses. And I hope you and your Princess can forgive me.”

As she said that, a single magical arrow plunged into Phos’ body, the choc breaking his lower half, along with his horn and an eye. The rest of Phos looked shocked at what he saw over the ocean: Lunarians.

“Descendant of the stars, I hope this is enough to save our people.” Shouted Ventricosus to the Lunarians’ vessel up in the air.

This note is written with beautiful horn-writing.

The admirabilis are a curious species!

They seemed to keep a record of their knowledge in shells, via some sort of passive magic. They also had some books which I took the time to copy for my own collection; I’ll go over them once I am back at the Great Oak.

They sure do seem to enjoy partying. Pearl was very excited to play with the children of the Admirabilis, once they warmed up to our presence. The only black spot to this research is their lack of historical records, as if they just suddenly appeared out of nowhere with all their current knowledge.

Despite my questions, they kept secret obvious facts such as their lack of foods. For some reason, there do not seem to be any mineral formations for them to eat in the sea. The population of the Admirabilis is obviously affected by this lack of food and it would explain why we haven’t seen that many of them before. In my estimation, there are only a few hundred of them but many more houses, indicating some sort of famine in recent times.

I’ll wait for Phos to come back before concluding anything else.

Author's Note

Alternative title: Betrayal.

Phosphophyllite?

Twilight’s sun was slowly setting as the aforementioned Princess and Pearl left Convallarius' home. Twilight had spent the day learning about the Admirabilis accompanied by a bored Pearl. They were now trotting—or rather swimming in Twilight's case—to their previous camp for the night.

They were overall pretty happy with their day, Twilight especially. Both were more excited by the thought of meeting with Phos again and seeing what he'd learned on his own. Once they arrived at their camp site, there were unfortunately no traces of Phos to be seen. Unbeknownst to them, the cyan unicorn wasn't having a great day.

Pain. Not physical pain, the gems didn't feel much as their bodies broke, this was a mental pain. Still conscious, Phos saw various parts of his body being picked up by the Lunarians' unicorns. Was there music? Phos couldn't tell, maybe their instrument didn’t work underwater. Or maybe he lost his ear too and didn't notice?

Hurt, Phos watched the world happening around him with his remaining eye. He glanced at Ventricosus—the one who broke his trust—she was shouting something to the Lunarians above the waters. It all seemed too far away for Phos.

He eventually understood some of Ventricosus' shouting: "This is not what we agreed on! One full gem for the protection of my people. I will not help you capture any more of them if you don’t respect our terms!" She violently declared.

If there was a response, Phos didn't hear it.

"What about Pearl? You refused him at first, why would you want him now of all time! I will not endanger my people further by declaring war on an alicorn. Honour your part of the deal and save us." She demanded furiously, her voice still regal despite the anger. In a way, it reminded Phos of the Princess' voice.

The Princess… he disappointed her for sure. He didn't get any information and now he was being taken to the moon. Wait—they wanted to take Pearl? He couldn’t let that happen. He focused all his forces and tried to say something. “...me, leave… alone…” he weakly said.

It was enough to get the attention of Ventricosus. “Hum? Are you still conscious? Damn you gems are strong.” She muttered to herself.

Phos groaned and repeated himself, a little louder. “...take me… leave Pearl alone…” How he still had the strength to speak eluded even him.

Ventricosus blinked in surprise. She considered a moment then whispered to Phos: “I will try. I am sorry.”

Time continued to pass, and what remained of Phos was now being levitated to the Lunarians’ platform with magic. Ventricosus still talking loudly, this time about “saving the Admirabilis” or something. The sun had set and yet the moons didn’t rise yet, Phos began to finally lose consciousness when a bright golden magic bolt shot right past him and into the Lunarian platform. The energy emitting from the ray seemed to wake Phos up. Was that... Sunlight?

With new energy filling his body, he could feel himself sinking into the ocean as the Lunarians’ grip on him loosened and broke. He could almost see a very angry Princess somewhere at the bottom of the ocean.

With her royal voice, the alicorn shouted: “YOU SHALL NOT TAKE HIM!” Before she summoned more magic bolts with her horn glowing with all the might of the Sun herself.

The battle was over before it had even begun. However, the Lunarians’ platform managed to get away, fortunately without most of Phosphophyllite. The remains of the latter slowly hitting the ocean floor. Phos heard cries and shouting but his thought went to the sky, wasn’t the sun set already? Why is the sky still red? Or was that the water?

Near the remains of Ventricosus’ burnt body, Twilight stood, furiously staring at the already beaten corpse of the admirabilis. Pearl was going to be there soon, and this needed to be cleaned up. The Admirabilis needed to be cleaned up. Phos needed Rutile’s attention too. The latter was more important.

She started picking up the rest of Phos and the remains of the admirabilis in her magic before swimming as fast as she can to Pearl. They had a long walk back to the island ahead of them and couldn’t waste any time. Phos needed to be repaired. Twilight couldn’t afford to lose an element now. She quickly separated some bones from the flesh of the still fresh corpse and took them with her magic among Phos’ pieces.

Twilight arrived back at the island, exhausted, with a destroyed Phos on her back and Pearl in full panic mode. They were back early. She had stopped raising the moons and had seemingly been moving the sun alongside herself. It was Onyx who sounded the alarm, spotting the trio coming out of the sea from the southern beach.

All the gems gathered at the Great Oak, most of them helping Pearl calm down by keeping him busy. The rest were listening to Twilight’s ramblings about the events that occured, a slight tone of anger in her voice. Phos was left in Rutile’s care, along with the straight white bones the Princess gave her. It was stuff she’d never seen before, and the fact it sounded hollow in some place didn’t ease Rutile’s mind in the slightest.

It took her quite some time but after several days of intensive work, Rutile announced that the job was done as best as he could. Now, they just had to wait for Phos to wake up.

Light poured from the window in Rutile’s workshop. Its owner was sleeping near the window on some cushion. An unconscious Phos was on the work table in the middle of the room. Rutile had spent some days studying the new material the Princess had brought back from the sea. There was a lot of it and after breaking it up and reassembling it into more usable parts, Rutile managed to form something that was able to be integrated into Phos.

The gem currently laid on the work table was now a strange mix of cyan gems and white opaque material. While a good part of the body seemed to have been saved, it did now have three of its four hooves and an eye made of the opaque white material. It also lacked another thing: a horn.

Phos reacted to the sun shining in his eye and opened it. He was on his back, he could recognise the ceiling of the workshop. Had his hooves always been this hard to move or was this a really hard morning?

Eventually, Phos managed to roll himself to the side and immediately fell to the ground. He could feel the wood with one hoof the rest was still limp. Naturally, the sound of the rock hitting the wood managed to wake Rutile up. He got up in a hurry and immediately started examining Phos’ hooves.

“Phosphophyllite! Can you hear me? Can you see me? Can you move your hooves?” He asked in succession, nearly overwhelming the not-clever not-unicorn.

“That’s me. Yes, you’re loud. Yeah but you’re pretty blurry. Only one, the rest are sleeping,” Phos responded. “Can you help me with one thing though?”

“Please tell me, is anything wrong?” Rutile asked, a little panicked.

“How do you know my name?”

Written with rather messy horn-writing in a hurry by a certain doctor:

“With the help of the Princess, I have been able to reassemble Phosphophyllite. However, he has lost part of his body in the sea from a Lunarian attack. When he arrived, he was missing three of his hooves, his horn, and most of his face.

I managed to use the material the Princess brought with her, we identified it as ‘Compact Bones’. It has a hardness of around five, stronger than Phos. His body didn’t seem to refuse the material so we used it to rebuild his missing hooves and the part of his face he lost.

We were unable to make a new horn for him unfortunately, Compact Bones do not seem to possess any magical leylines and it probably just wouldn’t work. Until we get it back, or find a good enough replacement, Phos will not be able to use any magic.”

Author's Note

Things get more interesting as Phos learn that changes comes at a cost.

Twilight

“How do you know my name?” Asked Phosphophyllite, laying on the floor and staring back at the strange red-and-yellow-maned unicorn who shared his gaze.

The stranger looked at him with some shock before composing himself. “My name is Rutile. You’re back at the Great Oak. The Princess brought you back after you got ambushed by some Lunarians. Do you remember anything about the events?” ‘Rutile’ asked.

“Some of it yeah… Why am I here again?” He asked, uninterest apparent in his voice.

“Phosphophyllite, I’m sorry to say this… but the Princess didn’t save all of you,” declared Rutile while levitating Phos back to the work table. “After reassembling all that I could, you still missed three of your hooves, one of your eyes and your horn.”

A silence filled the room, as if Rutile left Phos the time to take it all in.

But it was quickly broken by Phos’ remark. “But I can feel that I have hooves, and eyes, I think. Was it always this cloudy here?”

“We were able to rebuild your hooves and eye out of a new material. The Princess had it when she came back with you from the Ocean. We named it “Compact Bones” and it is of a hardness of five.”

Rutile showed a still intact bone in his magic to Phos. “The good news is that your inclusions seem to take the material pretty well. The bad news is that with all you lost you’ve probably forgotten a lot of things.” He said, bitter in his voice. “Like me I guess…” He muttered.

“Wha…? I lost memories…?”

A new voice made itself known in the room. “Yes, inclusions are part of yourself and they have a memory. You’ve lost part of yourself and so the memories stored in that part are lost as well.” A lavender alicorn explained, standing near the door to the workshop. “I see you’ve awakened, Phosphophyllite. Rutile, could you leave us alone for a moment?”

Rutile bowed slightly and left the two in the workshop.

“How do you feel?” Asked the Princess, genuine concern in her voice.

“Okay-ish.” Admitted Phos. “He sounded a little hurt before. Rutile, I mean. Did I really know him?”

“Yes, you two were good friends. Can you tell me all that you remember from the Ocean?”

“Well, there was you and Pearl… and we walked a lot and… Pearl got his cutie mark from a strange ghost or something… and then we found the Admirabilis.” Listed Phos.

“Do you remember the attack?”

“Not really, I remember the party and after that it’s all blurry.”

The alicorn sighed… out of relief? “Okay, it is unfortunate, but I’m glad you’re fine.” She teleported a small pile of paper in front of Phos. “These are the reports you’ve written over the years. I’ll give you the time to go through them so you can remember any details you might have forgotten about the other gems.”

Phos nodded and tried to lift the first sheet towards himself, but found himself unable, somehow. No cyan hue came around the paper and no magic could be channelled by Phos. He tried again yet the magical field was nowhere to be seen. He shot a panicked look to the Princess, who watched over him, saddened.

“Rutile told you, Phosphophyllite; you’ve lost your horn. I’m sorry.”

Phos was back in his room thanks to the help of the Princess, his new hooves not fully working yet. He spent some time alone in silence, reading his own reports. Thankfully, he remembered most of them, even his friends, Morganite, Goshenite, Diamond and Pearl. He learned about Rutile too. The rest of the gems were more of the same; name, occupation and brief summary of their personality.

When he wasn’t reading he would take the time to get used to his new hooves, quickly learning how to walk again. As hard as relearning to use hooves was, not having magic was worse. Phos could still feel the magic in the world like any unicorn, and yet couldn’t channel any of it. He was like a child in a candy store where he couldn’t take or even touch anything. He wasn’t that good at magic, and yet he missed it already.

How can Jade do anything without a horn or wings? He asked himself. I’ll have to ask him someday.

Eventually, Phos decided to go ask the Princess what he should do now. He stood up and looked at all the paper in the room. He tried, and failed, to pick them up with his nonexistent horn. He moved to get them all in a pile and took them with his mouth. He’d seen Jade take papers and maps like that in the past, he’d have to get used to that now.

Leaving his room and closing the door with a hind leg, he was immediately surprised by a white opaque unicorn hugging him. If gems needed to breath, Phos would probably have died from the tightness of the hug. When a crack was heard, Pearl quickly stopped and looked at Phos a little panicked.

“Oh by the Sun, I’m sorry, Phos. Are you okay? I didn’t break you, did I? I’m just so happy to see you, but the Princess told us to not bother you too much,” said the very excited yet worried Pearl.

Phos could feel a small crack around his neck that prevented him from moving his head too far. “Hi Pearl. It’s just my neck, it’s okay, I think I know the spell to mend—” Phos stopped mid-sentence. Oh yeah, right. No horn. He remembered. “It’s okay, I guess I’ll ask Rutile to fix me again,” he dully stated.

A quick visit to Rutile indeed fixed the problem, all the while Pearl assaulted the cyan now-earth-pony with questions about his well being and compliments about how he managed to get the hang of his new hooves.

“We’re similar now, look!” Said Pearl, pointing as his own white opaque hooves. They did look like the new hooves Phos had. The powder he wore over the lustrous parts of his body was nothing like Pearl’s body, whereas the new Compact Bone limbs looked much more like the white unicorn’s. It did put a smile on his face to know he was a little more like his friend now.

“Yes we are indeed.” He said, throwing a quick smile to the younger gem. “Look, I have to go and see the Princess, we’ll do anything you want after that. Maybe we could even visit Cinnabar.” His smile turned a bit sadder as he muttered to himself: “I bet he’s gonna break me…”

“Sure! We’ll wait for you in the main room!” Announced Pearl, once again excited. ‘We’?

Phos knocked on the door to the Princess’ office. “Come in,” she invited.

He tried to push the door with his hooves. Right, pull. He awkwardly tried to grab the handle of the door with his front hooves, then his mouth, before finally a purple hue of magic opened the door on him.

“Oh, it’s you. I’m sorry I thought it was another of Sphene’s pranks. Please come in.” She invited once again from her desk.

Phos took his place in front of the Princess before addressing her. “Princess, now that we are back from the Ocean, what will my next job be? I don’t think I’ll be able to do anything special without my horn.”

“So you think Jade also is useless?” Asked the Princess.

“What? No! He’s like the best at organising stuff, well except maybe you, but he also knows how to fight and learn strategy and all,” quickly responded Phos.

“What about Diamond? Or Bort? They don’t have a horn and yet they also find ways to make themselves useful.” The lavender alicorn trotted up next to Phos and took him in a one-wing hug. “Phosphophyllite, your value does not reside in your horn. I can guarantee you that we’ll find a job that will suit you, horn or no.”

If gems could blush, Phos would have been a bright crimson.

“For now, however,” the Princess continued. “I heard there were some gems that were eager to see you again down in the main room. Why don’t you go and see them? We’ll talk later about finding you another job.”

Phos simply nodded, a small smile on his face. The Princess folded her wing back on herself and showed him the door.

The cyan ex-unicorn trotted down the stare until arriving in the main room and immediately got assaulted with cheers from half a dozen gems.

Rainbow-colored sprinkles flew in the air and Phos noticed a huge banner just above the main entrance that read “Welcome back from the Ocean!” in bold letters. A small addition seemed to have been made just under it with the text: “And congratulations on your recovery!”

Phos stood, truly surprised by the event unfolding in the room. He could see the smiling faces of all his friends. Even Cinnabar was here, in a corner, but here nonetheless. Pearl was in the middle of the group in front of Phos and trotted up to him.

“Do you remember the party at the Admirabilis’? Well, I thought I could do my own party here, just for you!” He hugged Phos again, this time with more restraint.

“Good job on losing your legs,” teased Morga with a grin before getting hit on the back of the head by Goshenite, a sharp twang filling the room.

“Don’t listen to him, Phos,” added the silver gem. “We’re glad you’re back safe and sound.”

“Come on Phos, we’ll play some of the games Pearl taught us from the Ocean!” Declared Dia before dragging Phos to a corner of the room where a “pin the tail on the pony” game was installed.

The evening surely would be full of laughter, only stopped when the other gems complained of the monopolization of the common room.

In the eastern ravine, far inside, there was a strange cave that had existed for millenia. Inside it, crystal statues of ponies laid around a singular tree made of six colors. Two alicorn statues held the tree in place. Twilight looked at the new tree of harmony. It had taken two of the six alicorns to revive it and save as many ponies as they could.

Suddenly, a branch of the tree fell and took the shape of a pony. The alicorn could sense the rebirth of a pony as a gem, but this time, it felt different… Almost as if a power inside of her wanted to escape to be absorbed by the newly born cyan unicorn on the ground.

She managed to hold onto it and started levitating the body to take it up to the Great Oak. “Welcome to this world, Phosphophyllite.” She said warmly to the body who twitched from the magic around it.

Name: Phosphophyllite

Mane color: Cyan

Age: Less than two years

Hardness: 3.5

Cutie mark: None.

Element: Magic.

Notes: Phosphophyllite is a very curious gem who is making quick progress in his education. He seems to find joy spending time with his fellow gems. He has learned to walk quickly and his speech develops at an impressive rate. I have hope to find a suitable job and maybe he’ll reveal the other elements. I can still fix it all, I just need the elements.

Twilight stopped writing, she was rambling on a report, again. She hated doing those but they were necessary; she couldn’t afford to forget about that. She’d already forgotten too much.

The alicorn took the sheet of paper and put it back in her file before hiding that in turn in her study.

Author's Note

Some things are best left hidden.

Alternative title: Bones.

Antarcticite

As winter was coming this year, Phos didn’t help with the preparation for the gems’ hibernation. Instead, he mostly got accustomed with the horn-less life he had to live. To this help, he was helped by the only other earth-pony gem: Jade. Jade was one of the strongest gems in the Great Oak, with a hardness of seven he used to fight a lot with Euclase before getting his cutie mark, a map of the island. He mostly did the morning briefings and organised the teams and battle plans for the rest of the gems now.

It also turns out that Phos was stronger than he had imagined. His new Compact Bones legs especially. The first week he had them, he accidently destroyed three doors by simply kicking them open. Once he knew to control his new-found strength, Phos had gone back to simply doing nothing.

The snow started falling on the once green island, and a few days before the actual start of the hibernation for the gems, Diamond took Phos out to collect some of the ingredients to make white powder for Rutile. On the west plain, they found the desired white berries.

“How are the new legs?” Asked Diamond, a sympathetic smile on his face.

“Strog and gud” Said Phos, a mouth full of berries he carefully tried not to smash with his teeth. He spat them in a bowl on the ground and continued: “I wish I could be more useful but it’s not like I could use this strength anyway.”

“Why don’t you try fighting, then? Jade used to be a really good fighter you know.”

“It’s not like the Princess would accept anyway,” replied Phos.

“Well, have you even asked her?”

Back in the Great Oak, inside of the mighty alicorn’s office.

“No, we’ve already talked about this a century ago,” was the obvious reply from the Princess. “Especially now that you just lost part of yourself, you aren’t fit for fighting, at all.”

“But Jade could fight without a horn or wings just fine! And he’s super strong like I am now, so why can’t I?”

“This isn’t about having more limbs or not,” scolded the alicorn. “Fighting the Lunarians is more than pure strength. Cinnabar should have taught you that, don't you think?” She rhetorically asked. “He wasn’t even supposed to be able to use magic due to his hardness, and yet he was one of our best fighters. He—more than strength—had the wisdom to use what little he had to its full potential. The day you can do this, I will let you fight. And not a second before.”

“Fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine…” said Phos before leaving the room.

But as Phos walked down the stairs to the first floor of the Great Oak, a violet bubble of magic exploded in front of him. The Princess stood with a sly smile on her face.

“You know what? I have the perfect job for you, and it does involve fighting,” she announced, grinning.

Phos lit up at the declaration, eager to start his new assignment.

“I want you to meet me the day of the start of the hibernation; I’ll explain it all then,” she added before disappearing in another burst of purple magic.

The day just became a bit brighter for Phos as he helped with the preparations for the hibernation. On the third floor, there was a room full of very old story books the gems liked to read when they were still young. This room was big—as big as the main room without a doubt—and it is where Red Beryl was currently setting up the hibernation chamber with the help of both Amethyst twins. The gems truly used the hibernation to have a big sleepover where they would have fun for a day or two before the longer nights of Winter made them too sleepy.

“Ah! Phos!” Called both Amethyst as the gem in question entered the room. “We need your help, you’re strong. Help us put the mattresses down everywhere in the room.” They said, in a single, monotone, synchronous voice. And so, Phos did just that, with a smile on his face and thoughts of his future fights in mind, he helped as best as he could without a horn.

Winter was the season of snow, of cloudy weather and of peace for the gems. The Lunarians only attacked one or two times during the three months of hibernation the gems had to take each year.

This year, everyone finished their preparations in time and, the day of the beginning of the hibernation, went into the room. Most of them were already inside, playing various games that Pearl organised. Only Cinnabar, Phos, Jade and Bort were missing. Cinnabar, as always, was spending the winter on his own somewhere. Jade and Bort finalised the defense plan with the Princess in her office. Phos was waiting outside of said office, forcing himself to stay awake despite his growing fatigue. He couldn’t wait to finally go to sleep.

“Very well then Jade, I’ll make sure to transmit all of this information to Antarcticite when he wakes up,” acknowledged the alicorn with her calm voice as they all exited the room.

The green earth pony and the black pegasus nodded to the Princess, both visibly tired. “We’ll be going now, have a good Winter, Princess,” Bort exclaimed politely.

“Phos? You’re still up?” said a surprised Jade to the cyan earth pony. “Come on now, let’s go to sleep.”

Bort ignored the useless gem and went to the third floor for some well deserved rest. Jade still looked at him, awaiting an explanation. “He’s with me Jade,” answered the Princess in Phos’ stead. “I’ll have him try to work with Antarcticite,” she explained.

Jade looked shocked at the revelation. “B-b-b-but my plans… I never accounted for him to work during winter. How will he stay up anyway?”

Phos realised what the job he was about to get would be. Goodbye sleep, I’ll miss you. He thought to himself.

“Don’t worry, Jade, I’ve already taken care of everything, you can go sleep now,” reassured the alicorn.

“If you say so… Have a good Winter then, see you in three months,” Jade finished as he made his way to the sleeping chamber.

“Have a good night, Jade, I’ll pass by later to put the soundproof spell on the room.” The alicorn turned to Phos. “Now, Phosphophyllite, are you ready for some work?” Asked the Princess, grinning again.

“Yeah…?” hesitantly responded Phos.

“First, let me take care of your fatigue, I’m sure you’ll appreciate being a bit more awake.” As she declared that, her horn began glowing with a bright golden warm light. A small stream of golden magic floated from the Princess’ horn down to Phos before engulfing him in it. It filled him with a warm sensation, as if he was taking a sunbath, and this new energy immediately washed his fatigue away. “There, better?”

“What was that Princess?” asked a surprised Phos. “I… I’m not tired anymore, at all actually. Had I even ever felt this awake? This is awesome!” He noted with a cheery voice.

The alicorn giggled. “I’m glad it worked then. This is pure sunlight straight from my sun, it’s a very taxing spell so I can only use it one or two time per month, but it shall be enough for you to help all winter.”

So that’s how Antarc can stay awake. Thought Phos to himself. Wait, didn’t I see this spell already? Back in the ocean, maybe?

“Let’s wake Antarcticite up, you both have work to do.”

The now more-than-awake Phos and the purple alicorn went to the second floor, where most of the individual bedrooms were located. In a usually sealed room, however, laid a stone bathtub full of liquid. For the last few days, as the temperature dropped, the liquid had slowly been crystalizing into the form of a gem pony with both wings and horn. As the two entered the room, the body of Antarcticite was still asleep in it.

As Twilight levitated the still body out of the watery substance with a purple magic field. Phos asked about him: “Hey Princess, I never saw Antarc before, why is he an alicorn like you?”

“He’s not a true alicorn if that’s what you’re asking, Phos,” responded the Princess. “His body melts outside of winter despite whatever cooling spell we try to put on him. His very nature makes him change attributes each time he solidifies again,” she explained calmly while applying some white powder on Antarcticite’s body.

“Good, that’ll do it,” she announced after applying enough powder to cover all of his body. “I’m really not good at this, I should have listened to Rarity more for things like that.”

“Who?” Questioned Phos.

“Rutile, he’s the one who knows how to put the white powder correctly. I used to do it before he was born, but never really got the hang of it. I’m not a fan of makeup really.”

Antarc’s body now ready, the Princess’ horn glowed with the golden light again. This time Phos could see how hard it seemed to be, judging by her face. It engulfed the white alicorn with power as he slowly woke up.

“Princess? Is it winter already? What shape do I have this time?” Asked Antarcticite with a deep voice, one not unlike Bort’s but with less sass. Much less sass.

“Hello Antarcticite. Yes it is already Winter,” welcomed the Princess warmly. “The rest are already asleep. You will share your work this year with one though.”

“What do you mean?” He asked, looking around for a bit before spotting Phos beside the Princess. The small cyan pony didn’t really stand out next to the ruler of the celestial bodies.

“Oh. You,” he sighed, voice full of annoyance and exasperation already. “Do I have to?” he complained to the Princess.

“Now come on, Antarcticite. Didn’t you want somegem to help you out for winter?”

“Affirmative,” he exclaimed. “But I was thinking of someone more… useful like Diamond, Morganite or even Ghost Quartz, if he ever wanted to fight again. I must say, I don’t think Phos is strong enough to help me.”

Phos took offence at that last statement. “What? Look who’s talking, you’re as frail as me with a hardness of three remember?” he said, remembering a report.

“Phos is right, Antarcticite, you’ve proven that winter work doesn’t require much strength but it can be useful to have at least a little. Besides, Phos changed a lot last year as you’ll find out. I’m sure he’s ready to work with you.”

Antarcticite groaned, but quickly composed himself. “Fine, but you’ll have to work twice as hard as you’ve ever worked, Three-Point-Five,” he warned before mumbling to himself: “Wait, two times zero is still zero. Okay, let me rephrase that. If you manage to work even half as well as me after a month then I agree to let you work winter with me. If not, well, I guess you could still clean the Great Oak all winter.”

Not sure if he ought to be afraid or not, Phos nodded carefully. The Princess let out a chuckle again. “I’m glad you already are friends then. Antarcticite, Phosphophyllite, come to my office, we’ll go over Jade’s plan for this winter and then you can get to work.”

Both gems nodded again and they all walked together to the Princess’ office.

“By the way, congratulations on your alicornhood Antarcticite,” joked the purple alicorn as they walked, making the white one panic as he noticed the wings on his back.

Name: Antarcticite.

Mane color: Transparent / White.

Age: Never asked.

Hardness: 3

Cutie mark: A strange crystal tree with 5 branches of different colors.

Personality: Uptight, he likes to work and to please the Princess with his work. He can sometimes get wings or a horn or both when he wakes up at the beginning of each winter. He doesn't seem to be able to do magic though for some reasons.

Author's Note

I'm sorry for last week. The blame is on Persona 5 Royal.

I hope you enjoy this chapter.

Alternative title: Winter.

Ice

Jade’s defence plan was fairly basic, but it wasn’t like there was much fighting during winter anyway. Phos and Antarcticite would be mostly doing the winter chores -- The former still unknowing of said chores -- but Jade said there would be a few days sunny enough for lunarians to come, so they needed to prepare well. Most of the time though, it was dark and cloudy outside. The lack of sunlight would evidently make the gems sleepy, but thanks to Twilight’s spell, they weren’t.

It turned out the winter chores were much redundant than Phos had imagined. They spent at least two weeks cleaning the Great Oak, shaking the snow out of its branch and reorganising the library with the Princess. That last task especially seemed to cheer up the purple alicorn for some unknown reasons. It was hard work to move that many books and scroll, how could she love it?

One morning, after the reorganisation of the whole library, excluding the Princess’ office and her underground study, cries had started to echo throughout the Great Oak, their source seemingly outside.

“Tsk, it’s the sinners again,” complained Antarcticite to no-one in particular. He was clearing some of the snow with Phos’ help in front of the Great Oak. His slender alicorn body was taller than Phos but still smaller than the Princess, who was a fully grown alicorn. Since Antarc didn’t have any magic, he mostly used his wings to gracefully shovel the snow out of the way.

The cries started again. “Hey, Phos,” called Antarc as the cyan earth pony awkwardly used a shovel with his teeth. “The Princess must have heard them, go make sure she’s in the basement while we take care of it.”

“Why would she need to get in the basement?” Phos asked; it didn’t really make sense to him. But again, he really didn’t know anything about the winter chores. Now that he thought of it, did anyone know what to do in winter except Antarc and the Princess? Maybe Jade knew, but his plan just involved the Lunarians’ attack, so even this seemed unlikely.

“Cause she shouldn’t have to hear them, she already beats herself up too much over it. They’re just meaningless cries, you’ll have to learn to take care of them too,” the white alicorn explained. “Now go inside and make sure she goes into the basement, there’s a permanent soundproof enchantment on the room so she should be good there. With the cloud cover today there won’t be any Lunarians either, let’s do this quickly, come on!” Ordered Antarcticite to Phos, who immediately responded to his order with a half-hearted salute and went straight into the Great Oak to look for the Princess.

Said Princess was currently in the main room, books around her on the ground, hooves on her ears. A third cry was heard in the distance, and she somehow seemed genuinely terrified of it. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she whispered over and over again to herself, trembling, eyes pressed shut and tears running down her cheeks.

“Princess?” Carefully said Phos to the mighty alicorn as if he was talking to Pearl in his younger years.

The ruler of the sun cowered at Phos. “Please, I’m sorry, I tried, I’m sorry, no more please,” she pleaded to Phos.

Shocked himself, Phos helped the Princess back on her hooves. “Come on Princess, it’s okay. Let’s go to the basement, just like Antarc asked.”

“Antarc sent you? Tell him I’m sorry, make it stop please,” she continued. She wasn’t making any sense. Once, last year, the Princess had shown a weak side to Phos, her fears for the future in a way, but this was completely different. This wasn’t the Princess who ruled the gems, nor was it the one who opened up to Phos in the ocean. This was a scared foal, just like when Pearl partly destroyed a book and was afraid to tell Alexandrite.

The walk to the basement was a long one, and the Princess’ weight didn’t help it. Thankfully, Phos’ newly-found strength helped a lot, almost completely carrying the alicorn to the previously forbidden room. After briefly struggling to open the door, Phos entered the unlit room.

“No light, damnit, if only I still had my horn,” he told himself while helping the Princess inside.

Phos could still see its outline, so the dark room must’ve had some sort of slight illumination. There were lots of bookcases, as expected from the Princess. An unlit fireplace was found at the end of the room. It didn’t seem to have been used a lot in recent times. Around said fireplace, six chairs all faced it. They were in poor condition, all of them seemed to have, at one point, had some sort of mark each. When Phos closed the door behind them, the Princess trotted slowly, eyes still wet, to one of the chairs. On it, there was an old book with torn pages and an almost detached spine. The front cover was almost fully gone, except for a single horned pony head, with a single cyan eye. She held onto it, hugging it as if it was bringing her the comfort she needed.

“Are you alright, Princess?” Hesitantly asked Phos.

She sniffled before answering, pain evident in her voice. “I-I am, Phosphophyllite. Thank you for bringing me here, I’m fine now.”

“This wasn’t ‘fine’,” Phos said, gesturing to the door with one hoof. “You were completely helpless, how come? No one ever told me winter does that to pony,” deadpanned Phos.

“Yes, I guess you’re right.” She took a few deep breaths and regained her composure. “I owe you an explanation. The short version is, I don’t know why it happens. The ice flows sometimes take strange forms as Antarc will show you. These things emit noise that we perceived as cries. For some reasons, they make me hear horrible things. For example when I failed to save Cinnabar’s horn or when I almost lost you, Phos,” she explained, the book still in her hooves.

Phos didn’t know what to say once again. This was really something he didn’t expect in winter. “I’m sorry I can’t do more to help you and I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. These voices affect me for some reasons, I’ll have to stay here while you and Antarc deal with them,” she concluded.

Phos absently nodded to her explanations, he didn’t understand much of it but he’ll ask Antarc, maybe he knew more about it.

“They’re sinners,” the white alicorn explained over yet another cry. The two were now preparing for some reasons. Antarc hadn’t provided much explanation on what they would be doing with those ‘sinners’. “They’re gems who can’t form a body like you and I, so they blame their own weakness to the Princess. Be careful to not listen to their plea, they will try to trick you,” he warned.

They were currently in Obsidian’s workshop. The messy interior was filled with half-made swords, axes and other strange weapons the gems asked Obsidian to develop for them. Finally, Antarc took a long wing-sleeve out of one chest. “This is perfect, I’m sure Bort won’t mind if I try this,” said Antarc, grinning at the idea of messing with a diamond. Phos himself let out a small laugh. “Here’s your sword by the way,” he continued, hoofing him a long heavy sword.

Phos hesitated, he’d never used any sword in real combat, the one he had in the ocean was a very small one whose apparent weight was reduced by the water. He carefully took the massive sword in his mouth and found himself able to lift it somehow. That is, until Antarc let go of the rest of the sword, which clattered to the floor along with Phos’ lower jaw.

The white alicorn exploded in laughter. “Pfff ahahah, damn you actually tried I can’t believe you really fell for it!” He was on the ground, holding his sides and laughing maniacally at Phos, who just deadpanned the prankster, a clear look of “Tired of your shit” on his face.

A quick fix later, and after a small lesson on how to hold a smaller sword outside of water, Phos and Antarc went in direction of the cries. When at first they had been some time between two cries, now they just wouldn’t stop. Phos hoped that the soundproofing spell worked well. If not, both the gems and the Princess would be bothered by them.

The ocean was filled with bodies. Half-formed gems struck out of the frozen water, as if trying the escape. “Here they are,” pointed out Antarcticite. “It takes them some time to form so we won’t need to do it that often but it has to be done, I’ll show you how I do it, and then I expect you to help me. I don’t want to have to do this all by myself.”

Phos nodded in understanding. “Great, now, look and learn three point five.”

Antarc’s speed was simply impressive. As soon as he finished talking he galloped to the frozen ocean, using his wings to speed up further. The first few figures didn’t last long as he ran into them with his right wing. The wing-sheet protecting the delicate antarcticite under it, and its sharp front helping to cut the ice. He seemed to fly across the plateau of ice, methodically taking down the pony shaped ice sculpture. Each time one was destroyed, the others cried more, yet Phos heard that the cries were diminishing. He could still see several dozen of them as he decided to go help the white alicorn.

Phos wasn’t as steady on ice unfortunately. Not having wings here to help with balance was a big part of his struggle. After some time, he managed to somewhat canter on the ice and he went for the first ice pony he could see, sword in mouth. He gained some speed as he approached it, readied himself for the impact… ….And was put on a stop as his sword got stuck in the ice pony. If only he had more strength to… Wait, I do have strength.

Phos abandoned the sword inside the figure and readied himself for a kick. With all his might, he bucked the base of the statue, shattering it into thousands of shards. Phos himself was thrown forward from the blow and fell face first on the ice. As he looked behind himself, he could see the extent of the damage, the destroyed ice sculpture’s pieces flew into another ice pony and destroyed it as well. Phos grinned.

He knew how he'd take care of them now, his new hooves would finally be useful.

Name: Sinners

Mane color: N/A

Age: N/A

Hardness: 1.5 (I think)

Cutie mark: N/A

Personality: N/A

Explanations: The sinners are what Antarc calls the ice sculpture that sometimes appears during winter. Their cries seem to trouble the Princess so we take care of them as best as we can, I just feel there’s more to them than they want to tell me. Why would only the Princess hear them clearly? How come they even appeared in the first place? For now we just destroy them, and with my new hooves it’s been really easy so far.

Author's Note

Slow chapter, exciting things are coming fortunately.

Alternative title: Sinners.

Antarcticite Part 2

The sinners dealt with, Antarc and Phos continued their regular winter chores: more reorganising and more snow to clear. Their life during this period was full of nothing. The occasional sinners were the only thing to break their everyday life. The Princess’ freakout when the sinners appeared surprised Phos more and more, one second the alicorn was her usual self, the next she was on the ground, frozen by fear. Once, she even tried to go to the sinners, and it took Phos and Antarc’s combined strength to drag her inside the basement. That last time especially had marked the cyan earth pony.

Phos and Antarc didn’t sleep at all during winter, the Princess’ spell keeping them awake. The purple alicorn did sleep, however, leaving the gems alone during the nights. If they could feel temperature, the cold of it would have frozen them without a doubt. Phos knew that Antarc liked to pretend he slept during the night, as they didn’t do any chores between “sunset” and “-rise”. The truth was that neither was directly noticeable through the cloud cover. However, the Princess gave them fair warning as to when she raised or lowered the sun and the moons, so they could take their well-deserved break.

Phos didn’t like not doing anything, at least not when he was fully awake. And so, he mostly spent his night wandering around the island, without the Lunarians as a threat, he could go out alone and just enjoy the night’s silence. No light came from the sky, for the cloud cover blocked the stars and Moons’. The ocean, frozen, didn’t offer the best of views either. Phos then tried to look for Cinnabar’s hibernation spot. Since he didn’t sleep with the others he must have been somewhere on the island, but after almost a month and a half of searching, the green gem didn’t find anything.

One night, Phos went up to the eastern’s ravine entrance, the place where he first met—and was saved by—Cinnabar. “Where could he even be? I can’t see anything with this darkness…” Complained Phos to himself.

As if the sky could hear him, the clouds parted above himself, showering the island with the Moons’ light. Phos took in the unfamiliar view. Six moons of different sizes punctured the ceiling above, surrounded by thousands of little dots: the stars. The gems couldn’t see the night, and its beauty was unknown to them for they cannot live without the sun.

From the entrance of the ravine, Phos followed the light of the moons, illuminating the forbidden bottom of the crevasse. Something— no, somegem was shining deep inside it from the moonlight. Phos had to see what it was, and decided—against the rules—to trot inside the ravine.

Deep. That was the only word that could describe the place. The open ceiling provided the much needed natural lighting guiding Phos. As he trotted for an unknown amount of time, he remembered the lessons from the Princess. This place is where the gems were born, only she herself was allowed there. The Princess said it was a dangerous place somehow. Phos didn’t see any danger. It was winter and nighttime. There was simply no way the Lunarians would show up.

As the shine grew more intense, signaling Phos he approached it, he noted how it came from inside some sort of cavern at the bottom of the ravine. He carefully approached it, afraid of making noise, as if anyone were outside during this time. Phos briefly thought of Cinnabar, he was outside, but did he really sleep there? That seemed like a stretch.

Finally arriving at the bottom, he saw the entrance of the strange cavern clearly. It was completely made of crystal. The whole cavern reflected the outside light like a beacon. The rocky floor of the ravine quickly disappeared to make place to a smooth crystal floor inside the cavern as Phos entered. The walls were carved with depiction of battles between ponies, the entrance of the cavern was filled with attacking ones and as Phos continued along the walls, he could see some defending some sort of tree.

Before Phos could see anything else though, he bumped into a gem and fell on his hind legs. “Hey! Watch where you’re—” he started before noticing who he bumped against. It was a pony made of crystal, not unlike the sinners in the ice, but they were perfect. The pegasus, as he noted, was holding a shield and a spear also made of crystal, he even had something that surprised Phos: a cutie mark! Damn, am I really the only one without one? Thought Phos to himself. A thunderbolt inside a shield tho? Yeah I’d rather have something cooler as a cutie mark.

The rest of his thoughts got lost as he finally looked in front of him. Hundreds of ponies were standing in the hallway leading to a bigger room. Some were armed and defending it and some just seemed to flee the entrance of the cavern from where Phos came. He made his way to the bigger room and his jaw dropped at what he saw. A tall crystal tree with five branches just like the one in the carving. Two crystal alicorns stood near the tree, supporting it with their bodies.

The sight was breathtaking, from the defender outside the room to the tree, all of it planted so many questions inside Phos’ head. Who were they? Were they alive? What happened there? Is this really where the gems are born? Why was Cinnabar sleeping with a golden flank? Wait. Phos didn’t notice him at first but here he was indeed there, sleeping next to the tree alongside what looked like a piece of Heliodor. So they didn’t get to take all of him. Phos sadly thought to himself.

Phos observed the room again, it felt somewhat familiar in a sense. The tree especially, with its five branches. The more he looked at them, the more they seemed to call out to him.

“What are you doing here?” Asked the familiar—albeit even angrier than usual—voice of Antarcticite from the room’s entrance.

Phos turned immediately, startled by the sudden arrival of the white alicorn. He had the most angry expression he’d ever seen, even Bort, who always looked angry, had never made this face.

“Oh, hello Antarc, what are you doing here? It’s a nice evening isn’t it?” Innocently asked Phos, desperate to change the conversation’s topic.

This didn’t help the frown on Antarc’s face. “You’re not supposed to be here, Three-Point-Five. It’s already day outside. Sunny day. The Lunarians might come and we didn’t know where you were,” he explained, anger still present in his voice. “Twilight will be very disappointed to hear you were here.”

“Who’s Twilight?” Thought Phos out-loud.

“The Princess!” Explained Antarc, even more angry. “Come on, you’ve broken enough rules already.”

“B-but wait! What have I done wrong?” Pleaded Phos.

“This ravine is forbidden to gems like you, you know that.”

“W-what?” Phos stumbled and took a step back. “Why is that? What are you and the Princess hiding from us?”

“This is none of your concern!” Shouted Antarc. “Phosphophyllite, you will come this instant or I swear to the Sun I’ll make you,” he warned.

“Why are you doing this? What’s so important about this place?” Continued to press Phos.

The situation was getting out of hoof. Antarc took steps toward Phos, a menacing look in his eyes. Phos was scared and kept taking steps backward to the base of the tree.

“Come now Phos. Don’t make this harder than it has to be. Come with me and it’s all gonna be over soon,” Antarc proposed, a little bit calmer. “Nothing here is for you, nothing here is worth your time. Just walk out with me and you’ll forget it all. Then you can go back to your simple life where all of this,” he gestured to the tree, then to the crystal ponies with a hoof before pointing it at Phos. “doesn’t concern you.”

Phos had enough of it all, the secrets, the Princess’ constant lies. The memory he lost, and now the memory he may have been forced to forget. Who could he really trust?

No one, whispered a voice in his head. They’ll try to make you forget again, stop it now while you still can. You have the power to do it, you’ve always had it, and they fear it. Continued the voice. It felt as if it came from the tree. No, from the alicorns at its base maybe? Phos didn’t bother with it too much. He stood his ground and challenged Antarc with his stare.

“Fine, I’m sorry we have to do it this way,” apologized Antarcticite before spreading his metal-covered wings and dashing his way to Phos.

The cyan earth pony felt a surge of confidence take him over. His mind was sure he couldn’t fight Antarc yet his body seemed sure of his victory. Antarc closed the distance and plunged his wing inside Phos…

No impact came. Phos could feel something he hadn’t felt since the ocean. Magic.

Antarc was stopped dead in his tracks, surrounded by the cyan magic of Phos. His eyes full of anger were now full of fear at his opponent.

“No... It can’t be. You weren’t supposed to be able to do it…” he squeezed with difficulty as Phos’ magic kept him in place.

It was Phos’ turn to be angry. With a shout of rage, he crushed antarc in his telekinesis, reducing the white alicorn into small shards.

It was all over in an instant. The pile of antarcticite on the ground didn’t look anywhere near a pony. Phos calmed himself and looked around. Cinnabar was still sleeping, there wasn’t any sunlight inside the cave fortunately. He noticed his remaining non-bone hoof was glowing, along with all of his body. He had just used magic without a horn.

He thought about it for a second; a horn was the only part of the body that had leylines, how could he do it without one? He cast that thought aside. More importantly… what would he do now? He had just crushed Antarc like it was nothing. No one has that kind of magical power. The Princess, no, Twilight, would kill him, or make him forget again, if she finds out. He decided he had to clear the evidence.

Using his newly regained magic, Phos managed to levitate the pile of shards that used to be Antarc outside. Phos noted that the sun was up and moons down. It was indeed a sunny day. Phos remembered Jade’s plan, how the Lunarians would certainly attack on the few sunny days. He could get rid of Antarc like that.

Arriving just at the entrance of the Ravine, Phos’ prayers were answered. A sunspot was forming in the sky. He put down the shards of Antarc and waited a bit. Hopefully the Princess wouldn’t see the fight that was about to happen.

The Lunarian platform emerges along with the music. Phos could have probably crushed them all. He certainly felt like he could. The Lunarians seemed to smile more than usual at the sight of Phos. Not that Phos minded, he just wanted to leave Antarc there and go anyway.

The Lunarians quickly started spellcasting. Some didn’t waste time, immediately descending to the earth with bowls in their magic when they noticed Antarcticite. Phos took some steps back and went a little further to let them work as they took the pieces. All the while he evaded or deflected the incoming bolts of magic. He didn’t know half the spells he used. He could just feel them as he needed them. Once most of the pieces were taken, the Lunarians started to flee, Phos could at least try to make it seem like he tried saving him and so he stole back one single piece of Antarc.

Phos watched as another sunspot appeared, this time engulfing the Lunarian platform. Once gone, Phos sighed and looked at the last piece of Antarc, his right flank, with his cutie mark: that crystal tree. He did doubt himself, was he right to do this? Yes, he would have erased you if you hadn’t erased him anyway. A voice told him inside his head. Who knows what Twilight would have done to you. The voice was right, reasoned Phos. If he didn’t do it, he would have been done for. Who knew what else Twilight was hiding from him. He decided then and there that he would find out the truth about all the strangeness around him.

No matter how bad it would hurt.

Phos trotted back to the Great Oak, with Antarc’s last piece, when he finally noticed something wasn’t right on his flank. It wasn’t the usual white of the powder, he had something more on it. A crystal star with six broken rays.

Phos looked at his flank, dumbfounded for some time.

“When the buck did I get it?” He asked to himself, full of excitement.

Author's Note

Things are moving once again.

Alternative title: Cutie Mark.

Equus

Twilight dropped the book she held in her magic, her face full of shock at the news she just received. “He was taken by the Lunarians…” she repeated quietly, a few tears flowing on her face.

“Yes, he was,” Phos lied to the alicorn. “They took us by surprise over the southern beach. He got broken and tried to fight without his wing,” he explained, fake pain in his voice. “I-I’m sorry Princess. If I had reacted quicker I could have saved him…”

The Princess shook her head. “No Phos, it’s my fault, I should have come out with you two since it was sunny outside. I should have insisted, but he wanted me to stay inside in case the voices came back,” she lamented.

Phos took the last piece of Antarc that he had saved. “Here, I didn’t let them get away with everything. If only I was stronger,” cursed Phos, in an attempt to sound more convincing. The sad reality for him was that he really hadn’t felt anything since the tree. The voice in his head had helped him somehow but it also took something. Phos didn’t care about what, though he did feel different, or maybe he didn’t feel as much? Who knew?

Twilight took on the flank piece with her magic and held it close to her. “His cutie mark…” she said, before she started sobbing and cursing to herself.

Phos and the Princess stayed in the main room, by themselves, without anyone capable of distracting them, for some time. Phos watched silently as the Princess mourned the loss of Antarcticite.

“I have to take care of him,” announced the alicorn after some time, her eyes swollen and red. “I want you to stay here, Phos. Come out only if the screams start again. I have to be alone for a moment,” she requested, not expecting any answer.

Phos simply nodded, and watched as the Princess left the Great Oak in direction of the eastern ravine. Back to your secrets, Phosphophyllite thought, bitter and distrustful.

Life without Antarcticite was harder in every way. The Princess suddenly became more strict about everything Phos did. Likely out of worry, she decided to always be with Phos, except at night, when the latter would go back to the crystal tree, observing it each night. Cinnabar was also there. This fact alone troubled Phos a lot. How did he know? Why was he sleeping there of all places? How many others knew?

Phos remembered that even though the sunlight reflected inside the crystal cave where the tree was, Cinnabar wasn’t woken up by it. Maybe something else absorbed the energy? There just weren't enough answers to satisfy Phos’ questions as they piled up.

Winter was coming to an end, and as the snow started to melt and the days got longer, so did the weather become sunnier. Each day in the sun was a possible Lunarian attack coming. Phos stopped fearing them, however. With his new found magic, he could crush them like he’d crushed Antarc. He couldn’t, however, display his raw power in front of the Princess, nor any kind of magic in fact. Twilight still didn’t know about his recently awakened powers. She hadn’t even acknowledged his new cutie mark. The broken star on his flank barely visible as the silver seamlessly blended into the white powder that covered Phos’ body.

Its meaning also was unknown to Phos. Despite looking into several books about cutie marks, he just learned that most cutie marks had a simple meaning and more complex ones were the exception. The most likely meaning of his cutie mark was magic. According to one of the books he’d read, stars represented magic in general. Twilight had her own cutie mark shaped like a big star surrounded by five smaller ones, so this interpretation made sense. But why was his broken?

For now, Phos couldn’t afford to waste any Princess-free time. At the end of winter, he would not be able to stay awake at night, and during daytime there would be too many other gems around for him to practice magic or look for clues about the crystal tree. The obvious course of action was to look into the Princess’ personal book collections. She kept lots of books outside of the reach of the gems in her office and Phos remembered seeing books in the basement too. The latter was simple to reach, as every night the Princess would go to her chamber to sleep, and Phos now had access to the forbidden area in case of sinners' cries.

The basement was unlit, as always. Fortunately, Phos could now do a simple light spell to illuminate the room. It was exactly as he remembers it, the book shelves had been cleaned but their content was untouched. The fireplace still looked unused, not like there was any chimney anyway, and starting a fire in a tree didn’t seem like a great idea either. The six chairs by the fireplace also hadn’t moved at all. Phos could feel some sort of magic on them, as if they were protected by an enchantment. On the chair Twilight had sat the last time they’d visited, a familiar book rested. A single horned pony head, with a single cyan eye on its almost destroyed cover. Why not start with this then?

Few things of value were learned, most of the book was damaged by time, and even turning the pages was painfully dangerous to the entire book despite the numerous preserving enchantments on it. What was readable, however, was very interesting. The book was about six friends who had some sort of adventures in the old world. Most of the text was faded, making reading it almost impossible. Despite that, Phos did manage to learn about the things that had helped those six friends to protect their world.

The book called them the elements of harmony, sometimes referring to the six ponies, and sometimes referred to them as gems. They grew out of a crystal tree not unlike the one Phos saw in the cave. The difference being this one didn’t have a full crystal cave nor strange ponies made of crystal around it. Finally, on the last page of the book sat a very detailed painting of the Princess surrounded by five ponies smaller than herself. One of the pony, with messy pink hair and a lighter pink coat, seemed familiar to Phos. Where did I see this pony? He thought to himself. Wherever he’d seen it didn’t really matter for now; dawn would come soon and he could just come back the next night anyway. There was still about a week before they would wake the other gems up.

Phos put the book down and spent the last few hours looking for anything else of interest. He did find a list of names he recognised, along with some observations about each of the gems, not unlike the reports he used to do.

Cinnabar: He was lonely at first but now that he has opened up and made some friends, he began showing his caring nature. Possibly Kindness His loyalty to Heliodor is impressive and it can’t be a coincidence, I’ll know for sure when he gets his cutie mark.

Heliodor: Incredible fighter, he immediately showed attachment to Cinnabar and helped him integrate. He and Cinnabar have some sort of relation close to romantic. Unfortunately, he had to sacrifice himself to save Cinnabar.

Quartz: His great magic potential is troubling, as if his body ignores the common law of spellcasting, he amplifies any spell he gets his hooves on. His cutie mark however, doesn’t make sense if he was magic. I’ll look into it.

Antarcticite: His honesty almost passes as rudeness, though I do think it’s but a side effect of being alone during winter unfortunately. I’ll try to train to be able to cast the solar spell more than once so another gem may join him and maybe help him.

“Phos! It’s daytime! Where are you?” Interrupted the Princess from the upper floor. Thankfully, Phos had left the door to the basement open so he could hear the outside world. He quickly discarded the paper to the shelf he found it on and made his way outside.

“I’m coming Princess!” He called back as he closed the door to the forbidden basement behind him. He’d be back for its secret eventually.

The seas had started to boil soon after the mountains were leveled. In three groups we separated the ponies, hoping one of them would survive it all.

Twilight sat in a tree-library not unlike the one she had before she became an alicorn. Surrounded by the sum of ponykind’s knowledge. None of the three groups could have taken them anyway. She put up her best enchantment on the place, along with her strongest shielding spells.

She still remembered her coronation all these years ago. The best time of her life. Everything was downhile from then on.

“This may be the end of this era,” she started to say to herself. “But it can still be the beginning of a new, better one. I’ll bring you back everypony. I swear.”

Author's Note

It was hard finding the will to write this, I am not 100% satisfied with it but I'll do better next time. Hope you enjoy.

Heliodor

One morning, Phosphophyllite and Princess Twilight stood in front of the hibernation room, ready to wake the rest of the gems up. Most of the ice in the ocean had already melted and the cloud cover had dissipated. Phos had felt Twilight’s distilled sunlight spell slowly growing weaker too, to the point where he hadn’t been able to stay awake the previous night.

“Winter sure is hard business... “ whined Phos. “So then, how should we wake them up?” He asked the alicorn beside him. They had been watching the door for a time while Twilight dispelled the sound-proofing enchantment and other protective wards.

“Just have to do this… and… There we go!” She exclaimed as the purple magic around the door disappeared. “We’ll just open the curtains and let my sun wake them up,” she answered. “I also will go out once Jade is awake—at least I can trust him to take care of the cleanup. Oh! And Cinnabar! I’ll have to go wake him up too.”

“Why can’t I go wake him up? It’s not like I didn’t already do enough cleaning during the winter,” objected the cyan gem.

“Well, first, didn’t you spend all your nights looking for where he hibernates, and still didn’t find him? Secondly, Jade will probably want you to make a report about all that happened this winter,” countered Twilight.

Phos grunted, “I’m going to have to talk to him for days…” And, I do know where Cinnabar is, he bragged to himself, suppressing a smile at the thought.

Twilight nodded. “It won’t be this long, and you know it. I trust that you will tell him all that he needs to know about it. However, I will make a public announcement about Antarcticite’s fate before heading out to explain to everyone how it isn’t your fault. If there is someone to blame, it’s me,” lamented Twilight.

The news silenced the excited gems. Antarc’s abduction seemed to affect everygem, despite no one really knowing him outside of rare occasions. Diamond looked saddened, Pearl seemed to deflate, Rutile and Bort both just fumed with anger at the Lunarians. As she had informed Phos prior, Twilight excused herself and went outside to find and wake Cinnabar up. Jade and Phos were now alone in the Princess’ study, the former interrogating the latter about the winter’s event.

“So, you fucked up,” said Jade between his teeth while writing down something.

Phos stayed silent, feigning sadness.

“Start with a brief summary of what happened this winter,” queried the jade earth pony, expectantly looking at the cyan gem.

“Right,” started the cyan earth pony. “Winter started after we let you all go to sleep, the Princess used a sunlight spell to keep both Antarc and myself awake. The first month was spent in a mix of moving snow out of the way and cleaning or reorganising the library.”

Jade looked taken aback from Phos’ serious explanation, he suspected that the latter had maybe learned something with Antarc in their brief time together.

“We had a total of seven sinners apparition, the first four were dealt with by Antarc himself as he taught me, the fifth one was done on my own as a test to prove to him I could do it,” continued Phosphophyllite.

“Okay, wait a moment, what are ‘sinners’?” Questioned Jade. “And what happened to the last two?”

“Well,” Phos looked uncomfortable at the sudden question. He had hoped that at least Jade of all gems knew about them, but it seemed that the Princess and Antarc had kept secrets from them as well. “They’re ice that forms into vague equine shapes over the ocean during winter, though they are rare, they’re annoying and scream a lot.”

“Was it the first winter these sinners appeared?”

“No, I don’t think so, Antarc knew them.”

“I’ll have to ask the Princess for more on them then,” concluded Jade. “Any other notable events?”

“Antarc got taken by the Lunarians, but other than that, no, nothing of interest, really. The Lunarians attacked once, got their prize and never came back, even when the weather was clear” replied Phos.

“I see,” sadly said Jade. “You can go now.”

Phos nodded and made his way outside in silence but was stopped just before passing the door.

“Just a moment, though, how did you get your cutie mark?” Jade asked, curious. He was the first to actually dare ask Phos about his cutie mark and somewhat made him smile.

“I got it when I took back Antarc’s last piece from the Lunarians. I think it means that I can bring back abducted gems,” theorised Phos, before finally exiting the room, leaving behind a perplexed Jade.

Only a day had passed since everygem woke up and the first day was mostly filled by Pearl’s shenanigans. The white opaque gem had thrown a party to celebrate the end of winter, despite the loss of Antarc. It really helped morale around the Great Oak. Pearl and Phos didn’t have the chance to talk so they planned on spending the following day together. Unfortunately, the cyan earth pony had been called into Rutile’s workshop by the Princess.

The all-too-familiar workshop was surprisingly full, Rutile was there, as usual, but with a sterner look. The alicorn dominated the room with her regal posture, and just beside her stood Cinnabar, the latter frowning from whatever conversation they’d just had.

Phos was momentarily afraid that what he’d done to Antarc had been overheard by Cinnabar, who feinted sleeping and was now denouncing him. Fortunately, it quickly showed that the bunch were still clueless.

Rutile sighted. “Phos, you’re finally here. Come and help us talk Cinnabar out of his stubbornness.”

“Stubbornness? Do you realize what you want to do you mad doctor?” Snapped Cinnabar to the brown unicorn. “What if we got him back tomorrow?” He argued to both the Princess and Rutile.

“Then, Phos would just give it back to him,” tried to explain Twilight with perfect calm in her voice. “We can’t spare any forces. We could lose another gem any day, and magic can always make a difference. I’m sure Phos could have saved Antarc if he’d had access to magic.” Phos cringed at the last statement. “I know this is a new thing, but we never lost someone as good as Antarc before, and we’re probably not getting any new gem anytime soon since we got Pearl recently.”

“Excuse me but, what are you even arguing about?” chipped in Phos, trying to avoid Cinnabar’s angry gaze.

“Those two want to give you Heliodor’s horn,” scoffed the broken-horned unicorn.

“And as I said, it’s just temporary, until Heliodor is back,” continued Rutile.

“And then what? ‘Oh, sorry we gave your horn away but don’t worry, let me just chisel it out of my new best friend I’m sure he won’t mind’?” retorted Cinnabar.

“If it comes to that I’m sure Phos wouldn’t mind giving it back, would you Phos?” The Princess asked the surprised cyan soon-to-be-unicorn-again.

Having a horn back? He could do magic but this could mean he could do it without hiding it from everygem. Imagine what new power you could master if you didn’t need to hide your practice. Mused a strange voice in the back of his head.

“Yes. I would give anything to have my horn back,” started Phos, much to Cinnabar’s disappointment. “I don’t know how I feel about having another gem’s horn however,” he turned to Cinnabar and put up his most sincere smile. “I know how much Heliodor meant to you, if you gave it to me I’d accept it and give it back the moment you want it,” promised Phos.

Cinnabar glanced uncomfortably at all three others in the room. After a moment of obvious hesitation on his face, he reluctantly nodded. “Okay. You can have his horn, but nothing else,” he added, quickly looking at both Rutile and Twilight. “I’ve been guarding the remains of the gems for millenia and never before have we assembled two different sentient gems together like that,” Cinnabar explained with a serious tone.

“I swear it will not become a common occurrence, Cinnabar,” promised Twilight while making some sort of gesture with one hoof, finishing it by almost sticking it in her left eye.

Cinnabar grunted. “I’ll go get it then, I guess you should prepare yourself Phos, we don’t know what might happen.”

Phos nodded and got comfortable in the Workshop, as Rutile prepared to ‘operate’ the gem, with an unsettlingly gleeful expression on his face.

Name: Cinnabar

Mane color: Red

Age: Oldest of the gems.

Hardness: 2

Cutie mark: None? Have I even looked?

Personality: Cinnabar is old, really old. You really feel that when he talks, he doesn’t seem interested in what’s happening; as if he’d already seen it all. I promised him to bring every lost gem back from the moon. I wish I knew how.

He seems to be the keeper of the broken, the rest of the gems who got abducted. I didn’t get a close look when I went into the cave but he did have one of the pieces of Heliodor with him, maybe he keeps the rest somewhere else. He trusts me enough to give me the horn of his former partner. I wish I could trust them all as much.

Author's Note

Damn this took too much time to get out there. I had to wait for my editor to finish her exams mostly, maybe a new chapter will come out in the weekend. Depends.

Heliodor Part 2

In a field, somewhere in the island, lazily lay Phos. The familiar sound of the waves hitting the shore nursing him into a calm afternoon nap. His short hair could have been mistaken for grass if it wasn’t for the sunlight refracting into it. He thought about his duties and commitment. He had accepted to have Heliodor’s horn attached to him. Heliodor was a fighter, a good one even, and Phos was expected to take over his role now. Phos remembered a time where he dreamt about being a fighter, to protect the Princess and his fellow gems. The harsh winter all but broke that dream.

His thinking was interrupted as somegem walked up to Phos, obscuring the sun to make his presence known.

Phos groaned, eyes still close. “Morga, leave me alone, I just got a horn transplant, I have to rest.”

“Aren’t you resting enough, shiny?” Remarqued the figure with a voice that Phos didn’t recognise.

Phos immediately opened his eyes, fearfully looking up at the stranger. “Who are you?” He asked, defensively. The figure was a gem. He harbored the same plain white coat as every other gem and his mane was as short as Phos, but shone a golden yellow light.

“Woah there, calm down,” he said. “No need to fear me, I’m long gone anyway,” he joked with a mischievous grin.

“Who are you?” Repeated Phos, while calling on his magic. But nothing happened, no cyan aura enveloped the stranger.

“The name’s Heliodor, shiny. I’m guessing you’re Phosphophyllite? Your memories are a pain to access, you know that?”

“W-what? How? Why are you here?”

“There is no “here”, we’re in your mind,” confidently declared Heliodor. “You’re probably on Rutile’s operating table and they’re waiting on you to wake up and show off my horn.”

“But why are you here? If this is my mind you have no place in it!” Accused Phos after standing up, the other was noticeably taller by at least a horn.

As he spoke that last sentence, Phos and Heliodor’s surrounding changed to night, with the stars and the moons in the clear sky illuminating the pair.

“I’m just a collection of memories, don’t worry. You know how our inclusions contain our memories? Well my horn just happened to still have some of mine, so I get to be here,” he said before pausing for a moment. “And you get to tolerate me from now on.”

“This is crazy.”

“I know, right? But don’t worry, you get the better end of the deal, shiny, I seem to be almost powerless here, while you get to still live and use all of the knowledge I represent,” pointed out the old phantom.

“So, you’re just the memories from Heliodor’s horn? Why did you say that my memories are a pain to access?” questioned Phos.

“Cause it still works both ways, I can’t control your body but our inclusions now work together. It’s a pain ‘cause you’re forcing me out of the rest of you, and as long as you do, we won’t be able to wake up.”

“But you still can?”

“Of course I can, you’re just a novice in magic while I have hundreds of years of experience to pull from. I can talk to you now because I manage to access more than half of your memory, though a big patch of black still exists. We won’t wake up anytime soon unless you give me access to them, shiny,” argued Heliodor.

Phos grunted, “How can I know that you’re not lying?”

“Look, shiny, as fun as that would be, I’d rather let you be outside, protecting the ones I care about, rather than lying still and fighting my presence until the end of time.”

Phos let out a heavy sigh. “What did you say were the memories you can’t see?”

Heliodor smiled. ”Good, I know of two major dark patches, the first one is from a few months before you got my horn and the second is from about a hundred year before that.”

Phos concentrated on any big events from his past in the timeframe he was given. He remembered his first job, and the land around the two changed once again to daylight. A smaller Phos, with his original horn, standing behind Diamond as the two of them watched the Princess yelling at a horde of Lunarians bowing before her.

“Maybe a bit after this, I can remember that, if only vaguely,” Heliodor guided.

Maybe it’s my meeting with Cinnabar? Phos thought to himself.

“He is quite a gem to remember, I know during my time it was easy for him to get noticed,” commented the golden gem.

“How did you hear that?”

“I’m literally in your head,” simply dead-panned Heliodor.

“Oh, right.”

The scene changed again as it was replaced by the eastern ravine’s entrance, near the shore during sunset. Cinnabar and Phos were talking to each other for the first time after Cinnabar saved the cyan unicorn from a Lunarian attack at the exact same spot.

“Is this the moment?” The Phos without a horn asked Heliodor while looking at his past self.

“I think so,” responded the golden-maned gem while listening to the memory. “You two are talking about me?” He asked, curious.

“Lapis and Quartz looked for Helio and me for days, you wouldn’t believe how much they love their clothes despite how useless they are for combat!” Cinnabar told past-Phos while laughing profusely.

“It is nice to see him smile, I can’t imagine how he must have felt when I got taken away,” lamented Heliodor. “Why were you protecting this memory so much?” He asked while looking at Cinnabar with a nostalgic face.

“This was when I made a promise to him,” remembered Phos. “He may seem happy there, but he doesn't care about his own life. He’s just waiting for the Lunarians to take him now.”

The memory continued as Cinnabar continued to tell stories about his time with Heliodor. They arrived at the familiar tale of pissing off Alexandrite by making him believe there was a new type of Lunarians. The story ended, Cinnabar finally left Phos but was interrupted by the promise he made at the time.

“I’ll bring them back!” The past Phos shouted to Cinnabar, who looked back to him at his declaration. “You won’t go to the moon because I’ll bring them all back from the moon! I’ll find a way! Heliodor, Red Diamond, Aquamarine, Topaz and all the others! I swear!”

Heliodor looked quite shocked himself at the memory. “We have a big talker there I see, guess you didn’t bring me back yet, shiny?” Teased the golden gem.

Phos cringed at his past self. “Yeah, I said it in the heat of the moment, guess that didn’t turn out that well,” he admitted.

The memory faded with the sun setting in the west horizon, Phos was again alone with Heliodor. “Great, this was the smaller one of the two black spots, I’m still missing most of what happened before my horn got attached to you, several months of memory even.”

Phos though back at the event from the last year, both of them were now inside the Great Oak, in the common room. In the background, Twilight was giving some speech about Pearl’s education being over and him getting a job. This was just before the ocean, Thought Phos.

“The ocean, eh? I can’t say I remember ever going into it, nor do I remember you going. Maybe that’s the second black spot?” Proposed Heliodor.

“I would love too, but it’s probably as much of a ‘black spot’ for me, too.”

“What do you mean? Didn’t you go to the ocean?”

“I did. It’s just that I may or may not have left three of my hooves, an eye and my horn there too.”

Heliodor looked confused at Phos’ statement, but the memory shifted to the underwater landscape Phos vaguely remembered. The still scene around them showed past Phos being broken by three separate magical bolts.

“Kiiiinda lost most of my memory from the ocean, really. I could tell you but I don’t remember much of it,” explained Phos, looking sadly at his past.

“That explains that I can’t see much from before that indeed. How come you’re complete then, I mean, no horn obviously, but the hooves and your eye?” Asked Heliodor, pointing with a hoof at Phos’ broken face, his eye was broken in half.

Current Phos raised one forehoof. “Rutile calls it ‘bones’, it’s something the Princess found in the ocean after saving me, it’s no good for horns, unfortunately.”

“She saved you?”

Just as Heliodor asked the question, the memory moved forward a bit, without any real sound this time. Phos lay on the ground, broken, looking over to an Admirabilis who was arguing with the Lunarians above water.

“Is that?”

“An Admirabilis, yes. Twilight found them again after all this time, it didn’t end well. It seems and I can’t really remember this part well.”

The memory slowly faded to black as Phos most likely was losing consciousness. A streak of golden magic tore through the ocean, boiling water in its wake before hitting the Admirabilis who cried out in pain as a red liquid came out of the new hole in its body. Blackness settled shortly after, Phos couldn’t quite remember seeing it, but guessed it was just so blurry that he never really put much thought into it.

Heliodor looked taken aback by the last memory. “What was that? At the end? Who has magic like that?”

“I dunno, I just thought it was the Princess who saved me and that was it.”

“Phos, I don’t think you really get it. If that was the Princess, then she just killed that creature for sure. I could feel the energy from that bolt. It felt like an attack spell, like the magical arrow the Lunarians use, but much, much more powerful.”

“What’s ‘killed’?”

Heliodor gave him a dead-panned look. “Has no one taught you about death?”

Phos shook his head.

Heliodor sighed. “Times sure have changed, I guess. Well, it’s simple. Organic beings, unlike us, die when their life ends. That mostly means they stop existing,” explained Heliodor.

“Can’t they just be rebuilt?” Naïvely asked Phos.

“No, and death happens naturally to every living organism after some time. There’s no real way to avoid it.”

“What about the Princess? She isn’t a gem last I checked, is she? Will she die one day?”

“I suppose so. We don’t know much about her and she didn’t tell us much about herself during my time, either. I know she’s older than any one of us—by probably a lot, too—but she’ll eventually die if she isn’t a gem, that’s for sure.”

Phos shivered at the thought. Despite her lies, the Princess was still the one who helped the gem grow up since Cinnabar’s time. Phos didn’t wish death to anyone. He didn’t wish anyone would just… stop existing… It wasn’t an easy concept to grasp for him.

“But why would she kill that Admirabilis, then?” Puzzled Phos.

“I don’t know that, Phos, to save you as you said maybe? I just hope she realised what she’s done… She was always the one to teach us about friendship, after all.”

“I see. What now? Where’s the next thing you can’t see in my memory?” Asked Phos.

“Anything beyond this point, shiny. Whatever happened between here and when you got my horn attached is black.”

So winter it is then.

“Something in winter? Was it this bad this year to share a room with Bort?” Joked Heliodor.

“I didn’t hibernate at all this winter, actually,” responded Phos with a neutral tone, much to Heliodor’s surprise.

The darkness was replaced by the gray view of winter under the cloud cover. The white snow in front of the Great Oak was almost uniform if not for a pair of particular gems shoveling it to keep the tree’s entrance free of obstacles.

“That’s Antarcticite, right?” asked Heliodor, pointing at the alicorn in question.

“Yeah, he usually takes care of winter alone. This time, however, the Princess asked me to help him.”

The sinners’ cries echoed in the background. Phos and Antarc exchanged some words about their duties. “The Princess must have heard them, go make sure she’s in the basement while I take care of it.”

Heliodor watched in silence as events unfolded; getting the Princess inside the basement, fighting the sinners, continuing with their monotonous jobs during the day and Phos wandering the island during the night.

“Did you even look for anything?”

“Not really, I was curious to find where Cinnabar was hibernating, though.”

“And? Did you find it?” Asked Heliodor.

“I did,” bitterly admitted Phos, as the memory fast-forwarded to his entrance into the ravine.

“What?” Heliodor said, perplexed. “I didn’t see any memory where you were granted access to the ravine,” he called out.

“So some gems can access it?” deducted Phos. “No, I wasn’t given access.”

Heliodor frowned at the declaration but kept on looking at the events unfolding. Phos entered the crystal cave, examined the carved wall before finally entering the main room, occupied by Cinnabar sleeping with one of Heliodor’s last pieces at the base of the crystal tree.

Heliodor alternated between disappointed look at Phos and sadness over Cinnabar holding one of his last pieces.

“What are you doing here?” Asked Antarcticite, angrily, surprising Heliodor at the same time.

“Oh, hello Antarc, what are you doing here? It’s a nice evening isn’t it?” Innocently asked past-Phos.

Current Phos, looked bitterly at Antarc as he scolded his past self. Even Heliodor flinched at the anger of the white alicorn.

“Fine, I’m sorry we have to do it this way,” non-apologized Antarcticite before spreading his metal-covered wings and dashing his way to Phos.

“NO!” Opposed Heliodor, trying in vain to stop the memory.

But no strike came. Antarc was lifted just in front of Phos, whose body now glowded a bright cyan light.

Good, crush him, show him strength, let the anger take over. A voice echoed in the memory.

“What? What are you doing Phosphophyllite?” Confusedly asked the golden gem.

“I’m protecting myself.”

Antarc’s body cracked under the immense pressure of Phos’ magic, his body becoming but shards. Heliodor looked shocked at the display. Past Phos’ flank glowed a white light as a crystal star with six broken rays appeared on it.

“Your cutie mark, this magic…” he rasped. “How can you use magic without a horn? Why would you do this?”

So I got it here… “I had no choice,” defended Phos.

“You could have followed him peacefully!”

“And they would just erase my memory or something? You heard him talk, it isn’t the first time it happened, I’m just the first to fight back.”

“Oh you think so? But guess what, almost half of us know about it, and most of us discovered it by ourselves, too. The Princess would have just explained to you what it is and our duty to protect it!” chastised Heliodor. “And you just broke its first guardian into Twilight-knows how many pieces.” He finished, disappointment clear in his voice.

“I-I…” Phos struggled to find any arguments to defend himself. “Why would they hide this from us then? This and much more! Have you seen the note she keeps about us?”

The memory shifted to the basement where Phos was reading the report-like notes about the gems.

“It always has a good explanation!” refuted the other gem. “The Princess would never betray us or anything!”

“Maybe, but she hides too much from us. From the notes on our nature and even the Lunarians! Haven’t you seen how they are obsessed with her even though she isn’t a gem? She even killed that Admirabilis!”

“This is going nowhere useful. If anyone is betraying anyone here, it’s you. You’ve destroyed a fellow gem and are a danger to the rest,” he accused. “I can’t do much from this mind but I can stop you from waking up. You don’t deserve my horn.”

Phos’ anger grew once again. “You’re fine with being a pawn to her, then?” He asked, resentment in his voice.

“You’re not even making sense now, you’re a mad foal.”

Don’t let him stop you from getting what’s rightfully yours. You can just destroy him, it is your mind after all. No other gems would ever know. A tempting voice whispered in the mindscape, but Heliodor didn’t seem to notice it.

“Fine, you want to do this the hard way. You dare to try and block me out of my own body? You’re not even a full gem like Antarc, you’re just the leftover inclusions from a dead gem. I just have to destroy them to make your horn mine,” Phos reasonned with a somber tone.

Phos closed his eyes and imagined the thousands of micro organisms living inside the gems, he saw his own body, the bones, the phosphophyllite, the new heliodor horn… He could feel his magic taking over the horn, crushing the inclusion from the intruder.

Heliodor let out a sharp cry of pain as he fell to the ground. “W-what are you doing?” He painfully asked. “Stop this!” A sharp cry came from Heliodor. “You’re no better than the Lunarians…” Phos could feel part of the agony trying to spread to him, but he denied its hold on him.

They were fighting back, Heliodor’s own magic tried to stop Phos’ invasion. But he was so much weaker. Phos made little mind of his resistance and continued to crush him, leaving an inclusion free horn, ready to be taken for himself.

“Cinnabar, I’m sorry, stop him please…” pleaded a now delirious Heliodor in his last thought.

Phos woke up in Rutile’s workshop. The Great Oak noisy atmosphere clear in the background. As he turned his head around there seemed to be another gem lying next to him on the other operating table. It was the workshop’s owner, napping.

“Hey, useless doctor, I’m awake,” called Phos.

Rutile blinked his eyes open. “Phos? Oh, you’re awake,” he groaned as he got up and looked at the cyan unicorn. “Welcome back, I guess. You had two operations to attach your new horn and have been asleep for the last three months now. You’ll have to take it easy for a time but I guess you can now liberate my other worktable?”

Phos nodded and slowly got himself up on the ground, he tried reaching out with magic to one of the knives on the doctor’s desk. Surprisingly, his magic aura was now golden as the knife floated in his magic.

Guess I can use magic around everygem again. He thought to himself, satisfied, before being on his way, a happy bounce in his step.

Name: Heliodor

Mane color: Yellow/Golden

Age: 1600 years when abducted.

Hardness: 7.5

Cutie mark: A scale with a heart and a feather.

Personality: Heliodor was Cinnabar’s teammate for a time before his abduction, said to be an overall cheerful person, he valued hard work over appearance. You could be a weak gem but be doing an important job and he’ll treat you like a diamond. He and Cinnabar were serial pranksters for a time, going as far as messing with the Princess’ tea sometimes.

Author's Note

This is my biggest chapter yet, and probably the one I enjoyed writing the most too.

Alternative title: Horn.

Phosphophyllite

Phosphophyllite was laying in the grass, somewhere near the shore, listening to the familiar sound of the waves in the middle of the afternoon. His short mint-green mane reflected and refractedthe sun‘s light^, his white coat was more like a couch of paint on his natural gem body, unlike the crystal ponies of old. As always, Phosphophyllite didn’t have anything planned for the day; maybe he should train his magic so the princess will let him fight one day? However, in 150 years of training he still hadn’t made any progress and was simply too weak to hold a sword in his magic.

His thinking was interrupted by the sound of four sets of hooves passing by, swords clattering on their backs. One of them, Morganite was about to walk past Phosphophyllite, when he stopped and simply shouted “Phos! I know you’re somewhere, the princess is looking for you!”

Phosphophyllite simply looked up at the red-crystal-maned pony and asked “I’m here, do you know what she wants?”

“Dunno.” Replied the busy looking unicorn.

“Maybe she’ll let me fight by your side then.”

“No way. Shouldn’t you have a job yet? How did the princess let you spend this much time without doing anything is beyond me…”

“Morga!” A new voice shouted “Stop playing around, there’s a sunspot in the south, it’s small but you should tell the princess.” The new figure had a short silver mane, Goshenite, the partner of Morganite, he had a small katana, which he levitated in front of him.

“Small you said? Well, no need to bother the princess while she’s studying, let’s take care of it ourselves!” Morganite proclaimed as they started heading south.

“You people and your busy lives…” Sighed Phos as he started trotting to the only building of their island, school and home of the twenty-eight gem ponies. A single Great Oak roughly one hundred meters wide.

Once inside and on the sixth floor, Phos entered the princess’ office. “Princess Twilight. You were looking for me?” He asked the majestic purple alicorn, who was sitting at an imposing desk, reading some scrolls.

“My dear Phosphophyllite, I have finally found you a job,” calmly stated the princess.

“Oh yeah also Morga and Goshe went to take care of a sunspot and they wanted me to tell you I think,” interrupted Phos.

The princess’ eye twitched. “They went to fight alone?” She asked, but before receiving an answer, she declared: “Follow me. Do you remember the story of our world Phosphophyllite?”

Twilight and Phosphophyllite headed out to the direction of the fight as the alarm was activated. Bells were ringing everywhere inside the Great Oak so loudly that the rest of the island probably noticed too.

“Well...” started the small gem “Uh, this world was named Equestria and there was this war and the gods left you with the power to raise the sun and the moon”

As they walked south, several pairs of gem ponies - mostly unicorns and a few pegasi - galloped past them. Far away they could see a bright white shape in the sky, shooting arrows and spells at two figures. Suddenly, the figures seem to be broken in half by a rather powerful bolt of magic from a giant pony-like figure in the middle of the white shape.

“And then six meteors came and visited the planet leaving five more moons, which you now have to move everyday. It made the planet a shadow of what it used to be, and destroyed all life, save for you. Right?”

“Correct,” acknowledged the princess. “And what about after that? Not all life was gone, was it?”

“Well there was the strange swimming creature you told us about, that took refuge in the ocean after all the land disappeared. Well, except this island of course.” He remembered. “And then some very tiny creatures that eat sunlight used magic to create bodies and you helped them and they were the first of us?”

“Exactly. I’m proud of you for remembering it 200 years after I’ve told you this story.” Twilight said as they approached the fight. “And of course there are the invaders from the moons that are jealous of your beauty. Those strong enough form pairs of two, one who watches and one who fights. The twenty-eight of us have to stick together and help each other as much as we possibly can with our special talent,” explained Twilight.

“However, I had trouble finding a role for you, given that you still have to get your cutie mark, even after trying out all the jobs we have.” She continued as she materialised a clipboard with her magic before floating it to Phos’ face.

“And what about fighting ? I’ve never tried that-”

“No,” cut off the Princess, then added: “You really have to give up that idea”.

Before they knew it, they’d arrived where the battle was taking place, except that none of the reinforcements were fighting. They all stared at the broken bodies lying on the ground, being picked up by completely white unicorns wearing golden jewellery. Lunarians.

Among the floating group of about twenty lunarians, the first row seemed to play golden instruments; Banjos, Acordeon, Tambourine, Trombone and others. Together they played a pleasant tune to help the second row of Lunarian to cast magic at the gems on the ground. The second group was split in two, picking up the pieces of Morganite and Goshite from the ground.

The princess raise her horn and a bright purple light illuminated the entire island. When everyone could open their eyes again, the lunarians were gone and the pieces of Morga and Gosh looked up to Twilight and said in unison “Princess…”

The princess’ eye twitched again “Don’t need help, right?” She said softly.

A voice from the crowd of gem suddenly shouted “It’s coming! Careful!”

With a thundering voice Twilight exclaimed “YOU FOOL, WHEN WILL YOU LEARN?” The air trembled with her voice, and Phos tried to take cover, but the sheer power of Twilight’s voice proved too much for him.

crack

Phosphophyllite broke into dozens of fragments on the ground beside the princess, his chest in three shards revealed the same green as his mane under the white coat. One of his eyes rolled to the princess’ forehooves. “Oh my. See what I mean Phosphophyllite? You aren’t fit for most jobs, especially fighting, as you’re one of the weakest gems, with your three point five,” explained Twilight. “If you really want to fight, then you must become more skilled than any other gems here, even better than me. Only then will I let you fight.”

The other gems brought bags to hold their broken comrade, and one started to pick Phos off the ground. The Princess helped with her magic, the shattered pieces of the gems all floating in light purple magic as they were lifted from the ground and placed in their respective saddlebags.

The alicorn added the aforementioned clipboard to the remains of the broken green gem. “The job I have for you is to create a historical record of the gems of our island. The twenty-eight of us might disappear in lunarian attack any day, and unfortunately the older gems have started to forget about our past friends. You shall learn and write about all the current and future gems, hopefully even the past ones.”

“Let’s just hope you don’t forget to add yourself too,” teased Twilight as the gems carrying Phos were already on their way back to the Great Oak.

Rutile’s workshop was a wide area on the first floor of the Great Oak, the shelves here held diverse plants, potions and several bottles of white powder. Two large tables stood at the center of the room, used as a workstation to reassemble gems. On the left, a hoof-less Morga was still being rebuilt by Rutile.

“I swear the day I break will be the end of you three,” said Rutile, assembling four pink hooves in the air with his magic. “There. This should hold, the last cracks will heal with some sunlight.”

With a slight click, the hooves were attached to Morganite who jumped from the table and started to walk almost immediately. “Go ask Phos to help you apply some powder while I rebuild his hooves.”

Phos was standing on his hindquarters, looking at Rutile from the other table. “Why should I help him, he’s nothing but trouble anyway.”

“Hey look who’s talking, three-hundred years of doing nothing. You could at least help with simple tasks. I mean, it’s not like you have better things to do anyway.” Morganite talked back to the other gem.

“Hey! Look! Now I got a job from the Princess herself!” Phos said waving a blank notepad with his magic. “I have to… to…” Wait what did the princess ask me again? He thought to himself. With a click, Rutile attached one of Phos' hooves. "Here, maybe it'll help you remember" Oh yeah, the historical record! “I have to make a record of every gem that lived here for future generations! So better be careful Morga, I have the power to choose how you will be remembered,” half-joked Phos.

“I give him before winter before he forgets and start lazing around again,” snarked a not-so-quiet Rutile. “Here’s your last three hooves, you lost about 0.3% of your body unfortunately. The good news is that it probably isn’t enough to lose any memory.”

Finally, Rutile added in a joking tone, while waving chirurgical tools “Maybe you’ll lose that laziness of yours, should I remove more just in case?”

“Nope-nope-nope! Here I’m gonna start it now my first report: Rutile; old and senile; wants to kill the gems and is never nice to anyone!” Said Phos while writing with his magic on the first page of the notepad.

With laughter in the room, they finished assembling Phos, who went on to continue not doing anything...

Name: Rutile

Mane color: Red and Yellow

Age: Old goat (about 800 years old)

Hardness: 6.5

Personality: Senile, Wants to kill the gems, Never nice to anyone.

Author's Note

Well that's maybe the first time I write something and actually post it. Comments are welcome.

Note: The gems are genderless. I use "He" because it is easier to read.

Alternative Title: Of gems.

Cinnabar

Sitting in the highest room of the Great Oak with a splendid view of the entire island, Onyx was watching as he always did. His job was to look for sunspots and alert the fighters in case one grew too big. It was a simple but boring job. Since the Lunarian would only attack during the day and only once or twice a week, he could spend his time observing the other gems. He loved watching Jade concentrate on developing new tactics to defend the island, or peeking at Obsidian as he looked for new materials to make swords near the eastern ravine’s entrance.

Today was a good day though, a sunspot had appeared over the eastern ravine and now Diamond and Bort were taking care of it. And so he could continue to spy on beautiful Red Beryl who was studying in the open field in front of the Great Oak.

This day, however, was about to get worse.

Running in the direction of the school, he spotted Bort, Diamond and Phosphophyllite, the latter being on Diamond’s back holding on for dear life. In the end, they didn’t manage to catch up to the Lunarian platform. As it arrived just in front of the school, just over Red Beryl, several rows of Lunarians began to descend. None of them bothered to use their magic and attack him as he started and galloped to the entrance of the Great Oak, leaving behind several scrolls. The alarm began to ring across the island.

Phos could see the hundreds of Lunarians floating gracefully to the ground holding instruments with their magic. Finally, the platform itself descended to the ground. The biggest Lunarian, a massive white unicorn wearing necklaces of broken gems encrusted in gold came into sight. It levitated the body of a broken gem, held together with magic. He placed the gem’s body in the grass between the first row of Lunarians and the entrance, and then waited.

Bort’s attack came from the back, immediately cutting the big Lunarian in half, who promptly disappeared along with its jewelry. The rest of the Lunarians didn’t vanish alongside it, however. Most of them started kneeling in the direction of the Great Oak and stopped playing music altogether. The three gems looked at the Lunarians with awe. Bort, despite still looking angry, didn’t seem to be able to destroy them as they didn’t fight back.

The moment lasted for a few minutes before the doors to the Great Oak were busted open by the Princess, a worried look on her face. She looked at the broken body sprawled out on the ground, an opaque milky white gem that Phos didn’t recognize. She then looked to the Lunarians, shouting to them in a fierce voice. “Do you really intend to stand in the way of the Princess of this land once again?”

No response came.

“Let me tell you again, it’s useless.” With that, Twilight tapped her hoof on the ground, and the Lunarians vanished like a giant smoke bomb.

With her regular voice, the Princess looked at Phosphophyllite and the others and said: “Please get Rutile here, we seem to have a new gem among us.” Diamond went inside the Great Oak as several other gems came out to gauge the situation. Soon enough, Rutile came back with a saddlebag and started to pick up the new gem from the ground.

Phosphophyllite helped in picking up the unknown gem, but once inside, Rutile quickly forbade anyone except the Princess and himself inside his workshop. For two days they locked themselves inside. Even under Phos’ relentless inquiries, Rutile didn’t answer.

On the third day, during Jade’s morning briefing, the Princess made an announcement in the common room to all the gems. “As you may have heard, the Lunarians came down twice last week—on the same day actually—the second time they left us with a new gem.” A petite opaque white unicorn gem came out from behind the Princess, seemingly afraid of the rest of the gems.

“This is Pearl, he doesn’t seem to remember anything—I mean he doesn’t even know how to speak—so please be patient with him.” Twilight finished, smiling sheepishly.

Chatter began in the crowd. “He’s so cute,” chirped an excited Diamond.

“I wonder if he can teach us about Lunarians?” pondered Alexandrite.

“But can we trust him?” Coldly asked Bort over the chatter. “Clearly, he came from up there. Maybe he’s a spy.”

“Please don’t worry about it Bort, I have already looked into his mind, he really is only a few days old. The Lunarians probably don’t want him because he’s not as valuable as a Diamond—pearls are much more common after all.” Twilight reassured in a pleasant voice. “For now, he needs to be taught language, Alexandrite will help me as always, the rest of you can continue on your daily routine.”

The gems simply went back to work, as if Twilight’s explanation had fully quenched their curiosity.

Phos trotted up to the small new gem. While Phosphophyllite wasn’t as big as the other gems, it seemed he had to look down to see him. “He has the shape of a foal.” Explained Twilight, still standing behind Pearl. “Foals are what we used to call young ponies before the gems came around.”

So it’s a foal… I guess I’m not the smallest nor the youngest anymore, Phos thought to himself. while grinning. With the biggest smile he could muster, he held a hoof to Pearl. “Hello there! I’m Phosphophyllite! Nice to meet you!”

The Princess chuckled at Phos’ antics. “I’m glad you’re already getting to know each other, but I don’t think he understands much. For now, I suggest you go back to your reports”

Phos remembered that it was the first time he actually spoke to the Princess since handing in his first report. He immediately was taken by the urge to run, but the Princess spoke before he could make his escape. “About your report on Rutile…” there it is… “I am proud of you Phosphophyllite, it came out great.”

Phos was surprised to say the least.

“It could have been better, I mean—but it is a good start!” Twilight’s voice was filled with encouragement. “I expect regular reports similar to this one from now on, since you seem to get the hang of it.” the Princess declared with a smile on her face, before leaving Phos and taking Pearl with her to her study.

Sunset came around once again and Phos went back to his room after taking the time to write part of Diamond’s entry. He thought about the Princess’ words. Regular reports sounded bothersome. Phos looked outside his window and once again he spotted the little lights flickers on the beach and thought about them awhile. Maybe he would check it out. After all, there was still time before nightfall.

Phos trotted on the beach, looking for signs of those flickers of light. It will be night soon, so I have to be quick before I pass out. After going all the way to the ravine’s opening, he still hadn’t found anything that could have been the source of those shimmers. I can’t be imagining those, can I? He questioned his sanity.

Music suddenly came from above the ocean. Phos turned and saw a Lunarian ship appear from a sunspot. “H-h-how?” He thought out-loud. They are supposed to only come during the day. Lost in thoughts, he didn’t see the arrows coming straight at, only noticing them when it was too late. Keeping his eyes closed, he braced for the faithful moment where they would impact. He thought about Onyx and how he probably stopped watching for sunspots this late. He thought of Pearl whom he would never get to know. He thought about Rutile who had finally opened up to him. He thought of the Princess and how his duties towards her. How could I hope to protect her if I can’t even protect myself?

Seconds passed, but no arrows pierced his body. What he did experience, though, was a barrage of deafening sounds. Explosions. Opening his eyes, Phos saw a gem fighting right in front of him. He had a moderately long red mane that seemed to float in the air, like the Princess’. Phos couldn’t see a horn or wings, which was pretty rare. Isn’t Jade the only ‘earth’ gem?

The stranger didn’t have a weapon and seemed to summon explosions around himself like magic. The red gem simply cried in voice full to the brim with rage at the Lunarians as a massive explosion destroyed the platform they were standing on. As a result, all of them vanished.

He turned to Phos and looked at him. This stranger did have a horn, at least he clearly used to. At the top of his head, there was the base of a broken horn, from which there seemed to flow trace amounts of a silver liquid.

“Three point five, what are you doing here this late?” He asked Phos, calmer but also colder. “Are you just flaunting your beauty to the Lunarian so they take you or something?”

Ignoring the snide comments, Phos asked “Are you Cinnabar? You’re the one who fought these Lunarians?”

“Are you crazy to go out at night? Go back home before the Princess comes to look for you!” With that outburst, Cinnabar pounded his hoof to the grass.

crack

A moment later, Cinnabar’s hoof broke away from his torso and fell limp to the ground. Silver liquid flowed from the joint which held his forehoof to his body. Bells rang. Phos turned to see some gem galloping towards him and Cinnabar. Before they arrived, the red gem with the broken horn disappeared from view along with his broken hoof.

Once again back at Rutile’s workshop, under the jellyfishes’ light, Phos was being examined by the doctor. “It seemed you met Cinnabar.” He said, while applying some white power on Phos, where it seemed to have rubbed off.

Phos didn’t respond, he simply seemed to ponder the events of the night.

“He doesn’t mean harm, you know. He doesn’t seem like it, but he cares about all of us. It’s why he must stay alone, far from us.”

“He seemed to hate me the most,” Phos finally said, voice wistful. “He just… Had this hatred when he looked at me, talked to me. I didn’t know a gem could be like that.”

“He lost so many of his friends, as well as himself, over the years. He doesn’t hate you, Phos,” reassured Rutile. “I don’t know everything about what happened but he chose to stay away. Alone in the night, his silver poison is the only thing keeping him awake. He chose to protect us if Lunarians came during the night, yet they never visited him since they took his horn.”

A heavy silence fell upon the room once more.

“Where did you find him anyway?” Asked Rutile. “I thought he hid himself in the ocean or something, since we don’t hear a lot from him.”

“I was near the entrance of the ravine when they arrived and he saved me.”

“No wonder he’d be there then, it’s where its last partner, Heliodor, was taken all those years ago.”

Lately, Phos had been finding himself much more often in Rutile’s workshop than he liked. He decided to leave quickly, determined to face Cinnabar again the next day.

Just when the sun came back the next morning, Phos began to canter to the beginning of the Ravine, where he’d met Cinnabar yesterday. He had to do something; it seemed so wrong that someone would spend all their time alone, without any other gems around.

Going across the Great Oak, he was met with the surprised faces of Morganite and Goshenite, both still cleaning the seemingly never-ending rows of scrolls on the walls of the common room. “Hey! Why are you here so early?” Asked Morga with a grin, but Phos promptly ignored him and went straight to the exit.

After a few minutes, Phos arrived at the place he had been attacked the night before. With the sun’s light clearing up where the battle had taken place, Phos could see the damage caused by Cinnabar’s attacks. There were holes in the dirt where the explosions had occurred, as well as patches of dead grass wherever he had walked.

“Hey. Didn’t you learn your lesson last night?” Cinnabar’s voice asked, as he appeared behind Phos. The red unicorn seemed to have re-attached his hoof to his body. His horn, however, was still missing.

“Ah! You! Why are you here, then?” Phos retorqued. “You should know it’s the place Helio got taken away, why do you keep patroling here?” At the mention of his former partner, Cinnabar seemed to tense up.

“Indeed, it happened here,” Cinnabar started. “I am waiting for the Lunarians so they can take me to the moon. It’s not like I’m useful here anyway.”

With some anger in his voice, he continued: “But you; you just had to show up one time almost during night and they came. How lucky.”

Phos couldn’t even apologise. He didn’t understand Cinnabar.

“He was a good gem.”

“What?” Phos asked, surprised by Cinnabar’s sudden speech.

“Heliodor. You want to make some reports? Do one on him,” he ordered ”He had a hardness of seven and a half and yet still accepted to be my partner for so many years. Me. The weakest of gems.”

“What?” Phos said again, dumbfounded. “I am the weakest you know? Three and half and all, even you know that.”

“Well you’re wrong, moron,” replied Cinnabar. “Among the twenty eight of us-”

“Twenty-nine!” Phos shouted to correct him.

Looking even more annoyed, Cinnabar continued: “Among the twenty-nine of us, I am the weakest. A hardness of two. You witnessed proof of that yesterday, when I accidently broke my hoof. Thankfully, Rutile came and helped me fix it. Anyway where was I?”

“You were talking about Heliodor,” said a surprisingly attentive Phos.

“Yes. He valued work above all, even if I was weak my magic was the best, and that made us such a great team.”

Cinnabar talked for a long while about his time with Heliodor and their friendship, even the times when they’d argued and fought. The cyan gem listened carefully—mostly because he’d forgotten his notepad—to the red gem’s story. Cinnabar seemed really happy while reminiscing about his past. The day went on and before they knew, Twilight’s sun was slowly setting over the horizon.

“...and this is how Helio and I were banned from the library by Alexandrite, at least until Twilight let us back,” concluded a now smiling Cinnabar. “Well, time sure flies. You should get back to the Great Oak, three point five.”

“Wait! Why can’t you just come back to the Great Oak?” Asked Phos, he had learned a lot about Heliodor, more than enough to make a report on him. Yet he still didn’t understand Cinnabar. Why would he want to get taken to the moon if he had so many good memories? “There’s the new one, Pearl, I’m sure you can get to know him too!”

“That’s nice of you,” started Cinnabar. “But I won’t,” he started trotting away, leaving Phos alone.

I can’t just let him leave, I have to find something for him… Thought Phos.

“I’ll bring them back!” He finally shouted to Cinnabar, who looked back to him at his declaration. “You won’t go to the moon because I’ll bring them all back from the moon! I’ll find a way! Heliodor, Red Diamond, Aquamarine, Topaz and all the others! I swear!”

This earned Phos a surprised look from Cinnabar, who took a moment before regaining his composure and trotting away.

Name: Pearl

Mane color: Opaque white.

Age: a few days old according to the Princess.

Hardness: 4.5

Cutie mark: None (Yet!)

Personality: A curious foal (that’s what Twilight called him), he seems eager to learn new things.

Author's Note

In which a promise is made.

Alternative title: Defenses.