Devoran Chronicles: Fire of the Phoenix

The night had been a fairly restless sleep.  Stress over my big day had gotten in the way of peaceful sleep.  The night had started with dreams of honor, glory, and valor, but eventually took a turn for the worse as I woke up in the middle of the night with my mind racing with apprehension.  Eventually falling asleep once more, I dreamed I was defending Canterlot from Changelings, but eventually they overwhelmed me.  The rest of the night was full of equally startling nightmares, each some sort of disaster.  When the sun began to peek through my window, I was wide awake and ready to be rid of my night.

I washed, put on my new robes, gathered any supplies I figured I’d need for the day, and walked down the stairs, heading for the kitchen.  My mother, who I always have been convinced had something wrong with her for being such a morning person, was awake as usual.  She was quite the morning person, always getting up a few hours before myself or my father.  I preferred to sleep most of the morning away and rather enjoy the late evenings instead.  It took a few seconds for her to notice I had entered the room and sat down at the table.  Had it not been for the creak in the floorboards, it might have been longer.

“Oh.....you’re up awfully early.  How did you sleep-OH!  Heavens no!  No child of mine is going to go to one of the biggest days of his life looking like that!”

I looked at myself a little, noticing that I had not brushed my hair or mane at all and I had affixed the front pendent of my cloak upside down.  Normally I would just quickly fix it up in some manner using magic.  I didn’t have to normally go to anything formal.

“I suppose I could brush a bit...” I replied weakly.  I was far too tired to care about my appearances.

“No no no no.  Come on.  Back upstairs,” she replied.

For the next hour and a half, I was subjected to what was sure to be the most excruciating and annoying grooming regimen she could come up with.  The hair on my coat shone so much, I thought I would go blind looking at myself in the mirror.  Everything from the shining silver shield emblem in front of my cloak to the gold horseshoes I was wearing were polished and perfect.  Of course, my parents weren’t rich, so the gold was fake and were chipped on the bottom.  Still looked nice, though.

“There.  Now you look presentable”.

Just then my father walked by and peeked into the lavatory.

“Well, don’t you look rather spiffy!  That cloak suits you well”.

“Thanks dad”.

“Well, we’d best be going soon.  Let me get around quickly and we’ll be off”.

And with that, my parents and I quickly finished our morning routines like clockwork, finishing breakfast and bolting out the door.  Before we got far, though, my father stopped us.

“Alright.  Stand closely together.  We’re going to save a bit of time getting there”.

And with a glow of his horn, we all were engulfed in the black, purple, and greenish swirls of the spell.  Our feet hovered for a moment until they once again touched solid ground and the world re-appeared around us with a snap-whiz-pop sound.

Princess Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns

Main Reception Offices and Registration

The large golden plaque was adorned with the engraving of Princess Celestia’s symbol of the sun.  I felt my heart start to race again as we walked through the large cherry-colored wooden doors.  They opened without any intervention on our part, somehow sensing our presence and responding accordingly.

“They’re enchanted.  My own work, actually,” my father said with one of those proud grins he got seeing his own work in action.  “It is quite something, really, I had to enchant them with a stronger spell, because it kept wearing off, so I.....” and the rest of my dad’s conversation became a blur of technical problems he was presented with for a large automatic door.  This normally would have been very fascinating to me, since I loved listening to my dad ramble about his work, but not today.  My mind was racing around and around as we walked down the long hallway.  The floor was a solid white-ish gray marble, with large stone pillars adorning the walls.  Between each pillar was a stone representation of what appeared to be reverent school figures wearing cloaks and armor.  These must have been the headmasters of the school or something equally high in importance.  Each one had a plaque on it, but I didn’t stop to read any of them.  The only one that I recognized was a full body sculpture of Star Swirl the Beared.  He stood staring off into the distance, as if deep in thought, in a very sleek robe and wizards cap.  The cap was a bit much, I thought to myself, but I suppose standing out for someone as famous as himself would have been what he was going for anyway.

As we got past the main hallway, we turned right into an office.  Above the door, a bronze sign stating “REGISTRATION” was hung.  Walking in, my father immediately was recognized by several of the office workers, who exchanged greetings.

“So, this is your boy, eh?” a tan colored unicorn stated.

“Sure is.  He’s going to be going through his acceptance test today to get into the school.  We both very excited and proud of him”.  My father certainly was prideful of me, even if I hadn’t proved anything yet.  He radiated it, it fact.

“Well, let’s get you registered.  Lets see here....” she said as she ruffled through several piles of paperwork.  “Ah!  Here we are.  Devoran Snapcaster, Son of Ember Weaver.  If you’ll just put your hoofprint right here, Mr. Weaver, we will get him in the waiting area.  He’s one of 11 that will be completing their entrance exams today.  Down this hallway a bit further, make a right at the second corridor.  There will be a sign guiding you to the testing hall”.

“Very good.  Thank you, Ms. Noteworthy,” replied my father.

“You’re very welcome.  Good luck on your test!”

We rounded the corner just past the office and walked into the testing area’s makeshift waiting room.  Several other Unicorns and their parents were sitting quietly with their parents.  As I entered the room, I could feel their eyes focusing in on me, eyeing the competition for the few select spots for admission into the school.  All of the kids looked as if they were raised by prestigious families.  My family could barely afford to live in Canterlot, let alone afford the perfectly pressed suits the colts were wearing or the diamond crusted outfits the mares wore.  Everyone except me in that room was definitely a pony of privilege.

My parents and I found a spot on the left of the room, leaving plenty of space between us and the nearest family.  With no conversation amongst each other, the groups filtered out one by one as their names were called by a testing officiant.  The time passed as if it was nearly stopped.  Even the people walking out of the room seemed to be moving in slow motion.  I swear I had been there several hours, but when I looked at the clock, it had only been 30 minutes.  Not even long enough to constitute one of my practice sessions behind my school.  Finally, the last mare left the room to be tested, which meant I was going to be next.  My heart raced with anticipation.  This was single-handedly the most important moment in my life thus-far, and it all came down to it.  When the officiant came back into the room and said my name, I jumped in the chair I was sitting in a little.

“You’ll do fine, sweetie,” my mother said trying to calm my nerves.  It wasn’t working.

“Go in there and knock’em dead......well, ya know, not literally.  You know what I mean,” said my father, in his awkwardly over-explanative manner.

“Y-yeah!  I’ll try!” I replied, barely able to manage three words.

And with that, I walked through the doorway into the classroom.  The room was a large lecture hall, with stadium-like seating.  Four ponies sat halfway from the top of the seating, two mares and two stallions, wearing formal attire.

“Please state your name for our records,” a gray mare said that was wearing half-moon glasses.

“Uhm......Devoran S-s-snapcaster, m-ma’am”.  My voice was becoming more and more useless as the nervous tension in my muscles mounted.

“Very good.  You may notice that you have an egg before you”.  Sure enough, a large green and white egg was sitting on a small amount of hay in the middle of the area in front of me.  “Your task is to get this egg to hatch.  Normally, a mother dragon would use the flame from her breath to keep the egg warm, but because you are not capable of such things normally, you will be using a spell of your choosing to hatch the egg.  Any questions?”

“Uhm........” I said softly.

“Speak up, boy!  We can’t hear you,” came a thundering voice from the far left officiant.

I gathered whatever emotional stability I could and simply replied “No.  No questions”.  Of course, that was only partly true.  I didn’t have any questions now, but that was only because I had no idea which spell I wanted to use.

Think, Devoran, I told myself aloud in my head.  What sort of fire spells do you know that are hot enough that won’t burn the whole place down?  Well......there is a simple flame throwing spell, but that’s a little crude.  Maybe a ward to contain it or......

“We’re waiting, Mr. Snapcaster,” said a third voice.  It wasn’t until I snapped out of my concentration on spells that I realized I’d been standing there a good minute.  A fire-spin spell contained in a ward.  I had tried this one a few times before.  I began to cast the fire upward, keeping it pointed upward slightly above the egg until I had it stable.  Then, moving it downward, I also cast a very weak ward alongside of it.  Casting two spells at once was extremely taxing in combination, but it started to work on the egg.  The outside glowed red hot, but after a full minute and a half, it didn’t show any signs of cracking.  It needed more heat.  So, I turned up the intensity a bit more, forcing the spell to the next level.  The egg started to shake a bit, but just as it did, suddenly a small bit of fire leaked out of the ward, catching the straw in the basket on fire.  Soon, one whole side of the container was ablaze.  If I didn’t stop it, it was going to burn the stand away, and I’d fail for sure.  With my nerves already twinging, I quickly stopped casting the ward and flames to put out the fire.  Unfortunately, I made the mistake of stopping the ward first.  Within a split second, the whole testing area lit up with the explosive combustion of the flame that had been contained in the simple bubble.  Like a bees that had been released from a container,small flames sprang forth, setting everything they touched instantly on fire.  Everything from the drapes to the desk to the floor was burning.  Instinctively, I cast an area of effect freezing spell.  Although I wasn’t very talented with them, it did the job, putting out the blaze in a snap.  Sighing relief that I had not burned down the very school I was trying to gain entry to, I look up at the test administrators.  And then, my heart sank into my feet.  Every single one of them had singed clothing on and looked miserably cold, complete with rosy cheeks and noses.  My spells had reached them, both burning everything they were wearing slightly, and then giving them a massive chill from the outskirts of my second freezing spell.  They did not look happy with my performance in the slightest.

“That will be all Mr. Snapcaster,” The far left said.

“But, I......I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to......”

“That will be ALL Mr. Snapcaster,” he repeated.

Ok.  I got the hint.  I rushed out of the room.  My parents, who had heard the commotion had looked in at some point during the test to see what was going on.  They both looked concerned as I passed them, but made no effort to stop me.  They knew I was upset and stopping me would have only made it worse.  When I got to the waiting room, I simply collapsed into one of the terribly uncomfortable chairs, sobbing.  I had blown it.