A World of Colorful Feathers

Chapters

Strangest of Peoples
White Speed
The Wrong Rulers
Temporary Living
Sorcerer's Home
New Home
Meeting an Old Element
New First Steps

Strangest of Peoples

Luster dawn was wracking her head around all the books piled up on the wooden table in front of her. The sun had not yet set and was still filling the dusty, massive library of Canterlot castle with golden, caramel-colored light. The mare was currently studying a book recensing all the known pony wizards of the world...although, from the faded red cover and all the tears in the binder, it was definitely an out-of-date edition. Luster carefully peeled the book open and used her hooves to carefully pull and place the pages down. The princess would have her head if she damaged anything. She would find what she needed in there, perhaps. Something to impress princess Twilight and keep the student out of Ponyville's 'Friendship School'.

"Wizards...Who's in here?" she wondered. "Starswirl the Bearded, O'Connor the Thoughtful, Meringue the Savvy... Xianpu the Torturous?" Luster froze a moment. "What kind of name is that?" She batted through the pages for several minutes until she found one name that interested her. "Dusty Trail. A researcher into spatial magic? That sounds like teleportation."

Dusty Trail's list of recorded exploits enamored Luster Dawn so much that she had to replicate at least one his spells. The young mare had to light up a few oil lanterns on the tables with her magic thanks to the disappearance of the sun. Enthusiast, the mare found a spell about an 'Air Door' connecting two points, regardless of distance, together. Anypony could use it too, but she would need a magical artifact to bind and hold the spell, otherwise the caster would be drained of all their magic in seconds.

The library had a storeroom filled with magical artifacts gathered from all across the time that the rulers of Equestria reigned from this castle. Unfortunately for Luster Dawn, the storeroom was off limits and protected by multiple magical charms that were millennia old. Only Twilight, someone with the necessary spells, or a person the caster trusted very deeply could unlock it. The concept was flawed, but the princess couldn't do anything about it. Still, it was worth a try. The student would not relent in her quest.

A few minutes of traveling and Luster was standing in front a heavy, black metal door glowing purple with Princess Twilight's new magic and the faint multicolored magic of the rulers of old mixing about in swirls behind Twilight's star; The only source of light in this place. It was floating a few inches in front of the door, like a warning sign, and knowing that she was about to do something wrong in front of it made Luster's heart beat faster in fear.

Luster took a deep breath. "It's okay. You'll just use the spell to lead to the princess' room and wait for her there. No harm done, and she'll be impressed that I used a spell no pony even remembers."

Luster sat down and rubbed her hooves together. She touched the spell with her hooves, expecting to explode, but she was only met with a slight pushback. The student saw it as an opportunity and pushed back with her own magic, and the spell started to unlock itself. The mare jumped up and down in joy. Twilight trusted her enough.

With a hum, the spell split in two and slid to each side of the door, letting Luster enter unhindered. The room was...surprisingly clean, and the whole chamber was illuminated by an unseen source of light. No dust or cobwebs filled any corner or crevice. Instead, the chamber had been enchanted to change in size within it rather than without. Luster had to look for the easiest artifact to transport, and one with the least danger. Some were small enough to fit on podiums; Things like books, parchments, and fragments of what once was a vase or a statuette. The student couldn't help staring agape at all the pieces of history before her. She could even see the black crystal throne of King Sombra. It had crumbled -or been destroyed- and held no ounce of his dark magic anymore. There was a jagged, fossilized changeling queen horn on a podium further down, a large assembly of golden orbs stuck on broken beams in their own spot, and many others.

The mare had to focus, though. She came here for a dead or dormant artifact, not partially active or completely destroyed ones. After some time, Luster came upon exactly what she had been looking for: A tiny black statuette filled with light cracks. After verifying its magic potential, she determined that it was dead. It was perfect. Levitating it in her magic, the mare could better see its form at every angle: A flat, circular pedestal holding a shape vaguely resembling a bowed crow's head with two wings spread open to its sides.

"I guess whomever made this was really just in a hurry to have a receptacle for magic." Luster chuckle. "Just a big clump of clay." She let out an involuntary yawn.

Luster now had her dead artifact with a solid enough body to support her spell -she hoped- and a book with the spell she wanted to cast.

"Hm. So, place the magic at these points of my horn...Twist and bend at these spots..." She rubbed her cheek. "This is a lot harder than I thought it would be." She looked at the book then back at the artifact. The castle creaked and cracked as it set in with the cold night air, tugging itself to sleep. "I should test the statuette first" The student looked back at the text. "Maybe avoid the complicated parts first," she mumbled to herself.

The mare spent the next few hours trying to replicate the simplest placement in the spirals of her horn. "I think I've gotten it down." She steadied herself and placed her hooves on the floor. "I should at least be able to see if the artifact absorbs the magic this way."

Luster's orange-pink magic lazily ebbed off her horn and towards the artifact, exhausting her in the process. The statuette glowed briefly, as though its thirst was not yet quenched. The mare almost collapsed from the effort and used a nearby table to prop herself up.

"I shouldn't have done that while I was so tired." The sun was just barely starting to rise outside. Luster had pulled an all-nighter, and she groaned internally at the realization. "Well. It looks like it worked." She yawned and stretched herself. "I'm going to grab something to eat and then go to sleep." Luster slapped herself on the side of the head. "I can't just leave the artifact there! What if somepony sees it?! I should put it back and take it out during my experiments."

Luster checked it for any extra damage and was about to pick it up, but she froze in place. The statuette's 'head' had twisted around and was staring at Luster with glowing yellow flames. It let out a shriek reminiscent of a dying bird and a dragon echoing within twisted musical instruments.

"What's happening?!" she shouted.

The statuette crashed onto the floor but did not break. Instead, a giant vortex baring the colors of Luster Dawn's magic form above it. Deafening like a tornado and just as destructive, as everything around it swirled and broke apart. But the pieces were cast to the side, thrown with such strength that the mighty stones of the walls were cracked and chipped. It didn't want those. It wanted the conjurer, and it had latched onto Luster Dawn. The door to the library was burst open by guards wearing golden armor.

"What's going on here?!" one shouted.

"Help!" Luster pleaded.

The guard wasted no time on hesitation. "Quickly! Grab her with anything you can! And get Princess Twilight!"

Several unicorns used their magic to hang on to their bulkier earth pony comrades as more and more guards swarmed in to save Luster Dawn from the own peril she had created. For a time, it seemed to be working. Some of the pegasi were able to cast away the more dangerous debris being thrown haphazardly in the direction of the would-be saviors, and it seemed that Luster was being pulled back to safety.

"When she's out of there, I want the unicorns to form a seal around whatever th--"

The guard was unable to finish that the artifact pulled much harder, dragging even the mighty earth ponies into its grasp. The noise became as deafening as an enraged hurricane destroying everything in its path. Luster's would-be saviors were unable to hold her as the pull became stronger and stronger.

"Luster? Luster Dawn?!" a familiar voice cried out from the hallways.

"Over here, princess!" one of the guards shouted behind clenched teeth.

"Luster!" Twilight screamed with pure fear and terror. "I'm not losing any student, let alone my first!"

"Princess, help me! It's pulling me in!"

Twilight's eyes and horn glowed with the white and lavender radiance her magic was known for at this point, and she engulfed the guards and Luster in her grasp, gradually pulling everyone back effortlessly, but the vortex wasn't going to give up its maker without a fight.

The princesses grunted. "What is this thing? It's so strong, and it's just getting stronger!"

The walls started breaking and falling apart, and the windows sitting high above it all shattered and sprayed themselves in all directions. Twilight and the guards were cut by the smaller shards while the pegasi did their best to use their armor to fend off the worst shards. Unfortunately, the vortex grew once more and pulled down a portion of the wall opposite the entrance, taking some of the roof with it. Through reflex, the guards pulled back, but that loosened the grip enough that Twilight was thrown off. In but that single second, Luster was taken into the vortex.

"Princess Twilight!" Luster Dawn cried out.

Then the vortex closed, and Twilight did not feel horror. or disgust. Or misery. She felt determination. "That vortex was a some sort of gateway gone awry. Try and find whatever you can so I can figure out just what she did in this mess and bring her back," the princess ordered the guards. Twilight looked at damaged statuette on the floor and stiffened. "What did you do, Luster Dawn?"

Luster was kicking and screaming on her way...down? Up? Left? Right? She had no way to know in this swirling stomach grinder of directions and colors, unable to reorient herself no matter how she tried.

"It's okay, it's okay!" she yelled to herself. She was yoinked aggressively to the left. "It's just a small spell gone wrong. Princess Twilight will get me out of here any se-!"

Luster couldn't explain the direction she just felt herself go in. It was like she was going inwards, but further than she was meant to. The roaring of contradicting shapes crashed into each other the longer Luster Dawn was trapped in the tunnel, tumbling all over the place. The mare was constantly being thrown in every direction like a rollercoaster ride, and it was making her sick. She tried to use magic to encase herself in a protective sphere, but everything she focused into her horn was sucked out and into the vortex.

"No!" she cried out. But, something was appearing further away from her. It started out as a small, almost unnoticeable speck, but it quickly grew in size. "What's that?" she said.

From the speck came a bright light and a loud noise, but it was nothing like the screeching and banging in the vortex. Unwillingly, the student was pulled towards it. Shapes began to take place, and the sounds became more distinguishable.

"Those are...those are voices!" Luster said. "That must be the princess." She started to 'swim' towards the growing opening. "Princess Twilight, I'm here! I'm here! I'm..."

The opening led to a large assortment of tall, colorful buildings, but Luster wasn't sure what she was seeing because of the speed. She kept forcing magic into her horn to keep her protected, but it wasn't working. But finally, she left that terrifying rollercoaster. At least there was that. Finally, Luster had successfully created the protective sphere she needed the moment she left the vortex, and plunged from a hole in the sky into a crowded area, knocking lots of ponies down until she was finally caught and stopped.

Her barrier went down, and she had to throw her hooves to her mouth to keep herself from ejecting her innards. "I'm...so sorry. I don't know what happened."

A very deep voice answered, weary and annoyed. "It's those wizards experimenting again." Thick, pokey fingers grabbed Luster by the whole of her back and placed her on her hooves. "Get up and be on your way, apprentice. We don't want to deal with your 'spells' today."

"What?"

Luster involuntarily let out a scream. What stood before her was not a minotaur. It was something far bulkier, with solid legs and upward-pointing spines all over its body. Even its face was not spared from the growths, but its eyes were somewhat protected by vertical eye slits and a single hole on the middle of its face serving as its airway.

The creature was visibly insulted. "Why did you scream, pony?" he asked.

Luster looked around at the crowd forming, but her mind couldn't make sense of anything. There was too much happening around her. "Sorry. I guess I'm just still dazed." The giant stepped back while Luster Dawn looked around. "Where am I?"

"You're at Canterlot." He chuckled then walked away. "These wizards can't help themselves with their experiments halfway across the world."

The student was left to her own devices, trapped in a sea of mystery on a crumbling raft. This Canterlot was not what she remembered. The streets were no longer wide enough for a single wagon to get through. The whitewashed stone blocks covered seven times that size, and the buildings lining the streets were an assembly of different styles, many the mare had never seen before. Most were made from wood and possibly mortar, with wooden beams crisscrossing and colored in a wide assortment of choices on the visual spectrum. Houses grew to three or four stories tall. Some had a protruding garden lifting over the passages below it, others had moss covering their entire front. Walking forward, the mare noticed that a majority of the buildings had open doors where people came and went. A vast assortment of sweet odors assaulted Luster's nostrils. She could clearly smell sweetened pastry freshly pulled out of the oven, unveiling its fruity contents for all to enjoy. There were even warm gusts of a thickly sweet, syrupy stench that the mare had never once smelled in her life.

She drooled. "That smells delicious. I could definitely do with some peach crumble to calm my nerves." She put a hoof to her chest and sighed.

Luster screeched once more and fell onto her back when a sword-like leg crashed in front of her from overhead. It belonged to yet another creature unfamiliar to her who seemed oblivious to her presence, at least until the screech. It turned back to face the student, revealing what Luster thought to be somewhat cute. Its tailless body was a flattened ovoid, topped with what the mare could only qualify as an angler fish's light rod. They emitted a cyan light revealing the very dark blue of the rest of the creature's body and the two long stripes running along its back. Its head was just as flat as the rest of it, and its eyes had a sharpened diamond shape to them. Two of the angler rods were on the top of its head, but they held more mobility than the others. They seemed more like antenna. Was this a bug? It tilted its head several times then resumed its traveling through the city.

All these colorful buildings had their own assortment of designs, from spires to uneven floors jutting out from each other. More -that the mare could see- bore glowing signs upon them and image projections from an unknown source. They stood out in the darkness of the partly cloud sky, and large shadows slowly slid across the streets and building faces. Airships were floating about the sky at different altitudes, and each bore its own colors and symbols.

"I hope those are pegasi and griffins tending to those ships. I don't want anymore surprises..."

Luster had to dodge more and more from the amount of creatures rushing through the streets. There were so many she couldn't keep track of them. Even the Canterlot she knew, on the rare occasions she would leave the castle, was never this busy! She witnessed several ponyless wagons driving on their own. A unicorn sat in the coach's seat and wore a horn cover linked to the rest of the wagon by loose wires swinging limply in response to any bumps on the road or a slight breeze passing them by. The mare stared agape at the contraptions. Creatures were creatures, but she never witnessed such things. She wanted to know how they worked.

"The Halo of Canterlot Castle is pulsing!"

It came from a pegasus flying through the air. They were clearly a guard, because of their golden armor, but there was something off about it. Luster just couldn't quite put her hoof on it.

"What's that sound?" She had been hearing an almost imperceptible droning in her ears that she had ignored up until now, but it was getting stronger. "Where...What. Where's the mountain?!"

If the houses were extravagant enough to surprise Luster, this alleged 'Canterlot Castle' was something else entirely. It existed in place of the mountain, taking its height and width like a nail hammered from below ground to pierce the sky. Extravagant spires whose paint was stolen directly from a sunset were saturated enough to burn Luster's eyes out.

"Where is the princess' star? There's just a giant sun and moon in its place. Who puts airship-sized suns and moons above a castle spire?!" She stared at the icons for a moment. "Are those...Princess Celestia's and Princess Luna's? But nopony has seen them in such a long time."

The student's outrage was abated by her eyes being pulled towards the blue halo that had partly disappeared behind the engineering feat growing brighter and brighter. It pulsated, growing, then shrinking and leaving a dissipating white outline. Luster looked around to see what everypony else was doing, and all of them had lied down in the streets or were holding on to something. No one was talking anymore, leaving only silent streets. The mare didn't understand. Then, the halo thrummed loudly, projecting a shrieking sphere of light that passed over and through everything. There was nowhere to run to, and Luster's teleportation magic was hardly at a level that could get her far away in several flashes. She would exhaust herself before even finishing the first spell.

With a grunt, Luster was engulfed by the expanding dome that pushed people and hanging plants away. She was briefly caught on the barrier until it finally ceded and let her through, leaving the distraught mare to watch as the 'halo' went on its way. As everyone got up, some started looking at Luster with suspicion.

"She was pushed back by the dome," one said.

"But then she was let back through. What's the problem? It's happened before," another responded.

A blue-gray stallion with a metal prosthetic left leg pushed Luster on the shoulder. "Are you a spy of some kind? You used a hex to get through the barrier?"

"A-a what? Hexes aren't real!" Luster stammered.

The stallion and few others gathering around laughed. "Then how did you get through the barrier?"

One of the spiky giants pulled the stallion back. Her black spikes were tipped with orange. "No need to keep pushing her for something she doesn't know about."

The stallion pulled his foreleg out of her grasp. "Fine. But I'm reporting this to the guard."

The giant shook her head and knelt towards Luster who pulled back in fear. "It's okay. You act like you're going to explode from fear."

Luster hesitated to speak. "I...I just want to get to Canterlot Castle. I need to find Princess Twilight," Luster said.

"Who?" the giant said.

The mare frowned and glared at the giant. "Princess Twilight. The one who leads Equestria."

Luster was stared at from the side. "I don't know if you hurt yourself or you're just scared, but I've never heard of this 'Twilight', let alone one who would rule Equestria." She stood up and pointed a massive finger towards the assembly of intricate spires in the distance. "That is Canterlot Castle, but you would need an audience first to...to..." The creature looked around but couldn't find her until she spotted the pony galloping up the light slope of the city. "Hey, wait! The guards will stop you!"

Luster Dawn didn't care. She needed to find the princess. She needed to be sure that she was alright. Where exactly did she end up in? Where was Princess Twilight? Where were her parents? She absolutely needed to know.

"If I can't find the princess at that castle, I don't know what I'm supposed to do, but it's as good of a place to go as any," Luster told herself. "At that giant...terrifying...super tall castle." She took a loud gulp and felt her blood freeze and heart rate quicken.

She came upon a large group of ponies and those other creatures clogging a four-way crossing, each merrying in drink and food and wearing a wide variety of different colored clothing and paraphernalia. Luster didn't care. She just needed to get past them, and instead of trying to ask them to move, she teleported beyond. For some reason, those that saw her do it were shocked.

"What's wrong with them?' she thought to herself. "Haven't they ever seen somepony teleport before?"

The mare hurried towards the castle, but a tall, angular, white wall barred the way. Nothing could jump it, and it was easily ten stories tall, but she didn't have time to wait around, regardless of the guards patrolling in front of the massive, wooden gates.

"Halt!" one of them ordered.

"I don't have time for you!" Luster responded.

"You will not enter the inn--" Luster vanished from his view in a flash. "Where did she go?"

"She's over here!" a pony at the top of the walls shouted.

"She got through?!"

There was a pause by the wall patrolpony. "I think she teleported," she said.

"What rune did she use?"

The patrolpony shrugged.

The 'castle' was becoming larger and larger, and Luster was finally approaching its base. There were three other walls she had to get past, something that increasingly became both aggravating and exhausting.

"I didn't train for this much teleportation," she wheezed.

The closer she got to the castle, the more extravagant and wide the buildings became. Many even had artificial streams of water running out of small openings in the walls and along miniature aqueducts that would spiral down hollow paths in pillars or cubic carvings into transparent pathways underhoof. Some waterways had even been filled with coloring, and while many opted for vibrant yellows, blues, and purples, a few had chosen red. Luster felt herself twinge with unease when she saw those paths.

Finally, she was near the foot of the mountain castle and was going to reach it when an outstretched wing or limb grabbed her from a space between the tremendous houses and locked her against its owner's chest. The owner was an avian-like entity with a 'finger' to his face. Several dozen guards bolted past them, including a few self-driving wagons plated in thick slabs of metal.

The avian creature leaned over to the side, peering around the corners to check for any threats, and then let go of Luster Dawn who was just about to yell at him before he raised his large wing-arms, revealing the three digits at their end.

"You caused quite a stir in Canterlot, pony," he said. His voice was strained and quiet as though he had been yelling for weeks on end. "Best wait here a while until they leave. Then you can go rushing towards the castle again."

"Who are you?" Luster Dawn asked.

Author's Note

I haz a patreon. I'm still working out the kinks, but I'm trying. I've already broken, so....

Any donation is helpful for emergency funds. Maybe I might get what is needed to pay for a custom cover for one of my actual books I want published. Maybe...

Enjoy the story, at the very least.

White Speed

This creature's body was narrow but still larger than the average pony's. It was covered completely in feathers, feathers so large it gave the impression that they were wearing a robe. Luster couldn't tell whether their five-taloned feet were separate parts of the their plumage or just another part of them, like their 'fingers'. His head was elongated forward, as though he had a beak, but when he spoke, no lips would move. Creepier to the young mare was the creature's lack of pupils. Their eyes were wide and open, but there was only white there.

"An...individual with interests. I'm BasKas, with a capital K, and I'm simply curious about what is inside the castle," he explained.

"I don't know who you are or what you want with me." Luster's eyes darted about while looking at the floor. She couldn't find what else to say in that scenario.

BasKas raised his wings and fingers, and Luster realized that his wings were wider than his body and almost touched the floor when they were left at his sides.

"Oh, it's not a bad thing. A simple thing. Harmless thing. And if I wanted to hurt you I would have done so already, wouldn't I?" he asked slyly.

"I guess," Luster agreed reluctantly.

"It took me a year to sneak over here." He dropped his wings. "And it took you a few seconds with teleportation magic." He started to lean left and right to get a better look at Luster. "Where's your rune, wizard?"

"Rune?" Luster repeated.

"Yes. Your rune. To allow you to teleport."

The mare frowned. "Why would I need runes to teleport? I'm a unicorn."

"You-!" BasKas dragged his wing across the side of his face. "So you're a unicorn that can teleport without runes?"

"Every unicorn can do that," Luster chuckled.

"Can they?" BasKas looked to the side and at some pegasi and other creatures flying through the air. He chuckled when two airships almost crashed into each other. "She even got through the protective barriers around the walls." He thought. "So why exactly are you trying to enter the castle, pony?"

"I'm trying to reach Princess Twilight," Luster said.

The avian gave Luster a blank stare. "Who?"

The student was flustered. "Why does nobody know her?! She rules Equestria! And then I look at what happened to Canterlot Castle and there's a sun and moon up there instead of her star."

"Uh huh. Say, who were the rulers preceding this 'Twilight Sparkle'?" BasKas asked.

Luster hummed pensively. "Princesses...Luna and Celestia." She tapped her head. "I keep forgetting about them unless I see a reminder."

BasKas nodded. "That sounds like...Well, I'll leave that surprise to you."

"What surprise?" Luster asked.

"Nothing much." He leaned down and grabbed Luster's shoulders. "Can you tell me what's in the castle? Like I said earlier, I've been trying to get into that castle for a year, and then you just show up. I want to know what's inside of that place."

"Why? Can't you see it for yourself?" Luster asked.

"How would I?"

"You could ask for an audience."

BasKas laughed loudly then covered his head. His feathers kept bulging outwards from his muffled laughter. "You're so naive to think that someone like me could get in there for just an audience."

Luster was confused. "Why? Princess Twilight would let anypony have an audience as long as it was necessary," she explained.

"Oh, so naive." The avian stood back up and peered around the corners. "I don't smell them. Just that overabundance of floral stench." He hacked in disgust. "I can get you out of that castle afterwards when you get caught."

"Nopony is going to harm me!" Luster stated matter-of-factly.

BasKas looked back at the pony and shook his head. "You're an idiot, but a very stubborn idiot. Just get in there, do what you want to, then I'll get you out."

"But you said it took you a year to get up here. How do I know it wouldn't take you another to get to the castle?" Luster asked.

"Suddenly thinking about me helping?" Luster didn't respond to the question. "There's always a way to and from the dungeons."

Luster couldn't speak, horrified at the implication that she would be imprisoned. "That's-!"

"Get going or you won't find your 'Princess Twilight'," BasKas mocked.

"Fine! I will!" Luster said.

She hurried around the corner, leaving the avian to his own devices.

"A naive pony that can do things besides levitation without runes." The avian stroked his solid 'beak'.

The sunlight was getting dimmer, so Luster had to hurry if she wanted to find Princess Twilight in time. There was yet another wall. Possibly the last, considering how close it was to the mountain castle. Luster took no time to teleport past the wall and its distracted caretakers. The path to the mountain was just like the one at Canterlot: A wide path of whitewashed stone flanked by small stones cut into semi-arcs. The trimmed grass, while a deep and lush green, gradually paled and increased in height, first turning yellow, then oranging the closer to the castle Luster got.

Thanks to BasKas, the guards had dispersed into the city and were no longer chasing after the intruder pony, but there were still the patrols on the castle grounds themselves. Seeing the tremendous outstretched platforms of stone and mortar made to accommodate and counter the increasing slopes of the mountain sides was an awe-inspiring feat of their own. The veritable army of guards glad in gold or silver armor, wielding spears, swords, bows, clubs, and other weaponry was nothing short of breathtaking for Luster Dawn. Several guard towers were thrice as thick as those few she had seen before, resembling fattened trees. These trees had holes carved into their sides, leaving several ballista to have an easy opening to shoot intruders, and both catapults or trebuchets could be found on every tower's top. Although, there were some topped with a contraption the mare had never seen in her life. She used the shadow made by a risen wall and the corner of some stairs to get a better look.

"What is that thing? Looks like a box with holes in it." She watched as an earth pony dropped a large, wooden crate in front of it and both he and a unicorn pulled out metal shards to place in the holes. "That looks barbaric!" Luster put a hoof to her chest and breathed deeply to calm herself. "It's okay, Luster Dawn. You just need to find the princess. The castle is right there. She has to be in it." She tried to wrack her head around potential explanations to her situation, but none came to mind.

Instead of waiting any further, the mare teleported between empty spots she could find in the growing shadows. Stairs, walls, crates, building material used to fix damages to the buildings and platforms. Finally, she reached the foot of the mountain castle, and Luster had no ability to look far up enough, even within the tree she had teleported into. Doors big enough for the previous king of dragons, and then some. Gates that were black at their feet and gradually transitioned to a night blue with sparkling, white gems ingrained into their tops. It contrasted with the bright white surrounding them; a bright white that followed the sunset color scheme that Luster had seen in the city down below.

"At least I know I didn't hallucinate this!" she whisper-yelled to herself. There was a large assortment of guards walking about the grounds, stressing Luster out. "How do I get in there? I'm exhausted." She massaged her sore cheeks. "I just need to get inside to reach the throne room." Looking at the floors, Luster saw an empty corridor no one was patrolling. She winced. "I suppose I don't have a choice."

Focusing, the mare threw herself onto the floor of this new castle. She expected the sounds of the servants cleaning up the rooms and the heavy metallic steps of guards patrolling the corridors and using the stairs, but she could hardly hear anything more than her own strained wheezing. Her hooves rested upon a completely carpeted floor that needed either cleaning or replacing, judging by the darker stains in the green.

She instantly snorted in disgusted and covered her muzzle with a hoof. "What is that awful stench? It smells like a hospital, lavender, and oranges. What kind of weirdo would use that as odorizer?"

Unlike the castle Luster knew, this one didn't have much in the way of hallway decorations. Most of them were simply plants in large pots, smaller ones on stools, or a landscape painting nailed through the wallpaper. Said wallpaper was still white, but it was enchanted to reflect the weather outside. Luster was certain that it was slowly turning purple then black with the night. Maybe stars would appear at some point.

"That's so weird. I can see the sun from this angle, but not from over here."

Luster slowly reached out to try and touch the wallpaper to analyze it, but was quickly reminded of her purpose in the castle when guards slid down the wooden stairs leading to the upper floor.

"I found the intruder! They got into the castle!" one of them shouted.

He pulled a stick from the side of his armor and cracked it between his teeth, then threw it at Luster. A blinding red flash scared Luster away back where she came from, but the flare was not meant to simply harm or scare her. Two fully armored pegasi burst in through the windows followed by a larger and much more angular creature and a sound so loud it destroyed the rest of the windows in the hall. The mare was thrown back into several rolls by the amount of wind that came from whatever it was. The creature was almost two-dimensional based on how thin it was.

Of course, there was nowhere left for the exhausted pony to run, and she was grabbed by several of the guards and stopped where she was. One of them eyed her up and down, his face a mixture of anger and perplexion.

"How did you even get in here? You have no runes." This guard's left eye was bruised, and his golden armor bore multiple discolorations from scratches. Once again, Luster couldn't get a good look due to the proximity and being shaken around a lot. "Well? Answer me!" He narrowed his eyes momentarily. "No. More importantly: What are you here for? To attempt to assassinate the royal family? To steal secrets of the kingdom to sell? What is it? What's your angle?"

"I-I-!" Luster was unable to utter any word.

"I say we hang her preemptively, and then look for whomever let her into the castle grounds in the first place," one guard suggested.

One of the pegasi stepped forward. Her body was encased in plated armor of a resplendent white. Luster was certain they were mirrors thanks to how crisp everything's reflection was in them. "And lose our only lead to said worm? We need to report this to the captains, then have her sent to the dungeons where the wordsmith can coax a name out of her."

A few of the guards laughed, but others grumbled and shifted in place uncomfortably.

"Wordsmith?" Luster struggled in her bond. "If they are a book writer, then I'm certain we could come to an understanding. I-I'm not here to hurt anyone!"

Several of the guards laughed at her words, but Luster's captor and the fliers stared at her.

"You can't be that stupid," the captor gawked. "A wordsmith is not a book writer." He stammered before finding the right words. "How old are you?"

"I'm almost eighteen."

The captor looked at the razor-thin creature. "They hire the spies and assassins younger these days?"

The creature waved two long claws that curved so sharply they nearly pierced its own leg. "Let go of her. She can't do anything at this point, and we might as well try and reeducate and aid this one if she really is so young." Luster grunted from having her forelegs unrestrained and looked up at the creature. "Why exactly were you sent here, pony?"

"I-I wasn't sent. I'm just looking for Princess Twilight," Luster explained.

Mumbling was shared between the guards. "Who?" the thin creature said.

"P-Princess Twilight! We're in the castle! She has to be here!" Against her will, Luster was starting to tear up and cry. "I don't know what's happening! I just want to see Princess Twilight! I don't want to be in this place anymore! Was I sent to another place that has the same names as my home?!"

"What's happening here? Who is this?" a deep and regal voice asked.

All guards immediately scrambled to attention and bowed, surprising Luster.

"Your majesty," the captor said.

Luster turned around and saw a giant of a pony. His tall, well-toned body was painted in a vibrant white coat. He was at least three heads taller than Luster, and his horn followed suite. Golden clasps rose from his hooves and ended at his shins, creating the impression that golden veins rose out from his skin. His face was stern but elegant, thanks to his boxy muzzle. A goatee of pastel colors grew from his chin, and a mane and tail of the same style flew behind him in short braids. Deep, purple eyes glared at Luster from an unflinching, unbowing head.

"Who is this?" he asked.

The Wrong Rulers

"I--"

Luster tried to introduce herself, but the captor cut her off.

"Your majesty, this intruder," he spat. "has been causing trouble all over the city. The guards at the gates have reported them t--"

The white stallion raised a wing to stop the captor. He was an alicorn. Luster was speechless.

"I did not ask who you were, sergeant. Hm?" the alicorn said with a relaxed tone. The sergeant shrunk away under the stallion's gaze. "I want to know who you are and why exactly you would infiltrate my castle." He cleared his throat. "Well, my and my wife's."

"Your castle?!" Luster said. "This is Princess Twilight's castle!"

There was a pause. "I'm sorry, but I don't know of any such pony of that name. I would know who has inhabited this castle before then."

The captor stepped forward. "Maybe she is one of those supporting the usurpers to your throne, my lord? Should I take her to the word smith?" He glared at the mare. "He would get some much needed information out of her."

The alicorn shook his head. "No. I've had my fair share of usurpers and supporters of such characters." He patted Luster on the head. "This mare is not one of them. She holds no rage or contempt towards me despite being caught, and she is not making some obscene claims," he mocked.

"Don't touch me!" Luster shouted. "You...you stole Canterlot from the princess. And now you're claiming her castle is yours?!" The distraught mare looked around, visibly crying. "Or you're just trying to hide her!"

The alicorn glared swords at the shrinking mare and spoke with an explosive voice. The Royal Canterlot Voice. "Listen here, pony. I am King Daegcandel, Avatar of the Sun itself, and I will not have some nopony intruder making outrageous accusations in front of my own guards and disgracing my own home!" His voice 'quieted'. "I don't know how you got in here, but I will find the culprits, and I will have you taken to the dungeon in the meantime." The king turned to the sergeant. "Take her away. I've had enough for the moment."

"No!" Luster Dawn teleported beyond all the guards towards the stairs and rushed downwards. "Princess Twilight!"

Everyone, including Daegcandel were slackjawed.

"Did she just teleport?" Daegcandel asked.

"Y-yes," one of the guards said.

"I saw her thoroughly. She had no runes embedded within her body," the king mumbled. He shook himself out of his stupor and raised a foreleg. "Well? Catch her! And bring her to the throne room afterwards. I want to know exactly who or what she is."

"Yes sir!" the guards yelled in unison.

All, including the pegasi, left, but the nigh two-dimensional creature walked forward. Its dangling face mask hiding all details save for two eyes in a single socket hiding beyond glass lenses. "My lord, should I call for the wizards?"

The king thought for a moment then nodded. "Yes. I'm sure they would be able to find use for a unicorn who can do more than levitation without runes."

The creature took in a large influx of air, inflating its body. "I've heard legends and myths that those who could wield magic could do so without the needed for specialist runes."

Daegcandel shook his head. "Those are legends, and even if they weren't, it's clear that such times are long passed. Now go. Send the message." The creature burst out of the room in a sudden blast of wind. King Daegcandel started wreathing himself in his overflowing magic, turning his eyes into bright spotlights and his body into a miniature white sun. "Time to find and catch her before she hurts herself. I was too hasty to burst out in rage." He tapped his broad chest. "The molten core of the sun bubbles too fiercely within me," he chuckled.

The hallways of the castle were tremendous, and the mare couldn't help but get lost within them. Carpet, wallpapers, massive windows. Indoor gardens and house-sized crystals being filed down and polished to be placed within hollow openings in arches and walls and ceilings and floors.

"What is wrong with this place?!" Luster shouted. "It's too extravagant!" She hid behind a large stack of potted plants waiting to be moved and resoiled. "If I focus, I can find the princess' aura somewhere." She peered through the thick leaves of the many plants. "Preferably before anypony finds me." Luster closed her eyes and peered through the 'veil' of magic surrounding her. Many different colors and auras of various sizes existed in this castle. Hundreds of thousands, actually. "I'm glad the princess taught me to distinguish magical auras," Luster thought. "There!"

She instantly teleported multiple times throughout the humongous complex. From its deepest caverns to the greatest constructs above, the mare was determined to find her teacher, even at the expense of her own health. She would find the princess, and that was final. Luster teleported one final time to where Princess Twilight was located.

"Princess Twilight!" she shouted.

Her voice echoed in the room she had just entered, and thousands upon thousands of heads turned to face her. Her ecstatic smile slowly ebbed away the more she looked around. There were seven different floors with balconies filled with a large variety of different creatures. Stained glass windows occupied the spaces between these balconies, each depicting several different tales on top of each other. A large crowd had gathered on the floor and were listening to the audiences attributed to the one standing at the throne. Luster ignored the crowd of finely dressed people yelling at her, crying out for her teacher instead. When she was blocked, the mare pushed herself for one more teleportation, casting silence upon the thousands present and destroying her hopes of seeing her teacher once again.

In front of her was a podium fifteen times the size of the one in Canterlot castle. Two thrones the size of houses sat upon them, rising only twice the size of a pony, but fused together and stretching to encompass the walls next to and behind them. They were made of a polished and sculpted metal of unknown composition. The one on the right changed colors to that of the night just as the one on the left changed to those of the sun. They followed the same morphing patterns as the castle walls outside. The left's base and main structure were shaped into small congregations of ponies swarming through thickets and overgrown forests, often stepping over each other to reach several other ponies surrounded by a disc of light. The right had them coming from deep swamplands and broken quarries. The figures grew brighter and taller the closer to the backrest of the throne they came, and the backrest of the thrones themselves were shaped as two alicorns of indiscernible appearance. However, both were surrounded by their respective element. The left had a faceless alicorn looking towards the crowd with its belly exposed and the right wing outstretched. Surrounding it were tendrils covered in thick thorns. Bright yellow fluid seemed to flow constantly through them towards the half-sun above the alicorn's head. The right was similar, although the veins were covered in curved blades and filed with a bright liquid that changed from bright blue to white in several spots and eddies. They led not to a sun, but a crescent moon.

"Who...who are you?" Luster said meekly.

Sitting upon the right throne was a giant mare of a deep night blue. Her mercury eyes produced a silver flame that Luster felt was burning her just by being in their presence. This was an alicorn as well. Her horn was just as long as that alleged king's, but her silver crown created an impression that she had antlers that parted towards the rear.

"And who are you to casually cut in front of my audience members and ask me so strange a question?" The alicorn stepped off the throne, revealing similar hoofware to Daegcandel. Where he was gold, however, she was silver.

Her dress kept itself over her body, scintillating like the many stars in the sky, and not one sparkle stayed the same color for long. They came in various sizes and brightness and ranged from whites to greens and purples. Sometimes, Luster would see one 'explode', then vanish and be replaced by many others. The student fell on her rear and flinched backwards while the crowd dispersed and the alicorn leaned her neck towards her. Luster could hear the seems of that fabric around the alicorn's supple neck popping and straining thanks to the silence of those present and her stress heightening her senses.

"You even teleported beyond my people. Why?"

"I-I-I'm looking for Princess Twilight!" Luster shouted. She scampered to her hooves and frantically looked around at every face she could. "I don't get it. I felt her magic aura here."

The alicorn's aggression lessened at the sight of the distraught and confused pony. She grabbed Luster in her magic and locked the mare's face towards her own. "How did you see their aura with no rune within you?"

There was a long pause. "Rune in me? That sounds...painful."

"So am I to understand that you can cast magic with just your horn?"

"Anypony can do that," Luster said matter-of-factly. "Why?"

"Nopony can do that," the alicorn stated.

The doors to the chamber burst open, and everyone but the alicorn had to shield their eyes to not be blinded by the white light.

Daegcandel spoke in the Royal Canterlot Voice, assailing two of one's senses. "I see you found her."

"You're searching for this mare?" the mare alicorn asked.

"Yes. The one that can use magic without runes and keeps mentioning a princess of unknown name and lineage," Daegcandel explained.

The alicorn dropped Luster while swaying her head in annoyance. "Lessen your magic. You're blinding the vassals!" she said.

The king lowered his head in acknowledgment and dimmed, inciting sighs of relief amongst the crowd. He walked towards Luster, his eyes not looking away from her own. "This is my wife: Queen Heofoncandel. And, as you can see by what is around you--"

"This is our home," Heofon interjected.

Luster looked between the two while the audience stared. "I've never heard of either of you."

The crowd was outraged, many claiming that Luster was trying to incite something. A boom of 'Silence!' by the two rulers was enough to quiet all voices.

"Are you sure of your claims?" Heofon asked.

"I don't recognize Canterlot anymore, either." Luster looked back at the two befuddled rulers and squinted her eyes. "Although you both look very similar to princesses Luna and Celestia, but they retired." The mare paused to regain her thoughts. "Nopony has actually seen them in several years. We don't really know where they went."

Both rulers became intrigued.

"Perhaps the--"

"Wizards can help," Daegcandel said. It was his turn to interrupt his wife, despite the annoyed expression she gave him. "They'll help determine who she is and what she's babbling on about." He passed a hoof across his facial hair. "You're more interesting to us here than elsewhere."

The queen pushed her husband aside. "If my husband takes such an interest in your magical capabilities, then I want to know about the full extent of your powers through the word of the wizards." She stomped the ground, and armored guards came rushing in. "But you will be kept in the dungeons for now." The alicorn poked Luster's horn and shook her head. "But I would advise you not to use your magic at any point. You seem to have stressed yourself far too much. I'll have food and drink brought to your cell shortly."

"Take care to not harm her. She could be an asset to us," Daegcandel ordered the guards.

They bowed and escorted Luster out of the room. She was utterly speechless and wide-eyed, leaving the rulers to their own needs. The barred cells were just underneath ground level, with barred windows being the only thing giving the occupants any sort of fresh air. The stones were humid and the air was heavy, and Luster was almost gagging on the damp smell of moss and other substances she preferred not to think about. Her stomach grumbled for food. All that effort drained her thoroughly, and her body was starting to ache. Surprisingly, there was nopony else in the area, but she could still hear barely muffled cries through the cracks of the roughly cut stone beneath her cell.

Being left in a calm and isolated area gave Luster Dawn enough time to gradually calm down and start to think clearly. "This...This isn't my Equestria..." she finally realized. "How am I supposed to get home? I don't even remember the spell properly." She frowned and stared at her hooves, cracking and flaking from all the excess efforts they weren't used to. "I...maybe I should stay here. These wizards might know how to get me back, or what I'm even doing here."

"I wouldn't count on them having your best intentions at heart," a voice warned.

Luster turned around to the barred opening outside. It was BasKas lying down at the window in plain view. He 'winked' at the mare.

Temporary Living

"How did you even get here?" Luster asked.

BasKas crossed his giant wings and laid his head on them. "I told you: It took me a year to get to where you got in mere hours. Naturally, that would mean that I know how to get to the castle as well."

"That...doesn't make sense," she disagreed.

"Well, that doesn't change the fact that I got in, and I can get you out so long as you agree to tell me all the decorum that exists in this place," he tapped the bars.

"I don't even know who you are," Luster said.

"You don't know anyone in this castle either," BasKas said. Luster was about to give a rebuttal, but nothing came to mind. "Ah, you see?" There was a pause where the avian checked around him after hoofsteps in the grass reached the two's ears. "We don't have much time, but I can get you out of here and somewhere a little safer, if you want." He sat upright. "Honestly, it's in your best interest."

"How can I trust somepony I've never met before?" Luster asked.

"Well, the friends you made were people never met before at some point in your life. Maybe I'm a not-yet-friend of yours?" he supposed.

Luster grumbled. She couldn't find an argument against that logic. Still. "And what do I have to do in return?"

BasKas rolled his eyes. "I told you, you just need to tell me what's in the castle. I want to know the luxuries they get to enjoy in there just so that I can imagine the marvels. I won't be able to see them for myself, but I certainly can imagine them as long as I'm told as many details as possible." He shrugged. "Having information like that can be just as valuable as having seen the same thing." His eyes creased upwards. Perhaps he was smiling and Luster couldn't see it. "Ignorance is bliss, sometimes."

The unicorn turned back around and stared at the door on the far end of the dungeon hall. "I don't know. I don't see any reason to leave here."

The avian chuckled. "I suppose they mentioned the 'wizards'?"

"Yes?" Luster said without turning away.

"I'm sure that you can remember some hooded figures if you want inside this mountain of a place."

Luster took some time but eventually nodded. "They were in the throne room."

"You reached t--Ow!" BasKas tried to burst his head between the bars but hurt himself in the process. "Got too excited," he said while rubbing his 'beak'. "You reached the throne room?" His voice was becoming erratic and burst with unconstrained enthusiasm. "You must tell me everything, but we must leave from here now. The wizards I mentioned will perform experiments on you as they did to their own bodies, simply to either improve your magic or, in your case, figure out why you can cast magic without any runes." There was silence. "It's your choice whether to stay here or leave with me back into the city."

"But they said they could take care of me," Luster said.

"And, rather than keep you under guard in one of the many many vacant rooms in this place, they throw you in a dungeon?" BasKas asked. Luster couldn't respond. "This is just a prelude of things to come, and if you don't like it, you can always teleport away. You have full control. I'm just interested in what you can do and what you've seen."

Luster took one more look at the dungeon and sighed. "Okay. I want to get out...but how are you going to do that?"

BasKas responded with a deep chirping meant to be chuckling, Luster surmised. He started poking above the bars, out of Luster's sight. A single, slow crack ran horizontally across the top of the opening, and the avian tugged on the bars several times until he could move the whole item to the side. An extended wing wrapped around the pony, lifting her out of the castle and onto the grass.

"The stones were weak at the joints with the stone glue thingy they connect them with," BasKas explained.

"Cement?"

"That's what it's called? Hm. Follow me."

Luster tried to gallop after the avian, but couldn't muster the strength to do anything but walk slowly. "Too much pain," she whined.

BasKas rolled his eyes. "Not much for exercise, then. Alright. I'll hold you up." He rolled his shoulders and picked up Luster despite her protests. His feathers were very big and somewhat coarse. "Guess there won't be any flying or going through the hole I found."

"Then what are you going to do?" Luster asked. "We can't just ask the guards to let us go."

"Well, we could also..." he implied.

Luster shook her head. "No. Now hurting them. they're just doing their job."

BasKas heaved a sigh. "And volcanoes simply burn everything in their passage," he grunted.

"What? What does that have to do with--"

Luster's head was jerked back into the chest of the avian when he burst forward, his talons digging into and ripping apart the ground when they came out. The avian snuck past the numerous guards in the castle gardens using the plethora of trimmed bushes and trees. The mare barely had a moment to recover that she was jerked around once more. It reminded her strangely of the vortex she had found herself pulled into. BasKas jumped down the massive platforms leading up to the mountain and hanging off the rocky ledges with one wing when he deemed it necessary.

It took all she had for the mare to not scream when BasKas did this. The avian thought it bright to hang off the ledge using his wing and talon on many many occasions, almost slipping off the jagged and erratic rock faces several times more.

When finally they reached the first wall, BasKas hummed. "Can't use the method I did to come here, so I'll have to be more direct."

"More direct? What do you mean by more direct?" Luster stammered.

BasKas 'chuckled' again. "I'll just 'walk' past them."

"What?!"

The avian pulled himself up from his new rocky perch and bolted forward as fast as he could manage. Several of the guards were knocked to the side by the blur rushing past them. When the avian approached the base of the wall, he jumped towards it, and his talons clamped into the stone.

"Haven't done this in a long time!" he shouted gleefully.

Luster's screams were her only response. The avian managed to climb the wall, knocking little pieces of stone on the guards below that couldn't figure out what was happening. With a free wing, BasKas flipped himself over the protective ledge of the wall and hopped over to the other side, burying his talons once more. Gravity did the work this time, tearing long, deep lines through the polished surface.

"There's an-!...Uh...escapee!" one of the guards finally alerted.

Bells in the gatehouse started ringing loudly, an oddity considering they hadn't used them when Luster was going inside.

"Using the bells now?" BasKas remarked. "I'm not that big of a deal."

A deafening screech reached the escapees' ears, alerting the avian to dodge sideways in the air and narrowly be missed by the flat creature Luster had seen in the castle. It stopped in front of them and landed, the sounds finally ceasing. Now Luster knew what that sound was. This creature was expelling tremendous amounts of air through slits in its armor, and subsequently, its body.

"They inflate to fly?" Luster whispered in awe.

Its feet were solid clumps, much like hooves. Had it not been wearing armor, Luster would've have been able to get a much better view of the composition.

"Where are you two going in such a hurry out of the castle?" the creature asked.

"Into the city, where you won't get to see us again for many centuries to come," BasKas responded humorously.

The creature stepped forward, and her voice became stricter. "You weren't permitted to leave the castle premises. You will return to the dungeon immediately."

The avian exaggerated a head shake. "Don't wanna."

"You willreturn to your cells regardless of your wants, or I'll--!"

"Be left behind?" BasKas interrupted.

"What?"

The avian passed by the creature and laughed as he vanished into the forest of massive buildings and artificial rivers.

"What are you doing?!" Luster shouted.

"Running, of course!" He looked up and smiled. "Looks like we're going to have to use the floating isles."

"Floating? But islands can't fl-Ah!"

The avian had chucked the exhausted pony as high as he could, and she landed on an island high above while he disappeared through the pathways below. Luster was left to see and absorb the sight of massive islands just floating above ground, each having one or more beams of a single, colored light piercing them above and below.

"How did I miss these when I got here?" the mare asked herself.

She looked behind her too see the creature speeding towards her like a dart and yiped. Luster hopped onto one of the artificial rivers and soared down like a water slide while the creature beamed overhead, cursing that she missed someone who was three feet in front of her. The water was not held within any stone arch.

"Is this a pathway of magic?" Luster wondered between panicked gasps of air. She tapped the water with her hoof. "It is! But that would require a ton of magic to sustain!"

She yiped in panic when the creature tried to grab her once more. Instead, Luster's would-be captor received a flower pot in her face from somewhere below.

"Yoo hoo!" BasKas shouted.

He was riding one of the larger paths below. Several pegasi came in from behind, originating from the mountain castle. Luster yelled in surprise and tried to teleport away by reflex, but her horn simply fizzled with sparks.

"Looks like we're going to have lots of fun while we ride to the lower parts of the city," the avian said excitedly.

Luster was screaming nearly on the whole way down, and BasKas was yelling with joy with his wings sticking out. The pegasi couldn't catch them, and when they'd get closer BasKas would grab something nearby and throw it at them, including other pegasi. He even shocked both Luster and the nearby guards by grabbing a stallion reading on his balcony and chucking him at the two's pursuers. The paths led to the sewers beneath the city, and although Luster expected the obvious, there was no filth at all. Not even a slightly pungent odor. Instead it all felt like she was passing through an enclosed area at a water park slide, and the sound of rushing was muffled by BasKas' screams of excitement.

They eventually opened up to the more familiar area that Luster had ended up in and were met with a barrier of pegasi at the end. They managed to catch BasKas but had forgotten about Luster. She crashed into them, freeing her savior and letting the avian hold her and land hard on the ground below, scaring the pedestrians. The avian wasted no time in hurrying further forward and into several tight pathways between the buildings, places the guards couldn't go without crashing into some balcony, clothesline, and some magical 'hoo-ha' the locals' were trying to create to make their little home more pleasant and unique. There was no conform shape, look, or purpose to any of them. Luster wanted to get a better look at them after all this stopped.

The mare had been prepared this time, but perhaps not enough. BasKas had held her in both his massive wings and said 'trust me' before throwing her and sliding the mare towards a basement hardly big enough for anypony to get in normally. The ground collapsed underneath her and she fell into another vortex, although a much calmer one. BasKas followed shortly after.

"She got out?" Daegcandel asked some guards inspecting the empty cell and the damaged hole in the wall. "How?"

The unicorn shook his head. "I don't know, my lord. I was certain that she was too exhausted to do any magic, so we didn't post any guards, and you yourself said that she was too mellow to be a threat."

The alicorn looked at his guard from up high, scaring him. "Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to frighten you," Daeg apologized. "I still forgot what I can do to others from a simple look." He smiled meekly, and the guard immediately relaxed and sighed in relief.

Heofoncandel pushed past her husband and analyzed everything she could. "That's not her handiwork," she said.

"You're right. She would have teleported herself if she wanted to leave," Daeg responded.

Heofon leaned her head forward past the open door and narrowed her eyes to get a better view. "Who would have the power to break such stones so easily without anypony noticing? Much less our guards."

"Of which there are many," another added.

It was a pony wearing a wine red robe with inch-wide trims of cranberry red laced with swirling patterns. Daegcandel was unnerved by the single, glowing yellow pupil he could see through the dark projected by the hood. Pupils that seemed to multiply every time he blinked.

"What do you believe, wizard?" he asked.

The wizard shook their head. "I'm not sure. There's so many exciting things happening today. I would have very much liked to interview this runeless wizard and see how she functions."

Both rulers stepped back and were visibly disgusted when they saw drool dripping from the darkness within the hood.

"Control yourself, wizard. This display is repugnant," the queen berated.

A wipe of the foreleg cleaned away the degrading appearance. "It can be difficult at times to control my excitement." They bowed. "I am sorry for that shameful display." They raised their head and looked back at the hole being inspected by several guards. "I can assure you that it was not cut with magic."

Daegcandel rolled his eyes. "Yes, we're aware of that," he said. It was exhausting talking to wizards sometimes, he thought. "I just want to know who was capable of that."

The wizard shrugged. "I won't know unless I analyze the damaged areas, and even then, I could simply learn of the species and not the person. These can be too vague at times."

A new guard brought the three's attention to him. "Your majesties." He bowed. "Guards at the gates have spotted the pony that had infiltrated the castle...rather poorly I might add," he mocked.

"We don't need your humor now, guard. Where was she?" Heofon asked.

"She was last seen in the lower section of the city being dragged along by some...black thing." He shrugged.

" 'Black Thing'?!" Daegcandel repeated. "That's the best description my guards--"

"Ourguards," Heofon corrected.

"Ourrrrrr guards," the king repeated. "can make?"

"I was told it was too fast for them to get a good view of!" The guard backed away, trembling.

Heofon gestured the guard to leave while Daeg huffed angrily and hit himself in the head several times with his hoof. The queen squished herself against him, using her own aura to calm him.

"You only need to relax, my star. They will be found eventually," she said.

"In this city?" Daeg snorted. "I'm not so sure, and I don't like this mention of a 'black' creature. If it's a spy of them, then it might be inevitable."

Sorcerer's Home

Luster burst out from whatever had been crushing her. The mare found herself surrounded by several colored boxes and large dusty books. Wherever she was, it stank of dust and incense, and the light coming in was strangled by the piles of forgotten objects blocking the only window present. With her aching muscles, the mare pushed her way through the flood of boxes and pushed open a grated door holding everything in a small space.

"Feels like this place is flooded in cardboard," Luster mumbled to herself.

With some effort of wading through the 'ocean', Luster managed to reach some wooden stairs leading towards the right into a gap in the wall. She pushed open the blackened, cobweb-covered door and was greeted with an ear-bleeding screeched created by the rusted door hinges. The door opened up to a circular area filled to the brim with a wide variety of things, all bringing a wide variety of colors. Flowers, plants, and cloth hung from hooks and pots and chains at irregular intervals, all connected to the ceiling or the creaking, wooden support arches. Some had grown so much they wrapped around each other in a loving embrace and crawled along the brown ceiling. Various alchemical glassware rested on tables and shelves, some still warping the air with haze from the heat they held and belching the smoke of their burnt contents.

Luster could walk around more easily in this area, noticing that her hooves were resting on a Saddle Arabian carpet along the length of the ground. She bumped her head against a pile of transparent boxes filled with a wide variety of what the mare considered to be ingredients. Feathers, scales, jars of various liquids and powders. In fact, a lot of these ingredients were either haphazardly strewn about the room or growing in some crack in the wall or through the carpet. A yellow-tinted window hung above the only barely visible sink that was buried underneath pots and plates. Another was in the wall directly opposite it and yet another leading outside. It was laid diagonally with the rest of the building.

The mare saw something growing in a pot between two neglected books and pulled them aside. There were bright, golden flowers growing there. Tiny motes swirled about the golden mist surrounding the flowers and its stems.

"That's a Sun's Tongue," Luster stared in awe. "These are incredibly rare. Why is it just left here?" Luster pondered.

She heard angry shouting outside the building getting louder, and she tried to hide in response. Instead she got buried by a pile of damaged books covered in tiny plants and soil.

"I told you to keep that teleporter spell accurate. It sent me five hours away!" a person complained. Luster recognized it as BasKas.

"That's in the general vicinity, isn't it?" another voice complained. "And what happened to my house?!"

"Must've been the pony. Why'd she land in here?!"

The other voice brushed the avian off, and Luster found herself freed from her imprisonment. The one who saved her was an aged unicorn scowling at her. He wore a tan suit that was off of his coat's color by a few gradients. The white, black-dotted shirt beneath was ruffled, and no tie was visibly present. His mane was a mess, like a minotaur ruffled them up. His eyes were a dark shade of blue-green. A weird color to Luster.

"And who are you?" he asked the mare.

"O-oh!" Luster hurried to her hooves. "I-I'm Luster Dawn: Student of Princess Twilight."

The stallion looked back at BasKas who kept his wings crossed. "Never heard of her," he spat out. "Now get out out of my house."

"Alright, but before I leave, is that a Sun's Tongue?" she asked.

The grumpy stallion's eyes brightened a bit. "It is. Rather uncommon, but I'm surprised a city pony even knows anything plant-life." He pointed at BasKas. "This idiot doesn't even know what spinach is."

"Hey! I don't eat vegetables!" the avian shouted angrily.

"You should. It's good for your body."

BasKas rolled his eyes and grabbed Luster, lifting her, rotating her in the air, then dropping her back in front of the grumpy stallion.

"Hey-!" she said.

"Where are you going?" he asked her.

"I'm leaving. He doesn't want me here."

The avian shook his head and rested it on his 'fingers'. "She's the one who can cast spells without runes, Fizzy Bubble," he sighed.

The stallion's gaze jumped between both. "You can do that?" he asked Luster.

"Y-yes. It's basic magic. We learn how to do it in magical kindergarten," she said. "The princess also taught me... What are you doing?"

Fizzy held a magnifying glass in his magical field and stared at Luster's horn. The mare realized that his magic was transparent, but distorted everything around it like a heat haze.

"Your horn is spiraled," he gasped. "Impossible. What kind of mutation happens to the horn?!"

"It's not a mutation." Luster raised a concerned brow. "Every unicorn is born with this kind of horn."

"No. We're all born with rings on the--Where are you even from?! How can that even be a natural occurrence?!"

"She's not from around here," BasKas said.

"Why thank you so much. I couldn't have determined that on my own," Fizzy said with just a teeny modicum of sarcasm. He turned back to the mare. "Unicons are born with rings on their horns. That helps absorb and keep the magic within us. It also provides us with telekinesis, but there's absolutely no way that a spiral occurs naturally."

"Well, Princess Twilight taught me otherwise." Luster poked at her horn with a hoof, tracing the indents. "Our bodies absorb magic, but only unicorns are capable of properly shaping it. When we use spells, the magic goes through our horns, and at certain points, we have to focus or defocus or change the magic at various points."

"I assume sometimes you need to repeat a pattern several times a minute at points while keeping the rest static or free-flowing?" Fizzy asked. He was becoming curious. "Do you have a demonstration to give me? I heard from the bird that you could teleport without a rune fused to you."

"Well...I can't teleport myself right now. I used my magic too much, but I could teleport something small like those yellow flowers," Luster suggested.

The stallion nodded. "Teleport them to my hooves."

Luster focused her magic and did just as she had suggested. She wheezed from the exertion but still smiled at the success. "There...What?"

"Whomever this 'Princess Twilight' is, she's a master of magic the likes this world has never seen!" Fizzy looked like he was going to explode from the excitement, but it didn't take long for him to mellow out. "But there's too many oddities."

"How so?"

"I could see your magic. Magic is colorless. It has always been that way." He demonstrated this by showing the same hazy effect around the pot of Sun's Tongue as it levitated around the room. "But yours has color. I assume that identifies it as your own magic rather than you just ejecting the magic your body has already store."

Luster, concerned, tried remembering what was taught to her about magic. "That's old, but I was taught that, yes. It mixes with the magic our bodies naturally produce. It doesn't change anything, though."

The grumpy stallion nodded. "And you've always lived like this? No changes at all?"

"Yes."

"I see..." Fizzy looked at his house's entrance door. "Which part of Canterlot did you live in, if you lived here at all?"

"I was in the castle," Luster said. BasKas and Fizzy stared at her. "What? It's true. When Princess Twilight chose me to be her personal student, I went to live in her castle."

"And yet you don't recognize anything here at all?"

Luster shook her head. BasKas started whispering to the stallion. "She sounds crazy, and yet..."

"And yet everything she's doing and everything she is proves otherwise." Fizzy rubbed his chin. "You were right. I am very intrigued in this pony." He looked at Luster then back. "Doesn't seem to have much of a personality, though."

"Maybe because we haven't seen anything done yet." BasKas bounced up. "Oh right!" he bellowed.

He pushed the grumpy stallion into a pile of jars. "You're lucky I enchanted these to all stay in place!" Fizzy cursed.

BasKas grabbed Luster and nearly threw her into the ceiling with the speed and strength at which he lifted her up. "Tell me what was in the castle. I must know!"

"Wh-Right n--"

"Yes!" BasKas shouted in Luster's face, deafening her momentarily.

"Let me go, then!" she said. "You're hurting me."

"Oh." He dropped her and stood in place, his body shaking with anticipation. "I'm just really excited to hear about it."

The grumpy stallion placed some books back in a column and grunted. "Yeah. Sure. Why not. Let's see what she has to say about the walls," he scoffed. Fizzy sat down and floated a clean bottle of water his way.

"Well, after I got past the first barrier, I teleported into the castle itself. That place is huge," Luster said.

Fizzy coughed and sputtered some water up. "You got inside of it?!"

Luster nodded and continued her tale, explaining in as minute detail as possible. She was thankful that Princess Twilight was such a stickler for details and had her constantly repeat what she said several times until she could give as detailed an image as possible. BasKas seemed to be daydreaming about the throne room, judging by his half-closed, fluttering eyes and gentle swaying. Whatever race he was, Luster found it to be both intriguing and disorienting.

Fizzy had paled considerably and was slumped over while BasKas was sparkling with glee at the details he was told.

"Wow. I never imagined they'd enchant their castle to that point. You even went to the peak, where the throne was. Amazing!" BasKas said in awe.

Luster was confused. "What? No, I went to the base of it. Not the peak."

"The castle is enchanted, so it stands to reason that you probably hitched a ride on one of their many, many flows of magic when you teleported," Fizzy explained. "More of the fact being that I'm shocked that you were even capable of such a feat." He grabbed a brown bottle with a foul smelling liquid within it and took a swig.

"Are you an alcoholic?" Luster asked in disgust.

The stallion burped and placed the bottle back on the cramped sink. "No. I just like the flavor of fermented berries. One drink tends to be enough outside of food." Fizzy smiled contentedly while the flavor still stuck to his tongue. "So, you'll be staying with us for the time being until we can figure out what in the world you are."

The two watched BasKas tapping his fingers together while he wandered about, unaware of his surroundings. The avian ended up climbing the stairs to the next floor, leaving the two ponies alone.

Fizzy sighed. "So, you gave me your name, and I'll give you mine."

"But BasKas already--"

"I'll give a proper introduction!" Fizzy shouted angrily. Luster had leaned back from the surprise. "I'm Fizzy Bubble: A sorcerer of Equestria."

Luster's chest heaved while her body tried to recover from the sudden trauma it was subjected to. "Sorcerer? Is that another type of wizard here?" she asked.

Fizzy shook his head. "No. Our ways of doing magic are far different. Sorcerers don't use runes directly fused into our bodies. We use runes as well, but on physical objects, and they're usually made from various different materials before they're painted on."

"What exactly are these 'runes' everypony keeps mentioning?" Luster asked. "I know that old magic used to have ponies physically tracing runes in the air with their horn, but since we can use our horns for that, the method of physically tracing has been forgotten."

Fizzy chuckled. "You're very accepting of the situation you're in to talk so casually with me and to stay in a place like this."

Luster looked to the side. "Am I...not supposed to be? It's not like I have a choice. I just want to find the princess and know why I'm back here. You also didn't answer my question."

"After you answer mine: Every member of the royal families that have reigned in that mountain up there," he gestured with a hoof. "have always had a symbol or an element tied to them. Your princess must have one, too."

"Is it that important?" Luster asked.

She received a nod. "It's either directly related to the cutie mark or something else entirely."

"At least they still call them cutie marks," Luster thought. "It was a six-pronged star with five stars in the gaps."

"A star?" Fizzy scratched the back of his head and mumbled to himself. "I've never heard of any of the royal family having a star as their symbol. I mean, obviously excluding the sun." He pursed his lips and shrugged. "Curiously curious."

"So?" Luster spoke with a growing irritation. "The rune thing?"

"Of course." Fizzy muffled a cough and straightened himself out. "Runes."

New Home

"Runes are objects that are placed within a pony's body." He looked at the stairs where BasKas had gone. "They tend to be a single rune, or sets of runes on a single 'coin' of clay or some other substance." He paused a moment. "As far as I can recall, there's several types. Not all are made of the same thing, and the higher the quality the stronger the amount of mana the rune can maintain and direct."

"So, they're coin-sized tablets?" Luster asked. Fizzy nodded. "Is it like any alchemical spell where the rune needs to be made of one substance?"

"I have physical examples upstairs. It would be easier to show you in person than talking about it," Fizzy said.

Fizzy climbed, and Luster followed, but she was taken aback by the room above. She was certain that there was no floor, but she could feel the hints of enchantment, and sconces hung about the air. The room was fully open to the bright sky outside. She could see everything as far as the height allowed. Several dozens of bookshelves filled with books she had never seen before hung over the emptiness, ready to fall to the ground below, but they stood in place, precariously held aloft by magic. A desk covered in neatly rolled parchments and papers, quills, and ink bottles sat against the solid staircase wall that lead ever higher. It was the only solid part of this area, save the furniture and the opening to the floor below.

"Why is this place transparent?" Luster asked.

"Uhhh." Fizzy casually scratched his neck. "Decorative. I like looking down onto everything." He took a deep breath. "Very relaxing," he hushed. "Now come. The runes are on the next floor."

The student followed and found herself briefly gagging on a stench of ash scratching at the back of her throat. Fizzy poked the walls with a crooked stick on the ground, revealing a large, uneven, and somehow hilly room covered in fresh grass and shrubbery. Luster almost tripped over one of the hills, and kicked open several shelf compartments. The hills were filled with ingredients; From simple things like plants and fruits, to more meaty ones like claws and eyes. Several semi-transparent orbs of various colors and size floated in and out of existence around the room. They, along with several mushrooms and parts of the grass and bushes glowed in the dark.

"What are these things?" Luster asked. "It looks like someone threw rave tubes all over this place."

"They're plants that grow in dark areas," Fizzy explained. He shook his head at the mare. "It's better to have this kind of dim light during work than to have bright, yellow lights burning and tiring my eyes. Blues and whites and greens and purples. The best lights for working."

"Uh huh..." Luster mumbled absent-mindedly.

"Here," Fizzy said.

Several of the larger, sky-blue orbs floated above a circular table with an opening to its center. Several tablets and 'coins' were laid out on its surface. All had strange symbols on them, each acting like an assortment of glowing worms wriggling on their surfaces.

"These are runes," the stallion said.

"I thought you said they were the size of coins," Luster complained.

Fizzy looked at the larger tablets and nodded. "Not all of them. Some can be embedded into houses and machinery. Essentially pooling mana and giving it the shape and instructions it needs to perform its task."

Luster stared at the stallion apathetically. "They cast a spell on the object."

"Yes," Fizzy half-yelled and grumbled. "But the strength comes not just from the material used to make the coin or tablet, but also what is ground up to make the base for the rune paint. If you mix up random ingredients together, nothing happens." He raised his head from the mortars filled with various colored powders to look at Luster. "What's wrong with you? You seem disappointed."

"I...was expecting something bad to happen with that if the ingredients were wrong," Luster explained. She sat down. "I've read that alchemy can be disastrous if the wrong ingredients are used."

The grumpy stallion scoffed and rolled his eyes at the same time. "That's because alchemy functions on a principle of equal exchange. Not all ingredients have the same strength in alchemy."

"How does an alchemist know--" Luster started but was cut off by Fizzy.

"What do I look like, an alchemist?!" he yelled angrily. "I don't know. I'm a sorcerer. I can do many things, but I'm not interested in the ridiculous principles of the alchemists." He grabbed one of the coins and analyzed it with narrow eyes. "I prefer fields that aren't limited by ridiculous notions." He slammed his hooves on the table. "Now can I continue explaining runes? I've never had the opportunity to talk about them with anyone other than that tar bird up there."

"Okay. Sure. Geez. So grumpy," the mare complained.

"Thank you." Fizzy spat venom wit his words. "On their own, runes can't do anything."

"Because you said they can only channel magic and shape it into what is required," Luster said. "So they would need an active source of magic."

"That's right. You listen!" Fizzy said with astonishment. "Like I mentioned earlier, these need to be constantly run through with magic. Some machine can get around that with magic pumps injected into containers that run through them, but these coins." He raised one with his magic. "They're implanted directly into the body."

Luster became perplexed. "That...doesn't sound too bad."

Fizzy smiled. It seemed so unnatural for a face like his to contort in such aberrant shapes that Luster flinched back instinctively.

"Pony bodies aren't made to use magic like this," the stallion explained with a sly grin.

"They change you from within," BasKas added. The two turned around to see the avian's head poking out from a hole in the ceiling. "The rune doesn't adapt to the body. The body is the one that adapts to the rune."

Luster felt herself getting stressed, like a grip held her heart and was squeezing harder and harder. She didn't want to know. She didn't need to know. "What...happens?" Luster internally slapped her forehead. "Why did I ask that?!" she thought.

BasKas stuck his giant 'fingers' in front of his face and wagged them. "Stufffffffff."

There was a moment of silence while the avian got to enjoy a moment he was proud of and the two ponies stared at him, unimpressed and very annoyed.

"What he means is that their bodies get destroyed, regenerate, get destroyed, and so on and so forth until it's done," Fizzy grumbled as he rotated his hoof in the air. "The weakest of coins tend not to do anything special."

"They're hardly even a full rune," BasKas chuckled.

"So, what? Fur color change or something?" Luster guessed.

"Y-yes. Pretty much." Fizzy rested his chin on a hoof. "Either you're smarter than you're letting on, or your Princess Twilight is very competent indeed." He nodded to himself. "I'm growing more and more curious about her. But, I have more to explain to you."

"Why do you want to explain all of this to me?" Luster pried.

"Because your body and the knowledge you possess don't exist in our world." Fizzy chuckled. "Faking knowledge as deeply as you are is somewhat possible, but your horn is another story. Plus, I want to know if anything sounds familiar to you."

Luster shook her head. "So far none of this is familiar to me."

"Hm. Back to what I was saying, then." He raised a paintbrush with thick bristles in the air and started waving it in the air, painting an invisible piece. "The tiniest, weakest of coins only change minor elements of a pony. Hardly anything significant."

"But they sometimes boost their attractiveness," BasKas laughed.

"Would you shut up?!" Fizzy screamed at the top of his lungs.

"I figured adding some comedy would make your grumpy lectures a tad more interesting and tolerable," the avian said.

The grumpy stallion groaned and threw the paintbrush angrily behind him. "The stronger the runes, the worse the effects! Bones twist, eyes melt, fur becomes spikes. And--!" Fizzy reflexively clenched his mouth shut. Luster could tell that he was trying to say something with how much his jaw was trembling. "They...they get addicted to the power and want more."

"And more and more and more," BasKas added. "Have you seen anyone covered in really thick robes?" he asked Luster.

"N..." She paused, thinking back to her hyperactive day. "Yes. Actually, in the castle, in the throne room, I think there were a few ponies like that standing in front of the crowd."

Fizzle and BasKas looked at her, and the atmosphere in the room became strained and hot.

"What?" Luster asked.

"Then they know firsthoof that you're a pony with magic unlike others," Fizzy explained.

"How? With what you said they might think I have runes in me. What, they can sense the runes in each other?" Luster mocked.

"Nothing so cliché. Runes can be seen on your fur, like a cutie mark," BasKas added. "But only the strongest can be seen."

"And the most commonly used rune amongst several of same strength shows itself," the grumpy stallion added. He shook his head while BasKas hung from the ceiling and dropped down with a loud thud. "Of course, the most powerful runes use the most illegal of ingredients," Fizzy lamented.

"Sounds like one of the Princess' many more dramatic books that she likes to talk about," Fizzy chuckled.

"What, she reads too?!" Fizzy gasped in shock.

"Of course she does. Any ruler needs to be able to read," Luster said.

Fizzy tapped the table in front of him and started rearranging the various containers he left around. "King Daegcandel and Queen Heofoncandel might be able to read, but they never read anything more than missives and contracts and what-have-you." The stallion dragged his hooves across his face and groaned loudly. "They're so uneducated that it's, quite frankly, very painful to see them trying to found new schools and libraries. They're not even the ones that take care of the planning. They just take the credit." Luster tapped the ground several times, seemingly lost in thought. "Are you okay?

"It's just that, with you mentioning the king and queen, that they remind me of the princesses that ruled before Princess Twilight," Luster explained.

"Really now? Were they both avatars of the sun and moon?" Fizzle asked as he leaned in.

"Oh, I don't think they were avatars. They just controlled the cycle of the sun and moon while they were reigning. Princess Celestia controlled the sun, and Princess Luna controlled the moon."

BasKas dug into his left wing, cleaning it out. "A duomatriarchy? That's a strange system of rule. Did they have to adopt your 'Twilight' to have an heir?" he asked casually.

The mare looked at BasKas with confusion. "What? They were sisters ruling together," Luster explained.

"Oh." The avian coughed awkwardly.

Fizzy shook his head. "They moved the sun and moon? With what? What machines did they have?"

Luster shook her head. "No machines. Just their magic." The two stared at her like she just admitted to destroying an entire world. "What's wrong?"

"That's it. You don't come from this world," Fizzy declared. "Far too many differences, and then you declaring that two ponies are capable of such a feat is...They're celestial bodies! How?!" the stallion screamed at the top of his lungs.

"Well, they were alicorns..." Luster trailed off quietly.

The stallion slammed his hooves on the table angrily and stood up. "That doesn't matter!" he rebuked. "To have such tremendous magical potential means you're not from our world! How you're even able to still use your regular magic is a feat in of itself though."

"But then how did she get here?" BasKas asked.

"Well, I tried to do a portal spell using a magical artifact, but it activated, something went wrong, and then I fell through a hole into this place." Luster dropped down onto her rear and grabbed her head with both hooves. "I was only trying to check if the artifact could still hold magic, and now I'm stuck here?"

Fizzy watched as Luster started to tear up and passed a hoof through his goatee. "I think I have an idea of what happened, but I need to know what the artifact did. I might even know of a way to get you back home, and only you will be able to go there."

"What happened, then?" Luster asked between sniffles.

Meeting an Old Element

When Luster and BasKas left the grumpy stallion's home, BasKas grabbed the mare and swung her around.

"That's where we live," he said nonchalantly.

Luster's mouth dropped open and air disappeared from the surrounding area. "It's like in a fantasy book!" she said.

The grumpy stallion's house was a giant, rocky tower of wood, stone, metal, glass, and various other random resources. It leaned heavily in one direction then twisted in another. Grass grew on one wall while a lot of multicolored cloths and banners fluttered on a higher floor. It had no rhyme or reason to it.

"Fantasy book?" BasKas repeated as he put the mare back on the floor.

"It's a wizard's tower," Luster explained. "Held aloft by magic." Her foal-like expression of wonder changed to an adult's disappointment. "It's held by runes, isn't it?"

The avian shrugged. "Definitely, but I don't know what kind." BasKas took one more look up and flinched at the light. "Besides, you might see more like this. There's homes like this everywhere in this part of Canterlot."

"Really?" Luster said. "I can't wait to see."

BasKas wasn't joking. Much like the rest of the district, magic-like elements permeated every block. The mare yiped when grass suddenly erupted in a wave under her hooves and covered the rest of the road she could see. Yellow and red vines rose from the rolling green carpet and climbed the building walls like hyper-active mountain climbers. Buds emerged from their stems and almost instantly burst open into orange flowers with fluffy petals and golden pollen everywhere. Multicolored trees started erupting from the top of the buildings and multicolored bushes pushed out of the creases and crevices that time had made in the stonework. The mare screamed when several vines thicker than a sequoia tree rose higher and higher, surpassing the height of the floating isles. Gigantic flowers bloomed at irregular distances on their surfaces, adding even more color to the already blindingly vibrant area.

"What is this? What's happening?!" Luster screamed in confusion.

The avian put his wings to his hips and grunted. "So the sorcerers went with a floral motif this time."

The mare looked to BasKas. "They what?"

"The sorcerers that live here have the right to modify the look of these living quarters every so often." He tapped the ground with his feet. "Looks like they're trying to imitate a Floral Forest of one of the continents in the south." A hum escape him. "I don't see the semi-transparent vines floating the air. I like those things," he complained. BasKas stopped Luster before she could ask. "Runes and their own special magic."

"Their own?"

BasKas crossed his wings and huffed. "Fizzy doesn't want to tell me. Says it's only for 'sorcerers'," he mocked.

Luster heard a noise akin to blowing raspberries, but she couldn't see anything coming from BasKas' face, or beak, or whatever his elongated head was. They had started walking through the Sorcerer's quarters, taking in the new sights while going to the primary merchant lane of the quarters.

"There must be something that you recognize here," BasKas said.

Luster shook her head. "I told you already. This Canterlot is absolutely gigantic compared to the one I know." She stared at an island above flashing green before unleashing a small bubble of dissipating green energy around it. "I don't even know what those things up there are. It's like a fantasy story here."

BasKas' feathers ruffled. "That's problematic." He froze in place. "Wait, weren't we supposed to talk about how you got here?"

Luster's eyes twitched. "Yeah...We didn't do that?"

The avian shook his head. "We got distracted by the runes and grumpy going haywire. We'll have to bring that up again when we get back." BasKas resumed his walk. "He probably would have just told you to walk around here until he got an idea anyways," he said with bored intonations.

"Well, going back to this weird Canterlot, I don't even recognize the creatures he-ah!" Luster was terrified by another of the quadrupedal, insect-like creatures vaulting over her and BasKas casually. "What even is that?!"

The avian chuckled. "Never seen a gilliag?" Luster shook her head in response. "Really? Do you at least know where they come from in your Equestria?"

"They don't exist in my world. In fact, the closest 'insect' creature we have are changelings," she explained. "The princess said they used to be very aggressive in the past, but now they're friendly."

BasKas grunted in disgust. "Sounds terrible."

Luster stared at the avian. "We've never seen your kind of creature either."

The avian remained silent for a moment. "Well, you don't need to worry about the gilliags. They tend to be very focused on whatever it is they planned for the day, so anything that bothers them will be ignored if it's brief."

"What happens if they're constantly annoyed?" Luster asked. BasKas chuckled but didn't respond. "Okay..."

"So...what exactly did the artifact you mentioned look like?" the avian asked. "Maybe I know about it. I like to get around and learn new things."

Luster stepped to the side to avoid another self-driving carriage. "Well..." Her eyes widened. "Actually, it kinda looked like you," she said. The mare heard several cracks coming from BasKas, but he didn't change his composure.

"Really? So there are others like me in your home world then? I thought you just said that you had never seen anything like me" he asked.

The mare shook her head. "We haven't, but the odds of a magical artifact looking like you is probably just a coincidence."

"Yes, I'm sure," BasKas trailed off quietly. "Anyways, you don't know the giliags." He rubbed his 'chin'. "What about-"

BasKas and everyone around were deafened by a loud screaming noise. Luster felt like thousands of wendigos and banshees were howling all at once. It sounded familiar, but it was far louder. When the noise subsided, the mare looked up to see colorful streaks vanishing into the distance, and everyone around her were complaining angrily about the noise.

"They went too low!" the avian complained. "Stupid idiots!" he yelled.

Several around agreed with the avian, although some had an apprehension towards the avian himself that went unnoticed by Luster.

"What are those things?! There was one at the castle," Luster asked loudly.

"Zelytoy," BasKas answered. He rubbed the sides of his head and grunted in pain. "Suck in air through openings on their chests, inflate like a balloon, then do something that launches them in the sky." He started to yell really loudly. "But they don't know when and where to do it!" He huffed. "At least the babies sound like they're farting when they try to do it."

Luster snorted in response. "What about the giant porcupines?" she asked.

"Porcupines?" BasKas repeated.

"Yeah. The gigantic, minotaur things covered in spikes?" she added.

The avian stared at Luster. "I...don't know what a 'minotaur' is, and honestly the name sounds ridiculous." He scratched his head, ruffling the feathers. "You must be talking about the turantiga. Big, huge creatures. Super strong, too. An easy way to tell them apart is that female spikes go up, and male spikes go down." His smugness turned to uncertainty. "Or was it the other way around...?"

The mare remained silent, taking in the information and looking around. So many different creatures. Gilliag, zelytoy, and now turantiga. It sounded like weird names out of an old mythology or a fantasy novel. Luster was honestly more perplexed about the creatures she could see than the world she lived in. At least she could somewhat predict what this titanic Canterlot would be like. Well, she thought she could predict it until she was pulled out of the way of a flying stallion twice her size.

"Th-thanks," she gasped at BasKas.

The avian looked onwards towards a crowd of an assortment of creatures cheering something on. "Looks like that earth pony came flying from over there." Luster thought that BasKas was smiling. "Let's go see!" he chanted energetically.

He tried to get past the group, but no one wanted to let him through. BasKas clenched his 'fists', although to Luster and other observers, it only looked like long feathers curling up.

"They're awfully rude," the avian complained. "I could throw the ponies and the Zelytoy around, but I can't do anything about the gilliags and turantiga." His near featureless face tilted towards Luster.

"What?" she said.

"You could use your fancy sparkle forehead wand to make it look like I'm pushing everyone to the side," he suggested through a quiet tone.

"Alighty," Luster conceded reluctantly. "That doesn't even need any complex spells to begin with. I just--"

BasKas gestured down with his wings. "Calm down and just do it."

The mare snorted and did as suggested. Several of the onlookers complained about the pushing, but the mare found it amusing to see the look of shock on the turantiga's faces when they saw a creature far smaller than them push them aside.

"Oh ho, it's a street boxing match," BasKas said. He rubbed the back of his head, ruffling his feathers and demonstrating just how long they really were. They were as long as her legs, if she had any actual estimate to give. "Or is it a paid street brawl?"

"Let me see," Luster strained as she squeezed past the giant.

There were two ponies fighting in a large ring defined by a poorly drawn white circle on the ground. It was enough for five ponies to stand in side-by-side, but it seemed that one of the fighters found the space to be suffocatingly small. A stallion of white with a tuft of brown mane dangling in front of his face was panting heavily and doing his best to dodge his opponent who was clearly more apt and experienced at battle than he. The people around cheered with every passing second, admiring every movement and action taking place. The student grew bored very quickly.

"Can we go now?" Luster asked BasKas. "They're just hitting each other." She looked to the fighting then back at the avian. "Really hard."

"It's almost done," the avian responded.

The stallion had his hooves swept then kicked out of the ring and against BasKas. The avian bounced back slightly but watched the pony thump heavily near his taloned feet.

Luster heard some heavy panting growing louder and turned to see the fighter walking towards them. She looked rather angry, but it was more from her exhaustion. Her orange fur was pulled out in a few spots and her golden mane and tail were roughed up and dirtied from her fighting.

"Howdy there," she greeted them. "Ah guess yer here ta fight me, little miss?" she queried.

"Wh-what?!" Luster panicked. "No! I don't even know how to fight! I just know how to use magic."

"That's perfect, then!" The fighter and BasKas both pushed the mare into the ring. "Ya can help me with my counters ta magic." She cracked her neck and back shoulders. "Ah'm getting ready fer a tournament at the coliseum up in Canterlot Castle, figured a street fight'd be the best way ta train. Punching bags don't punch back. Now let's go!" she shouted.

"W-wait, I--!"

Luster reflexively erected a barrier around herself when the fighter lunged at her. The strike wobbled through the shield, inciting awe from both the mare and the crowd.

"What in tarnation kinda spell is this?" the fighter wondered. "Ain't never seen nothin' like it." She looked around, then a grin formed on her face. "S'good, but it's weak." She drove her hoof forward, shattering the barrier and knocking Luster back.

Luster responded by wrapping the fighter in a coat of magic and nailing her down into the ground with four pegs at the corners of the coat.

"Y'all pulling out some strange magic, but ah can't see no weird changes on ya," the mare commented. She seemed more excited by the battle than intrigued by the mare's magic.

"Jacked Apple!" a mare shouted from behind the huge crowd. "If we don't go now you'll be late to the tournament and have to forfeit!"

"What?!" The mare rolled around until Luster freed her. Jacked jumped towards her and put her forelegs in the student's shoulders. "Ah'll be gone fer hours, but ah want ta find ya and that bird later on. Ah'm real grateful that ya did this fer me, even though t'was fer just a few minutes." She took off, bulldozing through the crowd. "Maybe we'll get better acquainted later on!"

Luster was left dazed and confused while the crowd started to disperse. BasKas stepped in the ring, shaking Luster gently to knock her out of the confusion she was trapped in. "You seem to have made a friend."

The mare slowly raised her head at the avian, completely baffled. "How? I didn't even get to say anything."

"Aaaah, friendship," the avian cackled.

Luster huffed, but the appearance of that strange fighter seemed oddly familiar to her. It was nagging her at the back of her mind.

Author's Note

Reminder that I have a patreon.

With no feedback I can't improve it. With no comments I am not motivated. With no success there is no progress in failure.

New First Steps

BasKas stretched his feather 'fingers'. "I suppose then that she'll need an introduction to everything here, since she'll stand out too much."

"Didn't she already do that with her joy-teleporting everywhere and into the castle?" Fizzy asked.

The avian looked up pensively. "You're right, but I'm not interested in doing it today."

"Nor I," the stallion grumbled.

Luster sat awkwardly in front of the two. "Can you...explain the runes a little more?" she asked meekly.

"I already explained everything." Fizzy's eyes shot wide open. "I'm not telling you what happens to the wizards that fuse too many runes to their bodies!"

"No no!" Luster quickly corrected. "The materials used in crafting the runes and how they're implemented."

The stallion stared at her, stuck in his angry hoof-pointing-over-the-table position. "Oh," he muttered. BasKas snickered. "Well, I told you that runes can be made of a wide variety of materials. The bases to write them on can be something simple like clay, mud, or even plant fibers. The stronger ones can be made of various metals." He pulled out several small squares from the boxes behind him, each half the size of a pony's eye, and placed them on the curvature of the table. "Aluminum, copper, or iron." He pulled some grayer metals out. "Stronger ones are mixtures of other metals -or alloys-, like bronze, steel, and titanium."

"They're much harder to come by on the market because of the fervor at which the wizards take samples, ever eager to purify and purify or just shove them in their bodies!" BasKas emphasized by punching the air. "But then there are the extremely rare metals."

Fizzy scratched the back of his neck. "These things are...Well. If you see a wizard that seems horribly twisted, then they've used one of these metals."

"Fizzy has some of them," BasKas added. "They're so valuable, which is why he can afford to stay in his mansion tower here."

The stallion shot BasKas a glare. "Yes. I can make the metals, but it's time consuming."

Luster was caught off guard. "Wait, so you can make them and nopony else can?"

"Others can. I'm just the only one -as far as I know- that does so," Fizzy explained.

"Okay? And what about crafting the rune itself? Is it like with me where I have to focus and bend at several points of my horn to make spells?" Luster asked.

Fizzy hummed pensively. "In a way, I imagine. Every type of magic has its own style, if you will."

"You remember those water slides we rode on to get here?" BasKas asked Luster.

"I do. Was it water magic?" Luster said.

The avian shook his head. "Nope. Weight magic."

"Also known as gravity magic to the more fantasy-driven out there," Fizzy added. He had started to paint a wooden rune with a blackish-green ink.

Luster laughed. "That's a silly name. I prefer gravity."

The grumpy stallion scoffed. "A surprise, to be sure." He pointed the brush at Luster. "But that you can theoretically use any magic makes you, potentially, the greatest danger to this world."

"Yeah. Sure she is," BasKas said dismissively.

Fizzy shot him an intense glare. Luster was never directly 'aimed' at by his glares, but she would always start trembling, and yet BasKas always approached these with a humorous gait. Was this what friendship did? Were they even friends? She didn't want to believe that her princess was right even if she held her in high esteem.

"Don't listen to the grouch. Everything that could change magic is always the 'greatest death' to the world," he mocked.

"Because they are!" Fizzy shouted.

"You mean like the floating islands that created more space and separated the wizards and more eccentric 'richies' from the general populace?" the avian asked.

"They could have been dropped on city centers!"

"And yet there's around thirty different safety measures in place to prevent any damage to either if they fell." Even though Luster had no way to discern any features in the feathers of this creature that absorbed all light, she was certain that he was smiling...somehow. Luster still had no idea if he had a real mouth or not. "Then what about the airships?"

"They could've caught fire and crashed down!" Fizzy screamed in a panic. "Do you know how much damage that could cause?!"

BasKas shook his head. "You hate everything new." He leaned forward and waggled his 'fingers'. "Everything new is evil and we should keep to the old ways because they're known and safe!" he mocked.

"Well, they are!"

"Which your predecessors said about what you were doing, and they theirs, and so on and so forth," the avian said as he rotated his feathers in the air.

Fizzy bared his teeth in anger. "Go show our vacationer this Canterlot of ours. Find what's the same and what isn't so I can get better knowledge on the problem."

"And get out of my sight!" the two said at the same time.

BasKas shrugged, and Fizzy threw a glass bottle at his head, prompting the avian to grab Luster by the foreleg to the lower floors, making her little body fly around like a stuffed animal.

King Daegcandel called for an end to the requests in the throne room. He was weary. Hours upon hours of creatures coming to him and his wife for guidance. It was time for some entertainment that everyone sorely needed. He hopped out of his throne, the sound of his heavy hooves slamming into the stone beneath the rug muffling the mumbling of the crowd.

"Fantastic," he cheered quietly to himself. "Assistant," he called out.

A lime-green stallion with a yellow mane manipulated into a single giant, forward-facing curl hanging in front of their face stepped forward. "Yes, my lord?"

"Are the boxing matches ready?" he asked. "I'm eager to see the start of this year's mixed tournament." He licked the side of his mouth and rubbed his armored hooves together in anticipation.

"They are. Your wife -the queen- is already seated in the royal balcony. Would you like an escort there?"

Daegcandel shook his head. "No need. Is it still at the peak?" he asked.

The pony nodded. "Of course. We wouldn't move it without informing the king and queen."

"Very well." The stallion steadied himself. "I will just teleport there."

As the king began to glow yellow and tendrils of white-hot magic started to swirl around him, the stallion lost his composure and frantically rushed to Daegcandel.

"My king! Don't! You'll melt everything there!"

The alicorn scoffed at the warning and went anyways, melting a hole in the throne podium. When he appeared next to his wife, his magic spread out in a violent flash, blinding everyone and creating tremendous wind pressure.

"Your king has arrived," Daegcandel announced.

"And he creates shockwaves countered only by the open design of this sports coliseum," Heofoncandel said with restrained anger.

Daegcandel shared the frustration against his wife, but the two cooled off and the king sat on his yellow cushions. He had a great view above everyone in the seats below, and several other more 'successful' members of his city were sat in similar balconies as the royals, just at lower positions. A circular platform sat in the middle of the coliseum where two creatures were currently being introduced by a presentation in a bombastic fashion. It was fully illuminated by the cloudy sky above, but the rain falling met only an invisible barrier kept strong by the runes built into the structure of this area. Four triangle shaped pieces of metal hung over the crowd, ready to close and shut out the outside world whenever the command was given.

The king, while hating the massive crowds the audiences gave him, absolutely adored these kinds of events. So many creatures shouting with excitement and joy. He wanted it above all else. A moment where the yelling and screaming weren't directed at him but towards someone else. Heofon looked at her husband from the corner of her eyes and could see the excitement and relief coming from him, even if he was sitting comfortably on the cushions and not displaying much more than a meager smile. He even had a little spyglass hanging on a brace drilled into the ledge of the balcony for him to see better if he wanted.

The crowd languished at the loud cracking noise coming from the middle podium, at this moment, a guard stepped in.

"Sorry to bother you during your respite, majesties, but there's been some development regarding the mare who escaped the dungeons," she explained.

Heofon scoffed. "Kidnapped is more like it. She could hardly even function." She winced when one of the opponents had to be escorted out of the ring.

"Regardless, she's no longer in the dungeon." The king refused to take his eyes off of the fight. "What have you found out?"

"Well, one of them had..." The guard cleared her throat and began sweating profusely.

"Yes? Get on with it," the king ordered.

The guard's voice gradually turned into inaudible squeaking as the two rulers gradually turned towards her with pure, unrestrained rage on their faces. Below, the announcer was making another very loud introduction. He was a stallion missing his right foreleg and wearing a red velvet coat.

"I'm sure you've all been entertained by the brutality of the first ever mixed-species competition." He laughed. "Naturally, we only let the same-sized fight for these preliminaries, but this mare thought herself up to fighting any opponent!" Light projectors hung against the walls behind the crowd focused on a corner where a pony was coming forth. The announcer's voice lowered to a quiet-but-suspenseful voice "She came from a backwater trough family, where dirt is your food and rocks your water. She weighs just a measly one-o'-five P, but I can assure you all that it's naught but muscle on muscle." His voice increased in volume. "A rookie to the sport but eager to succeed with her hard work: Jacked Apple!"

An orange mare with a rough, unkempt mane and almost non-existent tail stepped into the ring. Her body was covered in pale stripes that her bulky frame pushed out prominently. She was gruff and was missing a part of her right nostril. The crowd cheered not by fandom, but for the inevitable career that this rookie would have. They were eager to follow her from her start to her end.

"And in the corner is the challenge for this little mare," the announcer continued. The lights flew to another corner. "Maybe she's trying to take on an apple too big for even her. He's easily four times her size in every department, and he's covered in spikes to boot! A creature that crushes boulders in his hands to develop grip strength and the sturdiness of his own body: Quill Drill!"

A tremendous creature stepped into the ring, towering over the little pony. His spikes pointed downwards on his body, threatening his opponent's body with their potential strikes. Quill Drill's eyes could hardly be seen between their quills.

"This tiny pony wants to fight me?" the giant asked calmly. "I'll pull my punches for a fair fight, then."

The pony frowned. "Y'all go doin' that and yer gonna have every quill 'n bone broken when ah'm done with ye," Apple threatened.

She bared the side of her mouth, revealing a disturbing sight for some. The top four teeth going from her right wolf tooth had been replaced with sharp, metal teeth. Her gums were very discolored as well, intriguing the giant.

"Scarred within and without?" He laughed. "You tried to inject runes in yourself."

The mare's eyes became red with anger, and the announcer backed away, letting the bell announce the start of a long battle. The giant performed the first strike, punching downwards, but his opponent was quick enough to dodge to the side, letting the fist impale the ground instead. Apple twisted her body in the air, double kicking the giant in the head and breaking several quills, causing him to stumble back and grab his bruised cheek. Jacked Apple smiled maliciously at the shocked giant, and everyone in the spectator seats cheered.

"I'm impressed, rookie. To hurt me so easily," the giant said.

"Ah ain't no rookie ta fi--"

"What?!" the two rulers bellowed at the top of their lungs.

Everyone squished themselves against their seats or on the floor when the whole coliseum shook violently from the explosive bellowing.

"How did that get into my capital city?!" Heofon hissed.

"Should I have all my border guards executed for extreme incompetence?" Daeg emphasized.

The guard had squished herself completely under their gaze, and her armor was clanking from her trembling. The rulers were seething with rage. What was she supposed to do?

"B-but, no pony knows if that's what the creature was. We're just cross-referencing everything we've seen from witnesses of both guards and civilians." She gulped loudly. "H-honestly, everything is contradictory!"

Daeg pointed at her. "You better tell them to get their act together and confirm any sightings. I won't have the whole of my people suffer because of the incompetence of a few guards."

The mare nodded and scampered off.

"It's okay, people. Sorry for our outburst," Heofoncandel explained. "Please, resume the show."