Heavy winds beat against the treehouse, a violent storm beating against it with all the fury of a berserking hydra. It had come in from the Everfree not a few minutes earlier, moving faster than anything that large had a right to. Not only was it’s speed amazing, but it seemed to be racing against the movement of time itself, having formed over the forest without warning and in almost no time at all. After several failed attempts by the local pegasi, the weather team had decided they had little choice but to let it run its course and hope for the best. As not only had it come in fast, but as Rainbow Dash had learned the hard way, it had come with a vengeance, roaring like a fierce beast as it released its fury upon everything, regardless of size. It held no mercy, no reserve for any caught among its winds. With this dark form of equality guiding it, it ravaged all the land beneath its great mass.
It was in the middle of this force of destruction, called a storm by some, that Twilight lay awake in bed, her magic but a pitiful spark amongst the all consuming void of black that seemed to stretch into eternity around her. She was desperately trying to forget about the insistent cacophony echoing through the stillness of her room, hoping to lose herself in the pages held above her in a tight hold of purple magic. Like an hourglass counting down as sand dripped from top to bottom, so did her book as well: counting down as the pages on the right side of her book joined the collection on the left. Despite the late hour and her sleepy mind, she was nowhere near ready to let dreams take her. The sharp rattlings of the windows piercing her skull drove out all thoughts of resting through the storm.
She had grabbed the most boring book she could find when she found herself unable to drift away into her dreams. A Guide to Law was emblazoned on the cover, the normal gold lettering appearing as a mottled yellow in the dim light as if all life had been drained from it. Between the thick-bound covers, the pages of the book were fresh, a fact easily deducible from the unique smell clinging to their surfaces: the smell only a new book could replicate. However, the book wasn’t new, rather it was in ‘mint condition’. A term which Twilight had begun to use to describe it out of a desire deep within her to never say anything bad about any form of literature. The truth was the book held little purpose now, the large infractions of the law from the old days were gone, and now saying you wished to become a lawyer was essentially a self-deprecating insult..
Her eyes, framed by her wrinkled eyelids, darted over the words that decorated the page at a sluggish pace. ‘...Should the accused be charged guilty of the slaying of a sentient creature (An act which shall henceforth be referred to as ‘murder’), then they shall also be put to death in a manner deemed appropriate by the jury and judge. If this murder was committed and the accused was unaware that the victim was sentient, then they shall be charged according to Section Six: Paragraph Five of the Celestial Declaration...’ The words themselves seemed to be begging Twilight to go to sleep and were it not for her insomnia, the purple unicorn would have submitted to the plea a long time ago. Such was not the case however and she remained groggily awake as the words from ages long past grated against her skull like sandpaper.
Determined as she was to pass the night, she didn’t realize her progress in the book until she slowly flipped the last page. Her vision stayed on the inside of the back cover for several eternal moments, as if waiting for an illusion to vanish and the last pages of the book to appear. When the realization hit her that she was hoping for more of such a tedious chore, a jolting feeling of annoyance rose within her and she found herself with the desire to toss the book carelessly aside. However, this emotion never met her actions. Instead, she placed the book down on a desk at the other side of the room with the same unrivaled care that she gave all other literature in her possession.
With her muscles aching, the mare moved from her prone position and looked out the window of her room, taking a delight in the soothing soreness that the movement gave her. Her eyes danced across the utter nothingness that seemed to consume the world for but a moment before a simple urge took her. With practiced ease, the unicorn conjured a surreal ball of light on the other side of the shaking glass. The spell had originally been called WereLuminè, but after the changes that the librarian had applied, it had gained a new name among those she had told about it.
The original WereLuminè spell was designed to summon an inanimate collection of light. But that had not been what Twilight wanted when she had stumbled upon the spell. She needed something that would move to her needs, so as to help her late night studying. With this goal in mind, she had retooled the spell from her own knowledge of magic and designed it to light up any location she was looking at, within a reasonable distance.
However, it didn’t move directly from point to point. As a collection of light, it wouldn’t be easy to do so without becoming unstable. It had to move and flow with the energy it contained. Because of this, its movement from one location to another was more like a dance, bobbing and weaving through the empty air. It was due to this movement, similar as it was to the fictions about lost souls, that had earned her spell the name Ghostlight.
In her tired state, the mare let her eyes roam, the ball tracing the ground outside as it dutifully followed where her eyes gazed. All color was dulled by the darkness that surrounded it, but as the Ghostlight passed over the buildings closer to her, she could spot the familiar upbeat colors that were so very present in the light of day. This simple fact was enough to cause the heavy feeling to rise from the mare’s shoulders, remembering that the darkness was only temporary, that eventually the torrential downpour would cease and all would return to normal.
It was at this point that her light gave her a glimpse of something she hadn’t thought she would see in the storm. Her light glittered off something in the sky, causing her at first to believe that it was a star shining in the night. But, it was getting closer and larger. Her gaze moved to the glint in the sky and was shocked to see a pegasus illuminated by the glow of her Ghostlight. Though he was far in the distance, Twilight’s sharp eyes spotted what appeared to be the body shape of a male. He was falling, that much was clear, but in the dark of the night, he couldn’t see what he was falling towards.
She was immediately worried for this lost pegasus and began to think how she could assist. It took her a short moment for her tired mind to start working, but luckily, it wasn’t too long before Twilight came up with an idea. With quick eye movements, the librarian moved the orb away from the pegasus and toward an open, clear area where he could land safely. Realizing he was being assisted by somepony, the pegasus began to follow the orb on its descent towards the ground, hoping it was a friend rather than a foe.
The storm whipped more wildly as the great beast decided it wanted the soul of the pony for itself. The winds picked up in speed, the stronger force allowing them to pick up debris their lesser cousins had missed before. With new weapons in their grasp, the winds began to tear and lash out at the pegasus as he descended, all the while with Twilight silently cheering him on.
In what one would call a throe of rage, the storm tossed all it had at the poor winged soul so close to the safer location of the ground. It was from this sudden uprising gale that the pegasus was hit with an uprooted sapling, torn from the ground by the apathetic wind. Though small, it had behind it the entire force of the whipping winds. It collided and an audible snap was heard, a pained gasp was torn from the pegasus’s mouth by the maelstrom around him, lost forever on the wind. His wing bent backwards from the blow, in a way that it was most certainly not supposed to.
The wind caught against the exposed underside of the wing and tore it even more, sending the flyer far off course as pain shot through his body, the resulting scream of torture echoed through the storm, managing to be heard by the unicorn spectator who could only watch in horror. From behind the safety of her glass, Twilight’s heart skipped a beat, fear for the pony the only thing present in her mind. In its rage however, the storm seemed to have made a mistake as it sent the pegasus end over end toward the library, rather than away from it. All the while, the Ghostlight followed his body.
With a sudden realization, Twilight noticed he had come close enough to cast her teleport spell on him. Wasting no time, she charged her horn, desperately forming the web of magical nets that fused together to make it, and then let it loose so it might save the battered pony. She watched with anticipation as her magic collected on the body tumbling loosely through the air. Then it disappeared altogether, taking the stallion with it.
With a crack like thunder, the spell finished its duty and deposited the unconscious pegasus onto the floor of her room. The unicorn flinched slightly at the noise, the unused energy of the hasty spell had shattered when the spell was complete, leaving Twilight with temporary deafness. Recovering quickly from the noise, Twilight ran to him to ensure he was alive. Nearby Spike rose from his bed, rubbing his head to try and rid himself of the sudden ringing that echoed through his mind. “Twilight?” His voice was only half awake as he spoke. “What’s going on?”
Comfort met fear as she saw the pegasus’s stomach rise and fall with his shallow breaths, the steady calming act seemed out of place given what had just occured, but it was welcome nonetheless. Watching the stallion breath, Twilight’s mind was slowed from it’s current panicking streak. Taking a deep breath, she turned her head to face her small assistant. “Spike.” Her tone was stiff, yet it also held a polite feeling to it. “Get me a clean blanket, warm water, and the book about setting broken bones that’s downstairs, please” The dragon nodded, having seen the unconscious stallion on the floor, and left the room hurriedly to do as he was bidden.
In the silence that followed, Twilight’s vision moved over the pony she had saved from the storm. In a single glance, she became very much aware that she hadn’t so much as seen the stallion before, let alone in Ponyville. She immediately took note of his wing that even now looked to be bent completely out of shape. Definitely wounded; most likely broken, she deduced from the hit it had taken moments earlier. Her eyes then moved to his cutie mark.
Were it not for the Ghostlight that had entered the room moments ago, having squeezed in through the small openings in the window, it would all be darkness. With it there, however, she was able to spot a single gear emblazoned on his flank, perfectly black against his copper colored coat which seemed permanently stained with oil or grease. His uninjured wing was tightly tucked against his body, as if fearing the same fate as it’s brother and his black tail laid loosely on the ground, unmoving.
A small cloth strap was tied about his neck with a pouch on one side with a pair of loops on the other. A closer look at the strips informed Twilight that they were most likely used to contain something vaguely ‘L’ shaped so that it could be reached with his mouth. The object in question surprisingly absent.
When she turned his head to get a better look at the pouch, she spotted the side of his face previously invisible to her marked with a fresh wound stretching from near the back of his jaw to the front of his muzzle. Twilight would have assumed this to have been from the storm, but the laceration was matched above and below it by scars of the same length and orientation.
Discovering the bag to be tightly cinched by a cord, Twilight decided to leave it be, not wanting to look too far into his belongings. Something was wrong, though. Why had this stallion not worn a pair of saddlebags? He had come from the direction of the gem fields to the west; there was no town nearby from that way. He should have at least packed something if he intended to be traveling, and the pouch was far too small to contain anything he might need to live for very long.
Her mind was teeming with questions she was unable to ask, the only one knowledgeable in their answers unconscious as well as the more pressing matters at the moment doing well to keep her busy. It was only then, after she had finished her examination, that Spike returned with what she requested. She was aware that her rudimentary work was just that: rudimentary. She would need to take him to the hospital on the following day to ensure full and total recovery, but until then, she would have to make do with what she had on hoof.
Following her book word for word, she began to treat his wounds to the best of her ability. The entire time, a simple question pressed up against her brain, pressed so tightly that she wasn’t able to process the idea that she had just saved a life. It was the first question anyone would want to know when they meet a stranger.
“Who is he?”
