The Conjuration Wizard

Aldin’s grave.

The headstone was still fresh and unweathered.

The words etched into it blurred together in my mind, though I’d memorized them hours ago. The evening air was cool, heavy with the promise of rain soon to come, the kind of storm that Canterlot’s weather teams brewed to compensate for lost time. A storm to make up for delays due to the shield spell keeping out opportunities for rain.

It was the kind of storm that Aldin loves… the kind of storm that Aldin loved.

Luna stood silently beside me, her presence a welcomed one. She had stood at my side since Aldin was lowered into the ground. She did not leave. Not even when Celestia and the others were long gone, their condolences trailing behind them in their wake. Luna hadn’t said much, but she didn’t need to. The quiet was enough. Her presence reminded me that I wasn’t entirely alone.

I shifted, the motion drawing my mind to the absence of my right arm. A phantom ache radiated from where it used to be, and I clenched the fingers of my remaining hand instinctively. The wind tugged at my cloak, which I’d draped over my missing arm to vainly attempt to avoid the stares I knew would come. Being human had made me used to stares, but I needed some time to get used to what I lost.

The graveyard was empty now, save for us. The city had already begun to move on. Streets bustled with workers hauling debris, guards patrolled the castle grounds, and ponies of every walk of life doing what they could to try to return their lives back to normal. Life continued, indifferent to what had been lost. To what I had lost.

The quiet here was a stark contrast to the hustle and bustle of the city beyond this place. Only the occasional rustling of leaves or the distant clatter of hooves broke it. I welcomed the stillness, though it did little to dull my thoughts.

“Sebastian,” Luna said softly, her voice cutting through the quiet like the first drop of rain of the storm soon to come.

I didn’t respond immediately. My gaze remained fixed on the grave. When I finally spoke, my voice sounded hollow to my own ears. “It’s going to rain soon.”

“Yes,” she said, her tone calm. She shifted slightly, her silver-shod hooves brushing against the grass. “The weather team informed us earlier. They plan to let it fall through the night.”

A long pause stretched between us. I wanted to say something more, to fill the silence, but the words tangled in my throat. The weight of everything — the attempted invasion, the memories, the pain, Aldin — pressed down too heavily.

“You’ve been here for hours,” she said eventually. There was no judgment in her voice, only a quiet sort of concern.

“I know.”

Another pause. Luna didn’t press me, though I could feel her watching, waiting.

I thought of Aldin — his sharp quips, his loyalty, his constant presence at my side. The emptiness left in his absence felt vast and all consuming through our nonexistent empathic link. My chest tightened, the ache spreading as I replayed his final moments over and over in my mind.

“I don’t…” The words came unbidden, rough and unfinished. I swallowed, trying again. “I don’t know what to do without him.”

Luna stepped closer, her shadow mingling with mine in the fading light. “You endure,” she said softly, as though speaking from some deep well of experience. “You carry his memory with you, even when it hurts.”

I closed my remaining eye, the sting behind it threatening to spill over. The memories came in flashes — the way Aldin would perch on my shoulder, his dry commentary cutting through tense moments, his constant presence through our empathic link. Now that link was severed. In his death he took with him a part of myself I wasn’t sure I could reclaim.

The first stars began to dot the sky, faint pinpricks of light against the encroaching clouds. Luna must have raised the moon while I was lost in thought, but I could've sworn she never moved. Celestia must've done it then.

The air shifted, cooler now, the storm inching ever closer.

“I’ll stay as long as you need,” Luna said, her voice steady.

I nodded faintly but said nothing. It was easier this way. Words felt inadequate, brittle in the face of grief.

Time passed, but it was hard to tell as I wasn’t keeping track. The light dimmed further, the sky painted in shades of indigo and slate. Far above, I caught sight of the weather team beginning their work. Pegasi darted across the sky, herding dark clouds into place.

The rain was coming.

I stayed rooted before his grave, awaiting the storm.

The first raindrops came lightly at first, small, cold pinpricks against my skin. The scent of wet earth rose as the droplets struck the grass around Aldin’s grave. I could feel Luna shift beside me, her presence steady, even as the temperature dropped.

The rain picked up quickly, going from a drizzle to a steady downpour in a matter of moments. It quickly soaked through my cloak and clothes, cold enough to bite but not enough to force me to move. Luna didn’t leave either. The rain darkened her coat and matted her mane, which clung to her neck and shoulders in wet tendrils. She didn’t seem to notice or care.

I closed my eye, letting the rain wash over me, and for the first time since she had found me in that hall, I spoke without being prompted. “You know,” I began, my voice rough from disuse, “the first time I really talked with Aldin was during a storm… just like this one.”

Luna’s ears swiveled toward me, but she didn’t interrupt.

“We were in my room at the castle,” I continued, opening my eye to watch the rain fall over Aldin’s grave. “It was raining hard — loud enough that it almost drowned out everything else. I didn’t even know Aldin could talk yet. I was just sitting at my workstation and had just finished inscribing some spells into my book. I had taken to staring out into the haze of that storm. Aldin said something then. Startled me half to death.”

I huffed a humorless laugh at the memory. “I asked him, ‘Hey, best-buddy, you enjoying the storm?’ And he said something like, ‘Enjoying? You could say that. You know how I feel about the rain, Seb.’”

The words caught in my throat for a moment, but I forced them out. “Then he hopped on my head and we stood out on the balcony together. I liked the rain, but I didn’t get it at first. Not really. Not like he did.”

Luna’s voice came softly, tentative. “What changed your mind?”

I tilted my head back, letting the rain streak down my face, mingling with the damp warmth of tears I did not bother to wipe away. “It was what he said after we stood in the rain for a while. He told me, ‘You know, Seb, there’s something about a storm that makes everything feel… realer. Like the rain washes away all the nonsense, leaves only what matters.’”

I swallowed hard, my chest tightening. “That’s when I started to love the rain too. Because of him.”

The storm intensified, the rain coming down harder now, drumming against the ground and grave markers around us. Luna was quiet for a long time, her gaze steady on me. The rain had plastered her mane to her neck and shoulders, and she shivered faintly in the cold. But she didn’t move away.

“He was right,” she said eventually, her voice just loud enough to be heard over the pattering of the rain. “The rain has a way of stripping everything else away, doesn’t it? Leaving behind only what’s true.”

I nodded, my throat too tight to speak again. My remaining hand clenched at my side as I stared at the grave, the rain soaking me through. The cold didn’t matter. The storm didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except the ache in my chest and the memories that I wanted to leave and stay in equal measures.

Luna stepped closer, her wing brushing against my side in a quiet gesture of comfort. I didn’t resist when she unfolded it, draping it around my shoulders. It didn’t make the cold go away, but it made standing there a little less unbearable.

Above us, the sky was dark now, heavy with clouds. Lightning flickered in the distance, followed by a low rumble of thunder that seemed to echo through the earth itself.

The storm settled into a rhythm, each drop a sharp patter against the ground. The weight of Luna's wing over my shoulder was steady and grounding, even as the cold seeped deeper into my bones. Her warmth was faint, but it was there — a quiet reassurance amidst the unrelenting rain.

For a while, neither of us spoke. The sound of the storm filled the silence between us, but it didn’t feel empty. It was as though the rain carried the words neither of us could quite manage to say.

“You’re freezing,” Luna finally said, her voice low but firm. “Sebastian, we must leave before you catch a cold. You have yet to be seen by the medical staff.”

I didn’t reply immediately. My gaze lingered on Aldin’s grave, the carved letters blurred by the rain running down the stone. The thought of leaving felt like an abandonment of sorts, but I knew she was right. I wasn’t in any condition to stay out here, no matter how much I wanted to. The aches in my body weren’t going away, and the cold was settling into my core.

“I will not push,” Luna continued, her wing tightening slightly around me. “But your wounds — what Meridin sealed — need to be examined. You may feel stable, but the damage you sustained cannot be ignored.”

“I know,” I murmured, my voice rasping. I tore my gaze from the grave to look at her, and for the first time, I really noticed the way the rain had changed her appearance. Her mane, usually flowing and ethereal, now clung to her face and neck, heavy and darkened with water. The storm had left her looking raw, almost unguarded. It suited her in a way I hadn’t expected.

“You look beautiful,” I said before I could stop myself.

Luna blinked, clearly surprised. “What?”

“With your hair down,” I clarified, shifting slightly under her wing. “You look… real.” The word felt inadequate, but it was the only one that came to mind. “Beautiful.”

She tilted her head, her eyes softening as she studied me. “You flatter me, even in your state. I would say you are incorrigible, but… thank you.”

A faint smile touched her lips, though it didn’t entirely hide the concern etched into her features. “Come,” she said gently, her wing urging me to move. “Let us leave this place. The storm will not relent, and neither will I until you are tended to.”

I hesitated for just a moment, casting one last glance at Aldin’s grave. The rain dripped from the edge of the stone, pooling in the freshly turned soil. Under my breath I spoke words that I prayed would never have to be spoken again, but I knew better than to believe in that.

“Until we meet again.”

Then, with Luna’s support, I turned and began walking. Each step was heavy, my body protesting the movement after standing still for so long, but I forced myself to keep going. Luna stayed close, her wing still draped over my shoulders as we made our way toward the graveyard’s exit.

The storm showed no signs of letting up. The rain continued to pour, cold and relentless, soaking us both. But there was something almost cleansing about it, as if it were trying to wash away the past few days.

As we passed through the iron gates of the graveyard, I glanced at Luna. Her mane clung to her face, water running down her cheeks like tears she refused to shed. Her resolve was clear in her every step she took, her presence unwavering.

Through the storm, the castle looming ahead, I felt it — a faint sensation, buried so deeply I’d thought it was gone forever.

Not hope, at least not as I remembered it.

But it was a start. It was the glint of what might become hope.