Chapters At the beginning of my fourth spring - though it would be the first that I had actually seen - Hippocrates declared me well enough to no longer require his supervision. The doors of the Castle were, at long last, open to me, and the flood of possibilities they let in was more than overwhelming - it was, almost literally, everything. It was like being born again - imagery that escaped me at that age, because I could not yet remember the first time.
But fortunately for me, unlike the newborn birds which leapt from their nests in the hope that the air would catch them, or the young rodents whose war of survival and foragery began afresh and anew each year, I had guides.
“Phobos?”
The foal in question quickly looked up from the book in front of him, and into the loving turquoise eyes of his mother. A smile lit up his face as he scrambled to his hooves and bounded towards her, wrapping his forelegs around her neck.
Serena emitted a small gasp of shock and stumbled backwards, caught off guard by the momentum of her child. She laughed, and returned the hug as best she could.
“You’re excited, I presume?”
Phobos let go, and nodded his head vigorously.
“Very well, then. Let us be off.”
She led the way through the winding stone corridors, a maze of light and shadow. Some passages were brightly lit by windows which proudly framed the morning sun - some held the weak, orange glow of torches in various states of self-consumption - still others, though very few, were almost pitch-black. Serena would light her horn in these darker stretches, but Phobos couldn’t see why. He had had ample time and opportunity to explore every twist, turn, nook, and cranny in his section of the Castle, and had done so without any light of his own. He could have walked the route blindfolded, backwards, or possibly even both.
Soon, they reached the first stop on their journey. Though Phobos had been there many times, it had always been nothing more to him than a dead end and a gaping void - but now, with his senses expanded by newfound freedom, it was a fantastic sight.
The central chamber of the Castle - the foyer - was a wide, hollow pillar, more than 70 paces across, and stretching far enough above their heads that the ceiling was indistinguishable from the shadows. Each of the Castle’s seventy-seven floors had its own ring of windows, arches, and jutting balconies, numbering fewer and fewer as the chamber narrowed towards its peak.
But the spiraling patterns of the upper floors were nothing new to Phobos, and they were not what he was anticipating. Today, as he approached the edge of the platform, he looked not up, but down.
The view below was also familiar, but the feeling that it gave him was not. Nothing had changed, as far as he could see. The pattern on the floor was in the same arrangement as it had always been - a mystical and incomprehensible array of lines, curves, and symbols, encompassed by a great circle that spanned the width of the chamber. The centerpiece of the room, a large, mirror-smooth rectangular block of pure black marble - ‘the Altar’, he had once heard Sanarus call it - hadn’t moved an inch. The surrounding chunks of stone and brick that had accumulated over the course of the Castle’s decay had, perhaps, some new additions, but nothing enough to cause the thoughts that were buzzing in the back of his head.
His heart clenched as if screaming - his breath caught in his throat as if terrified to venture out over the edge - his hooves trembled as if murmuring to each other of mutiny against their foolhardy captain. Though Phobos only lived on the fourth floor, the ground had once seemed so distant as to be unreachable - but now, with both awareness of the distance and the intent to travel it, the Altar seemed to leer at him like a spider in its web, daring him to enter its deadly grasp.
Serena had not failed to notice her son’s sudden paralysis. “Don’t worry,” she said gently, brushing her wing along his back. “You don’t have to fly down yourself - at least, not today.” She crouched down, spreading her wing out as a ramp.
With one more fearful glance downward, Phobos gulped and clambered onto his mother’s back, wrapping his legs around her neck and burying his face in her peach-tinted mane. He breathed in deeply, and was immediately put at ease. Serena had the smell of a cool summer breeze, which itself carried hints of freshly picked strawberries and newly fallen rain. He didn’t know how such a combination was even possible, but he didn’t much care.
“Are you ready?” he heard his mother ask from somewhere outside his shield of hair. He nodded, tightening his grip.
A small bounce up, a lurch in the pit of his stomach, a slight feeling of being flattened into his mother’s back - and then nothing.
“There,” Serena said, her voice tinkling with hidden laughter. “Was that so bad?” Gingerly, Phobos extracted his head from safety, and looked around. His jaw quickly found itself reaching towards the floor he had so recently feared.
From above, he had always been able to tell that the supporting pillars which ringed the ground floor were not simple columns, but he had never been able to tell what, exactly, they were. Now, however, it was as clear as the hair on their heads. They were statues, the smallest reaching thirty feet high. All around him, alicorns from days long past stood in testament to their own power and glory, their frozen eyes filled with ancient authority. Phobos could almost feel himself shrinking in their presence.
“Who are they?” he whispered, as if fearing divine retribution were he to wake them.
Serena, however, was unconcerned. She turned, and began walking towards the closest of the chamber’s four giant archways. “I’m sure Lexus will tell you all about them, if you ask.”
Phobos was shaken out of his awe-struck stupor. “Lexus?”
“That’s who I’m taking you to see, yes.” Serena turned her head back to smile at him. “Lexus lives in the Library - he’s the one who’s recommended every book I’ve brought to you. I asked him if he would be willing to be your teacher, and he leapt at the prospect.”
Phobos tilted his head curiously. “Why would I need a new teacher?”
Serena sighed. “Hippocrates, Sanarus and I have done the best we can with your education, but there are limits to what we know. Lexus knows far more than any of us - and what he doesn’t, he knows where to find the book that does.”
Their conversation was interrupted by the wave of sunlight that washed over them as they stepped over the threshold of the Castle and on to the mossy, cobbled roads of the City. After their trek through the dark passages above, it took Phobos a few squinting moments to adjust - but once he had, he felt his heart soar. He had seen the outside before, of course, from the balcony of his room - but there was a world of difference between seeing nature from above, and walking beneath its branches.
It was overwhelming. All around him, the gray of stone was being overtaken by belligerent green. The trees which lined the path were bursting with blossoms, their fragrances swirling in an intoxicating mixture that made his head float and his breath run like syrup. Flowers sprang haphazardly from cracks in the cobbles and the crumbling stone walls, buzzing with color and life. The breeze whistled by like a choirmaster, leading the wild, rustling grass in a song of ‘Welcome - welcome to the world in which you’ve always belonged.’
For a few minutes, they walked on in silence, Phobos’ speechless exuberance enhancing Serena’s own enjoyment of the scene. Eventually, they passed through the half-collapsed Gate of Seraphii, and the crowded convulsion of life which made up the Castle grounds gave way to the more subdued layers of grass, rubble, and decaying buildings that made up the majority of the City.
Slowly, Phobos regained control of his mouth. It tried desperately to catch up with his long-departed mind.
“Wow.”
Serena giggled quietly. “Indeed.”
“I... I...”
“Don’t worry,” Serena said, doing her best to interpret her son’s stupor. “You’ll have plenty of time to explore on your own, now that you’re free.”
“But how will I get down?” Phobos asked.
“I convinced your father to postpone his next expedition so that Aeros can give you flying lessons for the next few days. You have the strength and ability - you just need a bit of guidance. Ah, here we are.”
They paused in front of a rather interesting building, though this virtue was not held by its appearance. The front was lined with columns, which supported a long band of cracked and inscrutable fresco. Two statues - once, perhaps, guardians, but now simply worn, abstract forms - lay on either side of the stairs which led to the entrance.
What made the building stand out from those surrounding it was the fact that it stood at all. Stretching away to either side was pile upon pile of teetering pillars, broken walls, and fractured woodwork, but this one, other than a few scratches and dents, had barely a brick out of place.
“Huh,” Phobos said, looking around as they climbed the stairs. “Lexus certainly takes care of his home.”
“Yes,” Serena mused quietly, sounding almost sad. “He doesn’t much like it when things change.” Before Phobos could ask her what she meant, she had pushed open the door.
The interior made no presumptions about its place or purpose. The center aisle was lined with plain, functional wooden desks - most of which were littered with books - and on either side, stretching away as far as the eye could see and as high as the ceiling, was aisle upon cluttered aisle of shelves, filled to bursting with tomes, scrolls, grimoires, compendiums, and anything else made of words and paper. The sunlight which slanted through the skylights above danced slowly across the floor, highlighting the Library’s sole non-equine residents - rebellious dust motes which drifted gaily through the air, refusing to settle into the tranquil colony-piles of their brethren.
Altogether, the sight was just as breathtaking as the grounds had been, if only because Phobos could comprehend it. He could feel the pulse of the words on every page - could hear the knowledge struggling to escape, crying out to him in deafening, glorious silence.
“Lexus!” Serena called out.
Almost immediately, a head poked itself out from around the corner of the 27th row.
“Ah, S-Serena!” it called back, as the rest of its body emerged and began trotting towards them. “I-I had almost forgotten you were coming.”
“Yes, I know.” Serena spread out her wing once more. Reluctantly, Phobos slid off her back, down to the ground and his own four hooves.
Phobos could slowly see more of the figure as he approached. Lexus was thin - almost as thin as himself, despite the difference in their heights. His coat was an icy blue - or perhaps it was a darker blue, and was simply matted with ages of dust - and his eyes, half-covered by their spectacles, were a dark, subdued magenta. He had a tentative air of confidence about him, as though in his element, like a fish in a stream, or a flower in a field - not impressive or intimidating, but noticeable.
Finally, he reached them, panting slightly from the short bit of exertion.
“Lexus, this is Phobos,” Serena said factually.
“Ah, y-yes - the f-fabled fourth son! I-I’ve heard quite a lot about you, from your mother.”
Phobos tilted his head. “Fourth son?” Did he have a third brother he didn’t know about?
Lexus caught a quick, stern look from Serena. “Oh-” He quickly cleared his throat. “I-I-I meant third, of course - I-I’m better with words than with n-numbers.” He chuckled nervously. When no one else seemed to find it funny, he coughed again, and extended his hoof towards Phobos. “I-It’s a pleasure to meet you, at last.”
Phobos reached up to take the hoof, and shook it awkwardly. “Likewise.”
Serena hummed in satisfaction. “Well, now that you’ve been introduced to each other, I’ll leave you to it. Phobos, I’ll be back to get you at sundown. In the meantime,” She winked slyly, though at which of them, neither was quite sure. “Try not to have too much fun.”
With that, she turned to leave. Both of them watched her exit longingly, though with very different kinds of longing. As the door closed behind her, Lexus turned to Phobos.
“W-w-well,” he said, gesturing towards the bookcases. “W-where shall we begin?”
Phobos thought for a moment. There were innumerable things that he wanted to know, but only one of them currently stood at the forefront of his mind.
“I think... what’s the word for the study of plants?”
“Botany?”
Phobos nodded. “Botany.”
“Ah,” Lexus sighed as he turned to lead the way. “An e-equine after my own heart.”
There are many kinds of guides, of course. Some of them are easy - they show you the way with gentle pushes and whispered suggestions, leading you towards that which they know you will want to discover. Others, though, are hard guides. They teach you the lessons that you’re not sure you want to learn - and are all the more important because of it.
“...And you’re sure you want to do this?”
“Well, I...” Phobos grunted as he completed his 40th wing-push-up. He let his forelegs fall to support him once more, and took a moment to catch his breath. “...No, not really. But I have to. I can’t rely on everyone to carry me up and down the Castle all the time.”
Aeros nodded in admission. “Well, are you ready?”
Phobos looked himself over, then back to his brother, and shrugged.
“No,” he said, almost laughing.
Aeros smirked playfully. “Then let’s be off.”
He moved to the balcony and crouched down, waiting for his passenger. Nervously, Phobos climbed on, and clamped his legs firmly around Aeros’ neck and barrel. He tensed for the worst - he had seen his brother’s take-off before, after all - but Aeros was considerate of the fearful bundle on his back, and forsook his usual blast of air and speed for a more gentle jump and ascent.
Phobos distracted himself from what he knew was happening by concentrating on his brother’s body - the beating of the heart, the expansion and contraction of the chest as it breathed, the rhythmic pulsing of the wing muscles as they pushed them higher and higher -
His stomach lurched, and he squeezed a bit tighter. Not the muscles, then - just the heart and the breathing. And the wind, which whipped Aeros’ long, silver hairs back and forth around him, growing stronger as they rose above the shielding influence of the City walls -
His squeak of terror was barely audible, but it was enough for Aeros to hear.
“You know, normally I would say something like ‘Just don’t look down’, but... this is slightly different, I think.”
Somewhere in the back of his mind, Phobos knew those words were true, but his body would have none of it, and kept his head snugly buried in the nape of his brother’s neck. Aeros shrugged - which caused Phobos to dig himself even deeper - and flew on.
Phobos remained that way for a while, even after he had felt the bump of their landing, and the rustle of Aeros’ wings trying to pry off his hind legs.
“Come on, off you get.”
Phobos tried to relay this message to the rest of his body, but his body whistled casually and pretended not to have heard him. Aeros sighed in exasperation.
“I swear, between you and Mother, I don’t know where I stand sometimes.”
Suddenly, Aeros flung himself sideways. As he rolled over, he deftly twisted himself out of Phobos’ death-grip, leaving him to flail spastically at the ground.
Except that it wasn’t ground. It was... soft. But it wasn’t just soft, either - it radiated softness, like being fluffy was its purpose and essence.
Cautiously, Phobos opened his eyes. There was white, but it was not the white of his brother’s fur - it was far purer than that. Slowly, he looked up. There was nothing there but blue, and what appeared to be dew-drops forming on his eyelashes. Were they - surely, they couldn’t be. Even more slowly, he stood, and his fear was overwhelmed by amazement.
They were. They were standing on a cloud. Beneath the sun, but above the rain. An island of white in an ocean of emptiness. The sky stretched endlessly above them, broken only by the peeking tops of the mountains far to the south. Phobos looked to his brother in wonder and confusion.
“I thought cloud-walking was a type of magic.”
“Well, it... is, technically, I suppose,” Aeros explained, “But it’s not the same. Horn magic is a purposeful thing - called upon, channeled. But flying, cloud-walking, earth-healing - those are in your bones, not your head. They happen on their own.”
Phobos’ heart lept. So he did have magic, after all, if only a fraction.
Aeros moved to the edge of the fluffy mass, looking out to the distant horizon. He breathed deeply of the fresh, cold air, and sighed. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had the chance to look around up here. I’d forgotten how beautiful it was.”
Phobos walked to his brother’s side. Somewhere in his mind, his senses were trying to read him their altimeter, but the tourists were too busy ‘oo’ing and ‘ah’ing for him to hear the panicked cries. It certainly was beautiful. The landscape was laid out before them, and everything was veiled by the thin, blue mist of distance. The tallest trees were as blades of grass - the lakes were like puddles - and far to their right, the City stood, a forlorn and forgotten tower of blocks in the midst of a fantastical playground.
“I remember when Oranos was teaching me to fly.” Aeros mused. He glanced quickly at Phobos, who was still enraptured by the view, and smiled. “He told me exactly what I’m going to tell you.”
Phobos looked at him expectantly.
“There are three steps in learning to fly - and step one...” He paused dramatically. “...is learning to fall.”
Without any further warning, Aeros swiftly punted his brother out over the edge of the cloud. Phobos’ screams faded quickly as he plummeted, flailing, towards the ground. Aeros looked around for a few more seconds, then casually jumped down after him.
Phobos’ head was a calamity. His senses scrambled to regain control, while the tourists - and himself - screamed in a confused panic. He scrabbled at the air with his hooves, as if there was any hope of finding purchase there. He flapped his wings as hard and as fast as he could, but they only served to increase the chaos of his descent. Tumbling as he was, it was difficult to tell up from down - the blue of the sky above mixed nauseatingly with the green of the forest below, matching the swirling in his stomach.
“Look at me,” a voice said.
Suddenly, he felt two familiar hooves grab hold of him, and spin him right-side-up. The tourists ceased to scream, petrified by the cool, collected calm of Aeros’ ice-blue eyes. This was his domain, those eyes said, and he would not let any harm come to his brother inside of it.
“Fold your wings.”
Phobos hesitated, but seeing that his brother’s wings were also closed, complied.
“Now close your eyes.”
He did.
“Feel the air around you. Listen to what it says.”
Phobos felt and listened, but found no solace or inspiration in it. “All I can hear is the wind rushing past me,” he said, the panic still lurking in the back of his mind, waiting for its chance to seize control.
“No,” Aeros said with reaffirming conviction, “It’s not rushing past you. It’s pushing against you. It’s trying as hard as it can to hold you up. All you have to do is let it.”
Phobos tried again, and this time, he noticed the way the air resisted his body, the way it whipped his fur as it scrambled to grab hold and lift him.
“Yes, that’s right,” Aeros said, as if reading his mind. “Now, step two: open your wings, slowly. Learn the muscles. Find the position where you make the most of the push with the least effort.”
As he inched open his wings, he felt the way his feathers caught the wind, and how, layered together as they were, they formed a platform on which the air could find purchase. He felt the twinge and pull of the muscles in his back, and flexed them back and forth until he found the point where they were all working equally. It was a half-open position - not the full spread of flight, but more like the descent of an elm seed.
He stayed that way for a few moments, expecting his brother to confirm and offer the next step of the process, but only the wind whispered in his ear.
“Aeros?” he called out.
“Down here,” a voice responded from below.
Phobos opened his eyes, and looked down. Aeros, his wings still closed, was almost ten feet below, smiling up at him as he drifted, inch by inch, further away. Phobos almost laughed out loud - he was doing it! - but then, the panic that had been sulking in the back of his mind cackled evilly as he looked past his brother and towards the ground, which was still coming, quite steadily, closer.
Aeros noticed, and his face became serious once more. “Alright, step three. Close your wings most of the way, and tilt yourself forward. I’ll be right behind you.”
Phobos nodded, took a deep breath, and dove, rushing past his brother. With one smooth motion, Aeros flipped himself over and around, and followed. The trees approached them inexorably, like a wall of spikes.
“When I say when, you’ll want to spread your wings out as far as you can, and twist them back. If you do it right, the air should curve you sideways, and you’ll be able to level out. Don’t worry if you can’t get this right the first time. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
His mind yelled at him to flap, to run, to kick - something, anything to stave off the approaching earth - but Phobos trusted his brother even more than he trusted his own body, and so he remained.
“Wait for it...”
Time seemed to slow as he stared downwards into the land’s gaping maw, filled with tree-sized teeth, ready to swallow him whole.
“Wait for it...”
‘Come back to me,’ the ground called out. ‘This is where you belong. Your rebellion will get you nowhere - just let go, and come back home.’
“Now!”
Quick as he could, Phobos flared out his wings, pulled the fronts back, clenched his body, and prayed - though to what, he was not sure. The air, for support? The ground, for mercy? His brother, for salvation?
The trees began to slowly move alongside him instead of towards, but he could tell that the shift was not fast enough. He stretched his wings out further than he thought possible - felt the wind tear at them, desperate to pull him up - but the branches continued hurtling towards him.
He closed his eyes, bracing for the inevitable impact - but at the last second, a burst of air from below threw him upwards. He looked back just in time to see the silver light of his brother’s horn fading away. He sighed in relief, but at the same time, his heart sank - he hadn’t wanted to have to have been saved.
Aeros winged closer, and let out an impressed whistle. “That was a lot better than my first time.”
Phobos perked up. “Really?”
The airmaster thought for a moment. “Well, no, actually. But I had magic at the time, and you didn’t, so it all balances out.”
Phobos laughed. “Couldn’t we have started off a bit more slowly?”
Aeros shook his head. “I’ve always found that its better to jump straight into things. We have to learn failure before we can truly feel success. Besides, you’re flying pretty well so far.”
Phobos blinked a few times before the realization of what Aeros had said finally hit him. He was flying. The treetops were rushing along beneath him, keeping a disappointed, respectful distance. He felt mentally for his wings. Some primal, instinctual part of his brain had taken the reins - they shifted and adjusted almost on their own, though he could feel the gears turning in the back of his head. He looked at Aeros, who smiled.
“Well, you can’t keep gliding forever. Come on, gimme a flap.”
Tentatively, Phobos swung his wings down. The wind caught on the top sides and sent him spiraling out of control. With a flash of silver, Aeros blew him back to an idle position. Phobos looked at him sheepishly.
Aeros could barely contain his laughter. “Let’s just practice gliding for now, I guess.”
A few days later, we were picnicking on the mountains, having flown there together - myself, with no assistance. I asked him what the other two steps had been, since he had never actually told me. He said,
“Well, the first step is learning to fall - then, you learn to fall slowly - and finally, you learn to fall forever. That’s all flying is, really - you just fall and forget to hit the ground.”
Chapter 4: Memories, Part 1
Where the first few years of my life had passed by at a snail’s pace, the next came like a whirlwind. Even for one such as I, who can recall the count of the stones in a wall - who can remember the sound of my mother’s heart from within the womb - the moments are difficult to isolate. They are the sort of memories which make the way this must end all the more painful - but they are memories I am glad to have had.
“I can tell you’re confused, so I’ll just explain. Now that you can fly, I thought it would be a great idea to give you a sort of ‘official’ tour of the City. But somebody -” Aeros shot a pointed glare at Ignus, who simply tossed his head and snorted indifferently. “- told Bellic that we had finished earlier than expected, so instead of showing you the sights, I get to spend my day going through what must be my hundredth evaluation this moon.
“Luckily for you, Ignus has graciously volunteered to replace me as your tour guide - which is probably better, in the end, since he knows a lot more about all the history and significance of stuff, which I know you love. So,” Aeros trotted over to the balcony. “I’m going to go see how long it takes Bellic to figure out that I’m not in any of my usual hiding places, and I’ll leave you two to it.”
With a leap and a blast, Aeros was away. Phobos looked at his remaining brother curiously.
“I didn’t know you liked history.”
“Only the parts that are important,” Ignus shrugged. “After all, ‘Quando oblitus, historiam contingit iterum .’”
Phobos blinked blankly. Ignus looked at him in disbelief.
“Honestly, with all of the useless shelf-filler Serena brought you, there wasn’t even an abridged copy of ‘The Writings of Cano and Memini’?”
Phobos shook his head. Ignus sighed heavily.
“Let’s just get this over with. Follow me.”
“Who were Cano and Memini?”
“Ah, Cano and M-M-M-Memini were the sixth and fifth seers, respectively,” Lexus stuttered, “although M-Menim - Memini was not well known for her seering.”
“Why not?”
“Cano was b-born only a few years after Memenimem - Me-me - she had f-f-fully inherited the Sight, and by the t-time Cano was s-s-six, it had been fully transferred to him, instead. So, instead of de-de-de-dedicating herself to the future, as is the usual seer way, she... focused on the present and the past, thus earning her the t-t-ti-title of ‘Recorder’. Say - w-where did you hear of them, anyway?”
“Ignus mentioned a book of theirs - he called it ‘The Writings of Cano and Memini’.”
“Ah, well, t-t-technically, all of what they produced are their wr-writings ,” Lexus chuckled a bit at his own joke. “But he was p-p-probably referring to their ph-ph-philosophical treatise. It’s generally considered their mm-magnum opus, and was often a core p-p-part of the later education of young alicorns.”
Upon hearing that last sentence, Phobos looked up at Lexus expectantly. The librarian stared back for a few moments before he made the connection.
“Ah - of course. Let’s see - th-th-the original was written in the Old Speech, but there sh-sh-should be a translated copy...”
Lexus wandered out of sight among the bookshelves, and came back bearing a large, leather-bound tome. He set it down on the table between them, propping it up against some of the other volumes stacked there, and flipped open the cover with a violet glow. He took a moment to clear his throat, adjusted his spectacles, then began reading.
“It is first to be stated that contained within is experience and knowledge that is not your own, and if you should wish to discover these things for yourself, that is a view which is both understandable, and admirable in its own way.”
Phobos closed his eyes, and listened to Lexus’ voice rise and fall. It was fascinating - when speaking for himself, the librarian could barely cope with the words, but when he read, it wasn’t as though he himself spoke, but as though the book spoke through him. Rough and uncertain became smooth and dulcet - a well-worn path through the imagination, on which one could take time to enjoy the sights around them, instead of having to climb and stumble over every stray consonant that protruded underhoof.
“But if you should wish to benefit from the wisdom and lives of others, that, too, is admirable - for while one can only live in one world, the view from the worlds of others can often help one better understand the shape of their own. It is for this reason that we write, as does any other, in any other way - to show you our world, that you might glimpse more of the grand puzzle that together, we call the Universe.”
“We’ll start at the beginning,” Ignus said as they alighted on a higher balcony.
“The Castle?” Phobos asked, glancing at the stones beneath them.
“Hardly. The City existed for centuries before Aedifex came to power. The Castle was one of the last additions, depending on whether you count it by when it was started or when it was finished.”
The firemaster pointed off to the north-east, where a lone, slender spire rose proudly out of the surrounding rubble. “The Turris Augures was the first structure erected in the Elysian Field, back when it was still just a ritual site. It was - and I suppose, still is - the designated living quarters for the active seer of the time.”
Phobos looked at him incredulously. “You ‘suppose’?”
Ignus returned the gaze flatly. “I haven’t seen Dissimula since the turn of the century. Knowing her, she’s probably still alive, but I can’t be sure and I don’t care enough to find out.”
“That seems rather inconsiderate,” Phobos said quietly, shivering in the baleful wind of his brother’s blunt honesty.
“It’s far more consideration than she ever showed for me,” Ignus muttered darkly, no longer looking at the spire, but past it, to some dull, throbbing pain from days long gone. “When you meet Dissimula -” He looked sidelong at the colt beside him. “- and you will meet her - keep in mind that if she ever helps you, it is only to help herself. She never forwards any cause but her own.”
“Lexus?”
“Hm?”
“What is the... the...” Phobos squinted at the words which so brazenly eluded him, muttering tested pronunciations under his breath. The Old Speech was still a challenge for him, being as nuanced and complex as it was, and whenever a piece or passage of those twisted, labyrinthine symbols surfaced in his reading, it frustrated him to no end.
Lexus came around to peer over his shoulder. Phobos pointed, and looked up expectantly.
“Ah! The, ah, Os Tenebris, or ‘M-M-Mouth of Darkness’. Let’s see... you’ve p-p-probably heard it referred to as ‘The Altar’.”
Phobos’ eyes widened. “You mean the stone slab at the bottom of the Castle?”
Lexus nodded. “Yes, the stone, and the surrounding runescape.”
“But this says...” Frantically, Phobos turned back to the book, reaffirming what he had read just moments before. “It’s a door to Tartarus ?”
“One of s-seven in the world, yes.”
“But...” Phobos opened and closed his mouth several times, unable to summon any proper arrangement of words. Eventually, he settled for just one. “Why ?”
“Why is it there, you m-mean? It has been there ll-l-longer than we have existed. Olympus was b-built around it. As the n-n-numbers of our enemies increased, it became more imp-portant to keep such things safe, and since m-many of us already lived in the area - not to m-m-mention the Seers and the Keepers - it only made sense.”
“It just seems... dangerous.”
Lexus chuckled. “More d-d-dangerous than letting some v-v-vile creature like D-Divanad control it? I hardly think so. B-b-b-besides, the Os T-Tenebris is a one-way entrance - Volun discovered that when he t-t-turned. One can sp-peak to those held within, and create the chains that hold them, but they c-cannot escape their b-b-bonds.”
“Oh,” Phobos said simply. As foolish as he now felt for his outburst, he was relieved - he doubted he could have slept well knowing there was a gateway to the underworld beneath his head. Then again...
“So... where are the other six doors?”
“Ah,” Lexus smiled. “Well...”
“Anyway,” Ignus grunted, turning to the right, “Over there is what’s left of the Gate of Seraphii, and past it, the Library. I know you’ve already been there.”
Phobos nodded, and smiled slightly as the distant glass ceiling twinkled in the midday sun. Lexus had promised him that they would begin studying history tonight, starting with the Edification and working forward to the War of Darkness.
“It’s another of the older buildings in the city - at least, the original was. It’s been rebuilt... five times, I believe. It was founded by Genetrix, the 3rd Seer - mostly as a place to keep her ramblings, since she had run out of space in the shelves of the Turris, but it grew from there.
“The Gate was actually much more than a simple archway. It was a secondary, inner shielding ring - a last line of defense against an anticipated Coven assault on Olympus. But, as was the way with the Coven, they didn’t do as expected. They never attacked Olympus. They attacked Avalon.” He paused. “The Gate was never activated, and fell into disrepair.” Ignus cast his eyes about the ruinous landscape, then nodded slightly, as if reluctantly acknowledging, at long last, that it wasn’t all some horrible dream. “As did the rest, in time.”
If Phobos hadn’t known any better, he’d have thought his brother was about to cry - but squeezing tears from Ignus was as easy as lighting snow ablaze. He shifted awkwardly.
“So... if the Gate was a secondary ring, where is the primary ring?” he queried carefully.
“Mm. A few leagues beyond the walls,” Ignus said, stirring back to life. “Aqua, Terra, and Serena spend days at a time out there, maintaining the perimeter.” Suddenly, he perked up. “That reminds me -” He turned to look at Phobos. “You haven’t met Aqua and Terra yet, have you?”
Phobos shook his head.
“Hm. I’ll have to remind Serena to take you out with her one of these days.”
“Ah, so THIS is the runt we’ve heard so much about!”
Phobos winced as Terra’s dirt-brown hoof roughly mussed his hair.
“Aww, he’s a cute one, isn’t he?” cooed Aqua, crouched down so her sea-green eyes were level with his. “How old is he?”
“He turned five not three months ago.” Serena answered, her son being too busy blushing to speak.
“FIVE?” Terra asked in disbelief. “Maker - we really need to get out less.”
“Still,” Aqua said, giving her sister a sly, conspiratory wink, “It’s good to know that, in just a few more years, there’ll be another nice, fresh bachelor to keep us entertained.”
“Oh, yes,” Terra winked back, “Better yet, one who doesn’t have to spend all his free time grunting and sweating with his father.”
“Girls!” Serena protested, playfully shocked. The sisters only giggled in response, Terra’s deep, earthy rumble mixing with the light, foamy tinkling of Aqua - but instead of putting him at ease, their laughter only made Phobos’ glowing face grow redder.
At first glance, Terra and Aqua seemed like polar opposites. The elder was built as solidly as the land itself, her crest rising like a mountain, and her hips as wide as a hill. Her fur was the brown of a fertile field, and her leaf-green curls sprouted from her head with a crazed and wild life of their own.
Aqua, on the other hand, was the very image of demurity. Her slender legs barely brought her up to her sister’s shoulder, and her shimmering hair fell from her head like a fountain, spreading gracefully on the ground, and obscuring all but the barest sliver of her face. Yet for all their physical differences, the sisters could have easily been mistaken for one pony in two bodies.
“Oh, occido me aliquando ,” Terra sighed, struggling to bring her mirth under control.
“Cave quid volo, soror mea ,” Aqua teased, prodding her sister’s ribs with a bony elbow.
“Anyway.” The elder cleared her throat emphatically, suddenly all business. “Where are we going this week?”
“Hmm...” Serena closed her eyes, and lifted her nose as if smelling the wind. Phobos couldn’t tell if the faint shimmer around her horn was magic, or simply a trick of the sunlight glowing on her mane. “Well, the western border needs attention, as always...”
The suggestion was met with a barrage of opinionated groaning. Serena smiled.
“...But, we haven’t been through the Borrasylva in a few months, so I suppose we could go there, instead.”
“Oo! That means we can stop by the Ardenslacus and have canticumquats for dinner!” Aqua clapped her front hooves together in delight, and turned to the foal between them, who had been awkwardly drawing circles in the dirt with his hoof. “Have you ever had canticumquats?”
Phobos began to shake his head, but was interrupted by Terra. “For the thousandth time, they’re not called ‘canticumquats’! You can’t just make up names for things. They’re bacas carminis - songberries, at the very least.”
“But ‘canticumquats’ is more fun to say!” Aqua pouted.
“Alright, you two,” Serena chided. “We need to get moving if we want to make it that far today. Remember how long the Anguiflum takes, all by itself?”
The sisters muttered acknowledgement and took off, their wings beating almost in unison. Mother and son followed suit.
They flew out over the wall, and over the fields, and over the trees beyond. As the needle-thin spire of the Castle was lost among the distant treetops, a cold feeling crept into the pit of Phobos’ stomach. Serena, as always, noticed.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’ve just... I’ve never been out this far before.”
She smiled, and gently brushed her wingtip against his own. “There’s nothing to be afraid of. The walls and the Castle are more of symbols, anyway. What really keeps us safe... well, that’s where we’re going.”
“We’re here!” Terra called out from ahead.
They landed in a small clearing. Phobos didn’t have to look around for long to see what they had come for. On the north side, standing almost as tall as the trees themselves, was a great, granite stone that jutted out of the landscape like the discarded tooth of some colossal beast. The surface was a mottled patchwork of green and gray, with serpentine patterns of runes and symbols covered over by armies of vines and legions of moss.
“Oh my,” Aqua murmured, peering at the carvings from between her bangs. “I can barely make out the Nineteenth Verse.”
“Yes, it’s in much worse condition than I thought.” Serena mused, slightly worried. “We should have come sooner.”
Aqua stamped her hoof victoriously. “See, we don’t need to run the Occidentager every other week!”
Serena simply sighed, and shook her head. “Terra, you have the lead.”
“Mm.” The earthmaster stepped in front of the monolith, rested the tip of her horn against the stone, and began breathing, deeply and rhythmically.
I wish I had been able to feel magic back then.
Her horn began to glow a deep, shamrock green, the light flaring up in time with her inhalations, growing brighter and brighter. As the light of her horn grew, so too did a light somewhere inside the stone - a pure, white light that shone out weakly through the cracked, worn carvings.
There is a certain feeling that can only be brought by the casting of magic - a feeling that I don’t believe can be properly appreciated by those who have it all their lives. It is a feeling that is both pain and pleasure - ecstasy and agony - an orgasmic surge of power that is fueled by the burning of the soul itself.
Slowly, she stepped back from the stone and held her head high. As she continued to breath, it began to feel like the whole of the earth was breathing with her.
I know what it feels like to tap into a spell as strong as that wall. Centuries of power, hundreds of casters - your own soul lost like a drop in a lake. I felt it when I raised the Gate of Seraphii, years later. But I will never know what it feels like to tread those waters with another - neigh, with two others - to weave together - to burn as one, and let your flame be all the stronger for it.
Confused, and more than a bit scared, Phobos turned to his mother for an explanation, only to find that she had closed her eyes and lit her horn as well, and was breathing in time with the earth, and the stone, and the brown giant that led them. Aqua, to his other side, was the same.
I will never know what it feels like to sing in a choir.
All at once, Terra began to chant.
“When the sun has set,
And the moon is bright,
And the stars shine overhead;
“When the sky is dark,
And the mountains black,
And the river is a silver thread;”
Without prompting, Aqua and Serena joined on the third verse, their voices lilting and dancing around Terra’s plain, steady center.
“When the birds have sung
Their final notes,
And the wind has ceased to blow;
“When the flow’rs have drooped,
And the trees are still,
And the grass has ceased to grow;
“When you lay your head
Upon your hooves,
And your eyes with sand do fill;
“I will sing to you
As you fall to dreams,
Lying there upon the hill.”
As those words rang out, Terra reared up and slammed her front hooves into the ground. The earth trembled, and the light within the stone exploded. Phobos threw himself to the ground, covering his eyes as the blinding glow of the rejuvenated symbols cut through the vines and moss like a flaming knife, cinders and ashes flying out on a hot, dry wind.
I will never know what it feels like to meld.
Chapter 4.5: Memories, Part 2
“Are you alright?” Phobos heard his mother ask.
Slowly, he peeked out from beneath his hooves. The greenery around the monolith, and the foal himself, had been covered with a thin, speckled layer of gray ash. The initial heat and light had settled down to a deep, barely-audible hum and a steady glow, although the runes were still difficult to look at directly. Above him, Serena was gazing down at him with a worried smile.
“I’m sorry we scared you,” she continued, brushing him off with her wing. “They don’t usually... do that.”
“Do what? Explode, or drain so much power that I black out?” Terra yelled groggily from somewhere behind them. “I’m fine, by the way. Tua cura est gratus.”
“Oh, quit whining. You’ve had worse,” Aqua jabbed.
“Oh, really? Like what?”
“Um... oh! Like that time you and Aeros spent four days straight -”
“St!” Serena hissed at the pair. “You’re in no condition to move, puella . Rest here - Aqua and I will go ahead and start the next weave.”
“What about me?” Phobos interjected meekly, finally standing up.
“Why don’t you wait here with Terra?” Serena said, not missing a beat. “I’m sure you have a lot of questions she can answer, and you can make sure she doesn’t laze about for too long.”
The answerer in question groaned, and flopped back onto the ground.
Without another word, Serena and Aqua were off like pigeons fleeing a sap-hound. As they flew out of view, Phobos could swear he heard Aqua giggling, and Serena, just as giddily, shushing her.
For a few minutes, he examined the monolith, trying to trace the shape and pattern of the symbols. Once, he thought he recognized vis , the rune for power and strength, but then realized that the lines were merely the center of a larger, more complex symbol that swirled at him tauntingly. When a few laps around the clearing revealed nothing else of particular interest, he settled himself down next to the bulging form of Terra.
She yawned, and scratched her belly.
I find it amusing, now.
Before then, I had been so frightened of Terra and Aqua - their secrets, their sayings, their unshakable bond. They had been a mystery to me - a puzzle, shrouded behind what I later realized was primarily their gender. If there is one aspect of my upbringing that I can find grievance with, it is that my mother was woefully outnumbered. One mare, no matter how loving, can only do so much against the force of five stallions, even when one of those stallions is barely a shadow in the doorway.
But now, here was one of these females, these enigmatic creatures - alone, and without the loud and prickly protection of her kin. At last, I could speak without fear - or at the very least, in longer sentences.
“Are you... actually asleep?” Phobos asked, carefully.
Slowly, Terra half-opened one amber eye to glare at him - then, just as slowly, let it close.
“...No,” she said shortly.
“Then - if you don’t mind me asking...” He pawed at the ground nervously.
“What?”
“Well... I thought that spellcasting didn’t require oral components.”
“That’s right,” she said nonchalantly.
Phobos stared at her for a moment, waiting for her to put together the pieces herself as Lexus or Hippocrates would. Eventually, she opened her eyes again to look at him curiously.
“Did you... have an actual question?”
“Oh, um,” he stammered, flustered. Hadn’t he already asked it? “Well... why were you singing?”
“Ah - video quid velis .” Terra rolled over onto her stomach. “You’re right - spells don’t require oral components. But, certain kinds of spells do need rhythm, and that rhythm can be difficult to maintain when you have more than one caster working together. A song or a chant helps everyone stay in sync.”
“Oh.”
Ah, Terra. In the same words you would once say to me: “ Tune lupo cum olere sanguinem, ipse persequetur eam.”
“So, what was the song?”
“Mmm,” Terra hummed warmly, a small, soft smile creeping unbidden across her face. “Just a lullaby that Hippocrates used to sing to us, when we were younger.”
“Hippocrates ?” Phobos asked in shock. He couldn’t imagine the dour doctor singing anything , much less a lullaby.
Terra sat up, taken aback. “What’s so surprising?”
“...He never sang to me ,” Phobos muttered, feeling almost cheated.
The earthmaster chuckled. “He wasn’t always such a luto-os , like he is now. He used to be more... more like Sanarus, actually. Happier.”
“What happened?”
“...Everything.” Her gaze took on the same sort of distance that he had often seen in Ignus when discussing such things, though thankfully, not as severely. “Sanarus was born, Avalon fell, Sarcio died in battle -”
“Sarcio?”
“His father.” Terra sighed. “Suffice to say, those times were hard on all of us. Hippocrates just took it... harder than most.”
For a moment, they were silent. Phobos had never thought of Hippocrates as being a son, nor as being a surrogate father to any but himself. He did have another question, though:
“What was Aqua talking about?”
“Hm?”
“She was saying something about you and Aeros spending four days straight -”
“Hey, I’m feeling better! Let’s go!”
Before the foal could blink, Terra had jumped to her hooves and strode off between the trees, nearly blowing them over in her rush. Phobos ran to catch up.
“Where are we going?” he asked.
“To the next Eminstone, of course.”
His eyes widened. “Is that what those rocks are called?”
“Ita . Named after Emine - your great-great-grandmother.”
Phobos’ head, which had already been swimming with questions, began to overflow, the excess spilling out of his mouth like a babbling brook. “And - and why did that one... ‘explode’?”
“It ‘exploded’ because it was almost dead. We were all but restarting it. Usually, they’re much less... violent.”
“Dead?” Was the rock alive?
“Out of power, curro sicca - whatever you prefer. It takes a lot of energy to keep this shield up.” Casually, Terra kicked her hoof out to the side. Where there seemed to be only empty space, it instead connected solidly with an invisible wall, making a deep, gonging sound that could more be felt in the bones than heard. Phobos stood and watched in amazement as a distorted ripple traveled up into the air, curving ever-so-slightly back towards the City before disappearing out of sight.
“Wow.” He scrambled to catch up once more. “And - and you power all that? You, and Aqua, and Mother?”
Terra snorted, almost laughing. “Hardly. We just keep the siphons open.”
Phobos looked at her quizzically.
“Uh...” She thought for a moment, piecing together an explanation. “Well, see, a shield this size would normally be impossible for just three of us to maintain. In fact, it would probably take more than a dozen of us working every day to keep it up on our power alone. What makes Eminstones work so well - and this is just one of the many ways in which Emine was a genius - is that they only require a STARTING charge from a caster. Then, they use that power to draw the rest of what they need out of the natural energy of the ground.”
Phobos looked at the dirt beneath his hooves. “The ground?”
“Everything has magic in it - the ground is no exception. Of course, different landscapes have different amounts. The Occidentager, for example - grasslands have a VERY low energy flow, so the stones have to stand closer together, and spend more of their power to collect it. We have to go out there more often than anywhere else. Forested areas,” She gestured around them, “last much longer - there’s a lot more life to go around.
“But MOUNTAINS!” A sparkle appeared in her eye as she stared off into the distance at imaginary, snow-capped peaks. “Mountains are the strongest land of all. Their roots reach all the way down into the heart of the world. The stones in the Austermonts have only needed tending to ONCE, in all the years I’ve lived. Did you know -”
“Oh, don’t tell me you got her started on mountains !” Aqua called out from somewhere in front of them. “Iuro - she talks about them like they’re her children!”
“I do not!” Terra huffed, thrusting her nose into the air. “I simply have a deeper appreciation for their majesty.”
As they came through the trees, Aqua was standing in the clearing ahead, rolling her one unobscured eye. “Et saxum est lapis .”
“Velut fluvius est elix ,” the elder retorted.
Aqua scoffed indignantly.
“I can’t leave the two of you alone for a moment, can I?” Serena said, appearing from behind an Eminstone slightly smaller than the first. “Don’t forget, Aqua - you’re the one that wanted to show Phobos canticumquats tonight.”
“I remember!” Aqua grinned. She stuck her tongue out at Terra before trotting away, a smug grin hidden behind her bangs.
“All that proves is that you’re a bad influence!” Terra yelled after her. She muttered under her breath as she walked towards the stone. “Canticumquats... ridiculous.”
For many hours, they went on, curving their way through the forest. Most of the stones they came upon were large and imposing, like the first one had been, but some were barely any taller than Phobos himself. Some were not single stones, but clusters that burst out of the ground like wild thistles. Still others were intricate arrangement of tiny, hoof-sized rocks, like graveyards for the spirits of flowers.
One wasn’t any sort of cairn at all. It was a roughly-built, arched cobblestone bridge, spanning what Phobos could only assume was the Anguiflum Serena had mentioned - a deep, wild river that looked liable to tear any tench or trout that lived in it fin from fin. They spent the better part of an hour there, Terra and Serena sitting at either end of the bridge while Aqua stood beneath it, neck-deep in the turgid, frothing currents.
“Rivers are a bit trickier, you see,” the dripping, matted watermaster explained as they walked on. “You can’t just block it off like you would elsewhere, because that would block off the river, too. You have to make sure that the energy of the water can flow through the shield, while still holding out everything else. That’s why they bring me along.
“Well, that, and Terra hates getting wet - the big pavidicat ,” she finished with a sly wink.
“I’m a WHAT, now?”
The songs they sang during their spell-weaving were just as varied, from farming ditties in Ponnish, to call-and-response war chants in the Old Speech. There was even one slow, mournful love song in a smooth, wailing language Phobos had never heard before.
“Yemanei,” Serena identified it as. “I’ve always found it to be the most poetic of the desert dialects. Even their insults have a certain... beauty.”
“I’ve always preferred ugliness when it comes to insults, myself,” Terra said matter-of-factly.
“It certainly is easier to stick with what you know, isn’t it?” Aqua mused, nodding sagely in agreement, a slight smile playing on her lips.
Terra snorted derisively. “
Aqua merely tossed her bangs and pranced ahead - but at the top of the next ridge, she stopped dead in her tracks.
“Oh no,” she said quietly, her gaze fixed on the horizon. A line of fierce orange flared out against the darkening sky, as though the sun which sank behind the hills had set their crests ablaze.
“What is it?” Serena asked worriedly.
“Ohno ohno ohno ohno ohno!” Aqua repeated, nervously stamping her hooves in a strange, wobbling dance. “The Ardenslacus! The day is almost gone! We have to hurry!”
Without another word, she had leapt into the air, and was speeding northwards over the forest. The other three flapped wildly after her.
“What IS she on about?” Terra grumbled. “The lake will still be there after dusk.”
“I think she wants Phobos to see what it’s like before , as well as after,” Serena said. She chuckled a bit. “Though I will admit, she’s being far too excitable about it.”
“Excitable?” Terra balked. “Potuistis aliquid dicere minus ? She acted like we were under attack.”
“Um,” Phobos interjected hesitantly, not wanting to sound foolish. “Aren’t we headed towards the shield?”
“Actually, we passed through it a few moments ago,” said Serena. “If you have the intent of moving through it, and are permitted, it will allow it.”
“Oh. ...And I’m permitted?”
“Of course you are,” she said, turning to him with a smile. “You’re one of us.”
‘One of us’, indeed. If only I had had the chance to know what that would entail.
Phobos had never seen a lake before, but if he had ever bothered to imagine what the perfect, quintessential lake would look like, the Ardenslacus would not have been far off. In the twilight, it was like an obsidian mirror, framed by an ornate rim of bushes and grass. Willow trees brushed their branches gently against the surface, sending miniscule waves against thin beaches of pebbles and sand. One of those beaches held an eager, grinning Aqua, the tips of her hair drifting lazily in the water.
“You slow-pokes nearly missed it!” she hissed as they landed. “Quick, come here!”
‘Nearly’ was an overstatement, but nonetheless, they sat, and waited. The darkness around them was broken only by the stars above. Idly, Phobos tried to trace shapes and figures among them. There was a unicorn, and a pegasus, and an earth pony, huddled together in one corner of the sky. Another of each stood around them, their faces angry, their bodies frozen in what looked like crystals, or perhaps ice. And galloping in a circle around the six were three... he didn’t know what they were, actually. They had a head and front hooves like any other equine, but the rest of their bodies trailed off into nothingness, like wisps of smoke. They looked very... fluffy. Fluffy sounded nice.
A rogue yawn escaped from his mouth. Surprised, he tried to stifle it, but found that his hooves refused to budge. He felt like he was stuck to the sand. Now that he thought about it, he had never walked so much in all his life. He could use a little rest, and it didn’t look like whatever-it-was was happening anytime soon.
He set his head down on his hooves. No sooner had he felt himself drifting off to sleep, than he felt Aqua nudging his neck with her nose.
“Wake up, you sleepyhead. It’s starting.”
Blearily, he forced his eyes back open. The moon was rising, peeking its thin, slivered head into the sky. A flood of silver was spilling down over the treetops, covering everything in a bright sheen. The way the light glinted on the water almost made it look as though the lake was glowing. No, wait...
He rubbed his eyes, and blinked.
The lake was glowing. From somewhere in the murky depths, a dim blue light was glimmering, and as he looked on wide-eyed, it grew. From a single point, it spread across the entire lakebed - and from there, it grew brighter and brighter and brighter, until every drop of water shone like molten crystal. The stars which had only so recently appeared were drowned out by the intensity, leaving the moon swimming alone in a sea of darkness. The plants around them looked twisted and alien in their new underlighting, like creatures of shadow worshipping at some otherworldly portal.
On one of the bushes near him, a cloud of blue sparkles appeared, pulling away with a dangling bunch of large, spherical berries, and levitating it towards them. He couldn’t tell what color they were - in the lakelight, everything was varying shades of black and bright cyan - but they looked delicious. His stomach, which had, until then, deigned to remain silent, enthusiastically agreed.
He moved his head to bite one off as they passed, but Aqua jerked them out of reach.
“Wait,” she said. “Watch.”
Phobos looked on with a mixture of curiosity and desperation as she brought the bunch to her mouth and delicately plucked off a single berry, stem and all. With her lips squeezed tight, she squashed the fruit against her tongue, gargling the juices in her throat. Then, she pursed her lips as though to whistle - but it was not her voice that came out. In fact, it was not a voice at all. It was a soft, airy noise - like the singing of wind through gaps in a stone, but... thicker. Stronger.
“Flute?” Terra guessed.
Aqua shook her head snootily. “Nope. Buffalan wood pipe.”
The earthmaster snorted. “You cheater.”
Terra was next, though she was much rougher in her chewing than her sister had been. She opened her mouth wide, and out came a deep, woody sound that Phobos had no reference for. The best he could do was imagine what it would taste - what it would sound like if trees could talk.
“Bassoon?” Serena ventured.
Terra nodded, shrugging slightly.
“Close enough. I was going for contrabassoon.”
Phobos realized that these must have been the songberries Aqua had spoken of. His eyes followed the bunch to his mother, just as amazed as they were hungry. Serena had a fruit halfway into her mouth when his stomach interrupted her with an angry, impatient growl. She smiled, and floated it over to him instead.
He snatched the berry out of the air, and began to chew. The taste was like nothing he had ever eaten. The skin had a sharp, stinging zest, like an orange and a cranberry combined, but the juice inside washed over his mouth like a wave of heavy cream, sending an ecstatic shiver down his spine. Forgetting the proper procedure, he gulped the pulp down greedily, and turned to ask for another. His eyes widened in surprise when he suddenly found his mouth being held shut by Aqua’s hoof.
Her sea-green eyes were narrowed, twinkling with mischievous glee. She tapped his chin lightly to make sure the message was clear, then wriggled herself backwards along the beach. The way she ducked her head and covered her ears made it seem as though some kind of explosion was imminent, albeit one she was excited to see.
His stomach gurgled menacingly.
Terra, unlike her sister, had not shifted at all. When Phobos met her gaze, she simply jerked her head in Aqua’s direction and spun the tip of her hoof around her temple, crossing her eyes and sticking out her tongue for good measure.
Finally, he turned to his mother, who, though in a similar position to the watermaster, was also where she had been before. Her smile was reassuring, but also tinged with the slightest amount of worry.
Feeling pressure building up in his belly, he realized he would have to open his mouth eventually. Taking a deep breath in, he faced the lake, and burped.
The belch that emerged was deafening. The surface of the water shattered, sending shards of light dancing in all directions. Strands of his mane whipped his face as he was pushed backwards by the force, his flank leaving a trail in the sand.
Just as suddenly as it had come, it stopped, leaving behind the agitated splashing of water, the panicked, cacophonous cries of every animal that had been asleep within half a mile of the lake, and one pony’s hysterical giggling.
“Oh, by Aura’s scraggly beard!” Aqua managed to squeeze out between gasping breaths. Her legs waved through the air as though battling with some invisible mirth spirit that had pounced upon her. It was hard to tell whether she was actually crying, or had accidentally rolled into the lake during her convulsions. Or both. “That was... even better than...”
She looked to find the other three staring at her blankly, and after a few more persistent guffaws, her laughter petered out. The only sound left was a few crickets still berating them for the disturbance. She cleared her throat awkwardly, and, still on her back, floated the bunch in front of Phobos, wiggling it enticingly.
“Want another?”
“Anyway,” said Ignus. “That’s about it for this side of the City.”
They hopped off the balcony and winged their way around the Castle, landing on another platform approximately opposite the first.
“Over to the right, there, are the Gardens. If you look closely, you can see the roof of Flora’s hut in the front corner.” He looked down at his little brother, and braced himself for yet more shock and disappointment. “You’ve met Flora , right?”
To his relief, Phobos nodded. “Once.”
“So... why are we going to the Gardens, exactly?” Phobos queried, slightly annoyed at this spontaneous excursion. “I thought we were going to start on the writings of Genetrix the Prolific today.”
The air around them buzzed and wavered. Everything, from the grass eternally warring with their hooves for control of the worn dirt road, to the trees and columns that stood close enough to be noticed but not close enough to be helpful, looked to be on the brink of melting under the harsh light of the late-morning sun. The outer walls loomed large in the distance, taunting the pair with their obstinate lack of shade. He could hear the cool, dusty confines of the library crying out to him, and feel himself pulling farther away with each reluctant step.
“Ah, well, you see,” Lexus panted as they walked along the path. The already-pitiable condition of his coherency had been exacerbated by this uncharacteristic bout of activity - his icy coat was dark with sweat. “I was th-th-thinking back on our... b-botany studies, and, if you rec-recall, there were q-quite a few of your m-mu-m-more specific questions that I c-c-couldn’t answer.”
“Right...”
“And then I remem-em-em-membered that you haven’t met... Flora, yet, or seen the G-Garden, and I thought to m-myself, ‘Ah, there’s a f-f-filly who kn-nows her plants - why not s-s-sc-core three points with one g-g-goal?’”
“Ah.”
It was not technically true that he had never seen the Garden before - he and Aeros often passed over it during flight practice. From above, most of the city was a mottled mixture of plant and stone, tower and tree - but the Garden was a diamond-shaped swath of pure life. Green grasses, golden grains, and hundreds of colors of flowers battled for control of the fields, spilling over the thin gray lines that had once kept them so carefully separated. In the far corner, against the outer wall, stood a cluster of trees, huddled together to avoid being swept away in the rampant chaos of their short-lived cousins. On the opposite, nearer side was a semi-circle of close-trimmed grass, containing a short, squat wooden hut, a small stone well, and a few dozen log planter boxes, filled with the more delicate herbs that wouldn’t survive long in a straight fight against dandelions and bindweed.
It was into this clearing that the pair entered, through an arched gate in the cracked, vine-ridden wall. The area was slightly more cluttered than Phobos remembered - each planter had had a slapdash structure of bamboo poles and threadbare silk erected over it to shield their inhabitants from the sun’s rays. Phobos was thoroughly jealous of them.
“Flora?” Lexus called out. He knocked gingerly on the door of the hut, but nopony answered. The librarian sighed heavily, attempting to let his breath catch up with him. “St-trange - she’s almost alw-w-w-ways here, or c-close by in the f-f-fields...” He squinted, shielding his eyes with one hoof, and weakly tried again. “Flora? W-w-where are you?”
“Hi!” said a bright, cheery, female voice. They both jumped. Phobos couldn’t tell where it was coming from, but it certainly wasn’t coming from anypony nearby. “It looks like you’re looking for me! I’m over in the orchard at the moment - the trees wanted to talk to me about something. They may not say much, but when they do, it’s always worth listening to.
“If this is Sanarus, the plants you asked for are inside on the table. You know what the key is. I hope whatever your plan is works out - don’t be too hard on them! If this is Hippocrates, the herbs you were going to ask for as an excuse for coming inside are hanging in the back shed, and you really shouldn’t be spying on Sanarus like that. If this is Ignus, you can leave a note on the stairs - you make the basil nervous. If this is Oranos,Z’alva, Patreiu. Flüriana sitarentalo, ze’ed paluvran nesol tramana veniiras l’antu .”
Phobos gasped in shock, clutching at his head. His vision was overcome by a sudden maelstrom of images and emotions. They flashed by like sparks in the wind, too quickly for him to understand - a field of flowers, all in bloom - the sun, white hot, raging - a lone, blurry figure traipsing along the crest of a dune, surrounded by nothing but sand as far as the eye could see - a swarm of clouds gathering on the horizon, dark and grumbling with thunder - rain tapping gently on a window pane - a terrified voice far off in the darkness, crying out for something, though he couldn’t quite make out what - a long-legged insect crawling along the surface of a pond. Just as quickly as they had come, they ceased, leaving the foal feeling dizzy and sick, like his brain had been cranked around in one direction while his stomach had been flipped the other.
Lexus seemed unaffected. Phobos was about to ask the librarian what in the wide world that had been, when the voice continued. “If you’re anyone else, or if it’s really, really important, you can wait here for me to come back. I’ll warn you, though - that’ll probably be loooong after nightfall. Possibly even tomorrow. Sorry for the inconvenience!”
“Oh,” said Lexus, still attempting, without much success, to wipe the sweat from his brow. “Hm. Well, I... suppose we c-c-could... try again, another day.”
Phobos cocked an eyebrow. “She sai- urp.” A hoof went to his mouth as a wave of nausea burbled up his throat. He swallowed it back down, and tried again, somewhat croakily. “She said she was in the orchard. Can’t we just go find her?”
Lexus turned to look at the short line of trees, which stood as an enticing bastion of cool darkness, far across the fields of hazy green and golden fire. He appeared to be weighing the pros and cons of leaving the paltry pool of shadow provided by the hut’s eaves. Eventually, he came to a decision.
“Um,” he began, stepping slightly backwards towards the wall of the house. “Well... you can, if you’d like, I sup-p-pose. I’ll, uh...” He sank down onto his knees, grunting quietly in relief as he folded his aching hooves underneath him. “I’ll w-wait here.”
Phobos blinked at him a few times, then sighed, shook his head, (not a good idea - it made his skull feel like it was coming apart at the seams) and set off towards the orchard.
As he trudged deeper into the fields, his mind gradually settled back into place, and he began to feel much better. The grasses were even wilder than he had thought, growing far above his head, and filtering the sunlight to much-more-bearable levels. The ground was soft and loamy beneath his hooves, and radiated a delectable, musty cold. He allowed himself to follow the slight traces of disused paths that lay hidden here and there amongst the blooming flowers, meandering in incomprehensible and circuitous routes. Occasionally, he would come across the remnants of an old dividing wall, and use its height to boost his head above the surface, and correct his course.
Eventually, he clambered his way out of the sea of stalks and leaves, and up the slight mound on which rested the orchard. The trees, though beautiful and varied, were drab compared to the rest of the field, having shed their blossoms weeks ago. On each old and gnarled branch, the first green, delicate signs of apples and cherries and mangos, and a dozen other fruits, were just beginning to peek out of their buds.
“Hello?” he called out.
Only the breeze responded, whistling out from between the trunks to tousle his hair playfully. It felt cool against his sweat-soaked fur, but that made it no less annoying. He scowled, patted down his mane, and forged ahead.
The orchard seemed much bigger from the inside, but it still wasn’t long before he had found what he was looking for. In the center of the trees was a small clearing, surrounded by an evenly spaced ring of seven tall, slender rowan trees, and in the center of the clearing was Flora. She sat with her eyes closed and her ears held high, as though straining to catch some distant melody.
I wish I could say that my heart raced at the sight of the sun shining on her pearly fur. That her emerald hair fell from her head with the grace of rolling hills - that the flowers she wore in her mane were made infinitely more beautiful by their being there. I wish I could say that my breath caught in my throat, and was only coaxed out again by the gentle rising and falling of her own. I wish I could say that time slowed as I approached, and that when she turned her head to look at me, the brief moment when her sky-blue eyes met mine, and refused to part, seemed to last an eternity.
She deserved that much, and so much more. But I was young, and naive, and did not know of such things - and my affections would someday fall elsewhere.
“Hello?” Phobos ventur-
“AAAH!” Flora leapt into the air, all at once whirling around to face her assailant and scrambling to flee. When she found him to be only another alicorn, she sighed heavily in relief, and fell back to the ground.
“You shouldn’t sneak up on ponies like that!” she chided, reaching up with one hoof to straighten the lily behind her ear.
Phobos tried to say “I’m sorry,” but found that his vocal cords had been stunned by Flora’s scream.
When she received no response, Flora looked at him curiously, and only then realized that he was somepony she had never seen before. She blinked a few times, then smiled as she finally made the connection.
“Oh!” she exclaimed. “You must be Phobos!”
He nodded.
“I’ve been wondering when I would get to meet you! Aqua told me all about you when she helped with the watering last week.” She looked him up and down. “You’re much larger than I expected, though. How old are you?”
“Five-and-a-half,” he finally managed to say.
Flora gawked in disbelief.
“Five-and-a... goodness, time just flies, doesn’t it? Tell you what, let’s... uh, hold on.”
She turned back to the trees, and the sound of leaves rustling in the wind somehow emerged from her throat. Phobos swore he could hear the rowans creaking in response.
“Sorry - we were just in the middle of discussing some... very important things. But!” She threw her leg around his shoulder, and led him back towards the edge of the orchard. “I’d say you’re a bit more important, at the moment! We’ve got a lot to catch up on!”
Ignus nodded in return. “Good. And lastly, over to our left, is what used to be the main Assembly Hall.”
“One, two, three, four, one, two, three, four...”
The Assembly Hall had survived much better than most of the structures around it, mostly due to the fact that it had never been much of a structure to begin with. Tiered rings of flat stone seating surrounded a large, circular dirt stage, where the debaters, orators, and leaders of old would present their speeches, opinions, and plans to the gathered masses.
Now, of course, there were no masses to be gathered, and Bellic had long since turned the arena of the mind into an arena of the body.
“...Two, three, four, one, two, left face! One, two, three, four...”
The black stallion stood to one side, barking out his chant to Aeros and Ignus, who opposed each other in the ring. They circled each other carefully, their steps in time with their father’s voice. Occasionally, he would interrupt the “One, two, three, four”s with “right face”, “reverse”, or “back five”, and the two brothers would turn to the side, or change direction, or take a few steps towards or away from each other. But always, they circled.
It looked rather boring.
Phobos had been curious about what exactly went on in his father’s infamous training sessions, and Bellic had grudgingly allowed him to watch. So far, he wasn’t terribly impressed. They had started with a variety of push-ups, wing-ups, and other such warm-up exercises, and had moved immediately to this circling, which had now gone on unbroken for the better part of five minutes.
Flora, sitting beside him, was similarly baffled.
“I’ve never watched them before either,” she admitted. “I’ve always been too busy. Although...” She put a hoof to her chin in concentration. “I think I remember Aeros describing this to me, once. Something about...”
“Being ready to attack or defend from any angle at any time,” Ignus recited as he walked backwards past them.
Flora nodded, unphased. “That sounds about right.”
Phobos watched the circling for a few more seconds, then turned and asked the obvious question.
“When does the attacking happen?”
As if on cue, Bellic’s chant ended.
“...One, two, air defend!”
Aeros barely had time to turn himself around before the first of Ignus’ blasts whizzed past his head. The firemaster was relentless in his assault, his horn blazing white-hot, his body twisting and undulating wildly as he kicked out burst after burst of flame. It was amazing that he didn’t break himself in half.
Aeros, by comparison, barely moved at all. With the grace of a breeze, he ducked, weaved, side-stepped, and twirled, his silver hair trailing behind him. Only occasionally would he use his magic to bat aside a stray fireball or tongue of flame. It almost looked like he was dancing, and this fact only seemed to be making Ignus more furious.
This went on for almost a minute, with the flailing Ignus never landing a single hit on the waltzing Aeros. In a last-ditch effort, Ignus dug his hooves into the ground and summoned an enormous jet of fire. Aeros seemed to have anticipated this, and deftly jumped to the side. With a flare of his own magic, he curled the stream around himself, forming a ring of concentrated flame. Then, with a single, decisive blast, he hurled the ring back at Ignus.
A few moments later, Phobos gingerly uncovered his eyes. Ignus, and a large patch of the ground around him, was blackened and smoking. Aeros only looked slightly disheveled, but both brothers were panting, and staring at each other intensely.
“Hut, two, march left!” Bellic bellowed. “One, two, three, four...”
Without hesitation, the circling began again, as though it had never stopped.
Flora shook her head sadly. “Honestly, I don’t much see the point. This barely qualifies as practice - all they’re doing is beating each other up.”
“Yeah, well,” Aeros chuckled, walking by sideways. “Sometimes he needs a bit of beating.”
It was only about half a minute until the coin came down the other way.
“...Two, three, four, one, two, fire defend!”
The fight was over almost before it started. Aeros simply lit his horn, and Ignus, who had been sinking into a defensive stance, was flung up into the air by a gust of wind. He twirled around several times, before landing on his back with a dull whumph .
“Urgh!” Ignus grunted, more in disgust than in pain, as he rolled back onto his hooves. “You always do that!”
“And you always do the big-jet-of-fire thing!” Aeros shrugged, and grinned evilly. “It’s not my fault you’re so predictable.”
“Hut, two, march right! One, two, three, four...”
Flora sighed in something akin to defeat.
“I don’t think I’ll ever understand those two.”
Such moments are the ones I miss most - but as with all things, they could not last forever.
Years passed, as they had passed before.
I grew...
“Aeros!”
Aeros barely had time to lift off his saddlebags before Phobos’ flying tackle impacted. It very nearly knocked him off the balcony, but he quickly blew them both back on.
“You’re getting way too big to do that, you know,” Aeros chuckled, wrapping his wings around his little brother. “One of these days, you’ll have to walk up to hug me like everypony else.”
Phobos just grinned, and gave him a final squeeze before releasing him.
“Where have you been ? It’s been...”
“Almost a year, I know. I could tell just by looking at you.” Aeros took a step back, and looked his brother up and down. “By the Maker, you’ve grown! Let me see your wings.”
The tip of Phobos’ horn came up to Aeros’ eyes, now, but his wings were still barely half the size of his brother’s. He spread them, and Aeros gasped in playful astonishment.
“I normally leave this sort of language to Terra and Aqua, but eja ! They’re almost as big as mine!”
Phobos rolled his eyes, and let his feathers flop to the ground. “They’re nowhere near as big as yours.”
“Pff. You and I are obviously looking at very different pairs of wings. You know, uh...” He looked around furtively, as though afraid they were being watched, then leaned his head in close. “Just between you and me, Terra’s got a thing for big wings.” He wiggled his eyebrows emphatically.
Phobos scowled, and punched Aeros lightly in the ribs. He reeled back in pretended pain, clutching a hoof to his chest dramatically.
“But, really,” Phobos said, coming back to the topic at hoof. “Where have you been?”
Aeros’ icy eyes lit up with excitement, and he smiled a victorious, cheshire smile.
“We found Daruun.”
Phobos’ eyes widened. “Really?”
“Yeah! Completely by accident, too. We’ve been tracking him for months now, hoping he’ll lead us to Divanad. He’s been stationary for about two weeks, though, so Bellic thought it would be safe for me to finally come back and pick up some supplies.”
“Where is he staying?”
Aeros sighed with obviously pent-up frustration. “Corona Ortus. Right in the middle of breeding season, of course. He’s probably surrounded by a bunch of pretty young wyrmlings as we speak. And since we’re not dragons, they won’t let us in.”
Dragons... dragons... Phobos sifted through what he had learned about the solitary, enigmatic creatures.
“...Is there one specific dragon that wouldn’t let you in?”
Aeros was taken aback by the question.
“Yeah, there was. Big, black, shiny. A few of the other dragons were calling him... ‘Keeper’, I think.”
Phobos nodded sagely. “The Keeper of Names,” he muttered under his breath.
“The what, now?”
Phobos held up a hoof for silence, running through several ideas in his head. When he found one he liked, he nodded again. “Have Ignus challenge him to a Baarak Murda.”
“A... Barack...?”
“Baarak Murda,” Phobos explained. “When two dragons have an argument that can’t be resolved any other way, there are several tests that they can choose from, to prove which of them is superior. The Baarak Murda is a test of flame, where they pit their breath against each other to see whose is stronger.”
Aeros stared at him for a moment, thinking. Then, the pieces clicked, and he grinned evilly. “But Ignus doesn’t breathe his flames.”
“Exactly. All he has to do is outlast the Keeper’s first volley, and he’s sure to win.”
“Do you think that will work?”
Phobos shrugged. “If he’s as prideful as most dragons are, he’d never refuse a challenge from anyone , let alone a pony .”
“He did seem pretty snooty,” Aeros affirmed.
“Then it’ll definitely work.”
Aeros looked down at him in wonder, then reached up and roughly mussed his hair.
“Look at you, giving me advice. You’re the best little brother I’ve ever had.”
“Hey!” Phobos objected, knocking the attacking hoof away. “I won’t be little for much longer.”
I learned...
“After two weeks of sieging, nine had been lost, but the ranks of the Brotherhood showed no signs of breaking. It was decided that a more subtle approach should be tried. Ago asked for a volunteer to infiltrate the fortress and subdue Volun. Trada, Volun’s old mate, was the first to offer herself for the task.
“Ago knew that Trada still loved Volun, and would try to turn him, or be turned herself, before any attempt at capture would be made - a foolish endeavor. All the same, he accepted her offer. He gave to her a necklace, saying that it would help her remain hidden on her journey. She took it, and was soon away to the Vallis Silentii.
“Tela watched Trada’s journey, and when she judged the time was right, Ago activated the necklace, which carried a Rune of Unbinding. In only a few moments, the fortress had collapsed, and with it, the morale of the Brotherhood; the few of them that remained scattered.
“When the field had been cleared, Volun and Trada were dug out of the rubble and taken back to Olympus - both gravely injured, but neither dead. Trada, having committed no true crime, was pardoned unanimously. Volun was banished into Tartarus, marking the 19th casting of the Rite of the Os Tenebris.
“The remnants of the Brotherhood regrouped under Volun’s second-in-command and Bearer of the Phylactery, Sombra. Sombra himself was incredibly powerful, but without the firm, calculating hoof of Volun to guide their forces, the Brotherhood lost in every conflict that followed. Finally, in the Battle of the Shifting Desert, Sombra was cornered by Ascia, and cast himself down into a nearby canyon. When the gully was searched after the battle, the Phylactery was found and moved to the Armarium, but no trace of Sombra remained. He has not been seen since.”
Lexus closed the book with a decisive thwp . Phobos opened his eyes, and, as had become their tradition, the questioning began.
“What did it mean when it said Trada committed no ‘true’ crime?”
The librarian thought for a moment, then burst out laughing when he remembered.
“Ah, yes, it - heh - they w-w-would leave that part out, wouldn’t they. Ah, Tela actually let Volun and... Trada finish, ah... conceiving before she g-gave Ago the signal.”
Phobos’ eyes widened in shock. “No!”
“Oh, yes.”
“And she was... watching the whole time?” Phobos almost gagged at the thought. No amount of biology lessons from Hippocrates had been able to prepare him for accidentally walking in on Bellic and Serena several moons ago - although, thankfully, they hadn’t seen him. He had had a very, very long sympathy session with Aeros the next time he had seen him.
Lexus chuckled again. “P-perhaps.”
“Why would they be... conceiving , anyway? I would think that one might have different priorities on a mission like that.”
“It w-wasn’t Trada’s fault, really - sh-sh-she had been one of Volun’s earliest v-v-victims - his p-p-power over her was nigh unb-breakable.”
“Then why did they allow her to go at all?”
“B-because Ago knew that Volun w-was arrogant, and w-w-would let down his guard. The rune would have b-b-been discovered on any other b-bearer. B-besides, some good c-c-came out of it - the child of that night was your g-g-grandfather, Seraphii.”
This time, Phobos was less shocked than surprised. “Really?”
Lexus nodded. “Mmm. And w-w-without him, when the Coven first attacked... well, who kn-n-n-knows what might have hap-p-pened?”
And, most importantly, I made mistakes.
Phobos loved spending time with Flora. He wasn’t quite sure why - after all, watering flowers and picking fruits was no more exciting than learning history, or seeing Aeros and Ignus berate each other, or watching Sanarus conduct his esoteric magical experiments. Then again, perhaps that was exactly the reason. Sometimes, it was nice to step away from the knowledge and the fighting and the history, and simply enjoy the sunlight, and the company of the second-youngest alicorn he knew.
Whenever he wasn’t otherwise occupied flying, or reading, or straining to lift a pebble with his mind in the hopes that his unapparent magic would suddenly awaken, he would fly down to the Gardens and help however he could. Even though the garden tools had been designed to be used magically, one could use them with only the mouth and hooves if they put a bit of effort into it, and he had plenty of effort to spare.
On this particular day, the two of them were watering the more moisture-sensitive and protected herbs in preparation for next week, when Terra and Aqua would be helping them with the harvest. Flora planned to be keeping a barrier erected over her hut and the surrounding planter boxes, just in case things got a bit messy - and when Terra and Aqua were involved, they frequently did.
“You know,” said Flora, floating her watering can to a new patch of mint. “I don’t think I’ve ever properly thanked you for all the help you give me.”
Phobos was caught off guard. He tilted back the watering can strapped between his hooves to stop the flow, and looked at her curiously. “You don’t need to. I mean, what else would I be doing?”
Flora blushed slightly, and lowered the spout of her own can. “Well, I suppose, but... It means a lot to me. Terra, and Aqua, and Aeros - they do as much as they can, but they’re almost never around, and they have so much bigger things to take care of. I’ve been doing this all by myself for so long, I’d forgotten how nice it is to have a...” She chuckled. “Well, an almost -full-time assistant.”
“Oh?” said Phobos, his interest piqued. He moved over to a closer box filled with needleweed, a long, sharp, fibrous plant. “Who would help you before?”
I was just making conversation. I didn’t expect anything more than another one of her amusing anecdotes. “Ignus tried once, but he almost burned the place down!” “Aeros kept blowing the leaves off!” But even a grave answer about Gaia helping to tend the fields before her death would have been preferable to the answer I received.
Flora looked at him strangely, as if gazing through a blatant hole in his memory.
“Why, Fauna, of course.”
It was the first time I had heard the name, but it certainly wouldn’t be the last.
“Who?” he asked simply.
A look of realization slowly crept across her face.
“Oh…”
“What?”
“Of course you don’t know. I’m sorry, it’s just -” She sighed heavily. “It’s been so long.”
Her eyes fell to the ground, and she laid down her can, her chartreuse magic fading. After a few more moments of silent contemplation, she sighed again, and sat back on her haunches, all sense of work lost in a flood of memories.
“Fauna... is my brother.”
Phobos’ jaw dropped in surprise. “You have a brother?” He knew that Oranos had five daughters, but he had never heard of any son.
“...Not by blood,” she admitted. “But we were born around the same time, and we looked very similar, and... well, you know. Flüra, Faahra ; we were twined, even if we didn’t know it.” Her eyes began to glisten. “He
Ԁlɐuʇ' ∀uıɯɐl
“...What happened to him?”
“He left,” she all-but-whispered.
Phobos jumped as though she had shouted it at him. “Left ?”
Flora simply nodded.
That, Phobos had not expected. He could have handled death, or kidnapping, or mysterious disappearance, or any other sort of morbid tale - but somehow, a pony choosing to leave the City was worse than any of them, by far. “...Why?” was the only question there was to ask, and he asked it.
She wiped a stray tear from her eye. “One day, when we were in the Garden, Bellic came, and asked Fauna to join the... I don’t know what they call themselves. The hunting party - Aeros, and Ignus, and... a few others, at the time, I think. But Fauna refused.”
She smiled at him grimly. “Well, you and I both know that Bellic doesn’t accept refusal. He... insisted - but still, Fauna said no. They started arguing, and neither of them gave any ground. It grew, and grew, until they were all but yelling at each other, about the... morality of the situation. Fauna said that what we do... what we are , what we represent ... isn’t right . He said that the world deserved to be free, and make its own choices, and not be ruled over by ‘ponies that think they know better.’
“Bellic asked if he cared about those who had come before him, and sacrificed themselves to keep him and the rest of us safe. But Fauna just said, ‘It’s not real safety if you don’t have a choice.’ Well, that sent Bellic flying off the handle. ‘Fine,’ he said, ‘Have a choice. Stay here with the rest of your kind, and help them do what they’re meant to; or leave, and never come back.’” A pair of small drops ran down each side of her face, and her voice began to waver. “So he left, right then. I watched him disappear over the wall. He never even said goodbye.”
She shut her eyes, letting the thin trails of tears exhaust themselves.
It didn’t take long - she had done all of her crying years ago.
After a few moments, she rubbed the at the streaks with the back of her hoof, and sniffed - and then, she seemed to realize something.
“Actually... in a way, he did.” She turned to Phobos. “Have you ever noticed that there are no animals in Olympus? No squirrels, or birds, or bees, or worms?”
Phobos nodded. He had certainly noticed it, especially after his trips out of the shield, but he had never put much thought into it. It was just the way things were.
“That was Fauna’s doing. He...” She shook her head, and looked away. “‘Cursed’ isn’t the right word, but it may as well have been a curse. He carved his own words into the Eminstones, in just the right places, so that any ground within them would drive away all animal life. That’s what I was talking to the trees about, the day we met. The orchard is alright - they have me to take care of them - but they can hear the cries of the forest outside. Flowers, with no bees to feast on their pollen - bushes, with no mice to spread their seeds. I never understood why he did it, before, but... I think it was his way of proving his point. Either we had to let the land be free, or watch it slowly wither beneath our hooves.”
They were both silent for a time, lost in contemplation and remembrance. Phobos had had no idea it was possible to modify the Eminstones that way. Then, Flora glanced over at him, and her expression quickly turned to one of horror.
“Phobos, the water!”
He looked down. He had had his watering can tilted forward at the start of the story, and had forgotten about it. Now, the planter was almost overflowing, and the long, straight needleweeds were slowly drooping sideways.
“Ah!” Phobos quickly backed away. “Oh no, I – will they be alright?”
Flora was already up and bent over the box, using her magic to sweep as much of the water as she could into the grass. The rest quickly sank into the moist, bloated soil. She looked up at his panicked face, and couldn’t help but chuckle through her drying tears.
“Don’t worry,” she said, smiling. “I’ll get Aqua to help me with them when she comes back. They’ll have to be harvested a few days late, at worst. Hippocrates can survive without his fresh needleweeds. I’ve never seen him use them, anyway.”
It’s funny, isn’t it? How some of the smallest things can do so much. The drifting spark that ignites the forest. The loose pebble that starts the avalanche. The butterfly that flaps its wings, and spawns storms on the other side of the world.
The plant that drinks just a bit too much water, a few days too early, and begins to unravel everything.
“He didn’t!” Flora cried in disbelief.
“He did!” Aqua giggled.
“Right in front of—?” Phobos started to ask.
“—of Serena AND Gaia!” Terra finished.
The four of them burst into laughter for what must have been the hundredth time that day. The sun was now just touching down on the distant hills, flooding the sky with fiery orange light. The outer walls had thrown the City into premature evening. The Castle, and the few other buildings that still stood taller than the walls, seemed to float like lanterns.
“You had better not tell him I told you, though,” Aqua said with mock sternness.
Flora just rolled her eyes. “I don’t think the Old Speech even has the right words.”
This elicited a second round of giggles, and they walked on. Three of them did, anyway. Terra happened to glance out over the wall, and stopped dead in her tracks. Phobos was the first to notice their missing member, and turned to look at her curiously.
“Terra?”
Silently, she pointed. The others followed her gaze.
At first, they couldn’t see what she was looking at - but then, as a cloud drifted out of the way, a small speck became visible in the distance, dark against the burning sky.
“...What is that?” Flora asked rhetorically, shielding her eyes with one hoof.
They watched as the speck grew infinitesimally larger. Wings became visible, flapping on its sides, and then a horn. Aeros, perhaps? No, it was too large to be a single pony - and sure enough, a second head and horn became apparent, next to the first. Most worrying of all, they began to hear a high-pitched whistling noise - the kind that Phobos had only ever heard when he had asked Aeros to prove that he could, in fact, fly faster than sound.
The figures appeared to be headed towards the main gate. The four of them glanced at each other worldlessly, and ran to intercept.
The whistling slowly grew into an unearthly shriek, then ended in an earth-shattering boom . Bellic and Aeros landed with the force of a meteorite, their wings laid over each other, their eight legs galloping as one, and a large, dark bundle draped across their backs. They didn’t pause to explain, transitioning straight from their supersonic flight into a mad stampede towards the Castle. Between their dust trail and the blinding silver light of Aeros’ horn, Phobos couldn’t make out what the bundle they carried between them was. His only clue was the trail of dark splatters they were leaving on the road behind them.
There was no Ignus. As Phobos realized this, his heart began to race, and he pounded after the pair as fast as he could. The sound of hooves told him that the others were following.
“Someone get Hippocrates!” he yelled, desperately. He heard wings flap, but didn’t bother looking to see which of the three sisters had broken off and taken flight. As they entered the foyer, they slowed to a walk, and took in what lay before them.
It was not comforting.
The few torches that were lit inside the spire served only to throw taunting, menacing shadows in every direction, dancing around the feet of the great statues. The statues themselves, the heroes and leaders of the ages - Aedifex, Emine, Astra, Lacuna, Hastam, and dozens of others - their stony eyes seemed to look down on the scene with a disheartening mixture of curiosity and disappointment.
Aeros lay slumped against the Altar, trying to catch his breath - but it sounded as though his breath had been running circles around him for hours. His horn looked like a freshly doused match - blackened, hissing, and smoking. The iron-red stains in his coat and mane made him look like a giant koi fish out of water.
The blood on Bellic’s fur was harder to see against the black, but there was no doubt it was there. He breathed slightly less heavily, but as Phobos met his sapphire eyes, he felt his veins freeze - for the first time in Phobos’ memory, his father looked afraid.
Between the two, strewn like a doll across the marble slab, and completing the grim trifecta, was Ignus. His fiery hair hung straight and limp. The pupils of his eyes were contracted into almost-nonexistent points, staring into an unseen distance. His breath was ragged, labored, and sporadic, and from a long, deep gash in his side, blood bubbled freely, jubilantly forth, brightening his maroon fur, and pooling beneath him on the black stone. He had only just been placed there moments ago, but drops and rivulets were already beginning to spill down the sides, like red rain on a darkened window.
Aqua hissed some colorful profanity under her breath, but to Phobos, it sounded muffled and distant, as though she were speaking through water. Flora was speechless, holding a hoof to her mouth in shock. Phobos himself felt like there was no air in his lungs, but he forced himself to speak.
“...What happened?”
Bellic seemed to ignore the question. “Get Hippocrates,” he said, brusquely.
“He’s on his way,” said Terra, drifting down from the floors above. When she landed, and saw what lay before her, her eyes widened in horror. “Fabricator mea ...”
“What happened?” Phobos asked again, more forcefully this time.
Bellic simply shook his head, and turned to look at his dying son. As if in response, Ignus let out a long, rasping gasp.
Phobos was now more irritated than fearful, as his father’s erratic behavior was often wont to do. “Why are you ignoring me?” he shouted angrily. “I want to know what’s happened to him - he’s my brother!”
“Phobos...” Terra began to caution - but it was too late.
“AND HE IS MY SON!” Bellic exploded, suddenly furious. “He means more to me than he ever will to you, and today, he fell before my eyes! I have no desire to recount it more than once!”
“I’m your son too !” Phobos cried out, sounding, even to himself, like a wounded animal. “Do I not mean the same?”
Bellic scowled darkly, and opened his mouth to reply.
Sometimes, I wish I knew what Bellic was going to say then, and I wonder if I might have run away, just like Fauna - but Hippocrates always had impeccable timing when it came to me and my father.
“What’s going on?” Hippocrates said, descending from above like an angel. He floated a large bundle that seemed to contain the entire contents of his medicine cabinet off of his back, and set it on the ground next to him.
Bellic looked at him, then back at Phobos. He narrowed his sapphire eyes, and the message was as clear as if it had been written in fire - ‘We’ll finish this later.’ Then, he snorted, and turned to face the doctor.
“Daruun knew that we were following him,” he said. “He led us into an ambush.”
As Bellic spoke, Hippocrates bent down over Ignus and squinted at the wound, examining it carefully.
“He had two gryphons, five goats, and a manticore. Ignus was separated from us during the fighting. We had killed three of the goats when they retreated, and we found him like this. We tried everything we could to staunch the bleeding, but nothing seemed to work.”
“I can see why,” Hippocrates murmured. He looked up at Bellic with a strange, warning gaze. “This wasn’t done by any Covenite. This is a harmonic wound.”
The world stood still as the import of the doctor’s words sank in. The Coven were chaos mages. It was impossible for them to use harmonic magic. Ignus broke the silence with a rough, red, phlegm-filled cough.
“No,” said Bellic, taking a step backwards. Confusion and realization were swirling in his eyes. “No, that’s -”
“Entirely possible, as we’ve feared for some time. Flora?”
Flora had been standing paralyzed since she had entered, but at her name, she jumped to attention.
“Yes?”
“The harvest was today, correct?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Bring me all the needleweed you have.” With that, he turned back to his patient, unwrapped his bundle, and began floating out dozens of leaves and tufts of moss.
“Oh, no,” Phobos tried to moan, but his throat had clenched itself shut, and all he produced was a quiet, squeaking cry that nopony noticed.
Flora nodded, and dashed off towards the nearest archway - but halfway there, she skidded to a halt when she had the same realization Phobos had had. The needleweeds had been drowned. They wouldn’t be ready for a few more days - and perhaps Hippocrates could survive without them, but now, somepony else could not.
Phobos watched her stand perfectly still for several seconds. He could almost hear the gears in her head jamming, crashing, and popping out of place. Eventually, Hippocrates noticed as well, and paused halfway through grinding up some kind of paste with his floating, blue-glowing mortar and pestle.
“What are you waiting for?” he asked, irritated.
Slowly, Flora turned around. Her smooth, pearly features were creased with distress.
“The... the needleweeds... they...” She bit her lip and glanced furtively at Phobos. “I... I overwatered them, by accident. They’re not...” She couldn’t bring herself to finish, and hung her head shamefully.
Hippocrates stared at her blankly, as though his brain refused to accept the words his ears had given it. Slowly, he pulled out a single stalk of the needleweed he had in his stores - a long, thin, pointed strip of reed - and bent it, gently. Phobos flinched involuntarily as it snapped cleanly in half, like a twig left out in the desert to dry. Hippocrates looked at the pieces with dismal curiosity, then closed his eyes, and let out a breath that seemed to carry all the weight of every life he had ever failed to save.
“If I had had more time, there would be more I could do,” he said quietly, turning back to the dying pony on the Altar. “But as it is, I doubt he’ll make the dawn.”
“Stupid!” Phobos yelled at himself for the dozenth time. The walls bounced the insult back at him.
Flora sat watching him from the edge of his room, her face etched with worry. He looked like some kind of malfunctioning automaton, walking the same circle of floor over and over again at breakneck speeds. She had been trying her best to soothe him, but so far, nothing had worked.
“Phobos, it’s not your fault.”
“Yes, it is! You know it is! I’m the one that wasn’t paying attention.”
“I’m the one that distracted you.”
“I’m the one that asked !” He paused his pacing to howl in frustration, then stomped onwards. “Why did you lie to them? Why did you protect me?”
Flora lowered her head, and a cherry blossom dislodged itself from her mane, drifting down to the floor. “They can’t forbid me from the Garden, but they could have forbidden you. And...” Her voice dropped to a murmur, and she averted her eyes. “...I would have missed you.”
Phobos stopped so fast that he nearly tripped over himself. He looked at her in surprise, and felt his rage drain away. It was hard to tell in the torchlight, but it seemed like she was blushing.
“...Oh.” He turned away, feeling his own cheeks growing warm as well.
For a while, they were both silent, lost in contemplation. Phobos swore he could still hear the sparse and retching coughs of his brother far below, echoing through the halls. Eventually, he sighed, and sat down.
“There has to be something we can do,” he said, staring intently at the floor.
Flora let out a small sad laugh. “Like what?”
“Well -” His eyes widened in realization, and he barely resisted the urge to punch himself in the face. “Needleweed grows in the wild somewhere , right?”
She raised an eyebrow. “Yes, of course.”
“On Congeria, or Praestans?”
“Congeria.”
His questions grew faster.
“Is it in season?”
“...Yes, it should be.”
“What region?”
“...Ours, I think.”
“In what sort of habitat?”
“Um... near water, but not too close to it... it likes to grow on the roots of other plants, like trees and bushes...”
“Do you think any grows by the Glowing Lake?”
She looked at him curiously. “The what?”
“Sorry. The Ardenslacus. Does any grow by the Ardenslacus?”
“Oh.” She thought for a moment. “...Yes, probably.”
“Right.” He nodded solemnly, and gazed out the archway towards the star-filled sky beyond.
“...Phobos?” Flora asked cautiously. Something in the back of her brain told her that his steely, determined expression, combined with his recent line of questioning, was not going to result in anything good.
“I’ll be back in a few hours.” He stood up and strode towards the balcony, unfurling his wings. “If anyone asks where I am, tell them... tell them I went to the library to look for an alternate treatment.”
“Phobos!” She scrambled to her hooves and grabbed at his wing. “You can’t go out there alone, at night! It’s too dangerous!”
He stopped, and looked back at her sadly. “I have to. This is my fault. I need to fix this, or at least try.”
Her eyes frantically searched his face, as though somewhere in his fur she could find the words that would keep him from leaving. Eventually, she gave up, and simply threw her forelegs around his neck.
“Be safe,” she whispered.
He gave her a gentle squeeze in return, and she reluctantly let go. Then he turned, walked out onto the balcony, leapt into the air, and was lost to the blackness.
It took Phobos a few minutes to figure out which direction to go in - he had only been to the Glowing Lake a few times, and the Borrasylva seemed much larger when you were actively looking for something amidst the endless sea of trees. Some part of his mind that was still feeling chipper pointed out that it should really be easier than this to find a giant, glowing lake at night, but the rest of him didn’t find it as funny.
After a long while, he saw a faint glimmer on the horizon, like the pinprick of a lantern in an early-morning fog. He winged towards it, and couldn’t help but sigh in relief as it slowly grew into the round, shining shape of the Ardenslacus, glowing like a second moon in a mirrored, starless sky.
He dove down quickly, landing on the only stretch of shoreline clear of plant life - the beach he, his mother, and the earthly sisters had come to, all those years ago. Besides the fact that everything seemed shorter now, it looked just as he remembered it. The ferns, fronds raised in reverence - the willows, branches hanging in solemn prayer - the smooth, shimmering, crystalline water - the bright blue light that invaded every crevice, and made everything look somehow unreal, like they were merely specters of themselves. The taste of songberries danced idly across the back of his mind, but he quickly pushed the thought aside. This trip was business, not pleasure.
He began to search, working his way behind the brush along the coast. The light of the lake made it difficult for his eyes to adjust to the shadows - he was forced to move slowly, poking at the ground ahead with his hooves to avoid falling over every protruding root in his path. Even so, he stumbled more than a few times, and the branches and thorns that whipped and tore at his head and chest made things no easier.
He found raspberries, fennel, and brilliant, blooming moonflowers. He tripped over basil, mint, and creeping wisteria. He plowed through dandelions, stepped over bloodmoss, and whisked past a dozen other kinds of plants he didn’t even know the names of - but there was no needleweed to be found anywhere.
Eventually, he glanced up at the moon, and his heart skipped a beat. The night was already almost half-gone, and he had barely covered a fifth of the coast. He racked his brain for options. He could try to find somewhere else to look. After all, he didn’t even know if what he was looking for was here, and there must have been other lakes and rivers in the area. But then, he realized that he had no source of light, and would just be crashing into things even more than he already was.
Not only do you not have a lantern, or anything so much as a match, that part of his brain that was responsible for making plans scolded, But even if you find the needleweeds, you don’t have anything to harvest them with!
I’ll chew them off if I have to.
You realize how sharp they are, right?
Completely.
Alright, and how are you carrying them back?
In my mouth.
...Do you rely on your teeth for everything?
I’ve never needed anything else.
Well, don’t come crying back to me when your lips are covered in cuts from nursing a bundle of razor-sharp reeds.
Phobos grumbled at himself, and continued on. He could wrap them in leaves or something. There was no time to go back to Olympus for supplies now. If what he was looking for wasn’t here... well, it had to be. He didn’t want to think about what would -
“Ah!” He let out a gasp of pain as something bit into his right forehoof. He brought the wound to his mouth and sucked on it gently, then looked down to see what had caused it.
He froze. It wasn’t a thorn, or a thistle, or a goathead, or even a particularly sharp rock. It was a long, tall, pointed, reedy plant, standing alone at the edge of a clump of others like it.
Needleweeds. And -
Cut forgotten, he reached out his hoof to gently push at the broad side of the stalk, and watched in amazment as it bent, smoothly and gracefully, almost in half. When he released it, it sprung neatly back into place.
He almost laughed in delight, but drove the urge from his mind. There was no time to celebrate yet - he needed to get these home. He leaned down and wrapped his teeth around the stalk, then carefully began to chew. Once he had one free, he could use it to cut down the rest.
Looking back on this moment, I realized that there were several flaws in my sheltered upbringing.
One was that there were no animals or large bodies of water in Olympus, so I had had very little practice separating the sounds of waves lapping at the shore, and the soft, stalking footfalls of a nocturnal predator.
Another, although it is strange to call such a fact a disadvantage, was that I was not accustomed to pain. I broke my leg once or twice, of course, and dislocated my left hip more times than Hippocrates cared to count, and there was one case where I accidentally unhinged my jaw. But my body was so frail in those early years that such incidents were not really painful, in the proper sense of the word - they were simply inevitable, and, due to the fact that I had lived under the watch of, at the time, the two most powerful healers in the Equestrian plane, such wounds never ended up being worse than mildly inconvenient.
Thirdly - and it is much easier to see this as disadvantageous - was that I didn’t know what it felt like for magic to be drawn from one’s body.
I’ll be very honest - when such a release is involuntary, unexpected, and thought to be impossible, it is an indescribably painful experience.
To say that Phobos screamed would be to say that a tidal wave splashed the shore, or that an usurper’s sword gave the king an uncomfortable prick - they are all technically accurate descriptions, but they do a great disservice to the event they describe.
He let out an unearthly howl - the kind of sound that would have sent shivers down the spines of any pony nearby, had anypony been there to witness it. A white-hot lance of fire shot through his bones, from the base of his horn, down his neck, through his heart, and all the way out to his tail. His vision burned white - every hair in his coat bristled like he had been struck by lightning. His body arched and contorted as though some twisted puppeteer was pulling all of his strings as tightly as they could, just to see what would happen.
It lasted for barely a fraction of a moment, and then it was gone. His legs, robbed of their sudden stiffness, buckled under him, and he collapsed onto the ground. Through the red haze and popping, swimming lights in his vision, the few scattered pieces of his brain that were not being forced to restart themselves processed what they could.
He was on his back. He couldn’t move - or, at the very least, his body was refusing to respond until it had fully assessed the damage. Nearby, something was growling and hissing - something that wasn’t him. His eyes focused blearily ahead, and managed to make out a shape moving in the shadows - long, and dark, and sleek, with bared fangs and glistening claws.
It was recovering much faster than he was - rolling over onto its paws, staggering side-to-side as it struggled to regain its balance. Some idle process began to try to identify what sort of creature it was, but was quickly shut down by instinct. It was a hunter, and it was hunting him . For now, that was all that mattered.
His heart began to quicken as the final report came back from his body. Everything seemed normal. There was no damage anywhere, save for a hot, stinging ring around his neck, just where his golden choker sat. He would have to think about what that meant later.
He pushed himself out of the way just in time to avoid the creature’s next pounce, rolling over the bushes, and splashing into the shallows of the lake. Falteringly, he struggled to his hooves, dripping wet, and turned to face his attacker.
As it stepped through the hole he had made in the veil of brush, and out into the light of the lake, he got a better view of what it was - a chimera. Chimeras were a combination of three creatures. Their front halves were those of a lion, with the head, paws, claws, and fangs that came with it. Their rear halves were those of a goat, including two cloven hooves and a short-horned, slit-eyed, buck-toothed second head that sprouted awkwardly out of their backs. The third piece was their tail, which was, itself, a long, twisting snake, ending in its own head and set of sharp, poisonous fangs.
This chimera was no more than a kit, which, thankfully, meant that it probably couldn’t breathe fire yet. Unfortunately, a ‘young’ chimera was still almost as big as Phobos himself, and this particular chimera had a large, bushy circle of mane around its neck. It was a male, which meant that it wasn’t hunting for food, and couldn’t be scared off. It was defending its territory, and wouldn’t stop until one of them was either gone or dead.
The chimera hissed, roared, and bleated at him all at once, then pounced again, claws extended. Phobos tried to leap sideways and take to the safety of the air, but the weight of his waterlogged fur was far greater than he had expected. His first wing-beat spun him off-balance, and he crashed down sideways into the water.
The chimera was much more accustomed to fighting wet. It landed with a splash, turned smoothly to the side, and leapt again, all in the blink of an eye. Phobos barely had time to roll onto his back, and watch the beast descend on him.
This time, he saw what happened. When the chimera’s claws were only a few inches away from sinking into his chest, an ethereal bubble of light shot out from the gem embedded in the choker on his neck, flinging the creature backwards. With the burst of white came the same searing, electric pain down his entire spine - but this time, his body had known what to expect, and his scream was reduced to an aggravated, teeth-clenching growl.
His mind raced, trying to make sense of the blast. Was his necklace some kind of protective device, like a miniature Eminstone? And if so... was it drawing its power from him ?
Unfortunately, the chimera was also growing used to the necklace’s effects, and it seemed to know that the shield was causing more damage to its owner than it was to it. It twisted gracefully through the air, landed solidly on its feet, and charged once more, tail hissing menacingly.
Phobos scrambled to his hooves, trying to dash out of the shallows, into the air, and away. The chimera was faster, and smashed itself bodily against the shield, no longer bothering to pounce. Phobos heard the attack coming, but despite that, the pain swept his hooves out from under him, and he fell back down to his knees.
Run! Run away! Escape! his mind screamed at him, drowning out any other thoughts. Once more, he stood and tried to run, and once more, the chimera reached him too soon. Bang, bang, bang, again, and again, and again. With every burst of the shield, Phobos could feel himself draining away.
Bang.
He was barely crawling, now, stumbling blindly ahead.
Bang.
He registered that he had reached the edge of the lake, but found, quite curiously, that he could no longer stand. He dug his hooves into the sandy beach and pulled himself forward a few more inches.
Bang.
Blackness began to waver on the edges of his vision. He felt tired. Wasn’t it past midnight? He had woken up before dawn for the harvest, and hadn’t gotten a wink of rest since then.
Bang.
The sand felt soft and inviting beneath his head. Maybe he should take a nap. He could probably deal with all this a lot better after a good night’s sleep. He could even have songberries for breakfast.
If only he could get his rear out of the water. He gave one last, feeble pull at the beach, then let his hooves flop to the ground. Oh, well. He could deal with a cold and pruny hooves. His eyes began to drift closed.
Bang.
Wait. Wasn’t he forgetting something? He felt like he was, but he couldn’t remember it for the life of him. He tried to shrug, and let the thought go. It couldn’t have been too important. He could take care of it in the morning. It’s not like anypony was going to die from a bit of forgetfulness.
Bang.
He really wished those white flashes would stop. They were making it hard to fall asleep.
Just then, another burst of light came, but it was different than the others. It looked... less pure, somehow. More yellow than white. It was much brighter, and lasted much longer. Phobos scrunched his face in discomfort. He had almost decided to try to turn his head around, and see what was causing it, when it suddenly winked out.
He waited. It was silent. There were no more flashes.
Excellent, he thought.
He caught a brief glimpse of a white hoof stepping in front of him before his eyes sealed shut, and he was swallowed by blackness.
Interlude: A Meeting in the Dark
The cave was not very impressive. It was small, cramped, and lit by only a single thin stream of lava that bubbled in the corner - not at all like the wide, open craters that comprised the rest of the Drakeshome. But it was hidden, and it was private, and these two considerations were at the top of the list when it came to activities such as these. The runes that littered the floor and walls had been dark for days, and the figure that lay slumped in the center of their jagged, eldritch spiral had hardly moved since their activation.
Divanad sat staring into the slow, crawling lava, deep in thought. He wasn’t sure if the ritual had worked. It had never failed before - well, failed and left the subject alive , anyway - but the circumstances of this particular casting had, admittedly, been somewhat... different. It certainly looked as though it had succeeded, but until the subject woke up, there would be no way to tell for sure, or to know what “success” in this situation even meant.
He heard clawsteps approaching, echoing along the thin, twisted tunnel that was the cave’s sole entrance. He didn’t bother looking to see who it was - there was only one other dragon that knew which section of wall in the main corridor was actually an illusion, and would be walking down the way behind with so little hesitation. The steps grew clearer, and louder, and then stopped in the entryway, as if awaiting invitation.
“You’re earlier than I expected,” Divanad said, in a voice which he had known others to describe as “as black and rough as coal" - descriptors that, due to ubiquity, were almost meaningless to a dragon. “Were you followed?”
The other snorted, and Divanad saw a flash of disdainful fire at the edge of his vision.
“What do you take me for?” said Daruun. “Of course I was followed.”
Divanad nodded. “Good. Where are they now?”
“Gerrin and his cohorts stopped them at the border.”
Divanad chuckled throatily. “At least that fat old layabout is still good for something.”
He listened as Daruun padded his way over to the figure on the ground, and thought he heard one or two pokes. “How is our guest doing?”
Divanad sighed, and finally turned to look at his son. It was an odd sight, as always - Daruun looked exactly like he had at that age, from his smooth, matte-black scales, to the dark, glowing sigil that adorned his right eye.
“He’s still alive, but that’s about all I can say. Nothing like this has ever been tried before. At best, I’m hoping he’ll be recovered within the month.”
Daruun raised one black, scaly eyebrow. “...You expect me to twiddle my claws in the calderas for a month?”
“Of course not,” Divanad said dismissively. “Just make sure they don’t see you when you leave. Actually...” He tapped a claw on his black, scaly chin, thoughtfully. “Now that I think about it, I wouldn’t mind having grandchildren someday, if you’ve nothing better to do.”
Daruun’s only response was to groan, and plant his face in his claw.
“I believe Vijera’s daughters are all of age now,” Divanad went on. “A wonderful ancestry, that. I’d ask to mate with them myself, were I your age.”
“Father.”
“No pressure, of course. Love comes with time. Besides, you’re only my last living child, and the sole hope for our entire bloodline.”
“Father!”
“Alright, alright.” Divanad threw up his claws in surrender, and went back to staring into the lava. “Forget I said anything.”
There was uncomfortable silence for a few moments, broken only by the deep, sloppy burbling of the lava, and the quiet breathing of the figure on the floor. Then, Daruun spoke, slowly.
“...Vemeli is one of Vijera’s daughters, isn’t she?”
Divanad nodded, but didn’t turn around - he didn’t want his son to see his victorious smile.
“...Do you know if she’s chosen a partner, yet?”
For what seemed like eternity, I dreamed.
I dreamed of nothingness - of silence - of floating on a sea of black.
I was alone, surrounded by whispers.
I was at peace, surrounded by doubts.
Then, I was no longer alone. A piece of the sky floated bright against the darkness, a velvet wave filled with pinpricks of light. I heard a voice next to my ear. A gentle voice - a kindly voice. It said,
“Get up, Phobos. You don’t have much time.”
Gradually, Phobos wavered back into consciousness. The sounds of popping wood and hooves crunching on gravel mixed with an unusual sensation of heat on his side - a warm, comforting tingle. It felt like a...
He carefully opened one eye, then slammed it shut against the sudden orange glow. A fire.
...A fire?
Slowly, he lifted his head, and looked around. The lake was a hoofful of paces away. A small pool of orange light surrounded a small, crackling campfire, battling the ubiquitous, alien blue. His fur was still steaming - he couldn’t have been there for long.
He closed his eyes again, this time in concentration, and tried to remember. There had been a beast - a chimera. And his necklace had... he hesitated to say ‘saved him’. He touched a hoof to his neck, and winced as the cold metal of the choker rubbed against the ring of charred, tender flesh beneath. Before the attack, he had been...
Suddenly, it all came flooding back. The needleweeds. Ignus. The dawn. His eyes flung open, and darted to the eastern sky. Foreboding blushes of purple and red were just beginning to peek themselves over the horizon, though whether the light was actually there, or his mind was making him see things, Phobos wasn’t certain. Either way, he had to hurry.
He dug his hooves into the gravel, and tried to stand - but his legs had apparently been less ready than his mind, and they quickly collapsed under him. He toppled forward, cringing as the ground connected with his neck, and dug the gold band there deeper into the burn.
He took a deep breath, and prepared to try again - but then, he felt a hoof place itself on his back. Slowly, he turned his head, and looked into the large, worried, curious lavender eyes of its owner.
She was as beautiful then as she is now, but not in the same way.
Back then, she was not “Princess”, or “Your Majesty”. She was not the Shepherdess of Day and Night, the Guardian of the Weak, the Broken Sun. She was the Unconquered – the Righteous. Her strength was unbridled – her rage, raw and untempered. She was bright, and wild, like a newborn star.
How I wish she could have remained that way.
The pony that stared back at him was one that he had never seen before - but almost instantly, he knew who she was. Her white fur shone like pearls in the moonlight. Her mane, the soft, sweet pink of cherry blossoms, seemed to drift on an unfelt wind. Her eyes were youthful, and bright, but were still weary with age and experience. And on her flank, like a prophecy come true, was a symbol that he had seen many times before, hiding on the edge of the night sky - two concentric circles, with eight thick, curling rays - a fiery, orange-and-yellow sun.
“Celestia,” he heard himself whisper.
She cocked her head at him curiously.
“You know my name?” she asked, and her voice swept over him like a warm summer breeze.
“I’ve... I’ve been told about you, and your sister.” He pointed nervously over the lake, to where he knew that, even now, the proof of her existence lay hidden behind the trees.
“By whom?”
“By my mother.” After a moment’s pause and a raised eyebrow, he added, “Serena.”
“Another Son of Peace?” Celestia smiled, apparently amused. “How many does that make now?”
“Three,” Phobos said - though for some reason, the number ‘four’ nagged at the back of his mind.
She looked surprised by his answer, but then seemed to remember something, and nodded.
“Of course,” she said. “What’s your name?”
“Phobos.”
“Phobos?” Again, her eyebrow climbed. “An... interesting title.”
Phobos shrugged. “It’s the one I was given.”
“...Indeed.” Her eyes flickered briefly down to the circlet around his neck, then returned. “How old are you?”
“Twelve, last month.”
“And... how many are left?”
“In the City?”
She nodded.
He closed his eyes for a moment, thinking. He had never had to count their numbers before.
“...Fourteen,” he answered eventually.
Her eyes went wide with panic.
“Fourteen?! ” she exclaimed. “Who?!”
“Well... there’s me, and Bellic, and Serena, and Ignus and Aeros, and Hippocrates, Sanarus... uh, and Terra, Aqua, and Flora...” At these names, her features softened somewhat, but her brow was still creased with worry. “...Oranos, Lexus... Dissimula... and Procere.”
Her eyes fell to the ground, and a very familiar look came over her face. The kind of look that every pony he knew seemed to have when they thought about days long gone - a chilling mixture of nostalgia and melancholy.
“...There were sixty-seven, when I left.” She sat down slowly, her haunches landing on the sand with a soft wumph .
Now, it was Phobos’ turn to be shocked.
“Sixty-seven?! ”
She simply nodded.
If Phobos hadn’t already been on his belly, he would have sunk to the ground as well. Sixty-seven... that was nearly five times fourteen. Just how long had she been gone?
“What... happened to Gaia?” she asked eventually.
“Gaia? Oh - right. Your mother.” He thought for a moment. “I... don’t know. I think she died before I was born.”
“...and Fauna?”
Phobos was taken aback by this query - but he supposed that, perhaps, Fauna had been like a brother to more than one of Oranos’ daughters.
“He... left.” Her ears perked up, but he shook his head preemptively. “I’ve only heard about it second-hand - Flora would be the best one to tell you, when you come back.”
“...I see,” she said - but the sadness shimmering in her eyes said something else entirely.
“You... are coming back, right?” The question seemed obvious - of course she was, why else would she be this close? - but for some reason, he felt it needed to be asked.
“...Eventually.” She turned, and gazed out over the lake. “I’ll... need some time to prepare myself. It seems I’ve been gone for longer than I thought.”
A particularly violent pop of sparks from the campfire seemed to snap Celestia out of her stupor. She shook the fog from her head, and looked to him once more.
“What were you doing out here, anyway?”
Sighing in exasperation, his mind once again pushed the memories forward, chiding him for letting his urgency dissipate so quickly.
“Oh!” he exclaimed, his eyes shooting up to the moon. He grunted as he struggled to his hooves, and tried to move forward. After a few stumbling, faltering steps, he stopped, and settled for just staying standing. “There’s, uh... there’s a cluster of needleweeds, over by that break in the bushes.” He gestured with his head. “I came out here to get them.”
Celestia appeared to take pity on his wobbling legs. She stood up, and walked along the beach towards the plants in question.
“Why would you come all the way out here, alone, at night, for needleweeds?” she asked. “Doesn’t Flora grow them?”
“Well... yes,” Phobos answered, blushing slightly. Thankfully, the shadows covered up his embarrassment. “But I help Flora with her work, sometimes, and... I over-watered them. They couldn’t be harvested in time.”
Celestia chuckled slightly as she began to pluck the reeds with a bright, yellow glow. “I hardly think it’s worth this much trouble just to fix a mistake like that.”
“It wouldn’t have been. But earlier today -” He glanced up at the moon once more. “Well, yesterday, now - Bellic and Aeros came rushing back to the city carrying Ignus. Hippocrates said he needed needleweeds to treat the wound properly, and that without them, Ignus would die.” He hung his head. “And...”
“And it was your fault,” Celestia said quietly. She turned to look at him, a sad smile playing on her muzzle. “I know that feeling.”
With a final flourish of magic, she plucked a large leaf from a nearby fern, wrapped it around the bunch of reeds, and tied the arrangement off with a thin, leafy willow branch. She walked back along the beach, floating the bundle before her.
“Here,” she said, setting it down in front of him. “If that’s not enough, he’s beyond saving anyway.”
“...Thank you. But...” He gave a small laugh. “I don’t think I can even walk, let alone fly.”
She simply nodded, lowered her head, and placed the tip of her horn against his chest.
Phobos shivered as a wave of energy washed through him. His ears buzzed like a hive of bees - every hair of his fur stood on end, and his knees felt all at once weak, and stronger than they had ever been.
If the draining of the necklace had been pain, this was the exact opposite. The lifeforce of another being flowing through me - refilling me - revitalizing me. And not just any other - Celestia, the Light of Day, the Rising Sun. Her light shone through me like a raging flood through a stagnant pool, clearing away all the detritus of disuse - the fear, the doubt, the twists and knots.
It was the most intimate thing I had ever experienced. Had I not already been enamored with her, it would have easily made it so - as it was, it only dug me deeper.
After a few moments, she pulled back, the yellow glow of her horn fading.
Carefully, Phobos unfurled his wings, testing their strength. The muscles reported back smartly: Feathers straight, bones solid - all systems ready for launch.
“...Thank you,” he said again, lost for any other words. He straightened out his crooked stance, and bowed respectfully. “I... look forward to your return.”
Celestia smiled, and gave a half-hearted laugh. “Don’t await it too eagerly. I still have to tell Luna. She’s... somewhere out here.” Her gaze turned upwards, as though searching among the stars for their absent master.
Phobos bowed again, picked up the bundle of reeds in his mouth, and turned towards the City. As he crouched down and spread his wings, her voice came once more.
“Phobos?”
He looked back. Her eyes were still scanning the sky, but more out of awkwardness than indifference.
“Don’t... tell the others that we’re back, yet. Please. We’ll come when we’re ready, and... I don’t want them to worry.”
How could I refuse?
Phobos nodded, then launched himself out of the light of the lake and the fire and the pony that stood beside them, and up into the night.
He knew that his arrival through the shield had probably been felt, just as his departure had been. Any pony within the shield - well, any pony with magic - could feel the hums and ripples of things coming and going if they were looking for them, and if he knew one thing about anypony in the City, it was that Bellic was always watching.
So he was not surprised to find the silhouette of his father waiting for him outside the Castle gate. He folded his wings and stepped into the pool of light which flowed meekly through the archway. Bellic gave the bundle in his mouth a cursory glance, then silently stepped aside. The way his fiery blue eyes glinted said everything his mouth did not. There would be words, later, and many of them - but for now, something else was more important.
As Phobos approached the Altar, Hippocrates and Sanarus looked up from their patient like matching stone gargoyles. The reeds were snatched from his mouth by an azure glow before he had even set one hoof over the edge of the runescape.
“You should have taken someone with you,” was all Hippocrates had to say as he unwrapped the bundle, flinging the leaf and twig away. He tore the first reed into thin strips, and laid the fibers inside the gash. Then, he began to stitch the wound shut, punching the tips of the reeds through Ignus’ flesh like a needle and thread.
“Hey,” a quiet voice said next to him.
Phobos felt a hoof on his shoulder, and looked up into the warm blue eyes of Sanarus, who smiled at him comfortingly. Whatever those two say to you, that smile silently said, you did well. Remember that. The healer pulled him into an embrace. Phobos gladly accepted, resting his head on Sanarus’ neck. When he pulled away, Sanarus’ muzzle brushed against the necklace, and Phobos flinched involuntarily.
The healer’s brow immediately creased with worry. “Are you hurt?” he asked - but before Phobos could so much as shake his head, Sanarus’ horn was alight.
He shivered at the familiar, creeping, tingling sensation - magic, poking and prodding his body, searching out cut and bruise. The pins and needles crawled across his skin, and slowly coalesced around his neck - around where the choker sat - around the ring of burn beneath.
“Oh my,” Sanarus said, letting his magic fade. He bent down and gently lifted the gold band with one hoof, peering at the skin beneath. “How did this happen?”
Phobos sighed heavily. “I was attacked by a chimera. It turns out my necklace is more than just a trinket.”
The healer’s eyes went wide. “You beat a chimera?”
No. I almost died.
“Yes. Well, the necklace helped a lot.”
“Wow.” Sanarus couldn’t help but laugh. “I have to admit, I never thought you’d be able to do something like that on your own.”
I can’t. Celestia is on her way back, by the way.
Phobos chuckled back. “Neither did I.”
“Well, since you can ,” said a deep, resounding voice behind them. Phobos turned to face his father, who was grinning in an interesting mixture of fury and victory. “I think that, perhaps, you are...” Bellic glanced briefly at Hippocrates, but Phobos didn’t see if the doctor looked back. “...Recovered.”
At that word, something in the pit of his stomach twisted itself into a cold, hard knot. The words that came next were ones he had been dreading since he had been old enough to understand their meaning.
“You begin training tomorrow.”
I am in a land that I have never seen before, walking a well-worn path through a twilit forest. Evil red eyes glint in the shadows between the branches, but a beam of light shines down upon me from above, wrapping me in its warmth. I am safe.
Another pony appears ahead on the path. She is dark, like the night, and her mane is filled with stars. As I approach her, the light from the sky fades, and in the distance, the full moon begins to rise. The light it casts is cold, and weak.
“Who are you?” I ask.
She only giggles in response.
“Please, tell me who you are.”
“You know who I am,” she says.
It’s true - she is familiar, somehow. But her name escapes me. I shake my head. “I’ve forgotten.”
She closes her eye, and when it opens again, the moon is there in its place. She stands behind the horizon, larger than the sky, looking down upon me.
She smiles. “You will remember soon enough.” Then, she turns and walks away, and the moon is gone. I am surrounded by blackness. The red eyes growl threateningly, and approach, circling, growing, multiplying
Suddenly, I remember her name. The world begins to unravel, because it is no longer real.
“Wait!” I yell into the fracturing blackness. “I remember now!”
But it is too late. She is gone, and I am awake - and the day that lies ahead comes rushing back.
“One.”
Down.
“Two.”
Down.
“Three.”
Down.
“Four.”
Down.
“Left.”
Left.
“Right.”
Right.
“Left.”
Left.
“Right.”
Right.
“Switch.”
Phobos dug the tips of his wings into the ground, and tucked his hooves up against his chest, taking the brief respite to try and catch his breath. The dirt beneath him was soft with his sweat, and more dripped from him every moment. He had never known push-ups could be so difficult. Bellic’s exercises looked like a breeze when Ignus and Aeros were doing them, but he had never quite processed that they had been doing them for years.
Bellic circled around him, his chanting somehow managing to be droning and furious all at once. He watched Phobos’ every move, never blinking, never straying, scrutinizing every twitching muscle and misplaced hair.
“One,” he barked.
Down.
“Two.”
Down.
“Three.”
Down.
“Four.”
Down.
“Left.”
Left.
“Left.”
Ri-
“Wrong!”
Phobos gasped in pain as Bellic’s rear hoof connected sharply with his thigh. He toppled sideways, losing the precarious balance he had held on his two rear hooves and right wing.
“Ow,” he grunted, rubbing his flank. “What was that for?”
“There is no room for mistakes and uncertainty,” Bellic growled, continuing his ceaseless march. “Not here, and certainly not on the battlefield. Get up.”
A spark of rebellion flashed in the back of Phobos’ mind, and the rest, long dry, went up like tinder in a wildfire. Slowly, deliberately, he lifted himself to a sitting position, his haunches remaining obstinately on the ground.
Bellic stopped, and shot him a glare fiery enough to melt iron. “I said, get up .”
“Why should I?” Phobos snapped. A part of him deep inside cackled madly, but he thrust it aside - there would be time to relish this later. “What use can I possibly be to you? I don’t have magic - all I have is this necklace. Maybe I can hold my own against a wild beast, but against the Coven? Against the Arcmage Vern, and Gerard the Earthbound? What will I do, throw myself in front of you?”
Bellic’s gaze softened, and for a few moments, the black stallion was silent. Had he finally done it? Had he managed to make his father see reason? That would be something to tell Aeros about. He doubted his brother would even believe him.
“You’re right, of course,” Bellic said thoughtfully. “All you have is that necklace.”
Phobos’ heart clenched, and he looked away nervously. Bellic being calm was about as reassuring as standing in the eye of a hurricane - unnerving quiet, surrounded on all sides by the raging, unavoidable storm. But when Bellic spoke next, it was not a shouted reprimand, nor a snarled rebuke, nor even a spiteful, venom-filled growl. It was simply, “Stay very still.”
Phobos looked up just in time to see his father’s horn light up with a ruby glow. Before he had had time to panic, or even be confused, the beam of magic was rocketing towards him, and he cringed backwards.
Bzshlang!
Gently, he cracked open one eye. He was... still alive, at least. What had the spell done? A stiff breeze gave him the answer, gently stinging his now-exposed burn. He put a hoof to his neck and cast his eyes about, eventually settling on the bent, cracked, smoking remains of his choker, lying on the ground next to him in a shimmering dusting of garnet shards.
He turned back to his father in confusion, but Bellic gave no answer. Instead, he simply tossed over a small rock, and pointed at it.
“Lift it.”
Phobos glanced down at the pebble, then back at his father.
“What?”
“Lift it,” Bellic repeated.
“...With what?” He couldn’t seriously be suggesting -
“With magic.”
He was. “What? But I -”
“LIFT IT!”
Well, it was obvious now - Bellic had finally gone mad. He didn’t have magic - hadn’t had it his whole life. Why would that change just because he had...
He had taken off his necklace.
Phobos looked at the mangled metal once more, and the gold twinkled at him mischievously. Are you thinking what I think you’re thinking? it sparkled.
I just might be, he replied.
Turning back to the rock, he took a deep breath, and focused. He emptied his mind of everything but the pebble, let it fill his vision, blocked out everything but that single piece of gray, speckled stone.
Up, he thought.
The rock didn’t move.
Of course it won’t respond to words, he chided. Silly.
He began to think the meaning of up, the feeling of up, the motion of up. He thought of flight, of wind, and his mind drifted to Aeros and his advice. ‘That’s all flying is, really - you just fall and forget to hit the ground.’ Of course - he couldn’t lift the rock because rocks didn’t float. He had to make it forget that, first.
He tried again. Closing his eyes, he pictured the rock in his mind - its shape, its weight, its texture. He imagined the rock becoming weightless - losing hold of its heaviness, slipping away from its earthiness - rising gently into the air...
The rock wobbled slightly, but he never got the chance to see it. Somewhere in the back of his mind, a dusty, neglected cog had, at long last, been clicked into place. The gates against which the flood had forever been beating cracked, creaked, and burst open, and the electric waters swept him away.
“This is an odd time to be sleeping.”
“Is it?”
I turn to look at the view. The plains beyond the gazebo wave back gaily, and the sun shines brightly in the emerald sky.
I frown, confused. “It seems like a fine time to me.” Her words swim through the air, and pass themselves before my eyes once more, plucking at my attention. “Wait... I’m asleep?”
She gestures towards the field outside. “Have you ever seen purple grass before?”
“...No,” I admit. “But it does make excellent tea.” I nod towards the set of porcelain on the table between us, the violet liquid within steaming gently.
“Oh, most definitely,” she agrees, floating her cup to her lips. She takes a dainty sip, and hums in deep satisfaction. “I’m not usually one for tea, but I make an exception for brews such as this one.”
“Purple?” I ask, grinning.
She laughs. “Imaginary.”
“So I am dreaming?”
“That is what I said.”
I consider this. “But, if I’m dreaming, and I know that I’m dreaming... why aren’t I waking up?”
She opens her mouth to respond, but hesitates. “I’m... not sure. Normally, once a pony finds out that something isn’t real, it deteriorates rather quickly.”
“I think I remember that happening last night. Once I remembered who you were, I realized that I was dreaming, and the dream fell apart.”
“That was actually my fault, for the most part.” She blushes slightly. “Your dream had altered itself to compensate for my presence, so when I left, it became unstable.”
“Still,” I insist. “Something must have changed between then and now.”
“Such as?”
My train of thought slows to a crawl. “...I don’t know.”
“Hm.” Suddenly, her eyes move away from me, and she looks curiously over my shoulder.
I turn in my chair to see what has caught her attention. Behind me is a large iron door, set solidly into empty air. As soon as I lay eyes on it, it swings noiselessly open, revealing the endless black expanse within.
“How long has that been there?” I ask.
“I’m not sure,” she says. “But it would seem that it wants you to enter.”
“...Should I?”
She giggles. “I’ve found that, generally, when a door in a dream invites you inside, it’s best not to question it.”
“I see. Well...” I step down from my chair, and bow to her. “It’s been lovely talking to you. I hope to see you again soon.”
“In your dreams, or in reality?” I hear the slightest hint of distant sadness in her voice, but I think I must be imagining it.
I smile. “Either one is fine with me.”
I turn, and walk through the door, and the world swings shut behind me.
“Phobos?” a distant voice called.
His bleary eyes fluttered open, trying to find the source of the sound.
“Phobos, look at me.”
He looked, and found only two round, pinkish blurs.
“Look at me, Phobos. Focus.”
He was tempted to just go back to sleep - he had been having such a nice dream, after all - but the voice was persistent, coaxing his mind out from under its blankets, and brushing the sand out of his eyes. The blurs slowly resolved into rose-colored irises, staring at him intensely.
“What can you remember?” they asked.
His reply came groggily. “Uh... I was training with Bellic, and... he broke off my necklace, and then -”
“No,” she interjected. “What can you remember ?”
Confused, he looked off into the distance, and thought back.
“You’re right, of course. All you have is that necklace.”
And back.
“And it was your fault. I know that feeling.”
And back.
“Stupid!”
And back.
“You begin training tomorrow.”
And back.
“He left.”
And back...
“And she was... watching the whole time?”
“Where is he staying?”
“You always do that!”
“Quick! Come here!”
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s a door to Tartarus?”
“I didn’t know you liked history.”
“He told me exactly what I’m going to tell you.”
“Yes, I know.”
“‘Fully recovered’ does not mean ‘ready to start training’!”
“Are you sure?”
“He’s very... pale,” Bellic had said, looking down at the weak, disfigured form of his newborn son, twelve years ago.
As the echoes in his head faded, he slowly turned back to the rosy, hooded gaze that watched him. His own eyes were now wide, both with bewildered panic and morbid curiosity.
“...Everything,” he said - and it was true. Every memory, every moment he had ever experienced, was laid out before him like fallen leaves, swirling about in some amaranthine breeze.
Despite the strangeness of his answer, the mare only sighed in relief, and rose to her hooves.
“Good,” she said. “I was afraid Bellic might have broken you.”
“...Broken me?”
She walked through the nearby door, and disappeared from sight.
“Yes,” she yelled back, “by removing the necklace too early - although his method was equally worrying.”
Phobos took a moment to take in his surroundings. He was in a bedroom - or, at the very least, a room which contained a large pile of straw in which he was laying. A line of small windows let in the light of early afternoon. Through the single doorway, he could see a second, larger room with a small balcony. The soft, tinkling sounds of clattering dishes echoed about the space.
The room was far more adorned than most of those in the Castle. Tier after tier of thick wooden shelves lined the cobbled walls, filled with a teetering and jumbled assortment of books, scrolls, candles, delicate brass instruments, odd clay sculptures, glass spheres, rough-cut geodes, and all manner of other esoteric baubles and trinkets.
He was about to ask the mare where he was when she came back through the door. A tray floated on a cloud of pink sparkles before her, carrying a pot and pair of cups that looked like they had seen better days and long since forgotten about them. She set the tray on the ground between them, and sat back down.
“Tea?” she asked.
He shook his head. “No thank you - I just had some.”
She looked at him inquisitively.
He furrowed his brow. “No, wait, I... I just dreamed that I had some.”
“You see?” She began filling their cups. “This is exactly the sort of thing that the necklace was supposed to prevent. If you’re not properly trained when the third eye opens, it becomes difficult to distinguish fact from reality, myth from legend, dream from sleep...”
“Third eye?”
“I was going to wait a few more years to start telling you all this, but I don’t suppose I have much of a choice now.” She took a small sip from her cup, and looked him in the eye. “That necklace has been passed down for thousands of years. It was designed to keep you safe, both from outside forces and from yourself. To that end, it was meant to seal off all of your conscious magic until such a time as you were ready to handle your powers.”
“My... powers?” He had magic? Magic that was so strong that it had needed to be locked away until he was ready for it?
“Phobos,” she said, "you are the 12th seer.”
A leaf fluttered out of the chaos, and floated before him.
“...Is there a 12th seer?” he had asked his mother, many years ago.
Serena had paused, taken slightly aback, then looked down at him warmly, studying his face, his eager, thirsty eyes. For a moment, her gaze had flickered to the moonlit garnet on his neck, but Phobos only saw it because now, he was looking for it.
“Not yet,” she had said before kissing his forehead. “But I know he’ll come eventually.”
“...Oh,” he said.
The mare raised an eyebrow. “I must admit, I expected a bit more than ‘oh’.”
“Sorry, I just...” He tried to piece together an explanation, but found that there was no real way to explain it. It was like he had finally found the proper place for a tiny piece in an enormous puzzle - but instead of giving him a victorious thrill, it only left him feeling like the piece should have been there all along. “I guess it just... seems sort of obvious, looking back on it.”
She smiled, amused. “Retrospective is a good start.”
“But, if I’m the 12th seer,” he continued, “then... you must be Dissimula.”
“Correct.”
“And... that means we’re in the Turris.”
“Three for two. Excellent.”
Phobos couldn’t tell whether Dissimula was mocking him, or was genuinely impressed by his basic inference skills. Her smile was permanent, but so slight as to be almost invisible, hovering halfway out of existence, as though it was here in the now, but also somewhere else entirely.
“So... what happens now?” he asked.
“Now? I’ll have to start teaching you.” Her smile grew a bit larger than usual. “Of course, Bellic isn’t likely to let you go so easily , now that you’re, ah... fully fledged - but I won’t make you negotiate with him on that account. I know even better than you how he can be.”
“Wait... negotiate? Negotiate what?”
“For your time, of course.” She took another sip of her tea. “He’ll want to mold you into what he wants you to be, and I want to mold you into what you need to be -”
Phobos swallowed nervously. He was busy enough as it was with learning, and watering, and spending time with his brothers, without two more ponies fighting to control him.
“- But in the end,” she continued, “you will have to forsake us both, and shape yourself into what you are.”
He looked at her curiously. “And what am I?”
“That’s what I’m here to teach you.”
The freedom in which I had so reveled was torn from me without so much as a moment’s notice. My life was no longer my own. It now belonged to my father, to my new teacher, and, as I gradually became aware, to the universe itself.
The first lesson that I learned was that there is a distinct and undeniable difference between learning, and being taught. To learn is to seek knowledge out - to feast upon that which sparks your appetites, and ignore that which you find to be not to your tastes. It is to wander a garden filled with beauty, be that with or without a guide, and to stop, whenever you wish, to smell the flowers around you.
But to be taught...
To be taught is to have knowledge forced upon you, thrust down your throat, drilled into your skull. To be taught by ponies the likes of Bellic and Dissimula is a fate that I would not wish upon the worst of my enemies - and being what I am, my enemies are many, and grave.
“So,” Phobos said on the first day of his lessons, sitting down next to a low, square table. “How do we begin with this... seering?”
“We don’t,” Dissimula called from an adjacent room. “Not yet.”
He blinked a few times as he tried to find any reason he was here if he was not here to learn. None came to mind.
“What?”
“Before I can teach you how to use the Sight, I must teach you the way in which it must be used.”
She came around the corner, floating a tome several times the size of her head in her rosy haze. The cover looked like it had once been dyed - perhaps even gilded - but now, the leather was cracked and worn, and nearly white from age. As it landed on the table before him, it made a sound like the door of a dungeon being slammed shut, trapping him beneath it.
“This,” she said, with something almost resembling reverence, “is the Legem Visus. It was written by Memini, and is the translation of the words that Faust and Edis themselves carved into the walls of the Legacy.”
“The Legacy?” He had never heard the name before.
“Is not your concern today. Today -” She flipped the book open to its first page. “- your concern is committing the first one-hundred Laws of Sight to memory. I will test you at sundown.”
Phobos’ jaw dropped - surely, she was joking? - but Dissimula’s half-hidden smile betrayed no more than it ever did.
“If you have any questions, I will be in my room.” And with that, she walked back through the archway, laid down on her pile of straw, pulled another book down from a shelf, and began to read.
Phobos stared at her for several moments, expecting - or, perhaps, simply hoping - that she would turn to look at him, laugh at his shocked expression, and admit to her joke. But her eyes did not so much as flicker from the pages before her, and eventually, Phobos resigned himself to his fate.
He looked down at the page, and began to read. His first thought was, Oh no - they each have explanations, too.
The First, and Foremost, which is to never be Forgot:
Ours is not to change, nor to prevent, nor to alter. Ours is to facilitate.
When you look into the unhappened, and a vision throws itself before you, this is not for the purpose of change. If the vision is peaceful, then let it be - such times are to be cherished. But, if the vision is disaster, then no matter the target, or the severity, or the pain it will cause, disaster must strike. All things, good and bad, have a Reason, and these Reasons form the Plan, and if the Plan is rewritten by the hooves of such as us, the consequences are disastrous. But the Plan must sometimes ask us for help, to assist in bringing about what must be, and such is our duty and our charge.
Phobos stopped for a moment, puzzled. So, the job of a seer was to change things... but only those things that would result in nothing changing?
The Second, on the Necessity for Secrecy:
Knowledge held by one is powerful. Knowledge held by many is impotent.
When you See, be as a watchful parent to your Sight. Keep your distance, but do not let it escape. Lead the pieces together, that they may bring about the necessary. Of the most importance is that you do not divulge the visions of your Sight to any but another who understands its Laws, and may help you achieve it properly - and as those Laws are themselves kept safe, this will only be to another who has Seen, or to the Keeper of the Legacy.
There was that word again - 'the Legacy.' And the Legacy had a 'Keeper'... he remembered Lexus mentioning Keepers before - perhaps the librarian would be able to tell him more. He glanced out the window, to the sun which was nowhere near setting, and sighed. Later. Much later.
The Third, on the Inheritance of the Sight...
A thought came to him. The other day, when he had woken in Dissimula’s chambers, he had been able to remember many things in perfect clarity. Instead of memorizing all of these rules, what was to stop him from simply reading through the book once, and then recalling the ones he needed?
“I’ll be able to tell,” Dissimula said.
Phobos jumped in surprise at the timeliness of her retort, and looked up from the tome. She had not so much as turned her head to look at him.
“I was young once too, you know.” She smirked, and flipped to the next page in her own book.
Phobos hung his head. It was going to be a long day.
“What is she teaching you up there?” Bellic growled the next day, gazing up at the Turris.
“So far?” Phobos sighed in no small amount of frustration. “She hasn’t taught me anything . She’s just making me memorize an entire book, page by page.”
His father looked back in surprise. “No magic?”
“Not so much as lifting a speck of dust.”
“Hrm. Leaving it to me then, is she? All the better.” Several small stones floated over from the edges of the arena, bathed in Bellic’s red aura. They began circling the warmaster slowly, like small moons orbiting a malevolent star. “We’ll start with basic defense.”
Before Phobos had time to ask “what do I do first”, a rock separated itself from the belt and streaked towards him, striking him squarely in the forehead.
“Ow!” He staggered backwards, and rubbed the spot gingerly. “What was that for?”
“For you to catch, of course,” Bellic said, floating another rock up casually. Phobos barely managed to hop out of the way as the stone whizzed past where his hoof had been.
“What are you doing?”
“As if I have the time to train you properly.”
Rock after rock flew around Phobos’ dancing hooves, thud ding on dirt, ping ing on stone, and occasionally, whap ping against fur and flesh. He was amazed he wasn’t being hit by more, but he supposed he had playtime with his brothers to thank for that.
“If I had had it my way, you would have been training since birth, like your brothers!” Bellic yelled. “But, since Dissimula and her thrice-damned necklace interfered, we have your entire life to catch up on.”
“And how much - ow! - how much time do you expect to fit it into?”
“As little...”
Ping.
“As...”
Thud.
“Possible!”
Crack.
One of the stones hit Phobos’ knee, and he gasped as a lance of pain shot up his leg. His hoof spasmed outward, caught against the dirt floor of the Assembly Hall, and sent him tumbling onto his back.
For a moment, the sounds of flying rocks ceased, and Phobos though that, perhaps, his father had some small amount of concern for his well-being after all. But when he looked up, he saw a new volley of stones being prepared, and couldn’t help but whimper.
As the assault began anew, Phobos covered his head with his hooves and curled into a ball. Every pebble hit its mark, stinging and cracking against bone and skin. He tried briefly to shield himself with his wings, but the impacts felt even more painful against feathers and phalanges.
“Do something!” Bellic bellowed, never ceasing the pelting. “Are you just going to lie there all day? Catch them! Block them! DO SOMETHING!”
Do what ? What could he do? He had never used magic before in his life - at least, not without blacking out.
But something has used your magic for you.
Of course. The necklace.
Phobos squeezed his eyes even tighter shut, and tried to ignore the pangs and stings of the barrage. He thought back to that night at the lake, and tried to remember the way that the power had flowed out of him - the paths it had taken, the parts inside of him that had squeezed, and torqued, and burst. As he imagined it, energy began flowing up towards his horn - a tingling sensation, as though his veins were filled with scuttling ants. His head began pounding, accompanying his racing heart with its own pulsing, irregular rhythm. When it felt like his skull was about to split open, he grunted, and pushed.
The power burst forth from him in a mighty wave, knocking a few stone out of the air, and sending the ones scattered on the ground around him flying. His muscles clenched and spasmed, and he gasped, both in pain and ecstatic excitement. He had done it! He had done... well, something!
Slowly, he lifted his hooves from his eyes, and found his father staring at him intently.
“Well done,” Bellic said. He floated another rock up from the ground, and grinned menacingly. “Again.”
“Thirty-seven,” Dissimula prodded, pacing a circle around him.
“Uh... ‘Do not act on the implications of a sight,’” Phobos recited hesitantly. “‘Act only on its meaning.’”
She nodded. “Good. Six.”
“‘A few words in the right place can carry more strength than a hundred armies.’”
“‘Eighteen.’”
“‘All you see must come to pass, but... but not all that comes to pass will you see.’”
“Ninety-four.”
“Uh... um...” Ninety-four... what was ninety-four? ‘There’... ‘There will’... or did it start with a ‘When’?
Dissimula’s hoofsteps ceased somewhere behind him. Phobos could almost feel her rosy eyes drilling into the back of his skull. When she spoke, her voice sounded cold - almost alien.
“‘There will be those who stand in the way of your Sight, and would bring it to ruin, whether by action or ignorance. If, and when, these individuals appear, and they cannot be distracted or persuaded away -’”
“‘...they must not be suffered to live,’” Phobos murmured darkly. He shivered as the words left his mouth. There were only a few ponies left that could bring anything to ‘ruin’, and he couldn’t imagine himself killing any of them.
“I know it seems terrible to consider,” Dissimula said, coming around to look him in the eye. “But it will most likely never come to pass. The last time a seer needed to remove an obstacle to the Plan was almost a thousand years ago, when Heus killed Salebra.”
“‘Obstacle’?” Phobos spat. “Those ‘obstacles’ are ponies . How can you talk about them that way?”
Dissimula was unperturbed. “I understand your concern - I once thought the same thing. But soon, you will come to understand that there are some things which are more important than lives.”
“Today,” Bellic said, “we will be working on off ensive magic.”
Phobos breathed a sigh of relief. For once, a session where he wouldn’t be having things thrown at his face.
“Have you been practicing, like I asked?”
“Yeah, of course,” Phobos said half-truthfully - he had certainly been practicing, but not in the way his father had asked.
“Good.”
Bellic lifted up a large rock with his magic, but instead of throwing it at his son like usual, he floated it over towards the center of the arena, and held it there, hovering in place.
“Show me.”
Here goes, thought Phobos nervously.
He closed his eyes, and concentrated. It was actually fairly easy - albeit, very tiring - to create pure bursts of magic, like he had on his first day of ‘training’. The difficult part was focusing those bursts down into beams that could be aimed and targeted. “Shields are well and good,” his father had said, “but they are of little use if you cannot also retaliate.”
Phobos took a few deep breaths, and with each breath in, drew a little bit of magic up to the base of his horn. Aeros had told him that it was very important to learn to control the flow of his power, and not simply break the floodgates open - because once you had opened those gates all the way, it was difficult to close them again until most of the magic within was gone.
When he thought he had enough for several shots, he held his breath, opened his eyes, and fired.
The edge of the rock sizzled smokily.
“Hm,” grunted Bellic, sounding less than pleased. “A decent beam form, at least. Again.”
Phobos shifted slightly to the left and fired again. This time, the beam hit directly in the center of the rock, breaking off a few small bits of gravel.
“Good.” The rock retreated several feet. “Again.”
With every hit Phobos landed, the target grew farther and farther away, but his accuracy, surprisingly even to himself, remained about the same. It was less about directing the beam to a certain point, and more about pointing the beam in a certain direction - less the jab of a spear, and more the nocking of an arrow. Phobos felt a bit giddy as bolt after bolt struck the distant stone. He was catching up on his years so quickly - faster, he was sure, than even his father had anticipated.
“From the left!” Bellic suddenly yelled.
Distracted, Phobos turned right to look at Bellic quizzically, just before the part of his brain responsible for anticipating danger figured out that there was probably something coming from the left. By the time he had whipped his head back around, it was too late, and the stealthy pebble struck him soundly on the nose.
“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” Bellic said shortly. The stone target quickly floated back to where it had been at the start of the lesson. “From the beginning.”
“What are the three aspects of the Sight?” Dissimula asked, once more pacing around him.
“Foresight, latsight, and hindsight,” Phobos recited.
“Which is the most difficult?”
“Foresight.”
“Which is?”
“The seeing ahead, of things yet to come.”
“Why is it most difficult?”
“Because seeing the unformed future is like seeing the statue within a stone. It is an art more than a science, and like any art, the inspiration and ability can ebb and wane unless properly disciplined.”
“Good. What, then, is next?”
“Latsight.”
“What is it?”
“The seeing to the side, of things which are now, but not here.”
“Why does it come next?”
“Because all things see - air, stone, and beasts. To see elsewhere than you are is simply to cast your sight abroad and see through another’s eyes.”
“What, then, is the last?”
“Hindsight. The seeing of that which has already come to pass.”
“And why is it last?”
“Because reading words that have already been written is no great test of ability.”
Dissimula finally stopped, turned, and smiled.
“Very good, Phobos. You recite almost as well as I did at your age.”
Phobos sighed in exasperation.
“So, now that I know all of the Laws of the Sight, and all of the different ways it can be used, when am I actually going to learn to use it?”
Dissimula raised one eyebrow critically.
“Impatience does not become you,” she said, looking him up and down. “However, your point is sound. We shall begin with your next lesson.”
“And you’re sure he won’t see us here?” Phobos whispered.
Aeros smiled, and winked confidently.
“He hasn’t found me here yet,” he whispered back. “The base of this tower is collapsed, so there’s no access from the ground, and there’s enough of the floor above us left to act as cover, but not enough to be worth checking more closely.”
Phobos glanced up at the precariously-balanced, half-rotted boards which criss-crossed above them. He wasn’t very confident in their ability as ‘cover’.
“What do you do when you’re hiding, anyway?”
“Uh... sleep, mostly. Sometimes I count the bricks in the wall.” Aeros pondered for a moment. “It can be a bit boring, come to think of it, but anything is better than time with Bellic.”
Phobos nodded in agreement - but then, like a phantom brought to life by the utterance of its name, a furious, booming voice came floating through the holes in the roof above.
“PHOBOS! I KNOW YOU’RE OUT HERE SOMEWHERE!”
The colt in question felt his heart jump up into his throat, and whimpered involuntarily. Aeros simply tilted his head to the side, and flicked one ear testingly.
“EVERY SECOND YOU HIDE FROM ME IS ANOTHER SET OF A HUNDRED ONE-WINGED PUSH-UPS!” came Bellic’s voice again, slightly louder than before.
“Sounds like he’s coming from the south-east,” Aeros murmured, unconcerned. “Good - we have maximum coverage that way. Lay down, and don’t move.”
Phobos flattened himself against the floor, and threw his hooves over his eyes. This had been a terrible idea! Why had he agreed to this? All he was accomplishing was getting himself in trouble!
“PHOBOS!”
The voice was getting closer. Phobos squeezed his eyes even tighter shut, and tried to ignore the panic and fear that ran about screaming in the back of his mind. He imagined himself disappearing - sinking into the floor, or turning into a pile of rubble, or losing his form and drifting away like dust on the wind. Anything, anything to keep Bellic from finding him. So fervent were his fantasies, he didn’t even notice when a slight trickle of magic squeezed itself out of his horn, and spread slowly over him.
“YOU CAN’T HIDE FOREVER!”
Seconds crawled by like hours. Slowly but surely, Bellic’s voice passed, grew quieter, and eventually, could not be heard at all.
“Yup,” said Aeros. “It’s basically like that. Long periods of boredom, punctuated by moments of sheer terror. Come on,” he grunted, standing up. “We should move before he makes a second... pass...” The airmaster looked around for a moment, confused. Then, hesitantly, he asked, “Phobos?”
“...Yeah?” Phobos responded, opening his eyes.
“...Where are you?”
Phobos looked up at his brother quizzically. “What are you talking about? I’m right here.”
“And where is that, exactly?” Aeros said, continuing to scrutinize the room.
“Here! Where I was before! What am I, invisible?”
“Are you?”
Phobos opened his mouth to retort, but stopped. ...Was he? Had his hysterical prayers actually worked, somehow? Now that he thought about it, he could feel some kind of energy surrounding himself, and could feel the flickering flame in his soul that was creating it. Gently, he pinched it out, and the field around him dissipated.
Aeros jumped in surprise as his brother appeared out of thin air, then smiled.
“Invisibility,” he said, sounding more than a little impressed. “Nice trick.”
“We shall begin with hindsight,” Dissimula said, sitting herself down in front of him. “I know you did it once, on the day we met, but that was unfocused - unpurposeful. You likely only saw slivers and fragments of a dozen different moments - focal points in your past that your mind latched on to. Correct?”
Phobos nodded. She always was.
“When you focus your hindsight, you can conjure up your entire past, and explore it at your leisure. It is different from remembering, because you see things from the outside. You need not even have been present - only nearby.”
He cocked his head. “What do you mean?”
“Perhaps you were asleep at the time, or perhaps an event of importance happened a few rooms over. There is as much to see in your past as there is to see in your future, especially since the past is not plagued by the Law of Exclusion.”
Phobos nodded once more, mentally reciting despite himself. Twenty-three: All can know the past, but only one can know the future. The reason that seers began to lose their foresight when another seer was born was that any piece of future time that had been seen by another - or would need to be seen by another - could not be seen by any seer but that other. As the new seer began to See more, there would be less and less for the old seer to See, until eventually, the old seer would lose their foresight entirely.
“So,” said Dissimula, “let us begin. Close your eyes and think back, as before - but this time, do not go all the way. Hold yourself just outside your memories.”
Phobos didn’t think he understood, but did as he was told anyway. He let himself drift back - not trying to remember anything in particular, just letting his memories flow through him. Soon, he felt one trying to coalesce around him, and gently moved himself out of the way.
It felt as though a curtain had been torn away from his eyes - like he had emerged from the depths of a murky lake and could finally, for the first time in his life, breathe. He turned, and saw from whence he had emerged. His entire life was now laid out before him, a shimmering stream of silver threads that meandered its way through an endless blackness.
“Good,” Dissimula said, somehow knowing, as always, what was going on in his head. “What does it look like?”
“What?” he felt his mouth saying.
“Every seer Sees things differently. What does your timeline look like, to you?”
“A... a river. Sort of. Like a... river of strings.”
“A river. Interesting. And there are some parts that are brighter than others, correct?”
Phobos looked - indeed there were, and he told her so. The threads rose and fell, widened and contracted, and brightened and darkened as they twisted their way through the void. He floated himself towards one of these bright, bloated portions, and peered inside.
Phobos is making his way along the beach of the Ardenslacus, searching for something in the underbrush. The only light is from the lake itself - everything else is pitch-black, including the beast which is emerging from the treeline a hoofful of meters behind him, crawling slowly and stealthily closer.
Suddenly, his goal all but bites him in the hoof. There they are - the plants he has been searching for. He bends down, turns his head, and begins to chew at the base. The beast stops a jump away from its prey, swishes its tail menacingly, and leaps, claws shining in the lakelight. The gem on his necklace twinkles.
A burst of white explodes -
Phobos tore himself away, panting slightly. That was one moment that he was not particularly enthusiastic about reliving.
He swam backwards, searching for happier memories. As he did, he noticed a pattern among the strings. One of them - one that was, for the most part, in the center of the flow - was thicker than the others. He soon realized that that thicker strand represented him , and that the other strings were all the ponies he knew. When he first met them, their strands swooped in out of the aether. When they were away - like his brothers and father out hunting, or his mother and the sisters patrolling the border - their strands floated far away from his own. When he interacted with them, their strands crossed or wrapped around him.
He decided to push all the way back to the very beginning, and watched as all but six strings parted away and disappeared, leaving only him, his parents, Dissimula, Hippocrates, and, floating nearby but not yet touching, Sanarus. Past that point, his own line grew dimmer and dimmer, with Serena and Bellic’s spiraling around it, until it disappeared into nothingness.
Curious, he dove into the time before his birth, and found it strangely comforting - nothing but redness, warmth, and muffled noises. He could make out a deep, pulsing sound underneath the gurgling of the water, and realized that it was his mother’s heartbeat.
Well, if he ever needed somewhere to go and feel safe, now he knew exactly the place.
He moved forward to his birth, and watched the scene unfold. It was both oddly reassuring and entirely depressing to see that Bellic had loved him just as little then as he did now. As for himself, he had been told that his condition had been terrible, but he hadn’t ever imagined such a scrawny, malformed shape as he now saw. He shivered, unnerved, and moved on.
A few days after his birth, he found an odd dark patch in the strands, and peered inside. He quickly realized that it must have been the first time during his recovery that he had truly been asleep.
Hippocrates is sitting on the floor, his blue magic pulsing around his horn in time with his drooping eyelids. Before the doctor, in a swaddle of hay and cloth, lays his patient - a pale, sickly-looking foal that Phobos now recognizes as himself. The rest of the room is just as he remembered it - the table filled with herbs, the dilapidated torch brackets, and, most importantly, the snarky, juxtaposed son.
“How is he doing?” Sanarus asks, striding in with a covered platter held in his lime-green glow.
Hippocrates jerks himself awake, blinking rapidly.
“Barely any better than when he came out,” he murmurs, turning to eye his son’s cargo. “What’s that?”
“Flora thought you could use something a bit more filling than water.”
He pulls the cover off of the plate, revealing a light salad, a hunk of rough bread, and a wedge of cheese. Hippocrates’ stomach growls reflexively, and Sanarus chuckles, setting the arrangement down next to his father.
Hippocrates lifts the plate to his mouth and plunges ravenously into the salad, sending scraps of lettuce flying. Sanarus briefly lifts one eyebrow in disbelief, then shakes his head and begins gathering an assortment of herbs from the table. Eventually, Hippocrates surfaces from his meal to give a satisfied sigh, and notices his son’s activities.
“What do you need those for?” he asks.
“Just a few final treatments for Ignus,” Sanarus replies flatly. “His muscles are back in one piece, but he’s still bed-ridden.”
“Hm,” Hippocrates grunts. “I wish I had agreed to let you handle the delivery. I’ll be at this for another week, at the rate it’s going.”
“Yeah, well,” Sanarus said shortly, turning to leave with his supplies. “I guess some of us just have to learn to live with our mistakes.”
He rushes out the door, leaving Hippocrates in a stunned silence. All at once, the doctor jumps to his hooves and dashes to the doorway.
“Sanarus!” he yells down the hallway.
Sanarus stops, and turns to look back at him.
“You weren’t a mistake, son.”
Sanarus gives another half-hearted laugh, then continues around the corner. “Sometimes, I’m not so sure.”
Phobos pulled himself out of the memory slowly, letting those final few words sink in. Now that he thought about it, he had no idea who Sanarus’ mother was - he had never heard anypony even mention her existence.
...Or had he?
He drove himself back forwards along the stream, stopping at a point just past his battle with the chimera, where a new thread joined the stream. Celestia's thread.
“I’ve... I’ve been told about you, and your sister.” Phobos points nervously over the trees, towards the starry symbol which matches the one on the flank of the pony before him.
“By whom?” Celestia asks.
“By my mother.” Celestia raises her eyebrow expectantly. “Serena,” he adds.
“Another Son of Peace?” She smiles, amused. “How many does that make now?”
“Three,” Phobos says.
Her head jerks ever-so-slightly backwards, as though the answer is some kind of slap in the face. But then, her eyes twinkle in remembrance, and she nods affirmatively.
“Of course,” she says.
This time, when he surfaced, it was with purpose and zeal. He sent himself spiraling away from the stream, back up towards his body, which still sat motionless in Dissimula’s chambers.
He had to know.
Phobos gasped for air as his conscious mind resumed control, then looked around wildly for his teacher. She had been sitting off to one side, reading, but now looked up at him, half-expectant and half-curious.
“Who is Sanarus’ mother?” he asked breathlessly.
Dissimula smiled at him knowingly. “Lexus wasn’t lying when he called you the fourth son on that day at the library, Phobos.”
The fourth son’s mind was reeling. “How did you...”
“I was watching you,” she said matter-of-factly. “It’s the duty of a seer to watch over her heir.”
For a few moments, they simply stared at each other. Eventually, Phobos found his words again.
“...Does Bellic know?” he asked, hesitantly.
“...No,” she answered grimly. “And for all our sakes, it would be better if it remained that way.”
“If you need anything else, Your Majesty, please let me know.”
“Thank you, Urgent.”
The unicorn guardspony bowed and closed the door behind him, leaving Celestia alone with only a blanket, a pot of tea, and silence. Her inherent regality was nowhere to be seen. Where she usually carried a graceful smile, there was only despondency. Her eyes shone not with defiance, but were clouded by the same weary shadows that lurked about the edges of the room. The moonlight that filtered weakly through the large windows did nothing to comfort her, serving only to remind her of her newly doubled responsibilities. The events of a few nights before – her victory – her defeat – still weighed heavily upon her, and would continue to do so for a very long time.
She would have sat motionless for perhaps hours more, had not the gentle caress of steam on her chin caught her attention. She looked at the murky water blankly, as if oblivious to its nature or purpose. With a slight yellow shimmer, she lifted the cup from its saucer and took a half-hearted sip. The warmth tickled her throat as it traveled down, but was soon consumed by the cold pit of her stomach, leaving her as empty as before. She sighed, and set it down.
Clink.
The china echoed forlornly, but it was soon followed by a second, just-as-quiet sound.
Clop.
Her brow furrowed. The door was still closed. The windows were barred. There was only one pony that that could be.
She looked up. Sure enough, stepping out of the shadowy corner was a figure that she had somewhat hoped she would never see again, but who, in that moment of loneliness, was detestably comforting, even though his disposition was gloomier than hers – if that was even possible.
Upon meeting her gaze, he shifted uncomfortably and looked away, not willing or, perhaps, able to break the silence. She, on the other hand, was more than willing.
“Why are you here, Phobos?”
He opened his mouth as if to speak, but all that came out was a hopeless sigh.
“If you’ve come to apologize, then –”
“No,” he interrupted. He sighed again, and continued wearily. “No, I know I can’t possibly apologize.”
Celestia was taken aback by this newfound admission of guilt. Phobos took the chance to choose his next words carefully. Though he had gone over this conversation dozens, perhaps even hundreds of times in his head, the script had already escaped him.
“I came to say goodbye.”
“Goodbye?” Celestia had thought that the time for goodbyes had long since passed.
“Yes. I thought you would like to know that you’ll never see me again.”
She hesitated, highly tempted to simply say “Good. Get out.” and resume her moping, but what remained of her curiosity nagged at her.
“Where are you going?” she asked cautiously.
“Away,” he answered simply, his eyes not moving from the floor.
Celestia had somewhat expected an apology of one form or another, as unhelpful and untimely as it was. After all, she was the only other alicorn left, now that Luna was… gone. He would no doubt be seeking companionship. But he wasn’t. He hadn’t come to ask for forgiveness and place – at least, not yet – only to bid farewell, although where Phobos had any intention of going, Celestia hadn’t the vaguest idea. He had spent his whole life caged up in Olympus, but there was nothing left there now. He would be hard-pressed to survive anywhere.
“I, uh… I brought you some… parting gifts,” Phobos said nervously.
He lifted off a saddlebag and levitated it over to her, setting it down gently. It didn’t look very full. Celestia gave it, and him, a curious look. He managed to force his eyes to meet hers for a brief moment before they flitted away again, skittish, even though her gaze was now more confused than angry. Celestia decided that there was no harm in seeing what he had brought her. She pushed aside her tea and brought the bag closer, flipping it open.
There were no jewels, or trinkets, or keepsakes inside. Only two raw, string-bound tomes stared back at her, their front pages blank.
“I was never much good with titles.” Phobos chuckled half-heartedly.
Celestia cocked an eyebrow. “What are they?”
“The larger one is… predictions. Prophecies. Everything I managed to transcribe from the Legacy.” He laughed quietly, a small smile creeping onto his face. “It’s funny, actually, I – I managed to solve the Watcher’s code, and…” He raised his head. She was not as amused.
His face falling once more, he cleared his throat. “And the other…” He glanced at the book. It looked meager and pitiful next to its hulking brother. “The other… is my story.”
Once upon a time, thousands of years ago, the alicorns ruled the world. They traveled all across the land – to the dancing shadows of the forest glens, to the secluded caves of the lofty mountains, to the bright oases of the barren deserts. They protected all that was innocent and good. They served the light in the light, and they fought the darkness in the shadows. Those were the golden years. The halls of Olympus resounded with the sounds of joy and peace, and the songs and stories of greatness and victory rang throughout the world.
There are no songs anymore, and this is not one of those stories. The golden years became dulled, tarnished, and distant too long ago for any to remember. Whatever weight of greatness our people once proudly carried upon their backs crumbled into dust and ashes in tandem with the pillars of our home. This is not a story with a happy ending, where the villain is defeated and true love is found, and everyone lives happily ever after. This is my story. The story of the last days of a crippled race. The story of the final conflict between a dying good and a beleaguered evil. The story of one who bore witness to the end long before it happened, and could do nothing to stop it. It is the story of two births, a handful of lives, and the deaths of many, including, very soon now, myself. Like any proper story, we will start at the beginning, but there are two things you should know before we do.
The first is that all of this is my fault. It was a hard lesson for me to learn – one I still have not yet quite accepted – but raging against the universe, with all its miniscule machinations and devious devices, can do one no good. Fighting against the untouchable is futility, but battling that which is close to you can be therapy. Placing blame helps to ease one’s pain, and if any tangible entity can truly be said to be to blame for the tragedies that have filled my days, it is I and I alone. This is my legacy.
The second thing you should know is that none of this was preventable. Certainly, I could have gone to Luna and helped her realize her place and duty, averting her fall and banishment. I could have stopped Fauna when I had the chance, and prevented his sacrifice and transformation. But if there is one thing I have learned in my time on this world, it is that fate is an unbeatable foe. Destiny is just one of the world’s innumerable limbs. When you struggle against its clenching fist, you are only moving yourself closer to where it wanted you to be – and if, through your biting and kicking, you are ever truly able to escape its grasp for even the shortest time, there is no scale that can measure the punishment that it will rain upon your doomed head. This, too, is my legacy.
Now, as promised, we begin at the beginning. Our stage: Olympus, grand bastion of the alicorns – once a city of arches, castles, and fountains – now an expanse of ruins, rubble, and, since I know Flora would disapprove of me calling them weeds, unruly plant life. Our players: a great warrior, a clever mender, a weak child, a hidden shadow, and a beautiful angel. All of them, save for one, stand together in a forlorn and empty room. All of them, save for one, bear witness to both an end and a beginning. All of them, save for one, are blissfully unaware of the years to come. And finally, our first words – my first memory – the first words spoken from a father to his newborn son.
“He’s very…pale.”
That should tell you something.
“And so scrawny.” The voice that spoke was deep and resounding, and came from an alicorn who stood almost a full head taller than any of the others gathered in the room. Everything about Bellic glowed with power and strength, from his burning blue eyes and trailing, dark-red mane, to the muscles which wreathed his black-furred form like so many slaves, bulging and strained under the furious weight of their grand idol. He was a stark contrast to his son, the newborn foal which lay curled and shivering under its mother’s wing in the hay at his hooves.
“Yes, it’s very strange,” said the one to his right, an ash-gray male of much shorter, slighter stature, though he held himself with no less height or strength. His cutie mark was a caduceus, the two serpents twirling around each other all the way down each of his rear legs. At his hooves lay a jumble of small pots and bowls filled with potions and salves he had prepared for the event, though he had not needed any of them. His furrowed, disapproving dark-green eyes led the pale blue light of his magic across the form of the shivering foal, dissolving the last of the blood and phlegm. “His amniomorphic readings were well within normal levels…”
“It’s fine, Hippocrates.” This voice was lighter and smoother, if shaky and weak – the last of the contractions had faded only minutes before. Serena, too, was nothing like Bellic; but where the foal’s pale, veined features seemed to speak of sickness or, in the worst scenario, deformity, hers spoke of beauty and grace. Her peach-tinted curls fell from her head like a flurry of leaves in autumn, and her smile was more soothing than any balm Hippocrates had to offer. She had eyes that could have caused a raging storm to blush in childish shame. It was no wonder that she was the only one who could keep any sort of reign on the tempest that was her husband.
“And you, Bellic,” Serena said, turning her gaze upwards, her smile slightly amused. “Don’t you have enough brutish sons already?”
Bellic snorted with disgust, tossing his head and looking off into the distance. “There will never be enough.”
Admittedly, there was not much distance to look into. The group was arranged in the corner of a small, plain stone-brick room with no windows and a single square doorway. Wrought-iron torch sconces clung to the walls by the last, rusted vestiges of their bolts. Most were still grimy with soot and ash from their last lighting, but at the moment they all stood empty, like desperate hands grasping for purpose in the cramped air. The only other decorations were a table in the corner, covered in mortars, pestles, and bits of plant matter in various states of dehydration, the multitude of shadows that stood in wavering vigil around the room, and the haphazard arrangement of candles that created them, which stood on the floor supported only by the hardened remains of their predecessors. The ceiling was sagging noticeably, since the supporting cross-beams had decayed into dust years ago. Whether it was sheer luck, their own magical auras, or some innate quality of the land that kept these areas of the castle from collapsing completely had been a matter of much idle debate between Oranos and Hippocrates.
The room was part of what had once been a three-tenant suite on one of the lower floors of the castle, but Hippocrates had long since converted it into his home, office, and clinic. He shared the quarters with his son Sanarus, who was currently asleep in the bed next door. Hippocrates had been worried that the labor would wake him, seeing as he had spent the better part of the day tending to the injuries Ignus and Aeros had sustained on their most recent expedition, but Serena was stronger than that – not to mention that this was her fourth and, by far, smallest child – and the foal, though breathing, as he had already checked several times, had yet to so much as attempt to utter a single sound. The child’s skin was so pale as to be nearly translucent, and this, combined with its unusual silence and the expression of discontent on its face, gave the unsettling impression that this was a child who, perhaps, had not been meant to be born.
“Well,” Hippocrates said, standing up straight as the last vestiges of the birth disappeared in an azure shimmer, “The child is, obviously, slightly deformed, but it’s nothing a year or – two, at most, of regular therapy won’t fix.” Serena looked down at her newest youngling with no less love for its defects. “All that remains for now is the naming.”
Almost in unison, the three of them looked towards the doorway.
“Dissimula?”
It was an invitation, not a question – there was no doubt that she was there, because that was where she needed to be. Such was the way with Dissimula, as it had been with all the alicorn seers, all the way back to the First Watcher. She entered, pulling back her hood with a rosy glow.
Dissimula was quite plain when compared to most other alicorns. Her coat was a somewhat bland light gray. She kept her long black hair woven in a single french braid that started at her hairline, and was fond of wearing a rough brown woollen cloak. But behind all her apparent plainness lay the things that made her what she was. Everything, from the way she carried herself as if following the guidance of a stage director, to the way her rose-colored eyes were always hooded with knowingness, to the way her ever-present smile lay at some inscrutable point between smugness and conspiracy - all of these things created an air of mysticism about her, as if she alone could see the roads which those around her walked.
Hippocrates bowed respectfully, and stepped aside. Bellic, too, stepped aside, but the only sign of respect to be had from him was a cold, distrustful stare. Serena simply returned her smile warmly, and looked down at the child in wonder, imagining the bright futures it had in store.
Wordlessly, Dissimula approached and knelt, looking over the foal’s ghostly features with something akin to curiosity. Then she closed her eyes, bowed her head, and touched her horn to the center of the foal’s forehead.
I do not know what or how much she saw then, or had already seen before entering that room. Whenever I asked, she was always infuriatingly vague about how much a seer can see. What I do know is that this moment is one of the few I can remember where Dissimula loses her smile.
And lost her smile she had. In fact, the slight frown she wore on her face as she lifted her head was as close to an expression of panic as Dissimula had ever come, and the three of them noticed it instantly. Eyes widened in anxiety and faces became creased with worry as the world held its breath, waiting for what she would say next. Dissimula appeared deep in thought, contemplating some unknown problem to which only she was privy.
“His name is Phobos,” she said, after a painfully long pause. “He is to become the next seer.”
The atmosphere of the room relaxed somewhat, but not very much.
“Why do you look so serious, then?” Hippocrates asked. “Surely the seer line continuing is a desirable thing.”
Bellic smirked. “Perhaps it’s professional jealousy.”
Dissimula gave him a cursory glare. “Don’t insult that which you don’t understand, Bellic.”
With one hoof, she pulled back her cloak, and with her magic, lifted out the solitary object that had been hidden beneath it – a thin band of gold – a choker – inlaid with a single, raw, blood-red garnet. Thought it was far too big for the foal’s neck, she clasped it there anyway – and with a bright red shimmer of its own, it shrunk to fit snugly around him.
“What is that?” Bellic demanded.
“It will protect him,” she responded simply, “Both from enemies and from himself.”
“Himself?” Bellic scoffed.
She sighed “The magic of a seer is very unique. It...changes you, in ways no other magic ever could. Being exposed to it too early in life can blur the lines between vision and reality, and harm the seer’s mind.”
“Like Preven the Mad,” Serena said. Besides Dissimula, she was the only one present who gave much attention to history.
“Exactly.” Dissimula nodded in her direction. “When I was young, I wore the necklace until I was ready to deal with my abilities, and Phobos shall do the same. It will grow with him, and when the time is right, I will remove it – but until then, his magic shall remain sealed.”
“Wait – you mean all of his magic?” Dissimula’s mere presence had been enough to anger Bellic, and this turn of events was not helping his mood.
She met his blazing eyes fearlessly. “It is the only way, Bellic, and it is for his own good.”
“That will make treating him more difficult…” Hippocrates murmured, but none of them took notice.
“And what about the good of the rest of us, hm? You say that trinket will protect him, but who will he protect? What tasks will he do? What use will he be against our enemies?” Bellic was moments away from attacking her, but as was becoming normal in these kinds of situations, Serena intervened.
“Please, Bellic.” She looked up at him beseechingly. “If Dissimula says it is necessary, then it is necessary. He will find a place.”
Bellic looked between the two of them for a moment – Dissimula stoic and unyielding, Serena stern and imploring – before snorting viciously, flaring his wings, and storming out of the room, growling under his breath. “Mares.”
The three of them sighed in relief. Bellic had been increasingly agitated in the weeks since Gaia’s death, and besides forcing Ignus and Aeros to train to within an inch of their lives, he had had no real outlets for his rage. Even Oranos had made some effort to let go of the event, but if Bellic was known for anything, it was his ability to hold on.
Dissimula stood up very slowly, as if she had taken on some unfathomable load in the moments since she had knelt down. She continued to gaze at the child for some time, studying it like a sculpture that was alien, and yet somehow familiar. Eventually, she turned to leave.
“Tell Bellic that if he has any further questions, I will be in my room,” she said shortly. Hippocrates hummed in acknowledgement, though distractedly. He, too, was looking intently at the foal, mulling over adjustments to spells and the extra herbs he would need Flora to grow. Just as Dissimula had set one hoof through the door, a question suddenly came to him.
“Dissimula,” he said, looking to her. She stopped.
“Why ‘Phobos’?”
There was a long silence. Dissimula seemed to be carefully choosing her words – or perhaps it simply pained her to answer – but eventually, she spoke.
“Because when the time comes – when I remove the necklace, and teach him to open his eyes…” She looked back at them slowly. Her face remained neutral, but the distress in her eyes was disturbing.
“He is destined to fear what he sees.”
This is my legacy.
I am Phobos, the 12th, and last, seer of the alicorns. I am the third son of Bellic the Black and the fourth son of Serena the White. When I finish this writing, I go to face my ending and my death.
And I was destined to fear.
One’s childhood is, arguably, the most important time of their life. It is the time when they explore the world, learn its workings, and discover who they are. It is the time when they make their lifelong friends, and sometimes also their mortal enemies. It is the time when they love their family because they cannot understand how flawed they truly are, and are not yet wise enough to love them for their flaws.
I had no friends, in the traditional sense of the word, because there were too few of us left for us to be anything but family. I loved my family mostly because I knew nothing else to love. Beyond the walls of the castle was nothing but a decrepit shell of a city, and beyond the city was nothing but the Wilds - the endless expanses of trees, pocked by ponds and glades - the mountains that, in winter, kept the sun caught behind their jagged heads until almost midday - and most importantly, ubiquitously, the silence.
My youth was filled with silence, both of the world and of my kinsponies. Through their conspiracy, I did not know who I was. I did not know of my destiny. I did not have my cutie mark. I did not know that I was the first alicorn for almost 300 years to be unable to use my magic. I did not know that the necklace around my neck was the cause. I did not even realize that such differences were strange. There was no normal, no baseline, no society to measure myself against. That handful of mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters was all that I had. All that any of us had. We were all that remained.
The first few years of my life were spent encased in a group of small rooms next-door to Hippocrates and his constant and paranoid supervision - though I suppose, in my case, it was justified paranoia. He was very fond of telling me about how fragile I had been at birth - about how... oh, how did it go...
“When you were born, you could barely be called alive.” Hippocrates said somewhat disdainfully. “You had no immune system to speak of, your lungs were barely functional, your heart pumped only once for every three times it needed to - you were in danger of being killed by rogue dust motes! It was a non-stop job, keeping you alive. I had to stay awake for a whole week just to get you stable, and then I had to sleep for two weeks to recover! And yet, after all that -”
Phobos winced as a cloud of blue sparkles popped his femur back into place, though it was more unsettling than painful. This was not the first time he had been subjected to this story.
“- after all that, and in a windowless room with no tripping hazards, you still manage to find a way to fall and hurt yourself. Not just hurt yourself - dislocate your hip!” The doctor shook his head despairingly. “You really are one of Bellic’s sons.”
“Actually, it was only five days you had to stay awake.” Sanarus said as he walked through the door, his saddlebag filled with the freshest crop of herbs from Flora’s garden, if the pungent mixture of scents that suddenly swept through the room was to have any say in the matter. “And then it was only eight-and-a-half days you had to sleep afterwards. I should know, I couldn’t get any for all your snoring.”
This was not the first time Phobos had heard this rebuttal, either, but it felt no less like Sanarus was saving him from a fate worse than death.
Sanarus shared many of his father’s features. He had the same ash-gray fur and jet-black hair, though he kept his much longer and straighter and pulled back into various and ever-changing arrangements of braids, buns, and bunches. He was slightly taller and slightly lankier. Where Hippocrates carried two pairs of winged serpents, Sanarus was adorned by two large lotuses, each of which dripped seven orbs, one of each color of the rainbow, down his legs.
The most noticeable difference, of course, was that when Sanarus looked at you while he was cleaning your cut or setting your broken bone, his eyes would silently smile and say “I know it wasn’t your fault.”, whereas Hippocrates’ eyes wanted to make it abundantly clear that it was, in fact, entirely your fault, and that this task was a great inconvenience to them.
Hippocrates turned to look at his son with practiced wariness. Now that the exchange had been started, it had to be finished. Phobos followed it intently, head moving back and forth with each flippant response, mouthing along with the words he had heard so many times before.
“I’m sorry, but who was it that was fast asleep while I was overseeing the delivery?”
“I’m sorry, but who was it that had spent all day repairing Ignus’ eighty-seven pulled ligaments while you bumbled about making six different kinds of tooth pain reliever?” Sanarus retorted.
“There’s no harm in being prepared.”
“There’s a difference between being prepared and being over-prepared. Then there’s even more of a difference between being over-prepared and being paranoid, and you’re right up there.”
“It’s not paranoia if you have a justifiable reason.”
“What reason could you possibly have?”
“Once, several years ago, Oranos came to me with some major tooth pain, and the first five methods I tried didn’t work.” Hippocrates said matter-of-factly.
“So why don’t you just use the sixth one?”
“Because the first one usually works!”
“It didn’t then! And even so, what kind of child is born with tooth pain?”
“I don’t know, but I’ll be damned if I’m not ready when it happens!”
For several moments, they stared at each other in fierce silence, lost in their own routine. Then Phobos began applauding, smiling the giddy and mischievous smile of a child who knows a grown-up’s secrets. They looked at him, confused, then back to each other awkwardly, and sighed heavily in unison.
“Are those the herbs I requested from Flora?” Hippocrates asked, eager to move on to business.
“Yes, and it all looks to be in order,” said Sanarus, lifting off the saddlebags with an orange glow, and setting them on an empty corner of the table. He began taking out the leafy bundles, tying them with string, and hanging them from hooks in the walls and ceiling near the table. “She did mention that the mint grew less than she had expected.”
“Ah, well. I doubt we’ll need much of that anyway.” Hippocrates looked at the bundles carefully, inspecting the plants for damage and pests. He knew that Flora would never allow such things, but he had to be certain.
“Are you sure?” Sanarus smirked, looking sidelong at his father. “I hear it’s a very important ingredient in tooth pain reliever.”
Phobos giggled gleefully. Sanarus: 15, Hippocrates: 2. And that was just this month.
When I wasn’t spending quality time with the doctors, I was usually alone. Serena visited me as much as she could, however, bringing me books to read and some simple toys - without magic, my options in that regard were rather limited - and we would play, and talk, and tell each other about our days - the things a mother and son are meant to do. We would read each other stories, taking turns to voice the characters, challenging each other to make increasingly ridiculous voices.
Once I had recovered sufficiently to be moved into my own chambers next to the rest of my family, she would visit much more often, and sometimes, though less often than I would have liked, she stayed the night with me. I would curl up under her wing, and together we would watch as the spreading trees and broken spires were washed in first the fire of the setting sun, then the cool breeze of twilight, and finally the pale light of the mysterious and ever-changing stars.
“Oh, and there! Yes, do you see? There’s two wings, and some sort of tail, and a lot of... uh...” Phobos trailed off, unsure of what the right word was.
“Spines,” Serena finished, her voice even more soothing than the light breeze which rustled softly through the fields and foliage below, even if a breeze was still a very novel and enjoyable experience for Phobos. “Yes, it must be a dragon. And look there, behind it - there’s another one.”
Those two dragons were far from alone in the sky. They led a grand array of winged creatures, from a flock of eagles and falcons that buzzed about the scene like bumblebees, to the griffons and manticores they had found a few minutes earlier. Below this flapping swarm were the beasts of the ground - there was a hydra, and there was a pack of timber wolves. Ironically, there was no sign anywhere in the rampaging horde of any Ursas, Dracos, Scorpios, Cygni, or other such actual stellar beasts, probably because whoever had been in charge of that particular section of the tapestry had decided that making constellations of constellations was far too easy for them.
Standing against this eastbound tide was a band of heroes - few in number, but steadfast and fearless - protecting the sun’s resting place until morning, when it would rise and erase the interlopers. Phobos found them the most interesting, partially because of the dichotomy between the seeming impossibility and yet foregone conclusion of their situation, but mostly because they looked a lot like he did, only... in pieces. Some of them had wings - a few had horns - but most of them had neither, and none of them had both. He had seen these beings among the stars many times in the months since he had moved to his new, windowed chambers, but this image, stretching from horizon to horizon and appearing conveniently on the shortest night of the year, made it all the clearer that their relation to the sky was more than just random chance.
“Mother?”
“Hm?”
He hesitated.
“Who are they?”
She followed his gaze to the defenders, and sighed gently.
“I’ve been wondering when you would ask,” she said, smiling at their defiant eyes and twinkling bodies as if they were her own children. “They are of three races, as you can see. The unadorned are the earth ponies - sturdy, loyal, and with a special connection to the ground. They have no conscious magic, but the plants and animals follow their will.”
“Like Flora!” Phobos said excitedly. He had never actually met Flora, but the others mentioned her quite often. As he understood it, she was always very busy tending the city’s gardens, producing all of their food and medicine.
Serena nodded. “Exactly.” She continued. “Those with wings are the pegasi - a tribe of fierce and noble warriors that shepherd the weather.”
“Like Oranos,” he said, somewhat more distractedly. He had only seen Flora’s father once, when the old stallion had come to see him soon after he had been born. He remembered most of all how haggard and tired the skymaster had looked - the feathers of his wings, ragged from centuries of wind - his hair, whiter than the clouds he commanded - his eyes, an even deeper blue than his domain. If Phobos had known how to speak at the time, he would have been speechless in the presence of such an ancient and venerable being.
Serena nodded again, and went on. “Finally, those with horns are the unicorns. They are masters of magic, and so do many things - but most importantly -” She gestured grandly at the battle that raged in stillness above them. “- they control the stars, and the rise and fall of the sun and moon each day.”
Phobos considered this. Nopony he knew of had control over the heavens - though he supposed that if any of them did, they’d have to battle for that control with the unicorns. A more important matter was,
“How do we know about them?”
Serena was silent for a moment. “We once lived among them.”
Phobos’ eyes widened, eager to devour her proffered knowledge. “Really?”
“Long ago - before I was born, when Oranos was still just a child. We lived on high and watched over them, as we watched over so much of the world. But as our numbers dwindled, we could no longer afford to protect them - in fact, our protection was more likely to bring their doom. So we left. We taught them the parts that they needed to play, gave them control, and abandoned them. Procere once told me that they had a brief conflict, but soon fell into a most unusual stalemate, with each race holding the other two by their throats with the threat of the realms only they had power over. I do not know if he still watches them, but...” She looked back up at the soldiers. There was no distrust or divisiveness there - only unity. “I like to think that they’ve found a way to move from coercion to cooperation, and live in peace.”
“Who is Procere?” Phobos blurted.
Serena sighed, and shook her head lightly. She encouraged her son’s curiosity, but sometimes, it could be a bit much.
“The 10th seer. He doesn’t like to come out, these days, staying locked away in his chambers, doing...whatever it is he does.” She chuckled slightly. “Flora brings him his meals, but who knows if he even speaks to her.”
Phobos thought about this for a moment.
“And... Dissimula is the 11th seer?”
“That’s right.”
“...Is there a 12th seer?”
Serena paused, taken slightly aback, then looked down at him warmly, studying his face, his eager, thirsty eyes. For a moment, her gaze flickered to the moonlit garnet on his neck, but Phobos didn’t see it, her face shadowed as it was by the newly-waxing moon.
“Not yet,” she smiled, “But I know he’ll come eventually.” She kissed his forehead lightly.
Phobos was somewhat confused, but was satisfied with the results of the tangent. He was, however, still curious about an earlier subject - one which twinkled gaily above their heads.
“You said...we gave them control. Does that mean one of us did have control? Of...”
He looked back towards the sky, unable to fathom - or even imagine - how much magic it would take to shift and shape those distant pinpricks of light. Serena followed his gaze, pondering.
“Of everything, yes, but the heavens in particular...” She hesitated. “There have been many who have possessed that power, over the ages - but I think that the question you don’t know to ask, but whose answer you would be more interested in, is not which of us did , but which of us do .”
Phobos’ eyes widened. “Do?”
“Yes.” She looked longingly at the silver crescent of the moon. It hung just behind the wall of heroes, nervously preparing for its trek across the battlefield. It would be afforded none of the protection of the sun’s host.
“They are sisters. Day and night - sun and moon - Oranos’ eldest and youngest daughters. They are Celestia and Luna.”
Phobos was puzzled. “I’ve never heard of them before.”
“They have been gone for... a very long time. Many years ago, before the Battle of Avalon, Oranos sent them on a quest to find the Armarium - an ancient place, lost to the centuries, which holds the ancient weapons that were wielded against Evil, Chaos, and Darkness at the beginning of time. He was afraid that the Coven would be attempting the Conjunction - and indeed, they did - but Celestia and Luna did not return in time to turn the tide of the battle. Indeed, they have yet to return at all.”
“How do we know they’re still alive?”
“That’s why we stargaze.” She winked slyly, and pointed directly north. “There, on the edge of the horizon. Do you see it?”
Phobos looked. As the stars grew closer to the ground, the careful, crystalline construction of the great battle slowly devolved into a more haphazard jumble of personal arrangements and random connections, until, at the very edge of the sky, there were no discernible forms at all. Except...
He squinted, tilting his head.
...except for a small group of stars that was half-hidden in the distant forest, slightly apart from the rest of the mass. It was difficult to tell exactly, with only half of the picture, but it looked like a stylized sun - two concentric circles, surrounded by eight thick and curling rays.
Phobos looked back to his mother, seeking confirmation. She smiled knowingly. “That is the only piece of the sky that we still control. As long as the sisters maintain that symbol, we will know that they are still alive.” She sighed, and looked back out into the distance. “I do hope they come back soon.”
For a few minutes, they were silent. Phobos stared at the flat, hollow sun, imagining what those heavenly sisters must be like.
“Mother?”
“Yes?”
“Who are the Coven?”
Serena laughed, and shook her head.
“I think that’s enough stargazing for tonight.”
I saw my brothers and father even less often. When they weren’t away from the city on their expeditions, they were either recovering from their last trip or preparing for the next one.
Aeros visited me whenever he had the chance to get away, and sometimes even when he didn’t have the chance, but took it anyway. I was an escape for him - young, innocent - respite from Bellic’s relentless quest for perfection.
Ignus only visited when Bellic sent him on an errand to the doctors, to collect a potion or deliver a message, or, amusingly often, to find Aeros. But when he did come, he would often stay for a while.
Bellic himself, however, visited only once.
Phobos’ eyes wandered the room, searching for his prey.
There were many leaves spread about the floor of his room - windswept refugees from Flora’s campaign of tree-cleaning the day before. Beech, oak, aspen - each displayed its own garish pattern of reds, golds, and browns, clamoring to be appreciated for their final, seasonal beauty. But they were merely distractions from the true prize.
His eyes widened as they fell upon it. There it was - a single elm leaf, still a vibrant green and thrumming with life - peeking out from behind an outcropping of maple. Phobos quickly pressed himself into the ground, his heart racing with the thrill of the hunt. Slowly, he approached, step by careful step, inching closer and closer. When there were only a few feet left between him and the leaf, he paused, glancing towards the great white form that lay facing away from him on the other end of the room. It hadn’t moved. Phobos smiled evilly.
Perfect.
Turning back to the leaf, he carefully wriggled his hindquarters, exhaled deeply, and leapt, his hooves leaving the floor as quietly as if it were velvet. But just before he had pinned the leaf to the bricks below, a gust of wind snatched it out from under his hooves, sending it, and many of its brethren, swirling into the air.
“Gah!” Phobos cried in frustration, spinning around to face the lump. “How did you know? I was so quiet!”
Casually, the white mass rolled over to reveal the four legs and smirking face of Phobos’ eldest brother. Aeros’ body was draped across the floor like a melting clock, his long, silver mane and tail spread like a coat of paint. He winked slyly.
“That’s for me to know, and you to figure out.”
Phobos raised an eyebrow. “Did I rustle too many leaves?”
Aeros shook his head. “Nope.”
“...Was I talking under my breath again?”
Aeros chuckled a bit. “No, you’ve been getting much better about that.”
“Was it magic? It was magic, wasn’t it?”
“The wind? Sure. The tracking, not so much.”
Phobos watched the displaced leaves as they slowly fell back down to rest - some floating side to side, others spinning like dancers - and racked his brain for some possible explanation. As Aeros studied his little brother’s face, its brow furrowed in concentration, his mischievous grin slowly faded into a more thoughtful, contented expression.
“I can’t believe you’re only three.”
Phobos started, and looked at Aeros somewhat incredulously, caught off guard by the sudden observation. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Aeros expertly wiggled himself into a slightly more upright position. “Well, I mean, it... it seems like it’s been a lot longer, doesn’t it? I can’t even remember when you were born.”
Phobos gave him a skeptical look, the leaf-hunt completely forgotten. “You weren’t there when I was born.”
“I... well, I have to give you that one, I suppose. But really - doesn’t it seem like it’s been longer than three years?”
Phobos shrugged. “Does it? I don’t know. It’s my whole life. I don’t exactly have a reference to measure it by. I’ve only been able to see the sun and moon for a few months. Before that, I measured time by when Sanarus slept, and without that, I wouldn’t have known time passed at all.”
They stared at each other for a few seconds before Aeros’ face broke out into a grin once more.
“You are way too smart for your age. C’mere!”
In a flash, Aeros had twisted himself off the floor and was flying through the air like a streak of quicksilver. Phobos shrieked in delighted terror and scrambled to escape the impact zone, but it was too late - Aeros landed with another explosion of leaves, trapping Phobos between his legs, and spastically wriggling the tips of his oversized white wings up and down his sibling’s sides.
“Ah! Stop!” Phobos squealed, but his breathless laughter was answered only by playful growling as the two of them rolled about the room, Aeros’ mane and tail wrapping around them.
Suddenly, something landed on the balcony with a loud thump. Both brothers jumped in surprise - as best they could, trapped as they were - as their middle brother stomped into the room. They craned their necks out from within their miniature hair tornado. The frustration in his nut-brown eyes was frightening.
“I’ve been looking all over for you,” Ignus growled, pointing an accusing hoof at Aeros.
“Oh, what does he want now ?” Aeros sighed in exasperation, letting his head flop to the floor. “We just got back a few days ago. I haven’t even had the chance to see Mother yet! Doesn’t he know what rest is?”
Ignus tossed his head, his mane flaring like a campfire sprinkled with oil.
“You know as well as I do that he wanted us to train this morning.”
“See my previous statements!”
Ignus narrowed his eyes. “You also know why he wanted us to train this morning,” he said, his voice more subdued now.
Aeros, on the other hand, snapped. “And you know as well as I do that a few extra days of training won’t be able to replace...”
He halted, then closed his eyes and sighed, his horn making a disheartened clack on the stone floor as his head flopped down once more. Ignus said nothing. Phobos looked between the two of them, confused.
“Look... you’re better at dealing with him than I am.” Aeros looked at his fiery sibling pathetically. “Just... just tell him we’ll train early tomorrow or something, okay?”
“You can tell him yourself soon enough.”
Aeros perked up. “What?”
Ignus rolled his eyes. “You thought I came here to berate you for avoiding training? I don’t think there’s been a single session you haven’t tried to avoid for as long as I’ve lived. No - I still owe you for that time in Corona Ortus, so I figured I would warn you that Bellic is coming to visit Phobos.”
Aeros jumped to his hooves - or tried to, anyway. He and Phobos were still tangled up in his hair. He quickly unrolled himself and stood, leaving his little brother upside-down and dizzy under his hooves.
“Why didn’t you say so? What was with all the...?” At a loss for words, Aeros settled for crossing his eyes and making some very undignified noises.
“I just had to see you make that face of yours again.” Ignus draped his hoof across his brow melodramatically, his voice cracking in a high-pitched mockery. “Oh, brother, save me! Our father is too much! I can’t deal with him!” He grinned nastily.
Aeros growled, then bent his head down to Phobos. “I’ll be back... later, okay?”
Phobos nodded groggily, still dizzy from rolling. “Mm-hm.”
The airmaster brushed past Ignus onto the balcony, crouching and spreading his wings.
“Oh, and...” He turned back briefly, his eyes full of warning. “Don’t argue with him, okay? It never works out.”
With a single flap of his wings and a buffeting blast of air, Aeros was screaming off into the autumn sky. Ignus rolled his eyes once more, and followed suit much less dramatically.
And once again, Phobos was left alone with his two oldest friends - Silence and Thought.
His father was coming. His father. A stallion he had never seen in his entire life. A stallion that one of his brothers feared, and the other all but worshipped. He had heard much about Bellic, of course. About his size, his strength, his ferocity. About the relentlessness with which he pursued those few enemies of the alicorns that remained. Phobos wasn’t sure how to feel.
He took a few moments to smooth down his mane and preen his ruffled feathers. He got the feeling that Aeros didn’t want Bellic to know that he had been there, and Phobos looking like a storm had blown through his hair would be a fairly obvious sign. Actually, his room wasn’t in a very good state either - toys, leaves, and a few books that had fallen off of the shelves were strewn about everywhere. Phobos quickly swept as much of the mess as he could into the corner behind the door, where it would be least likely to be seen.
Just as he had decided to try throwing some of the leaves over the edge of the balcony instead, he heard voices out in the hallway. He pressed his ear up against the door.
“Good day, Bellic. ...I never thought I’d see you in this hall.”
That was Hippocrates. Of course - today was his checkup day. They had been growing less necessary over the past few months, but the doctor had never allowed Serena to negotiate below bi-monthly. Phobos felt himself relax somewhat - he wouldn’t be facing his father alone, at least.
“Hippocrates,” a deep voice said - a voice that sent a chill down Phobos’ spine, and echoed in his veins. He could sympathize with Aeros. “What are you doing here?”
“My job,” Hippocrates replied curtly. “What are you doing here?”
“I’ve come to see my son.”
“Really,” the doctor replied flatly. “This wouldn’t happen to have anything to do with a certain personnel issue from yesterday, now, would it?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Sicut pater mea Faust est , you don’t!” Hippocrates suddenly spat. Phobos jumped. He had never heard Hippocrates raise his voice like that. “I know how you work, Bellic, and I can understand your desire for extra horsepower, but if you’re going in there to judge his fitness as a replacement, I’m not letting you.”
“Why? You told me weeks ago that he was almost fully recovered.”
“‘Fully recovered’ does not mean ‘ready to start training’!”
“Then what does it mean?!” bellowed Bellic, suddenly angry. Phobos could have sworn he felt the vibration of a stomp through the stone floor.
“It means ‘no longer in danger of being killed by rogue dust motes’! It means not having to worry about a stiff breeze tearing out his fur! It means that if he steps on a rock, he won’t break his leg!”
Bellic scoffed. “It can’t have been that bad.”
There was silence. Phobos could only dare to imagine what sort of baleful glare Hippocrates was using. When Bellic spoke next, he was very quiet.
“...it was?”
Hippocrates sighed.
“Do you have any idea how long it’s been? Three years, Bellic. Your son is three years old, and he has never met you. I could have told him I was his father, and he wouldn’t have known the difference.” He paused. “Look - we will all miss him, but Phobos is too young to take his place. If you’re going in there, you’re doing it as his father, not his commander.”
Phobos furrowed his brow, his mind racing with questions.
‘We will all miss him’? Who were they talking about? Who was this that was so important to Bellic that neither I nor ‘a few extra days of training’ could replace him? And replace? What had happened to him? Where had he gone?
He was snapped out of his thoughts by approaching hoofsteps outside the door, and quickly scrambled to find a toy. When Bellic slowly opened the door, Phobos was sitting in the middle of the room, idly pushing a pair of wooden dolls back and forth.
He looked up innocently, but found himself looking at his father’s neck instead of his face. Slowly, he lifted his head further, and a wave of fear rushed through him. Bellic’s eyes, as wide and filled with uncertainty as they were, were almost painfully intense.
“Uh...” Bellic looked back to Hippocrates for guidance, but the doctor merely glowered at him and jerked his head towards the room. Bellic coughed awkwardly, and took a small step forward. “Do you... do you know who I am?”
“Mm-hm” Phobos squeaked. His vocal cords had apparently taken his first instinct to run away much more seriously than he had.
“Oh?” Bellic said, drawing himself up a bit. “How?”
Phobos looked away sheepishly - perhaps without those deep blue eyes piercing his mind, his words would be more willing to cooperate. “Well, I - I suppose I don’t know for sure, but...” He swallowed nervously. “Aeros and Ignus have... talked about you a great deal.”
“Really.” Bellic raised an eyebrow skeptically. “What sorts of things do they say?”
Phobos swallowed, deciding that it would be best to go with the answers that were simplest, while still being true. “Well, they... they say that you’re strong, and brave, and a great warrior.”
“And?” Bellic pressed.
“And that you’re...” Phobos searched desperately for the right words. Psychotic? Obsessed? Deranged? Overzealous? “...very passionate.”
“I see.” Bellic glanced back at Hippocrates, thinking, then leaned down conspiratorially. “Do they ever talk about what we do? Why we’re here as little as we are?”
“...Sometimes. It’s... hard to imagine, though,” Phobos admitted, allowing himself a nervous smile. “I know barely anything about the outside. I’ve never even left the castle. I can’t begin to think of what the things you fight look like.”
“But you understand why we are so absent.”
“I... I suppose so.” Phobos looked up, slightly confused.
“Good.” Bellic nodded, apparently satisfied, and straightened. “I’ll talk with you more another day. For now, I need to have a word with your brothers.”
With that, Bellic turned and strolled out, pausing only to give Hippocrates a “See, what do you know?” smirk. Phobos scrambled up and poked his head around the door, and together, they watched the black alicorn walk nonchalantly down the hallway, with not so much as a glance backwards. Phobos looked up at the doctor, confused.
Hippocrates shared the look with him, before returning his gaze to Bellic’s retreating haunches.
“Hm.” He shrugged. “That went much better than I expected.”
