1: Dawn Pt I
A blistering wind, carrying the chill of several hundred miles of snow and ice, whipped the loosely packed snow of the compound into a frenzy, quickly burying the lowest floors of sparse buildings in immense drifts. The few windows in those buildings were well sealed against the penetrating cold, and the occupants were kept warm by the grand fires within their cradles at the ends of the great halls. The tallest of the buildings, however, had no such protection against the cold. Standing three times the height of its brothers, the grand lighthouse warded the entrance to the bay, and the fire atop the building offered little warmth due to its magical nature. The blinding blue blaze of the flame was mirrored by its red cousin on the far shore of the bay, nearly a mile away. The bay saw only very little traffic, and what it did see was mainly during the warmer summer months. Admittedly, though, the past months had been more hectic than usual.
The great clock of the main hall, as old as the compound, gently chimed out the fourth hour of the morning, and its sound echoed through the halls for several long minutes before silence fell upon them once again. Within the garrison only a few beings were still awake, and of them only three were awake by choice. Two guards, standing just inside the main entrance door, chatted amicably with each other about the latest news to filter up from the nearby cities, and their own brotherhood gave them plenty of material. Pegasi, both, they were less bothered by the cold than most of the others, and so they each took it in turns heading out into the wind to run a quick patrol around the perimeter of the area. Deeper within the building, though, lurked the restless mind of the sole member of the solar guard.
His quill scratched against the parchment before him as he sought to record the many actions and accomplishments of their small division of the Gray Company. His words flowed smoothly across the parchment as he allowed himself to become a vessel for his memories, rather than dredging them out and ruining them with imperfect recollection. The countless tomes lining the walls served as a written record of the noble history of the Grey Company, a small division of the military might of Equestria. And it was those that the annalist sought to imitate in style, recreating the glorious records of days past.
He paused for a moment as he reached the end of a section, and he gently drizzled a measure of sand atop the page, smiling softly as the ink dried upon the page, sealing in yet another part of their history. The stallion stood, slowly, from his work, admiring the flowing script of his pages. With a quick spell, the candles of the room were snuffed out, and the stallion crawled into his bed, nearly waking the softly slumbering mare already there.
