Ascendance: The Starswirl Chronicles

Ignis had felt Starswirl's presence before he heard it - an impressive feat in caverns such as these that were liable to carry every noise that occurred within it's walls for a range of a couple hundred feet.He had been patiently working to reverse the stasis spell he had entombed himself in when a flare of mixed magic had jostled his senses.

"The boy has some stout," Ignis mused, his concentration momentarily broken. He had fully expected the boy to give up for be lost in the depths of his mind forever; or worse, flat out refuse. After all, Ignis had prodded his mind himself and found that it was full of airy fluff which he promptly assumed was the product of laziness and ineptitude.

Returning his concentration on unraveling the spell layered around him, he felt Starswirl's aura become an increasingly annoying buzz at the back of his head that signaled his approach. "At this rate, I'll never be free of this stasis..."

When Starswirl appeared, it was as if a bright light had come into being. His magical presence permeated the room around him as he entered, approaching the frozen body of the old Magus Firus. "Strange place for a statue," he commented dryly to himself as his eyes scanned the rest of his surroundings.

Contrary to the rest of the caves, this room was made of pure granite. It's dark, imposing presence sent involuntary shivers down Starswirl's spine as he realized he did not know how far down he was from the surface. "It'll be alright..." he muttered, as if trying to convince himself of this fact. "It's not as if this place will collapse on me...hopefully."

Returning his attention to the statue, Starswirl noticed something odd. There appeared to be a faint glow that emanated from beneath the surface of the rock, a glow that felt like...

"Sun magic? Why is there sun magic entrapped in this statue?" Sending own his own magical aura, Starswirl suddenly realized that the entire room was filled with the stuff, swirling around lazily as it exited the statue. "What is this sorcery?"

Ah, so you've arrived, young one. The voice that had questioned him earlier appeared once more. Starswirl took a step back in surprise before standing his ground, realizing that the voice held as much as a threat to him now as it did before.

"Arrived at what, exactly?" Starswirl was quite ready to challenge the voice. He was tired of being pulled along on a string and mysteriously finding things out on his own. He wanted answers, and he wanted them now.

Never mind that, will you please approach the statue? My bones do ache after staying in place for such a long time.

Starswirl cautiously approached the statue, giving it a tentative prod. "What's so important about this statue anyways?"

What's important about it, my young mage, is that it contains me. Now, keep holding your hoof there.

A warm feeling entered through Starswirl's hoof, quickly spreading to the rest of his body. He began to smile, feeling indescribable amounts of happiness and joy all at once. The feeling continued to build up, bringing Starswirl higher and higher up the emotional scale until he reached a state many monks would refer to as "oen," the state of complete peace. This feeling withdrew itself as quickly as it arrived, causing Starswirl to suddenly feel empty until cracks started to emerge on the statue.

With a burst, the statue shattered into stray rays of light, temporarily blinding Starswirl as he shielded his eyes with his hoof. When the light faded, Starswirl saw a wizened pony in it's place that held the same semblance as the statue. "Ahhhh, that's much better!" The stallion said, stretching out it's hooves and neck casually. His mane was insubstantial, waving with an eternal wind that did not exist. It glowed in the colors of the fiery yellow sun coupled with the deep red of a campfire, complimenting his light yellow coat that was covered in small battle scars.

"Ahhh, that's much better!" Ignis stretched out his legs, releasing several satisfying cracks as his bones settled into place. "Being stuck in light for a long period of time can do miserable things for my arthritis."

Overcoming his initial shock, Starswirl could only stare as swirls of dust fell off of the pony in front of him. "Who ARE you?"

"Oh, where are my manners!? My names is Ignis, lad. Magus Firus and all that, but you wouldn't know if Lunestra did what I asked her to do... say, what year is this?"

"Magus Firus? I don't believe you. There have only been three Magi on the council for as long as I could remember and then some. In fact, even on the original council there was only Avalanche, Sonus, and Lunestra." Starswirl was incredulous. A strange pony claiming to be a mysterious Magus Firus that nopony has ever heard of? Preposterous. "The year happens to be 500 A.C. (After Coronation)."

Ignis whistled in amazement. "I've been asleep 500 years, eh? That's quite a long while for a pony like myself to be out. Anyways, I say there is such a thing as Magus Firus. After all, you're looking at him." At this, Ignis conjured a globe of flame and began juggling it around with his magic, causing it's light to dance across the room. "See?"

Starswirl couldn't believe his eyes. "B-but only Corona should be able to do sun magic! How by Luna's moon are you able to do it too!?"

The magus only gave a shrug as he allowed the flame to dissipate, allowing the room to enter relative darkness. "I'm not sure why you're so surprised. After all, you can do it too, can't you? Haven't you noticed that you could heat things up when you wanted to? How about feeling more vigorous out in the sunlight than in the shade? Summoning random flames out of nowhere?"

The words seemed to make a disturbing amount of sense when Starswirl thought about it. In fact, there were many recent instances where he could remember using heat to make his tea boil faster. "Even so... why aren't there anything in the annals about you? And what ARE you?"

"There's nothing in the Annals about me because I had them removed before freezing myself in stasis. What I happen to be - or used to be, at any rate - is tribe leader of the now extinct solar ponies. They all died out a little over half a century ago, and I'm the only one left," said Ignis, his voice now tinged with sadness. One look at his eyes was enough to reveal mountains of pain and misery before they were replaced by his usual joviality. "Anyhow, how did you end up in these caverns? Ponies generally don't roam down here, though it's good for me that you did; any longer and my bones might have started decaying where they were."

"I'm down here for my Rites of Challenge to become the next Magus Aquus...or so the story goes," Starswirl sighed as he spoke, his eyes a mixture of being downcast and angered. "I can't forgive the council for that they've done, nor can I forgive Corona for what she does. It seems easier to work from the inside from the out."

"What causes you to bear such ill will towards the Council? Surely they work for the peace and prosperity of the nation?" Ignis asked, his eyes now alight with curiosity.

"Pfeh! Of course they work for prosperity - they work to line their own pockets with it! Any pony who'd stop and think about it knows that it's the Council behind the endless wars that we're having. We have our troops being sent up against an enemy that's an ocean away! Enemies that our citizens are likely never to see! Meanwhile, hundreds of vassal states send their tributes to Equestria from which the Magi take their own large sum to continue their lifestyle of want and greed."

"W-what? It's not supposed to be like this!" Ignis sputtered out, unable to contain his confusion. "The Council is supposed to represent the pony tribes and maintain peace and harmony, not spread death and misery!"

"Really?" Starswirl arched up his eyebrows in superstition. The image of a selfless council seemed impossible to come by.

"Really! Here, let me show you." Laying his hooves across Starswirl's temple, Ignis began to chant a long line of ancient Equuish. A line of memories began to trickle into Starswirl's mind, showing him the times of the early pony tribes and how they had fought until the establishment of the Magi had brought them together as a nation.

"How can this be?" Starswirl breathed in in amazement. His mind now filled with the wonders of the Magus' memories, he started to wonder how things could have changed so thoroughly in the past five hundred years.

"Never mind that, lad," Ignis said irritatingly, rubbing his head with his hoof. The memory spell worked both ways, so as Starswirl indulged himself in the ancient pony's memories he himself had partaken in some of Starswirl's. Needless to say, he was not pleased. "Let's get out of here, shall we? There will be plenty of time to ask questions later. You must be bone tired."

Starswirl only nodded, now suddenly made aware of the burden of his exhaustion. Together, the two gently exited the cavern, leaving behind only the whispers of magic that would eventually seep into the granite and convert it into a mysterious crystal substance.

It was twilight by the time the duo emerged from the caverns. Starswirl was decidedly worse for wear, as the passage back to the surface had been a violently steep climb that involved dodging falling boulders and jumping from section to section a broken path. Ignis, on the other hand, looked right as rain and nothing like a stallion who had just emerged from a 500 year slumber.

Darkslick had his back turned to the cavern entrance, gazing out towards the darkening horizon. "That was worrying, my young mage; I was beginning to think you wouldn't make it. What a shame that would have been, don't you agree?"

"At least I passed, Magus. I'm out. Also, explain who this is and why he was in my test?" Starswirl was too tired to manage a retort, having to instead make do with as much indignation as he could muster.

"Whom do you speak of, boy?" Darkslick's voice was sincerely curious as he turned to see Ignis standing at the exit of the caverns. "Wh-"

"By Faust, you're fat. And you're supposed to be a Magus with that amount of magical power?" Ignis' voice became surprisingly critical as he eyed up the stallion in front of him. "Oh, how our standards have fallen."

"What did you say? I'll blast you into the next realm, you insolent fool." A glint of anger flashed in Darkslick's eyes, although his voice remained calm and composed.

"My insolence? For a weak Magus, your words are presumptuous."

At this, Darkslick reached deep into the wells of his magical power and reached out into the air around him. The temperature dropped drastically as water started to form and slowly freeze into ice. Soon, the entire plateau they were standing on was covered with snow and icy rock. "You gaze upon my power and still dare to call me weak?" he grunted through his teeth, sweating under the exertions of his spell.

"Child's play." With the wave of a hoof, Ignis' surroundings grew hotter as a circle of flame grew into existence around him. The ring slowly expanding, enveloping the area and growing hotter all the while until the ice began to sublimate into water vapor. When all the ice had disappeared, he dropped the spell with a yawn. "I didn't even use a quarter of my magical power for that spell."

If Darkslick was displeased, the only indication of it was the twitch that moved across his face faster than the eye could catch. "Very...interesting. I'm sure Empress Corona will want to learn all about this new individual, Starswirl." Without so much of a glance towards the young mage, Darkslick returned to his couch. "Let us return to the castle, shall we? I'll need  you to get ready for your new lessons starting tomorrow as Magus apprentice." He spit out these words distastefully, as if they were a bad wine he regretted drinking.

Starswirl merely glanced over to the Magus Firus, who smiled mischievously. I wish all Magi were like this, he thought as they were enveloped by Darkslick's teleportation spell and winked out of existence.