The midday sun wasn’t helping her cause at all. That spell seemed like it was completely above her level, but the heat was acting like some sort of energy sucking aura. With a tired groan and a sigh, a spark of magic flew out from her horn one more time and vanished in the breeze. The field went quiet once again for a moment, the grass rustling lazily with the breeze, before the thump of a unicorn hitting the ground was heard. Celestia laid her head on the grass, closing her eyes, wondering if it would be too hard to take a quick nap.
“Well, that was a little more than last time…” A voice said somewhere near her, approaching slowly. “Well, no, not really, it wasn’t. But props for trying, Celly.”
“Sorry, teacher….” The unicorn mare groaned, still a little dizzy from the failed attempt at the spell. “I think I’ll….Try again…”
Celestia opened her eyes, sighing and started pushing herself to her hooves. Some grass blades stuck on to her white coat, and despite the fact that she didn’t have a mirror, she would take a guess that her pink mane was tangled and full of leaves, as well. Her horn felt tingly and weirdly light. It was like it was full of helium, and pulling her head upwards. It was a weird sensation, and not a pleasant one to boot.
Before her, a dark blue unicorn with a gray and black mane stared with a raised eyebrow. He didn’t say a word while his apprentice got back up, but sighed, and shook his head once she was at his level again.
“Don’t bother. We’re out of time.” He said, and looked upwards, narrowing his eyes. The sun that only a couple minutes ago was as hot as the midday was not shinning anymore. In fact, with a small “pop” that they somehow could hear, it turned into the moon. Starswirl pursed his lips, and started walking.
Celestia, with a small sigh of relief, started following her mentor without saying a word. The scenery was changing wildly from minute to minute; about now, a giant meteor shower was making the “night” flash. Even without looking upwards, the fact that the meteors seemed like they were disco ball globes was apparent. Celestia herself was just glad this wasn’t anything more serious or harmful, as it so often was. Starswirl looked like he wanted to stomp a kitten to death with all the flashy lights blinking madly around them.
It soon stopped, the meteor shower coming to a halt….In a sense. It soon turned into an actual shower, the small light drops randomly falling down on the earth as a true colorful downpour, exploding into small drops of chocolate milk and orange juice as they hit the ground. Without missing a beat, a dark-blue magical shield appeared over the heads of the two unicorns as Starwirl snorted sarcastically.
“I’m dying of laughter…” He murmured with an annoyed look and tone, before a small giggle made him look over to Celestia. The white unicorn mare was trying to hide the amused smirk on her face, but the giggling couldn’t be ignored.
“Well, it is a little…funny. I don’t know, it’s just so random that sometimes something funny comes along…” She said, looking around with a clear smile of amusement.
“There is nothing funny about this, Celestia.” Starswirl said, darkly. “We are on the run, on a world full of chaos. There is shiny white stuff falling from the sky, and my apprentice can’t get over high level magic spells when she needs to learn the REALLY advanced parts at once.” Celestia’s smile faded, and the unicorn looked downwards, taking her eyes off her mentor. “There is.” The older unicorn narrowed his eyes “Nothing. Funny about this. Do you understand?”
There was a long pause. Starswirl stopped walking, waiting for an answer with a raised eyebrow. Celestia kept her eyes on the ground, and for a couple minutes even the weather seemed to fall silent. The rain had stopped, and now a deep dark-brown mist that smelled of caramel apples took over.
“…Yes, teacher.” Celestia mused after a while.
Starswirl sighed, ceasing the magic flow on his horn and making the shield vanish.
“You’re too kind, Celestia. That is a quality I don’t want you to lose.” Starswirl said with a sigh. “But you can’t let that be on your mind on some situations. Or maybe I’m talking about your funny streak.” And he shot an annoyed look at the mare. “ I don’t like jokes when it’s raining juice.”
“You’re not a fan of jokes at all. I…I’ll stop, right. I’m sorry, teacher Swirl.” Celestia said in sad tone.
Starswirl wanted to buck a tree looking at the expression she was making. By the gods, that mare was way too good with the puppy dog eyes. Starswirl was a serious unicorn, beaten by life many times already and he didn’t plan on stopping any time soon. But something about that one orphan mare on that chaotic world always could melt him.
Still, that wasn’t something he would let her notice. They had to keep moving, and that was just what they were going to do. And he moved better when he was grumpy.
So grumpy he would stay.
There was no sense of time, so they simply walked until they were tired. Night and day were changing by the minute, and one couldn’t measure hours properly on that. Hours were things of order, the order and harmony of the nature, and the order and harmony of numbers working together. Most ponies barely remembered what order or harmony meant; the draconequus made sure of that, and had succeeded. For the most part. But even Discord would tip his hat and admit that every rule had its exception
“I think that’s a good distance for today.” Starswirl broke the silence of a long time, stopping. Celestia let out a mental sigh of relief, looking around. They had walked for a long time and the scenery had changed randomly; some times, it would simply turn from a dense forest to a jungle, to a desert to an open campo. Sometimes, it was only a question of knowing if oaks could grow purple bananas on their trunks, which when picked up flied off chirping some kind of weird poesy.
Right now, it was a pleasantly “normal” clearing. Celestia wasn’t sure the trees were supposed to be deep green, blue, purple and have small yellow turtles perched on the branches, but it was cozy enough that she would be glad to just lay down on the grass and sleep. She did just that, in fact, and Starswirl did the same a little distance away.
That was their routine for the past year. Since he had taken her under his metaphorical wing, they travelled after a long training, sleeping when they felt like it would be harmfull to their bodies to continue. The first months were a nightmare; Celestia couldn’t keep her coat clean, her pink mane was a complete mess. Her hooves were full of small, not threatening but annoyingly painful wounds and nips. As time went by, she learned to cope, and even work around some inconveniences. She still felt her muscles like pudding, but she could move without staggering for a whole day, even after training.
She laid down her head, sighing contently. She hoped she’d dream of her parents again; she had last seen them a couple months ago. They just appeared into a forest that grew under her hooves one day. At first she was excited; she cried and ran over, gladly talking about how much she missed them, and wondering what happened since Discord himself had shown up on their home looking for amusement.
She froze on the spot when she got close, though. Yes there they were; chirping, standing on trees and making faces at each other. Their coats, once bright and lively, were gray and dull. They looked at her and waved, laughing madly.
One blink later, and they were gone again. Celestia couldn’t continue on that day; she just cried away her strengths, and fell on a deep slumber. Starswirl hadn’t moved from his spot, by her side until she woke up. He was livid.
At first, she thought the older unicorn was mad at her for making him waste time. But he was livid at seeing her break down like that, when he was convinced it shouldn’t ever happen to anypony. At what the chaos had done in name of simply being. It wasn’t any surprise he was always with a frown on his head. As amusing as the chaos could be, sometimes, Celestia had the feeling Starswirl refused to forget, even for a moment, what was hiding behind it. She knew that too, herself. But felt like she simply needed to ignore it sometimes and laugh, or she would go insane.
“I think there’s some kind of village on the way.”
Starswirls’ voice snapped Celestia out of her pondering. She looked over to him, with wide eyes as he laid down, yawning and closed his eyes.
“A village? Can you say that? The last one was just full of statues made of-“
“The stars told me.” Starswirl cut her. “They appeared for a while longer, today. I read them, and saw we’d meet ponies soon. It’s still a long way to the Crystal Empire, though, so it must be some sort of village.”
“That’s amazing!” Celestia smiled broadly, letting out a happy giggle. “It’s been a while since we’ve seen anypony!”
“And they might not be discorded.” Starswirl said, with a grumpy kind of satisfaction. “Always a bonus. Maybe we can get one to come with us. I can keep at least one more hidden form the chaos. And we’ll need more help once we get to the Crystal Empire.”
“True…” Celestia said, laying her head down, still smiling. “This is good news. I think we’re on a lucky time.”
“You keep that hope up.” Starswirl thought to himself as he watched Celestia nudge herself on a more comfortable position. “ It’s a powerful thing. We need all the power we can, and the stars know I’m almost out of any kind of power, myself…”
He yawned, closing his eyes as well. “Tomorrow” would be full of surprises, and if life had taught him anything, is that you need to be prepared for surprises. You never know when you might have to slam one in the face, after all.
