Dragon-blooded. Celestia thought. Well. It comes as very little surprise to me. He did get more of it than Mi Amore. She's practically a pony compared to him. Though---how? Every time I look at him, I keep getting reminded of my old assistant when I was learning magic. The same attitude. The same temper. The same need.
No. I can't give that to him. His father was a dangerous man to trust. Now the only vestiges of the Crystal Empire are the children of Allustria Cadenza. I've learned my lesson with trusting dragons to know the difference between good and evil. I thought he knew. I thought I had done everything to teach him the difference. Perhaps little Mi Amore is right. Perhaps we should stop the practice of magically forced hatching.
Celestia continued to look at Prizmat, actually sorry of her past treatment of him on one side of her. The other side felt vindicated that history does repeat itself. He would not be allowed to use magic. Ever.
Her and Kibitz continued to look between each other, worried that the method used to subdue him might have been too harsh. They both heard a cough, and looked over at the colt, who's eyes were open. They looked normal again. He tapped his head gently with one hoof, and checked his muzzle for if it had been broken. He felt nothing wrong, but where he had been struck still hurt.
"Ow."
"I'm not going to ask you what happened this time." Celestia began.
"That's fine. I'm pretty aware of what I had been doing. I-"
Celestia put a hoof over his mouth. "You were more aware of what you were feeling than what you were doing." She looked into his eyes, but he tried to keep looking away---afraid of what would happen if he met them. Nothing happened. "Prizmat De Cadenza. Look at me. Do I look as beside myself with you as I had been this morning?"
"No. And that's worse. I can't tell if you're going to get mad while my guard is down." She wanted to smile. No...that's a little too sudden of a change for him.
"I promise I'm not going to lose my temper this time. Prizmat. Did you know that you're a part-dragon?" He felt more afraid at this Celestia than the one that he had grown up with.
"Yes. I've known since last night. I didn't want to acknowledge it, but...but that egg did! It said it wasn't going to hatch for me! How am I supposed to learn how to use magic if I can't be trained to use it without getting angry first?"
Celestia sat on the bed next to Prizmat. "I've been thinking about that for years. For now, I'm just going to work with this: don't use magic. I still want you to be educated, though. So I'm going to have you sent to a regular primary school." Celestia turned towards the black-colored foal. "Did you know your sister's got her Cutie Mark now?"
"When did this happen?" Kibitz cleared his throat, checking his watch.
"In a moment, Kibitz." She turned back to Prizmat. "She said it appeared after she berated the teachers for having their test be to hatch a dragon. She said it was cruel to them, to raise them like a pet---like family for years, even---and then let them go when we can't house them any longer. I had one, once. He was a challenge, too---a black dragon."
"Did you have to let him go?" At this, Celestia did smile. Wistful nostalgia played across her face.
"Yes. But not because he had outgrown my home. He had grown a sense of adventure. He wanted to see all of the world, from Ley Wall to Ley Wall." She got up off the bed, and walked towards the bedroom door. "From Concordia, to the City of Gold, to Neighpon. When I look at you, I miss him. I...I even regret what he became."
"Is the world a bad place?"
"No. Let's just say that Discord's imprisoned in stone for many reasons, personal and not."
Gaffer watched the other foals playing together in one of the sitting rooms of the orphanage. He was different from the others. Ever since he had met Prizmat earlier that day, he could feel a wall of isolation between himself and the others that wasn't there before. He looked over his cards, one of the first sets of Hocuspocus: The Get-Together that had been released. He was mulling over which of the three decks he had that he wanted to take, and how he would ask the matron for permission to visit the otherwise well-to-do family that Shining Armor was part of.
Unable to decide, and more of a want to show them off before some baby foal could somehow sneak them into their slobbery mouth, he packed all three decks into his bag, each into a box that he had labeled with a spell that only he could identify them with. He sighed, and walked over to the matron's office. The door was shut. He knocked on it a few times, hoping she was inside.
"Mum?" No answer. He knocked again. "Mum, are you outside?"
"Yes." Gaffer jumped. He landed beside the doorway, while an earth pony mare with a satchel of papers and a unicorn mare opened the door and walked inside. "Give me another five, Gaffer, and I'll be with you then, alright?"
"Yes, Mum."
"He's a brilliant-" The doors shut. Gaffer sat next to them, waiting for his chance to ask the matron about if he could visit one of the other families. He heard a tap on the window next to him. He looked over, wondering who was throwing rocks against it. Instead he saw a brown pegasus colt with a blue mane that was cropped into a short, thick mohawk just outside it.
"Ah! What are you---hang on." Gaffer tried to find the window latch, opening it to let the pegasus in. "What are you doing here? I thought you'd found a family already!"
"Yeah, but I wanted to tell you who that unicorn that came inside with the Mom is! That's one of the school teachers for the school I'm going to be going to! Maybe the Mom's going to enroll you there!"
"Um...Bit? That's not who you think it is. Besides, I'm going to a public school." The pegasus cocked his head slightly, apparently not as crestfallen as Gaffer felt.
"Aw. Well, who knows? There's only one academy in Canterlot, so we'll end up there."
"Yeh. Someday. Bit, I dunno if I want to forget about you, though."
"You don't have to. It's not like I can't visit here, is it?" Gaffer poked at a floorboard.
"Mum doesn't want visitors unless they're on business."
Bit scrunched his snout up. "She's being a snoot isn't she? I never had a problem with making friends outside of here."
"Yeah, well, you're not me! I've got magic, and you can fly! She can't really stop you from flying off to do whatever you please, but there's an anti-magic zone she has someone come out to put around the place so me and the other unicorns can't do that!"
"Are you implying you want to get out?" Bit turned around toward the window.
"Eh, no? I'm just saying that my...well...maybe I don't have any friends except you."
Bit grinned. "If she can't stop me getting out, she can't stop me getting in." Gaffer looked worried. Some of the other pegasi foals were watching the conversation. They were old enough to understand what they were taking about, but looked as if they'd walked in on it halfway through.
"Bit, you'll give the little ones ideas. That's bound to raise Mum's standards of security."
Bit sighed. "Fine. I won't say anymore while we're being watched. Just, uh...stay up a little later, alright? I know where our room is." He flew back out the window, and Gaffer closed it. He looked over at the foals, a morose attempt to intimidate them playing across his face.
"Bug off." They went back down the stairs, and into the sitting room that they were playing in earlier. The doors to the matron's office opened.
"No, I must say that it was a good idea at the time. However...dragons. Ugh, there's one extra job I don't want to deal with. Wish they'd put up a standard test like the public magic schools. Well, good day, then. I've got my enrollment documents to fill out to get this little one in at Gemstone Cut Primary."
Gaffer tried not to let himself look uncomfortable, or groan. Gemstone Cut. Great. Like I'll fit in with the rich kids...
"Come on then, Gaffer. What did you want to ask me?"
"Can I visit someone outside the orphanage?" The matron rubbed her chin.
"Mm...is it another foal?"
"Yes."
"Got parents?" She stopped looking like she was considering it.
"Yes."
"Ah. See if you can find out if they're willing to take you in, then. Don't do it yourself---just ask them if they'd like to. Leave the formalities of it to me if they say yes. Otherwise? Knock yourself out as long as you don't try coming back in at night." Gaffer nodded.
"Thanks, Mum."
"Why, certainly. I'm hard pressed enough with fifteen other foals!" Gaffer grinned as he walked away, though the matron didn't see him smiling.
"Wait, we're going where tomorrow?" Prizmat looked up at Kibitz, and then between the old stallion and his sister.
"Gemstone Cut Primary. Celestia's got different secondary schools for each of you in mind. One that's more magically oriented for Mi Amore, while you will be staying in the public system."
"I bet we have different teachers and subjects to learn even when in the same school, too." Prizmat's ears flattened against his head. A grumpy expression stuck onto his face.
"Is that really a problem?"
"I dunno yet." Prizmat shrugged.
"Well then, stop making the sour faces of stallions my age. It's the old's job to be crusty brass. Celestia thinks you'll make other acquaintances there, anyway." Prizmat's eyes made contact not with Kibitz's, but with his mustache instead, watching it move as he spoke.
That mustache...so mesmerizing that I can't stop thinking about making fun of it... Kibitz cleared his throat.
"Also, I'll have you know, that 'Wilford Brimley' is a stupid name that I reserve Celestia to have the right to call me." Both Mi Amore and Prizmat giggled. "Do you think I enjoy chasing her around when she becomes a cake-destroying missile with a super-sense for every single pastry within 30 miles of Canterlot?!" The two foals fell off of their seats, laughing next to each other. Kibitz grumbled. "Honestly, I think that's why I gave up trying for today. Someone has to hold the reins in this place when she does this nonsense."
"I'm glad you could come over!" Shining Armor stepped aside to let Gaffer in.
"I'm glad I could, too. I kind of wanted to have some more time to talk. Just that, eh, thing that happened at the magic school-"
"I know. That was crazy. I didn't think he was capable of black magic that powerful. My parents are a little disappointed that I didn't pass, but they're going to enroll me in Gemstone Cut. I can learn how to do magic there." Gaffer looked up from his bag. He's...he's going there?! My day just got so much better!
"I already know some. I can levitate small things, and do some other nifty utilities for organizing things." Shining Armor watched as the three boxes in Gaffer's bag lifted out, surrounded by a pale blue aura. "I've got these marked so only I can tell them apart. I know which of these decks is which at first glance even when no pony else does."
"Huh...that could be useful. Could you teach me that spell sometime?"
"It'll have to wait until you can control your casting."
"Aw. Alright. Hey!" Shining Armor darted halfway up the stairs of his home. "Let's go to my room! I have my cards in there, and some other things that I've collected, too!" Gaffer followed Shining Armor upstairs, looking at the photos on the wall as he went up. Gaffer judged that Shining Armor was well-loved by his parents, something rather rare in unicorn families.
Not like the life that I had been pushed out of. Gaffer shook what little memory he kept of his mother out of his head, and continued up the stairs.
"What kept you?"
Gaffer looked back outside Shining Armor's bedroom for a moment. "Oh, the pictures."
Shining Armor blushed. "My birthday last year. They keep putting the newest ones up on the wall by the stairs." Shining Armor went back to looking around inside of a trunk where he kept several boxes of varying size. Gaffer looked around at the room. A foal-sized fluglehorn was on Shining Armor's bed. An assortment of stones sat distributed between adventure books on a low shelf. One that caught his eye was opal-colored, and had a faintly glowing symbol shaped like a staff carved on the inside of it, even though the surface was uninterrupted and smooth.
"Hey, Shining Armor?" He looked up from his digging into his collection of game boxes, and walked next to Gaffer to see what it was. "What's this supposed to be?"
"Oh. I have weird dreams about a different world when I sleep with one of those. That one...that one belongs to a healer called Eclipse. I dunno why, but it feels like we were friends in that world. It confuses me, so I don't do it much. That dark purple one is his, too." Shining Armor pointed out a different one, that was shaped like a roughly cut teardrop, with a symbol of a shooting star inside of it. Gaffer picked it up, and felt a warmth come from it.
"Are they supposed to radiate heat?"
"What?" Shining Armor had the stone placed in his hoof by Gaffer. It didn't feel warm to him. "I'd been wondering about it, because I feel that from some of them, but not all of them. I don't from these two. I do feel it from that one, though." He pointed at a turquoise-colored one with a shield inside of it. "Maybe it's because they belonged to ones who got them."
"That'd be interesting to find out when we're better at magic." Gaffer looked at all the different game boxes around the trunk. "So, what were you looking for?"
"Oh, that's right...I forgot my parents put the Coltari in Dad's parlor. They want me to practice at using that." He pointed at the fluglehorn. "I haven't done anything with it yet."
"Why not?" Gaffer asked.
"I don't know if I'm supposed to be a musician. They think I am, though."
"What do you think you are?" Shining Armor closed his eyes. He looked upset, and pointed at the turquoise stone.
"Every dream I have with that one, I hear my name being spoken. As if...as if I was actually there. So...and I'm not even sure what it means yet...I think I'm supposed to be a protector. I mean, it'd be nice to have some other things to do with my time, but I don't think I'm meant to be a musician."
"Fake it?" Gaffer suggested. "We're only just going to be starting in school tomorrow."
Shining Armor picked up the fluglehorn, and started to blow in it. The first try was one that let out a muted hwoohf. Hwoohf. He kept trying to make a clear horn-like sound from it, and it would always end up quiet, or---on the off-chance that he'd made it loud enough---sounding like a deflating balloon. He didn't hear his dad enter. Only Gaffer noticed the stallion watching.
"Son? Don't try to blow it with your lips shut. That might-" HWOOONK! "-There you go! That's how you use a horn!" Shining Armor set the fluglehorn down.
"Dad?" His father smiled.
"You've forgotten about the books over there." Shining Armor looked at the thin books that were set on top of his pillow. "If you want to practice, you have to know what you're doing."
"I was wondering, though...could I join the royal guard someday?"
"I don't see why you couldn't." His father picked up one of the books on Shining Armor's bed, and sat next to him. "But you're still a bit young to be thinking about that. Don't let it go, though. Just go for it when you get the chance to."
Kallig. The first time it was said in a million years sent a ripple of power that vibrated throughout the cosmos. Katara Fazrek knew what it meant. He was reborn. The heretic had returned to the universe, somewhere. His "Gift" lead to the unification of Orion, of the Set and the An. No longer was there an Empire. No more faces of avarice and control, masquerading as Light and Darkness. At least, not out in the open. We that call ourselves the true Set have been waiting for this. The chance to finally avenge our de-fanged order. The chance to kill him.
The second and third times the name was said were more detectable. Katara knew generally where to hunt for him. Katara wasn't going to alert the others yet. Maybe they too had felt it, and were also planning to act. Or---if they knew that Katara was already on the way---planning to watch. To wait and see whether or not their suspicions were right.