To Bring Light to Eternal Darkness

by scifipony

Aversion

It took awhile for me to double-back from the road into town, once I was sure no propoli followed me and nopony coming from town would see me pick my way into the rocks and brush. Wearing deep dark blue helped. As my eyes better adjusted to the moonlight—I dared not use Illuminate—I found an earth pony path swimming in the shadows and winding between small boulders and skeletal plants.

Earth pony sharecroppers farmed all of our trees both down- and up-mountain and had a settlement about a mile downhill from the Council Paddock. They traded their share of crops farmed on the more arable land below the spring for unicorn-manufactured tools and utensils. I remembered a time when I saw more farmers in town, but the broken diurnal cycle the last few years played havoc with their efforts to grow things. The few recent encounters I'd had in the market had been with resentful types selling high-priced food at low margins, which meant I couldn't dicker much.

Summer's history books talked about unicorns being tasked with raising the sun and the moon, about that task being a pact that kept the pony tribes of Unicornia in peaceful coexistence. From what little I saw, it was more complicated than that. Da had once said the High Desert had a separate pact with the pegasi because greater Unicornia had fought with the tribe.

I saw no earth ponies as the dirt turned to grass beneath my hooves. It crunched in spots. I may have been wrong about the frost. Prickly small-leaf acacia shrubs gave way to more lush tamarix as well as fragrant cedar and juniper nearer the spring.

I'd carved all of it.

Leaves rustled in a sad-sounding whistling wind. A faint creosote and evergreen smell spiced the cold air as I slowly walked through shifting moon-dappled shadows, treading carefully. Each time a twig snapped, I froze, but I heard no answering movement. When the ground began to slope down, I began to hear voices from the paddock. The growth thinned to an irregular path through clumps of trees and brown crunchy-dusty cedar sheddings around the rim.

I ducked behind some bushes from where I could see and not be seen.

Below, the mages had set a table in front of the stage, behind which they all stood. The leader, who had apologized to me before, opened two massive tomes—one bound in metal and wood, another in basketweave wicker. He read while the others studied the crowd. A few hundred candidates reclined along the terraced bowl. This gave me an excellent view of their flanks. Most wore cloaks that deprived me of a view of their cutie marks, something that fascinated me more than their muscles.

None were mares.

A few, like Summer Daze, stood.

One mage walked the paddock perimeter and lit the cornerstone crystal outcrops at the four compass points. I ducked back as that illuminated the convocation with an eerie orangey glow that cast four distinct shadows. Most of the ponies swished their tails; ear flicks seemed contagious. Nerves, no doubt.

The mages had the candidates introduce themselves. Most rambled on about status, wealth, military prowess, or social connections. Then my baby brother spoke.

"I'm Summer Daze. I do complex magic because nothing else is interesting or worth the effort."

In the awkward silence that followed his brevity, a mage started, "Is that all—?"

"—I'm done."

Though a wave of nervous laughter rolled through the crowd, I smiled as many of the mages nodded. Summer had chosen not to waste their time. I doubted it was his intention to demonstrate empathy... but still.

Good job, my baby brother, I thought, and settled down for a long cold wait.

Even after Summer's demonstration, it was the better part of an hour before the mages spoke to a crowd that refused to completely hush even for them. Their spokespony said, "The first requirement is strong magic. If you don't—"

Windell, a minty-green black-tailed pony in a red flannel-hooded shirt, shouted, "What's in it for us? Your broadside was amazingly devoid of detail."

The more elderly blue white-maned pony, who seemed to be the leader, lowered his hood. "The Collegiate of Mages is responsible for raising the sun and the moon."

I heard a pony nearer my hiding place say sotto voce, "Good job you're doing there, sirs."

The mage heard it, as did everypony else. Over the laughter, he added, "We offer advanced schooling and personal tutors!"

Summer Daze's ears perked forward.

"That's all?" Windell interrupted.

"Qualified ponies will be invited to join the Collegiate." He quickly added, "And it pays well."

The audience nodded.

"But the offer requires that you demonstrate talent and that your magic is strong enough to aid the needs of the Queen. If all you are inclined to practice is everyday magic, or spells you mastered years ago, or you haven't tried to improve your skills since you learned them, then you should leave now. You face rigorous training and will need to rejoice in research and sometimes fruitless experimentation, often in subjects you have no native talent in. Beyond strong magic and stamina, we are searching for ponies attuned to nature or the sky. It is no dishonor to leave if anything I've said is unattractive or seems arduous. We have searched for a year and have found only two who we have invited to join us in the capital, and none who fit our most dire need."

Somepony shouted, "To raise the sun?"

The crowd murmured when the mages said no more. Over the course of minutes, most of the ponies shuffled out to the right of the stage, many complaining amongst themselves, leaving twenty-six. Summer's yellow fur and lime-green mane stood out at the far left of a mostly horsey-colored cohort of the hopeful that gathered in the front and center. His ears followed the mage who proceeded to call names alphabetically and ask each candidate to demonstrate his best spell.

I saw ponies blast rocks with Force, push ponies away with Shield, and dig holes with Excavate. Two others used Transfigure, one to change sticks into a hammer and the other rocks into a foal's lamb pull-toy. I could see that the practitioners of the last spell could have benefited from studying escapements; both objects faded back to their base state in less than a minute. There was a reason nopony made things for sale using transfiguration.

It was about this time that I realized my brother was gone. I stood, heart racing, causing the branches around me to rustle. I stretched to see the entire shadowy bowl below me, but I could not see Summer Daze anywhere. Had he lost interest, I should have seen him retreat into himself, the way he sometimes slumped wearily. As one student cast an illusion that turned the red-brown desert cobble under-hoof to dark-veined white marble tile, I realized I would have had to have seen him trotting for the exit.

This meant he had cast a spell, and it wasn't Teleport because the one thing I knew about the spell was that it sounded like a lightning strike. But what?

I ducked back behind the cover of the leaves and reviewed the spells we'd tried together. Aversion was one I had learned existed one day when I kept finding myself hungry, having repeatedly gotten up from my plate of shredded oats. Summer had cast it on himself while he sat next to me.

Funny colt.

I looked methodically at each pony and was sure I saw each—but come to think about it, when I'd understood the effects of Aversion and applied willpower, I'd always seen my oats; I'd just not wanted to look at them. Letting my eyes go unfocused, I ought to have seen something amiss.

Nothing seemed amiss, though I noticed a gap in the center of the table where the leader had been standing. He now walked to join the other mage doing the testing. I saw nothing interesting on the table; the big open books there were too far away to read even a title.

I wracked my brain. He had to be present. Had he cast an illusion so he couldn't be seen? We'd cast several types together, but they'd become progressively harder the more complicated the scene being masked had become. Generating a facsimile of a wall, or making the ground look like white marble (now faded), was a two-dimensional illusion.

We had both created examples of those illusions the first night we learned the base spell. I wasn't good at it, probably because I had no interest in hiding stuff. Casting an illusion around an object, which I succeeded in doing once around cornerstone crystals, required concentration and good perceptual skills. I ultimately failed to make it convincing because the cornerstone cast light and making something bright appear dark didn't stop it from casting light and shadows.

Which is why casting an illusion on yourself to disappear is something that just won't work. You'd have to remain still. Moving about would change the angles of reflectance and distort the illusion, making it easier to detect and see through, and make it very vulnerable to the mirror trick to focus on imperfections in the imagining clause. Worse, if somepony moved behind the illusion and you didn't notice and correct for it, or you simply stepped on a stick and made a noise...

Then what had Summer Daze done?

Something.

Something I'd probably helped explain to him.

Something I'd had no real interest in…

I sorted through the what-ifs, trying to figure out what had happened. Time passed as a purple pony named Rouge conjured a straight length of rope from his saddlebags that was magically tied into a double-hitch knot when it appeared. That was actually very impressive as it required him to coordinate a transformation along an unknown conformation of a volume. The middle-aged pony might be better at magical equations than my brother!

It was while the leader checked Rouge's red basket-weave saddlebags for an untied length of rope that I noticed something in my peripheral vision. It appeared that a page of the left tome, the grimoire with the metal lock on the rough hewn timber cover, was settling into place. When I squinted, it even seemed as if the buckle had shifted, but I kept on looking back to the leader who jotted on a levitated scroll. Uh oh—

The examiner called out, "Sunny Daze."

The mages looked around. The leader shook his head as in disbelief. He too appeared to realize my baby brother's yellow fur and lime-green mane were hard to miss had he walked by. He asked tentatively, "Sunny Daze?"

I heard my brother’s voice, “Um—“

Suddenly, the mage to left of the gap with the books jumped back with an unstallion-like shriek, stumbling away. The mage to the right looked at his fellow mage—his brown face and a very bright yellow star on his forehead clearly visible in his hood—and a heartbeat later gasped and backpedaled into his neighbor who whinnied.

Summer said, “I’m here.”

And now I could see through the illusion, given sufficient clues even though my eyes kept on wanting to wander away. I saw a semi-transparent view of my bespectacled brother with a quill dancing before him; the pink blaze on his forehead helped me center my attention. That meant he was casting at least Aversion, some multi-phrase transform of Illusion, and Dictation. No, wait. The buckle and the quill, even his walking around, had to have made noise. Now that I thought about it, there was a compound spell… Right: Don't See, Don't Look, Don't Hear. He had tried discussing it with me a month ago. The technicalities had made my eyes cross. Had he?

The leader, the blue stallion with the white beard, said a few conjuring words, reared and flicked with his hooves. Summer Daze became fully visible. His red feather quill fell over on his notebook where he had been—surprise, surprise—copying down a spell.

Well, here was to hoping it wasn't a secret spell.

Summer Daze focused on the mage leader and said, "That was a nice trick. How did you do that?" Not I'm sorry. No nervous laughter. No red-faced embarrassment. Just, How'd you do that?

The mage trotted over and looked at the notebook, the quill, and Summer in that order. "Good enough," he said and waved my brother back into the audience.

Summer Daze said, "But I'm not done—"

As I clacked my forehead with a hoof, the mage levitated closed his tomes, stuffed the notebook, spectacles, and quill into Summer's saddlebags, and pushed him with a blue shield spell until he got the idea. My baby brother shrugged, trotted noisily (since it was now dead-silent in the paddock) to his spot at the left of the candidates, and took out his carob-cinnamon bar. Incongruously, this meant him reaching his muzzle into the saddle bag then holding the confection with the frog of his hoof like an earth pony. Typical Summer Daze, he noticed none of the stares that earned.

Five more demonstrations and they winnowed the group down to four: Rouge, Windell, somepony else, and Summer Daze. The others departed, grumbling, one pair saying loudly that the whole process was rigged.

I felt rather proud. Not that Summer Daze had planned to show off—he was incapable of thinking that way—but that his nature had helped him succeed.

The next part was as curious as it was unexpected. The leader explained that the Collegiate was going to raise the sun.

I immediately edited that to try to.

As the mages formed a circle around the four, the leader added, "Listen and feel the magic. If something makes sense or moves you, join in when it's the right time."

No spell.

No magical equations.

No poetry.

Nor an admonition to watch and keep quiet. With an offer like that, I too joined in from afar, listening as the ritual began with chanted words.

The chant—it could barely be called a song—evolved into leader-and-follower response verses. All the candidates joined in, even Summer. It devolved into throwing as many different words of the same meaning as conceivable at the ritual.

Some of the mages began to sway, as if going into a trance.

The composition enticed the sun to rise into the sky, praising the orb's beauty and brightness, and the sky's expanse and blue color, treating it alternately with words that described a lovely daughter, a beloved wife, or a secret lover. In that last I actually blushed, but it all fit, meshed like the gears of a clock, and described a stark loneliness and longing, of a bringing to fruition what was supposed to be, of what needed to be, of what could no longer be left incomplete.

Interspersed were the mnemonics for the practical spells mares often used: Levitation, Motivation, and Sliding. How odd.

Bits alluded to sparkling diamonds and to a wagon. With a growing feeling of elation, I understood they meant a crystal celestial chariot for the most powerful female essence in our world! I shivered all over with breathtaking certainty. It spoke of chariot for the sun that required unicorns to pull it.

My fur stood on end.

The Sun. I felt it near. I turned eastward. There. I felt it as I sometimes thought I did. It was coy. Hiding, hovering just below the darkness of night. Impatient but stymied by…

I did not know by what.

My breathing synchronized with the chant that beat an unseen drum for a ritual evocation of a spell that was also a song. I felt the pulse of... Was it sunlight? It warmed my skin; my body began to sway; it made me want to dance—though I knew better than to do that hiding amongst the trees and bushes.

Still—

The imagined glow of the sun filled me. I felt lighter. Like I expanded into a void.

But I felt stymied. Or rather the sun did.

And it was a big reason for Sliding. The sun wanted to move one way, but if it would only detour the other…

"Just go this way," I said, reflexively casting a spell I used often to push large planks and blocks of wood across one another in the woodshed. A wave as numinous elation flooded into me. The part of me still grounded in the real world hoped I spoke in a whisper because I felt as if I were floating.

I followed Sliding with Motivate.

The all-encompassing warmth made me wonder if I actually glowed. My eyes had closed of their own accord. None of what I felt could be real... Still, it felt like my magic streamed from me, holding me up, buoyant, as in a bath. I heard the branches around me clack and the leaves rustle. The wind had picked up, brushing my mane against my neck. The weight on my hooves became less and less. Without volition, my lighter forequarters lifted, and I involuntarily began to rear.

"You!" a harsh deep voice yelled. "What vile impropriety are you committing, hiding like a thief in the bushes?"

Umbra.

The trance snapped like a porcelain teacup crushed under-hoof and I flung my magic who-knows-where. I fell back to all fours, but my knees didn't hold and buckled. I folded downward. It was as if my elation had sapped my essential vitality; in an instant I'd essentially gone from prancing through an exciting morning to dragging my hooves after days of insomnia. I crashed amongst the snapping sticks and slid away from the ridge and the paddock. The propoli stood in his red cloak on the path around the upper edge of the paddock, looming above me, leering.

Lit by his crimson magic, his dark gray face, burning magenta eyes, and voluminous black lion's mane formed an apparition that frightened me to the core. I bucked—cracking branches, bruising my legs—desperately twisting to get myself upright.

In the paddock, I heard a roar. Screams of joy. Cheers.

And no wonder. As I stumbled upright, I saw an amazing sight. The sky had turned orange and red. As the propoli and I stared in amazement, past the stage, beyond the golden clay roofs and red-striped white awnings of the distant town, behind the blue-forested Deep Dark mountains that I could now see were shrouded in mist, the sky lightened to yellow and turned blue. In a few more moments, a beautiful sun surged upward and traveled at least a quarter way up into the sky before I had to release the breath I'd held in shock.

"They did it," I whispered.

Umbra rounded on me. "And you, you stupid mare," he raged, "with your hubris and unmare-like pride—you could have defeated their entire spell! But I saved it."

He levitated a rope and tied a hitched-lead around my muzzle and behind my ears with a painful snap. "Do not use your 'magic strong.' I know you, Sunny Daze. This time you can't run away and lose me in the spice market. My word counts. Don't make your punishment worse."

He eyed me, looking for a response. Since my mouth was tied shut, I settled for a slight shudder.

He grunted and led me slowly along an earth pony trail like a slave, past the paddock, and up the graded road toward town. The sun quickly heated my indigo cloak. Soon we encountered ponies and the candidates who'd queued up earlier. In the morning sunlight, anypony could easily identify me. All stared. I kept my chin raised, if for no other reason than it made me taller than the propoli.

As we walked down Market Road into town, he said, "Looking at stallions? You should have been married off long ago to a strict husband who could take advantage of that 'magic strong.'" He chuckled at a no-doubt-salacious stallion thought I feared to characterize further.

I shuddered again.

Comments

[djthomp]

The collegium is going to have a hard time repeating that success if they leave Sunny here locked up in her hometown. Here's hoping one of the masters at the gathering noticed what was actually going on magically.

[Ice Star]

I think I know who Umbra might be...

[PresentPerfect]

I can see it: They entreaty the sun as though it were female, but the way they treat mares, I wouldn't raise, either.

Major ups for the depiction of autism in this story.

[scifipony]

9725473
Thank you. You get a 🌟.

Major ups for the depiction of autism in this story.

I'd been reading stuff and had seen a movie and realized it was the McGuffin I needed to be able to write the story. I tried to do my best by it and how it affects families. It's message fiction, but you seemed to like it. By a similar measure, homelessness provided the means by which I was able to write Celestia and the Battle for Sunset and some of The Enforcer and Her Blackmailers and make some difficult topical statements.