Despite it only being about five hundred steps, I found myself with a new respect for goats. The gold-edged chromium steel horseshoes I wore, fine on Canterlot lawns and cobblestone streets, provided dodgy traction on the rough-hewn down-angled stone that was barely a hoof wide. I kept barking the frogs of my hoof, making me wonder if I'd be able to pick up anything that way for a while. Sometimes it's good to be a unicorn, though being a pegasus today would have had its advantages. At the bottom, I shook my aching forequarters, throwing sweat from my mane. Fortunately, the sweat had quenched my mane, otherwise I would have lit the scraggly scrub and dead grass afire with liquid sunlight. My withers ached and my neck hurt, not to mention that my front legs shook. Between the balcony fall and tumbling out of the mirror, I was a mass of tightening bruises.
Brandywine jumped back from the droplets. Even wearing a cool brushbuzz-cut mane and tail, he looked improbably fresh—and handsome. "Hike much?" I asked.
"We live in Terrace Heights, above Canterlot. I take the trails up from downtown all the time."
"Show off."
It did explain the muscles I couldn't help noticing as he had climbed down before me, or now as he set off at a trot through an unnaturally flat plain dotted with miniature faux-volcanos with peaks awash with blue-white light. From our angle, I couldn't see any of the inmates of the maximum restriction zone, but moving shadows in the lime light, and an occasional roar or eerie dove coo that came from a non-avian throat, made my fur rise along my spine. Clouds scudded in to hide the stars, to reflect the mountain light that illuminated each stairway and our path. The crack of the few sticks I trod made me cringe at how visible we were.
Brandywine pattered on at length about casting Force. He started talking about the violation-physics of the spell, describing it with elementary deviant algebra, but my sudden yawn forced me to admit I was strictly average at arithmetic, to Celestia's chagrin. I mean, how can numbers help you survive on the street? I mean... Really not good at that. He changed his tack and described how his magic felt flowing into his horn, about a sense of congestion and accumulation, and how Force felt like focusing a related spell like Levitation into a circle so it caused friction along a rod-like cylinder from his horn to the circle. A type of scrubbing "frisson." Only when he spoke about the mnemonics he used—his father's version of the Royal Guard's standard military poetry mixed with what his father had learned on the Fillydelphia Constabulary Force—did I really pay attention. Spell mnemonics are meant to help a unicorn to think correctly about the energies in a spell, but are often nuanced such that each word's intended meaning and relation to the total phrase or clause needed to be understood, and felt in your heart—and Brandywine took it to a level of poetic criticism that seemed too cultured even for the athletic scholar. "Fire in this phrase is not just a magical element or combustion, it's also passion felt in the moment, the surprising heat generated when you love something you're doing so much that you push to your limits, but like fire it burns hot..."
So, okay, admittedly, a lot of this pretty talk went over my head, too. By the time my adopted father had sic'd Celestia on me, trying to extract me from what I understood now was a pitiful kingdom I'd forged for myself in Canterlot Cliffside's alleys and parks, I had learned to speak on the street and then only to fight or command. I had not been well socialized, and for a year after she tamed me, I burnt out a string of tutors as I learned to speak Court Equestrian (as a second language, "ESL," ponies insisted). I understood "nuance" as a nuance that easily made a foal out of me with confounding meanings. That I worked hard to speak and write in a nuanced way—wasn't that nuanced?—didn't mean I understood when others did.
Didn't matter, either. Brandywine's confident manner and occasional questions to see if I followed what he said, comforted me. My feeling of being exposed and vulnerable—admittedly a state that described my entire life on the street (though, asked, I'd lie about that) and as Celestia's student—dissipated. Part of me insisted I should remain scared. I was in Tartarus. Another wondered if this was what becoming friends felt like. I, for one, didn't know what friendship was since I'd never had any friends, just ponies I'd found useful to have around.
I answered a question with, "The friction causes the air to radiate 'infrared' light, whatever that is, along the 'axis of projection'."
He stopped before a knee-high brown rock and gave it a tentative buck. "Infrared is a light beam of heat. Somepony's not paying attention in her science class— You want to try the spell?"
"Um. This is a trick question, right?"
"No." His hoof clacked against the rock. "Fire away."
I compressed my lips to prevent my sarcasm from leaking out. Okay. Scrubbing air in a cylinder, check. Sing-song mnemonics repeating in my head, check. Accumulating magic in my horn, check. I nodded before lowering my head to point my horn. Soon, the glow of my gathering magic illuminated the rock in the night with a turquoise glow.
I tried. I strained. The muscles in my clenched jaw began to ache.
Nothing.
I even grunted, something that horrified me doing it in front of the colt. I even felt the impulse to rear and wave my forehooves like a witch, but my growing anger scotched that. I felt like Twilit Sparkles, increasingly magically constipated. I felt like I might explode like the runt as I reviewed and revised what I'd learned. I pushed.
And.
Nothing...
I collapsed my flawed Force into the more familiar Levitation, and, after the couple of seconds it took for the spell to coalesce, I yanked up on the rock.
It was well embedded in the ground. The earth beneath our hooves nevertheless shuddered and I heard as well as felt a resounding crump!, which shocked me into cancelling the spell.
"Hmmf!" he said.
When I looked, he had his lower lip tucked under his upper teeth in obvious embarrassed disbelief. It was so absolutely incredibly adorable that my anger evaporated instantly.
He smiled as he shook his head. "Nopony casts it on the first try."
I giggled.
Sweet Celestia! Did I just do that?
I looked away, blushing, which I hoped beyond hope he couldn't see in the poor light from the clouds. Into the awkward silence, punctuated only by the whistle of a warm breeze, I finally got out, "Well, how would you cast it?"
"That's what I've been telling you the last hour."
"No. I need to see you cast it."
"What good would that do?"
I took in his amber dragon eyes, tilted head, and scrunched forehead. Of course the idea was bewildering. Of course Celestia figured it out; she had been forced to learn how I thought to be able to teach me—she'd considered me valuable enough that she captured little inarticulate me on the street despite that I'd nearly wrenched off one of her wings and tore out most of her feathers; she wasn't going to waste that sort of investment. I swallowed hard. He needed to understand how I learned also, were he to be able to teach me.
He had bared his soul about having a political fanatic for a mother. Could I do the same?
Of course I could. I was proud of all my achievements, regardless what other ponies thought.
I said, "When Celestia taught me the word feral, she first used it to describe me."
"Oh, dear," Brandywine said.
"Yeah. I lived like a wild horse for years, though mother horses usually take care of their foals. I learned magic before I acquired language. Equations— Physics— Spell mnemonics— Words— That's all a new layer of horse apples over the former Queen of Cliffside, who, though only a foal, fought to take apart Princess Celestia when she threatened the safety of the ponies she protected, and would have succeeded in pulling off one wing had Celestia not knocked me out. My memories of when I learned my early tricks are basically foggy images now, but I remember skulking around the corner of a building… another time lying coated in mud hiding in puddles in Palisades park… and yet another hanging from the inside lip of a dumpster at what could have been three or four or possibly younger, watching unicorns do magic—and figuring out everything that way. I taught myself all my tricks just by watching others do them."
"So... You want me to demonstrate? Like I was dribbling a hoofball?"
"Pretty much."
He shrugged and started. At first, he went slowly but I told him no. Nopony had ever done that when I lived on the street. I did have to get really close to clearly see the set of his head, how he held his muscles, to get a good idea of when he was preparing to cast. Close enough to know he hadn't taken a bath this morning. Close enough to hear him breathing. Close enough to see the very strong muscles of his back that made me wonder if he might actually grow wings as his mother expected. Despite all I'd said, I wasn't quite sure how I picked up on how others cast spells, but I watched, glancing at his golden beam of force, waiting until it felt right.
I tapped him on the shoulder and he looked at me as the rock snapped and crinkled from the heat he'd subjected it to. Something inside told me I knew the shape the spell would take. I knew the mnemonics in the talking side of my mind. And, I sensed that I knew what it felt like to be casting the spell as I imagined myself doing what I'd seen.
He stood there quietly as I looked at him then positioned myself, looked again, adjusted, then looked again, until it felt right. I lowered my head, clearing it of this new fangled think called talk, and pushed my magic.
Sluggishly, it flowed. My adopted father had taken me to Horseshoe bay, where I first saw waves and the tide. It was like that, a little bit forward and back, then more forward and back, then more foamy, then strongly crashing against the beach. I sensed a coiling shape begin to form and coalesce into something I could manipulate. It extended, flowing, awash with warmth. Forward and back, more, a little more, a little bit more. Relaxing into it, I could wait for the seventh wave until it broke in against my shore.
It might have been a dozen seconds, or a dozen minutes, but suddenly, Blam!
"Yikes!" Brandywine cried, jumping back reflexively and striking my flank as he stumbled and rolled into a brittle bush to a chorus of crackles.
My eyes shot open just in time to see pebbles pepper the bushes far beyond the boulder. I'd pulverized the top quarter into gravel. The rock glowed faintly red and some grass began to smolder. I rushed over and stomped out flames. I smiled at the glorious damage I'd done, then at Brandywine still laying there, blinking in disbelief. I bounced up and down. Within a half-minute, I was lowering my horn again.
"No, no. Never point a weapon in the direction of a friend."
I blushed. Friend.
Well, wasn't it a night for firsts?
"If that magical outburst doesn't attract rainbow crows, nothing will."
It didn't. The cloudy sky remained empty.
I couldn't cast the spell again. He stopped me before I became frustrated, saying I'd accumulated so much magic that I'd just exhausted myself. Instead, we trotted along again. Soon, I began to see we left the range of the strange mountains, and that it curved around the horizon. Brandywine explained the mountains formed a circle around a prairie with Central City in the center. At its furthest edge, it abutted a crystal sky, except to the south at Cerberus' Gate. That last was the one natural entrance from Equestria, but impassable because it required passing through while touching the one other being that could pass through at will. Cerberus was a monster that would eat another monster, or a pony, without a second thought.
Further from the mountains, the climate became moister and the grass greener, enough so that we stopped to graze on a very nutty-flavored barley grass before continuing on towards the first isolated wind-blown trees. These dark dusky trees had canopies that stretched windward a dozen times further than their height. As I could start to make out individual branches, Brandywine began to canter, then gallop. I followed as he began calling out, "Oh, Eyes and Ears, heed me!"
I arrived behind the athlete huffing and puffing. He cried "Sirs!" into the branches above. The rustling wasn't just buffeting by the warm wind. Squinting, I made out gray shapes. I noticed a brightening sky through the dappled canopy. Dawn wasn't long off. With a huff, I lit my horn, tuning it sunlight white, shining it upward. (As a foal, I'd learned a spotlight could blind an attacker, allowing escape.)
Crows. Dozens of crows, each painted with stripes directly from a rainbow. The prism effect required a reflection at exactly the right angle, like a sheen of oil on water, off black coloration. Their beaks, talons, and eyes otherwise looked even blacker than black. They were so black, they absorbed light completely. It seemed they were a mere outline of life, like coal soot in living form.
"What do you want?" one asked. "Can't you see we're trying to sleep?"
Brandywine looked from the speaker, to me, and back to the speaker. He asked, "She's doing magic! She isn't native, here. Shouldn't you be trying to restrain her—?"
I gasped. "Hey!"
The spokescrow squawked, tilted his head regarding Brandywine with birdy annoyance and said, "Nothing is amiss. Go away." The bird closed its eyes.
"But— but— Is she native?"
The spokescrow fluttered its wings and said, "Who knows? Who really cares?" With a loud crow, he rousted the thirty others roosting. With a massive cacophony, they rose from the branches, sending down a cascade of leathery leaves, and flew, cawing mockingly, circling, and finally flocking further toward the center of Tartarus.
I said, "That's bad. Right?"
"Rainbow crows can stop magic. Magic use isn't allowed in Tartarus, and inmates don't want to use it as it will get you sent into a restraint zone. The princess can see through the eyes of any rainbow crow, and speak through its voice when she wants. Celestia granted their ancestors their powers for informing ponies of the approach and weaknesses of the Windigos, and for their sacrifice in leading the pegasi to Equestria. Many were frozen during the journey. To commemorate them saving the pegasi, Celestia gave them rainbow colors to match the rainbows they saved. They take their job very seriously."
"Not anymore."
Brandywine reared and stomped the ground. "This whole thing is not right. I have to find my father and get him out before the inmates realize what happened. They'll hurt him!"
He was off and running, leaving a trail of dust and hoof-broken ground anypony could track, even monsters. Fortunately, he couldn't keep up the pace long. The sky had begun to lighten and the grey transformed quickly to shades of light blue, and between breaking clouds, I saw glimpses of rose color and bright orange. It was about the time that I finally trotted up to him that I noticed he looked decidedly transparent.
I wasn't taking any chances. I grabbed him in my magic. As he hurled toward me, I lunged toward him…