It was late into the night as guard came knocking up on my door. For a moment, I considered just ignoring him. Alas, I can’t do that, especially not given the situation. After all, even rookies knew not to disturb me after sunset unless something absolutely required my attention.
I groaned, rubbed my temples in vain hope of wishing the tiredness away and, resigning to my fate, slowly crawled out of the bed. I shuddered a bit looking into the mirror. No wonder that ‘Do not disturb Princess Celestia’s sleep’ is an unwritten law amongst the castle staff.
Willing my hair to untangle itself and start flowing like it usually did, I donned my regalia, piece by piece, several combs working through my fur at the same time.
Finally satisfied with my appearance - not looking like somepony who was dead for several days, that is - I trotted to the door, opening it with a flick of my magic. I was greet with a sight of a pegasus guard with a scroll under his wing.
The moment I opened the door he snapped to attention, “Your Highness!”
I gave him a curt nod, “What reason might there be so as to wake me in the middle of the night…” I had to pause for a second to find his name among the ocean of others that I knew, “Fast Wing?” My grumpiness upon waking probably doesn’t help matters at all I idly mused. Oh well, at least my memory serves me right, judging from how his posture seems a bit more rigid now.
“Princess Celestia, a missive from Fillydelphia just came via magical fire. The seal has three dark wings on it,” he said, presenting the scroll to me.
It was in my magic and in front of my eyes before he finished unfurling his wing; three dark wings were a bad sign. A very bad sign.
Seal of Dark Wing means a dark magic disturbance. Stamp with three wings means that the magnitude of it is at least town-wide. To take care of a magical user so strong, will either require a squad of battle mages or my personal attention. Seeing as it will take more than a day for them to get to the point of disturbance, the choice that magus Sunlight made was rather obvious.
I skimmed through the letter after breaking the seal. According to the report Sunlight received, the town of Hollow Shades was where the disturbance was happening. The reason wasn’t any of the greater scale dark magic spells as I expected. No, the town was merely subjected to an unrepressed aura of dark magic. So, either someone is doing this on purpose… No, that is stupid. There’s absolutely no reason for someone strong enough to do something like that. So, a controlled dark surge. Curious...
However, they were unable to identify the culprit without searching the town, which proved itself impossible; the unicorn of the group couldn’t keep a mental shield up for more than five minutes.
With a pulse of my magic, I teleported the scroll to the archives, “Sergeant,” he snapped to attention, “relay that I will take care of the matter. Also, pass down to my secretary that all my official business for tomorrow is canceled.” Beige Prose will have a few kind words for me, that is sure. But if my guess is right…
In a flash of magic I was gone, off on my way to Hollow Shades.
~~~
I reappeared from my last teleport well above the town, around a mile up in the air, I think. Even from up here, I could feel the sheer amounts of power exuded from one of the squares. After a quick look over from my vantage point, I went into a steep dive, as I closed my wings, deciding that teleportation may not be the best choice.
I flared my wings few dozens of meters or so of the ground, slowing my descent; landing with a dull thud, trotting instinctively along one of the streets to bleed off my momentum. There was nothing on the streets. No dead bodies. No destruction. No sounds. All this only served to reinforce my theory as to what happened.
I cantered up to the closest building, checking with my magic if the door was locked. It opened without any resistance, and so I strolled inside. There, I was met with the same eerie silence that permeated the whole town.
I checked the house, room by room, for its inhabitants. Finally, I found them in the bedroom; stallion and mare - both unicorns - lay peacefully in the bed as thought they were sleeping.
I cast the blanket aside with a golden glow of my magic; both of them lay motionless, without pulse. So, death in the sleep. Hm… I covered them again and left the house.
I went off into the town.
~~~
After coming up with the same results in about a dozen houses, I was as sure about what happened as I could be. Pausing for a moment to recall the layout of the town, I went purposefully for the square where my little prodigy resided. I stopped at the edge of the little plaza of sorts, looking for the reason of all this.
And here she was. Little lavender unicorn filly with a mane of dark indigo, shot through by two stripes, one pink and other purple. She sat there on her rump in her trance-like state, eyes unseeing and filled with darkness, a dark blue smoke flowing out of them.
No older than six years, and already mastered… Samatha, was the name of it, I think?
I took a tentative step towards her. Waited for reaction. When none came, I took another, and then one more. Soon, I was trotting towards her at a moderate pace. I crossed little square in a matter of seconds. Looking at her sternly, I fell to my haunches, thinking about the best way to go about this.
I sat in silence, contemplating my options.
So far, it doesn’t seem like her fault, but… I’ll have to hear the whole story from her.
In the end, I decided, all evidence provided, to go for broke.
I unfurled my wings, extended them towards the filly, and brought her in for a hug, “Shh, little one. It will all be okay. Everything will be okay,” I whispered, stroking her mane slowly, my body taking the brunt of the magic that filly continued to radiate. I lit my horn lightly to start cutting the flow of her magic out, one strand after another.
It continued on for a little while, with me clutching her to my chest and murmuring calming nothings into her ear. To my immense relief, she didn’t try to burn herself out at the intrusion, nor did her subconsciousness let the magical energy collapse in on itself, and as such, her presence started diminishing.
Eventually, I switched to humming a sad, peaceful tune instead of comforting her with words. The night slowly wane away, giving way to a new day, as I hummed my soon-to-be protégé to sleep.