//------------------------------// // The Last Recluse // Story: Cyclosa // by NorrisThePony //------------------------------// i They sputtered at first, but eventually the Sisyphys’s shitty engines started. The mooring lines were cut, the fins angled to catch the arctic wind, and the ship began to rise past the tents and staring crystal ponies. After a painful two weeks of being grounded, we were finally leaving the settlement behind, and the compass on the Sisyphys’s dash was once more pointed North. We were moving on, and I couldn’t be happier. Sombra was sitting in the passenger’s seat, and Luna was in the back, talking with the half-a-dozen crystal pony passengers the Sisyphys was now carrying. The language barrier was hardly a barrier at all—even without the luxury of spoken words, they seemed to understand each other well enough. We were flying North, but we were not yet leaving the Crystal Ponies behind. Instead, we were travelling to another settlement they had erected, an hour’s flight North from the camp where we had crashed. According to Sombra, it was larger, and more populated. It even had an airship yard, Sombra stated, which seemed odd to me considering airships had never been built to withstand such arctic cold. Sombra had jokingly referred to it as his ‘Empire’, and boasted that it technically lay beyond the borders of Erisia. It seemed as though we were finally leaving Erisia, after all. After nearly six months, the world was before me. Stormsborough, Cyclosa, Trance… all names of cities I’d never have to see again. All memories of ponies I no longer cared for. Erisia was no more than a land of old vibrations. “You okay?” Sombra asked. “Looking pretty introspective there, Celly.” “Huh?” I blinked, shaking my head clear. “Yeah, fine. And don’t call me that.” Sombra laughed. “Try and stop me.” I rose an eyebrow. “I think a broken jaw might have that effect. Don’t forget who's giving your sorry ass a ride home.” “...on a ship my ponies repaired.” “...shut up, Sombra,” I growled, but I was grinning too. “So… this ‘empire’ of yours…” “I think you’ll like it,” Sombra said. “I know we’re seen as a bit of a basket case to the rest of Erisia, but the fact of the matter is with you and your sister, and the work we’ve accomplished… we might stand a chance against Discord.” “Key word of the hour is ‘might’, is it?” “Only because… well, nopony has even tried what we’re trying. All the alicorns have been like you—running away, because facing Discord is suicide. And honestly? Most of the crystal ponies don’t even believe they were alicorns in the first place.” “Well, that’s silly.” “Is it?” Sombra cocked his head. “It makes sense to me. It would be easy for a spirit of chaos to slap some wings on a unicorn and then execute them for show.” “Right, but why? What’s the motive?” Sombra shrugged, tapping a hoof on the dash of the Sisyphys thoughtfully. “Well, because it would be rather easy to turn Erisia against alicorns if they were already conditioned to hate them. It would be considerably harder to turn Erisia against something they’d never seen.” “Yeah, whatever. Cool theory.” My gaze strayed, my hoof holding the yoke steady and my eyes turning to Luna in the back of the Sisyphys, cheerily butchering some K’anquitut phrase or name. “I’ve only got one thing to lose, Sombra,” I said, my voice low. “And I trust her with you and your ponies. I’ve lived so long thinking my life is meaningless, and dying for a purpose seems like a fair trade. But her…?” “That is a decision I think you should let her make, Celestia.” “She’s twelve,” I replied shortly. “All the things I’ve done to keep her safe can’t be for nothing. No matter what we do, we do it without her. Do you understand me, Sombra?” “I do,” he said, his humor and suave smiles gone, a sober face in their shoes. “You’re a good sister, Celestia.” “I’m a shitty sister. I’ve been one my whole life, and I think I always will. For all your talk about destiny, I think I’ve got my glimpse of what mine is.” Sombra didn’t answer, and I returned my attention to the flightpath of the Sisyphys. Sombra, whilst remaining silent, stayed in the passenger’s seat, his eyes closed and his horn glowing softly in the dark, casting soft red light across the foggy new glass on the Sisyphys’s front window. He was humming to himself softly, lost in some ancient song or melody. I hadn’t the faintest idea what magic he was casting, but it seemed innocent enough, and so I did not bother questioning him. Besides, he was first to break the silence regardless. “There!” he said suddenly, opening his eyes and pointing a hoof at some lonely bit of darkness on the horizon. “See that?!” “The village?” “No… it… looks like a Scoutship,” he replied. “I’ve never seen one this far North.” I squinted my eyes, and sure enough, there seemed to be something abrupt jutting from the droves of snow. The fin of a small Scoutship, like the one Willow had arrived at Cluster 13 in. The rest of the ship was mostly lost to snow, but the indent of its balloon in the snow was clear as day. “We’ve got plenty fuel,” Sombra said. “Put us down beside it.” “Are you crazy?!” I barked. “It’s a Scoutship!” “It’s the ruins of one,” Sombra said, rolling his eyes. “Anypony in there is long dead. Anypony alive is no match against all of us.” He rose a harpoon gun he had propped against the dash for emphasis. I had an audience now; no longer were Luna and the crystal ponies chatting idly in the back of the ship, now they were crowding the windows as I reluctantly shifted the Sisyphys’s course and carefully twisted the former bathroom-faucet-knob-turned-ship-component that was the gas valve. I flicked the engines off and we softly struck the snow, the ship gliding gently for several feet—a great contrast to the two other violent landings the poor Sisyphys had endured. “Alright,” Sombra said, grinning. “Luna and the lot of you, stay behind. Celestia… shall we go for a stroll?” He tossed me his harpoon gun, and I caught it in my newly returned magic. Sombra wordlessly took a shortsword from the various piles of junk and cargo that were now lining the Sisyphys’s bay, and the two of us opened the sidedoor to the cold outside. “You know how to fire that thing?” Sombra posed, as I slung the speargun’s strap around my neck and climbed down onto the ice below. “Point and release?” I replied, pointing the gun at him and a hoof at the switch on the side. “Can’t be too complicated.” “Well, it’s springloaded, and you haven’t loaded a harpoon yet, genius” he replied. “Were you a whaler in a past life? You’re a born natural. And don’t point that thing at me.” “Shut up, Sombra,” I snarled, but took his advice and removed the spear-headed harpoon from it’s perch on the side of the device and fed it into the barrel, pulling the spring back until it clicked into a locked position. The Sisyphys had landed about a hundred feet from the downed Scoutship, and we reached it quickly, me leading the way with the harpoon gun hovering idly in my magic. Sombra had already sheathed his sword and seemed to find my caution amusing. Most of the hull of the Scoutship was buried in snow and ice, but the balloon had been ruptured all down the side, exposing the steel framework of the ship and allowing for easy access into the gondola portion of the ship buried under the ice. “Looks like the balloon wasn’t prepared for the cold,” Sombra observed, pointing at the tear lines. “See, they build these Scoutships like cannon fodder, and this is the result.” “Surprised mine hasn’t had the same fate.” “Eh. My guess is that yours was a cargo ship in her hayday. They’re built to handle the elements better. And by ponies who actually know the birdroads, instead of a bunch of scrapyard slaves. No offense.” “You seem to know a lot about airships,” I replied. Grinning, he pointed to his left ear. I squinted against the snow to get a closer look. On my first examination, I had thought it was an earring, but upon closer examination I could see that it was actually a sizable washer from some long discarded ship component. “This is a souvenir from my first ship,” he said. “The Arkadia. Took thirteen Scoutships to take her down, and that’s only cause I got unlucky.” I ducked under the bit of tattered airship balloon, the glow of my horn on the harpoon gun also lighting the interior of the Scoutship. It had crashed with its form largely intact—I could trace the balloons curvature even with the dim light of my horn as the only point of reference. “Hello?!” Sombra called. “Any Erisian Guard assholes home?” As expected, Sombra’s voice echoed, but no response came. I slung the harpoon gun back around my neck, fully prepared to wrench it back with my magic when I needed it. Then, I shifted my now dormant magic into a more potent light spell. The Scoutship had evidently been lying there for some time, but nonetheless it was slightly unnerving as we worked our way into its depths—the portions of the ship that had been hidden from the outside—for I half expected it to abruptly give way and collapse in on itself. “Waterline,” Sombra reported, pointing a hoof at a straight line carving through the opening of the balloon. “We’re on a lake right now, and it looks like she crumbled through the ice when she crashed. Water woulda frozen again quickly.” Indeed, Sombra seemed to be correct. I could see where it had apparently been flowing freely into the ship, and it looked to be a very short distance—as though it hadn’t even had the chance to make it any further before the cold had worked its magic. “That’s a hell of an impact,” I said. “Ice this thick is practically concrete, right?” “Yeah. I figure it’s a ram-bowed Scoutship. They’re built to rupture far more than arctic ice.” We ventured onwards past the waterline, which—relative to the ship—meant we were entering the gondola proper. I took the harpoon gun back as I led the way forwards, while Sombra cast his magic all about the battered gondola. The sight we soon beheld was grotesque, but hardly surprising. Two ponies were slumped across the control panel—a mare in the pilot’s seat, and a stallion in the co-pilot’s. A bit of jagged piping had impaled itself into the mare’s open mouth, undoubtedly sent astray from the impact. Her skull had a tumor-like elevation near the back, as though the piping had tried to make it all the way through, but had fallen short. Her hooves were still grasping the steering yoke, frozen in place. Long icicles of blood snaked down from her skull and snout towards the sturdy gondola floor, giving her a morbidly comical, dragon-like appearance. Her eyes were open in cloudy, eternal terror. The stallion had it considerably better. He had simply struck his head against the control panel, and he must have lost consciousness. With the frigid cold considered, it seemed he simply hadn’t woken again. “Their corpses are in good condition,” Sombra said, and indeed he was right. They looked as fresh as the day they had crashed, the frost-bite and frozen blood ignored. “Guess we have the snow to thank for that.” “To thank for what? What good are corpses?” Sombra didn’t answer immediately. It seemed he hadn’t heard me, because he had already diverted his attention to examining the dashboard in more thorough detail. “Wonder what they were doing this far North,” he muttered. “I’m looking for a flight log or something. They might have kept one.” Apparently they didn’t because he gave up on his search after several minutes. While he was searching, I myself had done the same around the cabin. My search was considerably more successful; in minutes, I had created a small pile of various tools in the center of the slanted gondola floor. Spears, swords, cylinders of gunpowder, a compass, an old map of Erisia, and a razor-sharp dagger. The mare had been wearing a weapon harness around her barrel, and after fiddling with the frozen buckle for several seconds, I whipped it free from her frozen corpse and around my own waist. I shoved the dagger into one holster and the compass and map into the other. “This was a good find,” Sombra whistled cheerily. “I’ll have to remember to come back here to scrap the ship herself.” “Why do you suppose they were up here?” Sombra shrugged. “Looking for us, maybe? Floating adrift after a battle? Who knows. In the meantime, wanna give me a hand dragging the corpses out?” I blinked. “Uh… why?” Sombra rolled his eyes. “Come on. We can at least give them the dignity of a proper cremation, right? I mean, look at the mare. I think anypony who dies like that, regardless of who they were, should at least have a dignified send-off. Especially if we’re stealing their shit.” Reluctantly, I inched towards the corpses again. Sombra had already heaved the stallion onto his back, grunting a little from exertion. The mare seemed lighter, and a lifetime of hard labour had at least given me a well-built physique. Nonetheless, it took nearly five minutes to drag them out of the Scoutship, at which point Sombra hollered back to the Sisyphys for his crystal ponies to help him carry them the rest of the distance. I trotted back into the Scoutship to grab the rest of the tools, and soon I was dumping them onto the floor of the Sisyphys’s cargohold, next to the pony-shaped lumps now thankfully concealed under a grey blanket. I fired the engines up again, and guided the Sisyphys back up to the birdroads once more. ii We came upon the next settlement shortly after the Scoutship. I could see from a distance that Sombra hadn’t exactly been mistaken calling it impressive. While the settlement would be dwarfed by anything the likes of Trance or Cyclosa, the very concept of such a village existing under Discord’s nose was perplexing. The architecture, if it could be called such, was quite the same as the other crystal pony settlement, but to a more refined degree. Tents had been constructed from what looked like animal hides, looking surprisingly far sturdier than the ones I had grown up around in Cyclosa. They looked larger, too, which Sombra explained was thanks to the fact that several families typically lived in one. It was as though the village was a hybrid between the slums of Erisia, and the long barracks I’d seen the Erisian Guards reside in. True to Sombra’s word, there was even a small area devoted to mooring and repairing airships. A nimble looking ship was berthed there, the balloon, fins, gondola, engine car, and two mounted guns all painted the same shade of white as the snow all about. With the sails retracted and the running lights off, I imagined this ship had taken many a larger ship down with the element of surprise as her only tool. Sombra caught my gaze as the Sisyphys swung into the wind to descend. “Like what you see? That’d be The Last Recluse.” “The Last Recluse?” I rose an eyebrow, opening the fin’s flaps to catch the wind and killing the engines to idle as the Sisyphys began to descend. “Seeing a pattern with her colour scheme.” “She’s the ghost in the darkness,” Sombra said proudly. “A real bird of prey.” “Wow,” I drawled sarcastically. “You’re really turning me on with all this dorky airship talk. How about you be helpful and get on the engines? We’re going in cold nose, so we’re gonna have to eyeball it. I need two-quarters reverse as soon as we’re at cherubs two.” “I see you’ve got the jargon down,” Sombra laughed. “10-4, tiger.” Our landing was shockingly organized and graceful. I called out our altitude as we descended, and Sombra shifted the directions of our engines gradually to slow us. Crystal Ponies were already scurrying out of their tents and trotting underneath the falling airship, ready to moor her as soon as she was within their range. The moment we landed, I did not budge from the pilot’s seat, even as everypony else began to climb down the lowered cargo gangplank. Luna had been one of the first to disembark, already running ahead to explore the new settlement. Perhaps a week ago, I would have stopped her. Now, I didn’t have the energy anymore. I watched the Crystal Ponies carry the veiled forms of the Scoutship pilots to some longhouse with a greater chimney than the rest. I listened to the clicking and clinking of the Sisyphys settling, and I watched the compass waver slightly, as though she were trying to convince me to fire the engines back up and keep going. “Are you coming, Celestia?” Sombra was the last pony besides me still onboard the Sisyphys. “I’ll catch up. Need some time to think.” “Is everything okay?” “Sombra, can’t you take a hint? Get lost.” “Why?” he replied. “Call me paranoid, but I’m a little worried you’re going to kick the tires and light the fires as soon as I do. Come on. I wanna show you something.” I gave him a huffy glare, but rose to follow. Like in the previous settlement, the Crystal Ponies all responded to my mere presence with bows that seemed almost fearful. At first, I gave them all small nods of approval, but as Sombra continued to lead me from the shipyard into the settlement proper, it finally began to annoy me. I had no reservations saying such to Sombra, either. “Why the fuck are they bowing?” I growled. “I haven’t even done anything.” “They’ve been conditioned to do so,” Sombra said cryptically. “Can’t say I’ve ever minded it, myself. One day, you’ll learn how it feels to be their queen.” At that, I stopped. “Sombra?” “Hrm?” “I’m nopony’s queen. And you’re nopony’s king. That sort of life is Discord’s to lead, and trust me, we’re better than him.” Sombra smiled. “Trust me, Celestia; I felt the same way. Now come along. We can continue this conversation out of the snow.” Sombra eventually stopped before a tent that looked, for all intents and purposes, the same as all of the others. It was not significantly bigger, and although it perhaps looks a tad sturdier than the others, this could simply have been my own mind projecting its expectations upon it. “In here,” Sombra motioned for me to go ahead. I gave him a raised eyebrow, but proceeded onwards nonetheless, pushing the flap aside and making my way inside. It was an empty dwelling. Nothing about it seemed particularly striking, save for the notable fact that it seemed to be a single-pony dwelling despite it’s size being consistent with all the other tents. Like the other Crystal Pony tents, while it appeared to have been erected by cloth and other easily-transportable materials, it had the same rigidity one would come to expect from any stone structure back in the towns of Erisia. On it, hung various articles of junk that probably served some sentimental purpose. Maps and airship schematics and what looked like arcane runes were sprawled on every wall, but it was a framed picture I instead homed in upon. It was what appeared to be a delicate graphite drawing. Instantly, I was intrigued. This wasn’t some map or note or other practical affair, but instead something done seemingly out of boredom or interest. Such a thing was not uncommon in Erisia, but to me the concept seemed a little absurd. The drawing was of a dozen or so young looking fillies and colts, surely no older than thirteen. They looked to be in some manner of cafeteria, but the drawing had been rendered quickly enough that it was difficult to tell. Sombra caught my glance and smiled. “Was hoping you wouldn’t notice that one.” I rose an eyebrow. “You hung it on your wall.” “Yeah. Some memories are important, I guess.” “What is it?” “One of the orphanage hags was always practicing her art skill on us. Or so she said. I think she really just wanted something to remember us by.” “...wait… this is…” In an instant I was grinning. “Which one’s you?” “That one,” Sombra pointed at a young colt, standing on what appeared to be an overturned milkcrate, proudly proclaiming something to several amazed looking younger colts. “The mischievous troublemaker that the poor nurses had no idea what to do with.” I chuckled. “Guess time didn’t change you much. How was it?” “What? The orphanage?” Sombra shrugged. “Not like what you’d think, I guess.  I called them hags, but really, it seemed clear they really did care about us. Kind of a rare thing in Pillory.” I nodded. “I guess you never knew your parents then?” “Oh I did,” Sombra said. “They cared for me till I was… uh, three, I think? Maybe four, but honestly, this is all stuff I've been told. I couldn't tell you a damn thing about my parents, to be honest." "So, you don't know what happened? How'd you end up in the orphanage?" "Oh, I know," Sombra assured. "One of the hags told me the story. My mother got ill, and they didn’t have enough bits to keep me. So off I went. By time I worked up the courage to look for them again when I was ten, they were gone.” “From Pillory?” I asked bluntly. “Dead. Illness spread, and got them both.” Sombra unclasped his sword and took to hanging it up upon a rack on the tent’s wall. “I guess in the end, they made the right call sending me away.” “Damn,” I whispered. “That’s… rough.” “Is it?” Sombra turned to me, wearing an innocent frown. “I don’t know. Like I said, the orphanage wasn’t bad. I’d like to go back one day, just to make sure all the old hags are doing okay.” “When did you leave?” Sombra grinned. “Can’t say I’ve seen you this curious before, Celly. I ran away when I was fourteen. And before you ask, no, it wasn’t thanks to some sort of argument or abuse or any fairy tale drama like that. I just… wanted to.” I blinked. “You… wanted to.” “Yeah,” Sombra said. “Hey, they were nice, and I had my friends, but what good are those when there’s a whole world to explore? I spent a while testing the waters of Pillory, but eventually I wanted to see more. So I stowed away on an airship and away I went.” “Huh.” I didn’t know what to say. “Yep. And what about you? What miraculous tales can the saviour of Erisia tell?” “No interesting ones. Grew wings, ran away. Simple as that. Had it not been for them, I’d still be working for pennies.” Sombra frowned. “Nothing more? What about your sister? Where would she be?” “No idea,” I said. “My parents always kinda… saw me as a lost cause. Like, ‘damn, we weren’t paying attention and our first kid became a slave.’ They obviously wanted something better for Luna.” “Such as?” “I don’t know,” I confessed. “She always wanted to leave Cyclosa. They probably would have tried to get her work on an airship galley or something.” “That… would’ve made her a slave,” Sombra noted. “Yeah,” I tutted. “Hypocrites, right?” Sombra laughed. His sword away, he was now carefully creeping his way across the tent towards me, as though wishing to get closer but not betray his intentions. “We can thank Harmony it didn’t turn out that way, and our paths instead have intersected the way they have.” I shuffled uncomfortably. “I guess.” Sombra was standing before me now, looking me in the eyes, and I instinctively brought my gaze down to my hooves. Not that he was glaring at me in a scrutinizing or judgemental way, but the contact felt unsettling nonetheless. “Sombra,” I said softly. “I see what you’re doing here. I think you should back off.” “What?” “You know what. Remember back in Cluster 13, when I told you I wasn’t interested? Well, I’ll let you know if I change my mind about that, but so far I haven’t.” Sombra blinked in surprise, for a moment looking as though I had slapped him. Then, a wide grin cracked across his face and he laughed. “Right. Well, trust me, that’s not the reason I brought you in here. Nah, I wanted to give you something.” “Oh?” Sombra didn’t reply, instead turning back to the other corner of the tent. On the canvass floor lay a rather ornate looking trunk that looked unnecessarily heavy to be lugged across the Frozen North. Sombra’s horn was aglow as he opened it, his eyes closed in focus as he disarmed whatever enchantments he had placed upon the trunk to keep any unwanted access to it’s contents. After several seconds, the trunk was opened with a loud squeak, and Sombra withdrew a heavy-looking object about the size of an electric light bulb. It was wrapped tightly in some manner of fur, and Sombra handed me the entire bundle. It was evidently delicate, so I took caution as I unwrapped it. It was a glowing stone, not much bigger than a vacuum tube. It was no well-polished diamond, but instead a crude and rough rock that looked as though it could have been plucked from noplace special in the Grey Wasteland. “That,” Sombra said proudly. “Is the Sunstone.” I turned the rock over, examining it for anything special. “The what?” “It’s an experiment, of sorts,” Sombra said cryptically. “And it seems like the stars have truly aligned in this little stone’s favour.” “What are you talking about? For once, can you speak an ordinary sentence?” Sombra chuckled. “This stone is designed to bridge the gap between a group of highly skilled unicorns, and the Sun and Moon.” I stared, for just long enough to realize Sombra wasn’t pulling my leg. Then, I let out a long sigh. “Willow was right. You ponies really are insane.” “We’ve moved it before,” Sombra retorted. “Only by a hair, mind you. Discord’s control over it is… well, unparalleled. But we’ve already proven that theoretically, it can be done. That’s why I’m giving the stone to you.” “I don’t get it,” I shook my head. “Why does raising the Sun change anything? It seems like a cool party trick, I guess, but how does it help us in any way?” Sombra blinked. “Um. It’s been night for three months, nonstop. Ponies are freezing to death because of it. And you think a pony who can bring the Sun back is going to be brushed off as a ‘party magician?’” I grumbled something unintelligible, wordlessly conceding my argument. Instead, I focused elsewhere. “Why me? Surely you’re more magically capable than me?” “With certain types of magic, perhaps,” Sombra said. “But others, no. Magic isn’t one shade of study, Celestia. It’s a spectrum. There are facets of magical abilities that greatly differ from eachother. And right now, I don’t have the foggiest what facets of magic you may possess. So, keep the damn stone. It’s a gift. I don’t care what you do with it, just that I trust it with you.” Giving Sombra a curious, raised eyebrow, I nodded and ripped off a line of wool from a discarded knitting project Sombra had lying about his tent. Then, I tied the line of wool tightly around the Sunstone, forming the whole affair into a crude looking necklace that I wore next to the neck strap of the harpoon gun. “A good look for you,” Sombra complimented, examining me from hooves to head. “As for your sister… I have been thinking on the subject of magical apprenticeship for her.” “Apprenticeship?” I cocked my head. “You mean you’re going to try and teach her magic?” “The basics, yes,” Sombra said, nodding. “Basic combat magic, rune and enchantment detection, how to detect another pony’s magic stream. Little tools she may like to learn.” I pursed my lips, unsure how to answer. The survivalist sister within me was screaming against trusting Sombra, but the more logical part of me reasoned that Sombra had done nothing to prove himself as untrustworthy. Besides, a more magically proficient Luna could only be useful in the long run, and in the end, should it not be Luna herself to choose her destiny? “Yeah,” I waved a hoof. “Go ahead and ask her. I’m sure she would be thrilled.” Sombra nodded, turning away from me with a satisfied smile upon his face. iii For all the ferocity of the Frozen North, the Crystal Ponies seemed to have a significant affinity for outside bonfires. Of course, the reasoning seemed clear enough to me. According to Sombra, the camp lay only a half-day hike from a small oasis of coniferous trees, somehow managing to survive against nature. Some residual chaos magic from a battle some millennia ago, Sombra had theorized. Nonetheless, it left the Crystal Ponies with more than enough wood to burn, allowing for their continued survival for so long at such an isolated area. Some cultural barrier still seemed to be preventing Sombra to fully know just where this tribe of ponies had come from, as though it were some story already lost to the once-living tellers of it. Regardless, the residual chaos magic tear seemed to in some way be a source. Sombra was off to the side, talking with Luna. There was a drum being beat and the fire kept burning, but it was clear that no attention was being paid to either. Instead, nearly every Crystal Pony eye was locked upon me. I pretended not to notice them, and kept my focus instead on the skies above. The blizzard had broken to a starless black sky, hints of the Northern Lights twinkling on the fringes of some point further North than us. My horn was aglow, and my eyes were closed. The fire was crackling and the wind was blowing, but I was in a soundless world apart from them as I swept probing bursts of magic into the unknown. The Sunstone was glowing warmly around my neck, so that even through my fur I could feel its presence against the frigid air of the Frozen North. I had asked Sombra for some degree of assistance with potentially raising the Sun, but at best I got vague, cryptic bits of unhelpful assurance. I would ‘find it on my own’ and would ‘know exactly what to do when the time came,’ he had said, but such could hardly be translated into action. And so, here I was, casting magic wildly everywhere and nowhere. I could barely keep my horn aglow for light, and yet here I was trying to use it to raise the Sun. I felt as preposterous as I knew I looked, and it did not take long for me to begin to get restless and frustrated. I surely could not have been trying for more than half an hour, but it was enough to grow frustrated. I opened my eyes again, extinguished my horn, and began to storm back to the bonfire. “Show’s over!” I barked at the onlooking ponies. “Your alicorn failed. Big surprise. Where’s the food?” They stared, obviously not fully understanding me, but Sombra quickly stepped in with a few barking commands in K’anquitut. I admit, it did make me feel rather awful for my aggressive tone when I had to view it filtered through the actions of another pony—it hardly felt nice watching Sombra yelling orders on my behalf at the passive Crystal Ponies. Regardless, the end result was a plate of some manner of meat being placed before me. It looked as though it had been cooked, frozen, and then cooked again, and it looked too thick to come from and rodent or critter I’d normally have been comfortable eating. “What is this?” I asked the closest Crystal Pony I could find—a pretty young mare several years younger than me. “Food. What is it?” She cocked her head, pursing her lips as she ran my words over. “Esktik,” came her confident reply. She beat at the snow with her hooves, and then brought her hooves to her head, as though they were antlers. “Uh, jackalope?” I guessed hopefully. I was starving, but I still wasn’t quite sure whether or not stuffing my face with some poor murdered cervine was something I’d want on my consciousness. Then again, the Crystal Ponies hardly seemed the sort of ponies to be despised by principle, and they had apparently been surviving for some time on whatever I was now being offered. It seemed I wasn’t going to get a simple answer from the pony, so I bit down my doubt and brought my snout towards the plate of meat. It was chewy and largely flavourless, which thankfully was a step-up from the horrors my paranoid mind had been expecting. I was able to finish off the plate I’d been presented. I quickly found it easy to simply lose myself in the dancing flames before me. When my gaze did stray upon the cheerful and celebrating Crystal Ponies, I instinctively smiled, and when it strayed upon Luna and Sombra—the former’s horn aglow and her smile wide and exuberant—I felt a tinge of pride, too. As I watched, I once more resumed my practice with the Sunstone—this time far more conspicuous, with far less drama and cursing and audience. My sunraising practice progressed less as some manner of divine move, and instead with the casual calm one might see in an elderly mare knitting. Luna was engaged enough in casting her magic that Sombra was able to give me a sideways glance. We locked eyes, and instinctively, I smiled back. He wasn’t such a bad stallion, after all. Maybe he really did deserve a chance. iv It was amazing how quickly the days turned to weeks in the Frozen North. The night remained eternal, so it was impossible to truly know for sure just how long I had been there. I began gauging my ‘days’ solely on when my last meal was—normally I tried my best to space them out as long as possible. The Crystal Ponies did not eat frequently. I quickly noticed this upon arriving, and while such a thing was hardly uncommon back in Erisia, it stuck out far more evidently when Luna and I were being fed regularly whilst they were left to starve. Sombra ate a little more than the Crystal Ponies, but it was still clear that he could do with far more. Even back in Cyclosa, living on rat meat and homegrown fungus, I think I was better off than Sombra and these Crystal Ponies were. And yet, despite a near universal-starvation, they all seemed far too willing to give their shares up for me and Luna. For somepony so willing to flaunt a life spent as the only pony caring for myself, I was surprised how guilty I felt seeing these ponies selflessly sacrifice what was once theirs for me. It was the same strange meat that, no matter who I asked, nopony seemed to give me an answer in Equish. Eventually, growing tired of trust, I demanded Sombra explain to me what exactly it was so far North that we were eating. Surprisingly, his answer seemed rather anticlimactic. 'Most likely whale, but maybe arctic cod,' he had said, and then shrugged. 'Honestly, I'm still picking up on alot of these pony's traditions.' Nearly every waking moment, I spent with the Sunstone, aimlessly casting my magic into the heavens, seeking some celestial body far past the blizzards and miles between us, although it seemed clear, everytime I was doing so, just where my attention truly lay. Indeed, Sombra seemed to have rooted himself in the center of my thoughts; always some inkling thought in my head, as though I were being compelled to think about him regardless of whether I wished to or not. I could not for the life of me work up any manner of courage to speak to him about how I felt, because truly, I myself did not quite know. A month ago, I had not even the inkling of an opinion towards him. He was a name and nothing more, some mad stallion I had met in a bar. Some warrior for a cause I did not care enough to believe in. Now, though, things were changing. All his claims of destiny, and all my doubts about my future… they were braiding around each other, dancing to some hypnotic rhythm in my mind. Ice was gathering on the Sisyphys, freezing the compass needle in place, ceasing it’s spinning pleas that I carry forwards. In these weeks it seemed all my thoughts had become trance-like. All that had led me to where I know was felt like it had happened in a dream, and now I was caught in some foggy limbo cast by a groggy waking mind. And still, Sombra was at the forefront of it all. Every gaze I cast towards him spurred strange feelings. Every thought was one weighed against his own judgement. Were I to fire the Sisyphys’s engines and continue my journey, what would he think? Would he approve? A stallion that, a month ago, I did not know existed, now seemed to be a sexton by which I was measuring all my actions. Across these weeks, Luna had all but ceased speaking with me. I slept in the cabin of the Sisyphys, and she elsewhere. When we spoke, she seemed angry, and I did not know why. I did not know what I had done to warrant her distrust, but I certainly had it now. Too prideful to apologize and too afraid to ask, I could do little but watch as some unseen wind carried her further and further away from me. v The same starry plain. I wasn’t scared or confrontational now, but instead curious. “Hey,” I called out. “Creepy voice. You around?” “Yes, child.” I rose an eyebrow. No longer was it screaming to me from some corner of another reality—some extraphysical voice I couldn’t comprehend. It still had about it some otherworldly aura, but I no longer felt like some insignificant ant being talked down upon by a god. “What is this place? Who are you?” “Child, my time with you is waning, and I promise you that one day, all of your questions will be answered. But in this moment, you must be silent and listen. Do you understand?” “Yeah. Yeah, I understand.” “You are the first,” the voice began without ceremony. “The first hope in a very long time. Yet you are fleeing from the land you are destined to protect. You must understand, child—all that lives has a purpose. Every breath of life taken in this land has value to another, and every pony has a role they must fill. And your role lies in the land you have turned your back upon.” “I know that,” I growled. “I’ve already made my decision. I’ve gotten Luna to safety, so now… sure. I’ll help out. I just need to know what to do.” “The Sun,” it replied. “With it, you will have power over disharmony. You will have some control over a world of disorder. Destiny has brought you to where you now are. Do not turn your back to it’s call.” “I just don’t know what to do!” I replied. “I tried, and I failed! I don’t even have any idea what it is I’m supposed to do!” “You have become lost. Your affairs have become muddy and confused, and you have become diverted to the desires of your heart. There is something amiss within you, and you feel it as clearly as I do.” The Spirit wasn’t wrong. I said his name aloud, needing to hear it myself. “Sombra.” No answer. The spirit was right… it’s time surely must have been limited, for I felt myself awaking back to the Frozen North. The starry plain collapsed, and within moments, the celestial plain collapsed. vi The wind was howling once again. The snow obscured all beyond the glass windshield of the Sisyphys. The ship rattled as she was buffeted about, the mooring lines always screaming outside as the wind buffeted them about. I couldn’t hope to trek to the other ponies in the Crystal Pony settlement. I had been alone in the Sisyphys, engaged in some introspective sulk, when the blizzard had begun, and before I knew it it was a barrier between me and every other living thing. It was a strangely comforting feeling. Sombra was too far away, and for once I felt free from his omnipresent influence. I had propped an oil lantern onto the dashboard of the Sisyphys, and after sharpening my dagger and the end of the harpoon on my speargun, I then turned to the Sunstone around my neck. I bowed my head forwards, guiding the stone free from my neck in my telekinesis. This time. It seemed odd, to say it with such certainty. What was different this time? I was alone? No, I was aware. A month ago, when the Sisyphys had left the distant Stormsborough beyond the horizon, I hadn’t cared for Sombra. When we had landed upon the settlement, still, I had not cared for him. What had changed within me? I did not know. But, like I had finally caught some glimpse of a star or moon in the empty darkness that the sky had become, I felt some strange clarity on the fringes of my mind. Perhaps it was in my destiny to defeat Discord. Perhaps Sombra could help me. Perhaps there was something more at work than simply that. I’d thought that, with my mind so distracted on such strange and complex affairs I did not even understand, surely any concentration I had perfected would not exist as I outstretched my magic to the Sun above. And so, it was rather surprising when I felt something that was not my magic collide with my own brightly burning stream. I felt it, but I did not quite know what it is. To raise the sun is not something that can easily be described. It is not something one can read and possibly attempt to comprehend, and so it is with apologies that I state I will not attempt to make such an attempt. All I will instead say is that, even with so much blizzard blocking my vision, I knew that for Erisia, the night of nearly eight months was breaking to some minuscule beams of Sunlight breaking the horizon. One might imagine this to be some great ordeal. Perhaps the heavens were crying out in anguish, perhaps the glass on the windshield of the Sisyphys shattered… Indeed, such would perhaps make for a more incredible moment, but the sad truth was that on one night, alone in a junky airship in the middle of the Frozen North, a nervous young alicorn cast magic into the sky and, after weeks of failure, met some semblance of success. I screamed, not in pain or anguish, but instead in joy, but such joy was short-lived. My contact with the Sun had been in place for not a second, before it was met with resistance. Chaos magic, like the magic of the Sun, cannot be easily described in words. It seems as though it creeps into every facet of a pony’s perception, striking so many of their senses simultaneously. It is not painful, and yet it is agonizing. It is invisible, and yet one cannot see anything beyond. I screamed every curse I knew at Discord’s name, and I intensified my magic until I felt my horn and the Sunstone would shatter. The Sun was falling again. Still I could not see it, but  yet I knew that the eternal night was once more upon us. I had seized control of an idling sun when Discord had not been paying attention, but now that he had been made aware of my intentions, he seemed to be taking it back with ease. For all the confidence such an achievement had radiated within me, Discord extinguished it as carelessly as one might extinguish a match with their boot. I had time to scream one final curse at a draconequus miles away, and then Erisia was plunged back into eternal night again.