Taffy
The apocalypse is taffy scented.
On my twelfth year of life, after my magic had grown in and all six of my horns sprouted, I took to solitude. Whatever scraps of knowledge I could find from the handful of books my mother had, I would sit in my little section of the cave in silence and read it all. I was too weak to cast anything but the most basic of spells, telekinesis and a spell of raw force. The books my mother had were all books to go over the basics. "Focus the energies of creation through your head. Think of it as a river/ocean/boat," blah blah blah. They all repeated the same basic ideas but didn't expand on any of them. So I needed more.
I searched for Sogrisdottir. She had gained her name, Omorphia - meaning "beauty," something that befitted her. While I had no interest in romance, I was still able to appreciate how beautiful she was. And yes, I do mean gained. While most drakons earn their names, King Bellum is said to know the magic of names, a magic that I have never been interested in or bothered to track down. Omorphia was necessary to the next step in my magic progression - through her, I could reach her father, a royal mage dragoon. He was one of the rare fathers that didn't leave their children at birth, likely thanks to his dragoon heritage.
Omorphia was resting under a tree in the shade, eyes tilted up to stare at the sky. She was relatively close to where we had first met, closer to the summit of the mountain. My claws rapped against her perfect not-quite-pink scales and she turned to me. She regarded me calmly for a moment before her lips curled into a small smile. "Hello, Tempest." I nodded in greeting. "Hello, Omorphia."
"It's nice seeing you." She spoke in a soft, calm tone. It contrasted radically to the strong and almost regal tone of her father.
"It's nicer to see you," I spoke before a blush tinted my flesh. Thankfully for my scales, it was impossible to see, but I'm sure she could tell. Draconics simply could. I didn't mean to sound flirtatious, but sadly that's how it ended up. She arched an eyebrow in response, but thankfully she didn't press on the subject. Thankfully.
"Sadly," I continued after a brief moment of silence, "I do need something from you. Do you mind if I speak to your father? I'd like to...borrow some books from him." Omorphia stared at me silently, her body betraying nothing of her thoughts.
"Yes, I'll speak to him. I'll be back at the suns summit." As she left, I waited.
She returned as she said - while the sun was nearing its peak. She dropped down three books in front of me, two bound in cloth and the last bound in leather. "My father said you'd like these." She tapped the smallest cloth book. "This is going over the basics." She tapped the other cloth book. "This is about healing magic." She finally tapped the leather book. "This is about combat magic. He had a feeling you'd be interested in that one." Interested I was. "Thank you," I nodded. She nodded at me as I took the books and walked off without another word, my ravenous appetite for knowledge prodding at me to read the books as soon as possible.
The first book was surprisingly interesting, for something that just went over the basics of magic.
The world was born in magic. From the primordial nothingness, sprung the Spirit of Spirits - the Maker herself, omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient. From her flesh and blood she forged life, from her power she forged magic, and from her bones and organs, she forged the universe at large. The life used her power to shape the world, to shape the cosmos to their will - through ley. Crystalline growths that can channel her power.
That excerpt was interesting, while the rest of it went over how to control magic in a similar, storytelling esque way. Nothing new, but at least it was fun to read. "Channel the power of the Maker, enforce your will on the world," was quite a powerful line. At the end of the book though were two series of Glyphs, the language of magic. Glyphs were the first language, the language that the creator spoke and the language that she used to forge the universe in. Magic is learned through understanding and glyphs. Often, the more glyphs in a spell the more complicated it was. To take three dramatically different spells - Telekinesis, Teleportation, and True Transmogrification. Telekinesis is a two glyph spell. Teleportation is twelve. True Transmogrification is one thousand and takes decades of study and understanding to learn. The glyphs for these spells are easy to learn, but to memorize and understand them is a much harder task.
Each glyph has a meaning. The glyphs for Telekinesis are known as "Moreut," Movement, "Mys," Magic. Movement through Magic. To perform telekinesis you need to understand what magic is, and what movement is. Movement is a change in location, to weave through space. Magic is power, lifeblood, fuel. The understanding of these words permits for your ley to channel magic into these glyphs and cast a spell.
The glyph chains at the end of the book were two glyphs each. "Mys, Fres," magic, force, and "Mys, Dos" magic, order. A spell of brute force and a spell to enforce order - to restore things to its natural state. A spell of dispelment. This is why magic casters that have mastered transmogrification aren't weapons of pure destruction on the battlefield that can transform everyone into a toad and melt them, while it takes a lot of effort to transmogrify it takes significantly less to dispel magic. To enforce order, the natural state of the world. This is also why casters of True Transmogrification were so powerful, as the magic they used changed the very universe itself so that dispelment wouldn't work. Although True Transmogrification doesn't work on the Spirits, by virtue of the fact that - to take Earth for example. Earth is Earth. Earth cannot be Air, because Earth is Earth and Earth is not Air. The universe will remember this - and unless someone has the power to not just lie to the universe and convince it that a small, insignificant speck shaped like a pony is actually shaped like a frog, but convince the universe that Earth is not Earth then True Transmogrification does not work on a Spirit. Regular transmogrification does, though, although only very, very briefly.
The next book had some important glyphs.
"Mys, Doreus, Mys, Boryd, Moreut, Creut, Asptra, Doreus."
Magic, Denial, Magic, Body, Movement, Cut, Space, Denial. A spell to defend against teleportation, significantly less hard to cast than actual teleportation, but still, the most complicated spell that I knew at the time. Every series of glyphs are at the least, two glyphs long - they all start with magic, as they are fueled by and done by magic. This glyph had magic twice in it, as it was denying the effects of magic on the body through magic.
"Magic - Denial of magic on the body, movement cutting through space denial."
"Mys, Reosr, Boryd, Hos. "
Magic, Restore, Body, Harmony. A spell to heal, to restore a body to its natural state. Easy to cast but draining on the magic. Through magic, it's restoring, fixing, mending a body to a natural harmony, all the organs and flesh working together as a body does. A body is harmonic by nature - which is why chaos magic can be so fatal, disrupting the harmony between the organs and making a body useless. "Magic - Restore the body to harmony."
"Mys, Hos, Fyrd, Cyrd, Aerut"
Magic, Harmony, Fire, Ice, Air. A spell to conjure up wind - you're probably noting the "Fire" and "Ice" part of that, but fire and ice aren't parts of wind. This is because Glyphs have no intensity. Fire could mean a fire as hot as the stars, or a slightly abnormal amount of heat - all would be classified under Fyrd. More accurately, Fyrd, in this case, would mean "Heat," and Cyrd would mean "Cold." The harmony is there because this is what wind is - hot air, cold air, reaching an equilibrium.
"Magic - Harmony of hot and cold wind."
This is what all magic is. Understanding, stringing words together to achieve their effects. Those three spells I learned were quite important, but there was also some means of basic attack. Weaponized air (Mys, Moreut, Aerut) - telekinesis to condense air into a blade, a spell of raw magic turned into heat and a spell of raw magic turned into cold. (Mys, Fres, Fyrd, and Mys, Fres, Cyrd.) There are no spells that exist that are just raw magic - you cannot throw a beam of raw magic at something to hurt it. It would be like throwing an intangible bar of metal at someone in place of a sword. All magical attacks have properties to them that allow them to be harmful. If it didn't, it would actually help your opponent, by throwing raw magic at them that they could potentially use for themselves if they were skilled enough.
Of course, this would be next to impossible - creatures regenerate their mana pool slowly, through rest and sleeping, or from absorbing the magic around them in thickly saturated areas of magic. The Nexus, for example, was the center of the world where all magic flowed through. Simply standing there was enough to recharge anyone to full capacity. The stars produce magic that the planets absorb, and the Nexus is the point where all magic on Liogella originates from. All creatures that aren't Spirits absorb magic from the Nexus - and while Spirits can actively drain the magic of the Nexus, they get more than their fair share of energy from their sphere. However, the Nexus doesn't just have its magic flow through all life, but the world itself. The Nexus, the pony citadel mounted atop it is how Celestia wove her network of spells that made the world malleable for her ponies.
I suppose, however, that if you did throw enough raw magic at someone that didn't have divine potential in them to ascend they'd probably explode. Any creature that isn't a Spirit has a very finite amount to how much raw magic they can store before they either ascend if they have the divinity in them to do as such, or explode. Violently, violently explode. But the only one who can throw out enough magic to make someone a Spirit is another Spirit. So, I suppose it could be said that "You cannot hurt someone with raw magic, unless you are a Spirit, and they don't have a shard of divinity in them."
A bit of a mouthful. But ultimately, irrelevant to the topic at hand.
I don't remember much about my first foray into the realm of magic and spells. The spells I focused on the most were Telekinesis and Brute Force. I practiced on the walls of my cavern, and every once in a while I'd sneak out during the dark and experiment on a small animal that I would then eat. Mother taught me never to be wasteful. I learned to channel the heat beam through my mouth with enough strength to cook the flesh of an animal in half a minute. The ice beam was significantly harder to control, as draconic scales were susceptible to the cold. I eventually gave up on mouth-casting that and settled with casting it from my horns. The reason I desired to mouth cast was that that empowered spells, not by a lot mind you but by enough that it was noticeable.
The magic that I found lends itself towards me the most would be magic that had to do with force and air. Off the bat, my brute force spell was enough to tear apart stone and grind bones into paste, and I managed to get it to a degree of power where I actually broke the scales of my hand. The blade of air felt like an extension of my magic, easy to control and easy to summon up. Telekinesis was a bit harder, but ultimately I was able to modify Telekinesis so that I could control the air around an object to pick it up. It wasn't 100% effective, but it was effective enough that I could use it as a substitute in almost all circumstances.
I felt happiness. I had a friend. I had a family. I had magic. I had a life ahead of me - there was nothing more I could have asked for. But despite my twelve years of life, I could never shake that feeling of dread, deep, deep within my stomach.
The apocalypse came within my sleep. The ground shaking underneath me - roars, surges of magic so violent and powerful that I could detect them without even trying to. As I pushed myself from my section of the cavern and beheld the madness in the main room - my family absent, boulders and stalactites and dust dropping down from the cave roof, I smelled the apocalypse.
Taffy. Vanilla, sugary and salty, wood and metal. I stood in shock for a moment before I pushed myself out of the cave, and beheld it in its glory. The sky was gosruk, purple and chocolate - how it was a color that didn't exist and how it was a scent was beyond me. But it was. The mountain and hill spilled out molten hot ketchup that melted the scales of drakons as it touched them, the ground rising into the air and forming up circles of rock that smashed down towards the nearest drakon. And at the center of it, were two figures - King Bellum, in all his red glory, and a curled, coiled serpent, laughing maddeningly. A bucket of popcorn was in his hand, throwing it all up into the air as he chomped on it loudly. "Oh, you should see the look on your face right now! Truly." The serpent smiled, leaning back on a cloud that formed underneath him. "It's so funny I could die." He flicked his hand to the side, a surge of pink energy causing cracks to spread across the ground and more molten ketchup to spew out. Around him, drakons were running as far as they could, avoiding the chaotic mess. Corpses littered the ground, causing me to wince. My eyes widened as I rested by a crushed drakoness. Omorphia. Her lower body was pinned down under a large rock, her blood pooling underneath her.
"Omorphia?" I murmured. She looked up at me, eyes dull.
"T...Tempest." She murmured. 'I-" She gasped, blood dripping from her lips. She reached out towards me. I stared blankly before I reached out towards her.
Her body was cold. A dagger in my heart. My eyes were wide, and hers were dull. Twisted.
I turned my gaze to the serpent and the king, slackjawed.
Bellum stared up at the serpent, a snarl painted on his face. "Discord. Do not harm my subjects."
Discord smirked wickedly. "Oh? Is that a rule? You know I've never been any good at following those, Bellum." He snaked through the air, and for a split second, I was able to see the red and pink energies that animated his body. His body was an extension of his magic, not the other way around, able to move and fly through the air through sheer magical force. He rested his elbow on Bellum's nose as Bellum sighed.
"Your quarrel is with me, Discord. They aren't a part of this."
"I beg to differ, Bellum!" He flicked Bellum's chin upwards. Despite the fact that Bellum was absolutely colossal, Discord seemed to have the physical strength to actually move his chin upwards before gravity took hold on him once more. "They have everything to do with this." He spat out in a tone filled with vitriol. "But you know what, Bellum? Just for you? I'll let them go." Two of Discord's fingers crossed behind his back.
Bellum fell silent for a moment. "...How many?" He said very, very quietly, so quietly that if he wasn't naturally thunderous I doubt it would have been audible.
"You, Misika, Draelos, and Gryphus. You should know that. Your kind killed the only others worth a damn."
Bellum smirked at this. "Draelos and Misika could win. And even you can't chase down Gryphus."
Discord's eyes narrowed. "You should know better. You have no idea what Chaos can do. As for Gryphus - well. That's a simple matter of targeting his subjects. That's your biggest weakness, you know. Your honor. Your pride. The weaklings you surround yourself with."
Bellum's eyes widened. "LIAR!" He roared. He lunged towards Discord, his claws trailing blazing flame behind them. Pink energy encircled the entire mountain, including both forests. The drakons that were fleeing were vaporized as they touched it. I gasped and threw up my magic instinctively - my horns screamed with pain as cracks ran down their length. My vision blurred as I fell to the ground, surrounded by ruin and charred corpses.
Discord gripped onto Bellum's claw with a single hand, squeezing. Magic coursed between the two, the sound of cracking and reforming bone deafening. Discord slowly dragged Bellum's claws over his own cheek. "Of course." He rolled his eyes. "Did you expect less of me?"
"You're insane, draconequus. And you know it." Bellum thundered, his eyes glowing red. He stood up to his full height, absolutely dwarfing the tiny draconequus. As far as I knew, draconequus were an extinct species that were naturally inclined towards primal magic. "I'm going to enjoy licking your blood off my claws."
Discord threw himself backwards away from Bellum with a pulse of energy. "All of you are the same." He whispered. His tone was almost sorrowful. "The same lines, again and again. Is there a script I missed?" His eyes narrowed. "I'm sure I can improvise. I'm going to enjoy watching you try." He said in an over-exaggerated mimicry of Bellum's voice.
Pink energy poured off of Discord, red energy streaming out of Bellum. The two stared at each other, Bellum's horns alight with magic and Discord's entire body glowing. While most creatures had ley in their horns, draconequi, windigos, and quetzalcoatls all had a form of ley "veins" across their entire body - their entire body was their conduit. This was one of Discord's advantages over Bellum - Discord just had to target Bellum's horns while Bellum had to target his entire body. Although, without his brain Discord wouldn't be able to cast magic. An orb of half pink and half red energy formed midway in between them, and I vividly remember being able to feel the power wash over me. The orb erupted violently, throwing Discord and Bellum backward. Even far as I was, I was pushed into the rock, feeling my body burn with pain and my bones bend and threaten to snap. Bellum was able to catch himself quickly due to his laws, Discord having to wrap his magic around his body to float through the air. Discord's wings spread out, flapping twice as he began falling to the ground. He hovered a bit over it, body coiled around himself as he smirked. "Let's tango, War." Discord giggled, his claws erupting into pink light.
Bellum responded with a warspell. Combat spells and warspells were dramatically different - combat spells were designed to weaken, hurt, and only kill if truly pushed to its limit. Warspells were meant for one purpose and one purpose only, to kill. The ground underneath Discord exploded, shrapnel slashing his body. Some of the larger and sharper pieces of rock pierced his flesh, but more of it than not bounced off him. The true damage came from the pure concussive force that the warspell brought with its eruption, throwing Discord backward. Discord slid backward before he retaliated with a pink smiley face shaped sphere of energy that Bellum was only able to dodge through teleportation - but somehow, Discord had been able to predict where Bellum was able to teleport. Teleportation is very magically noisy, and those with magically attuned sights can see the world shifting. The teleportation of a Spirit was impossible to detect, yet Discord had. Discord threw a lance of earth at Bellum. Bellum jolted and winced but then blinked as it rebounded off his scales, each fragment turning into a butterfly. His eyes widened when the butterflies began to spit out acid at him. Bellum let out a roar, an eruption of fire energy vaporizing the butterflies.
Discord didn't give Bellum the chance to rest. He reformed in-front of Discord, the flame parting as it neared him and forming an orb behind him. The butterflies' melted corpses fell to the ground and turned into liquid, the earth softening dramatically. Bellum sunk into the earth. The earth rose around him before solidifying, trapping Bellum's lower body in rock. Bellum's mouth opened, wisps of flame curling around his mouth before a volcanic torrent of flame washed from his mouth, the stone melting away. The orb of flame that Discord had prepared splashed over Bellum, the firelight bathing him in a red glow. Discord leaned on Bellum's back-right horn, smirking as his arms grew to colossal proportions and yanked Bellum's jaw backward. He leaned in and whispered close, his body elongating - "say CHEESE!" before he disappeared. Immediately after, a large pie-shaped slab of rock moving at the speed of sound impacted Bellum's head. His scales cracked slightly, but the real damage was done to his horns - one of his horns snapping in two, the other slightly cracking. The explosion of red energy that came from his horns was great, blanketing everything in sight, including Discord. Discord squeaked as he ducked down into a large pool. The water was vaporized, and Discord was leaning back on a strange yellow floating animal. "Hey! I was reading." He grumbled. He then squeaked again when Bellum threw a lance of rock into his chest. A pink glow surrounded him for a brief moment before the lance impacted - blood spurting into the air as Discord was impaled on the ground. Bellum shot over, pouncing on the opportunity as he smashed Discord underneath his claw like an ant underneath a boot.
Then that Discord shattered into glass, the real Discord smirking and leaning on Bellum's nose. "Missed me." He winked before he reared his lions paw back and slammed it into Bellum's nose. Bellum was sent hurtling through the ground, the ground shattering as the drakon king was pushed into it. Discord landed, panting over dramatically. "I forgot...how much magic it takes to hurt you draconics." His usual grin returned to his face as he perked up, boxing gloves forming on his paw and claw as he began moving them in a rhythmic pattern. "Come at me, draconic!" He giggled.
Bellum snarled. "Don't forget-" He spat out a mouthful of blood, "you're draconic too." Three sparkling red orbs with white edges formed above Bellum and shot down near Discord. Discord warped in front of them, but they readjusted course and shot towards Discord. Discord appeared behind Bellum - but the warspells phased through Bellum harmlessly, speeding up rapidly and striking into Discord's flesh. Discord shrieked in pain, his eyes wide as he fell to the ground, white smoke rising from the holes in his body. Everything seemed to slow as Discord looked stunned, quite literally. "You...hurt me." He said quietly. Bellum growled in response, smashing his fist down onto Discord for a finishing blow. A pink barrier stopped him in his place as Discord pushed himself up, giggling maddeningly. A trickle of blood slipped down from in between his teeth. "You hurt me! Hats off to you, Bellum." Bellum pushed down harder, the pink barrier beginning to crack before it shattered with explosive force, throwing Bellum back.
The earth tore itself apart under Bellum. Fragments of rock scratched at his scales, the pink circle on his hindquarters glowing as it began melting a hole in his flesh. Wave after wave of telekinetic force struck Bellum, throwing him further and further into the air. Tornadoes of supersonic drakon corpses and blood slashed at the king, Discord's anarchy intensifying as the volcanoes of ketchup began floating upside down and spraying onto Bellum. Bellum's scales began to melt, his flesh began to tear as the islands of rock pelted his flesh. Bellum managed to respond to this in kind with a small orb forming in front of him that proceeded to erupt into a torrent of flame so powerful that it melted Discord instantly. His organs, his brain, his flesh, his muscle. His bones were blackened and darkened, and for a moment the anarchy stopped.
Then everything became black, inky darkness pushing its way out of Discord's skeleton as it began to whiten. Discord floated in front of Bellum, immobilized in the void, and his laughter rang from everywhere.
Bellum looked horrified. "What...are you?"
Discord tilted his head to the side. His pupils were visible in the darkness of his skull as he spoke - not with the voice of a god, but with the voice of something that didn't belong in this world.
"I am magic." Discord reached out and tore something out from Bellum- and then Bellum exploded.
The energy consumed the entire mountain. The few living drakons left were melted to nothingness. The rock blackened and turned into magma, Discord being thrown against the barrier and sliding down it weakly. I saw death. I looked it in the eye and-
My mother threw herself in front of me. Drakons are heat resistant, but the cosmic heat Bellum released was too much for any of them. My mothers' scales and flesh melted as she looked at me. She nodded a resigned nod, eyes shutting as her dust spread over me. I stood there, my eyes wide as I quivered.
Discord panted and pushed himself up, leaning on a tree. "Goodness me that hurt. Draconics are the worst."" He grumbled, rubbing his chin. His flesh was burnt and toasted, healing at a snail's pace.
I saw red, and I lashed out at him. Tendrils of magic, rays of heat and ice, whipping air, telekinetic and brute force. Every spell I knew I threw at him in my madness, even trying to tear him apart telekinetically. His hold on himself was too strong even in his weakened state, and I collapsed. Despite how he was on the verge of death, blood oozing from his wounds, he was able to wrap his magic around me and immobilize me. He brought me upwards and I stared into his eyes.
My gray eyes met his yellow and red. His lion's paw scraped against my white scales slwoly. His face was beyond rage. Gone was the creature that had torn my species apart - gone was the god that had crushed Bellum. What looked back at me was a cornered animal.
And then he switched back to rage in an instant. "Scum." He whispered, his voice breaking as it struggled to contain the sheer amount of rage. He began to squeeze tighter and tighter on me - my scales began to crack.
"I am many things, drakon. Merciful is not one of them." He leaned in, his voice a hateful whisper. "I will break you. Your species will burn - break, snap, tear. Don't you understand?" He whispered. "DONT YOU UNDERSTAND!?" He roared, smacking his tail against the ground. There was a *snap* as the bone shattered. Blood leaked from his lips.
My heart pounded. My eyes watered. My horns and body screamed for this pain to end.
I spat at him. Discord stared at me, driven to a point of rage beyond words as his grip began to slip from me.
"I'll make you watch, drakon. I'll leave you for last - and only then will I allow you that same mercy."
"i-i-i...I vow, on my name - Tempest - that I will kill you." I managed. Blood leaked from everywhere it could, broken scale dust running down my face.
He stared for a moment. He smirked. "I'll see you, Tempest." He snapped his fingers - and both of us disappeared.
My eyes were shut as the teleportation spell ended. I had no idea where I was, my eyes weren't open so I couldn't even tell. I don't think my horns were blown out, but they were definitely bubbled and blackened from my surge of magic. My bones were broken, scales shattered, my flesh lacerated.
I passed out.
Mad was the politest word used to describe my predicament. Having gone from zero to hero and feeling quite like a zero right now once again, was not the best for one's ego. Especially at the hands of a draconic. Despite my relation to them, I must confess my distaste for them. I am the reason for three of their subspecies' extinction. Extinctions? But I wasn't in the spot to exact at the time.
I am, by far, the single most powerful magic caster alive. Oh - yes, maybe number two. Potentially three, depending on a certain little lavender - or is it violet, pony. But by far, I am the most skilled. Despite this, Bellum did have the brute strength to wound me. I can say with absolute certainty if the Alicorn Pantheon had Bellum on their side, I would have been defeated. He and Order were perhaps the only ones to have ever wounded me at the time. And while Order was rotting at the bottom of the ocean unable to harm me, Bellum had exacted a toll on me.
I have been afraid very few times. Five or six, I suppose. Four of them were because of Drakons. Pesky little things - extinct now. Or, endlings, I suppose. They can't breed, at the very least. Bellum didn't incite fear in me - but Tempest's little onslaught against me did. I was already weakened, and I'm sure if that a more experienced magic caster was there in Tempest's place they would have been able to kill even me.
My body was broken. My magic reserves, next to empty. Not even enough to conjure some ice cream to eat - oh, how I could go for some ice cream...But I'd probably melt myself if I did. I had to rest. I had to heal. I had to hide, lick my wounds. I curled up in some cave somewhere, unbeknownst to even me.
I screamed. I sobbed. I hit things and I lashed out until I couldn't find the energy to move anymore - and then I withdrew from the physical plane, entering the realm of magic to allow myself to heal.
All while thinking up how many ways you could cook drakon.
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