//------------------------------// // Chapter 16 // Story: Daybreak // by Leafdoggy //------------------------------// “Sleep on it? How the heck is that supposed to help.” Daybreak grumbled under her breath as she laid in bed that night. She was holding the jar of sand over her head, rolling it around and watching as dim rays of light from her horn reflected across all the different glittering colors. “Why aren’t they more worried? I mean, seriously, a riddle? Ugh.” She flipped over onto her belly and placed the jar upright on her bed. “Might as well see what this is about.” She opened the lid and tossed it to the side unceremoniously. Nothing seemed immediately off about the same. She sniffed it, but it didn’t have a scent. She Poured some out onto her hoof, and it flowed like sand. Tentatively, she tasted it, but it just tasted like sand. By all accounts, all it was was colorful sand. She thought for a moment. “Maybe it needs something else,” she wondered. She screwed the cap back on quickly, then hopped off of her bed and snuck as quietly as she could to her door. It opened silently, and she slipped out into the throne room without a problem. There were guards there, but she knew their routines well, so it was no trouble for a creature as small as her to hide from them in the shadows. She got to the end of the long hall and looked back, watching and waiting for a moment when both guards were occupied, and then scampered out into the hall as quickly as she could. The halls were dark and quiet. Small, wall-mounted candles lit the way enough to see, but not much more than that. Off in the distance, the clanking hoofsteps of ponies in regal armor could be heard. As she often did when she snuck out, she found herself thanking her mother’s rigorous scheduling. Thanks to it, she always knew where every guard in the castle was. She made her way to the kitchen and slipped in, letting out a deep breath when the door clicked quietly shut behind her. She turned on all the lights, not worried about being caught anymore, and set the jar down on a counter before scurrying around and looking in all the cupboards. She grabbed anything that looked like it might have any chance of working. Flour, sugar, wheat, oats, anything that caught her eye. She also grabbed a stack of deep metal bowls and spread them out across the counter with the various ingredients. Then she got to work. The first test was simple. She poured a few grains of sand into a bowl, then filled the bowl with water and stirred it up.  She wasn’t sure what she was expecting. A fizzle, a bang, anything, but that’s not what she got. All she got for her trouble was a bowl full of water. She tried adding more sand, and it dissolved into the water without a trace. She thought it should have at least been changing the color of the water, but it was still as clear as ever. A quick taste test was similarly disappointing, as it just tasted like water, too. Disappointed, she moved down the list. She poured sugar into the bowl with the sand, and then some water when that did nothing. Some mixing, prodding and tasting later, she moved on again and repeated the process. On and on down the line she went, testing everything she had access to, and none of it bore any fruit. After the last one did nothing, she let out a frustrated growl and tossed the bowl into the sink. “It’s just sand! Ugh, I bet it’s a prank. I bet she just dyed some regular sand.” Annoyed, she tossed the rest of the dishes haphazardly into the sink, not bothering to wash them, and left the jar of sand open on the counter. “Angel!” Daybreak hissed quietly. “You awake?” “Kinda.” Behind her, Angel yawned. “What do you want? It’s bedtime.” “Forget that,” Daybreak said. “Forget sleeping on it, forget the riddle, forget the sand, all of it! I’m sick of it, I’m gonna fix the element myself.” “Okay,” Angel said. “How?” “I don’t know yet,” Daybreak said. “Let’s go back to the tree. Maybe we missed something there.” “You can do whatever you want,” Angel said, “but I’m going back to bed. And don’t think I’m waking up Royal Gala for this.” Daybreak groaned. “Well, can you at least send me there so I don’t have to fly all that way?” “Sure.” Angel nodded, and shadows swirled up around Daybreak and whisked her away. Alone in the kitchen, Angel looked around with sleepy eyes. “Hmm…” Curious about what Daybreak had been doing, she wandered over to the sink and looked in. The water had spilled out of all the bowls and mixed together into a thick, murky brown slurry. Dishes were completely blocking the drain, so the water was just sitting there, unmoving as Angel stared at it. She looked at the sand next to the sink. Daybreak had been careful with her portions, and in the end, she’d only used about a quarter of the jar. On a whim, Angel took a big scoop of the sand and dumped it into the mixture. Immediately, it started to bubble and churn. Little whirlpools swirled across the surface, making tiny indents amongst the bubbles. “Huh.” With a shrug, Angel picked up the jar and dumped the rest of the sand into the sink. The water roiled, a maelstrom overtaking it as the strange solution reacted to the sand, and Angel grinned. “Oops.” Satisfied, she dropped the jar into the sink and turned on the faucet so that it would fill with water. Laughing under her breath, she then stepped into the shadows and started to fade away.  As the shadows parted, gravity regained its hold and pulled Daybreak tumbling out of the air. She landed on the hard stone floor of the gulch with a dull thud and a pained “oof.” Then, before she had a chance to get her bearings, more shadows swirled above her and dropped two broken chunks of rock down on her head. Grumbling and rubbing her head, Daybreak pushed herself up and picked up the broken element. Unsurprisingly, it still had no magical sheen to it, but she was still a little disappointed that the problem hadn’t just fixed itself. The rocky outcroppings around her looked completely different under the light of the moon. Stars glittered off of the perfectly still surface of the pond, and tiny crystals embedded high up on the walls glowed in a rainbow of colors. The cave leading in towards the tree was almost completely pitch dark, only barely lit by the soft glow the tree gave off. She made her way over to it, but as she rounded the corner into the cave Daybreak stopped short. She wasn’t alone. Standing in front of the tree, looking up at it with a hoof on his chin, was an ancient, bearded pony. He was wearing an old, tattered hat and robe, and gave off an aura like he’d been alive since the dawn of time. “Uh… H-Hello?” Daybreak spoke up quietly. “Hm?” The old stallion turned around slowly, then lit up when he saw Daybreak. “Oh, my! Well, aren’t you a quick one? Or perhaps Somnambula has just lost her edge.” “What?” “Well, you are Daybreak, aren’t you?” The pony walked a bit closer to her and smiled warmly. “My successor does paint quite a vivid portrait of you in her letters.” “Your…” Daybreak shook her head and looked up at him, utterly baffled. “What?” “I’m Starswirl, young lady,” he told her. “Are you not here to speak to me?” “Starswirl? B-But why are you here?” “Well, this is where I was asked to wait,” Starswirl said. “You did solve the riddle, did you not?” “The ri—” Daybreak’s eyes went wide as the realization hit her. “O-Oh! Yeah, heh, of course I solved the riddle! It was a piece of cake.” Starswirl raised an eyebrow. “You came here by complete happenstance, didn’t you?” “I—” Daybreak pursed her lips. “Yeah…” “Well, no matter.” Starswirl wandered back over to the tree and sat underneath it, motioning for Daybreak to follow. She did, and sat on a hefty root nearby. “You’ve found me, which was the point of the riddle. I suppose it doesn’t matter all that much that you failed to actually solve it.” “I mean, I would’ve if I’d gotten the chance to.” Starswirl chuckled. “Of course. So, dear Daybreak, how may I help you?” “Uh… Somnambula didn’t tell me?” “Well, she…” Starswirl cleared his throat. “She gave me a riddle about it.” “Hah! See? Not so easy, is it?” Daybreak laughed for a moment, then nodded and pushed the laughter down. “Yeah, so, um… I kind of broke one of the elements.” Starswirl’s eyes went wide. “What? But they look fine to me.” Daybreak looked up at the tree. At some point, Angel must have replaced Pinkie’s element, and their fake element was still slotted snugly into the tree. “Yeah, uh… Well, we made a fake one to replace it.” Starswirl looked impressed and glanced back up at the tree. “Which one?” “My mom’s.” “Ho-hoh, you must be quite the little sorceress! It wouldn’t give up that one easily. And the stone you made is exquisite! Really, a true eye for detail. Even the imperfections seem to have been copied!” “Mm-hm.” Daybreak nodded. “So… Can you fix it?” Starswirl stroked his beard. “Hmm… Well, I’m sorry to say I cannot help you.” “What? B-But you were our only chance! What are we going to do, we need the elements, what if we get attacked, or-or—” Starswirl cleared his throat, and Angel stopped rambling and looked up at him. “As I was saying,” he said agonizingly slowly, “I cannot help you, for, you see, there is no problem to fix.” “What? But… The element! It’s broken!” “Daybreak, what you broke was nothing more than a well-sculpted stone. It wasn’t magic.” Frowning, Daybreak stared up at him. “I don’t understand.” “The magic is from the tree,” Starswirl said. He pointed up to the slot in the trunk. “Look, see? It’s already begun charging the new stone with energy.” Daybreak looked closely at the tree, and sure enough, their replacement stone had a tiny bit of the magical sheen the other elements all held. “So… It’s fine? I was worried for nothing?” “So it seems,” he said with a laugh. Daybreak took the old stone and put it in front of her. “Then… What about this?” “Hm?” Starswirl looked them over and shrugged. “Keep them. They most likely still hold some vestige of the element’s power. Perhaps you’ll find a use for that.” “Oh.” Daybreak stared down at them, still having trouble processing everything that was going on. Eventually, she looked back up at him and asked, “Are you gonna tell my mom?” Starswirl laughed. “Dear, something tells me I don’t need to. I’d be surprised if she didn’t already know.” “Ugh.” Daybreak dropped her head onto her hooves. “I’m gonna be in so much trouble. Back in Canterlot, a waterfall was flowing off of a counter and onto the kitchen floor. It was pooling together in a deep puddle of murky brown liquid that spun and spat in a magical torrent. A storm was raging in the sink, fighting against the confines of its metal prison. In all the currents, all the turmoil, the dishes clogging the drain got pushed more and more, and eventually, they gave way. The water shoved the bowls out of the way and, with a loud, deep noise, slid down the drain and into the depths of the Canterlot Castle.