//------------------------------//
// 6 - Zecora 
// Story: The Hollow Pony 
// by Type_Writer 
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We returned to Rockhoof soon enough. Dinky said to let her do the talking, and I was happy to defer to her. Rockhoof seemed decent enough, but I got the sense whenever I approached him to talk he’d much rather work than talk with Hollows. And he always seemed to have trouble remembering me. Maybe I really didn’t look all that different from the other Hollows.

As we re-entered the town square and the comforting, endless ringing rhythm of hammer on anvil, Dinky unfastened the rapier. She held it by the sheathe, in her yellow aura, and held it high to get his attention. “Rockhoof! A word.”

He paused in his work, raising a scarred eyebrow, as the blacksmith gave her his full attention. I’d noticed a lot of ponies gave Dinky that sort of respect, staying out of her way but giving her friendly nods. Clearly, the remaining townsponies thought a great deal of the teenaged filly.

It soured when he saw the sheath. “Never seen you t’hold a sword before, Archmage.”

“It’s Diamond’s. She went Hollow.”

Rockhoof snorted, and started hammering again. “Never did like that filly. Damned troublemaker. Still, didn’t deserve that. What got her?”

Dinky set the sheathed sword by his anvil. “Mimic, in one of the old estates. We killed it as fast as we could.”

“But not fast enough.”

Dinky closed her eyes. “No.”

Rockhoof set the sword he’d been working over to the side, and unsheathed the silver rapier, examining its length. “So, you took her sword?”

“Better for her not to have it, once she becomes mobile again.” Dinky motioned towards the blade. “Besides, it’s silver, which holds magic exceptionally well. Bit soft, but stable enough, with maintenance.”

“Silver-plated,” Rockhoof corrected, scratching the blade while he weighed it with his hoof. “Not solid silver, or else it would already need to be enchanted for durability. Feels like a steel core. That other filly, did she make this?”

“Silver Spoon. Yeah.”

Rockhoof sighed again. “I can tell. Her work was a bit too gilded for my tastes, but she worked a forge like she was a strict mother.” He examined it a bit before placing it on his anvil. “Looks in decent enough shape. Tip’s a mite blunt, could be sharpened. I can reinforce it a tad if you like too, but I can only do so much before it loses enchanting potential.”

“That’ll be fine. Do your fire gems need a charge?”

“Aye. One shattered, too. Must’ve been weakened from age.”

Dinky winced. “Right. I’ll keep an eye out for a replacement next time Maud comes through. In the meantime, here’s one of mine.” She passed him a glowing red cubical crystal, and he passed her several of his own that had grown dull and faint. She stepped away, and I followed her, but only for a few steps before she turned back to me.

“Holly? I’m going to be recharging these for a while. See if you can find Zecora in the meantime, she should be around the other end of town, close to the Everchaos. She’s set up in an old storefront, look for the greenish smoke trail.”

I nodded, and she found a good bench to sit at while closing her eyes and focusing on one of the discharged crystals.

North was…I glanced over at the perpetually setting sun to the east, and oriented myself northwards before leaving the town square. I’d avoided this side of town for the most part, in my time here in Ponyville. Nopony wanted to live too close to the border wall, and there wasn’t much left to scavenge. As I walked through the streets, the buildings around me quickly became more and more fire-damaged. Some were still standing, but for the most part they became bare foundation and burnt support beams. A deep, instinctual part of my mind rebelled at being alone and so out in the open, but it couldn’t be helped.

Eventually, I found myself looking at the north wall of Ponyville, and knew I’d gone too far. While the wall was impressive, it looked like it had fallen, been rebuilt, and reinforced a thousand times since its construction. From the numbers of blurry shapes moving across the top parapet, I doubted it even had the inner tunnels I’d run through when I first came to Ponyville, like they’d been filled in to strengthen the structure as a whole.

Thankfully, my presence went totally unnoticed; if I had to guess, even the hollows atop the wall knew how much more of a threat the Everchaos was in comparison to anything that could strike from this side. They seemed much more preoccupied with the sound of steel on steel that rang through the patchwork wall. A fight on the other side?

I turned back to face the rest of Ponyville, shaking my head in confusion. Green smoke? This whole area was smouldering. How was I supposed to find a fire that had been intentionally kept alight? A few buildings looked more intact than the others, but none trailed smoke. Either they were unoccupied, or whoever—or whatever—had taken up residence inside any of them didn't want to attract attention.

A sudden thump from above caught my attention, but by the time I looked up, a blurry shape had already whipped over my head and slammed into a stone foundation. I only heard the scream a moment later, paired with another still atop the wall.

What had-? I turned back to face the one that had landed inside the walls, and froze. A disgusting mass of scales and pony and teeth writhed around on the stone, snarling and screaming. I realized, dully, that one of the Hollow guards must have been pounced on, had landed down here beside me. I realized that I was doing nothing but watching.

Another scream from above. “Demons!”

An alarm ball rang as I grabbed a length of timber, but it was already too late for the Hollow guard. There was a sickening crack, and they fell still, giving the demon that had tackled them time to do…something. A thin stream of pinkish smoke poured out of the eyes and mouth of the dying Hollow, and was absorbed by the scaley demon squatting atop their corpse.

I paled, holding the length of timber between my teeth. Demons, like the Mimic, could steal a Pony’s fire. Could Hollow me further, steal my very life from me. Ponyville repelled attacks like this every day.

We lived like squatters on the very edge of a burning forest full of monsters that could kill us all permanently. Were we all insane?

Then the mass of scales and teeth leapt at me, and I gasped as I swung the timber at what I hoped was its head. My neck ached once again as it jerked against my jaw, but the snarl it let out told me I’d struck true, and I rolled away. As I regained my hooves, it was already scrabbling back towards me, and this time I brought the length of wood down atop it, slamming it down into the ashen ground. It let out a squall as its limbs flailed, stunned for only a moment.

Some sort of frog, I speculated. Or at least, it had the gangly limbs of one. It didn’t carry its own weight, instead dragging its belly along the ground as it used its claws to pull and leap forward. The center of mass seemed to be mostly teeth and mouth, with four darting green eyes rolling around inside its skull as it lay stunned.

Abomination. Ugly, twisted, carnivorous abomination of nature. It had to die, before I was the next victim.

I brought my forehooves down onto its head with a pair of squelches against its rubbery flesh, and the limbs began to flail again. Undeterred, I began swinging wildly with my length of timber, battering the creature as it had battered its previous prey. It tried to fight, tried to crawl out from under me, but my hooves kept it pinned even as I clubbed it ineffectually. Eventually, I knew, one of us would tire, and I merely had to outlast-

My thoughts were interrupted as something smacked against my side, throwing me away from my opponent. My length of timber was flung away, a tooth or two going with it as I wheezed ichor.

My vision spun, but I could see something approaching fast. Kicking out with my hind legs, I caught it and roughly shoved it away; I’d hoped more for a deadly buck, but I lacked the strength. I was no earth pony.

I didn’t get to see this new foe in much detail, but I could see red feathers, ragged and scattered, as it staggered away on a pair of gangly claws. Some sort of bird? My inspection was interrupted as a small shape whipped over my head, shattering with the sound of glass against the demon’s feathers. Where the liquid inside splashed feather and flesh, steam erupted, and the beast screeched in abject pain.

“The twisted robin is my chosen foe, take this hammer to battle and go!” A claw hammer with a wooden grip landed at my hooves as a brown-and-black blur leapt over me, charging at the screaming Bird Demon. Stumbling, I scrabbled at the tool with my useless hooves before managing to flick it towards my head. Grabbing the wood in my teeth, I stood, just in time to be tackled by the first demon.

I fell back onto my other side, but managed to put it off balance enough that it rolled over me, flopping onto its back as I rolled with it, scrabbling to my hooves. I didn’t want to get pinned under this thing, I’d seen what it had done to that Hollow. Still holding the hammer, I swung it at the center of what I guessed to be its head, and was rewarded with another rubbery “whack.” That stunned it for long enough for me to pin it back under my hooves, and I began bludgeoning it with the hammer, red bruises forming across the body.

Rubbery amphibian legs, tipped with wickedly sharp claws, slashed wildly at me, as I desperately hoped to bludgeon the demon into unconsciousness at the very least. But my blows didn't seem to do more than stun the creature, and every second I kept it pinned, I became more off balance.

The scales tipped when those wicked claws slashed my shoulder, and I lost what little feeling had remained in my foreleg. My weight caused it to collapse under me, and the hammer slipped from my teeth as I cried out in pain. My ruined shoulder slammed into the ashen ground, and white pain filled my vision as black ichor squirted across the demon.

An obscenely long tongue lapped up the ichor, and it was like I had never managed a single blow. It shoved me off effortlessly, and righted itself in moments as I started kicking at it ineffectively with my three remaining hooves. It grabbed my forehoof with a rubber claw, slamming it down on the ground, and its four eyes flashed with pink fire as it leapt atop me-

There was a flash, and a blinding, baking heat, and even my ruined nose couldn't help but breathe in the scent of burnt frog flesh. It reeled, kicking me away as it scrabbled off to the side, and I was flung to safety. I bounced to a stop at a set of striped hooves, one forehoof lifted and glowing with pink heartfire.

"Begone, demon of froggy shape, begone I say! For you have lost this fight, and we will no longer be your prey!"

Zecora had lost her brown cloak in her fight. Her back, her legs, and even her face were marred with a dozen taloned slashes, proof of her own hard-fought victory. But she stood tall, her hollowed eyes burning bright, and with a bandoleer of alchemical concoctions fastened tight around her barrel.

If the Frog Demon understood her, it made no indication of it. A massive mouth, nearly the width of its whole head, split open and let loose a ravenous croak.

The Zebra pyromancer snarled again, scraping her hoof along the ashen ground and kicking up a cloud of dust that blew away in the wind. "To your hooves now, and do not look so dour - For I shall have frog's legs for my brews this hour!" Her hoof flared bright pink with fire, and she reared back on her hinds, as she kicked the ball of fire towards the rampaging amphibian.

It tried to dodge, and nearly succeeded, save for its extended hind leg. That exploded in a wave of baking heat, and the impact caused the demon to stumble directly into the path of a second fireball. That one caught the demon right between the eyes, and there was a croaking howl as they burst from the heat. Hissing red blood spattered into the ashes as it tried to waddle backwards, but the swollen amphibian’s anatomy was not suited to moving backwards.

Zecora let out a war whoop, and leapt over me, both her hooves glowing now. A cracked cobblestone and a rusted ancient tent stake floated upwards in pink auras of Pyromantic levitation at her sides, following her as she charged into battle. A moment before she reached the blinded demon, her implements overtook her, aligning themselves.

The tent stake, long and sturdy and slightly barbed so it would hold steady against the winds, aligned over one of the demon's eye sockets. The wide, flattened cobblestone met it, providing a wide base for leverage. And finally, Zecora reached her opponent with a spinning buck against the cobblestone.

There was an echoing clack of hoof on stone, and the frog demon stiffened as zecora pounded the tent stake through the ruined remnants of its eye, directly into its brain. Then she bounced back from it, landing on all four of her hooves, and watched.

The demon gurgled, twitching spasmodically as it clawed at its own face with rubbery claws, shredding itself with wild abandon as it tried to pull the foreign object free. As it bled, it began to slow, and let out a whining croak. Finally, it slumped, as its limbs dropped into the ash. 

Zecora turned back to me, shaking her head sadly. “A grisly battle we have fought beneath the stagnant sun...remember this: the struggle to survive is oft not a pretty one.”

I nodded, trying to roll onto my hooves, but I couldn't seem to stand for some reason. After Zecora had closed the distance, she had taken notice that I was unable to move from where I had fallen. "Remain still...t'would seem that you are gravely injured. Come, and let us return now to town that you may heal...unhindered?" She stumbled slightly over the last few words.

"N-no…" I whimpered, and her eyebrow raised. "Came to see…see you specific-specifically…"

Zecora shook her head sadly. "As honored as I am that my tale has spread so far, I feel that your forgiveness now is what I must implore - I cannot cure your hollowing, it hurts me to admit...as I myself yet wither still is proof enough of this..."

"N-no, not…not that. Dinky…she s-said you could t-teach…teach me P-pyromancy. She s-said you were the best P-pyro…mancer, that sh-she had ever kn-known…"

Zecora's eyes fell. "Did she, now…hmph. She feels this way because I'd say she simply knows so few! I am but a student too of Pyromancy old and new...yet, it has been a very long time since last I took a pupil of mine."

"P-please…" I whimpered. "You know m-more…more than I d-do. I c-can't…can't even h-hold a t-torch..."

Her eyes softened. "No ability to harness your flame, I see…yet still, Dinky chose to send you to me? Hm…." she glanced at something to her left, out of my vision, and sighed. "To understand the flames there is much that I must tell, and your body now is healing still so listen to me well: the curse flares as bright as ever when you are hoisted from the brink, so close your eyes and clear your mind of thoughts you wish to think. Full relaxation is essential, if I am to gauge hidden potential."

I nodded as she stepped closer, my vision darkening as I closed my eyes…or, at least, dimmed the lights of my eyes. I felt her presence as she stepped over me, taking the remaining hoof that I could feel against her own, and placing her other forehoof on my breast. She was warm, but not where we touched…more that I could feel that she was there, like wind that didn't blow, or a fire that had no flame.

I drew in a shaking, ragged breath, feeling strands of detritus catch in my throat, but more than that, the scents around me. I smelled the burnt frog flesh once more, and from Zecora herself, the heady scent of herbs and the alchemical reek of potions. Around us, the smell of burning firewood, and the sickly-sweet stench of decay.

And then she stepped away, and I was blind to the scent and feel of warmth that I had felt so clearly only a moment ago.

"Your soul…the fire within you is but a mote I fear, maddened hollows' flames are greater still to what I feel here..." My face fell, but she put her hoof on my shoulder. "Fret not, for yet still it burns hot - few would have guessed just from looking at you. There is potential here, an ember that is yet untempered...you can be taught, that much is true."

She closed her eyes, and a tiny smile crossed her muzzle. "Archmage Dinky was correct - I will teach you."

My excitement was quenched by the numbness spreading from my shoulder, but I was still ecstatic, and tried once again to sit up. "T-thank you…I'll be…be the best appre-apprentice you ever…"

Her hoof gently pushed me back down. "We shall see. For now, however, some sleep would be best. I must speak with Dinky myself, and take care of the rest."

Her hoof glowed pink again, and a blurry, pale, fleshy shape floated over beside us. It took me a moment to realize that I was looking at my own severed foreleg, still leaking black ichor. "You need time for your strength to replenish. After all, I will not teach a three-legged apprentice."

I nodded dumbly, as she laid the foreleg on my belly, before pulling out a blue vial from her bandoleer. She uncorked the stopper, wafted the fumes towards herself, nodded, and then held it out towards me. "Drink."

I opened my mouth, and as she poured the liquid into my mouth, darkness overtook me. For the first time since I had awoken in Ponyville, I fell into a deep, fitful sleep, full of pain and movement, but not a single dream.


*	*	*


Once more, I had no idea how much time had passed while I was unconscious. Sharp pains and burning sensations nearly roused me more than once, but I always slipped back down into unconsciousness. When I eventually began to awaken, it seemed that Zecora had hauled me back to her makeshift home, and she had re-attached my foreleg. There was a faint, visible seam around my shoulder, but it functioned fine, as far as I could tell. I blinked fully awake, despite my splitting headache, and squirmed around on the bed to look around.

Zecora’s home was, frankly, a disorganized, cluttered mess of a workspace. Stacks of books challenged the rafters for height, clumps of herbs and bundles of greenery hung from the ceiling by various lengths of twine, and somepony—presumably Zecora herself—had punched a hole straight through the ceiling to allow smoke from the smoldering cauldron to escape. Every surface higher than my knee was covered with glassware, be it bottles, jars, bubbling pipes heated by burners, or glass decanters of suspicious-looking fluid. Shelves and racks held dozens of vials and potions, and even more hung from the ceiling alongside the herbs. At the edges of the room, terrifying tribal masks loomed out of the shadows, hung as if they were intended to be wardens, watching my every move.

And then, there were the actual carcasses. Various demons, or parts of demons, had been hung up like trophies, but I could see needles and tubes jammed through their fur and chitin and leading to collection bottles below them. This included the Frog Demon, which had been hanging for so long that it had appeared to have begun to mummify, drying into a texture more akin to tree bark. Its legs hung beside it, hacked off where they had joined the body to be used seperately.

Even the bed I was laid out in seemed to be a mess. Various fluids, ichor and spilled potion, alcohol and vomit, had all seemed to leave their own stains. Even if they were all dried now, some of them left an unpleasant crust, and I had to tug at my foreleg for a moment to peel it from the damp wool sheets. At the end of the bed, I could see an ugly pile of books and parchment, as if they’d been shoved carelessly off the end to make room for a new occupant.

My confused whimpers and tugging at the bedsheet did attract the attention of Zecora, however, and she glanced over from the cauldron she had been engrossed in stirring to check that I was, in fact, awake.

"Ah, finally you rise from your slumber! Perhaps succumbed to your curse, I had started to wonder. Since now you've awoken from your ordeal, perhaps you could tell me how it is you feel?"

I felt as though I had been chewed up by a monster made of bricks and needles, and spat out onto a bed of broken glass. My bones felt heavy, leaden, and the joints had been pulled out of their sockets before being haphazardly shoved back in. My flesh was thin, sensitive, and it ached. I itched all over, but I could feel that if I indulged the urge, flesh would begin to peel off from the effort.

My head was the worst. I felt my brains as they slopped from one side of my skull to the other, and ichor dripped from one of my nostrils. My eye itched as well, but that was particularly confusing—I had no eye to rub to ease the discomfort. Only the phantom feeling of an eye.

All this, I told Zecora, and she grimaced as she made notes. When I was finished, I asked her why she was writing it all down.

"In my time I've offered hollows many forms of aid...I've found one's average potion does naught, be it pony or zebra-made..." She waved around the room. "All my life I've learned the strengths of herbs and reagents far, and how to mix and cure most maladies most bizarre.

"But now the rules have changed, and with them dire costs - Ponies find they cannot die but still shamble until lost...and though I take the strangest paths that none before have tread, I find that hardly anything will benefit the dead." She turned back to her cauldron, closing the journal in which she had written my symptoms, and placing it back on the desk.

"Of course, through all the failure that I tasted, all was not totally wasted - through trial and error new rules were learned, new patterns emerged and tables turned, progress had been set in motion and finally...I could craft new potions. A cruel joke was what I had missed, were the side effects that would persist - for all the length of its helpful effects, the ponies would suffer a most painful hex." Zecora waved her hoof at the cluttered room around us, at the multitude of emptied bottles and unoccupied pouches. "Worse still, is that my herb supply has nearly been depleted - I was wasteful when my help was so very dearly needed."

She shook her head, after a moment. "Oh, listen to me ramble not unlike a silly foal, I do believe I've said enough of my long sought-after goal...now it is your time to learn as my teaching role resumes, so come stand by my cauldron and inhale the potent fumes."

I hauled my aching body off of the bed and let my hooves become acquainted with holding my weight once more, before limping over to Zecora's cauldron. I stood across from her, and peered over the rim, to see a slow-bubbling liquid lapping at the sides as it filled the room with a deeply pungent, wooden sort of flavor.

"Is…is this s-some…some sort of p-potion? To t-teach me P-Pyromancy?"

Zecora chuckled a bit at that. "If such a brew could be obtained the herbs it used would long be plucked! No, rather this is pungent tea to sniff while your muscles reconstruct - it shall ease your pain for now, and soon you will focus on what I will instruct."

I nodded sort of sheepishly, and Zecora sighed sadly as she looked into the bubbling liquid. "Drink deep now and do not waste it, for so dearly do I wish that I could taste it - the smell works wonders even still, but to ingest it now would make me ill…the tea would cause my throat to swell to the point of suffocation, because of that it no longer works quite as well for relaxation."

She looked back up at me, after a moment. “Though yet I know you yearn at heart to learn I wonder before we start. Neither Dinky nor Pinkie could tell me your name, though 'Holly' has Pinkie so often exclaimed - do you remember what it was you were called, before the curse swept through this land of auld?"

Sadly, I shook my head. “C-can’t…all…all blank. H-Holly or Ap-Apprentice...either’s f-fine.”

Zecora's eyes were filled with nothing but sympathy as she looked down into the cauldron. "A simple exercise for us to begin, nothing more than visualization. Close your eyes and let tranquility subsume, as you breathe deep of the tea's powerful fumes." Her own eyes dimmed as she led by example, and I followed her instructions. Soon, the sound of the cauldron bubbling, the hissing of glass tubes, it all faded into dark. All except for the crackling of the fire, and Zecora's voice.

"Pyromancy is primal magic - old beyond unicorns, alicorns, or ponies. When all Equines were of one body and spirit, there was nothing but darkness to know these. Our ancestors lived in this darkness, grazed by themselves in solitary lives...yet it was not life, but simple, dumb existence with no thought for the whens, wheres or whys.

"But it was in that sole darkness they found the first embers - not by reaching out for something else, but rather deep within themselves. It was inside they found they had this spark, a gentle flame within their hearts. This heat appeared too within their brethren, and together they sought one same direction - if yet more and more together they came, inevitably brighter would grow their flame.

"Do as they did, to focus on knowing the very flame that keeps you going - find that which gives you purpose and energy, center yourself on where you should be..."

It felt like I was falling. Deep within the inky, tea-scented darkness, I was plummeting. My ruined wings unfolded on instinct, twitching gently by my sides as I tried to slow my fall. What was I falling through?

No, I realized, that was the wrong question. It didn't matter what I was falling through, nor how fast, nor what I was falling toward. The point was, what was I? What was falling, to perceive the world moving upwards around it? That was the point that I focused on, peeling off layers of atrophy and unfamiliarity as I clutched that plummeting core tightly.

Slowly, my wings pulled themselves back up to my side. The layers I had stripped off were meant to protect it, but they had worked too well, blinded me to my own core. Now, I could almost see it, a bright orange spark, like the cooling wick of a candle. I felt my wings cradle it, comfortingly, protectively, as though it were a foal.

Together, we were one, my fire and I. Wherever I went, it would always be here, ready for me to draw on it, even if I could only draw forth an inkling.

And then, there was a second flame, so much brighter and warmer than my own. Zecora's flame was gentle as it probed inwards, feeling the layers around my spark. As it did, I opened my wings just a bit, allowing my friend to see the measure of my soul.

Her voice echoed through my conceptualization. "You feel it then, the spark in there? This is my own, for you to compare..."

I barely needed to. I felt like a flea on the back of a dog, dwarfed by the breadth of her soul.

"When the ponies of eld felt this kinship burning, they lent pieces of their flame to the other yearning...as did they then, so do I now, my apprentice." As she spoke, I could feel her fire divide itself. A fraction of her flame split off, no more than a hundredth of her soul, but it still dwarfed mine.

Until it slipped through the crack I had opened for her, and it merged with my own flame. Suddenly, I felt my soul expand, and I gasped as the fire deep within flared brightly. The wings that protected it fluttered as the inner fluff was singed, but I adjusted them, re-cradled my flame, and I eventually managed to adapt.

Once more, Zecora's voice was right beside me, and she continued. "Do not share your flame frivolously, my apprentice - while your soul can recover strength given in this way, so too can one give their all to another, and your body would fail you soon thereafter.

"Now, open your eyes."

It was jarring, returning to reality after delving so deep into myself like that. Zecora's home snapped back into sharp focus around me, and I reeled, staggering backwards from the cauldron. I heard Zecora chuckle as I found my balance once more, and she waited until I staggered back to where I had been standing before.

Strangely, I felt much better than I had before. I barely felt the aches in my bones or the dull pain in my skull, and when I stood still, my hooves shook just a little bit less than they had before. Zecora seemed to notice as well, nodding as she smiled.

"There is a difference in you which I cannot ignore; You seem more centered now than you did before! Being deeper attuned to oneself in this way, will save you a great deal of doubt and dismay. You should be more comfortable now within your own skin, now that you've felt the fire within."

I nodded, and she continued. As she spoke, she held out her hoof, frog facing upwards. A bright flame seemed to ignite in the air above it; a representation of her own flame. "Seek those that you can trust, beyond my lessons - assist them, and the burdens you both bear shall lessen...and when your bond with these ponies has grown to be sure, then share with them too my gift now of yours. Pay this kindness ever onward, as did the Equines of eld."

After a moment, she chuckled. "A past apprentice of mine was quite charismatic, and as she would oft say…’friendship is magic.’"

We basked in the heat of our shared flames for a while, her reliving old memories, as I meditated on my own flame. Eventually, she spoke again. "Now...enough of a break we have had for this session, it is time we move onto the next of my lessons - When the Equines of old had formed their first covenant, and long known their flames, they began to experiment. Simply pushing their flame outwards was their first discovery, and they created fire by projecting the metaphorical into reality..."

She stepped back, pointed her hoof at the cauldron's base—where the fire warming the tea had begun to dwindle—and tilted her head to indicate I was to follow her lead. When I had done so, she continued. "Take hold of your flame - grasp it gently, but firmly. Feel its weight, how it yearns to break free so overtly."

I closed my eyes, and nodded. Zecora inhaled, and I did so as well, my throat dragging the air in slowly.

"Squeeze and push, down the length of your leg, and past your hoof. As hard as you can."

There was a sound like a foal coughing, and my eyes snapped open as the gout of orange flame bathed the cauldron. Zecora jumped back only a hoof-length, before stomping both her hooves on the wooden floor. "Excellent! Again!"

I didn't close my eyes this time, but it came easier all the same. This time, the flame was broader, fully enveloping the blackened cauldron without damaging it. As the orange pulse faded, Zecora's own hooves began to glow, and several fresh logs shoved themselves under the cauldron as well as a few hoof-fuls of thin, dried branches. "Again! Lower, focus it tighter, towards the kindling!"

I grit my teeth, and pushed one last time. A flash of fire pulsed out of my hoof and rolled over the kindling, and sparks caught in a dozen different places. As I sat back, panting, Zecora tended the growing fire, flicking her tail to push fresh air towards the flames. As she did so, her hooves deftly manipulated the logs within the scorched fire pit, and soon, the fire was back to a dull crackling, healthy flame between us both.

“Combustion,” she explained. “The oldest and most basic expression of Pyromancy, to weave flame from the hoof whenever one fancied. From this, Equines saw with their own eyes a change - this first flame inspired them, comforted them as they huddled, arranged together they joined for warmth. From there, the rest of Pyromancy came, and everything, everywhere, could see with affinity that which formed the heartfire of Equinity.”

Together, we watched the fire dance around the cauldron, and Zecora stirred it as she continued to tell her story. “That was how Equines started, at the beginning. From whence came language, herds, society, civilization. We ran to the corners of the world, and the world shaped us as we shaped it. We may all look different now, we may consort with strange gods and live by different creeds…but deep within, we are, all of us, Equines.”

Eventually, she shook her head and smiled. “Stories for another time, I suppose. Next is levitation, after a lengthy repose - it is no easy feat, though its use is tremendous. Still, a promising start, my little apprentice.”

Deep within myself, my own personal flame flared just a little brighter. For once, I’d done something right. Somepony was proud of my progress, and because of that, so was I. I was learning Pyromancy!