//------------------------------//
// Chapter XVI - Training 
// Story: Ballad of the Dawn 
// by Takarashi282 
//------------------------------//

The sun sat low on the horizon, bathing the apartment complex in a pink light. Rising Wing ascended the stairs, gritting her teeth as every bit of her body ached. Oh, how she would love to kick that draconequus’ teeth in!

She made it to the top landing when her ear flicked at a tiny noise. She stood alert, flipping around to the source. But nothing was there: only the wooden walkway that led to her solitary studio apartment. She swept a strand of her red mane behind her ear. She’d been on edge since she’d woken up in that damned hospital bed, nearly knocking out a nurse that was tending to her. Maybe the muscle relaxant that they gave her was a good choice from the doctors after all.

But now that she had recovered, her senses still hadn’t settled back in. She frowned. Typically she’d be over this at this point. But the acceleration of falling off the four story cliff still remained in her gut, and the wind still roared in her ears. She clopped her hoof against her face, dragging it down slowly. It’d be a little bit before she’d be on duty again.

She walked down to the third apartment before the north end, procuring a key from her saddlebags. Their plain burlap color clashed against her dark purple coat, but they were serviceable. She inserted the key into the door with her teeth, turning it with a hoof and opening the door. The apartment smelled odd, a somewhat musty smell diffusing in the air. She frowned. She hadn’t been away for too long, only a week and a half. Figuring that it wasn’t important, she shrugged. She’d contact the landlady tomorrow if anything like a leak appeared. They weren’t uncommon this time of year.

She walked into the dark depths, turning on the lights. She tossed the saddlebags onto her small sofa, stretching out her wings. How long had it been since she’d taken flight? She’d have to go for a fly soon… just not that night. Her body was aching too much, and her eyelids began to feel heavy. She just needed a good night’s rest. 

A clop sounded behind her, and she flipped around once more, her wings flared out. In her doorway stood a stud of a stallion. His body was muscular, but his appearance was broody. It seemed like a thick shadow covered his front.

“Holy shit, man,” she sighed in relief, recognizing the stallion. She tucked her wings back to her sides. “You scared the hell out of me.”

No reply. He still stood there, silent. Upon closer inspection, his coat was globbed together up front, as if covered in tar. The lights hadn’t warmed up yet, so she couldn’t quite make it out. “Dude, you okay?” she asked, taking a step forward. “I know that losing her may have been hell, but—”

The stallion surged forward, and she tasted metal. Her eyes wide, pain erupted from the back of her throat, as the stallion’s hoof covered with a hilt of a dagger hovered in front of her still-open mouth.

“You talk too much,” he growled. Rising’s body fell limp, and the rest of her body up to her head lost all feeling. All she could see was the hulking figure above her and a puddle of blood—her blood—pooling around her. “But you’re right. It was hell losing her.”





The courtyard wasn’t too far from the castle proper. Although it meant climbing down a copious amount of stairs—a hell that Trixie had thought she’d grown adjusted to, but found herself winded when she stepped hoof upon the bottom landing—the beauty of it was something to behold. It, like the mortuary she’d visited before, was green and growing, trees reaching up toward the sky as the sun set behind the horizon. Lamplights turned on, covering the courtyard in a cool light.

She walked through the segmented yard, the stone tile glittering beneath her as the moon crested above the opposite horizon. An assortment of bright-colored flowers marked her way to where Fizzlepop stood in the middle. She raised an eyebrow at the magician. “You’re late.”

“Sorry,” Trixie managed, rubbing a hoof against her other leg. “I ran into a bit of a hiccup.”

“I see. And Twilight?”

“She’s fine,” the magician reported, shrugging. “We were just talking, that’s all.”

Fizzlepop closed her eyes and breathed deeply through her nose, exhaling with a sigh. “Okay.” Her eyes studied Trixie, and she felt a chill down her spine. Although it had been a few months since the pirate turned from her former ways, she was still intimidating. “How experienced are you with magic?” she asked.

“Honestly?” Trixie started, her eyes falling in shame. “Not much at all. I learned enough to get by, but not nearly enough to go on crazy adventures like this. But I have learned a little from Melody—”

Her gut suddenly twisted, and the color drained from her face. Melody. She couldn’t help but remember seeing her being strangled to death. 

“You okay?” Fizzlepop asked, and Trixie swallowed down the bought of nausea that came over her.

“Not really,” she said frankly. “Just some memories I wish I could forget.”

Before she knew it, Fizzlepop was in front of her, laying a reassuring hoof on her shoulder. “I understand. Being with the Storm King has scarred me in similar ways.” She leaned down, her eyes now on the same level as Trixie’s, holding her in an intense gaze. “But I’m afraid that while we’re training here, you have to leave those memories at the door. Learning how to use magic in this way is dangerous. You cannot be distracted.”

A new anxiety flaring icily in her chest, Trixie nodded. When Fizzlepop let down her hoof, she closed her eyes and breathed. She imagined crumpling her other thoughts up like paper, and tossing them out the window. It wasn’t a new concept to her; she had done the same thing while preparing for her stage acts…

She was quick to throw out the empty longing feeling that was spreading in her gut. She wanted to take back to the stage, make ponies smile once again. The last time she had the opportunity was back in the Discordian village… about three weeks earlier. Ever since, she hadn’t been able to use those talents how she’d liked. Now…

“Okay,” Fizzlepop said, backing up. “I want you to start out by lighting your horn.”

Suddenly aware of her deep dive into her sorrow, she swallowed down the sick feeling that she’d given herself. Clearing her throat, she focused, imagining a stage light flickering on. Immediately after an unsteady glow filled the immediate area around her. She could hear the electricity snapping at the point where her horn had broken, and the smell not too unlike burnt hair wafted over her. Gagging, she lost focus, holding a hoof over her nose. 
Fizzlepop grimaced, but kept her composure. “First time doing magic in a while?”
Rubbing the smell out of her nose, she gave a lopsided nod. “Kind of. I’ve lit my horn on accident a couple times, but Trixie has not had the pleasure of smelling it!”
The tall unicorn chuckled at her sarcasm. “Well, that’d be the velvet around your horn growing inside the breakage. It stinks like crazy, and may even cause you to bleed, but your body will learn not to grow there soon enough.”
The magician swallowed down the remains of her nausea. She raised an eyebrow to Fizzlepop. “How long did it take you?”
She tapped her chin with a hoof, thinking. “A couple days was all,” she reassured, providing at least a little relief. But she put the hoof down. “But light your horn again. This time don’t breathe through your nose. I don’t think that Cadence would approve of either of us yacking in her courtyard.”
Feeling a cool sweat trickle from behind her ear, Trixie nodded. She lit her horn once more, mindfully deciding to breathe through her mouth. She sustained the glow longer this time, but as she was breathing through her mouth, a subtle taste like burnt toast coated the inside of her mouth. Ignoring it, she kept it going.
“Good…” Fizzlepop mumbled thoughtfully. She crawled to either side of her, inspecting her carefully. Once again, Trixie could feel her piercing gaze through her very being, as if the very molecules that made up her body were being judged by the former pirate. “I’m noticing it’s taking you a little bit more effort to keep your horn lit,” she pointed out. She tapped a hind leg with the side of her hoof, but her leg barely moved. “No wonder. Don’t lock your knees. That’s a fine way to faint within the first five minutes.”
Trixie knit her eyebrows. “First five minutes?”
“Mm-hm,” Fizzlepop grunted. “I’m going to have you hold your lit horn as long as you can. If you’re to learn how to use your horn effectively, you need to have stamina.”
The magician adjusted her stance, unlocking her knees. She wiped sweat from her brow as her breath accelerated. “Is it supposed to be harder to light your horn when it’s broken?” she blurted in one breath. She didn’t remember ever having to use so much energy to do it.
“Marginally,” Fizzlepop answered, flicking an ear. “The law of physics is not on your side; you’re losing a lot more energy without a horn than with a horn.”
“What does physics… have to do with this?” Trixie breathed. She licked her lips, her tongue starting to stick to their dry surface.
The former pirate exhaled a sigh, starting to pace. “You know when you’re spinning in a chair and you pull your legs in?”
Trixie nodded stiffly. “How you start spinning faster?”
The defunct unicorn nodded. “Yes. The rifling in your horn does the same thing. It takes the initial magical energy and amplifies it tenfold. But when you don’t have most of your horn—”
Soaked with sweat, Trixie’s legs wobbled below her. She put out her horn when she collapsed, gasping for air with her chin against the stone tile. She felt like she ran five miles full tilt. Her heartbeat hammered in her head as she tried to get her breathing under control.
“I’ll let you rest for a little bit,” Fizzlepop said, frowning. She walked to the side of the path, grabbing two bottles of water out of a pair of dark-colored saddlebags. She placed one by Trixie’s head with a small click. Her heart jumping at the source of life, she scrambled to her haunches as quickly as her drained body would let her, and snatched up the bottle, taking three large gulps of it before she could stop herself. She whipped her head in a cough, setting the bottle down before she dropped it.
Fizzlepop sat on her haunches as well, opening up her own bottle and sipping at it. When she was done, the level of water inside the bottle didn’t seem to change at all. “I was much the same way when I started out,” she said. She used the same hoof to stroke the scar on her right eye. “When I... joined the Storm King, I would wear myself thin. In and out of battle. It came to the point that I was bedridden for nearly three weeks.” As she spoke, she traced a pattern in the soil next to her subconsciously, a sigil similar to the Storm King’s crest. But her eyes widened in realization, and she drew a large ‘X’ through it and stamped it with one hoof.
Trixie knit her eyebrows. “Do you… miss it?”
“Huh?” Fizzlepop gave her a curious expression, and for a mere second, she was just a normal pony. “Do you mean my previous life?”
The magician nodded.
The former pirate frowned. “Oh… Well, some of it, I guess. Being on the airship was pretty nice, and Grubber, even though he’s an absolute idiot, was the one who took care of me when I pushed myself too far.” She shook her head. “But other than that, not really. It’s been such a huge part of my life, though, that it’s really hard not to feel lost, y’know?”
Trixie put down her water bottle after another swig of its ambrosiac contents. “I get the feeling,” she said. 
Suddenly, a scream sounded from beside them, making Trixie’s heart jump into her throat. Her eyes shot to the source of the noise when she saw a mare on the second floor of an apartment building a little way off. A dark red stain covered the floor under her. The door next to her was swung wide open, but at this distance she could only see the dark ceiling.
Without even thinking, Trixie galloped toward the scene, nearly tripping over her hooves that were previously shaking like jelly. But she caught her stride, Fizzlepop following suit, and not even a second later leading. They jumped up the stairs of the apartment complex to the second floor where they saw the mare, frozen in shock.
“What happened?” Fizzlepop shot, not even fazed by the run that had Trixie tasting copper once again. All the mare did, however, was point her hoof toward the puddle of crimson oozing from the bottom of the wide-open doorway, her face a sickly shade of green. That was when the dank smell of blood reached Trixie’s nostrils, and her stomach clenched. 
The former pirate rounded the corner gingerly, and Trixie followed her exact hoofsteps. The body that she saw was mutilated beyond belief, almost beyond description, but as soon as she saw the mane color that wasn’t stained with blood…
“Sweet Celestia…” The magician covered her mouth as sickness overcame her body. “It’s Rising Wing.”
“You know them?” Fizzlepop asked, gesturing to the corpse.
Trixie nodded, backing away from the doorway before the smell of rot got to her. “She was a part of our squadron when we were tracking down Envy.” She didn’t particularly like the mare, but… she’d never deserved this.
Guards appeared behind them, pushing in front of Trixie. “Tempest!” one of them yelped. “Thank heavens. What on earth happened here?”
“It’s Fizzlepop,” she corrected adamantly, “but we’ve got a murder.”
The guard slipped past her, frowning at the scene. “Holy…” She shook her head, turning back to the former pirate and gesturing to both Trixie and the mare that was frozen outside the doorway. “Who are these two, anyway?”
“I don’t know about that one—” Fizzlepop gestured to the mare that stood lifeless by the doorway “—but the other is Trixie. I was commissioned by Princess Twilight to train her to use magic. We were both in the courtyard before we heard the scream.”
The guard eyed Trixie with a questioning gaze, and anxiety panged in her chest. “Y-yeah,” she managed. “She’s right.”
The guard frowned once more, turning away when Trixie realized that the former pirate had just given her an alibi. “We’ll need to study the scene of the crime before any further judgement. Private Cook, escort Trixie here off the premises. And Private Wash, question this mare right here.”
A stallion with an impossibly square chin stepped forward to Trixie, a frown plastered permanently on his face. “Come, Miss Trixie,” he commanded in a deep voice. Not wanting to confront the police, regardless of her ill feelings towards them, she followed his orders. The stallion led her down the stairs and then some fifteen feet away from the apartment complex. She checked back to the building only to catch Fizzlepop’s tail rounding the corner into the doorway.
“Do you need an escort home?” the stallion asked.
Knitting her eyebrows, she offered the officer a quick glance. “T-Trixie can head home herself, thank you.”
The officer raised a confused eyebrow as Trixie walked away. The ache in her joints from the exercise became ever-present as the castle loomed ever taller above her. Trixie shook the image of Rising’s body from her head, but it still burnt bright on the back of her eyelids. Yet another nightmare to add to her generous supply.