Magic and Memory

by Summer Knight


Chapter 2

Waxing Gibbous led me up the side of Mount Enyo. As we walked, she informed me that we were on a large island at the eastern end of an archipelago she called the Griffish Isles. Officially the griffons controlled this island as well, but the batponies were highly territorial and impossible to hunt down in their labyrinth of caves, so the griffons had eventually given up on settling it.
We entered the mouth of a cavern and walked into near-total darkness. Gibbous screeched into the depths of the cave, a sound just barely at the edge of hearing that made my ears itch. Apparently satisfied, she started forward again, then stopped.
"Oh," Gibbous said sheepishly as the last rays of moonlight faded, "you probably can't see in here, can you?"
"Not a problem." I grunted. I channeled a brief stream of magic through my horns and into my eyes. Now the cave looked bright as day, albeit drained of all color. My eyes gleamed faintly even though there was no light to reflect off of them.
"Wow," Gibbous sighed. "Is there anything magic can't do?"
"No."
A long moment of silence, then, "Wait, you're serious. It can do anything?"
I nodded. "Strong enough magic, used correctly, can do anything you want it to."
"Wow," she repeated.
We continued walking, with Gibbous easily leading the way through the twists and turns of the cave network. She'd said that most of the others would still be out foraging, so we didn't need to worry about running into anyone on the way there. However, the colony's elders did not forage anymore, and they were the ones whom we needed to talk to. She thought the stories they told would help us.
"You only tell your stories?" I asked. "You don't write them into books?"
Gibbous arched an eyebrow. "It'd be pretty hard to read books in the middle of a mountain."
I had to admit she had a point. Still, oral traditions were notoriously unreliable. I knew that from... somewhere.
"We're here!" Gibbous announced.
Here was an opening in the rock wall, a cavern like dozens of others that we'd walked past or through. However, this one had something written above the door in a language I couldn't read. The runes were carved deep into the rock, presumably so that the batponies' echolocation could decipher them.
"Let me go first," she continued. "I have to let Otis know you're here, or he'll freak out."
"Otis?"
"Elder Myotis," she clarified. "He's on the younger side for a colony elder, but he knows more stories than anybat alive. The older ones are starting to forget them," she added in a stage whisper.
"I see." It was as good a place as any to start. If nothing else, this Elder Myotis could hopefully tell me where to find the griffons. They were supposedly the dominant force on this archipelago, which most likely meant they had more to offer than just stories. "Proceed."


"Proceed."
Gee, thanks for giving me permission to walk around my own colony, I thought as I entered Otis's cave. I heard a faint tapping coming from the back. It was enough to guide me back toward Otis's studio, a small opening off of the main cave where he made sculptures and intricate relief carvings. Some of his work decorated the colony, while the ones he was less proud of got traded to the griffons for supplies and continued promises to stay away from the island.
"Hey, Otis?" My voice echoed off the chamber's bare walls—the studio was empty aside from the elder and the block of stone he was working on.
The tapping stopped. A burst of sonar broke over me.
"Waxing Poetic, you're back early."
"My name is Waxing Gibbous, and you know it," I grumbled.
"I know, but it doesn't suit you at all," the elder replied.
"It's when the moon is more than half but less than full," I preened. "When it lights up the night sky, yet never reveals everything it hides," I preened. "It suits me perfectly."
"That's quite poetic, Waxing."
I groaned.
"Anyway, what brings my biggest fan back to the colony at this time of night?"
I took a deep breath. Everything was about to change—heck, everything had changed, only most of us didn't know it yet.
"I came back because I found someone out in the woods," I began. "He's alone, and he knows his name but not much else about himself. He asked to come back with me."
"You brought a stranger to the colony?" Otis asked. "Did it occur to you that he could be dangerous?"
"It did," I answered, "but he's been nice to me, and he needs our help. There's something else, too, but I think he should be the one to tell you." After all, Grogar was the expert on magic here.
Otis sighed, and I could hear his hoof rubbing against his forehead. "Alright, alright. He's already here, no sense leaving him standing out in the dark. Let me get a lantern and—"
"No need," I interrupted, "he can see in the dark."
"Way down here? That's impossible. I don't care how good his eyes are, you need some light to see."
Light... or magic! I stuffed a hoof in my mouth to stifle my excited giggle. "Trust me, he's fine."
Otis sighed. "Okay, I'll take your word for it. The moon only knows why..." he muttered as he pushed past me. His hoofsteps moved slowly away from me as he entered the main chamber and moved toward the cave entrance. I caught a faint echo of Otis's sonar as he scanned the mouth of the cave.
"Elder Myotis, I presume?" Grogar rumbled from just outside.
"H... hello," he replied. "I am Elder Myotis, and you must be Grogar."
"One moment." There was a burst of reddish-orange light. "We will understand one another now."
"W-w-what did you just do?" Otis stammered. "What was that light?!"
Grogar sighed. "As I told Waxing Gibbous, a translation spell. It is basic magic."
I could practically hear Otis's mouth drop open. "Magic? But magic is a myth!"
"No, it's not," I butted in before he could get on Grogar's nerves too badly. "Magic used to exist, and now it's back. That's the other thing we needed to tell you."
"I... I..." Otis seemed to have overloaded.
"Alright," I sighed. "Both of you had better sit down. This could take awhile."


"Okay," Elder Myotis said to me for the hundredth time. "Okay, Grogar, I can't deny that what you're doing appears to be magic. Not to mention—" he gestured to Gibbous, who was hovering just over our heads. "And you showing up on the same day that magic returns to the world is too much of a coincidence to ignore. So, did you cause this?"
"No," I replied.
"No, of course not," Myotis said. He scuffed a hoof against the stone floor. "Well, there are many stories about magic. Some involve crystals, others talk about trees. Some say that the bonds between creatures are the source of magic. Does any of that ring a bell?"
Bell. The word itself was like a bell in my head. There was a bell, a special bell that was important to me... but even as I tried to grasp the memory, it turned to smoke in my mind. I shook my head in frustration.
"Nothing, huh? Well, I still say there has to be a connection between you and the magic, so let's focus on you for now." He leaned forward. "Your name is Grogar. What else do you know about yourself?"
"I know that I am a ram—a male sheep—and that my magic is quite powerful. I do not know where I come from, but I believe I have a family there. That is all I remember."
"I see." Myotis scuffed that hoof again. "Could you remove your translation spell for a moment? If I could identify your native language, that would be an excellent clue."
I released the spell linking myself and Myotis. "It is done," I said, fully aware that he couldn't understand me. "What you hear now is my language as I speak it."
Myotis flinched as my magic washed over him again.
"Well?" I asked.
"Strange," Myotis muttered, "very strange. It sounds almost like Old Equestrian, but not quite. A regional dialect, perhaps? Or a root language..."
"Old Equestrian?" I interrupted.
"Old Equestrian?" Gibbous said at the same time.
"Well," Myotis replied, "legends say that, thousands of years ago, many different types of creatures lived together in Old Equestria, not just ponies. There were griffons, changelings, and lots of other things. Maybe sheep lived there, too."
"That's it!" Gibbous squealed. "Grogar, you must be from Equestria!"
"From Old Equestria," I repeated. "Are you suggesting that I've somehow gone thousands of years into the future?"
Myotis shrugged. "If there's another explanation for why your native tongue is an ancient Equestrian dialect, I don't know it."
I snorted. "Elder Myotis, you live in a cave atop a mountain on an island, and you do not write down your history. I'm sure there are many things you don't know."
"Grogar!" Gibbous gasped.
"Griffons dominate this part of the world, correct?" I continued. "Where would I find them?"
Myotis sighed. "West," he answered. "Follow the chain of islands west and you'll find Griffon lands. Farther still, and you'll arrive in Equestria. Waxing Gibbous will show you the way."
"Me—?"
I grunted and stood. "Thank you." At last, I had some actual information to work with.
"Waxing Gibbous," the elder cut in, "take Grogar to the water's edge and point him toward the next island, then come back here at once."
"I... yes, Elder." Gibbous replied, and winged after me.
It was just as well that the elder had ordered her to go with me. It occurred to me a moment too late that I would not have been able to find my way out of the caves without her.