"You are a creature of day and light," noted Morning, voice even as she circled Anik. "Most creatures are, so don't feel alone. They develop powers to keep that light, to turn back the nightmares that haunt them." She hopped up on a low rock. "The dragons produce bright flames and sharp claws. Nothing can burn them. The earth ponies master the plant world, always fed and full, ready to fight for survival." She considered Anik. "You resemble one, but also don't. I can feel where they touch, but seperate..."
Anik watched her motions, ears swiveling to keep her trained. "What about the crystal ponies?"
"Hm? Oh. They foster a brightness in here." She tapped at her own chest. "They hold light so preciously, they become it. They can also become the most crushed when it is snatched from them." She flashed a feral grin, teeth too sharp. "Their weakness, their strength. It's not yours."
"I see." Anik did not see. "How will we find my strength? Where I am from, there is no 'magic'. If you can't put a hand on it and make it your own, then it just isn't there." He extended an arm, gazing at the hoof at the end. "I can't even do that these days... But the ponies have built grand cities, filled with more of them than I could even hope to count."
"That sounds like a magic to me." Morning sat in place. "Mother told me of your world. Your people should have died, long ago. Light was denied you, light creature. Your people were light creatures, most are, but, somehow, you survived."
Anik leaned towards his small sister. "What would your people do, in that dark world?"
"Rejoice!" she barked with an almost laugh. "Until we noticed there were no light creatures to torment... We have a need for the light. We feast on it, destroying it, and living."
Anik tapped a hoof in place. "Then we all need light. That is the common point." He turned in place to gaze on the sun, indirectly, out of the corner of his vision. "That is the source of this 'magic'. Of life."
"Mother was right, you like poetry." But she didn't sound condenscending. "Fine. If sun is the source of magic, take your share."
Anik jerked back, looking at her, then at himself and his icy colors and earth pony lines. "Hm... There was so little of it where I was from. My life, defined by its lack and the struggle that brought." He closed his eyes. "I never knew what it was like to have it."
"Then have it." Morning smiled just a little, feeling a posssibility. "Gorge on it."
"Have it." He faced the sun, eyes closed. "Invite it. Light, sun, shining too brightly... You are a fire without end. You are heat without pause. You cast your endless brilliance on this frozen heart. Can you pierce it?"
Morning sat up, but said nothing. She could see the icey lines of Anik starting to glow. Something was happening, but she said nothing to disrupt that. She instead rolled a hoof, as if to encourage him to continue, not that he could see her with his eyes closed.
"I lived without you, because I had to. You are here now, I invite you." He reared up, hooves wide to let the sun shine across his form, glittering where the icy lines crossed it. "I could live without, show me what I can do with."
"Stop."
Anik fell to all fours, opening his eyes just in time to see the last of the heat haze fading from around himself. "What happened?"
"You were... getting hot." Morning frowned in thought. "Like you were getting ready to explode."
Anik turned his ears back. "I don't want to do that."
"Oh, but maybe you do." Morning rubbed her chin thoughtfully. "It may not hurt you. If it doesn't, you have a potent weapon. If you can control it, you have a powerful magic that can do more than hurt things."
Anik hummed softly. "I can turn aside the light, gather and release it, for I don't need so much. Yes, that makes sense." Though he was new to magic, the logic of it seemed to be solid to him and he accepted it as it was. "This new life is wondrous... And now I am too."
Morning angled an ear at him. "It bothers me how quickly you're accepting this, but fine, it's for the best. If your magic feels right to you, all the better." She pointed at Anik's chest firmly. "Do it, with your eyes open this time. Gather the light. Make fire."
"Make fire?!" Anik flopped to his haunches. "Fire was such a precious thing, hard to tease out, resister of the dark. I huddled by it, the last on that dark world. That is how I met mother, carrying a little light of her own, hope against the midnight I thought I had reached."
"You don't need all that light," countered Morning, hoof raised to the sun. "It's warm enough to light a fire, isn't it? Make a fire, with that light."
"With that light." He raised his hooves towards the sun, as if he could just grasp that light, but his hooves were not well designed for that. "With that light." He shook himself out, bringing his icy streaks to a shine. "All that light." He reached for that sensation, what he had felt before being told to stop.
He could feel the sun's warmth, enveloping him in heating radiance. It let the grass grow and from there, larger things, plants he could, before, only imagine. From there, larger and larger animals, all from the sun. The sun was the fuel of it all. He would borrow it, a tiny bit. A litle shard for a little fire.
His pale blue streaks began to shimmer, gathering and focusing the light through him, towards his curled arms, to the hooves he held before him. The air shimmered, not with magic, but the haze of building heat.
"Keep that up." Morning hopped down and scampered away, just to return with a stick held in her mouth. She angled the stick and thrust it up into the glowing spot between Anik's hooves. "Keep going, focus on the stick. Make it hot, where it's touching."
Where it was touching? Anik could see where it pierced the sphere of heat, warming. He would make it warmer still, warmer and warmer. The wood began to peel slightly, recoiling from the light. All things had the right amount of light, and Anik was pressing past it. More. More... His sister was proud of him, and he wanted that to continue. More light.
The end of the stick snapped loudly and he recoiled in surprise, but it was too late. The stick had caught fire, the end burning softly as Morning waved it around, cackling.
"You did it." She waved the flaming stick end a bit close to him. "Look. You did this, with your magic." She regained her composure with a cough around the stick in her mouth. "Very good. You have fire magic. You also have a cutie mark."
Anik blinked. He did? He coiled to peer at his rump, and there it was, a bonfire. He was the bringer of flames, holder of light! He danced in place with a happy nicker of rapturous joy. "I have one! I am the bringer of light. This is amazing! Such responsibility." He uncoiled to face Morning. "Oh, sorry. You will get one too."
Morning tossed the burning stick aside to smolder on some cement. "Moron," she flatly uttered. "I'm not a pony. I won't get one unless I decide I want one, and only for that long. I don't need a cutie mark." She shrugged lightly. "I know my purpose, so don't worry about me. You, on the other hoof, are a pony. Ponies get cutie marks." She clapped slowly. "Congratulations."
"Thank you, beloved sister." But he did not say the title in Ponish.
"What?" Morning poked him with a hoof, barely reaching his chest. "What are you calling me?"
Anik hesitated. "Oh, sorry. It means 'Beloved sister', in the language of my mother."
Morning frowned faintly."If your mother has a language, why didn't you use it?"
"Because it is special." He nodded as if that was obvious. "I was taught to use it for special things. For special people and places and times. The birth of a child, the finding of food, the meeting of new friends... Things like that. Today is a day worth it, for I have found the purpose of my new life." He pointed back at his mark. "I am a bringer of light and heat."
"About that." She circled for a different angle on the mark. "You have a lot to learn. It took a long time to build up to that. With proper training, I want you to be able to make fire as quickly as you can start running. Nothing to fire, immediately. It will be of limited use until you reach that."
"Do you think that is possible? Oh, we should inform mother." He circled as if he could find Umbra, but she was not there to find. "She will want to hear the good news."
"Of course." Morning shook her head slowly. "They will probably want to have a party. That can wait until later. We're getting back to training. You promised your clay is mine today, and today is not finished."
"Yes, sister." He took on a far more ready stance, his serious face returning. "Sorry. I was overwhelmed with the moment. You have my complete attention."
Morning ventured a mild smile. "Good. Hm... Depth of heat, or speed... No, speed, definitely speed. You can always reach deeper, but if it takes that long each time." Morning grabbed the stick and waved it at Anik, beckoning. "We should do this on pavement, not grass, or we could set everything on fire. As amusing as that'd be, that isn't the goal." She set the stick down there on the dry cement. "Make it burn, faster. Nothing else matters but getting it on fire as quickly as possible."
Anik practiced doing just that. It went well, except that time he set his leg on fire instead of the stick. Nothing a quick bucket of water thrown at him didn't fix. Still, with practice came some results. Not quite as fast as Morning would have liked it, but each hour of work seemed to shave a minute or two off the time, so they were getting closer. "You had best not stop practicing after today. If you sit on your talent, I will be very dissapointed in you."
She also fetched a stick each time the last was too burned to keep using. She served at the timer, wielding a stopwatch and an unblinking gaze on the activiy as he tried again and again to master his magic.
"I will make you proud," he got out between deep heaving grunts. "But I am getting tired. Can we... I know I promised."
Morning waved that away. "You did well. Time for lunch." She took the charred stick and threw it onto a pile of others that had suffered a similar fate. "You may not be a wizard, like mother, but your specialty could become something great, if you keep working at it. Hm, little light bringer, you are at odds with our family."
Anik cringed at that. "I want to be part of the family, not against it."
Morning raised a hoof. "You are what you are. Mother choose to adopt a creature of light, you did not choose to be one. If I were to blame, she would be the one getting it. You keep practicing, and be the brightest light you can be." She started towards the exit of the arena. "I'm hungry too. Let's show some food the mistake they made, presenting themselves to us, their defenses lowered. Fools."
She would enjoy tormenting her lunch.