Chapter 1
A field of rocks lay on the outskirts of town, as bleak and gray as fields full of rocks tend to be. While all the rest of Equestria was fresh and green in the aftermath of Winter Wrap Up, this lone field still held the dying echoes of winter's chill, lingering remains of a late-morning mist clinging low to the ground as they mixed with the vaporous breaths of the field's sole occupant.
Strange Design may not have owned the deed or any other legal claim to this patch of barren earth, but that never stopped him from considering it his field. It was his sanctuary, his place of solitude where responsibilities would for a time cease to exist.
When life's troubles became more than he could take, he would come out here, hop up on his favorite rock, and sit down. Sometimes he would practice with his magic, fiddling with the things he didn't understand, often adding to the number of scorch marks adorning the rocks. On rare occasions he would just vent, screaming the vile obscenities tearing at his heart into the emptiness until his throat went hoarse and he collapsed against the unfeeling stones. Most of the time, he would just sit back, listen to the wind and the trees and the earth, close his eyes and think.
It had been a while since the last time he'd been here, so long that he had almost forgotten this place existed. After yesterday's events, he was glad to find it the same as he'd left it; Maker knew he needed the reprieve this place granted to figure out what to do next.
Dropping out had been one of the hardest decisions of his life. He loved learning, regardless of the subject. Knowledge was a self-sustaining hunger for him, each answer bringing new questions, new cravings demanding to be filled. School was the best place for learning, created specifically for the purpose of feeding that hunger.
So why couldn't he bring himself to regret the decision?
He'd reached the point, he supposed, where it just wasn't enough to outweigh the lies.
No. Not lies. That wasn't the right word. It was... it was that burning feeling that came whenever a teacher couldn't tell him what he wanted to know. The sour sense of loathing that bubbled in his chest with every befuddled expression and sigh of exasperation cast his way by those supposed to be his mentors.
Betrayal. That was the word. Going to a place of education unable to truly teach him what he wanted to know had left him feeling betrayed. School had failed him, in more ways than one.
Not that he blamed them, he mused, his hoof glowing blue while idly stirring a slowly-filling pool of mana. After all, it wasn't their fault for not knowing how to teach spell-casting to a non-unicorn any more than it was his fault for being born with a connection to magic. They were probably as frustrated with him as he was with them.
Was he cursed, that he bore this connection, able to see and touch this world, this ripple in the pond's reflection? The question had certainly been raised before. He could see how others might find it a malady, to see it so close and know the destination but not the way. Personally, he could never see it as anything but a gift. Surely something so beautiful, so awe-inspiring, so enlightening, could not be a product of malevolence.
Lashing out, his hoof struck stone with a crack of protest. the glancing blow producing a small shower of sparks. Reaching without reaching, he caught one as it fell, watching it hover with a tiny glow. It was the seed of a flame, waiting for chance and circumstance to provide it the chance to grow. Gently, oh so gently he began to trickle mana into the dot of light.
Fire, like everything else, needed three things to survive; for fire, those three things were air, heat, and fuel. Air was free and plentiful; the friction of his hoof striking stone gave the heat. While it would soon die as the microscopic fragment of shale burned away into oblivion, for now it lived. More importantly, the magic within it lived, and that reflection lived by the same premise. And Strange Design had plenty of fuel to feed.
What rock had fed the spark was entirely gone, yet still the spark remained, glowing brightly as he slowly pulled it closer. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed that his left hoof was raised, glowing royal blue as it made slow, tiny circles. It was more habit and association than any actual importance to the act, but hey, it looked cool in the foal-tales he read, so heck with it.
More on a whim than a thought, he laid a thin trail out from the spark, watching as the light grew and spread down the eddy of energy. The dot became a line of light, pulsing softly as it bent and wove in place. Soon it was as long as his hoof was wide.
Curious, he pulled the strand through the air, watching it twisting and weaving in an exotic dance of curves and loops until inspiration struck. Tugging with a purpose, he straightened it out, then slowly bent the ends inwards. Now it was morphed from a meaningless line into the simple curve of the letter "C."
A grin pulled at the corners of his mouth. Some quick adjustments, and an "L" was proudly floating in front of him. Bending it in half, he laid a path to create the bridge needed to make an "A."
With a profound 'Woomph,' the glowing lines puffed into a ball of fire.
The smile dropped into a flat look of pensive bafflement as he regarded the open flame now hovering in front of his left hoof. Tilting his head to the side, he found himself at a loss in regards to this unexpected development.
Briefly he contemplated pursuing the mysteries of using fireballs, then dismissed the notion with a huff. Sure, throwing fireballs around looked cool, and might prove useful in an encounter with one of Equestria's many predators. It also carried the risk of setting everything in a nearby radius on fire. Two house fires had taught him how dangerous uncontrolled flames could be, and he had no intention of tempting fate.
...Not without some precautions, at least, he chuckled to himself, watching the flames dancing as they followed his hoof's slow circles.
Ah well, some other day then. For now, finishing the alphabet was the priority. Heck, he thought while cutting off the fireball's flow of mana, if he did't hit any more snags, he could try making words!
The fireball continuing to crackle merrily in the shifting air, despite no longer receiving any fuel to burn.
He gave it a good magical shove. The flames flared up briefly, then returned to the exact same state. He tried smacking instead of pushing. Nothing happened. Throwing it? Same result.
He flapped his hoof at the fireball. The fireball followed his hoof. He thrust his hoof forward. The fireball moved back. He pulled his hoof in. The fireball pulled closer.
He struck all sorts of ridiculous poses while yelling a variety of meaningless exclamations, waved his hooves in the air, ran in circles, stomped around, tried to stomp on it, tried to crush it between his hooves, tried to bite it, jumped up and down, went through a few more poses, and violently flailed his hooves around. The fireball refused to be shaken off, dodging away from his attempts to touch it yet refusing to move away from him.
Sitting on his haunches while he caught his breath, he glared at the cheery tongues of flame. Fine. Removing it's fuel source didn't work, apparently it found his left hoof utterly fascinating, and it refused to leave.
Well, he thought with a slightly crazed grin, let's see you survive when you can't BREATHE!
Reaching out with all his strength, he pulled in every bit of magical energy he could, focusing it into a large sphere around the offending flame. With a triumphant yell, he sent it all crushing inwards on the fireball.
----
Off in a distant and not-so-empty field, two teenage earth pony colts were, for reasons only teenage males might understand, acting as living supports for the bottom of a giant home-made jump ramp when they heard a distant boom.
"DID YOU JUST BLOW SOMETHING UP WITHOUT US!?!" roared the sturdier of the two, his cheeks tinting to match the red of the massive beard sprouting from his neck and jawline. Both colts stormed out from underneath the ramp, the lack of any other supports causing it to creak ominously.
In that exact instant, a black blur came tearing down the ramp at breakneck speeds, ran full tilt into a raised board, and flipped down into the bottom of the ramp. The resounding crash of the ramp's demolishment in a shower of splinters and dust almost drowned out a sickening crack.
Gaping at the wreckage where they had stood not a moment earlier, it took them a moment to think of an appropriate response to their narrow escape from what would surely have been extreme injury, if not worse.
"That... was... AWESOME!!!" they cheered, whooping and jumping up and down. The smaller of the two, a lanky, long-haired colt with yellow fur, turned to the sky.
"Did you get that?" he yelled to a rapidly-descending pegasus mare.
"Every second of it," she chuckled, proudly tapping the side of the film camera resting on her shoulder as she hovered over them. "What happened, you chicken out or something?"
"We heard something," he said off-handedly as he turned towards the rubble. "HEY! YOU ALRIGHT, BRO?"
"That was awesome, man," the bearded one hooted as he climbed through the broken boards and plywood. "Where you at, bro?" A low groan echoed from the wreckage.
"Oh, there you are, bro," he remarked as he trotted over, the other two swiftly joining him. "Dude, that was SICK. I mean, you just plowed through that ramp like a freaking wrecking ball! Hey, you alright bro? You good?"
A black-furred colt lay groaning in the rubble, the twisted remains of a scooter meant for a pony half his size resting next to him. The remains of his attempt to create wings from plywood and bedsheets was strapped to his back, a broken-off section of one laying just under the image of a skull over crossed crutches on his flank.
"I was flying."
Sitting up with a groan, he blinked blearily at the ponies around him, the tattered remnants of his wings flopping against his back. "I was flying," he slurred again. "I was, like... twenty feet up, and..." He turned to the pegasus. "Did you get that?"
"Dude, you got a gusher!" the bearded colt exclaimed; sure enough, when he touched his snout, his hoof came back stained bright red. The black colt blinked at him.
"Did you see?.. I was flying." He began to make small flapping motions with his forelegs. "You saw me, right?"
"Yeah, we saw ya," the pegasus lied through her teeth, smiling mischievously. "Welcome to the club." His face lit up like a Hearth's Warming tree.
"Dude, you are the first ever earth pony pegasus," his compatriot snorted. "Legit, Bro." While the bearded colt was fighting back his laughter, the yellow colt grabbed hold of the camera's lens, shooting it a wide smile.
"Remember, kids, this stuff is dangerous, and we are professionals," he playfully admonished. "Do NOT try this at home."
"I'MA PEGASISTER!"
----
Smoke dissipated over the field, revealing a large scorch mark that coated the ground and rocks with a fresh layer of soot. Strange Design was laid out on his back, likewise stained a dark shade of grey, blending in almost perfectly with the rocks around him.
Sitting up with a groan, he cracked his eyes open, blinking the stars from his vision. Looking around, he quietly regarded the aftermath while his brain attempted to reboot.
...
...So.
...Fire.
...In hindsight.
...He really should have thought that through.
Looking around, he noticed that the strange fireball was nowhere in sight. At least that problem was solved. Unfortunately, he wasn't feeling like messing around with magic anymore today. Writing in thin air was going to have to wait.
Despite that mishap, he felt oddly relaxed. That was what he came here to do, so there was no point in staying any longer. Now he just needed to wash himself off, go home, and...
...Talk to his parents.
Shaking his head, he stood up and shook himself, raising a small cloud of soot. There was no helping it; they would hear about him dropping out sooner or later, but the backlash wouldn't be as bad if they heard it from him. If nothing else, they gave credit when somepony owned up to their decisions.
As he was shaking out his legs, he happened to notice a glint in the center of the scorch mark. Pausing, he considered whether satisfying his curiosity was worth the risk of pushing his luck. After a moment, he trotted towards the mysterious flicker that had caught his eye.
Right in the dead center of the scorch mark lay a gem unlike any he had ever seen. It was half as wide as his hoof and almost as long. At first glance it seemed almost transparent. However, a closer look revealed a much stranger quality. There was a redness to the gem, a glint of yellow and orange, twisting and turning through the long hexagon, as if a flame was trapped inside.
Distrustfully staring at the gem, he went against his better judgement and poked it. It rocked a little, then fell still. Reaching out cautiously with his left hoof, he picked it up, then dropped it. Bouncing on the ground, it rolled a little ways towards him, then did nothing. Relaxing his pose, he tilted his head, examining the gem for another moment.
"You're persistent, whatever you are," he finally told it. Nothing happened but the sound of trees creaking off in the distance. After another moment of consideration, he shrugged and picked it back up. It felt unnaturally light, as if the slightest breeze could carry it away. The flame inside danced in the changing light, growing red, then yellow, then orange and back again in a constantly-shifting dance.
It was a mystery for another day, he decided while tucking the gem into his mane behind his ear; right now, he had other things to attend to. With one last look around the clearing, he set out at a leisurely trot towards home.
...towards the nearest stream, he decided, turning to go in a different direction. Mom always freaked when he came home covered in soot.