//------------------------------//
// Chapter 13 
// Story: Endless Sky 
// by Algorhythm 
//------------------------------//


-13-


The clock on the wall softly clicked out the seconds in the small room. Along the back wall was a stone fireplace sending heat to the cottage. Pictures, degrees, even trophies hung on the wall, or stayed pristine on the shelves in the room. A small mirror hung in the center just above the fireplace.
The other walls in the room had a few bits and pieces of artwork hanging as decoration, but compared to the wall of fame, it was barren. A table occupied the center of the room with four chairs tightly fit around it. Three doorways marked the only ways out of the room - a bedroom, a bathroom, and a small room encompassing the front door. That entryway was covered by a long pair of blankets to keep the heat in of the central room.
Needless to say, the house was not meant for more than two or three ponies. Now, much to the owner’s dismay, there were six, including a young princess.
Two of these ponies sat across from each other in complete silence. Twilight was on one end, wrapped tightly in a spare blanket. She floated up her rather strong cup of tea and took another big swig before setting it back on its saucer.
It was one of the more peculiar situations she had been thrust into lately - though not nearly the strangest. The owner of the cottage she had met once - Stormbreaker - one of the most famed unicorns before and during the war for his feats of magical stamina. He had graciously taken them into his home - after checking if she was, in fact, Twilight Sparkle. But she had never expected to be once again face to face with none other than Trixie.
The blue unicorn drank from her own cup of tea, absentmindedly stirring the contents around while she seemed to stare off at nowhere. Her hat and cape were absent, letting her long mane hang around her neck.
Perfect for the weather, Twilight thought.
She heard somepony coming up the stairs in the other room. Stormbreker appeared from inside, hovering a large cauldron to hang over the fireplace.
“It’s been a while since we’ve had guests. I had plenty of food for some potato and onion stew. It’ll be ready in about an hour,” he said, smiling.
“Thank you,” Twilight said. She was starving.
Stormbreaker nodded, before going back into his room and down the stairs.
The former silence dominated the room once more. Twilight lazily stirred the remains of her teacup before swallowing the rest of it. A light blue aura took hold of the tea kettle by the fireplace, floating it to the table.
“I don’t intend to be rude,” Trixie began. She poured some fresh tea into Twilight’s cup before topping off her own. The kettle set back down in its former holster, “But I never thought I would see you again. I was pretty convinced you were dead.”
Twilight was a little baffled at her politeness - though the blunt approach to the topic at first, very much screamed ‘Trixie’. She dropped two cubes of sugar into her tea, “I was.”
Trixie looked more confused than apprehensive, “I see...” She raised the tea cup to her lips, drinking the whole thing at once. “I’m sure you weren’t expecting me to be here.”
“No,” Twilight answered immediately. She cringed, realizing her faux pas far too late to correct it. Silence passed between them for a moment, both hesitating to continue. Twilight was first to do so. “What happened to your... uhm...”
“Attire?” Trixe guessed. She sighed, setting her cup down on the table, “In my trunk downstairs with all my other old performance materials.”
Twilight raised an eyebrow. “All of them?”
Trixie shifted a little uncomfortably in her chair. A small pause passed between them, as she pursed her lips together, finding the best way to answer her. She cleared her throat, “It’s a long story... but I suppose we have time.” Her eyes looked over at the pot of soup hanging over the fire.
Twilight moved around in the chair to get more comfortable. 
Trixie waked over to the pot of soup. The cover lifted into the air, allowing the spoon to stir the contents underneath. “After the incident with the Ursa Minor, I went on with my career as an entertainer out west. By the end of the winter, I ended up in Seaddle with no money and no career. The Great and Powerful Trixie ceased to be.”
Twilight felt the weight of the words begin to weigh on her shoulders. Trixie noticed her change in mood, “It wasn’t your fault. The show had been going downhill for a while.” She took her seat once more, hovering the tea kettle over to refresh their cups.
“So...” Twilight started. “What did you do?”
“I went back to Hoofington. I stayed there until spring when my friends couldn’t afford to put me up any longer. I spent the summer wandering the northern cities before ending up in Stalliongrad. I took whatever was left of my savings and went back to school. I harbored quite a grudge towards you.
“But as I studied, I became more consumed by it. I became isolated and angry. My grades started to slip, the more I continued on like that. I was desperate to return more powerful than before. It was selfish and rather stupid of me.
“Things changed with the war. I enlisted almost immediately, still hungry for power. I was on the frontlines outside of Manehatten, when I witnessed what I was becoming first hoof.” 
Trixie went silent once more, a pained expression on her face. Twilight had an idea of what she was talking about. She had witnessed Starfall’s power before. A chill ran down her spine. There was no way she could imagine it being worse.
The cup in front of Trixie floated up to her lips, shaking a bit as it did so. It settled back into its saucer without a problem and Trixie continued, “Then... you died.
“Everything I was working towards fell apart around me. What was the point? I was only studying to show you up and publicly, at that. My purpose in life had become a quest for revenge. I would never have that.
“But in that loss of purpose, I was given a second chance. Stormbreaker offered to become my teacher after he returned to Stalliongrad, since I saved his hide once or twice. I’ve been his student since. Well...” Trixie rubbed the back of her head with her hoof. A blush rose on her cheeks and she turned away, “A little more than that.”
Twilight blushed a little as well, knowing quite clearly her meaning. She looked back over into her host’s bedroom, remembering her own daughter was sleeping soundly downstairs with the others. “Do you two...”
“One on the way,” Trixie smiled. “Only found out a week ago.”
“Congratulations!” Twilight replied happily.
Trixie beamed with pride, “Thank you. We waited for a long time to get passes to go back south before making the leap. Still, we have to go through Gryphon lands to get across the border. Immigrating is almost impossible now.”
Twilight looked at her quizzically. They had almost no problem crossing the border, minus the train crash. She assumed it was not the same going the other way around.
Stormbreaker walked back through the door, knocking lightly before entering, “Sorry to interrupt ladies, but I think the soup should be ready. Hungry?”
The two unicorns smiled at one another. Twilight looked up at Stormbreaker, “Quite.”


--*--


“Again.”
A small blast of magic knocked a bottle off of the table it was neatly placed on top of. Several others were placed in a row beside it, each in the path of a new student.
“Again.”
Another bottle flew off the table in a shower of sparks.
“Again.”
The next bottle didn’t fall off so easily.
“Again.”
The bottle barely made it off of the table.
“Again.”
This time, the magic only managed to slide it back an inch or two, before dissipating.
In tandem with the last strike, Dusk collapsed onto the floor, absolutely exhausted. She was only a week into her training with Bright Light and she had poured her all into whatever came at her.
Every day, they went for a light jog in the gardens to improve their physical stamina. They increased their pace twice since then, turning into a run rather than a jog. While the activity was still fresh in their muscles, he would have her float as many objects as possible, without dropping them. She had added a book or two to her previous best, but she couldn’t hold it for more than a minute before her magic reached its limit.
Without letting up, he taught her some of the very basics of magic - how it was used, how unicorns manipulated it, and even how other ponies used magic. She had already read much on basic magic before, but was startled to learn that pegasi and earth ponies used magic too. The explanation took the whole week to actually get across. So unfortunately, she hadn’t learned much she didn’t already know.
Usually, that was when she would have lunch. Under his watchful gaze they ate in the garden. Once or twice Celestia joined them for a few minutes, before returning to her court. Dusk really enjoyed being able to see her aunt, since it was still painful to pay visits to her mother. Luna was now seen walking about the castle on a regular basis, but she was a former shell of what she once was. She was a broken mare. One of her lunches ended early when she was forced to console another of Luna’s breakdowns, leading her back to her room. Needless to say, she didn’t continue onto the last half of her studies.
Otherwise, Bright Light had the task of teaching her what she would be learning in Ponyville - Math, Science, History, and of course, Equestrian Language. She was already quite a bit ahead of her former classmates due to her reading, but with Bright Light in charge, she was swallowing information at mindblowing speeds... except for Equestrian Language. Her hoof writing was quite terrible, usually unreadable. On several occasions, Brght Light had to visit her former teacher, Cheerilee, just to get her to translate what Dusk had written. He still wasn’t completely used to it and to his dismay, she wasn’t getting much better.
It was a relief that her last task was magic control. Unlike the endurance tests in the morning, she was learning how to project her magic and give it shape. All she could manage at the moment were short bursts of raw magic - nothing like a spell at all, which disappointed her. However, Bright Light explained that it would measure how efficient she could release that energy by lowering the amount she used, but still being able to knock the bottles off of the table.
She could still only manage five light, empty bottles. Maybe one full one if she focused very hard.
“Only... five...?” Dusk panted.
Bright Light nodded, “Yes, Dusk. But you were very close to six today! Its quite astonishing how fast your abilities are progressing. You should be proud.”
The filly managed to rise to a sitting position. She was breathing more normally now, “But... It was only five!”
Bright Light smiled at her, “Now, Dusk. You know that these things take time. Nopony expects you to be a master of everything in a week. Not even you,” he said, poking her cheek with a hoof for emphasis.
She pouted, puffing her cheeks in distaste.
“You have done wonderfully today. Why don’t we finish early?” Bright Light asked. He began to clean up some of the loose papers and diagrams he had brought for the day, stuffing them into his saddlebags.
“Ok,” she agreed. Dusk wobbled over to her desk, doing her best to clean up the messy notes she had taken in Equestrian Language. The door to the room opened followed quickly by two guard ponies. She recognized one of them as Granite, one of Celestia’s guards.
“Princess Dusk? Your presence is requested by Princess Celestia in the gardens,” he spoke. His voice was quiet, but firm. He wasn’t going to take no for an answer.
She looked back up at Bright Light who nodded for her to go, “I’ll finish cleaning up.”
Dusk hesitated for a moment, looking back at her desk.
“Go,” Bright Light said cheerfully.
They exited the room, Granite speaking to Dusk in a low whisper, before the door shut out the noise. His face dropped to a frown.
“If Luna doesn’t shape up soon, Dusk will be too distracted to proceed as planned,” he muttered to himself. The Princess of the Night was becoming a problem. But there was nothing he could do, without rousing some suspicion among those in the castle.
Cunning snorted in distaste. He would have to work around the distraction Luna was becoming, as much as he detested it. He hovered over the last of his texts, and shoved it forcefully into the saddlebags before disappearing with a slight popping noise.


--*--


Thunder Cloud shuddered in front of the small fire in the barrel before him. Another snowstorm had moved in by nightfall and was slowly pounding away on the border town. The alley was empty of its usual inhabitants, but it didn’t faze him. Only the cold did.
At this point, his ratty cloak was doing very little to keep the wind from rushing through his coat. It felt like he had been doing high altitude flying for hours with no break. Few pegasi could handle that without severe wing damage.
He shoved another box into the fire. It flared up quickly, sending a few waves of warmth through him, before dying down again to a more reasonable height. Unfortunately, that meant it wasn’t keeping him warm. So he did what any other smart pony would do - find something substantial to burn.
There were plenty of options here. The dumpster was relatively full, having not been emptied in several days. He rummaged through some of the cleaner materials before coming out with a broken chair.
Success! he cheered in his head.
The chair snapped into smaller pieces with relative ease, the fire growing a little hotter with each piece. He went over to the dumpster again, but found only a few more burnable scraps. His dignity didn’t let him dig any deeper through the trash.
When he turned to walk back to the fire, his path was blocked by a guard clad in fur and plate armor, the wing blades gleaming in the firelight.
“Can I help ya?” Thunder Cloud managed his best northern accent. He almost snickered at how good it sounded.
“Thunder Cloud, Royal Guardian of Canterlot, you are under being placed under arrest for treason,” the guard spoke quietly. Thunder Cloud recognized him by his voice immediately.
“Nightwind? What the hay are you doing out here? More importantly, what treason have I committed?” His voice was getting louder with anger. In his frustration, he barely had time to react when Nightwind appeared beside him, wingblade pressed firmly against his neck.
“You have betrayed the task which the princess entrusted you to complete. Where are your charges?” Nightwind didn’t skip a beat. His eyes glowed blue in the dim light of the alley.
“I was captured by Discord’s minions trying to protect them! I have no idea where they are-”
The blade pressed harder into his throat, “Don’t raise your voice.” Nightwind practically growled the words, “Understand?”
Thunder Cloud nodded.
“Good.” Nightwind cleared his throat, leaning in close to his ear, “Something - or somepony - is inside the castle, manipulating the Princess’ moves. I don’t know who and neither does Granite, but we have orders to investigate. We will try to get you into the dungeons, but you have to promise to tell me everything you did with the other Elements.”
“Are you joking?” Thunder Cloud hissed. “You have a blade against my throat-”
“If you don’t want to die the second you enter Canterlot Castle, promise me now.”
Thunder Cloud swallowed as best as he could without pushing his neck against the blade. What choice did he have? He sighed, “Fine.”
Nightwind spun Thunder Cloud to the ground, forcing their eyes to lock. Thunder Cloud shuddered violently, as Nightwind pretended he was struggling to put on his restraints. After a few moments Thunder Cloud passed out, allowing Nightwind to take a shot at his head - albeit lighter than he made it sound. He closed his eyes for a moment, raising his hoof in the air.
A faint white aura surrounded him, stopping him in place. “You knocked him out the first time, Nightwind!” came a voice from behind him. Desert Wind released his magical hold on him, walking around to stand in front. “At least he’s still breathing. Make sure those restraints are tight. Teleporting is not an easy job anymore and now that there’s three of us it will set us back several days.”
He snorted in distaste. “Let’s get back to the outpost barracks. I can’t keep the cold away from my coat for much longer.”