//------------------------------// // Chapter 34 // Story: Ghost Lights // by Winston //------------------------------// Ghost Lights Chapter 34 In the course of experimenting with magic, we stuck to the same kind of schedule that I'd put Azure on when she was first learning to fly: a few hours at a time once every two days. During this time, Azure also kept flying patrols with me on alternating days. It was sort of an odd arrangement, switching off between having two pegasi and two unicorns here. I could rationalize it as averaging out to the intended system of one pegasus and one unicorn, but that seems like a rather cynical way to try to game the letter of the law, so I won't try to defend what we did. I'm also afraid that I can't justify it by citing the productivity of the results, since I didn't match in magic the kind of progress Azure had made in flight, but then again, with less than three weeks to work with, I didn't expect to. The only thing I can really offer is that our intentions were in the right place. I wanted to understand what this is like and to know some small taste of what Azure has gone through to get where she is in her abilities. With honesty I can say that I came away even more impressed than I had been before I tried it for myself. Using magic was not something that I found to be very easy, with the exception of simple telekinesis, the one form of magical ability that seems to come very intuitively to most unicorns. Azure said that's probably because natural selection favored being good at telekinesis as a useful survival skill for unicorns, so they tend to just sort of 'get it' early on. At that, at least, I became sort of proficient, if not a master by any means. After a few days of practice, I could pick up and move around several objects at a time. I found myself enjoying it. There was a certain pleasure of accomplishment in watching a few pebbles orbit each other in the air and knowing that I was making it happen. Other spells aren't so straightforward, though. As I was taught by Azure, most of them tend to derive from more advanced modifications of telekinesis. Short-distance teleporting, for example, combines moving material to a different spot with phasing it out so it moves in an instantaneous way rather than by passing it through the space in between. It's all very... complicated. Achieving these other more advanced effects can be a considerable challenge. To tell the truth, for the most part my experiments in spells beyond telekinesis mostly involved the production of random effects, since I didn't know exactly how to control my horn and how to make particular things happen in an intentional way. After a number of sessions, I did begin to narrow down on how to teleport things using rocks as test subjects, but I was never completely consistent. Also, there was the slight issue that sometimes the rocks I used would develop cracks and break into pieces, obviously not a very encouraging sign. "Sorry I'm not so great at this," I apologized to Azure one morning after she watched me snap an overstressed stone into shards for the third time. "I hope I'm not boring you too badly by making you watch me fail at the basics." "No, it's fine," Azure dismissed my worries. "This is nothing compared to how I started. Like I said, months of broken glass and fires. It takes a long time to really get things under control." "Yeah. Seems like this takes a lot of experience. I'm afraid a long time isn't something we have, though," I said. "No, I guess not," Azure responded. "Won't be much longer 'til a couple new ponies show up, will it?" "Another week or so." I looked around and paced a little bit, taking a break from spellcasting for a moment. "Looking forward to getting back home again?" "It's gonna be weird," Azure said. "I think maybe I'm not completely sure what I'm going home to anymore." "I think I know that feeling." I nodded. "Might be nice to see the sun again once in a while, though." Azure continued. "That seems so simple, but it might be what I'm looking forward to the most after six months of this weather." "Oh, it's right... hmmm..." I looked up at the sky. A certain sense of something, an intuition ingrained in me, told me where to point as I raised my forehoof and aimed at the particular spot in the clouds that I knew the sun was exactly behind. "...right there." Azure shook her head, smiling in a way that said she knew I was right. "How do you do that?" "Dunno." I shrugged. "It's just what my cutie mark is telling me." "Right." Azure looked suddenly pensive. "Cutie mark." She glanced back at her own flank. "I'm gonna have to deal with that, aren't I?" "I'd say we're both in it together at this point." I gestured to the horn I had at the moment. "And actually, speaking of that, I kinda think... if this is going to be the one big chance, might as well go all the way and make it worth it, right?" "What does that mean?" Azure asked, a little bit suspiciously. "It means, can do you also make earth ponies?" "I..." Azure looked at me strangely, and curiously, like it was something she'd never considered. "That's a good question, actually. I need something soaked in earth pony magic. If I had that, I suppose I could." I thought about it for a while, but we couldn't come up with anything. I hadn't brought any such object with me, and it seemed doubtful that there had been very many earth ponies around here in the last couple thousand years who would have been likely to leave much of themselves behind. With slight disappointment, I chalked up the idea as busted under the circumstances and tried not to think much more about it. Our relief arrived, surprisingly, exactly on time on day one hundred and eighty. My two previous tours had both been relieved a day or two late due to the long and unfamiliar journey it takes to get here, and I was expecting this one to be delayed too. I wouldn't have minded another couple days either, to be honest, but at least it was nice to know that our replacements could stick to a schedule. The two new ponies showed up in the morning. I actually found them wandering around outside along the wall having just arrived a little while before and apparently still not sure what to make of the place. Both of them were stallions. One was a unicorn with a dark blue coat and lighter purple-blue sort of lilac colored mane. The other was a pegasus with a pale tan coat marked with cloudy dappled spots. His mane was a bright flaxen blonde. Both of them were carrying saddlebags full of gear, looking worn down from the long journey and ready to unload and start their long deployment. I supposed I should help them get to it, so I flew over and landed nearby. "Hey! Hi there!" The pegasus smiled and waved to me. "You one of the watchers?" "Sure am." I nodded. "I guess not for much longer, though, now that you're here." "Don't remind me," the unicorn mumbled. He hung his head a little bit. "Aww, c'mon!" The pegasus poked his companion in the side gently. "Don't be like that, it could be fun. Peace and quiet out in the country, right?" He looked at me. "Sure." I nodded. "It can be... very relaxing, if that's what you want." "Well... maybe..." The unicorn still didn't look too happy. "How do you deal with having nopony around for hundreds of miles, though?" "Hey, I'll be around!" The pegasus said, overdramatizing mock-offense. "You know what I mean." "That's just something everypony has to figure out for themselves," I said. "With six months to think about it, you will too. Don't worry about that." "Yeah, fine," the unicorn said. "I guess this one of those things that my dad used to tell me 'builds character' or whatever." "That's the spirit," the pegasus laughed. He turned to me. "How do you deal with it?" "Oh, I just don't really need to be around other ponies much, so I fit perfectly here just the way I am," I said. "Lucky, I guess. It's rougher on some ponies." "Oh." The pegasus' smile faded a little bit. It was only after I'd said this that I realized it probably wasn't very encouraging. I kicked myself for not having more awareness about starting them off on the right hoof. It was a hard reminder that after six months alone, sometimes I have to watch myself. My 'civilization skills' aren't all that refined to start with and tend to get rusty fast. "Anyway, my name is Sunburst," I finally introduced myself. "I'm Thunderbolt," the pegasus told me. "And I'm Midnight," the unicorn said. "Good to meet you both," I said. "I suppose I should show you the first thing you'll probably want to see so you can get yourselves unloaded from those saddlebags." "That'd be nice, thanks," Thunderbolt said. "They get kinda heavy after a few days." I led the two of them north until the small barracks building came into view from around the sides of the low hills. Midnight seemed to pick up a little bit when he saw it. "Oh, an actual building," he said while we kept walking closer. "Maybe this'll be more civilized than I thought." "See? It's already not so bad," Thunderbolt responded optimistically. We went inside. Azure was in there laying down on her bed with a book. She looked up blankly from reading when the two new ponies entered. "Oh. Hey. Does this mean we're relieved?" she asked, looking back and forth between the two of them. "Almost," I said. "Midnight and Thunderbolt, this is Azure Sky, the other watcher here with me. Azure, meet Thunderbolt and Midnight. They will be relieving us once they know what they're doing, so if you could show Midnight what the unicorn responsibilities are...?" "Right. Yes." Azure nodded and got up. "You guys can just drop your saddlebags wherever," I told them. They both gladly slid them off and left them against the wall near the door for the moment. "And if you come with me, I'll show you the stuff around here that you need to know about." I nodded to Thunderbolt and led him back outside again. "Alright, so..." I pointed to the barracks building. "That's the only permanent shelter anywhere around here. Try not to wander too far away from it to get back before it's too dark to see. It's not terribly dangerous to camp outside once in a while if you get restless and feel like going on a long patrol, but remember that nopony's here to help you, so you really need to try not to get lost." He nodded in acknowledgement. "And that, of course, is the Seawall, I'm sure you've figured out." I pointed at the expansive stone surface of large blocks that stretched along the land and into the distance. "Unicorns built it, then abandoned it, and now it's our job to keep an eye on it and whatever happens to be around it." "About that. The deployment instructions were to fly patrols and 'report anything not usual in the coastal environment'," Thunderbolt said. "Which is... ummm... not very specific. What exactly is the kind of 'unusual' we're looking for?" "I'm not all that sure myself, to be honest," I said. "My tours here have all been uneventful. After a little while, though, you'll probably get a feel for what 'normal' is around here. If something really weird happens, it'll probably just jump out at you. It'll be the job of your unicorn friend down there to write and send a report back to Canterlot about it. Even if nothing happens, which is most likely, you'll still be sending a report once a week anyway." "I assume that on the other side of that Seawall is the sea, right?" Thunderbolt asked. "I can already hear waves." "Come take a look." I took off and flew to the top of the wall, landing on it. Thunderbolt followed me. He landed, looked out at the beach and ocean on the far side, and I watched his eyes open wide and his pupils seemed to shrink to tiny dots. "It's... never saw anything like that before..." I wasn't too surprised. It happens to everypony at first, I think. I gave him some time. We both stared out at it for a while. His gaze was one of astonishment. Mine was one that was more calm but filled with sadness inside. I knew that this was the last day I had in its presence, being here right next to the heart of the world that beat in an unending rhythm, wave after wave rolling on eternally. While I stood up there on the wall, a desperate feeling coiled in my chest, a clinging sense of not wanting to leave... but this, I steeled up and told myself, had to be. None of us can stay here forever. No matter how much we want it, that is not our fate. I just hoped my replacement was too preoccupied in his own awe to notice my eyes starting to water.