//------------------------------// // Release // Story: Luna's Student // by MyWorld93 //------------------------------// Disclaimer: I do not own MLP:FIM. All characters besides my OC's are the property of Hasbro and Lauren Faust. The first thing I realized upon my arrival was that I was surrounded by rock; lots and lots of rock. I had finally been released from stone and the first thing that I get to see are more stone, just my kind of luck. I think I’m going to have a deep loathing for the material for the rest of my life. The second thing I realized was that I was in a rather small cave and I was facing towards the back wall, which meant that somewhere nearby there was an entrance where I could have warped instead and not seen more rocks. I loathe rocks. The third thing I realized was that I didn’t see my teacher, which was odd as this was the highest concentration of her power that I could find. I’ll admit that a cave doesn’t really fit her normal modus operandi, she was more likely to be found in a palace with glowing rocks, but still she should be where her power was right? I thought about exploring a little deeper into the cave, but upon closer inspection I came to the realization that the there was no more to the cave. The entrance was in fact right behind me and this cave was more niche in a mountain than a proper cave. Knowing that I wouldn’t be finding any princesses in here, I trotted out through the cave entrance and onto the cliff outside. My tail began to twitch all over the place, puffing up far beyond its general shape; almost felt like it was going to pull itself off. This was one of the few forms of my family’s precognition that I was able to learn; something was going to fall and if something wasn’t done to stop it, somepony was going to get hurt. A sound not unlike a rock falling off a cliff reached my ears; yes I realize that was oddly specific, but I the rock passed right in front of me; only missing by a few inches. Maybe my teacher had gone for a fly and accidently dislodged the rock, it would explain why so much of her power was still around. I took a look at the sky above where I was, but I didn’t see anyone flying around or any disturbances whatsoever. Since I didn’t see anything above the cliff, I looked down below. I saw an orange pony wearing a Stetson hat was holding the hoof of a rather familiar looking purple pony by the as she was dangling over the precipice of a cliff. I guess that feeling hadn’t been about the rockslide. I’ve always been one to try and help those in need, it’s something my family is known for, but I didn’t have enough time to reach them physically. I do have magic which is just as good; so I began casting a spell to try and save the purple pony. I was already half-way through casting it when I realized that the purple pony was none other than Twilight! What in the world was she doing here, there wasn’t any good explanation for it. It was such a ridiculous coincidence, but I guess I should be used to those; they happen to me so very often. The shock of the realization nearly made me release the spell early, which would have made it either useless or highly dangerous, but I managed to catch myself and instead changed the type of spell and redoubled my effort. Remember how I said that control magic can be used to change people on a genetic level? Well it can be utilized to change ponies into another type, usually only for a short while; the longest I could manage was three days and that had used up so much magic that I wasn’t able to use any for a week. If I had worked together with a power Unicorn though, it would have been possible to make it last longer, perhaps even make it permanent. At the moment, I was only trying to turn Twilight into a Pegasus for a minute or two, which was well within my range of power, just long enough for her to safely float to the ground. It would still be exhausting, but it wouldn’t take near as long to recover from. The spell unfortunately takes a couple of seconds to complete, it is a rather complex endeavor, but it would definitely keep her safe. Floating is something that comes naturally to Pegasi, otherwise their children would likely die when they decided to jump off their clouds. While this thought was in my head I noticed that Twilight was slipping out the orange pony’s grip, I don’t know if it was from the shock of seeing my spell light around her or if she was just getting tired from holding her, but I really didn’t care. I needed to finish this spell quickly; I had to make sure she was going to be alright. The clock was ticking, I only had a few seconds left before something happened; I was getting nervous, but it seemed that luck was with me, I finished up just in time. The instant that I had finished the spell, the Stetson wearing pony released Twilight, but even from this distance I could see the purple wings spread wide and her floating safely downward. By the time she hit the ground, she should be back to normal. I was panting heavily from the exertion; the spell was just as taxing as I remembered it to be. Now that I had a moment to think, I have no idea why I used such a complex spell when something as simple as levitation would have likely worked just as well; did I really need a reason? I really wanted to go meet up with Twilight and her companions, but when I had regained enough energy to trot over, only about five minutes later, they had already wandered off. I wanted to meet with them, but I guess it might be better right now that I hadn’t. I needed to catch up with my teacher; I could deal with Twilight situation later. Focusing my attention on my teacher’s energy, I moved magic into my horn and with an audible pop, I was gone again. Magic is really the best way to travel, isn’t it? This time I was positive that I had located my teacher; there was just so much of her energy concentrated here, even higher than in that cavern. It simply saturated every pore of the area; I had never felt so much energy in one place. Most people would likely be intimidated by feeling this much energy, but I was actually rather comforted by it. Then again, I did know that what was releasing it wasn’t going to be hurting. At this close of range I had a much easier time triangulating her location. From what I could tell, her power was radiating from the center of the island located across the gorge from me. Luckily, I still do know how to teleport. I began to gather the required magic into my horn, in order to once again tear time and space to pieces. I hope that it doesn’t mind too much; it can be a very dangerous thing when space and time dislike you, they may decide you should go someplace really weird. I had my focus locked on the center of the island and set the spell off. With a pop, the world went out of focus. I began to see fuzzy images of the outside world, and I don’t mean my own world, which was rather strange really. I closed my eyes; it was giving me a headache. Traveling through space and time often causes the appearance of strange things, but this really takes the cake. I mean have you ever seen the world try to divide by zero? That’s what this trip felt like. With another pop I reappeared, and hoping that I wouldn’t have to go through that again, opened my eyes. With an abrupt start, I realized that the gap in front of me was the same one that I had been trying to cross. Well that was odd; I don’t think that has ever happened to me before; not even when I had screwed up the spell right royally. That had not been a pleasant experience; you ever had your inside on your outside? It was kind of like that, only worse. I was still a fairly young colt, only having been accepted as Luna’s students a few months before. Today was the day I was waiting for, Luna had promised me that today would be the day that I learned how to teleport. I had been almost running on the walls with excitement, which would have been rather normal for my family really. I’ll admit that I pretty young to be learning such a complicated spell, and that it probably would have been better to wait, but Luna had always been the type of teacher that would throw you in the deep end and expect you to learn how to swim. On the other hand, when she did throw you in the deep end she would always be there to make sure that you didn’t drown. “Student, are you ready for the next step in your training? Do you believe you are ready to learn the magic of teleportation?” Luna solemn speech and serious look, while sounding and looking very impressive, made little impact on. I was so excited that I just ignored the look that she gave me; merely nodding my head so fast it felt like my neck was going to fall off. She just smiled at me, as if she had expected such a response. “Good.” Her horn started to glow with magic, “Watch me closely as I perform the spell, when you think you understand it, you shall have a chance to try.” I watched out of the corner of my eye as the magic spread out around her body. I watched as she grabbed her magical aura and moved it to a spot several feet away from her. Than with a pop of displaced air, I saw the rest of her follow it. A quick note on magic, in general it is invisible to the foveal vision, in other words you can’t see it if you stare directly at it. In order to see magic you have to look at it with your peripheral vision, in other words the corner of your eye, which is why it is one of the first skills taught to any aspiring magic user. If you can’t see the magic, you are not going to be able to learn it. “So my student, did you see what I did?” Luna asked, trotting closer to me. “I think so…” I was a little nervous about answering, as I always was, but I was pretty sure that I had seen what she wanted me to see, “You grabbed your magical aura and moved it towards where you wanted to go. This next part is just my thoughts, your body abruptly realized it no longer had magic, and quickly moved to follow it.” That’s what I felt had happened at least, I mean I hadn’t done any great amount of studying on the subject on the movement of auras, but I would do much more after this lesson. Even if I hadn’t found it interesting, teacher always made sure I knew a lot about what she was teaching me. “That is…” I drew a breath, “correct Dawn, good job.” She smiled at me. I was ecstatic, she must have actually been proud of me; she never calls me by name during lessons unless I had surprised her. “Why don’t you give it a try?” “Really! You really mean I can try it already!?” I was excited; teleportation was one of the most versatile spells that a Unicorn could learn. I could be anywhere I wanted whenever I wanted. I could visit faraway places that had lost magic or or travel to the highest mountain in the blink of an eye, or I could use it when I really needed to get to the bathroom. That last one seemed the most realistic and probably the most useful. “Yes my student, I think you’re ready.” She touched me gently, “but I will be coming with you, in case something goes awry.” I had read about this; if a teleport went wrong, an experienced Unicorn could pull a pony out of it and keep the likelihood of permanent damage to a minimum. I never had found out what happened to those who messed up the spell. “Whenever you feel ready.” I was ready; I knew I was ready for this or at least I thought I was. I channeled magic into my horn, slow and steady like how I had been taught, and shaped it into an invisible magical hand. I maneuvered the hand to grasp my magical aura. I could feel my teacher’s magic nearby, holding my magical aura, it had a calming sensation. I tried to pull my aura off of me; it felt almost like someone was trying to tug one of my hairs out. It resisted a little, but after a few light tugs, I was able to pull it out. I felt almost naked without it, but it shouldn’t last long. I felt a great pain, one much greater than any I had felt before. It felt like I was being stretched in every direction at once, I could hear someone screaming and abruptly realized it was me. At that moment I felt my teacher’s magic gently reach out towards my aura, grasp it, and bring it back towards where I had been before trying. I didn’t feel much after that. Luckily for me that Luna had been there. It seemed that I had performed a beginner’s mistake; I had only sent most of my aura to where I wanted to go and had forgotten a piece or two. The pain had come because I’d been trying to separate my legs from the rest of my body; Luna had pulled the rest back into position before anything could happen. I did a much better job on the second try though; I only lost a few hairs. Well, back on topic I still needed to find out what was blocking me from teleporting across this gap. The only thing that I could remember from my studies that could stop such a spell was an extremely powerful barrier and those things were rare, especially one that was self-powered. The only time I can remember seeing one was when Luna and Celestia had worked together to provide an example for Diamond and I, and that one had been powered directly by two Alicorns working together. That much power was hard to come by. That day Diamond and I had been told to come to the Royal Garden because the princesses had something they wished to show us; turned out they wanted to give us a lecture on the dynamics of teleportation. This was a few days before I had actually learned to teleportation, so it was still fresh material to me. However, being as young as we were, Diamond and I weren’t gifted with long attention spans, and the lecture had gone on for quite a while. We were getting restless and bored. “And the teleportation matrix is utilized as a method of sectioning off one’s aura in order to make it easier to maneuver into a new location. While moving the entirety of the aura has been found to be faster, this method requires much less energy and can therefore be used to travel much longer distances. It has been shown to be much more effective for control type Unicorns than for power types as it is far easier for a power type to simply move the entire aura in a single burst.” Celestia just continued to drone on and on, while Luna stood next to her looking rather serene. Somehow I felt that Luna had put Celestia up to this, it just seemed like her kind of style. Maybe she was getting back at me for something I’d done to her? I mean I don’t think there was anything recently. The only thing that came to mind was that time in the kitchen where I tripped over a spoon, which hit that knife, which hit the pie plate, and sent the pie right into Luna’s face. I had already apologized for it and even it was that, this seemed a little far to go for an accident. Abruptly Diamond yawned widely. I felt my own yawn coming in response and tried to suppress it, but it wouldn’t be denied. I released my own yawn of boredom. Celestia glared at the two of us. “So are the two of you bored of my lecture?” We quickly moved into perfect posture; whenever she used that glare, we knew that if we didn’t do what she wanted something bad would happen. In fact it was generally enough to set my body to twitching, I repressed it as best I could, but Celestia still glared at me. I really wonder if she realized that I had almost zero control over them. “OH DEAR SISTER, DOST THOU NOT THINK YOU ARE PUSHING THEM TOO HARD, THOU TWO ARE ONLY FOALS. PERHAPS A DEMONSTRATION OF WALL’S PRINCIPLES WOULD BE IN ORDER.” I was really glad my teacher stepped in there, otherwise I think Diamond and I would have been in really big trouble. We may have been put into time out, and with Celestia you never knew exactly what that meant. I watched as Celestia sighed, “Perhaps you are right, they are still foals. They aren’t exactly known for them skills in patience.” Celestia smiled, “I think a demonstration would be just the thing.” While I couldn’t help but be slightly stung by the insult, even though I knew it to be true, I also couldn’t help getting excited over the demonstration. It would be one of the few we had seen since we had been accepted, most of the time we were just given books to read. Diamond’s face lit up in a wide smile as big as my own, looking at her made me feel a little wierd. “Okay, watch closely students. You are about to see something interesting.” The two of us watched closely, leaning in as far as we could without falling over. “But first I need to go find a volunteer to help us.” We both fell over, it was rather painful, Diamond still looked cute though. I heard the Luna and Celestia giggling softly as Celestia trotted off to find someone to help. A few minutes later, but might as well have been an eternity to us, Celestia returned with a rather ancient looking blue bearded pony. Of course, even I knew that ponies would only grow beards if they wanted to, it required a lot of spellwork to make one. So it was possible that he was still fairly young and just wanted to look impressive, that part worked at least. “Let me introduce you to Star Swirl, one of the Unicorns in our program.” Celestia told us. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.” He was smiling jovially, his long white beard almost touching the ground. I think he must have been using magic to keep it from touching; I could see his horn glowing just the slightest bit, “I hear that we’re going to having a bit of a demonstration on how to stop a teleportation today.” He sounded really enthused about something that sounded so very boring. “Well we will as soon Luna and I create the barrier. As I told you earlier, I would like you to be the one to teleport into it.” “And like I said that would be no trouble at all!” He really seemed happy to do it, I wondered if his flank picture of a clock had anything to do with keeping student’s around until class was over, seemed like that would be a very useful skill. He certainly held our attention Diamond and I watched on, without leaning forward this time, as Luna and Celestia touched their horns together. I wondered why they were doing that. Unfortunately, I was too shy to ask, what with Star Swirl being here. Luckily for me, Diamond didn’t have my problem, “Excuse me, Star Swirl.” “Mhm, yes my dear, did you have a question?” He looked rather pensive as he watched the two Alicorns performing their magic. “Yes, do you know why the princesses are touching their horns together?” “To mix their magic in order to perform the spell, it’s a rather complex and taxing one. It requires that both a control and power Unicorn work together to cast it, being an Alicorn doesn’t make it any easier. Doing so has rather amazing properties…” I think he would have gone on further if a spark of light hadn’t brought his attention to the two princesses. I kind of wish he had been able to, but the glowing matrix that appeared in front of the two Alicorns held my undivided attention, it was just so bright. Unfortunately, it only lasted for a few seconds before fading out completely. “Well it looks like the demonstration is ready, now watch closely.” Diamond and I focused our eyes on him, watching to see the interesting bit that was supposed to occur. For a little while nothing special happened, his horn had begun to glow and he disappeared with a pop and a bit of sparkles. He then abruptly reappeared in the same spot that he had started from. While this may not sound amazing, both Diamond and I were flabbergasted. Not only had reappeared in the same spot, which was dangerous in and of itself, but we had seen his aura bounce off the matrix the princesses had created. Not many things could reflect magic itself, and those that could were powerful. “Yeah, somehow I expected that reaction.” Star Swirl smiled at us. In any case, the fact that there was barrier here and that it was still standing without any visible power source meant that there had to be a magical artifact involved, storing power for the spell to use. You see people don’t tend to realize this, but magic can’t actually do anything unless it’s connected to an energy source. Unicorns can’t just cast a spell on a broom to clean their house, leave, and expect to have the house be clean when they come back. It requires a thread of power to be connected to the horn, and it only works over a limited distance. The stronger the Unicorn, the farther they were able to make it work. In the case of this shield that meant that there should be a link from the spell to the power source, but whoever had crafted this spell had done an incredible hiding it; I wasn’t able to see it no matter where I looked. There was no way I was going to be able to break it and cross using teleportation, not that I was sure I could have broken the link anyway, I’d have to hoof it. The first problem I had with this endeavor was once again that large gorge between me and the island. I am not a Pegasus, so I couldn’t just fly over. Even if I were to change myself into a Pegasus, I don’t know how to use the wings. Something I should probably work on for future use. I looked around, hoping to find some conveniently placed logs or rope; you know the kind of things that adventurers always seem to find lying around. I mean I’m an adventurer now aren’t I? That should mean that I can find them. Unfortunately for me, it seems that I don’t fall under the rules for adventurers finding random, but useful junk. I did though apparently fall under the rules of the bumbling clue finder, because I just found a clue to getting over there. Apparently, once upon a time, earth ponies needed to cross to cross to the other side, so a bridge had once been placed here, and I just happened to trip over it. The only problem was that it had fallen almost entirely into the gorge. So really I hadn’t stumbled over a bridge, so much as I had stumbled over a ladder. Not something a pony could use very well. I know this is obvious and really a no brainer, but to get to the other side I needed to get the bridge to the other side. I hadn’t spontaneously developed flying skills, so that was out, I’d never learned how to use a lasso, which was also out, which didn’t leave me much to work with. Fortunately I did have my Swiss army knife, Magic. By the way, what the buck is a Swiss? Using my magic I grabbed the hanging portion of the bridge and dragged it the other side. Utilizing some basic knot knowledge, I tied the rope to the spoke on the other side, then I grabbed the other rope and tied it to the other spoke. Now because I’m not lacking in intelligence, I wanted to make sure the bridge could support my weight before I tried stepping onto it myself. With a quick look around I found a rock large enough to approximately my weight. I tried to throw it physically, before realizing that I was a silly idea and used my magic instead. You have no idea how satisfying it was to throw that thing to a possible death. The bridge only shook a little, so I think it can likely hold my weight. Still it wasn’t without a sense of trepidation that I stepped out onto the bridge; it had after all broken at some point. In any case, I decided to take slow steps to avoid upsetting the bridge too much. When I had reached the halfway mark I heard a snapping sound from behind me. I didn’t bother to look at what caused it; I just began gallop as fast as I could. I heard another snap, in front of me this time; I galloped even faster than I had before, putting all other thought from my mind. I heard another snap behind me, and closed my eyes and came to a stop and prepared to fall into the gorge. After a couple seconds, I realized that I wasn’t falling. Opening my eyes I saw rock. I had never been happier to see something I loathed so much. I looked behind me, no matter how much I didn’t think it was worth it. The bridge was hanging from the opposite side of the gorge, hanging from a single piece of rope. I had really gotten lucky. As I looked in amazement at my escape from death, fog rolled in from nowhere. I wonder where that came from and why it felt magical in origin. In any case, I needed to keep moving. I was hoping I wouldn’t have to deal with something like that again, but my pointing tail wasn’t making me feel good about it. It was kind of pointing at me. Since it would take a while to reach where my teacher seemed to be waiting, I began trotting quickly towards it. As I got closer, I noticed that the energy seemed to be emanating from the inside of the keep on top of a nearby hill. It looked rather old from this distance; it also looked rather small, but distance tends to make size difficult to distinguish. I knew I was getting closer; so I began to gallop. I would never be able to beat an Earth Pony or Pegasus in a race, but I could still keep up this speed for a decent amount of time, at least long enough to get me to the keep. Luna had made sure that I kept in shape; forcing me to exercise. Strangely, this training seemed to be completely absent from Celestia’s program. Those days had been kind of fun though. It was a cold fall night. My teacher and I were outside in the woods near Cantorlot, while they were often full of animals and ponies, the sight of Luna’s night had sent most of the ponies to bed and the sight of Luna herself had sent most of the animals scurrying away; except the bats anyway. I’ll never know why, but bats just seem to love Luna, and by extension me. I wasn’t sure why, but Luna was dressed in a green and brown military jacket and a brown helmet. She was holding a stick with her magic. She had given me a similar outfit, only lacking the stick. I was just thinking about what these getups could possibly be for. The sound of a stick hitting dirt got my attention, Luna’s voice held it. “Attention! Today student we shall be working on the body rather than the mind, the body must be just as prepared as the mind if you are ever to properly perform magic!” I’m not quite sure why she was yelling so much, or why we were doing this. I’d never read anything about how strong your body was having anything to do with your magical performance, but I wasn’t going to argue with someone that many more than a millennia worth of experience. “So what exactly are we going to be doing today teacher?” I lifted my hoof to my helmet in a salute; I’m not really sure why I did that. Luna hit me with the stick, I grimaced that had hurt. She stared me straight in the eye. “While we are out here you will call me Madam!” I wish she wouldn’t spit in my face, it’s a rather unpleasant sensation. “Yes madam!” She hit me again. “I can’t hear the uppercase!” “Yes Madam!” “Good, to answer your question, today we will be doing a set of simple exercises. There will be no magic in use here.” She pointed at one of the most grueling courses I had ever seen in my short life. It had ladders, weights, tires, and a rather fun looking zip lines. Overall it looked like a death course, if this was her simple what in the world was her complex!? “You will be doing this course until you are able to do it perfectly. Now, GET GOING!” I went. I had been right; it was just as difficult as I thought it was going to be. By the end of it I was breathing hard, but I had fun on it. “Okay soldier time to go through it again! And this time don’t screw it up so badly!” Those were probably some of the most grueling days of my life, but she had been right. I had gotten much better at magic by training my body and I’d gotten the added bonus of being able to keep up with those in the guards. That was why it was so strange that I seemed to be getting tired, but not any closer. The keep was always the same distance away. That was when I decided to look down. I wonder how many of you have had the experience of running while floating in midair. It’s kind of fun once you realize it. Either I had just developed the skill of levitating myself, or someone else was in control. That was never a good thing. Since it was pretty obvious that my horn wasn’t glowing, it obviously wasn’t me. I couldn’t believe that I hadn’t noticed it before. Note to self, stop getting lost in memories when I’m trying to get somewhere in a possibly dangerous territory. Now that I knew what was happening I could counteract it. I continued to run to keep whoever was holding me up from noticing what I was doing, or else they might increase power to spell to counteract me. I then began to slowly gather power in my horn, just a slow trickle. It would be just enough for what I wanted to do though; unless whoever was doing this was actively focused on me. I pushed my power out in a burst, which disrupted the levitation spell and let me fall to the ground. However, my luck was just as weird as ever. I managed to somehow land in just the right position so that I had to take two steps before I could stop. On the second step I somehow ended up stepping on the only tree stump for fifty feet and flew up in the air hooves over tail. I had just enough momentum to fly through the air for a good couple feet into a rock wall. I thought that I was about to feel pain, but instead I went right through the thing and began to fall down into a pit that had been hidden behind it. “Hey girls did you hear that?” And of course to top it all off, the last thing I hear as I fall was Twilight Sparkle; coincidence how I hate thee. Have you ever felt the feeling of free fall, the wind blowing through your fur and mane, pushing it all up past you? The visceral terror that plunges into your very being; your heart rate jumping about a hundred fold? I actually rather enjoyed the feeling. What I wasn’t going to enjoy was when the free falling ended; as the saying goes, the fall doesn’t kill you, the ground does. I was falling so fast that I couldn’t really think of anything I could do to save myself. I couldn’t teleport because of the barrier and I wouldn’t be able to use my magic to slow my fall at the rate I was moving; I did have one thing I could do though, I screamed. I closed my eyes; it had been fairly dark so it didn’t change much anyway. Apparently, somepony or something heard me, because right before I became a splatter on the ground I began to slow down. A blue glow had surrounded me and brought my fast fall to a slow float. The feeling of comfort and calmness that came with it also told me something, it was Luna’s doing. While I was hopeful that this meant she was somewhere nearby, she was powerful enough where she could have done this from quite a ways away from me. Being several millennia old will do that to you. However, there was still a good chance that she was nearby. First things first, I had to open my eyes. This is more difficult than you might think when you’ve just been scared out of your wits. Your muscles all seem to be locked up and you can’t really move, or maybe that was just me. I’d never really asked anyone else, so I couldn’t be sure if it generalized. While I waited for my muscles to become less tense, I had a few minutes to think about what Luna was doing. I mean she obviously knew I was here, so why hadn’t she come to meet me? Maybe this blasted teleport shield had kept her trapped as well? No, that didn’t make any sense; she could fly and easily have gotten into range of teleporting or even just come and found me. With so little information I couldn’t really make a realistic guess; suppose it doesn’t matter much, I’ll be able to ask her why when I see her. I’m sure she’ll have a good reason for it. My muscles had finally unlocked themselves from their terror induced immobility. I opened my eyes to see… not a thing, the room was still very dark and while I had better night vision than your average pony due to living most of my life at night, no light at all seemed to able to reach down here. Luckily, magic comes to the rescue yet again. The first and simplest spell that we learn to cast, right after learning to see magic, is the lighting spell. It’s probably one of the more versatile spells in my arsenal. Even though all it does is create a ball of light that follows you around, not even very quickly, but once cast it doesn’t require any more concentration and only the smallest of trickles of magic. It can also be used as a flash bomb if you put enough power into, making it highly useful in dangerous situations. I wonder if they made a newer version, can’t think what you could do to it, but if there is I want to learn it. With a soft glowing of my horn, I had soon finished casting my spell and a blue ball of light was bouncing along beside me like an old friend; lighting the way through the darkness. Luckily my eyes hadn’t adjusted to the gloom quite yet and thus I wasn’t blinded by pain. The décor didn’t exactly inspire me; it was rather bare and built entirely out of stone. From my position I could see square like blocks dug out the surrounding walls, enclosed by iron bars; probably cells. However, it appeared to me that the cells had seen better days, the iron was rusted and the manacles all appeared to be breaking off by their chain. One of the strangest things I noticed was the lack of any skeletons, there are always supposed to be skeletons in places like this right? Did something happen to them? From all this evidence I first concluded that I was in a bottomless pit, than discarded that idea as ridiculous and actually concluded that I was likely in the keeps dungeon. While this wasn’t the worst position to be in, as nothing appeared to have been in use for quite some time, it still wasn’t close to being the best. If I was right about where I was, I could at the very least expect it lead me towards the keep. I guess my luck wasn’t as bad as I’d thought, or I could be totally wrong and I was actually in some long forgotten trap. As I was looking around, trying to find out which way would lead me either to the keep or back to the surface, my horn began to thrum with the feel of my teacher’s magic; even my tail was getting into the act, pointing in front of me. Either it was leading me to my teacher, or someone was really good at pretending to be her. If it was my teacher than she was up to something; I just wish I knew what. Maybe she was trying to get one over Celestia, I could only hope. Not having any better ideas on how to get out of here, I decided to follow my tail. So I turned around and began walking backward. I had no idea where I was going, but anywhere was better than here. Whenever I needed to make a turn, my horn would twitch and my tail would be pointing in a new direction. I really loved that thing, even though most of the time I didn’t know what it was trying to tell me. It could do so much good for my life, if only I had been given the understanding of it like the mares of my family. Well I could still use it for this sort of thing. After a great number of twists and turns, I had finally arrived at what I knew was my destination. The large intimidating wooden door made it pretty obvious, my teacher’s power thrumming from behind it helped as well. I couldn’t wait to see her again after a thousand years. No matter that she was at least partially her fault that I had been locked in stone for a thousand years; I don’t think I could ever be mad at her. I pushed the door open with my magic; it creaked like it hadn’t been oiled in several years, which was fairly likely. The moment I entered the room, my light spell guttered out. It didn’t matter, there was enough light in here for me to see the pony on the other side of the room. I galloped towards her. “Teacher!” I shouted, still galloping towards her. Hey don’t laugh; how would you react if you hadn’t seen your best friend and surrogate mother for a thousand years? “Hello Dawn.” It was definitely Luna’s voice, although slightly gruffer than it had been all those years ago, maybe she had a cold? I began to trot towards her to give her a hug, yes I’m that kind of pony, but a bolt of lightning going off in the background made me stop in my tracks. It may have only been for an instant, but I had seen something that looked only somewhat similar to my teacher, but there was no way it was her. It was much too big and the creature’s coat, wings, and horn were black. Its muzzle appeared much more pointed than my teacher’s. The only thing that really resembled my teacher was its blue starlit mane. She laughed; it wasn’t a very nice laugh. In fact, it was a lot like that laugh you hear when the boogeymare comes out from under your bed. I’m ashamed to admit it, but I fainted. The first thing that I heard upon awakening from my nap, yes I took a nap I didn’t faint, was a rather pleasant giggling sound from where that creature had been standing. “The look on his face.” I heard her say to herself, still giggling. I shot to my feet, the voice still sounded too much like my teacher’s for my liking; I was determined to find out who this pony was. “Who are you!” I shouted, or at least that’s what I meant to shout, the scotch tape over my mouth made it come out more like, “Whooph phar phew!” The creature just doubled over laughing; I took the time while it was distracted to tear the scotch tape off my mouth. “Who are you and what did you do with Luna!?” With the scotch tape no longer in the way, my discourse was much more articulate. Unfortunately, it seems I would have to wait a bit for a reply, she didn’t seem to be finished laughing at her juvenile gag. I mean it may have sounded familiar and nice, but I was still getting tired of it. Eventually she stopped, “I have done nothing to her; Take a good look at me. Don’t you recognize me my student? MAYBE THIS WILL HELP YOU REMEMBER!” I had to cover my ears from the sheer pain that voice produced, but it also brought to mind the only person who generally used such a thing. I still needed a little more proof; anyone with a fair bit of magic could use the Royal Voice and this one was an Alicorn to boot. “Really, like I’m going to believe that. Tell me something only Luna would know.” She looked thoughtful, honestly she was rather convincing, if this wasn’t Luna than I was in some freaking trouble. It’s likely that at the rate she was going I would end up believing her and she would be able to trick me into helping her. However, so far she hadn’t attacked me and was acting just like Luna, but it was still worrying me, I needed more proof. “Oh, I believe I have just the thing.” She walked over to me and I stood prepared for an attack, pushing magic into my horn, but she stopped right next to me and began to whisper into my ear. The accumulated magic in my horn guttered out. Back when I was only ten years old, and had only been Luna’s apprentice for four years, I was sometimes given a night off from my studies. Often on these nights I was forced outside to go and play, I actually rather enjoyed reading. I didn’t mind much though. Diamond unfortunately wasn’t available to play now; it was too late in the day. So I was outside in the garden with absolutely nothing to do. So I just began to gallop around, looking up at the stars. It was exhilarating, the feeling of freedom from my troubles for just a short while, but I really should have paid the ground more attention; it likely would have saved me a lot of trouble. I tripped over a hole near one of the trees. Like many of the other times that this has happened to me, that wasn’t the end of it. A vine hanging off a nearby tree got in my way as I tripped, the other end of which had somehow become attached to a stick in the ground. I must have had more momentum than I thought because the vine ended up firing me out of it like I was an arrow. Seriously, that one moment completely defied physics, but I’m kind of used to that sort of thing. When I finally landed, I was on top of the flagpole in front of the castle. This was a fairly embarrassing position for me to be in, especially because it would likely taking me awhile to get down. I was just glad that nopony else was around to see this. That was when I heard giggling below me. Looking down, I saw Luna lying on her back laughing at my expense. I was fairly embarrassed about it, especially when I realized that my fur was covered in bramble. At least it was only my teacher who saw me, I wonder if she had been involved at all, I wouldn’t put it past her. I began to blush, that was one memory I thought I’d never have to relive again. It may not have been the most embarrassing of my little tales, but it was at one that no one else would know about. “So it really is you teacher?” She nodded, but there was still one thing I was confused about, “Why do you look so different?” I knew it had to be Luna, she knew about the memory and the scotch tape gag was just pure Luna. Honestly, in a lot of ways it was pure me too; I’d need to get her back for that. “It has been a thousand years you know, Alicorns such as I do mature,” Now that I had time to look and more light from Luna’s light ball, I could find several traces of my teacher, her coat and horn were actually more of a dark blue than the black I had thought them to be and as I said earlier her magic and bearing still appeared the same, “I just happened to hit my next growth period while I was on the moon.” “Wait, what were you doing on the moon!?” I was surprised, why would she have left me just to visit the moon, particularly for a thousand years. I mean even if she had, there was no reason for her not to take me with her. I’ve been there before anyway. “I was in exile,” She seemed surprised by my outburst; I was surprised that she had been put in exile, “Where did you think I had gone; to buy a bottle of milk?” “I had no idea, all I knew was that one day you left and didn’t return until tonight. I’ve been waiting for you to return since you left.” I was concerned about this. Who would, let alone could, put my teacher into exile? My teacher interrupted my thoughts, “That reminds me, not to sound like I didn’t miss you, because I did, but how is it you are still alive?” I was flabbergasted; I hadn’t planned to hold it against her, but did this mean that she hadn’t even know about that portion of the spell. Something was wrong here. “I was placed in stone by The Spell, I’ve was trapped in there until you returned.” “What! Who placed you in such a state!?” Seriously, either she was the greatest actor in Equastria or she truly did not know about that part of the spell. Since I knew all her tells, my teacher hadn’t been able to lie to me for quite a long time. Which really made no sense; I mean why would Celestia know about it, but not Luna? “I don’t who cast the spell, but they are long dead anyway, but do you remember the spell that was cast on Diamond and myself when we foals,” She nodded, “Well turns out one of its functions is to place the student in stone should the teacher be unable to perform her duties.” She looked shocked, which led me to believe that she had no part in that portion of the spell, but just to make sure… “Teacher, would you give me a Pie Promise that you had no part in the creation of the stone portion of the spell?” I knew I might be pushing it a bit, but I had to be sure. “Of course! I would never do such a thing,” I think she might have felt a little cross at my accusation, but she did the promise anyway, “Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eyOWWW!” Like everybody else, she had poked herself in the eye. Maybe I could find a way to redesign the ritual a little, just enough so that when it was performed, people didn’t leave with so many eye problems. “Thank you teacher, that really takes a load off my mind, you have no idea what it is like to be placed in stone for that long; being able to see the world, but not interact with it. To learn about someone while they knew nothing about you and one day realize that the person would never come back.” I suddenly broke, I must have been running on the adrenalin from trying to find my teacher. Now that I had actually found her, it was like a dam had broken and all my emotions from the last thousand years just flooded out. I began to cry, I know it isn’t something that males are supposed to do, but I’m not ashamed of it. I felt myself encircled in a hug, I hugged back. “Student, Dawn, believe me I would never dream that I know the full extent of what you have felt, but I do know that I will be willing to listen to anything that you wish to tell me. I have also seen loved ones die, but I have never known people who have never known me. I am truly sorry that you had to live through such a thing.” My crying just increased, I don’t know how I hadn’t realized all this right after my release, but it all came out now. For at least a few minutes, but it felt like hours, I just cried into my teachers embrace. Soon enough, my feelings just stopped and I backed away. “I’m sorry about that.” “There is no need to be, I am glad that I was able to help you. You are my student, which means that I help you learn about many more things than just magic.” She would never know how truly grateful I was for her. My eyes were still puffy from all the crying, and I felt emotionally spent, but there was still one more thing I needed to ask before I went and took a nap. “Who exiled you?” “Well that certainly came out of left field, but if you must know it was my sister.” When she said that I felt both the tiredness and sadness fly away from me, it seems that there hadn’t been enough fuel on the fire yet. My anger might be slow to come, but when it did it erupted like a volcano and I had a thousand years to stew on it. I was more than ready to erupt. “Why would your own sister exile you to the moon!?” “I really do not wish to talk about it; it was an entirely ridiculous reason in any case.” That didn’t really help me feel any better, but I believed my teacher. At the very least I now had a much larger target on Celestia, she deserved quite a bit for her transgressions. Luna must have seen the look on my face because gave me a grin, “I’ve been working on a plan to get back at Celestia for her part in my exile, would you like to help?” Did she really need to ask? “Of course.” My voice was rather flat, I was having difficulty keeping my anger in check, but with Luna’s help this would be fun. Luna trotted over to me and began to whisper in my ear. My anger levels began to drop and a devious smile appeared on my lips. Luna had backed away after finishing her explanation, the same smile upon her lips. This was going to be glorious! But first I’m going to take a nap.