//------------------------------// // Everents // Story: My Little Refugi // by Future Wonderbolt //------------------------------// The cool wetness against Sylae's cheeks fades away as she dips below the final layer of cloud and into the crisp night air. She soars on, navigating the currents of the unknown skies. Below her lies a thick forest, unbroken except by an occasional lake with a thin crust of ice around its shore. She has flown without stop all night, following the air currents down from Skyvale City and the surrounding mountainous territory. If her calculations are correct, she is in New Canterlot lands now. The air is not chill for a pony used to the sky, still she is glad when the lights of the city appear ahead. New Canterlot is smaller than Skyvale, nestled next to a large lake. Farmland surrounds the city proper, and an apple orchard encroaches upon the native conifers in one area. Sylae lands before the closed gates of the city wall and approaches one of the guards standing watch outside it. The Canterlot ponies wear armor of a deep blue, a yellow sun emblazoned on their chests. As she nears, one of them, an officer of some sort, steps forward and meets her. "Halt, pegasus. What brings you here at this time of night?" Sylae clears her throat, "My name is Sylae. I was sent here on behalf of the Skyvale Council," she says, offering no expression. "Oh, a Vale pony. We haven't heard anything about your Council sending anypony," the officer states, snorting. "Well, I didn't find out until recently, so maybe it hasn't gotten down the chain of command yet." The other pony squints. "I would've heard if we were expecting a pegasus to arrive like this," he says. "Head back to wherever you came from." "You...you aren't even going to check if I'm telling the truth or not?" Sylae asks incredulously. "Off with you." Sylae rolls her eyes and steps back. Unsurprisingly, yet another moron has made her life more difficult than it needs to be. She looks up at the wall, then snorts and launches into the air. Why the earth ponies thought such a wall was effective in any way astonished her as she flies over the battlements. Suddenly, she feels a tingling and a purple flash blinds her. Another flash appears, and she is feels a bolt of something strike her. She screams as her wings spasm and she falls from the sky. The last thing she sees is the hard ground coming up to meet her. Everents yawns as he walks down the hallway of Canterlot Castle. He'd spent all night down in the musty basement archives, searching for more information on the peculiar artifact. Sadly, like everything else relating to the past, the archives were terribly spare of information. He steps out through a doorway and clops across the grey stone courtyard, the buildings of the castle rising around him. If only the senior researchers would let him see the artifact himself, maybe he could direct his learning! All he had were the snippets of information they accidentally voiced. The expedition will leave in two days, and he knows next to nothing about anything. Not to mention, the mechanic Skyvale had said they were sending three days ago still hasn't arrived. His thoughts are interrupted by the sounds of several ponies trotting into the courtyard from outside. He looks over to see a squad of guards rushing towards the infirmary, carrying something between them. All he sees is a flash of green before they are gone. Curious, he follows them into the infirmary, a squat, greyish building set in a back corner of the courtyard. The squad captain, a squat fellow Everents doesn't recognize, calls for a nurse urgently. Everents looks at what the other guardsponies are carrying, and is shocked to see a badly-injured pegasus pony. "What happened?" he asks one of the guards. "She tried to go over the wall, and the dome spell got 'er, fell a hundred hooves to the ground. Lucky to be alive," he replies gruffly. A nurse appears, and looks at the pegasus. "She'll need more luck if she's to see the morning. You two, take her to room three, and someone find Scarflank," the nurse says to the guards. Everents follows the two silently to a dull and dimly-lit room, where they let down the injured pony on one of the six beds. A doctor comes in and starts checking her over, frowning and describing various injuries to himself. After about a minute, another doctor, with a large scar running across his cutie mark, comes in. "What was worth waking me up over?" He asks gruffly. "Pegasus, reportedly fell a hundred hooves after trying to over the city walls," the first doctor replies. As they talk, Everents quietly walks over to the two guards who carried her in. "Why did she try to cross the wall? Everypony knows about the dome spell," he says. "Well, first she tried going through the gate, but the captain turned her back. Said he hadn't heard anything about a Skyvale pegasus coming in," the guard snorts, "So she tried going over. Captain was too lazy to open the gates, now we're all gonna be stuck here for hours." "I see," Everents says, then sits in the corner, trying to stay out of the way. "This is a lost cause," one of the doctors states. "This pony shouldn't even be alive. I'm going back to sleep." The other doctor nods, and the two clop out of the room, shortly followed by the guards. Everents looks around at the room, just him, five empty beds, and the injured pegasus. He stands and walks over, standing next to the bed and listening to her strained breathing. I can't just leave her here to die, he thinks to himself, nerviously clopping a hoof against the floor. Next to him, the pony lays on the bed, blood staining the green of her feathers and dripping onto the sheets. Scorch marks cover her body and her entire left side appears to have been crushed by the fall. He closes his eyes, thinking, trying to remember any spell that comes in handy. The injured pony's breathing gets shallower and shallower with each passing moment. Finally, he nods to himself, summoning his energy. A spark appears at the tip of his horn, a green glow permeating the room. he lowers his head and touches her with his horn. He feels the energy transfer into her, magic seeping from his body into hers. It feels like an eternity passes before he raises his head dizzily, the room spinning around him. A faint glow surrounds the pony, but as Everents watches it fades away. His vision doubles and blurs, and he closes his eyes tiredly. He barely has enough energy to lay down on the stone floor as fatigue takes him. He's done all he can, the pony is on her own now.