Chapter 3: The Power of Emotion
Celestia's golden sun rose from the east as the chariot touched down in Canterlot. The streets were still vacant, and not a pony was in sight as the family stepped into the regal city. Ice Crystal lay curled between her mother's wings, her nostrils whistling lightly with each sleepy breath.
The ride had been something new and exciting for the little filly, both due to her never having flown, and it being her first time out of Snowhoof. She spent most of the trip leaning over the side of the chariot, the wind blowing through her blue mane as the little bow at the end flopped up and down on her neck. Behind her, Riptide rested one hoof on the end of her tail, just in case his daughter got excited and tried to climb further over the rail.
Just before sunrise the early morning finally caught up with her, and she climbed onto her mother's back to get a little sleep. The pegasus lifted her wings around her daughter, shielding her from the wind and the sunlight when it finally rose.
Riptide paid the cabbies and thanked them again for showing up so early. "It's no problem sir, it was a wonderful morning to fly" and with that the chariot rolled down the street and lifted off.
The unicorn joined his wife and the pair began the walk to the school. "How's she doing?"
"Sounds like she's still fast asleep" Snowfall replied with a yawn.
"You sound like you could use a little nap yourself" Riptide told her and nuzzled her as they rounded a corner.
The pegasus smiled and placed a wing over her husbands back, "I'll be alright for a while, I'll get some sleep on the way home."
The sudden motion woke their daughter from her nap, and her head snapped up quickly. "Are we there yet?"
Riptide chuckled a little and looked over his shoulder to the filly, "Yes Cryssy, we're here."
The unicorn smiled and leaped off of Snowfall's back as her horn sparked to life, filling her mind with images of everything around her. The city was amazing! Her magic couldn't even show her the tops of most of the buildings, and the road felt weird. It didn't feel like dirt, or even snow; it felt like the floor inside their house. She also noticed that the air felt warm, like there was a fireplace everywhere. She wondered if they were inside at first, and she almost went to explore this new place before she remembered what her parents had told her the day before. 'Canterlot is a big city sweetie, don't go wandering off without us or you might get lost'.
She turned back and galloped to her parent's side, "I love Canterlot!"
"Thank you for your effort Miss Trixie, I'm so sorry you didn't pass" A green unicorn was trying to comfort a little blue filly.
"Don't cry dear, it's a hard test" The filly's mother tried to calm down her bawling daughter.
"B-but I f-f-faaaaailed!" she continued crying as her mother escorted her out of the hall, "I..I'll be b-back! You'll all s-see how g-great and powerful I am!"
Cryssy turned to her own mother "Mama, why was she crying?"
"I don't know dear" Snowfall told her daughter, not wanting to worry the filly before the test.
The green unicorn looked up from a clipboard that was floating in front of her and smiled to the trio that was approaching. "Good morning, you must be the family from Snowhoof."
"That's us" Riptide replied happily. He had gotten more and more excited the closer they came to the school, and now that they were finally inside he could barely contain his excitement for Cryssy. He had never been given a chance to audition at the school himself as a colt, no matter how badly he wanted to, and just being here made him feel like a foal again.
"And this must be Ice Crystal" she bent down to the smiling filly, "welcome to Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns."
Cryssy's smile expanded, "I go to school here now?"
The three adults giggled at the filly's excitement. "Not yet Miss Crystal," the green unicorn told her, "we just need you to take a little test first."
Cryssy cocked her head to the side, "I'm not 'Miss', my name is Cryssy."
"Of course dear," the unicorn smiled again, "now I need to ask your parents a few questions. Can you wait over on that chair for me?"
Cryssy continued to look at the unicorn, "which one? There are 3" she asked with a confused look on her face.
Riptide interjected to avoid confusing the unicorn with the clipboard, "sorry, she's blind. Go sit on the one in the middle sweetie."
The filly nodded and trotted over to the chair, pulling herself up as the adults continued to talk together. "How did she know how many chairs there are if she's blind?" the green unicorn asked the parents.
"She uses magic to see things," Snowfall answered, "but she can't see motion, so when you pointed she didn't see it, she just saw the 3 chairs."
"But," the unicorn was still confused, "how could she tell if she didn't look away from me?"
"The magic is like sonar, it doesn't only show what her eyes are looking at," Riptide continued the explanation, "it show's everything in front of her, so she has a wider field of vision."
"Oh, okay," the unicorn smiled in semi-understanding, "well I think I see why she was offered a chance to test."
Riptide looked to his daughter in pride, then back to the green unicorn, "so what were those questions you needed to ask us?"
"Just a few simple things, first, how old is she?"
"She's 5."
"Okay," the unicorn scribbled on her clipboard, "and how long ago did she start using magic?"
"Umm, about 3 months. Does that sound right dear?" Riptide asked his wife for confirmation.
"Ya, sounds right to me."
"Okay, 3 months" the unicorn scribbled more notes.
Cryssy ignored whatever the adults were talking about, she could hear it, but it all sounded boring, so she just tried to see what was around the room. There were the 3 chairs, and one table beside one of them. The walls looked kinda funny, there were big squares sticking out in some places, but they looked like stairs on the sides. There was one door close to her, with a big fancy looking thing stuck on it. It looked a little like how Mama described the sun, but the filly couldn't really tell.
"Okay Ice Crystal, are you ready dear?" The green unicorn was standing in front of her, a smile on her face.
"Okay!" the unicorn squeaked and climbed down from the chair. She saw that her parents were smiling across the room, waving to her.
"Good luck Cryssy!" they both cheered to her.
The green unicorn led Cryssy over to the door with the fancy thing on it, and opened it. There was a big room on the other side, with a hole in the ceiling for some reason. On the right she noticed there were 3 ponies sitting in some chairs, each with a clipboard floating in front of them.
The middle pony stood up, "Thank you for coming Miss..." the pony flipped a page on her clipboard, "Ice Crystal."
Cryssy was confused, why did everypony keep calling her Miss? Before she could correct them, the pony continued talking, "This will be the test to decide if you will study magic here at Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns. You will only have one chance, so try your best" the pony finished and sat back down.
On the other side of the room, another door, with that same fancy thing on it, opened and another pony pushed in a cart, with some kind of ball on top of it.
"What's that?" Cryssy asked the unicorn beside her.
"Your test is to hatch this dragon egg. Start whenever you are ready." The middle pony spoke again.
The filly looked back to the weird ball, which was apparently an egg, a really big egg. She didn't know what a dragon was, but it had to be something big if it came out of that huge egg. She walked over to the cart and tried to pull the egg off of the top.
"It has to be hatched with magic dear" the unicorn told her before she could get it down.
Cryssy heard some writing on the other side of the room as she climbed back down to the floor. She pointed her horn at the egg, and started trying to picture the egg hatching in her mind, just like Daddy taught her to do. But she couldn't picture it, all she could see in her mind was the room as batty vision continued to flash the pictures into her head. She tried to ignore the pictures, but she couldn't, so she tried to stop batty vision.
The little unicorn's horn began flashing wildly, sending out more and more waves of magic, giving her more and more pictures of what was around her. She didn't even realize she had been holding her breath, doing everything she could to try and push the magic out. But nothing happened to the egg. A strange feeling began to tingle in her chest, like she was being poked all over. Was this what magic felt like? If so, she wasn't sure she liked it, but maybe if she kept trying...
After 5 minutes of pushing, the tingling in her chest shot into her head, and everything went black. The pictures stopped appearing, and Cryssy's head was throbbing with a terrible headache. She sat down and massaged her head with her hooves, trying to make the pain go away.
She felt a hoof on her back, and the green unicorn's voice next to her, "Are you okay dear?"
Cryssy just shook her head, wishing she could see what happened.
"Come on dear, let's go see your parents."
The filly stopped massaging her head and stood up, she spun around, still surrounded in blackness. Batty vision must have broken, she couldn't see anymore. She frowned and started walking in a direction that she hoped was the door.
"Cryssy, are you okay?" She heard Mama's voice behind her. Tears started to form in her eyes; after being able to see for the past few months, she was scared that batty vision had broken. "What's the matter sweetie?"
"Batty vision," the tears started to fall to the floor beneath her, "I can't s-see."
She felt herself being lifted up, and the familiar feel of Daddy's magic wrapped all around her. She was put down onto Snowfall's back, where she curled into a ball.
"Is she going to be alright?" the green unicorn asked her parents, "should I get the nurse?"
"No, I think she just over-worked herself" Riptide replied as they walked back into the hallway.
Through her crying Cryssy asked one question before they left, "D-did I pass the t-test?"
The green unicorn shook her head, "no, I'm so sorry dear."
The filly started to cry even more, not only had she failed, but she'd broken batty vision. She was going to be blind again, probably forever! She could feel a wing stroking her side, but it didn't comfort her much. She wanted to see again, even though she failed the test, and she wouldn't mind the headache as much either if she could just see.
Suddenly, the tingling returned in her chest and an image flashed into her mind, the familiar picture of her mother's mane. Then another, and another. Cryssy's crying quieted, and she slowly smiled. Batty vision was back!
After the scare in Canterlot, Riptide and Snowfall were much more careful about their daughter using her magic. They still wanted her to study, but they thought she might have just been lucky that her vision had returned the second time. The last thing they wanted was to see their little filly so sad again.
Cryssy was still a little sad about not passing the test, she really wanted to learn more about magic. But the good part was that now she could stay here with her parents, it would've been really lonely in Canterlot without them. And besides, daddy said he would keep reading magic books to her every night, and mama was going to teach her how to make cookies!
But for now, her parents were both at work. They said they both had to help out with the blizzard today, and that they would be home as soon as possible. Cryssy could hear the wind and snow blowing really fast outside, and the house shook a bit from time to time with the wind. But she was used to that, it wasn't her first blizzard, Snowhoof had one every year.
So the unicorn tried to practice her magic while she waited for Mama and Daddy to get home. She didn't want to get that bad headache again, so she tried to do easy things like move her toys. She heard a little cracking noise a couple of times, but whenever she would look around to find what it was, she never saw anything. She would tell herself "it's just the storm" and go back to practicing.
A stream of cold air blew across the unicorn's back, prickling the hairs of her coat. She spun her head around to the front of the house, thinking maybe Mama or Daddy had come in quietly. But the door was still closed tight, and nopony was in the front room.
She started to look around the room slowly, searching for where the wind was coming from. On the far side of the room, she noticed a little crack in the wall was letting in snow, and the cold wind too. It was in the furthest corner from the fireplace, leaving it just cold enough for the snow to rest unmelted. Cryssy trotted over to the small mound of snow, and sat in front of it.
"Snow is light," she told herself as she focused on the little fluffy pile, "it should be easy to move for magic practice."
She started trying to picture the snow moving, just like she had done in Canterlot, but this time she didn't try too hard. Batty vision was making it hard again, but she didn't want to try turning it off, it might not come back again, and that would be really bad; she didn't want to be blind for a third time.
After trying to move the snow with magic for a while and failing, the little filly got bored and just started playing with it. She made little designs in it with her hooves and tried to make a little snowpony, but it was really hard with only short flashes of vision. She wondered if she could use her magic if she put her horn IN the snow; then the magic wouldn't have to go so far to reach it.
She stuck her horn into the little pile, but pulled it out really quick, "owwwww, brainfreeze!" she squealed as she tried to warm her horn up with her hooves.
The cracking noise came back behind her, but it was a lot louder this time. Cryssy spun around real quick, and at first she didn't see anything weird, but then a picture flashed in her mind of another pile of snow on the other side of the room. Each picture after that had the pile getting bigger, and the cracking noise got louder and changed into more of a crumbling sound. Suddenly, a fuzzy head was poking into the wall, but it didn't look like a pony.
The room suddenly got really cold as the fire was blown out by wind flowing through the big hole, and snow was fluttering all around the house. The fuzzy head came in further, and soon Cryssy saw what looked like a pony, but it was smaller, and it didn't have a mane. The fuzzy thing looked over to her, and before the filly knew what happened, she got hit by something, and fell onto her back.
Batty vision flashed her a picture of the big fuzzy thing, it was on top of her, and it had...really BIG sharp teeth. Suddenly, Cryssy was very scared. She knew what the fuzzy thing was now, her mother had told her stories about the Winter Wolves that lived in the woods near Snowhoof. They were really mean, and they...
Cryssy screamed as loud as she could, she didn't want to be taken into the woods and disappear forever!
The wolf flinched for a moment at the scream, but quickly resumed his attack, licking his lips as he prepared to get a first taste of his latest meal.
*CRACK*