It's All A Little Strange To Me

by Essay Jay

Issue 2.6 ~ The Cold Shoulder

“Mastery of the Ridge Gauntlet is essential to the mystic arts.”

Starlight walked up in the line and found herself set before a box filled with numerous identical bracelet-type brass adornments. Going around the lower foreleg of a pony, it would sit snug and tight, but comfortable as to not fall off. Slipping one on that fit just right, she followed the group of trainees into the middle of one of the training courtyards as they began to make motions with their hooves or with the occasional set wings to accompany them.

“They allow us to travel throughout the multiverse. Unlike the teleportation spells that unicorns have devised, this is much safer and much more reliable.”

Starlight glanced around her and tried to follow the motions of the earth pony beside her, as the ground was beginning to be showered in multi-coloured waterfalls of sparks by all of her fellow students. With a furrowed brow, she began to attempt the same type of magic with her own hooves, using what she had read and what she was currently observing to attempt the portal.

“All you need to do is focus. Visualise. See the destination in your mind. A unicorn once told me that to teleport, they had to know where they were going. You have to picture it. Feel it. Try and be there and be here at the same time. Look beyond the world in front of you. Imagine every single detail. The clearer the picture, the quicker and easier the gateway will come.”

Starlight glanced behind her as the voice grew nearer. Jade’s green robes swayed in the soft wind, and Starlight grimaced as mere scintillas of magic formed in the air in front of her. All around her, she could see glowing circles of raw dimensional mana twirling in the air, their rings shaky but undeniably more tangible than Starlight’s. As Starlight felt a pulse of pain in her horn, she instinctively put a hoof up to it, breaking her concentration.

At that moment, the Ancient One followed by a familiar master had entered the same courtyard Starlight and Jade occupied and Jade nodded to her. “And stop,” Jade simply stated. At once, all the students broke whatever form they had entered and stood at a reverent attention.

The Ancient One smiled at everypony before her. “Good work everypony. Keep studying and practice hard.” Nodding to Jade, the Ancient One continued: “I would like a moment alone with Miss Glimmer.”

Jade grinned and slapped Starlight on the back. Starlight winced. “Of course.” Nodding generally to everypony she had been talking to, they followed Jade out of the courtyard. Behind their shuffling hooves, the Ancient One and the pony following beside her moved forward, approaching Starlight’s sighing and downcast form.

“M-my horn…” Starlight sighed, her eyes staring at the ground. Feeling the Ancient One stop in front of her, Starlight looked up with glum darting eyes. “I can’t-”

“It’s not about your horn, Starlight,” the Ancient One stated.

Starlight looked the Ancient One in the eyes with defeated confusion. “How is this not about my horn?”

The Ancient One blinked at Starlight for a moment before smiling softly in understanding and motioned for the mare beside her to move forward. “Master Mos,” the Ancient One murmured, and the mare obliged.

Stepping forward, Starlight recognized her as the mare she had seen studying in the room she had first met the Ancient One in. With a swift movement, the mare removed the hood that surrounded most of her head, one that Starlight had finally taken to noticing. What she saw gave her stomach butterflies, staring at it with bated breath. The Ancient One continued to watch Starlight as her expression turned from sickness to awe.

A stub rested on her head, the remnants of a horn cleanly well kept and glinting dully in the light of the sun.

With a few jerks of her head and the shuffling of hooves, mana formed with expert fluency in front of her. The burning green aura seared into Starlight’s mind, but it didn’t bother her. Starlight was fixed to how she moved, the way she seemed to still be able to do magic regardless of a horn. With finality, the mare jerked a limb forward before her lips curved and she replaced her hood above her head.

“Thank you, Master Mos,” the Ancient One dismissed. Nodding, Master Mos left their company.

“You cannot beat a river into submission, Starlight,” the Ancient One said. “You must surrender to its current and use its power as your own. Your own magic is all you’ve ever known to tap into, but you’ve felt it. The endless energies that lie beyond this realm. You cannot rely on your magic alone anymore, Starlight. You have to let go.”

Starlight bit her lip, pawing at the ground in thought. “I… I control my- er- the magic around me by letting go?” Shaking her head in perplexion, Starlight sighed. “That doesn’t make sense.”

The Ancient One smiled. “Not everything does, Miss Glimmer, and not everything has to.” Trotting forward to put a hoof on Starlight’s shoulder reassuringly, she looked her in the eye. “Your magic, knowledge, and intellect have taken you far in life, Starlight. The friendships you’ve made and the mistakes you’ve overcome have pushed you even further… but all these accomplishments will take you no further in this direction. Perhaps in other situations or even another life… but not now.

“Surrender, Starlight,” the Ancient One finished. Twirling her hoof into the stone before her and planting her other into the ground, a portal opened up behind Starlight. Seeing the bright blue aura illuminate her surroundings along with a chilly wind, she twirled around and her mind drew a blank. Smirking, the Ancient One began to walk forward and past the awed Starlight. “Quell your fears and your ego, and your power will rise. Come, follow me.”

As Starlight followed the Ancient One into the portal that was billowing frosty air and flakes of snow into the otherwise unoccupied courtyard, she found herself suddenly atop a high mountain ridge overlooking a large sparkling circular citadel down below. In the distance, Starlight could squint and make out the distant shape of a large lonely mountain and the gleaming capital of Equestria.

“Wait, is this..”

“Mount Everhoof,” the Ancient One confirmed. “The tallest mountain in the known world.”

Feeling the effects of the cold begin to kick in, Starlight shivered and rubbed her robes against her coat, now glad that she had something else to protect her exposed self. “I-it’s beautiful,” Starlight hissed through chattering teeth, “F-freezing, but beautiful.”

The Ancient One nodded. “Quite so. In fact, a normal pony could probably last half an hour in these frigid temperatures with fur alone.”

“G-great!” Starlight exclaimed, her face beginning to collect flakes of snow and her mane beginning to freeze.

Breathing in the sub-zero temperatures, the Ancient One glanced back the way they had come and, gazing at Starlight’s distracted figure, she nodded to herself. “You, however, will likely go into shock within the first three.” With quiet haste, the Ancient One made her way through the portal before Starlight’s freezing mind could catch up.

The words registering in her mind and sensing movement, Starlight shakily saw the Ancient One’s retreating robes pass through the portal and she tried to make her way towards it too. Just as she was about to jump through, she could hear the Ancient One say “Surrender, Starlight…”

And just like that, Starlight landed in a muzzle-full of fresh powdery snow.

“N-no!” Starlight had cried, now having to pick herself back up. Now covered in frosty frozen flakes, she shivered from the impact and looked around her in increasing worry. Looking at the distant Crystal Empire, she knew that there was no point. If she even tried to cross that distance with her horn, it would almost assuredly shatter from the mana buildup required, not to mention cause her to pass out and likely suffer severe mental trauma for the rest of her life.

Blinking, her eyelids already freezing up, Starlight whimpered.

---

“So, how’s our new recruit doing?”

Jade came up from behind the Ancient One, trotting with a smirk. She eventually came to a stop beside her, joining the mare in the training area.

The Ancient One merely continued to gaze at the empty space in the courtyard in front of her, watching, waiting. She merely acknowledge Jade’s presence by nodding. “We’ll see. Eventually.” Blinking, she added: “Any second now.”

Jade’s grin faltered for a second as she recognized the look the Ancient One was giving to the empty courtyard. Flickering her eyes between her and the space, she blinked and her smile turned into a painful wince. “Oh no… not again…”

A beat.

“Maybe I should-” Jade began to say, beginning to ready her gauntlet before the Ancient One nudged her.

“No, wait…”

Jade bit her lip as she continued to glance between her superior and the ever-silent space in front of them. Grimacing, Jade could only sympathise with Starlight.

---

“P-please!”

Starlight groaned as she continued to make motions with her hooves and her head, only seeing sparks appear in front of her. She could feel the mana in her horn pulsating unevenly and she winced with every movement. With a grunt, Starlight fell to her knees as she gave up attempt number four to create a portal.

She could only sigh, wincing as she put a hoof up to her horn as it glowed painfully. In that moment, she remembered what the Ancient One had said to her:

“You cannot rely on your magic alone anymore, Starlight. You have to let go.”

With a sigh, Starlight scrunched her frosting muzzle and concentrated inward. Soon, the pressure in her head disappeared, and she gasped for air. Now stretching her mind outward, she tried to follow the Ancient One’s advice, letting go of her own thoughts and feeling for everything around her.

Now making the motions once more, she closed her eyes and tried to picture as she normally would when teleporting, except this time… she tried to think without the very magic she had used all these years. It seemed a far stretch to her. She tried to think with the energies she swore she sensed just outside her reach. And there was the complete possibility that none of it would work.

But she would try, or she would perish.

---

Silence reigned in the courtyard.

Jade began to fidget restlessly, trying to fight her inner urge to just save Starlight. Glancing finally at the Ancient One, she could also see her growing restless.

The seconds passed, and Jade could almost taste the tension in the air.

bzzzzwHFFFFFFZSHHHH!

As if right on cue, a portal had emerged from thin air, it’s sparks glowing a bright turquoise as they exploded outward. A hazy image formed within the circle of sparks before finally realizing into the figure of Starlight dropping to the stone-hard ground of the courtyard. Snow billowed in from the biting winds on the other side, and Starlight uncontrollably shivered in her fur as she looked up at the Ancient One with questioning eyes.

Jade spotted the Ancient One’s lips curving ever so slightly, and in doing so, she couldn’t help but break into a wide grin herself.

“Thatta girl, Starlight!” Jade exclaimed.

Starlight’s chattered, every part of her body quivering uncontrollably. Her lungs fogged up the air with the freezing oxygen she had partaken of and she curled into a fetal position, twitching slightly.

“Y-y-y-y-y-y-y-y-y-e-a-h-e-e-h-e-h-e-h-e…”

Comments

[Snowdrifter]

Let it go,
Let it go,
Can't hold it back any more..

[Void Runner]

825681
That was bad and you should feel bad.

[Void Runner]

Starlight was fixed to how she moved, the way she seemed to still be able to do magic regardless of a horn.

Starlight was transfixed by how she moved, the way she seemed to still be able to do magic regardless of a horn.

Starlight’s chattered, every part of her body quivering uncontrollably.

Starlight’s teeth chattered, every part of her body quivering uncontrollably.