The Child of Sun and Moon

by Darkest Night

A Fable's Truth

This was…strange.

It was almost surreal in that this was everything he never believed would happen if his secret ever got out, and he couldn’t shake the feeling that this was too good to be true. Here he was, Starjumper Astra, a Lykan, walking down the Promenade with friends, and doing it not as a unicorn, but as a thestral. He felt entirely exposed out here, especially since he couldn’t fly, but Summer Dawn was with him, and he knew that she would protect him if things got out of control. And the ponies around him could tell he couldn’t fly because of the splint on his wing, which forced him to keep them open over his back, showing off how big his wings were.

He wasn’t exactly sure how he allowed Summer Dawn to talk him into this. At least as a unicorn, he had his magic and he had options, but to walk the streets with his wings, unable to fly and with only his spider magic as a defense, he felt even more exposed than he did yesterday when he went to school for the first time since his secret was exposed. But he wasn’t alone, and for that matter, he was in the company of some very powerful ponies in Canterlot. Summer Dawn walked beside him, and her friends walked with them, Crystal Bell and Berry Cream on Summer Dawn’s side and Strider walking beside him. The others were wearing coats and scarves against the cold, but Starjumper was not. It was a bit chilly, he could admit, but he was long in the habit of never wearing anything that might interfere with his flying, and coats and other cold weather gear would slow him down in the air. For a pony like him, everything he did was about keeping himself safe, minimizing the chance he may be attacked and having options if that happened. It was a paranoid way to live, but the fact that he was still alive proved that it was working.

And Luna, how the ponies out on this nippy winter night stared at him. He didn’t stand out quite so much as a unicorn, but his wings were as bad as lit up Bridleway signs in that they told everypony exactly who he was, and did so from a distance. The fact that he couldn’t fold them with the splint on made it even worse, since they were hoisted up over his back like sails.

“Calm down, Star,” Summer Dawn told him calmly as they walked.

“Easy for you to say,” he grunted, looking around nervously. “I can’t fly. You have no idea how helpless that makes me feel.”

“Do you want me to put a shield around you?” she asked, looking up at him playfully.

“That’s not much of a joke, Summer,” Strider chided her seriously. “Look at this from his point of view.”

She gave him a long look, then her eyes turned a bit sheepish. “I’m sorry,” she said earnestly.

“It’s nothing,” he said dismissively, staring down two society ponies dressed in finery that were whispering behind their hooves as they passed. “This was a bad idea,” he growled.

“You have to let ponies see you, Star, both ways,” Summer Dawn told him. “Don’t let them think you’re afraid of what you are, that you have to hide away during the night.”

“It’s gonna take some getting used to, seeing you without a horn,” Crystal Bell said. “That’s even more jarring than the wings. Does it ever bother you? I think I’d freak out a little bit if I looked up and didn’t see anything.”

“I’m used to it,” he replied absently, nearly turning to walk sideways as he continued to stare down the two society ponies. He finally looked away from them, and had a shiver go up his back when he felt their stares on him, now where he couldn’t see them.

They turned a corner, and their destination came into view, the Tasty Treat. The old restaurant, situated at the terminus of a dead end street, suddenly had an ominous feel to him as they started towards it, a feeling that he was walking into a trap. The walls along the sides seemed to close in on him as they walked closer and closer to the building, and a trio of ponies entered the street behind him, making him feel like he was cut off. He forced himself to calm down, reminding himself he could just go up the wall if anything happened, and there weren’t many ponies in Canterlot that would be able to follow him.

The excursion got even less appealing when they reached the door. They entered to find the restaurant almost full, which made him feel very nervous, but that wasn’t what turned the night for him. Saffron’s adorable daughter, Curry, gave him a wide-eyed look and took a few quick steps back. The young mare had always been very nice to him, even flirted with him a little bit when he ate there, but now she looked at him with fear. “Hello, Curry,” Summer Dawn said in a warm voice, ignoring her reaction. “Table for five, please.”

“Th-This way,” she stammered, putting on a forced smile as she waved with a hoof, and making sure she stayed well in front of them.

Starjumper gave Summer Dawn a dark look, but she returned it with reassurance and nudged him forward with a hoof.

They were seated in the back of the restaurant, by the kitchen door, and Starjumper tried very hard to ignore the other ponies, who had gone completely silent and all stared in his direction. The silence extended moment after moment, even Summer Dawn and her friends were quiet as they looked around, then two ponies got up from their barely-touched meal and hurried towards the door. Another couple followed them, then a trio, then more, then more. And it made him almost sick to his stomach to see them running away from him like that, even though it was the reaction he had always expected. By the time Curry came out of the kitchen with menus for them, there were only four tables occupied, and one of those tables was in the act of getting up and leaving, their noses in the air. Curry looked around in surprise, then gasped and staggered back when Starjumper aggressively got out of his seat and started towards the door himself.

He could smell her fear.

That hurt worse than the stranger ponies leaving. Curry knew him, and now she was afraid of him, because she knew what he was.

“Star!” Summer Dawn called.

“I told you this was a bad idea!” he growled, marching quickly towards the door.

She rushed after him, chasing him all the way out onto the street, where the ponies that left the restaurant stopped and turned to look when they heard Summer Dawn call his name again. “Star!” she said, rushing up in front of him and stopping, making him stop. “They can’t see there’s nothing to be afraid of if you hide in your apartment!”

“Do you see anypony around?” he retorted hotly. “They ran out of that restaurant like it was on fire! It doesn’t do me much bloody good to be seen out and about in Canterlot if everypony runs away from me!” He gave a hot huff of anger and stepped around her, but saw the ponies standing in the entryway to the street, blocking him in. He turned and stormed over to the wall of the building adjoining the street, then gave a short hop and landed on the side of it with all four hooves. He clung fast to the building face, then started up the wall.

Summer Dawn floated up to get level with him as the others came out of the restaurant. “Just be patient, Star. Give them a chance, I’m sure they’ll come around.”

“Like Curry?” he asked with a pained catch in his voice. “A pony that knows me, acting like I was going to attack her any second? No, I’m done for tonight,” he snapped, reaching the top of the wall and climbing up onto the roof, then turning towards his apartment. He marched across the flat roof, then jumped over to the next one. He stormed across that one, then reached the street, which presented a barrier too wide for him to jump. He didn’t even hesitate, he spread his wings fully and prepared to take off, but he found himself wrapped in Summer Dawn’s magic, stopping him from executing the downstroke that would get him off the ground..

“You’re going to hurt yourself!” she protested. “The doctor said no flying!”

“Either let go of me or take me home,” he declared adamantly. “Because that’s where I’m going. And if I have to break my wing to get there, that’s exactly what I’m going to do,” he threatened.

She gave him a stern, steady look, then sighed and bowed her head a little. He found himself being picked up off the ground by her magic, then she came up beside him and merged the two auras of magic into a single one, making it easier on her to carry them, and started for the apartment. She was silent for the short trip, descending with him and setting them down on the balcony. “Star,” she began, but he cut her off by whirling towards the door.

“Don’t ever ask me to do that again,” he said in a powerful voice.

“Star, you can’t hide—“

Her declaration was met with the slamming of the balcony door when he closed it behind himself.

And that was the beginning of a long, unpleasant night. It had been his worst fears coming to light, and despite knowing it was coming, it didn’t make it hurt any less. The ponies of Canterlot may think that they were cosmopolitan and accepting, until they had to be in the same room with him. That was when their true colors showed and their superstitious fear revealed itself, and it was perfectly demonstrated in Curry. The mare that had known him since he came to Canterlot, was always so nice to him, even flirted with him, she was terrified of him now. He could smell it on her, a dark miasma of both fear and horror that marred her spicy scent and revealed the truth he had never seen beneath her adorable exterior. To have Curry react to him like that, it could have only hurt worse if Summer Dawn recoiled from him when she found out the truth.

He paced in circles around the apartment, vertical ones rather than horizontal ones, trying to calm down, but all it did was let him see the reality of his situation. It said a lot about Summer Dawn’s friends that they would stick with him, but the only reason they did was because of Summer Dawn. She knew him, she vouched for him, and that was enough for them. But it wasn’t enough for the other ponies in Canterlot, not even Princess Twilight’s explanation had been enough. She’d told them that the old stories were just fairy tales and he was no danger, but they were showing that their superstitious fear was stronger than the calm, logical explanation from a pony that they were supposed to trust.

The solution, he hated to admit, was what Summer Dawn had been saying, but the restaurant showed that it wasn’t going to be that easy. He couldn’t show them they were wrong if they wouldn’t give him the chance.

He’d been a fool to think that the acceptance he found with Summer Dawn’s family and her friends would extend to ponies that didn’t know him, that he didn’t know. Now, they didn’t want to know him. The truth of his condition would be like a wall between them, a wall built of fear and suspicion, and he could admit that that wall would be built in both directions. He had lived most of his life in fear of his secret being exposed, and now that it was, that fear had transplanted itself onto the ponies around him. He was just as afraid of them as they were of him, because they represented the darkest of his nightmares, for other ponies to know the truth of him and reject him over that truth.

Summer Dawn had been his most desperate dream coming true. Curry was his worst nightmare come to life.

He slowed to a stop on the ceiling, sat down, and blew out his breath. He couldn’t let his fear get the best of him. He was a thestral, and a thestral didn’t allow himself to be ruled by fear. It was an insult to his heritage and a shame upon his family name. Yes, what happened with Curry hurt. It hurt a lot. But to run away was the coward’s way, and thestrals were not cowards. He had to be strong, he had to show them that they had nothing to fear. And while it was going to all but devastate him over the next couple of weeks, he had to keep trying. To run away would only stoke their fears, make them think that he had something to hide.

But…he would never go back to the Tasty Treat. No matter how brave a face he could put on with other ponies, to have to face Curry again, to see that fear in her eyes, to smell it staining her scent…he couldn’t do that again. He just…he just couldn’t. No matter how brave he wanted to be, he just didn’t have the courage to do that.

Tomorrow, he would go to school. He would eat in the cafeteria like he always did, he wouldn’t allow his secret being discovered change his routine. He would be strong the way Summer Dawn wanted him to be. He would stand strong in the face of ponies that would shy away from him, that would stare at him and whisper behind their hooves. He would not be afraid of them, and he would not allow their fear of him to change who he was.

The fault was in them, not in him. And he couldn’t live his life restricted by their shortcomings.

That was what he had to do. And no matter how much he didn’t want to do it…that was tough. This was real life, not a fairy tale, and in real life ponies had to do things they didn’t want to do.

But…he was too grounded in reality to not plan for eventualities. And the biggest of which was that he needed to move out of the apartment. Too many ponies knew where he lived, and that was just inviting somepony crazy to do something stupid. He would move forward with his hidden cave idea, and move forward with it starting tomorrow. If he found an ideal spot, he could have the first gallery opened in a couple of days, and then he would move into that space. It wouldn’t need to be fancy, he’d just need to make sure it was properly ventilated. He’d continue to host his tutoring sessions in the apartment, if only to hide his new house, but he’d move all of his possessions to the cave and sleep there as soon as he had enough room.

At least there, he’d be safe.

North Star was winning.

He could tell as he walked to school, his bag of donuts and coffee floating along with him, he could see it in the ponies around him, and he saw it in Donut Joe’s diner. The place was nearly empty when he walked in, and while Joe was nice to him, his smile was forced and his eyes were worried. He was losing business because he allowed Starjumper to patronize his diner, just like how Saffron had lost an entire dining room of customers last night when Starjumper entered her restaurant. And while it was the right thing to do to treat him like every other pony, as his father would say, business is business. Starjumper had no doubt that by this time next week, Donut Joe would take him aside when he came in one morning and regretfully tell him that he couldn’t come to the shop anymore, else he’d have to close down.

This was part of North Star’s plan, it had to be. And it seemed that Fancy Pants and Fleur de Lis were losing the rumor war with him.

He wasn’t surprised. North Star had too much ammunition, too much juicy gossip to work with when it came to somepony as potentially scandalous as a Lykan. There was no doubt he was spreading the old stories about Lykans everywhere he could, and he no doubt had ponies helping him, like his son, and maybe even ponies he hired just to spread the rumors. And no matter how much Summer Dawn’s parents told ponies that Starjumper wasn’t that pony, they were up against a tidal wave. Ponies would believe North Star over Fancy Pants because it was more exciting. Telling other ponies that Starjumper was actually a nice pony and the old stories were just that in no way compared to the sheer joy they would get from pulling ponies aside and whispering about how Starjumper drank the blood of foals, and how his bite could turn ponies into were-ponies like him, and how the light of the full moon drove him into a murderous rage that was only satisfied when he killed somepony.

Which would be in three days, which no doubt had the more gullible townsponies very worried.

Rumors had nothing to do with the truth. They had everything to do with titillation, with juicy scandal, with the excitement of spreading them, and a rumor had to be worth spreading to make it enjoyable. And North Star had the upper hoof because of the old mare’s tales about Lykans.

He thought on Monday that things were not going well, and two days later, he was sure of it. In just two days, the stares had become whispers, and now ponies were retreating from him when he appeared. The fear of him was taking hold, and it was starting to spread. And that fear meant that he had to be very careful, else he might end up dead. Some frightened pony would do Moonblade’s work for her, attacking Starjumper out of a misguided belief that he was the monster that Equestrian legend said he was.

As he walked to school with ponies crowding the far side of the Promenade, staring at him with growing unease and even hostility, he knew that his plan to move out of the apartment had to be executed as soon as possible. He might even need to inform Princess Twilight of what was going on, so she might try to put a stop to it once again.

And he knew then, he knew that he would never find a life here. So, the work he did on his cave home didn’t need to be elaborate, just enough to hold him over until he was done with school and could leave Canterlot.

That depressed him. He didn’t want to leave Summer Dawn, he’d grown quite fond of her parents as well, but he didn’t have much of a choice. He had the feeling that if he tried to stay here, he’d be a complete pariah. He’d be living in a town where no merchant would sell him anything, where only a few ponies living here would have anything to do with him, and he would face persecution, and maybe even violence, if he stayed. The first rule of survival for a Lykan was know when to run, and his instincts were telling him that this was that time. And while he couldn’t leave Canterlot unless the Princess permitted it, it meant that he had to take proper precautions so he couldn’t be dragged out of his apartment and beaten to death by a mob of fearful ponies.

Well, at least he could come visit. He needed to visit their house and find a good landing point where he could teleport in, so he could visit with them and spend time with Summer Dawn. Nopony else ever need know. He was not going to abandon his friend because of the ponies of Canterlot, not when he could come see her without them ever knowing. She was too important to him, his life would be too empty without her to never see her again. The Waterfalls was a gigantic manor, nopony would know he was visiting unless somepony in the house talked. And he’d learned that Summer Dawn’s entire family could keep a secret.

Summer Dawn landed beside him, the aura of magic around her fading, and she gave him a slightly worried look. “Are you okay?” she asked in greeting.

“I’m alright,” he replied. “And I have to apologize to you for being rude last night,” he told her. “But something’s going on, Summer,” he said, looking over at her. “Can you feel it?”

“I know what you mean. I talked to Dad last night, and he said that there’s serious talk in the social circles about them demanding that the Princess lock you in the dungeon over the days of the full moon,” she answered. “I don’t understand. We’ve told them that they’re wrong about you, but it’s like the more we talk, the less they listen.”

“You once told me that I didn’t understand the power that a rumor could have,” he grunted as they walked onto the campus. “I think now it’s my turn to say that to you.”

“I…I guess, but this—ponies may gossip, but they don’t do this,” she said.

“What’s the most important thing about a rumor, Summer?”

“How juicy it is,” she said, then she frowned.

“Unless you can make me sounding normal as exciting as what the old stories say about me, you’re going to lose,” he said simply. “They want to believe the lies because they’re much more thrilling to talk about. It’s way more fun to tell their friends how I drink the blood of foals than the fact that I just want to live a nice boring uneventful life.”

“We just have to show them that they’re wrong,” she fretted. “If they knew you the way I do, they’d feel ashamed of themselves for ever thinking that the rumors are true.”

“It’s too late for that, Summer,” he said darkly. “Curry proved that. What I am is all they’re going to see now.”

“No, there has to be a way,” she said as they approached the academic building. “I have to think about this for a while.”

School was no reprieve from the ugly looks and whispers. The other students went deathly quiet when they came into the room, and before they could take their seats, Frostmane stood up. “Mister Starjumper, Miss Summer Dawn,” she called.

They approached her desk, and she sat back down. “Yes, Professor?” Summer Dawn asked.

“Due to your advanced studies outside of class, the Headmistress has decided that it’s more important for you to pursue those studies. Effectively immediately, both of you are on a self-study program,” she announced. “You will report to the classroom every morning to give a brief report of the work you’ve done the day before and the work you intend to do that day, and every Friday, you will submit a report detailing your progress. Every Friday afternoon, you will give a practical demonstration to show me what you’ve learned over the week. Outside of that, the topics you choose to study are your own choice, with the understanding that you will complete your study on teleportation magic and be ready to undergo an extensive practical exam when you are ready. In your final exam, you will demonstrate mastery in at least three magical spells considered advanced magic not taught in class. Given you have already mastered shields and are working on teleportation, you only need to choose one additional advanced spell to study. Which one you pursue in addition to shields and teleportation is up to you. Your practical final will be based on your mastery of those three spells in addition to the spells taught in the curriculum, so be ready.”

Summer Dawn gave her a bright, eager look and nodded emphatically. For her, being freed from the evils of classroom lecture was a dream come true. “Yes, Professor,” she said giddily. “Do you still want us to test out of transfiguration, so you’re certain we’ll be ready for that part of the final?”

“Can you?”

“Yes, we can,” she replied confidently.

“Then see me after you eat lunch and I’ll give you the practical.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Summer Dawn said happily.

“Oh yes. After lunch, the Headmistress and myself would like to see both of you to discuss your work on teleportation magic,” she said. “So we will report to her office after we finish the transfiguration practical.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Summer Dawn nodded.

Starjumper found it oddly convenient that they’d been put on self-study, getting out of being in the same class as Nova, but on the other hoof, he wasn’t going to put his nose up at it. It was definitely a gift to both of them, since they were honestly beyond what they taught in class, and it freed them to pursue their own studies. And he already knew which spell to teach Summer Dawn for her third spell, and that was the mirror spell. It was a very advanced spell, the most advanced spell he knew, and it would easily qualify as a third high order magic spell for the final.

Like Summer Dawn, he certainly couldn’t complain. He hated sitting in class as much as she did.

The look she gave him was positively beatific as they left the classroom and started for the library. “Well, that made this day a whole lot better!” she said excitedly. “What are we going to work on first?”

“You’re going to work on the book reading spell, then I think this afternoon I’ll teach you the spider spell,” he mused. “It’s fairly simple, and you should pick it up in just a couple of hours.”

“Sounds good to me. I can practice teleportation during our session.”

“That’s going to be short today,” he warned her. “As soon as I’m done with your parents, I’m done for today. I have something else to do.”

“Hey now, that’s my time,” she challenged.

“You can work more on blind teleportation at home, you need to master that before we can move on to external teleportation, and I trust you not to do anything stupid,” he told her.

“What are you going to do?”

“Find the ideal location for my new apartment,” he replied.

“You’re moving?”

“Too many ponies know where I live,” he said grimly. “I’m going to move to someplace they can’t reach me. I’m going to hollow out a cave for myself up on the cliffside, someplace most ponies can’t reach, and stay there until I’m done here in Canterlot. Then, I suppose, I’m going to move on,” he sighed. “From what I’ve seen the last couple of days, Summer…this is not my place.”

“I don’t want you to leave!”

“I can teleport, silly mare. I’m never more than a spell away,” he chided her. “It doesn’t matter where I live so long as I’m within range. I can come over to the Waterfalls and memorize a room in your house and use it as a landing spot. Nopony ever need know that I’m visiting you and your parents.”

“Well…that’s not a bad idea, I suppose, but I’d still rather you stay here.”

“That’s not my decision to make,” he said calmly. “And the ponies have Canterlot have already made up their minds.”

“Not yet they haven’t,” she said adamantly. “I’ll make sure they change their minds.”

He looked down at her, a grateful look softening his features a brief second.

The day went fairly well. Summer Dawn made significant progress on the book reading spell, and it only took him about an hour to teach her the spider climbing spell before lunch, since they would most likely spend the entire afternoon in the Headmistress’ office. And that prediction came true, as the two of them sat with Roseglass and Frostmane and talked about the spell. To their credit, they listened more than they talked, letting him explain the spell as he knew it, then they asked a whole lot of very insightful questions about the more exotic mechanics of the spell, things that Summer Dawn hadn’t started to practice yet. They then had Summer Dawn demonstrate what she’d learned so far, and she acquitted herself nicely by not only teleporting across the room, but successfully teleporting to a blind landing point with only a tiny amount of resistance.

After school, Starjumper met his other students in the apartment and got them to work, though they spent more time talking about the sudden turn in the mood of the city, something her parents had definitely noticed. “I know that it’s North Star doing it,” Fancy Pants fretted. “But I don’t understand the reason for this vitriol. I mean, yes, you and Nova had a bit of a confrontation when you first arrived, but that doesn’t explain this.”

“He called me a mongrel, long before he knew I was a Lykan. I think that’s all the explanation needed here,” he answered. “He objects to me based on my thestral blood.”

“I would never believe an educated unicorn like him would fall prey to base…racism,” Fancy Pants snorted.

“We all have darkness in us, Fancy Pants,” Starjumper said.

The tutoring session with them went well, with Fancy Pants starting to show real progress in unlearning what he’d been taught and relearning the right way, and Fleur de Lis made significant progress in her work on shields. After they were done, Summer Dawn decided to go with him as he stepped out onto the balcony, then the two of them rose up off of it using their magic. But instead of just rising up enough to clear the buildings, they continued to ascend, going higher and higher. They rose up over the towers of the Royal Palace, they rose far up over the city, then they started drifting towards the cliffside. “What are we looking for?” Summer Dawn asked, floating along side him.

“A good entry point, that will be sheltered from the rain and also be hard to see from the ground,” he answered. “I’ll use the stoneshaping spell I learned to open a room from that point.”

“Whoa, that is a long way down,” Summer Dawn said as she looked down at the city. “I’m glad I’m not afraid of heights.”

They moved along the cliffside for a good half an hour, until they reached the waterfall that tumbled down onto the grounds of her house. “Hey, look at that,” she said in excitement, pointing with a hoof. “There’s a cave! What about a cave, Star? Would that work?”

“It might,” he said as they drifted towards the opening. It was small and irregular, only about twenty feet from the cut in the rock formed by the water rushing down the cliffside. They had to wriggle a bit to get inside the opening, since it was very narrow and ran diagonally from lower left to upper right, but behind that tight opening was a surprisingly large single gallery. It was a dome chamber, he saw, with a high sloping roof that was shaped like a dome, which gave the rock great strength and the ability to hold up the weight of the rock over it, which was why it hadn’t collapsed. There were numerous stalactites and stalagmites, and there was a pool of still water in the back of the chamber that ran across the back wall in a crescent shape, hugging the wall. The floor sloped downwards from the entry, which was why the water had pooled there. The air inside the chamber was noticeably warmer than outside, but still a bit chilly, and he saw something unusual…there were no hibernating bats in the chamber. A cave this size, there should be bats in here, but there weren’t. And that fact made the floor of the chamber clean, with only some rock detritus and some lichens, meaning there wasn’t a layer of bat guano.

He saw why after looking around some more. There was a narrow crack in the top of the dome that was a very narrow, jagged pocket, and there was a hibernating rock bat in there. Rock bats were much larger and much meaner versions of regular bats, which ate gems like dragons did, and they were highly territorial. A rock bat would chase all other bats out of the cave it claimed. Luckily, thestrals had a good understanding of rock bats, since they lived in the Nightlands, and Starjumper could deal with having one as a roommate. He knew what to do to keep the bat from attacking him…just feed it some gems and impress upon it that it would get free meals if it shared the cave with him.

All in all, this cave was a good place. It was large, it had room for expansion, it had available water and access to flowing water once he fixed it so water stopped dripping into the chamber. It would work. In fact, he could clean this place up and turn it into quite a nice little one chamber abode, all he needed to do was clear out the stalagmites and stalactites and seal off the cracks that was letting water leak in, which formed them in the first place. And what was most important, he could use stoneshaping magic to seal off the entrance to the chamber and make a hidden door, something that would blend in with the cliff face from the outside and be almost impossible to see, and something he could open without magic at night to get in and out.

“Nghhahh! What the hay?” Summer Dawn grunted. He looked over and saw that she was using the spider spell, and was trying to walk up the wall. She struggled with every placed hoof, gritting her teeth and hauling herself up, and her legs were already starting to tremble. “I thought the magic let you ignore gravity!”

“It doesn’t, for you or for me,”

“You make this look so easy!” she panted, dragging herself up another step.

“I’ve been walking up and down the walls long enough to build up the strength to make it look easy,” he replied lightly. “I’m a lot stronger than I look, Summer. And if you think that’s hard, turn sideways and try to stand like you’re on the ground,” he chuckled. “If your muscles can’t handle it, it’ll break your legs.”

“No thank you, I just got out of one cast, I don’t need another. Besides, I’ve never seen you do that before. Any time you’re sideways, you have your legs bent so your body is close to the wall and your lower legs are angled to brace yourself.”

“Then that should tell you not to do it. If we won’t, then you’d better not,” he replied. “Physics matters when you’re walking on the walls, so that means the further away your body is from the wall, the more stress it puts on your legs to support your weight.”

“No doubt,” she replied, dragging herself up another step. “Ngh! Thestrals must be really strong!”

“Don’t ever let Songbird kick you,” he said seriously. “Even a foal her age is strong enough to knock your block off.”

“I’m not surprised,” she panted. “I think I need to work out if I want to do this.”

“Gravity is a harsh mistress,” he chuckled.

He left her to enjoy the reality of walking on walls while he continued to study the chamber. He planned out how he was going to organize it in his mind, where he was going to put the bookshelves, where he’d put his writing desk and bed, where the kitchen would go, and whatnot. Summer Dawn made it up halfway up the wall before she abandoned it and just floated among the stalactites. “What do you think, Star? We could clear these out, put some furniture in here. We’ll have to do something about that water, though.”

“Don’t go any higher,” he warned after glancing up at her. “There’s a rock bat hibernating in the crack above your head. Get too close and he’ll wake up, and he’ll be very cranky.”

“A rock bat? Those giant bats?” she asked. “I had one try to snatch my headdress once.”

“It was after the gems in it,” he replied. “And they’re aggressive enough to try something like that. Given they’re territorial, it might have been that rock bat that did it,” he mused. “Canterlot is his territory, and he’d attack any other rock bat that tried to move in.”

“Oh really?” she asked archly, looking up at the crack in the roof. “I had nightmares for days after that. It scared the hay out of me.”

“You’re a little too old for revenge,” he told her. “Leave him alone. If anything, having him in the cave will seriously deter any pony that decides to come in here without my permission.”

“What, you can talk to bats or something?”

“Of course not,” he said, rolling his eyes a little bit. “Rock bats are fairly intelligent, and they can be tamed if you know what you’re doing. They’re as smart as dogs, Summer, they can even be taught a few tricks. And thestrals know how to do it. We have experience with bats, for obvious reasons,” he said simply.

“Your mom taught you that?”

“Given that rock bats will attack you if you don’t understand them, yes, she taught me about rock bats,” he replied. “She didn’t teach me how to train one to do tricks, but I know how they behave and I can convince that one to share the cave with me. It won’t be tame like a pet, but we can share the cave and be comfortable with each other.”

“Oh. Neat,” she mused, looking up again. “So, is this it?”

“This is it,” he nodded. “We can come back tomorrow and get started. You can practice in here while I’m working. And the first thing I’m gonna need are some gems. Preferably emeralds and sapphires, those are a rock bat’s favorite.”

“Oh, you feed it, it lets you share the cave,” she realized.

He nodded. “It’s a mutually beneficial relationship, since both of us will be defending the cave from invaders.” He landed on the floor near the water pool and turned towards the opening. “Let’s go before our body heat warms the cave enough for him to wake up. We’re not ready for him yet,” he told her.

“Okay. Let’s go back to your apartment and make a list of what we’ll need. This could kinda be fun,” she said, looking around. “I’ve never done anything like this before. I can use this as a chance to practice some of the magic you taught me in a real life situation.”

“Yup. Practical applications are always the best teaching tools,” he agreed.

It took them nearly three weeks, including a break for Hearth’s Warming Eve, but they got it done.

On a particularly cold afternoon, Starjumper used magic to transfigure a pile of rocks into a dining table, complete with a red tablecloth, and when he set it over by the kitchen area, they were officially done. Summer Dawn fidgeted a bit with the tablecloth using her magic as Starjumper used his magic to hover up over the floor, rising up to the hanging bar that the rock bat used as a perch, and looked down to survey their work. The walls were dominated by bookshelves he had shaped into them rather than building them out, filled with his books and scrolls, and his writing desk sat near the opening, which had been reformed into a closeable door complete with a “bat hatch” that the rock bat could open with a tug on a chain and get out. The rear of the chamber held the kitchen and dining area, and he had couches and cushions in the center of the chamber for them to use. The interior was lit with glowing crystals that were set into the walls that doubled as heat sources, keeping the chamber warm, and he’d shaped ventilation ducts to keep the air fresh inside.

The rock bat looked over at him curiously. Summer Dawn had named him Rocky, and Luna smack him upside the head if it hadn’t stuck. It was an unimaginative, ridiculous name for a bat, but now he was calling the bat Rocky, and the bat seemed to answer to it. The rock bat had accepted him as a roommate after a generous offering of gems, and he fed it a couple of gems a day to make sure that their living arrangements remained amenable. The warmth of the cave and the steady food supply had disrupted his hibernation a bit, but it wouldn’t hurt him. He still slept most of the time, in a lightless nook Starjumper made for him in the ceiling, and he’d wake up for his gems and to survey the changes they’d made to his cave a little bit before going back to sleep. “What?” he asked the bat when he looked over at him.

Rocky rolled his eyes a little.

“Hey, I wanted to keep a few of the stalactites. I thought they added a little aesthetic charm to the room. Blame her,” he accused, pointing down at Summer Dawn.

“They were a hazard,” Summer Dawn answered as she got the tablecloth the way she wanted it. “Aaand, we’re done! All done! It’s finished, Star, finally!”

It had taken them three weeks to clear out the chamber, waterproof the walls, level the floor and drain the pool, build the door, burrow a pipe and tank out to the waterfall that supplied fresh water for the apartment, form the ventilation ducts, and add a few touches, like a second room that Starjumper shaped out of the rock to act as a storage chamber, and a hidden room behind a rock wall, that had no way in except teleportation, where he kept the gems that Summer Dawn paid him…and to keep Rocky from getting into them and eating all his money. It was about the size of the main floor of Princess Twilight’s apartment, and that was more than enough room for him. But the most important part of it was that nopony knew where it was, and even if they did, a vast majority of them couldn’t reach it. Starjumper would never use the door in the daylight, he just teleported in, and at night, the darkness would conceal his comings and goings given that his cave-apartment was a good two hundred feet above the city, more than high enough for him to be invisible in the darkness.

A lot had happened in three weeks, and not all of it was good. Summer Dawn had mastered blind teleportation, and now he was teaching her external teleportation. Fancy Pants had officially finished his tutoring with Starjumper, and could now teleport like a pro, and Fleur de Lis had finished her work on shields and was now working on teleportation herself. In that respect, things were going very well, better than he expected, mainly because all three of his students were very strong magicians and were also very smart, which made teaching them very easy.

When it came to school, things were also going well. They were taking advantage of self study to learn a lot, both of them, as Starjumper abused the school’s library, and used school time to teach Summer Dawn other spells, other magic, expanding her foundation and teaching new disiciplines of magic. She’d learned ten spells over the last three weeks, including the book reading spell…and that was what had truly expanded her learning. She could now use the books in the library, having the spell read the books to her, and she was using it. Luna, was she using it, and not just for school books. Her parents had told him that she spent almost all her free time using the book reading spell while she practiced other magic, listening while she practiced and learning, or having it read her books meant purely for entertainment, like Daring Do books or mysteries. The world of books had been opened up to her, and she was exploring it with tremendous enthusiasm.

That was why he taught it to her.

And just like her, Nightsong had told him the last time she visited that Silver Moon had also mastered the spell, and he was finally able to enjoy books without having somepony read them to him. To say he was ecstatic about it was an understatement.

The bad came outside of school and home. The city of Canterlot was turning against him more and more with each passing day, and not even Princess Twilight had managed to reverse it. She had again made it very clear to the townsponies that the old Lykan stories were wrong, that Starjumper was no danger, no threat, but the rumors persisted. They’d gotten worse over the days, even when what ponies kept whispering about never happened. The full moon had came and went without Starjumper going on a rampage, and not a single foal in Canterlot had woken up with bite marks on them the entire time he’d been in the city. The Princess pointed those things out quite deliberately, but the citizens of Canterlot weren’t listening.

Fear didn’t care about logic. Fear only cared about fear.

As he feared, he had become a complete pariah in the city. He no longer shopped for himself, because any store that allowed him in quickly lost all its other customers, and they stayed away, as if he had contaminated the building with his presence. Saffron had very nearly lost the Tasty Treat, and what hurt Starjumper deeply, Donut Joe had been forced to close his diner when his customers abandoned him. He decided to retire rather than move to another town and start over, but he retired in Ponyville, not willing to live in a city that had treated him like that after he’d run that diner for nearly forty years. He was bitter over it…and Starjumper couldn’t blame him.

Fancy Pants and Fleur de Lis had offered to pay to set him up in a new diner in Ponyville, showing a lot of compassion towards him, but he had declined.

Being connected to Starjumper had damaged Summer Dawn’s family in the social circles. Only their status as the paragons of Canterlot had allowed them to survive the rumors, rumors that ran all the way to the most ridiculous, like that Starjumper had somehow used his Lykan magic to control their minds, and was using them to protect him so he could stay in the city.

Really, that was just stupid. There was nothing in any of the old stories about a Lykan being able to do that…yet ponies were believing it. They were inventing new mysterious powers for him, and by Luna’s moon, there were a couple of them that he wouldn’t mind having, but they were just getting utterly ludicrous. And in this case, his reputation for being a skilled magician was working against him, because they believed he had the ability to do those things because he could teleport.

Despite some of their friends starting to turn against them, Fancy Pants and Fleur de Lis continued to advocate for him, defend him, and for that they had his eternal gratitude. He wasn’t going to stay in Canterlot, but he would be forever grateful to Summer Dawn’s family for believing in him, and he would be there for them if they ever needed him. They had stood up for him, and that had earned them his undying loyalty.

Because of that, because of everything, Starjumper was only seen on the campus of the school now…and even there, the fear was invading. While nopony had pulled their children from the school yet—Princess Twilight made a very ugly threat that any student pulled from the school for the rest of the school year would be permanently barred from Royal service, which in Canterlot was a major blow to their social status—the Headmistress was dealing with daily visits from irate and fearful parents, demanding protection for their foals, colts, and fillies with the Lykan running loose on the campus grounds. He’d had a dislike for Roseglass at first, but now he was honestly appreciative of her, because she was defending him as much as the Princess and Summer Dawn’s family was. She constantly tried to defuse the angry parents, explained to them that the stories were wrong, and by Celestia she should know because she was the Headmistress, and knew more about magic and magical creatures than anypony in Canterlot not royalty. But she had just as little success as the Princess and Summer Dawn’s family had.

So, this cozy room was both his sanctuary and his prison, and he’d made it a gilded cage. It was both functional and warm, with everything he needed and laid out in a convenient and logical manner, and was also built in three dimensions to take into account that he considered the rounded walls and domed roof as much floor space as the floor was. Many of the bookshelves could only be reached by a pony that could walk on walls or self-levitate, he had two bookstands built on the walls, he had a nice napping spot on the ceiling close to one of the warming crystals, and the storage room door was built high off the floor, out of reach for anypony bound by gravity.

The big surprise in this entire project had been the rock bat. While rock bats were very large and very aggressive, they were actually rather cute. They resembled giant fruit bats, what some ponies called flying foxes, except they had thin yet very strong stone skin under their fur, which was like a suit of armor that made them very tough…the reason they were called rock bats. He’d been easy to convince to share the cave, but what was surprising was how much he liked Summer Dawn. He got along with Starjumper, resonating with his thestral blood, but he’d taken an honest liking to the slender unicorn, especially after she brought him a huge gem to eat that was his favorite, a black sapphire. He knew that Summer Dawn would give him treats, and that made him all but flit around the apartment in gleeful anticipation whenever she visited. He was also huge for a rock bat, effectively the size of a large dog and weighing just as much despite being much more slender because of his stone skin, which wasn’t that big a surprise. Canterlot would be prime territory for a gem-eating rock bat, and only the biggest, toughest, meanest rock bat was going to be able to hold it against the many rock bats that would try to move in and take it from him.

“We can start moving in your stuff now, Star,” Summer Dawn said, looking up at them. “Oooh, is Rocky hungry?” she asked, looking to the side, then fishing a large peridot out of her saddlebags. The rock bat dropped off his perch and circled her eagerly, then she used magic to toss it up into the air. The rock bat swooped in and snagged it, wolfing it down, then he landed on the table and nearly knocked her over trying to nuzzle her. “That’s a good boy,” she said lovingly, petting him with her hoof. “Now you need to go take a nap, boy, you’ve been up almost all afternoon. Staying awake so long when you’re supposed to be hibernating can’t be good for you. We’ll try not to bother you too much while we move in, okay?”

He licked her face, making her giggle, then he took off and returned to his perch. He folded his wings around himself and closed his eyes, and just like that, he was asleep.

Seriously, that mare just took over everything in his life, even his roommate.

“The non-essentials, anyway,” he agreed. “I want to get my books over here first. These bookshelves are way too bare, it’s almost scary.”

“Well, this is a good chance for some external teleportation practice,” she grinned eagerly.

“Yeah, no. You’re not ready to teleport flammables yet,” he chided, which made her laugh. He landed beside her. “Ready?”

“Yup.”

“Be back in a while, Rocky. Protect the cave,” he called, which made the rock bat open his eyes, look at him a second, then close them again. He stepped up to Summer Dawn and caused both of them to vanish in a circular burst of golden magic—

—And they reappeared in an inferno!

The heat hit him first, a searing, intense heat that immediately singed away his mane. He stifled a gasp, knowing that inhaling that superheated air would damage his lungs, and he quickly covered both Summer Dawn and himself in a shield to protect her before she did just that. The apartment was on fire! Flames were consuming everything, the smoke rising high enough not to be a threat, but the air inside was so hot that it would kill if they stayed there more than a few seconds! He quickly envisioned a landing point close to the tower but far enough away to be safe from the flames, so he could gather his wits and try to come up with a plan to save what belongings he had that hadn’t burned.

But Summer Dawn had a much better plan, and something he didn’t consider. She raised her head, her eyes intense with concentration, and the magic around her horn changed from pink to blue. A globe of blue energy formed around it, the ice beam spell, and he gave a sudden nod of understanding even as she released it with all of her amazing power. The globe of intense cold expanded away from her with incredible speed, and the sheer cold of it was enough to snuff out every lick of flame that it touched. The fire was extinguished in an instant wherever it was touched by the globe as it expanded to fill the entire large room, turning the air from deadly hot to frigid cold in a heartbeat, so cold that their breath misted, and a deadly miasma of fog and smoke started to descend towards the floor. “The fire’s still burning upstairs!” Starjumper called in a loud, urgent voice, then they heard the wooden support beams overhead start to creak ominously, affected by the sudden change from burning heat to sub-zero cold. “The tower’s going to collapse! Don’t move!” Even as he closed his mouth, his horn blazed with golden magic, and the two of them vanished from inside the tower and reappeared in the air a good hundred feet away, the only safe place he could take them given that the campus grounds may have ponies on it that were attracted by the fire. He caught them in his magic before they fell and held them at a hover as he coughed violently, feeling the pain from the burns on his face and where his mane had been singed off. Summer Dawn’s mane had also been singed, but not all the way, and she had several splotches on her face and neck where her fur had singed off and burned the skin under it.

He was wise to pick his landing point above the ground, because dozens of students were standing on the snow-covered lawn under them, watching the tower burn. They all gasped and staggered back when the top of it collapsed in a loud tearing of stone and snapping wood, then the walls burst outward and the entire structure fell to the earth. A thick cloud of dust mixed with burning embers billowed away from the collapse, which caused some cries of dismay and pain from the spectators as they turned away to shield their faces, and the embers struck them and left singe marks.

He landed in front of them with Summer Dawn, taking a few steps forward, his eyes wide and his face horrified. Almost everything he owned was in there! He’d moved the essentials, and thank Luna he’d moved his money, but his books, all his books, they were gone! His pictures, his journals, the blanket his mother had made for him, his Hearth’s Warming Eve presents, all his keepsakes…gone. They were all gone! A sudden gout of fire roared up from the top of the twisted mass as the fire that Summer Dawn’s spell hadn’t smothered started to spread into the wooden beams that hadn’t been consumed.

What had happened? He hadn’t left anything cooking. There were no open flames anywhere in the apartment, he used warming crystals to heat it.

Summer Dawn stepped up beside him. “Star! Oh, Star! We teleported right into it!” she said in a tremulous voice.

“You saved our lives, Summer,” he told her in a quiet, almost numb voice. “Thank you.”

“I was trying to save the apartment,” she said in a quavering yet rueful voice.

“Serves you right, you filthy monster!” he heard somepony shout from behind them. He snapped his head back over his shoulder and saw Nova standing with his two sycophants, looking smugly happy over the fact that Starjumper’s house had just burned down. “Go back to Tarterus where you belong!”

There was a gasp that rippled through the crowd, and Nova’s nasty grin dissolved into a look of pure fear when he realized that Starjumper had turned to face him, and his face had lost all rational composure. His expression was one of utter, absolute, unmitigated fury, but what frightened Nova, and every pony that could see him, was that all light and color had drained out of his eyes. They were nothing but twin pools of utter black, and wisps of that eternal darkness escaped from the corners of his eyes. His horn flared with an aura of magic, but it wasn’t the gold that ponies had seen, it was a shroud of darkness, pure darkness.

It was coming…from somewhere else. Somepony else. He could hear it, a scream of pain and helplessness and rage and fury that echoed across the eternal darkness and found the only outlet it could, which was Starjumper. It was a song, but a song of hatred and fury and fear and pain, the song of the night twisted into a terrifying nightmare that filled his mind with both horrors and rage beyond imagination, nearly destroying his mind. He couldn’t process it, he couldn’t push back against it, he could do nothing. His own fury had opened the door to this outside force, and it was boiling into him like an avalanche of pain. Before his mind was drowned in a black sea of fury, he could make out only one rational melody of the song. It was under attack. Something was boring into it like a beetle burrowing into the bark of a tree, consuming it, corrupting it, causing unimaginable agony. And that pain became rage, the need to lash out at the one hurting it…hurting him.

There was no control. The rage had come out of nowhere, and it controlled him utterly. The dark aura around his horn spread over his head, down his back, and he felt something that, if he had been rational, would have scared him beyond reason. The black magic reached into him, into the core of his being, and it ripped out what was sleeping. In a sickening sound of tearing flesh, the bones of his wings erupted from his back, and they grew out and expanded with magical speed, chased by the muscle, flesh, and tissue, and then the skin and fur. In half a heartbeat, his thestral wings were out, they were out in the daytime. Wisps of black magic clung to his wings, drifted away from them in tendrils as he snapped them out in a full display. The shadow issued out of his singed head and neck, forming a mane of solid darkness, and it flowed down his tail.

The rage blinded him, covered his vision in a red haze, and dominated his mind. There was nothing there but the need to hurt as he hurt, the need to lash out at his tormentor, the need to kill, and all of his attention was fixated on the one that had caused his rage to be unleashed.

Nova.

The stallion’s eyes widened, and he turned to run. But it was too late. A blast of utter blackness raged from his horn and rampaged across the smoky air, but dark blur streaked down and landed right in the path of the blast. The bolt of black magic struck the figure and stopped, wisps and currents of magic flowing around the figure’s chest. It was a bat-winged pony wearing metal armor, a mare, spreading her wings and squaring off against him with her expression determined. Starjumper’s rage-dominated mind fixated on this new target, one that had dared deny him, and he lunged at her.

Summer Dawn couldn’t fathom what was happening. How? How were his wings out? It was daytime! And what was going on? Why was he surrounded by that black magic?

And what in Celestia’s glorious day was Moonblade doing out of her jail cell? She gasped and took a step back when the two of them collided on the lawn, and she nearly felt sick when she saw blood fly as the two sank their fangs into each other, flesh tearing. They fought like wild beasts, kicking, biting, the smaller mare getting pushed back, but her armor was protecting her from Starjumper’s striking hooves. Starjumper pushed the smaller thestral down under him, but was driven up and over her head when she planted both back hooves in his belly and kicked him off. She rolled through that motion and regained her hooves, then spread her wings and took off, flying up and away with great speed. Starjumper opened his wings and moved to follow, but Summer Dawn snapped out of her shock and sprung into action. She enclosed Starjumper in a shield, and she remembered him telling her that he couldn’t break a shield she made if she put enough into it, so she made it as strong as possible, putting every bit of her strength into it. He rebounded off the inside of the shield, then his face twisted into a grotesque snarl and he drove his horn against the inside. She felt that, felt his magic attack the shield, but she held it firm as he tried to disrupt it.

Moonblade swung around and landed beside her, blood flowing down her neck, shoulder, and foreleg from his fangs. “We have to get him out of here or he’ll kill everypony!” she ordered.

“What’s happening?” she asked, her eyes tearing up as she looked at the thestral.

“It’s the Night Stone!” she answered in a loud voice. “He can’t control it! It’s driven him mad! You won’t hold him long!”

As if that statement was prophecy, Summer Dawn flinched as a magical backlash ripped through her, as Starjumper disrupted the shield she had placed around him. The black aura around his horn had grown even larger, and there was an aura of darkness surrounding him. He lowered his horn at her, and she raised a shield even as a bolt of utter blackness raged from his horn. It hit the surface of her shield and was repelled, splitting into three currents and flowing to the sides and over it. “Keep him distracted!” Moonblade said, taking off again.

Before she could say anything, or do anything, there was a golden burst of magic, and Princess Celestia was standing in front of her! The tall, regal princess took a few steps towards Starjumper, her horn glowing in an aura of magic. “We hear you,” she said in a calm, powerful voice. “We hear your cry. We will help you.” A golden shield formed around her, and another attack from Starjumper was deflected, then the shield dissolved. “He will come and save you. Be strong,” she continued, walking towards him in a slow, non-threatening manner. “He will come. He will make the pain stop.”

Starjumper’s expression changed, his black eyes widening as his head came up.

“You must let him go,” she said soothingly. “We have heard your cry. We will help you. He will answer your call. But you must let him go, before you hurt him. Without him, we cannot help you.”

Starjumper’s eyes seemed to relax, from their shape, and the look of total rage began to slip away from his face. The aura of darkness around him began to fade, evaporating, and Summer Dawn gasped when his wings shuddered, blackened, and then crumbled to ash once the aura of dark magic vanished around them. The blackness bled from his eyes, returning the yellow ones she knew so well, then they rolled up into his head, and he collapsed to the ground.

“Star!” she cried in a strangled tone, charging past the Princess and lowering down by his head. He was out cold, and there was a lingering charge of magic around him.

“Gently, Summer Dawn,” the Princess said in her stately voice. The other three princesses all appeared—no, all five of them appeared!—surrounding him, and he was picked up in an aura of soft blue magic from Princess Cadence.

“What just happened, your Highness? What happened to him?” she asked as Moonblade landed beside his floating body.

“It was the Night Stone, crying out for help. Starjumper is a Lykan, Summer Dawn,” she said, looking back at her. “We now know what that means. He is connected to the Night Stone. He is its guardian, and the Night Stone is in danger. That was the Night Stone reaching out to him in its pain and fear, begging for his help, and he wasn’t ready for it. The Night Stone’s pain overwhelmed him and made him lose control.”

“But, but the legend! He’s supposed to destroy the Night Stone!”

“A lie,” she said calmly. “As are all the stories spread about Lykans in Equestria. The thestrals spread those lies so a Lykan would find no safe harbor with other ponies, would be feared, reviled, and isolated, and thus easier to kill.” She looked back to the burning tower. “And I see that even here in Canterlot, fear can overcome reason,” she said with a gentle, yet bitterly disappointed, voice.

Summer Dawn looked up at her in surprise, but what she said made sense. “But why? If he’s the guardian of the Night Stone, why would the thestrals drive him away?”

“Because when a pony mad for power is presented with a threat to that power, they will do terrible things to keep it,” she answered. “In the ancient times, a single word from a Lykan could dethrone the Night King. Is it a surprise that a Night King, fearful of that power, would have that voice silenced?”

Summer Dawn looked up at her incredulously.

Luna stepped up to Moonblade and Summer Dawn, who were standing side by side next to Starjumper’s floating, unconscious body.

“What’s going on, your Highness?” Summer Dawn asked in confusion, feeling overwhelmed.

“We will tell you very soon, Summer Dawn,” Luna answered, looking down at her. “Both you and Moonblade are involved in this, and we will need your help.”

“Moonshade, your Highness,” she corrected. “I will not be called by that title. It no longer has honor.”

“Twilight, Flurry Heart, take Moonshade and Summer Dawn to the palace. See to their injuries,” Princess Celestia ordered. “Cadence, take Starjumper to the palace and put him into a bed so he can rest. Starlight, Summon Fancy Pants and Fleur de Lis, and send a messenger to recall Nightsong and Comet Tail to Canterlot. Have them get here as fast as Nightsong can fly. Luna and I will be along shortly, just as soon as we deal with this,” she added, looking at the burning remnants of the tower.

“Yes, Celestia. Are you alright to walk, Moonshade?” Princess Flurry Heart asked.

“This is just a scratch, your Highness,” she replied dismissively, despite the fact that blood was flowing down her leg.

The Princesses escorted them towards the palace grounds, and Summer Dawn was too scattered to be able to think much about what had just happened. But she did have the presence of mind to look up at the thestral walking beside her. “Did they tell you what’s going on?”

“Some,” she replied. “And I believe what they said. I can’t believe I almost killed the only pony that can save the Night Stone…from my own mother,” she said in disgust. “She sent me here to kill him to make sure he couldn’t stop her.”

“Couldn’t you do it? Save the Night Stone?”

“Nopony can touch the Night Stone, except the Lykan,” she answered. “I didn’t know about that part, but every pony in the Nightlands knows that you can’t touch the Night Stone. It kills anypony that puts a hoof on it,” she explained. “The magic of the Night Stone overwhelms the idiot, and they die. Horribly.”

“But it won’t kill him.”

“He’s a Lykan,” Twilight injected. “He’s half unicorn, Summer Dawn.”

“He can control the magic!” she gasped.

“So they say,” Moonshade nodded.

“How did they convince you?”

“They showed me,” she answered. “They had ancient thestral tomes, books they couldn’t have possibly faked, and they showed me what my mother and grandfather are doing. They’re trying to resurrect some ancient unicorn king named Sombra, and they’re using the Night Stone to do it.”

Summer Dawn gasped heavily. “Sombra!” she declared.

“So who is this Sombra guy?”

“He enslaved the Crystal Empire and made it vanish for a thousand years when the Royal Sisters defeated him!” she replied. “Then Spike the Dragon destroyed him and saved the Crystal Empire when it returned!”

“So, he’s tough?”

“Oh yes, he was tough,” Princess Twilight said dryly as they went through the gate and entered the grounds.

“Well now, that sounds like a worthy opponent for a thestral warrior,” Moonshade said with anticipation.

Princess Twilight didn’t hide her sigh of exasperation very well. Princess Flurry Heart glanced over at her, and couldn’t resist a bit of a giggle.

She thought about everything she’d learned as Princess Twilight tended her wounds herself with her magic, Princess Flurry Heart tending Moonshade, using the same spell the doctors at the hospital used to heal her burns. Starjumper wasn’t cursed, he was blessed, as a Lykan he was the only pony that had a connection to the Night Stone, and that gave them tremendous political power among the thestrals. And in the past, the old Night Kings of the Nightlands had been so afraid of that fact that they’d killed all the Lykans, made laws to prevent any new ones from being born, and spread the stories about them to make everypony afraid of them in case one was born. And when one was born, they sent out their soldiers to hunt down the newborn foal and kill it before it became a threat, because what just happened made it clear that the Night Stone could act through a Lykan, even across a great distance. Maybe a Lykan had to be a certain age before the Night Stone could use him that way, because nothing like that had ever happened while she knew Starjumper, and it sounded like the Night Stone had been in danger for a while. Why did the Night Stone only do what it did now? Why didn’t it do it when it was first put in danger by Moonblade—Moonshade’s mother and grandfather?

After she was healed of her burns, and even got her mane restored, she was brought into the throne room by the Princess. Moonshade was there, standing in front of the throne in her armor, and the other five Princesses were already there, standing on the dais in front of the twin thrones of the Royal Sisters. Twilight ascended the dais and joined her sister Princesses, then turned to look at them as the doors at the end of the large hall opened. Her parents were escorted in by unicorn guards, both of them looking quite surprised, and they bowed when they reached where Summer Dawn and Moonshade were standing.

“Thank you for getting here quickly, Fancy Pants,” Princess Celestia said calmly.

“I am always at your service, your Highness,” he said easily, looking over at his daughter and Moonshade. “I take it this has something to do with the fire?”

“This concerns Starjumper and your daughter.”

Her parents looked over at her, then her mother stepped forward a little. “What’s going on, your Highness?”

“It’s a complicated thing to explain, and I will go into greater detail when Comet Tail and Nightsong arrive,” she answered. “But to summarize, your daughter is part of one of the ancient prophecies. We have unraveled the meaning of that prophecy and can act upon it, which means we can now speak of it safely.”

Her parents weren’t the only ones that gasped. Summer Dawn gave her a shocked look. She was part of a prophecy?

“We have learned the meaning of the prophecy,” she said, spreading and raising her wings over her back. “The prophecy states that we will call on her, Moonshade, and Starjumper to protect Equestria from a malevolent force known as the King of Darkness, and we have learned who that is. Moonshade’s mother, the Night Queen, is trying to resurrect Sombra using the Night Stone, an ancient relic of great power possessed by the thestrals. Sombra is the King of Darkness from the prophecy. So we have need for Starjumper to go to the Nightlands and rescue the Night Stone from the Night Queen’s clutches, to protect it from harm and prevent Sombra from being returned to the world. If he is brought back and takes the power of the Night Stone for his own, he will not only be far more dangerous than he was when he controlled the Crystal Empire, he will have the thestrals to serve as his army as he tries to conquer Equestria. Whoever controls the Night Stone controls the thestrals.”

“Because Summer Dawn is part of the prophecy, we need her to go to the Nightlands to stop the Night Queen before this can come to pass,” Luna continued. “She is a powerful unicorn magician, and they will need her magic to reach the Night Stone.”

“And I will get us there,” Moonshade finished. “You’ll need a thestral to help once we get to the Nightlands. I know where everything is, and I can help you get inside the Cathedral of Night to reach the Night Stone.”

“Just so,” Princess Celestia nodded. “Moonshade has already pledged her support, for what her mother is doing puts every thestral in the world in danger. If Sombra is awakened, he will drain the Night Stone of its magic, which will give him power over the thestrals. And if the Night Stone is destroyed by that process—“

“We won’t be thestrals anymore,” Moonshade interrupted. “And I can’t let that happen. I love my mother, but I love my kingdom and my race more.”

“That’s awful!” Summer Dawn gasped. “We have to stop them!”

“I’m glad to hear you say that, little slip,” Moonshade said, looking down at her with an approving nod. “The Princess says that you’re the only unicorn that can pull this off, if that prophecy is true. We’re gonna need you.”

“I’ll help,” she declared immediately. “If Sombra comes back, there’ll be a war, and both Equestria and the thestrals will suffer horribly. I won’t let that happen,” she declared adamantly.

“What role does Starjumper play in this, your Highness?” Fleur de Lis asked.

“Starjumper is a Lykan, Fleur de Lis,” Celestia answered. “We have come to learn that Lykans are the guardians of the Night Stone, the only ponies that can touch it, and the only ponies that can safely channel its magic. His thestral heritage connects him to the Night Stone, and his unicorn heritage gives him the ability to control the Night Stone’s magic safely. And that is why the Night Queen sent Moonshade to kill him. He is the only one that can stop them, denying it to them and thwarting their plan. And he will need both Summer Dawn and Moonshade to get him to the Night Stone so he can save it.”

“In the ancient times, it was the Lykans that chose the Night King, by the will of the Night Stone, and could also remove a Night King that displeased the Night Stone,” Luna continued. “From what we learned from ancient thestral history, a Night King in danger of being deposed instead had the Lykans murdered to prevent a new Night King from being chosen to replace him. He also began a campaign of demonizing the Lykans in thestral society and made laws to prevent new ones from being born to further protect his rule. That was how the Clan Wars began, when the Night King died and there was no pony to name a successor. The Night Kings and Queens that ruled after the Clan Wars knew this secret, and continued the practice to protect their power. They knew that the Night Stone would depose them if a Lykan were allowed to speak for it, so they continued to prevent new Lykans from being born, and spread the stories about Lykans to the other realms to further prevent a Lykan like Starjumper from ever coming to be, a Lykan that survived to adulthood and could therefore pose a real threat to the monarch’s rule.”

“But, what happened to him at the apartment?” Summer Dawn asked. “How did his wings come out in the daytime?”

“What happened?” Fancy Pants asked.

“We didn’t know the apartment was on fire, Dad, so we teleported right into it after working on his new apartment,” Summer Dawn answered. “We barely got out alive. There were a bunch of ponies there, including Nova, and he taunted us when we got out. Starjumper’s magic turned black, and he completely went crazy and tried to blast Nova, but Moonshade saved him.”

“The Night Stone is an ancient relic similar to the Tree of Harmony, Summer Dawn,” Princess Celestia answered. “It has an awareness of its own. It is not truly alive, but the power of its magic gives it what you might call a sentience. The Night Stone is in danger, and in a way, what the Night Queen is doing to it is putting it in terrible pain. It was that fear and pain that overwhelmed Starjumper when the Night Stone reached out to him.”

“That was what opened the door for the Night Stone,” Princess Starlight continued. “It was his rage that allowed the Night Stone to reach across the vast distance and touch him, because of the emotion involved. Emotion can enhance the power of magic, Summer Dawn, and given how incredibly disciplined Starjumper is, I’d bet that this is the first time since the Night Stone was put in danger that he’s lost his temper. He has such a tight control over his emotions, it was preventing the Night Stone from finding him, and reaching out to him for help. But when he lost his temper over Nova’s taunts, the emotion opened the door enough for the Night Stone to reach out and touch him. And he wasn’t ready for that.”

“As to his wings, remember what the Night Stone is, Summer Dawn,” Princess Celestia told her. “It is the source of magic that makes the thestrals what they are. With him directly connected to the Night Stone, it awoke the thestral within him and gave him the magic to manifest his thestral heritage.”

“Is he okay?”

“He’s sleeping right now, and we need to let him rest,” Princess Celestia answered.

“Can I see him?”

She gave her a gentle smile. “I’m sure that while we’re waiting for his parents to arrive, you can sit with him,” she replied.

“I just can’t believe it,” Moonshade grunted. “All my life, I was taught that Lykans are a threat to our entire race, only to find out that it was all a lie just so cowards could keep the throne,” she said in disgust. “And even you ponies fell for it.”

Princess Celestia saw her parents’ curious look. “We’ve discovered that it was the thestrals that made up the old stories about Lykans and spread them to the other realms, to ostracize any future Lykans from any society that might take them in. It was done to isolate them, cut them off from any possible protection and assistance, which would make them easier to kill.”

“You were right, dear,” Fancy Pants said, looking at Fleur de Lis. “When you told Starjumper that alone, he was vulnerable. It seems that the thestrals figured that out a long time ago.”

“I didn’t expect to be right in that way,” she answered.

“There’s something we’re missing here,” Moonshade said. “If my grandfather knew the truth, then he would have never made the treaty and let Starjumper live. He would have done whatever it took to kill him as a foal, before he became a threat to his rule.”

“At that time, Moonshade, he was in no position to press the issue,” Princess Celestia said. “The Nightlands was, and still is, utterly dependent on the food we trade them just to survive, so he had no choice but to accept the treaty. The alternative was to watch his kingdom starve, and have his subjects remove him from the throne in retaliation for bringing them such misery. Which, I fear, might be what caused this situation. Their dependence on Equestria for basic necessities exposed the Nightlands as being in a very weak position, which was quite humiliating to your grandfather, and also to your mother. Your mother is trying to resurrect Sombra so he might help the thestrals conquer their neighbors, take what they need to be self-sufficient, to be the mighty empire they once were in the distant past, feared by their neighbors and dominating the continent. She does not understand who Sombra is, what he is, and that his first act will be to kill her once he has the magic of the Night Stone so that he can sit on her throne. So, my dear Moonshade, you will be saving your mother and grandfather from themselves.”

“No. I won’t,” she replied in a flat voice. “There’s only one punishment in thestral law for treason, and what they are doing is treason.”

“Your own family?” Summer Dawn asked in surprise.

“I am a soldier of the Nightlands, and I will carry out justice in the name of my kingdom,” she replied stonily. “My mother and grandfather are putting our entire kingdom, our entire race at risk. They must be stopped, and must pay for their crimes against thestrality in the way thestral law demands. Death.”

Princess Celestia stepped forward to the edge of the dais. “We can explain everything in greater detail when Starjumper’s parents arrive,” she prompted. “Captain, escort Summer Dawn and her parents to Starjumper’s room, so they can be there when he wakes up. Moonshade, there is more we must discuss.”

“I’m at your service, your Highness,” Moonshade nodded, stepping forward.

They were escorted out of the throne room, and Summer Dawn could only feel worried. She wasn’t worried about what she learned, because all of that made sense. It explained everything, all those nagging little holes in everything that had gone on that made everything fall into place. Who he was, what he was, the old stories and legends, everything fell into place to explain it all. And she wasn’t even worried too much about this prophecy and what they wanted her to do. She was quite willing to go to the Nightlands and help, because she knew that it was protecting Starjumper and it was protecting his family, which she had come to adore. His mother was so kind and funny, his father was so smart, his brother so nice, and she loved his sisters. And all of them would be in danger if Moonshade’s family brought Sombra back, and so would all of Equestria.

She wasn’t afraid—well, not so much that she wouldn’t go. And if her magic could get Starjumper in there to save the Night Stone and save both the Nightlands and Equestria, she’d do everything in her power to make it happen.

What worried her was Starjumper. To see him like that, to see the power of the Night Stone take him over that way, it had really scared her. She had seen him with both his horn and his wings, almost like a bat-alicorn, but she remembered how the magic felt. It was too much for him, it had overwhelmed him, overtaken him, and it was hurting him from the inside. That was why Celestia told the Night Stone to stop, because it was hurting him, it was killing him. He had always told her that he wasn’t as strong as he looked, and she had never really believed it until that moment. His skill with magic made him look powerful, but that moment exposed that for the illusion it was.

What worried her, what scared her, was what the Night Stone would do to him when he touched it. Moonshade said that any pony that touched it died horribly, and she was deathly afraid that its power would be too much for him.

The old stories said that if he touched the Night Stone, it would shatter. What she feared was that if he touched the Night Stone, it would shatter him.

Comments

[Alicon Glactistar]

And it keeps getting better.

I want to know who caused that fire.

[Canary In The Coal Mine]

I'm curious what will become of Canterlot. If Celestia will allow the nobles and their games she tolerates to remain now that it risked the ponies most important to her.

*edit* Or the fact that Donut Joe's went out of business for catering to Starjumper and not turning him away.

[FireheartThePone]

Well! Much has happened, and I want more.