The Child of Sun and Moon

by Darkest Night

Whispers

And he thought that Summer Dawn was impressive.

It was clear to him now, her magic wasn’t some kind of fluke. As he sat on his bed in the center of the downstairs watching his two students, he could see why Summer Dawn was so immensely powerful…because both her parents were incredibly strong. Fancy Pants wasn’t that much of a surprise, given that he said he’d already cast the teleport spell, and that required strength. But what Starjumper didn’t expect was that he’d have considerably more potential than that, which he simply had never really developed. He’d lived most of his life concentrating on his social status, and honestly hadn’t been very serious about pursuing magical education. There were spells he’d wanted to learn and tutored for them, like teleportation, but he had done it in such a slapdash way that it seriously hindered his spellcasting skills. He hadn’t learned the techniques, tricks, and skills taught in the magic he didn’t want to learn that he needed to apply to the magic that he did want to learn That had hidden his true potential, even from himself.

But the real surprise was Fleur de Lis. She was just as strong as her husband, with formidable magical potential, which she had effectively ignored most of her life because of her modeling career. Unlike Fancy Pants, who had dabbled in learning advanced magic, Fleur de Lis had never even tried. Oh, she’d picked up a book on spells she wanted to learn from time to time, but had never really buckled down and seriously tried to learn any difficult magic..

But, it was curious to see how Summer Dawn’s interest in magic had sparked something in her parents. He’d spent most of the morning working with them, assessing their strength and learning how they learned, which would tell him how to go about teaching them. What worked for Summer Dawn wouldn’t work for her parents, since every pony had a different approach to learning, and it was absolutely imperative to use what worked for the student when it came to teaching high order magic. That was one of the biggest issues he had with the school, that they had their system and they held to it, and any student that couldn’t work within their system was considered inferior. Summer Dawn had absolutely withered in their system, since it focused on all of her greatest weaknesses. But if the school would have identified her strengths at an early age and worked with her using them, she would already be so far beyond him in both power and education that he would be taking lessons from her.

Both of them were a little perplexed by his approach, he could tell. He’d had Fleur de Lis cast the most basic spells most of the morning, after they brought Summer Dawn after she got her cast off, while Summer Dawn practiced staging teleportation spells and he worked with Fancy Pants to understand what he knew about teleportation, so he could undo all that and teach him the right way. When Fleur de Lis finally seemed to have enough of it and demand to know why she was casting light spells and levitation, he just gave her a steady look from the bed. “Magic isn’t a ladder, Fleur,” he told her. She’d told him he could call her that earlier that morning. “It’s a pyramid. The most basic, fundamental spells are the foundation upon which you build as you learn more complex magic. I can’t teach you a spell at the top of that pyramid until I’m sure that the foundation you’ve laid is going to support it. And from what I’ve seen, you have a fairly strong grasp on the basics of magic,” he said with an approving nod. “There are a few things you need to learn before I can start teaching you teleportation, but it shouldn’t take too long."

“I should hope so, I went to the same school my husband and Summer attend,” she smiled.

“I’d actually hold that against you, now that I’ve seen how that school works from the inside,” he said sourly. “I’m certain you’re strong enough to cast the spell. Now I just need to figure out the best way to teach you. And that’s mainly what you’re doing, showing me how you understand magic, so I know the best way to go about teaching you. What works for you may not work for Fancy Pants, or Summer Dawn. And when it comes to magic like teleportation, what matters most is how you learn it, not how I teach it.”

She gave him a long, appraising look, then chuckled. “You missed your calling, Star. You may be young, but you’re the best teacher I’ve ever seen.”

“Thank my father for that. He didn’t just teach me magic, he taught me how to learn magic. And I guess that lets me help others do it too.”

“Well, it worked. Now, can I do something more interesting than casting light spells?”

“Big mistake, Mom,” Summer Dawn teased from across the room.

“Hush, you, and back to work,” he said, looking in her direction. She giggled a little and stuck her tongue out at him. “Actually, no, wait,” he said, turning his head and using his magic to open a drawer in the kitchen cabinet. He pulled out a length of rope, then floated it over and laid it out on the floor in a circle. “Summer, come over here,” he called.

He ended up getting all three of them, as Fleur de Lis decided to join them at the couch as well. “I think it’s time for your first attempt,” he declared, which made her squeal in delight and jump up and down in place a few times. “You’ve staged the spell correctly enough times for you to try. But before we do, what’s the first rule of teleportation?”

“Mistakes hurt,” she recited.

“Mistakes hurt,” he nodded. “Are you ready for that? The first attempt is usually...messy.”

“I’m ready,” she declared. “Just cast that spell that won’t let my mane burn off.”

“Vain,” he accused, but he did grant her request, fortifying her mane and tail with magic so they wouldn’t burn off if she miscast the spell. “Alright, then,” he said. “Your destination is inside the circle. That’s your location. Your position is unchanged, but your orientation will be facing us. Your motion is nil. Set those parameters in your mind. Put as much detail into it as you can, Summer. The more detailed your perception of your landing point, the less taxing the spell,” he told her. “Picture everything. Not just where you’re going to land inside the circle, but everything around you. How close you’ll be to the wall, the grain of the stone in the floor, how many books are in the bookshelves flanking the window behind the circle. Every detail reduces the amount of energy the spell will drain from you. And that detail applies to your position when you reappear,” he continued. “Imagine exactly how you’re going to reappear, where your hooves are, where your tail is. The more complete your vision of your position, the easier the spell is to cast. And do not ever forget about motion, even if you don’t intend to change it. Remember, it’s the most dangerous of the three aspects you control in a teleport, so always define it as exactly as you can. Leave no room for interpretation. Ever. Take a moment and prepare yourself, Summer. When you’re ready, say so.”

She was quiet a moment. “I’m ready.”

“What kind of spell is this?”

“A snap spell,” she answered, her voice serious and focused. “I have to cast it as fast as I possibly can. The longer it takes, the more energy it takes to make it work.”

“What’s the one thing you don’t want to do?”

“Not put enough magic into the spell. That’ll make me come up short and really, really hurt.”

“Exactly. You can’t overcharge this spell, Summer. As long as your destination is firmly fixed in your mind, it won’t misfire if you overcharge it. So don’t hold back on this first attempt. Give the spell everything.”

That made Fancy Pants’ eyes widen a little, then he nodded in sudden understanding.

“Do you see your destination?”

“I do,” she replied, closing her eyes. “I can picture everything in my mind.”

“Do you know your position?”

“Yes. I can see how I’ll be reappearing. I’ve taken into account that I’ll be reversing my orientation so I’ll be facing back this way when I reappear.”

“Is your motion defined?”

“Yes. I’ll reappear stationary and unmoving.”

“Alright then, Summer. Give it a try.”

She didn’t waste any time. Her horn suddenly blazed with nearly incandescent pink magic as she put everything she had into the spell, a spell she built, charged, and then released in half a heartbeat…but not fast enough.

In a circular burst of pink magic, Summer Dawn vanished from beside the bed…and reappeared barely three feet away towards the circle on the floor, facing them. Smoke was wafting up from her mane and tail, and she staggered to the side on uncertain hooves, disoriented from the attempt. “Did I make it?” she asked woozily.

“Sort of,” he replied mildly, but he was honestly impressed. She’d managed to make the spell go off on her first attempt! That was seriously impressive! “You came up short.”

“Nuts,” she said, shaking off the disorientation. “What did I do wrong?”

“You were hesitant, you didn’t cast it fast enough. But that happens to everypony the first few times. As you get more comfortable with the spell, that problem will fix itself. It just takes practice, practice, and more practice. But, you did manage to teleport, Summer, and on your first try. Well done,” he smiled.

“I did? I did! I did it, Mom, Dad, I teleported!” she squealed in sudden glee, rushing over and giving them a hug, then daring to lean in and give Starjumper a noisy kiss on the cheek.

“So I gave up too soon,” Fancy Pants mused.

“Sort of. You weren’t taught the spell correctly, so it was always going to be almost impossible for you to use,” Starjumper told him. “But we can fix that, with hard work and a willingness to burn yourself like bad toast trying,” he added seriously. “This is not a spell for the meek, Fancy Pants. You will hurt yourself learning this spell, and do it over and over and over until you get it right. The question you need to ask yourself is, do you have the determination to see this through?” he asked firmly.

“If Summer can learn it, so can I,” he replied, giving his daughter a nearly challenging look. “Let me try to land in the circle, so you can see what I’m doing wrong.”

Starjumper nodded as Summer Dawn stepped out of the way. “Go for it, Dad!” she called encouragingly.

“Alright. Picture my destination,” the socialite said, mainly to himself. “Cast quickly. Cast with all my strength. Oh, wait! I don’t want to burn off my mane!” he said. “Would you mind terribly, my good lad?” he asked.

Starjumper smiled slightly, but did cast the spell to protect his mane. “And for good measure, it might be best if you don’t try wearing those clothes,” Starjumper added. His horn flared with golden magic, and the stallion’s tuxedo and monocle vanished in bursts of golden magic, reappearing on the divan behind the bed, neatly folded with his monocle laying atop them. “If you don’t specifically take them into account, you can teleport and leave them behind. And they might catch fire in transit, so best not tempt fate.”

“I say, I had no idea it could do that!” he said in surprise as Fleur de Lis’ eyes widened.

“This spell is far more versatile than you think, Fancy Pants,” he chuckled. “It’s only limited by your creativity.”

“Think of how quickly I could get dressed for a party,” Fleur de Lis laughed.

“It’s not quite as easy to put them on as it is to take them off,” Starjumper warned. “Besides, what I just did is something you don’t do until you’ve got some experience with the spell.”

“Alright then, back to it,” Fancy Pants said, staring intensely at the far side of the room, where the circle of rope was laid out. “Picture my destination. Inside the circle, I want to reappear inside the circle, facing back this way. Picture the destination. Cast quickly, put everything into it.” He took a deep, cleansing breath. “And, GO!”

In an impressively brief instant, Fancy Pants’ horn blazed with azure magic, then he vanished in a circular burst and that chiming sound that accompanied that visual display. He reappeared inside the circle, facing them, and he immediately gave a gasping cry and nearly had his legs collapse out from under him as black smoke sizzled up from several parts of his mane, tail, and back.

“You did it, Dad! You made it to the circle!” Summer Dawn said gleefully.

“I…think I need to have a...lie down,” he said woozily, then his eyes rolled back in his head and he fainted.

“Dear!” Fleur de Lis cried as Starjumper caught Fancy Pants in his magic before he hit the floor. “Is he alright?”

“He’ll be fine, that’s something of a common reaction for neophytes to the spell,” Starjumper said calmly. “You build up a resistance to it. He’ll only be unconscious for maybe a minute or two. Both my father and brother fainted at least once as they learned. That’s what I expected to have happen to Summer, but she cheated me out of my fun. Now I can’t hold it over her head for the rest of her life.”

Fleur de Lis laughed despite herself when Summer Dawn glared icily at him. “It’s not gonna happen now,” she predicted.

“You haven’t made it to the circle yet, either,” he said, giving her a shooing motion with a hoof as he floated Fancy Pants over to the couch and laid him down on it gently. “Your turn.”

Fleur went over to attend her husband as Summer Dawn squared off against the circle on the far side of the room. Her tail slashed behind her a few times as she lowered her head, almost as if she were about to do battle with the rope, which Starjumper found strangely amusing for some reason. “My destination is inside the circle,” she recited. “I see everything about it, everything around it. I know my destination. My position is unchanged, but I’ll be facing back in this direction, a change in orientation,” she said in a quiet, intense voice. “I can see myself inside the circle, standing just as I am now. I know where every hoof is, I know where my tail is. I will have no motion, I’ll reappear standing still.” She took a deep breath, then raised her head. “I’m ready.”

“Go.”

She cast the spell much faster this time, and vanished in a circular burst of pink magic. She reappeared inside the circle, but she reappeared nearly two feet off the floor; she hadn’t defined that she’d be standing on the floor when she teleported. She gave a shocked gasp and nearly fell when she hit the floor, then stumbled out of the circle, got it caught up and tangled around her foreleg and rear leg, and that made her trip and fall over. She laid there a second with smoke sizzling out of her protected mane, then rolled over on her back and gave a burst of embarrassed laughter. “I can’t believe I did that!”

“Maybe now you’re starting to appreciate just how dangerous this spell can be,” he told her evenly. “Put the circle back and try again, and don’t make that mistake again. You could have easily reappeared upside down and landed on your head.”

She gave him a surprised look, then untangled her legs and got back on her hooves. She used her magic to put the rope back in a circle, then trotted back over to him.

“Ohhhh, my,” Fancy Pants said from the couch.

“Feeling better, Fancy Pants?” Starjumper asked.

“The room is spinning. Did I make it?”

“You did, and well done, by the way,” he answered. “I think we can get everything straightened out and having you teleporting like you could do it your whole life in just a week or two. I think you’ve already started to see where your old tutor taught you wrong, and you’re correcting your mistakes.”

“I say, excellent,” he said with growing strength in his voice, sitting up. “And yes, I heard a lot of things different from what you told Summer than what I was taught. My tutor was much more concerned about the spell being built correctly that he didn’t care about how fast it was cast. But strangely, it worked for him. He could cast the spell slowly and teleport without danger.”

“And I’ll bet he couldn’t teleport very far, either. What, across the room? Maybe a block or so?”

Fancy Pants gave him a surprised look as he nodded.

“Your tutor hamstrung himself,” Starjumper told him. “I can teleport nearly fifty miles, and I’m not all that strong, because I know how the spell works. This spell is my special talent, Fancy Pants, I earned my cutie mark the first time I did it, so excuse me if I say that I probably know this spell better than any pony in Equestria. And I’m going to teach you and Fleur everything I’ve learned from my years of experience with it.”

“I say, my lad, teach on,” he said with a bright smile.

“We’ll get started as soon as Summer recovers. She’ll be practicing the spell while I explain the mechanics behind how the spell works for you and Fleur.”

“I’m ready now,” she said eagerly. “I so want to learn this!”

So, while Summer Dawn practiced teleporting into the circle, Starjumper explained the mechanics of the spell to his two newest students…and he felt strangely good about it. He rather liked both of them, and he did enjoy teaching. But most of all, he felt strangely liberated, able to talk to other ponies about the spell that defined his magical ability, the one spell he could do better than anypony else. Things got a little crowded in the apartment when his family arrived, having taken a tour of the Royal Palace given by Princesses Twilight and Starlight now that he was feeling better. They were able to do a little sightseeing now that they didn’t feel that they needed to spend every moment with him. Silver Moon and Comet Tail sat in with the training session as the fillies disrupted Summer Dawn’s practice, and Nightsong took control of the kitchen and started making lunch. After he finished explaining the quirks and limits of the spell, he made abundantly clear to warn them about the dangers the spell could pose. “Yeah, you might want to listen to the limits of changing motion part,” Silver Moon grunted. “I screwed that up so bad that I ended up in the hospital for a few days.”

“I warned you,” Starjumper said lightly.

“Well, I didn’t think it could be that serious. Boy, was I wrong.”

“How long did it take you to learn?” Fleur de Lis asked him.

“Five or six moons,” he answered. “He didn’t just teach me the spell, he and Dad taught me a bunch of other things about magic before I was ready for it. I’m not all that good at it, I can’t teleport nearly as far as Dad and Star can. But I have to admit, it’s beyond useful.”

“I’ll need to teach you staging, then teach you how to be aware of your surroundings so you can teleport safely,” Starjumper told her. “You know just about everything else.”

“What is staging?”

“Casting a spell without actually casting it, a way to practice complicated spells safely,” Comet Tail answered.

“What I had Summer Dawn doing when you first got here,” Starjumper nodded. “She was casting the spell in every way but having it actually go off. It’s a practice technique Dad taught us, and I can’t tell you how useful it is.”

“Oh, something like shell casting,” she said. “That’s the technique they taught in school.”

“It’s a viable technique, but Summer Dawn needed to learn staging due to the way she learns,” Starjumper said. “I’ll teach you staging and let you decide which technique works best for you. What matters most is what helps you learn best, Fleur. If you prefer shell casting to staging, then we go with shell casting.”

“And that’s what makes you such a good teacher, Star,” she smiled. “But there’s something else I want to learn, too. Shields. I’ve never been able to get them quite right, so maybe you can help me fix it.”

“I can teach you that,” he replied confidently. “Shields are a very good introduction to teleportation, both require an awareness of your surroundings and the ability to think and cast very quickly.”

“Hey now, Mom, he’s my tutor,” Summer Dawn protested. “You’re going to use up my tutor time!”

“Then pay me more,” Starjumper replied. “If my time is suddenly this valuable, I’m going with whoever offers the most gems.”

That caused half the room to break into laughter, especially with the very tart stare Summer Dawn leveled on him.

“I’d be happy to give you some help, son,” Comet Tail said. “I can help Fleur with staging while you’re working with Summer Dawn. It looks like she’s getting the hang of teleporting short distances.”

“She is,” he nodded, all five of them watching as she again teleported into the circle, and this time she did it with barely any visible indication that it was hard on her. There was no smoke wafting out of her mane, no disorientation or weakness. She looked around, nodded in satisfaction, then trotted back to her starting point to do it again.

It was a stark demonstration of just how gifted that mare truly was. To be able to teleport without side effects just hours after her first attempt, it showed just how amazing she was. He couldn’t look at her and not again be humbled and amazed at both her incredible power and her innate, instinctual ability to use magic.

“Star,” Fleur said, which made him blink and look back over at her. She had a slight smile on her face.

“Sorry. I was deciding if she’s ready for the next step. Given how easily she’s landing in the circle now, I think she is,” he noted.

“Now it’s gonna get messy,” Silver Moon chuckled.

“What’s the next step?” Fancy Pants asked.

“Teleporting to a place she can’t see,” Starjumper answered. “Trust me, Fancy Pants, doing that makes what she’s doing now look like she’s levitating a teacup. Dad, you have any healing tonic left over?”

“Quite a bit,” he replied. He looked to the side, and a small wooden box appeared on the writing desk in a circular burst of azure magic.

“Oh dear,” Fleur said worriedly.

“I told you the first rule of teleportation, Fleur. Mistakes hurt,” Starjumper said simply. “I know you’re tough enough to learn the spell, but trust me when I say that Summer’s more than tough enough. That mare has guts, just like her mother.”

She gave him a sudden smile at his praise not of her beauty, but of her fortitude.

“Summer,” he called, carefully getting up off the bed and walking towards the rope.

“Get back in bed!” she barked commandingly, pointing with her hoof.

“Don’t order me around, sassy mare,” he retorted as he picked up the rope with his magic, floating it over to him. As soon as it was close enough, both he and the rope vanished in a circular burst of golden magic, and he reappeared on the edge of the second floor, looking down at them. “Come up here. And I mean walk,” he elaborated.

She all but galloped over to the stairs and came up, and she followed him as he turned and walked into the middle of the bedroom. “You’ve gotten the hang of the basic application of the spell,” he told her. “And well done. That’s way faster than my father or brother managed it.”

She beamed at him.

“But that was the easy part. This is the part that will make you scream in frustration, and this is the hardest part of this spell to get right.” He walked to the middle of the room and floated the rope over, then laid to down on the floor near the far wall, right in the middle of the large panoramic window that gave him a view of the Royal Palace. “See where I put the rope?”

“Yeah.”

“Study that spot, Summer. That’s your new landing point.”

She advanced past him and looked around carefully, not just at the rope, but at the room around it, exactly as he taught her. After a few minutes, she turned and nodded to him.

“Alright.” He stepped up to her, then he teleported both of them back to the first floor, near where the bed was set. She blinked and looked around, then looked up at the second floor as she started to understand the objective of the task. “That’s right. Now you’re going to ‘port to a place you can’t see,” he affirmed. “And trust me, Summer, this is the part that you’re going to hate. Teleporting to a place you’re looking at is foal’s play compared to this. Now, close your eyes and picture your landing point. Put every bit of detail into it that you can, because this is where it’s going to matter,” he warned. “Tell me when you’ve got your landing point envisioned.”

She was quiet a long moment, her expression one of intense concentration. “I have it,” she finally said.

“Now hold that image as you define your position.”

“I’ve got it,” she relayed after a moment.

“And finally motion. Define it in your mind, as exactly as you can.”

“I have it.”

“Alright then, Summer, keep in mind that this time, you’re teleporting to place you can’t see, and you’ll be crossing through a solid object, the wall and floor. So if you come up short, you’ll be inside another object. And I told you what happens when you do that.”

“I’m not afraid,” she said in a distant voice.

“Then so be it. Whenever you’re ready.”

She took a deep breath, and that was all she waited. Her horn blazed with intense pink magic, then she vanished in a circular burst of energy. And not even half a second later, they all heard her pained squeal from upstairs.

“She came up short,” Silver Moon noted to her parents, to which Comet Tail nodded.

“Ow ow ow ow ow!!!” she cried from upstairs. “My tail’s on fire!” she screamed.

Starjumper returned to the bedroom in a burst of magic, then he saw that she did in fact have a small flame burning in her tail. She had a few singe marks on her coat as well, including a blackened nose. He put out the lick of flame by smothering it with magic, then he walked slowly over to her, still feeling a bit of a twinge in his chest. “You alright?”

“Yeah, give me a minute,” she said, trying to get her breathing under control. “Luna’s moon, that was not fun.”

“Welcome to getting it wrong. Now you know what to expect,” he told her, rubbing the soot away from her nose with a hoof. She looked up at him, and for a moment, he didn’t see anything but her lovely pink eyes, nearly the same color as her mother’s, but a little darker, like the sunrise on a summer morning.

She truly was so beautiful.

He blinked and snapped back to reality, then turned away from her maybe a little too quickly for it to look natural. “You feel up to another try?”

“In a second,” she replied. “I definitely feel scorched.”

“Like I told you, any time you get moved against your will in the otherspace, it creates a massive amount of resistance,” he said evenly. “Take all the time you need and come back down when you’re ready.”

Before she could answer, he vanished in a circular burst of golden magic and reappeared back on the bed, laying sedately on his belly.

“She alright?” Fleur de Lis asked.

“Just a little singed,” he replied. “She came through it much better than Dad did the first time he did that.”

“I had second degree burns,” Comet Tail grunted.

To Summer Dawn’s eternal credit, her painful miss did not discourage her. She came down the steps and returned to her starting point with a resolute look on her face, then turned to face the open area where second floor sat over the far wall. “Okay, okay, okay, start from the beginning,” she said to herself. “Destination.”

The next hour or so increased his respect for Summer Dawn exponentially. She came up short again and again, singed herself again and again to the point where the apartment was starting to smell like burnt fur, but she wouldn’t quit. She’d clean off the soot, take a moment to recover, then come right back down and try again. She only stopped when Starjumper made her, to take a break so she could rest a little bit and also eat the lunch Nightsong prepared for them. She cooked black root stew, a thestral specialty, and it surprised Summer Dawn and her parents a little bit. “Wow, this is spicy!” Summer Dawn blurted after taking a bite.

“Thestrals like everything to be an adventure, ducky, even our food,” she grinned in reply. “Be lucky I didn’t make you firebean casserole.”

“Well, I like it,” Summer Dawn smiled back.

“This is good,” Fleur de Lis agreed.

“I do agree, this is quite good, Nightsong,” Fancy Pants agreed.

“And here I thought Canterlot unicorns wouldn’t have any sense of taste,” she smiled.

“I guess this is as good a time to tell you as any, son, we’ll be leaving tomorrow afternoon,” Comet Tail announced. “We’re certain you’ll be fine now, and we’re three days overdue to reopen the shop. No doubt most of our customers think something must be wrong.”

“That’s fine, Dad, I didn’t expect you to stay all winter,” Starjumper answered. “And you’re right, I’ll be just fine. With as much tonic as you left, I should be fully healed in about a week. Well, everything but my wing, anyway.”

“And we’ll be here to make sure he takes it easy until he’s well,” Summer Dawn declared.

“We’ll keep an eye on things,” Fancy Pants promised. “Has the Princess said when you’ll be returning to school?”

“Monday, though I’d rather just not go back,” Starjumper grunted.

“Hiding in the apartment is the last thing you need to do, Starjumper,” Fleur de Lis told him. “If you want the ponies of Canterlot to accept you, then you have to let them see you. Interact with you. See that the stories are wrong. If you spend all your time hiding in here, you just give them a reason to think that you have something to hide.” She saw his expression, then gave him a gentle look. “I know it’s going to be hard for you. You’ve lived your entire life hiding something, and now everypony knows about it. We’ll be here for you, Starjumper. Remember that. We stand with you, and we’ll do everything we can to make everypony in Canterlot see the pony we know, not what the old stories say you are.”

“And that’s half the reason we’re alright with leaving,” Comet Tail said seriously. “He couldn’t have asked for better friends in your family.”

“After everything he’s done for Summer, not to mention us, of course we’re here for him, Comet,” Fancy Pants said easily. “Are you going home for Hearth’s Warming Eve, Starjumper?”

“I hope so. I should be healed enough to fly by then,” he answered. “I’ll fly down the night before and fly back the next night.”

“Well then, I guess you won’t accept if we invite you to our house,” he chuckled.

“I dunno, you may have better food,” he said with a glance towards Nightsong. And she naturally rose to the bait.

“If you think you’ll enjoy yourself more with Summer Dawn and her parents, you go right ahead, pup,” she declared. “That’s just more stuffed ice peppers for the rest of us.”

“Another thestral dish?” Fleur de Lis asked.

“Our traditional Hearth’s Warming meal,” Comet Tail answered. “It’s a major hassle to get the ice peppers, but it’s worth it. They only grow in Gryphony, the griffon kingdom on the eastern continent.”

After lunch, almost as if it was some planned move, both his parents and Summer Dawn’s parents left the apartment. Silver Moon took the fillies out into the city, which left them to their own devices. And that was practice. Starjumper laid on the bed and read, keeping a passive eye on his student as she practiced teleporting to a place she couldn’t see…and finding out that it was in no way as easy as teleporting across the room to a place she could see. But he had to give it to her, she did not stop. Even when she was covered in singe marks and had several first degree burns, her mane and tail were dusky from all the soot and ash clinging to the hair, she kept trying, and kept trying, and kept trying. He was about to make her stop just out of mercy before she finally managed to reappear inside the circle, and when she did, she gave a nearly ear-splitting scream of joy and almost broke her foreleg again when she slipped trying to run down the stairs and careened off of them. Luckily for her, Starjumper was paying enough attention to catch her with his magic, setting her on the floor. “I did it! I did it! I DID IT!” she screamed, loud enough to make him wince given she was right beside him for that last shriek, and she made him wheeze and wince when she nearly slammed into him trying to hug him.

“Well done,” he told her with a wince. “Now let go of me before I start coughing up blood.”

She gave him a startled look, then let go of him hastily and backed off. “Are you okay?”

“Better than you are at the moment,” he said, regarding her sorry appearance. “You really need to learn to take a moment before you try again. And I think this is a good place to stop,” he decided. “You’re tired, you’re a bit toasted, and you smell like a fireplace.”

“I don’t care about that,” she said quickly. “And I’m not that tired! I can practice some more!”

“You can practice at home,” he told her with a steady look. “You need practice with the spell, you still aren’t casting it fast enough. So mark out a landing point in your room and practice teleporting to it, someplace you can see. Work on your casting speed for now, that’ll help when you go back to trying to ‘port to a place you can’t see.”

“What about you?”

“I’m going to take a nap,” he told her. “And Summer.”

“What?”

“Congratulations. You can teleport.”

She gave him a smile so bright that it could have lit up Tarterus.

“And since the whole city knows what I can do…I suppose there’s no reason for you to keep it a secret,” he added casually. “Now that you’ve managed to cast the spell, at this point they can’t stop your lessons else you’ll hurt yourself.”

“Are you saying I can show off to my friends?”

“A little,” he said, which made her explode into laughter.

“If you’re tired, you get some sleep. I’m gonna go find Crystal and Berry and show them my new trick, then get in some more practice.” she grinned at him.

“Have fun,” he said with a yawn, showing off his fangs. “But you might wanna take a bath before you go out. You look like you lost a fight with a dragon.”

She gave an earnest laugh, then trotted over to him. “Thank you for trusting me enough to practice on my own.”

“Now that you’ve tasted what failure feels like, I’m sure you won’t get too adventurous,” he said mildly, which made her laugh and nod in agreement. “Make sure you take a vial of healing tonic with you. You’re going to need it.”

“I do feel a little burned in a couple of places,” she agreed, turning her head. A glass vial rose out of the box sitting on a table near the door, holding his father’s supply of healing tonic.

“Make sure you eat something after using it,” he reminded her.

She gave him an earnest, brilliant smile, then floated a folded blanket over, spread it out, then laid it over him. “I’ll see you in the morning,” she told him. “We’ll get in a little practice before we see your family off on the train.”

“Alright.”

She hurried out of the apartment, leaving him to his peace and quiet, which he’d felt was a bit in short supply since his injury. He was the kind of pony that liked his space, even when he was living back at home, and the peace and quiet let him organize his thoughts as he rested on the bed. He wasn’t lying about being a little sleepy, a side effect of the tonic since it used much of his own energy to heal him. He closed his eyes after another yawn and settled his head on the bed between his forehooves.

The balcony door opened, and he opened his eyes and nearly jumped to his hooves on the bed with Princess Celestia strode in. She was tall, so incredibly tall, and regally beautiful. Her horn glowed with the same color magic as his own as the door closed behind her, her lovely pink-irised eyes turned in his direction. “It’s about time they left you alone,” she said in a rich, gentle voice as he scrambled down off the bed, then bowed awkwardly. “And how do you feel, Starjumper? Better, I hope?”

“Princess Celestia! What are you doing here?” he blurted.

“You, my young pony,” she replied in a stately cadence, walking towards him.

“I already told Princess Twilight—“

“This has nothing to do with that,” she replied. “This has to do with the treaty, and what may come next. Since this affects you, I felt it was only fair to speak with you about it before any decisions are made.”

He looked up at her when she reached him. “The thestrals are threatening war.”

She gave a single nod, then flicked her muzzle towards the bed. “Back in bed with you. You’re still mending.”

“Yes ma’am,” he said, getting back in bed and laying down. She sat down on the divan facing him, taking up the entire thing with her tall, elegant body.

“As you mentioned, the missive we’ve received from the Nightlands this morning is not encouraging,” she told him. “The Night Queen is threatening to attack if we do not turn you over to them. But understand this, my young one. We will not, under any circumstance, give you up. I will not be party to the ending of an innocent life,” she declared with vehement nobility.

“I appreciate that, your Highness,” he said honestly.

She gave him a gentle smile. “That means that there is a question that I must ask. Where do you stand in this, my young one? Will you abide by any future treaty we make that confines you to Equestria?”

“I’ll do whatever you need me to do, your Highness,” he replied immediately.

“But what do you want to do?” she asked.

“I want them to leave me alone,” he replied immediately. “And if that means I’m confined to Equestria, then that’s fine with me.”

She gave him a long look, then nodded. “I’ll inform the others of your position. And what of living in Equestria now, Starjumper? I’ve been told that your secret has been revealed. Are you alright?”

He gave her a sincere look of appreciation. “I don’t know what’s going to happen next,” he said honestly. “I’m not sure they’ll accept me, your Highness. Superstition has a way of upsetting the common sense of even the most rational ponies. All it’s going to take is just one pony that simply won’t accept that the old stories are wrong to make my life a nightmare.”

“There’s something you can do about that, Starjumper, and that’s show them that they have no reason to believe the old stories,” she told him. “Hiding in your apartment is not the way to go about forging a life for yourself. That’s why I fully support Princess Twilight’s decision to have you continue to attend school.”

He considered telling her about North Star and his crusade, but decided against it. That wasn’t really her problem, and he wasn’t going to burden her with it. Besides, Fancy Pants and Fleur de Lis seemed quite able to deal with it.

“That…won’t be easy,” he said quietly. “I’m already dreading Monday.”

“I know, and I understand. You’ve spent your entire life living a certain way, and now everything has changed. I can imagine how frightening it must feel,” she said with compassion. “Like the anchors of your life have been pulled up and now they flail in the winds of a tornado.”

He gave her a surprised nod.

“All I can tell you, my young Lykan, is hold fast to the anchors that remain,” she told him. “And it seems that you have quite a strong one in Summer Dawn and her family. They are good ponies, Starjumper, and your friendship with them will not steer you wrong,” she suggested in a gentle yet sober voice. “How goes Summer Dawn’s tutoring?”

He gave her a long look. “You know everything, don’t you?”

She just smiled at him.

He could only shake his head, which made her give a titter of laughter. “She not only managed to teleport today, but she’s competent enough to let her practice on her own. She’s…she’s just incredible, your Highness. Really, I shouldn’t be the one teaching her. She should be studying under you. What she can do, what she’s capable of…it’s far beyond anything I could ever hope to do. There are some things I simply can’t teach her. She needs somepony like you to guide her.”

“And I’ll be happy to help her down that road when she comes to it,” she told him. “Until then, it’s best if you are the one that leads her to that new path. You understand her, my young pony. I dare say better than any of her teachers.”

“Did you know about her?”

“I’ve met her a few times, but I didn’t know the extent of her talent,” she answered. “Contrary to what you may believe, Starjumper, I don’t know everything,” she smiled. “But I must say, I’m even more impressed by your ability to teach than her ability to learn. I think, after school, that you and I might be discussing you staying in Canterlot as a teacher.”

“As long as I stay far away from your school,” he said honestly. “Seriously, your Highness, you need to go take a long look at it. They nearly ruined Summer Dawn.”

“And what do you find objectionable about it?”

“They teach a system,” he replied. “A system that has no room for any pony that won’t fit in it. So, while it works great for the ponies that excel under that system, it’s actually harmful to ponies like Summer Dawn. They taught her from an early age that because she can’t learn under their system, then she’s a bad student. She’s not, she just learns in a very different way than the way they teach, but they didn’t care about that. They never tried to understand why she couldn’t learn, they just wrote her off because she wasn’t compatible with their treasured process. That kind of inflexibility is destructive.”

She gave him a long look, then nodded in understanding. “I think while I’m here, I’ll have a long talk with the Headmistress,” she told him. “Summer Dawn proves that your argument has merit, Starjumper. But, if you don’t want to work for the school, perhaps I could convince you to remain as a private tutor? There are bound to be other young ponies in Canterlot struggling with a system that does not work for them. I’m sure you can teach them.”

“I…I guess. I mean, I actually don’t mind tutoring that much, Summer Dawn makes it kinda fun. And I suppose if I work on my own schedule, I can continue my own studies while I’m tutoring other ponies.”

“I dare say that you’re going to have quite a long line of students once your work with Summer Dawn and her parents becomes common knowledge in Canterlot,” she smiled. “You have a gift, my young pony, the gift to make others understand very complex magical subjects in very simple terms. If you can teach a spell like teleportation to ponies not regarded in Canterlot for their magical power, ponies like Summer Dawn and her parents, there is no doubt in my mind that they will fight over who contracts your services first. And with a reputation like that, one of accomplishment and respect, I believe that you’ll find that what you are won’t matter so much as who you are.”

“But Summer has far more talent than I do.”

“They do not know that, Starjumper,” she smiled, a bit impishly. “From their point of view, you have taken a marginal student and turned her into the jewel of her class.”

“Well…I guess. But it seems almost like a lie.”

“How long have you lived in Canterlot, young one?” she asked pointedly.

He gave her a surprised look, then laughed despite himself. “Why do you let that silliness go on?”

“Because it keeps them out of trouble,” she replied with a slight smile. “So long as they cause mischief for each other, it keeps them from causing mischief outside of Canterlot. Besides, at my age, keeping tabs on their shenanigans is a pleasant distraction from the daily routine. They amuse me, so I permit them their silly games.”

He just had to laugh. “You are truly wiser than I ever expected, your Highness,” he told her.

She smiled. “Spoken like a thestral,” she winked. “My advice to you, young one, is to not hide. Not in this apartment, nor what you are capable of. The need to keep it a secret as a potential weapon against the thestrals is past. Let them see who you are, and your magic is a part of who you are. In a way, it defines you,” she said, looking at his cutie mark meaningfully. “Let them see the pony I have grown to admire over the last few years.”

He blushed at her praise.

“I know it won’t be easy for you. You are a pony of secrets, and with your secret exposed, it has undercut one of the foundations of your life. All I can tell you is that it’s best for you to try. The worst thing you can do is withdraw from Canterlot and hide in your apartment, Starjumper. It will make you look like you have something to hide. And given what the townsponies know about you now, that is not a wise thing to do. You are a Lykan, Starjumper Astra,” she proclaimed in a strong voice. “You have never been ashamed of who you are. Do not be ashamed of it now.”

He gave her a long look, then nodded. “I’ll do my best. And thank you, your Highness. For believing in me.”

“You make that easy, Starjumper,” she smiled, climbing off the divan and walking up to him. He looked up at her almost adoringly, noting that she tilted her head almost quizzically as she looked down at him. “I must admit. I think you look better as a thestral,” she told him. “It does suit you.”

“It’s the eyes, your Highness,” he chuckled. “They just don’t go very well with a unicorn horn.”

“You just might be right. Now, since I think I interrupted your nap, I’ll leave you to get some rest. I believe I’m going to have a little chat with Headmistress Roseglass before I leave Canterlot.”

“Where are you going, if I might ask, your Highness?”

She gave him a steady look. “The Nightlands,” she replied. “There is something going on over there, my young one, something more than we can see. What the Night Queen is doing is illogical, and there must be a deeper reason for her actions, something she is hiding from us. Both Luna and I are going to go investigate.”

“Be very careful, your Highness, especially right now.”

“We will,” she told him. “And thank you for your concern.”

“Safe journey, your Highness.”

“Thank you. And keep your chin up, Starjumper. Things are going to work out. I have a good feeling,” she smiled, then she turned and strode on her long, long legs towards the balcony door. It opened by her magic and she stepped through, then turned and gave him a final gentle smile as she looked back at him as the door closed.

He laid back down and closed his eyes, considering her visit. She was right, of course. Summer Dawn told him the same thing, but to hear it from her, that made it much more, well, serious. If he wanted to be accepted by Equestria, he had to show them they had nothing to fear. He was the same pony now he was before they knew what he was, so what he should do is go right back to his routine, a routine so regimented and predictable that ponies were joking that they could set their clocks by his movements. It would carry the risk of ponies knowing where to find him, but it would also show them that he had nothing to hide, and that he wasn’t afraid.

Well, he was, a little bit. He wasn’t afraid of what ponies may say or do, he was afraid that they wouldn’t see him for who he was. He was afraid of spending the rest of his life hiding on top of a mountain in a huge, empty house he shaped out of stone, a house that would be empty, a house that would be lonely.

A house without Summer Dawn.

He gave another side and shook his head a little. He had to get that mare out of his head. By the Summer Sun Celebration, he would be done teaching her, and it was best for both of them if they stayed away from each other. She had a bright and promising future ahead of her as one of the most prominent magicians in all of Equestria. She would have it all; money, fame, power, admiration, and respect. And he…was a Lykan. He could only bring her down. And besides, he’d be busy himself.

The idea of tutoring…that didn’t seem all that bad. He could pick and choose who he taught, and could teach on his own time. All he had to do was make sure that he earned enough to survive in Canterlot.

No, he didn’t even have to do that. The steep mountainsides above and below Canterlot weren’t owned by anypony. He could use the stoneshaping spell to carve out a place for himself on the cliffside above the city, high enough that the entry to his home wasn’t easy to see but giving him quite the commanding view of the city. He could shape the entry so a pegasus pony would have a bear of a time trying to get in by using an extremely narrow vertical tunnel, something that he could easily navigate by walking up and down the walls.

That idea truly appealed to him, so much so that as soon as he could fly again, he was going to go scout out potential locations. And once he found the ideal spot, he’d begin shaping his home out of the rock. He could get it done in just a couple of weeks, using the stone from inside the space as material for transfiguration, turning it into furniture. He could even pull in some clouds and use them inside, since he could walk on clouds like a pegasus pony as a thestral or a unicorn. He had the chance to make something uniquely his own, tailored to him and his rather unique aspects.

It was enough to rouse him out of his desire to take a nap. He floated over a large piece of parchment and set it on the writing desk, then brought over a quill and started sketching out a rough idea of the floorplan for the house, which would be truly three dimensional. He had almost unlimited space available since it would all be inside the mountain, and he would need to design the initial house with the idea that he would be expanding it later. He just had to design in some ventilation for the deepest rooms so the air didn’t become stale, and that would be relatively easy by using physics and the properties of warming air to create a vertical ducting system that would circulate air through the house by pulling in cooler air from outside along the bottom of the dwelling, where it would heat up inside and rise, then exit through vents at the top. All he needed were permanent heat sources within the ducting system to heat the air and induce motion, and that wouldn’t be all that hard. He knew of a spell that could be permanently enchanted into a crystal that made it radiate a pleasant heat. That would heat the abode in the winter by warming the air flowing in, and in the summer, he could reverse it by using the reverse of the spell, creating crystals that would chill air, which would cause the airflow to reverse to flow from top to bottom.

He could even install flowing water inside. There were three different streams that flowed from the mountaintop down to Canterlot by waterfall, and he could tap into that water without diverting the main flow. He could shape a pipe that would draw only the water he needed from one of the streams, using a gravity feed system that would cause the pipe to stop drawing water once the holding tank to which it was connected reached a certain water level. He had enough experience with plumbing from the indoor water they had in the shop to build a simple water system that would feed water to his kitchen for cooking and drinking. He could even install a drain system for the waste water that would send it…well, he’d figure that out when he found the ideal spot. He didn’t want to send any wastewater down to Canterlot, so he might have to build a wastewater tank and build a rather long pipe system that would send the wastewater to another side of the mountain…or send it under Canterlot and let it drain coming out of the rock face under the city. There were any number of storm drain and sewer pipes that let out under the city, and he could just join his wastewater pipe to that system. Trash, that wasn’t going to be a problem at all, thanks to transfiguration magic. He could just permanently transfigure the trash into something less trashy, even use it as a raw material, or just transfigure it into water and send it down the drain. A little magic would make it easily managed.

The bathroom situation…he could manage that as well. But, that would require a little magic, just like the trash.

Yes, he could do it. He could create a large, expansive dwelling inside the mountain that would have ample fresh air and be very comfortable no matter what season. It would be built by him, for him, catering to his unique needs and comforts. And he wouldn’t have to pay any pony a single bit. The cliff over the city wasn’t owned by anypony, and the Princesses wouldn’t complain so long as he didn’t drastically reshape the rock face. He could make everything he needed himself, using the stone left behind as he excavated the rooms as the material from which he’d transfigure his furniture and other necessities. His home would be discreet, secretive, just like him, a grand estate of shaped stone and aesthetics unique to him, hiding the truth behind a natural wall of rock.

The Waterfalls…ha! He could build a vast dwelling three times the size of the Waterfalls inside the mountain, shaped out of the rock, a place so large that would almost be ludicrous. And the beauty of it would be, nopony would ever know it was there.

He got so engrossed in the idea of it, the challenge of it, the fun of it, that he completely forgot about Monday.

But Monday certainly didn’t forget about him.

Right on time, he stepped out of his apartment door, took a deep breath in the chilly winter air, and then shook himself and got down to business. His chest was almost completely healed, it only felt a little tight when he moved certain ways, but his wing was still in a splint for the next five days. And after it came out of the splint, he wouldn’t be flying for at least two weeks due to the fact that the bone needed time to fully heal, so it was strong enough to withstand the stresses flight placed upon it.

He came down the steps after locking the door, and again, that feeling of utter vulnerability swept over him, nearly made him teleport right back into the apartment. He was outside, he was alone, and he had this irrational feeling that there was a pony behind every corner and curtain in every window, and they were all watching him. Judging him. Sharpening their pitchforks. While the three ponies visible on the Promenade didn’t stop and stare at him, he still felt like every eye in Canterlot was upon him. He turned away from the school once on the wide avenue and headed for Donut Joe’s, which was on the corner of the Promenade and Gem Street, across the corner from the Corner Café. Two ponies passed him walking the other way, and he tried his best not to stare at them, watching to see if they stared at him. He’d never seen them before, and they seemed to be too involved in talking with each other to pay much attention to him.

He had to resist the urge to look back at them after he passed to make sure they didn’t turn around and start following him.

His heart wouldn’t slow down. He had to struggle to keep his composure. He felt like eyes were upon him behind every window and every open doorway. Every step away from the safety and security of his apartment was like walking through Tarterus with all its imprisoned beasts unchained, stalking him from the shadows. It was an anxiety he’d never felt before, and he did not like it, not one bit. If every day was going to be like this, he wasn’t sure he’d survive the strain of being here until school was over.

And then, everything just changed when he saw Summer Dawn trot down the Promenade, then stop by the door to Donut Joe’s. She had her school saddlebag with her and was talking with Crystal Bell and Berry Cream, her two best friends. She gave him a bright smile as he approached, moving almost unnaturally quickly towards her, as if being in her physical presence would somehow protect him. “I told you he’d be here, Berry,” she said lightly. “Star is very grumpy if he doesn’t get his morning coffee.”

“Summer. Berry Cream, Crystal Bell,” he said guardedly, giving them a slight nod.

“Don’t worry, Starjumper, we know. And here we are,” Crystal Bell said with a smile. “Summer thought you might like some company walking to school today.”

“Any friend of Summer Dawn is a friend of ours,” Berry Cream declared, giving him an earnest smile.

“I appreciate that,” he said honestly, looking down at them. “So, no wearing a metal collar?”

The two of them laughed. “Those are just old stories. We’ve known you for moons, Starjumper, more than you probably think we do because Summer talks about you all the time. You’re the same pony now you were before we knew. If anything, it explains a whole lot.”

“Yup,” Crystal Bell nodded. “Now we know why you always just seem to vanish close to sunset, and would never come out at night. You couldn’t let anypony see you the other way.”

“More or less. It just made things much less complicated,” he answered, feeling a tremendous amount of relief. Here, at least, were two ponies that weren’t running away screaming. Granted, they were Summer Dawn’s friends, so they had a biased viewpoint, but it was a start. And it gave him a tiny bit of hope.

He felt even more hopeful when Summer Dawn almost pushed him into the diner. Donut Joe, the aged, scruffy stallion, gave him a nod as he approached the counter and set a cup of coffee and a bag on the counter. “It’s good to see you again,” he said as Starjumper set three bits on the counter for them. “Now I won’t be bagging donuts that don’t have a buyer.”

“Thank you,” he said quietly, lifting the bag and the cup with his magic.

“See ya tomorrow,” he said with a reassuring look.

Summer Dawn gave him an I told you so look as they turned back for the door. “So, did you tell them?” he asked.

“I showed them,” she grinned.

“I knew you couldn’t resist showing off.”

“You told me to!” she retorted, which made the two mares laugh.

“I can’t believe you taught her that, Starjumper!” Berry Cream said. “I mean, not even most of our teachers can teleport!”

“It’s what she hired me to teach her,” he said evenly. “We kept it a secret to keep her teachers from trying to stop her. I knew she could do it, but they don’t believe in her the way I do.”

Both Berry Cream and Crystal Bell gave him sly little looks as Summer Dawn beamed.

“Why would they try to stop her?”

“I told you, Berry, the spell can be dangerous if you mess it up. Super dangerous,” Summer Dawn told her. “They’d no doubt think I’d hurt myself with it, maybe even kill myself.”

“It’s not a spell for the meek,” Starjumper agreed. “Did you tell them the first rule?”

“Mistakes hurt,” Summer Dawn said with a chuckle. “And boy, do they ever.”

“You didn’t seem to have any problems doing it when you showed us.”

“I did the easiest thing you can do, just ‘ported a few feet across the room. If I’d have tried to teleport out onto the balcony, you’d have seen something a whole lot different. I’m still having trouble teleporting to a place I can’t see. It’s way harder.”

“Practice will fix that,” Starjumper assured her, taking a sip of his coffee.

It was so much of a relief to have Summer Dawn and her friends with him as they walked to school, it almost felt normal…but only almost. As they neared the school, he noticed the stares. The students heading for school themselves were staring at him, and Summer Dawn had to gently herd him onto the campus when a large throng of ponies standing on the green near the Promenade all stopped talking and stared intently at him, then started whispering among themselves. Starjumper did his best to ignore them, but he could almost feel their eyes on him as they passed, and turning his flank to them, putting them in a position where they could potentially attack him, was far harder than he thought it would be. His tail slashed behind him like an angry snake, betraying his disquiet.

“I’m thinking maybe it was a good idea we walked with him,” Berry Cream said in a low voice as they passed two more clusters of students, who all stared at them as they whispered behind their hooves.

“I won’t be walking tomorrow,” Starjumper said in a dark voice.

“I don’t think I’ll blame you if you don’t,” Summer Dawn agreed. “I think Nova got here early and started spreading rumors.”

When they entered the building, Starjumper noticed not only the stares, but the sudden need for the other students to be as far across the hallway from him as possible as they passed. He’d expected a negative response when he came out, but to see it, to experience it, it hurt a lot more than he thought it would. These same ponies didn’t even glance at him as he walked the halls just a couple of weeks ago.

They entered the classroom to dead silence. Every head in the room turned in his direction when he entered behind Summer Dawn, then they went up to the top tier and took their usual seats. But today, Crystal Bell and Berry Cream sat with them, Crystal Bell to his immediate right and Berry Cream sitting on the other side of Summer Dawn, flanking them, acting as a cushion so no other pony could sit close to them. And he felt a strange sense of appreciation when Strider picked up his saddlebag, got up from his desk on the second tier, then came up to the top tier and sat on the far side of Crystal Bell, which filled up the row and prevented any other pony from sitting on the tier. Strider looked at him around Crystal Bell and gave a single, simple nod, which he returned with honest gratitude in his eyes.

And then the relief evaporated like dew in a bonfire when Nova and his two stallion sycophants entered the classroom. He gave a melodramatic gasp and stopped by the tiers, then pointed at Starjumper with his hoof. “What is that monster doing here?” he said loudly, looking towards Professor Frostmane.

“Awaiting the start of class,” she replied in an even voice, giving him a strong look. “And you will sit down, Mister Nova.”

“I’m not staying in the same classroom with that Lykan!” he nearly screamed, clearly enjoying every second of it.

“You have two choices, Mister Nova. You will sit down, be quiet, and attend class like everypony else, or I will inform the Headmistress that you disobeyed a direct order from a professor. And by the terms of your probation, that will result in your immediate expulsion. Now make your decision.”

He gave her a dark, savage scowl, clamping his mouth shut and approaching his customary desk on the first tier. But the look he shot up at Starjumper was one of eager, giddy venom.

Starjumper could see his angle. Nova was going to harass him, bait him, aggravate him until he lost his temper and did something, then he was going to run through Canterlot hamming up his victimhood, which would further convince the gullible that Starjumper was an out of control monster. And when he wasn’t actively antagonizing Starjumper, he’d be telling everypony he could find how Starjumper was a bloodthirsty monster, a villainous figure from pony folklore that many parents had used to scare their children into obedience.

And now that he knew Nova’s game, he could easily thwart it. And if he set his pieces on the board the right way, Nova would be the one thrown out of school, not him.

Any sympathy he had for the stallion based on his overbearing father evaporated with the look of dreadful anticipation on Nova’s face when he looked up at him. If that was how he wanted to play this game, so be it. Starjumper had far more discipline than that spoiled brat. If anypony was going to get expelled for losing his temper, it was going to be Nova.

Class began, and Starjumper was immediately bored. They were still doing transfiguration spells, and since he was out of class on Friday, he missed his chance to test out and had to suffer through an entire week of interminable boredom before he had another chance. But thankfully, Frostmane didn’t really pay much attention to him when he was in class, which allowed him to read what he wanted…which usually kept him busy, but not today. He couldn’t help but notice the other students in the class almost constantly glancing over their shoulders in his direction, as if he would pounce on them at any moment.

Just before lunch, however, Frostmane seemed to decide to inject herself into the situation, but doing it subtly. “Mister Starjumper,” she called. “I’ve been told that you know how to teleport.”

“It’s my special talent, ma’am,” he replied evenly. It wasn’t a big surprise in the class, however, since stories of his fight with the thestrals had spread all through the city.

“If you would, report to my office after you eat lunch. I’d like to discuss the spell with you.”

“Yes ma’am,” he answered.

“And Miss Summer Dawn,” she continued. “I’ve been told that he’s taught you the spell?”

She looked honestly surprised. “Who told you that?” she blurted, then blushed a bit at her direct stare. “I’ve been studying it, yes,” she replied.

“Then I would see you in my office as well. Given the danger of the spell, I’d like to be sure that you’ve been taught correctly.”

“Yes ma’am,” she replied, which caused quite a bit of whispering in the lower tiers.

“Have you used it successfully yet?” Frostmane asked.

Summer Dawn glanced at Starjumper, and he just flicked his muzzle towards the front of the classroom in consent. She gave him a grin, then fixed a very direct stare on the front of the classroom. She then took a deep breath, her horn blazed with pink magic, and she disappeared from her seat in a circular burst of pink magic. She reappeared standing in front of Frostmane in the well between the teacher’s dais and the tiers. And Starjumper was a bit impressed, she’d changed her position, going from sitting to standing.

There were shocked gasps from the rest of the class, but not from the top tier.

“No visible after-effects of transitional resistance, and you successfully changed your position. Well done, Summer Dawn,” she said with a satisfied nod.

“I’m still working on teleporting to a place I can’t see, but I’m getting the hang of it,” she said modestly, trying hard not to smile.

“You may return to your seat. Walk,” she added, which made her grin a bit as she turned and almost strutted towards the steps to the top tier. But she did take the effort to look Nova right in the eyes as she passed by him, and that single glance was as devastating as if she’d turned her rump to him and planted both her rear hooves in his face. There was no doubt to any student in that room that Nova was no longer the brightest star. Summer Dawn had teleported, and that put her so far above him that he would never, ever stand equal to her.

And for a stuck up, arrogant little jerk like Nova, that was the worst thing she could have possibly done to him. For him, status was everything, and she had taken his status from him.

The lunch bell rang just as she got back to her desk, and they started packing up. “So, where do you guys wanna eat today?” Summer Dawn asked.

“I have lunch at home,” Starjumper said.

“No, you are not eating lunch at home,” she told him crisply. “Let’s go to the Three Griffons.”

“That’s halfway across town,” Berry Cream protested. “And you have to see Frostmane after you eat.”

“Well, let’s go to the Corner Café then,” she offered. “It’s close enough, and I haven’t eaten there for a while.”

“You four have fun,” Starjumper told them, and Strider smiled a bit at being included in the group.

“Remember what I told you about hiding in your apartment, Star?” she said pointedly. “Eat with us. Just this once. Show Canterlot you’re not hiding.”

“Well…alright,” he grunted, staring at Nova as he got out of his seat and glared up at the top tier. He then got with his two friends and parked himself conspicuously by the door, no doubt to try to create a scene when Starjumper came down. “And since we’re not hiding anymore,” he said. His horn absolutely blazed with intense golden light, and then all five of them vanished in a oval burst of golden magic, encompassing all of them.

Take that, Nova.

The five of them appeared on the roof opposite the Corner Café, a safe place for them to land given the street may have ponies on it, and three of his four passengers were quite surprised. It was a massive effort to teleport five ponies, so he felt the effort of it once they arrived at the destination he’d selected. “Where are we? Did we teleport? We did! That was so awesome!” Berry Cream squealed, looking around in excitement.

“That wasn’t what I expected,” Strider said in his even manner. “I felt something, a strange heat. And it wasn’t instant.”

“It’s not instant,” Starjumper affirmed as he got enough of a look at the street. He teleported himself and Summer Dawn’s three friends down to the street, them appearing just outside the fence, and a second later, Summer Dawn appeared in a burst of pink magic right beside him. “But the shorter the distance, the faster it is,” he added after blowing out his breath, his head sagging a bit.

“Interesting,” Strider said, looking over at him. “You look a little tired. Is it hard?”

“Teleporting four, oh yes, but it was the easiest way to get us down,” he replied honestly. “That’s why I left Summer out of it. She can get down on her own.”

“Summer taught us the self-levitation trick, we coulda gotten down on our own,” Crystal Bell told him. “But that was way cooler.”

“You’ve been busy when you’re home,” he said, looking at Summer Dawn.

She laughed. “Hey, they’re my friends. Of course I’m gonna teach ‘em the tricks you teach me,” she winked. “I’m teaching them shields right now.”

“And wow are they hard,” Berry Cream grunted as they walked through the gate and into the restaurant. “But it’s really cool. It’s like I’m learning, like, real magic, not just the spells they teach us in school.”

They sat at a table inside, and the waitress didn’t so much as glance at Starjumper. And that made him relax a little. And he could admit, it felt, well…it felt nice to sit not just with Summer Dawn, but with three of her friends, like he was just another pony. He also found that he could probably come to like Strider. The slender stallion was sober, serious, and quite intelligent, and those were personality traits they happened to share. He engaged Starjumper in a debate about advanced transfiguration magic while the mares chatted about an upcoming party, and he felt…he felt alright. They were going out of their way to make him feel like he wasn’t alone, and he could honestly appreciate their kindness.

It also made him far more honest than he expected to be, when Berry Cream asked him a question that didn’t surprise him, but surprised him that Summer Dawn had never asked. “Wow, how did you learn so much about magic, Starjumper? I mean, you’re our age, but you know like ten times more than we do!”

“Because it’s all I’ve ever had,” he replied honestly before he realized what he said. “I guess since you know, well, know, I can be honest about that. When I was a foal, I couldn’t go outside very much. I couldn’t play with other foals my age much, because of my secret. It would just take one stray comment, one moment of inattention, and it would be over. Besides, when I first started school, I had trouble keeping the secret. I didn’t think it was all that big a deal back then. It’s just my luck that the other foals thought I was just telling stories, and didn’t believe me. Anyway, since I was a foal, all I’ve ever really been able to do is read and study. It filled my time, it kept me busy, and when I started helping Dad out in the shop, I found out that I could do something with what I was learning, that it had practical value. I could help my mom and dad in the shop using my magic, and it made me feel helpful, useful. So, that made me want to study even more, because I finally felt like I could do something more than sit in the house and watch other ponies live a life I couldn’t have. And later on, when I learned about the Lykan legend, the treaty, and where I stood with the thestrals of the Nightlands, I knew magic would be my only defense if they came for me. So, I studied very hard to make sure I’d be ready. Studying was my life, for so much of my life…I really don’t know what else there is to do. It’s all I know.”

The four of them gave him a very long look, then Summer Dawn reached over and put a hoof on his shoulder. “Well, it’s not all there is anymore,” she declared. “You don’t have to hide your secret now, so you don’t have to hide at all. There’s a lot to see, Star, a lot to do. There’s a whole world out there, and I’d be happy to show it to you.”

“As long as it doesn’t involve Canterlot parties,” he said with a bit of a wry smile. He suddenly felt very vulnerable, very exposed telling them that, telling them something so personal.

“Now what’s wrong with Canterlot parties?” Berry Cream protested.

“So much standing around talking, it would drive me crazy,” he replied. “Besides, I don’t like crowds and I don’t like nonsense, and a Canterlot party is nothing but all of both.”

“Starjumper thinks that us Canterlot ponies are a bunch of silly foals who waste all our time talking about everything but doing nothing,” Summer Dawn grinned at her friends.

“He’s not entirely wrong,” Strider said, then wheezed a bit when Crystal Bell whacked him. “What? Isn’t that what we do at parties, Crystal? Stand around talking about everything but not doing anything?”

“I think you and me are going to get along, Strider,” Starjumper said seriously, which made the three mares laugh.

After eating, he and Summer Dawn reported to Frostmane’s office, and she didn’t waste any time. She asked both of them some very detailed questions about teleportation magic, and with each answer, she got both more intrigued and more relaxed. She was satisfied that they had taken learning the spell very seriously, and they understood the dangers the spell posed. But the answers Starjumper gave her got her most curious, and she spent most of the rest of the lunch period debating the finer points of the magic, finding that she was the one learning.

“You are truly a master of the spell, Mister Starjumper,” she declared as they got up to return to class. “I hadn’t considered even half of that possible.”

“It is my special talent, Professor. I’ve studied the spell for years, since I was a foal.”

“Well, I think that the Headmistress and myself may be having a few very long talks with you about your knowledge of the spell,” she said. “You have expanded the known mechanics of the spell, and we should update our books to include what you’ve learned.”

“I guess I could make some time for it,” he said as they walked down the hallway.

“And do not worry about me, Miss Summer Dawn. You are clearly learning the spell from the most qualified pony in Canterlot to teach it,” she added. “You have my full support to continue your lessons. You have proven to me beyond any doubt that you are learning the spell properly and safely. Just remember that we will test you on all of its applications on your final exam. You must display mastery of the spell’s basic mechanics to get the extra credit. That will include teleporting to where you cannot see, and teleporting an object that is not yourself to a chosen destination.”

“I’ll be ready, Professor,” she declared confidently. “Starjumper thinks I’ll be competent in teleporting to a place I can’t see in a couple of weeks, then I start working on external teleportation.”

“Needless to say, I think giving both of you the written exam will be completely unnecessary,” she added dryly. “If you demonstrate competence with teleportation, Miss Summer Dawn, you’ll pass on those bonus points alone.”

“You have no idea how happy I am to hear that, Professor,” Summer Dawn said elatedly.

They were released to self-study in the library after lunch, and that was a welcome return to routine…but it was also very, very awkward. Just about every pony in the library was doing their best to stare at him without making it apparent they were staring at him as he sat at his favorite table with Summer Dawn—friendship was fine and good, but she considered library time with him tutor time, and nopony muscled in on her tutor time—and went over the mechanics of the spell that read a book aloud. That was the most important spell he could teach her, since it would open up the world of books to her and allow her to study on her own. Like everything he’d taught her so far, she picked up on the idea of it quickly, and it made him hopeful that she’d be able to cast it within a couple of weeks. But it was hard to concentrate on teaching her with all the ponies staring, and he noticed that there was also a lot of whispering around them, which they couldn’t hear because of the dome of silence he customarily placed over the table when they worked.

And another thing he noticed was Nova, almost gleefully moving from table to table to whisper with the occupants.

The donut shop and diner hadn’t been bad. Class hadn’t been that bad either, but this was everything he feared about ponies knowing his secret. The stares, the whispers, they would snowball over the coming days as rumors got wilder and wilder, as ponies tried to shock each other with what they’d “last heard” about him. And that went double for a place like Canterlot, with so many ponies that seemingly lived to gossip.

This…was not a good sign.

After class was done, they cleaned up their table, and Starjumper decided to avoid just about everypony by teleporting himself and Summer Dawn to the balcony. She looked around and grinned at him as he unlocked the door with his magic and opened it, then they walked in. “It’s gonna take a while to get used to that,” she told him. “I mean, knowing you can do it is one thing, seeing you do so much now that you don’t have to hide it is another."

“Welcome to how my family felt for years,” he replied casually. “Let’s get started before your parents show up.”

“Am I doing across the room or upstairs?”

“Upstairs, so set out the rope.”

“Got it. Get ready to cast the mane-protecting spell for me,” she smiled at him, trotting over to a bookshelf and retrieving the rope she used to form the boundary of her landing spot. “Do I put it behind the bed or what?” They’d moved his bed back upstairs two days ago.

“Doesn’t matter, you’re not going to set the sheets on fire if you miss and land on the bed,” he replied.

She laughed a bit guiltily, betraying the fact that she was thinking just that.

Starjumper had promised to teach her parents teleportation, and that manifested itself in the fact that Summer Dawn no longer had him completely to herself in the afternoon. They were going to tutor with him one or two hours a day after school until they learned the spell, which may take a while in Fleur de Lis’ case, fitting it in around their lunchtime and early afternoon engagements and whatever social events were happening in the evening. And in a way, the lessons themselves were something of a very visible symbol that the social paragons of Canterlot fully accepted a Lykan in the city, a Lykan among them. They trusted him enough to not only let their daughter tutor under him, but tutor under him themselves, and that did send a very strong statement through the city. So, the lessons had more than one objective, and Starjumper didn’t mind either of them. He did honestly like Summer Dawn’s parents, they were not what he expected in the best way, and he appreciated how much they were helping him now, when he did truly need their help. Besides, he enjoyed teaching, and he didn’t mind two new students…that weren’t quite so sassy as his first.

They arrived right on time, and he put them to work. He worked with Fancy Pants first, undoing all the bad training he received about teleportation one lesson at a time, then setting him to practicing the basic application of the spell as a shell cast, which was a practice tool that the school taught that worked similarly to staging. Shell casting was casting the spell with virtually no magical power, which caused it to fizzle harmlessly yet also allowed the unicorn to practice the actual casting of the spell. Starjumper didn’t like that technique because intentionally fizzling a spell ingrained bad habits, and in Summer Dawn’s case, with her immense power, intentionally casting a spell so it fizzled could be dangerous given her tendency to radically overcharge spells. Shell casting was the last technique Summer Dawn ever needed to learn. But for other ponies, it worked and worked well, and that was true in Fleur de Lis’ case. She did better shell casting than staging, she couldn’t get the hang of staging, so he was quite happy to let her use what worked for her.

That was what teaching was about.

She had the strength to cast the spell, but like Summer Dawn, she didn’t have the skill to use it safely yet, and that was what Starjumper was working to fix. Like her daughter, he was teaching her shield spells as an introduction to teleportation, since they shared many similar traits, a spell he was honestly surprised that she didn’t already know. A mare with her magical potential could easily cast shield spells, but she’d never learned them because of her demanding modeling career. And now that she was retired, she was correcting the one regret she had in her choice of professions, which was not pursuing her magical education.

After about two hours, Summer Dawn’s parents left, and that let him focus on his primary student. He was quite impressed with how much progress she made over the session, and also on her determination to keep trying every time she came up short or missed her landing point or messed up the three aspects and ended up burning herself or reappearing awkwardly. She had the right mentality for high order magic, and that was a willingness to pick herself up and try again when she made a mistake.

But things were different now, and nothing demonstrated that more than when the clock rang its three bells. She was taking a break when it happened, sitting on her cushion listening to him explain the basics behind external teleportation, which was teleporting an object not herself from one place to another. She just glanced at the clock, then picked a cushion up off the couch with her magic, floated it over, and knocked the clock over and put the cushion on top of it. Starjumper just had to chuckle at that.

“That won’t make it stop. It runs on magic,” he warned.

“That’s not the point. I don’t even know why you have it running,” she said, looking up at him. “You don’t need that clock anymore, Star. It doesn’t run your life anymore.”

“I do still need the clock, even if the city knows,” he told her evenly. “I don’t want them seeing it, Summer, particularly at sunset when my wings grow in. You’ve seen it, it is a bloody affair. I don’t think I want young foals to see that, it might frighten them. It would fuel even more rumors.”

“Yeah, it’s kinda icky,” she admitted. “So I’ll give you that. But it won’t rule me anymore,” she declared. “I’ve seen you change, and you don’t see me running for the door. And I already told my parents I’ll be later than usual tonight,” she declared.

“Oh, listen to this,” he said, giving her a steady look. “I don’t seem to recall anypony promoting you to queen.”

“Mom and Dad took two hours of my time, and I’m getting it back,” she declared shamelessly. “Besides, wouldn’t you rather have somepony to talk to rather than be in here alone? You can’t fly yet, it must be terribly boring.” She got up from her cushion, then went over to the cabinet and started laying out the materials he’d need when he changed, the slats and bandages for the splint and a vial of healing tonic. He still needed a split for his wing, though the break was mostly healed. Without the splint, it made his wing ache, so the splint was more or less just for pain relief. Even after he didn’t need the splint anymore, he wouldn’t be flying until the doctor assured him that his bone was fully mended. That bone took all the stress his wings endured when he flew, and if it wasn’t completely healed, he might break it again just from flapping his wings. “And you’ll need help getting your wing tended when you change,” she added. “The doctor taught me how to do it, so I’ll be here to make sure it gets done.”

“You want to just move your clothes into my closet while you’re at it?” he asked caustically.

She looked over her shoulder at him and laughed. “Be lucky Mom and Dad didn’t carry through their original idea and make you stay at the Waterfalls until you’re healed.”

“Seriously?”

“Mmm-hmm,” she hummed. “They didn’t want you to be here all alone. They even talked to your parents about it, but your mom talked them out of it.”

“I woulda never done it,” he declared.

“And your mom knew that,” she agreed. “They dropped it when I assured them I’d be here to make sure you were okay. And I’m going to do just that,” she declared. “So, younger stallion, you’re going to do what I tell you to do, because you’re my patient, and that means way more than me being your student. That means you don’t get to boss me around when it comes to your well being,” she winked. “After I get your wing tended and I make sure you have a good hot dinner, I can practice a little more with you here before I go home. Speaking of dinner, it should be here in just a little bit.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, Mom and Dad told Withers to keep sending dinner over here until you’re fully healed, because of how the healing tonic makes you eat like crazy,” she replied absently as she set out another vial of healing tonic. “You’re too busy to cook with all the tutoring you’re doing for me and my folks, and you need a whole lot of nutritious food to heal faster. Think of it as a thank-you from my parents for your tutoring.”

“I can make my own dinner!” he protested indignantly.

“I know you can, but this isn’t about what you can or can’t do. This is about making sure you heal properly,” she replied patiently. “Mom and Dad promised your parents that they’d make sure you were okay, and they won’t go back on a promise. They’re worried about you, Star. So of course they’re going to look out for you.”

He gave her a nearly incredulous look, rearing up from his sitting position and putting his forehooves on his hips, both annoyed at and a little grateful to her parents. He didn’t like them butting into his life like this, and Summer Dawn was taking almost sadistic glee in just taking over his evening, but he could understand their sentiment and be appreciative that they thought enough of him to watch over him after his family went home.

This was entirely new territory for him, he realized…and he didn’t know how to process it. He would never have believed just a moon ago that Summer Dawn’s parents would accept him so completely, accept who he was, accept what he was, and feel entirely comfortable intruding themselves into his very private, very guarded life. He did like them, but he just didn’t know how to take all this attention, all this interest in him.

And part of it was a feeling of, of helplessness. Like his life had spun out of his control, and now he was hurtling towards the ground in a wild spin, the sky and ground sucked into a whirlpool of chaos. He was so used to everything being on his terms, approaching others from a position of control, that he didn’t know what to do, what to think, when that control was wrested away from him. From Summer Dawn’s cheeky defiance to her parents’ well-intentioned meddling, he found himself dealing with ponies that weren’t going to adhere to his rules. They were coming into his life on their terms, not his terms, and he didn’t quite know what to do about it.

There was one thing he could do, and that was remind Summer Dawn just who was the boss in his own apartment. “You forgot one thing.”

“And what is that?”

“You never get to boss me around,” he retorted, his horn flaring with brilliant golden light. She then vanished in a circular burst of golden magic, relocated out onto the balcony. He leaned back down and put his forehooves on the floor, then stood up and wisely teleported himself up onto the second floor, then conjured a planar shield that ran all the way across the lip of it just as the balcony door opened. “Starjumper Astra!” she barked commandingly as she stormed back into the apartment, then saw the shield and him smiling down at her from the edge of the second floor. “You get back down here!” she demanded, pointing at the floor with a hoof.

“What did I just tell you?” he asked lightly.

“And this is what I have to say about that!” she replied, her horn blazing with intense pink magic. She vanished in a circular burst of her magic, and he heard her reappear on the other side of the bedroom, inside the rope circle she’d set out as her landing spot.

Exactly what he knew she’d do.

He sprung his trap, creating a shimmering golden shield around the edge of that rope that ascended and enclosed as it rose, pulling her up into the air and trapping her inside it when it formed a sphere after it lost contact with the floor. It vibrated in a way she most likely had never seen before, magical currents constantly pulsing across its surface. This was a very advanced use of a shield, one he more or less designed himself to deal with…himself. “There, now you just stay in there for a little while and think about all the things you’ve done while I get things ready for sunset,” he said in a patronizing voice, giving her a maliciously amused smile.

She gave him a smug look, her horn blazing, then she vanished in a circular burst of pink magic…and then reappeared in the exact same place, a little bit of smoke hissing out of her mane. She gave him a shocked, surprised look, then looked at the shield enclosing her in growing understanding.

It was a shield that blocked teleportation.

“Star! You, you rat!” she screamed, banging on the shield with a forehoof. “You just wait til I get out of here!”

“You’ll be a good little girl, because I can put you right back in there if I want to,” he replied in a mellow, almost musical voice. “Remember that the next time you want to be sassy, silly mare. I haven’t taught you everything.”

“And you forget that I just have to wait until sunset!” she retorted. “I know you wouldn’t leave me in here all night!”

“Try me.”

“You wouldn’t dare!”

“Think of this as your next task, Summer,” he said cheekily, showing far more emotion than usual as he looked up and back at her. “You either find a way out, or you’ll have a whole lot to explain to your parents in the morning.”

She gave him a hot look, then burst into sudden laughter. “This is not how you ask a mare out on a date, Star!” she chided him.

“Who needs to ask a mare out? You forget what I can do, sassy mare. It’s more of an undeclineable request.”

She gave him a look, then laughed even harder. “That’s called foalnapping!”

“Details, details,” he said flippantly as he lowered the planar shield and walked down the wall to the first floor. That made her lose it, collapsing onto the bottom of the bubble, laughing uncontrollably.

It was part reminder that she wasn’t his boss and part real test, because he left her up there to figure out how to break the shield. And she didn’t disappoint. When the clock rang seven bells, she trotted victoriously up to the top of the stairs and looked down at him as he moved out into the open area of the first floor and prepared for moonrise. “Ha!” she declared.

“Good work,” he said in a mellow voice as he turned to look up at her. “And what did you learn?”

“Spherical shields are weaker on the inside of their arc than the outside.”

“Excellent,” he commended. “Keep that in mind if you ever try to use a shield to trap another unicorn. If they’re smart, they can break the shield by exploiting that weakness. And what else did you learn?”

“That I could overpower the shield.”

“Correct again. As strong as you are, Summer, the only pony that should ever be able to trap you in a shield is an alicorn. You can just outright blow up the shield, especially when you’re on the inside and can attack it at its weakest point.”

“So, what was that about an undeclineable request?” she asked with a grin.

“I have more tricks you haven’t seen yet, mare,” he threatened, which made her laugh. She then impressed him by teleporting from the top of the stairs to right beside him, showing that she was really getting comfortable with teleporting to a place she could see. And with maybe another week or two of work, she’d be comfortable teleporting to a place she couldn’t see. “Back up a little bit,” he told her. “It’s almost time.”

“I’m ready,” she declared, taking a couple of steps back and then shifting over to stand in front of him. “If I see your wing sag or see you wince, I’m gonna support it with magic til we get the splint on.”

He nodded without replying as he looked over at the clock, and she picked up a rag from the table with her magic to be ready to wipe off the blood that accompanied the transformation. The evening transformation was the bloodier of the two, because of the size of his wings where they grew out of his back.

The moon rose, and the change began. And oddly enough, he didn’t feel awkward or uncomfortable in any way with Summer Dawn standing there watching it, watching the most private part of himself being exposed to the world. He gritted his teeth as his horn disintegrated and his wings grew out, then he spread them so the membranes could grow in without issue, feeling the biting ache in his half-healed bone as the weight of the wing was put on it. When it was over, he became aware that Summer Dawn had his broken wing wrapped in her magic, supporting it and keeping it immobile as she triplecast to pick up the splint materials…and that did ease the pain he was feeling. “Alright, first time doing this without the doctor supervising,” she said with a calming breath.

“You’ll do fine,” he assured her as he sat down and lowered his head to give her an unobstructed view.

And she did. She splinted his wing with practiced ease, then cleaned the blood off his sides and forehead with the rag, tossing it into the bucket he kept for them that was filled with water so the blood didn’t dry and permanently stain the cloth. Doing that rather grisly laundry was part of his daily routine. “There, all done,” she declared, stepping up to him.

There was a knock at the door, and Summer Dawn opened it with her magic. Withers, her family’s cook and butler, wheeled in a cart holding large metal domes atop it, under which was dinner. “Dinner has arrived, little miss,” he declared, barely giving Starjumper a look.

“Awesome, Withers! Thank you so much!”

“Would you like me to set the table?”

“Nah, we can manage. Tell Mom and Dad I’ll be home in a few hours. Star’s gonna let me practice after we eat.”

“They did remind me to tell you to be home by ten. Curfew is still curfew, little miss.”

“I’ll be home on time, and I’ll bring home the cart,” she promised. “Thank you again, Withers.”

He gave a nod, then turned and left the apartment.

“Let’s eat, then maybe I can practice ‘porting up to the circle a little bit before I go home?”

“You’ve already made that decision, why are you asking me?” he asked tartly. She just laughed and grinned at him. “I think you’ll be safe enough,” he added, walking over to the cart and putting a hoof on it, then he pushed it towards the table. “Just don’t get exotic.”

“I know better than to get exotic,” she replied, which made him nod in prideful agreement.

After a quite delicious dinner, he let her practice until she was tired as he read, and he was impressed by her progress. She was landing in the circle more than she was missing now, which meant that she was starting to really get the hang of building a detailed image of her landing point in her mind and then moving herself to that spot. That was the key of blind teleportation, and it was why he’d been so insistent that she learn the art of paying attention. Her increasing success meant that she was starting to understand that, starting to put texture into her imagined landing point, starting to understand that teleportation was as much an art as it was a spell.

They cleaned up the dishes and loaded them into the cabinet of the cart, then he walked with her out onto the balcony as she pulled the cart out with her with magic. It felt good to be outside, even if it was surprisingly cold tonight, and he felt a nearly overpowering desire to fly…which he couldn’t do for anther two weeks. He looked up into the sky almost yearningly, something that Summer Dawn didn’t miss. “You really miss it, don’t you?” she asked.

“At night, flying was about all I had, much like reading was all I had in the daytime,” he replied softly. “I always do my best thinking when I fly.”

“What’s it like? To fly?”

“Freedom,” he replied immediately. “It’s freedom.”

“Maybe you could take me flying when your wing heals? I’ve always been curious.”

“I think we could do that. You’ll need a harness, though, something I can grip with my hooves that’s not your coat and skin. I don’t think you’d like that.”

“Can you make one?”

He nodded. “It’s very simple. I can transfigure one out of a sturdy cloth, like canvas.”

“Great! Just promise you won’t drop me.”

“You take all the fun out of life, do you know that?”

She gave a bright laugh, then she and the cart were surrounded in an aura of pink magic. “I’ll see you tomorrow. You have a nice easy night, Star,” she smiled as she rose up into the air.

He watched her fly off, then reared up and put his hooves on the rail and looked out over the school campus. So, his first day of school since his secret was exposed was over…and it wasn’t as bad as he feared. He certainly felt appreciative that Summer Dawn’s friends had gone out of their way to make him feel welcome, and he felt like he could get to know Strider. Maybe…maybe he could make a second friend in Canterlot. He’d always felt that some ponies could accept him if they knew his secret, and Summer Dawn, her parents, and Summer Dawn’s friends proved that.

But Nova proved that he was wise to keep it a secret, because there would always be ponies that would hate him or fear him because of what he was. Nova was most likely acting on his father’s orders, but he was enjoying it way too much as he spread rumors about Starjumper through school to be free of blame. And Nova and his father were in real positions to be a threat to him, enough that if it wasn’t for Summer Dawn’s parents, he wouldn’t be staying here. If not for them pushing back against those rumors, he’d be in way too much danger to try to live a normal life here.

Normal life. That was almost a joke. But yet…for the first time in his life, he felt almost like he could be normal. He had a friend here, friends, in Summer Dawn and her parents. He had the support of the Royal Palace, and some of the ponies that interacted with him seemed to accept him, like Donut Joe and Summer Dawn’s friends in school.

Could he live here? Could he live among ponies that knew his secret and not feel like they were afraid of him?

He doubted it. But today had shown him that he did need to give Canterlot a chance. He’d stay for a while and see how things turned out. If they turned out good, then that was a good thing. He had some ideas about how he could make his way here, and the house he intended to build on the cliffside was only one of them. But if they turned out bad, well, he did have wings. All he had to do was relocate.

He’d just need to keep alert, and obey the first rule of being a Lykan when one’s secret was exposed, a rule some of his ancient predecessors had not heeded…to their ultimate doom.

Know when to run.

Comments

[FireheartThePone]

“Maybe you could take me flying when your wing heals? I’ve always been curious.”

Dangit, I was going to make a really obscure reference relating to this, but now I've forgotten the name of the item I was going to reference.

All in all, amazing chapter!

[Canary In The Coal Mine]

I love all the mechanics and teaching/learning/studying of magic in this story. It certainly doesn't seem, on the surface, to be part of the main adventure that this story's premise proclaims, which is why I'm fascinated by it. I wonder if you'll tie it all together in the overarching story, or if it's just slice of life stuff to be the delicious filling between major events in the story. It just seems to me that if the story focused so much on the teaching aspect, some of the minor points of trivia would end up having a significant role later on in events in the story, somehow.

[gagaking]

8696810
I personally think that many of the sections seem to act more like filler than actual story plot. These include many of the teaching sessions, the repeated brooding (I feel the same impact could be had without repeating it as many times as is done, though this is a minor issue), and some of the slice of life sections. They make it hard to focus or know when a section will come up that is more important to the plot.

While (for example) the teaching sections were somewhat useful at the beginning, later on these sections could be replaced by much smaller scenes that just summarize the results, such as through Summer Dawn saying how close she was to learning a new spell, or showing the results to her friends, rather than actually showing each lesson (including the one with Summer's parents). This is somewhat done, but it could have been done for a lot more sections, and would make the story a lot cleaner and more coherent.

If knowledge of how the magic works is truly necessary, the study lessons could be relegated to a blog post, answers in the comments sections, or in the authors notes.

The plot sections are well done, but it feels simply scattered into a study lesson or anxiety brooding story, and not the main focus. I'm not sure if this was your intent, and you never wanted the adventure/plot part of the story to be the main focus, but it does seem to take only a tertiary role in the story so far, at least to me.

Again, this is just my opinion, and I do like the plot parts of the story. I just think you could be making the story even better.