A Knight's Tales

by Modern Masquerade

Hex

A sharp pain awoke the unicorn, his whole body jolting at the sudden shock. Eyes wide, Hex looked around his pitiful room, already knowing what his search would find. A ramshackle room in a forgotten corner of an abandoned building, the place looked ready to fall apart as ever. The warm furs and threadbare blankets he’d wrapped himself in represented the only soft and welcoming things in the place. A tattered curtain struggled in vain to keep out the morning light from a crack in the wall he’d affectionately named a window. Steady drops of water fell from some unseen corner of the room, threatening to tarnish his few belongings.

Hex continued his scan until finally coming eye to eye with a small pale serpent. Though it said nothing, the snake maintained its unblinking gaze on Hex, who for his part could see something deeper in the black pits of eyes. Smiling slightly, Hex spoke to the snake casually, as one would a friend, “Yeah, suppose it’s time to get up isn’t it Mord.” The snake’s continued silence gave all the answer it needed as Hex arose from his wrappings.

Cracked but still usable, a mirror rested in one corner of the room. Standing to see his reflection, Hex began to dress himself, a wrinkled and dirty school robe being thrown over his thin body to keep out the cold wind. Nodding at his reflection, and the ever-present serpent watching along with him, Hex’s horn came alight. In a flurry of Prestidigitation, the uniform was perfectly pressed and clean, as if it were new.

Coming closer to the mirror as magic slicked back his mane, Hex saw again the scrap of paper in the corner. How ironic, that a scrap of parchment could so utterly frustrate him and yet also drive his every success. Barely visible in long faded ink on the worn paper was part of an elegant illustration of a tree, connecting cutie marks in a series. At the top, Hex’s own crooked star.

A piece of paper stolen away from a great tome, it was one of few things Hex had when he ran from home so long ago. Such a humble place would be only a point of shame for the proud unicorn, and thus he had left them behind. Indeed, the lies he’d made for his private life were far more befitting the stature he would doubtless gain.

Tracing up again, as he had countless times, Hex moved past the parents who he’d long since forgotten the faces of. He continued past a generation he had never known, and more. There, at the root of this tree, partial though it was, his lip curled up as he found the most famous cutie mark in Equestrian Magic. His direct ancestor, Starswirl the Bearded.

Enormous pride swelled in Hex. Pride of his ancestry, his birthright. Yet, as always, this feeling of pride was overwhelmed with another. Shame, jealousy, wretchedness, these feelings overcame Hex as surely as the viper climbing up his body. Its eyes had not broken contact with his, the light of the room fading as surely as the darkness of the snake’s wicked eyes. It would be Hex that would lose this test of will, lowering his eyes and bowing his head just as he had for all these years.

A descendent of Starswirl, he should have been a master wizard, a supreme sorcerer, instead he struggled with basic cantrips. His mighty blood thundered with magic, but Hex couldn’t release it. Not until He came. He knew of Hex’s struggles, and offered a solution, one with a simple price. Only a fool would turn it down.

Hex looked in the mirror proudly, the serpent coiled in his robes trustfully guiding his magic. He taught lessons no mortal could, and He taught them to Hex alone. Hex would rise to the greatness of his ancestry. Indeed, he would surpass it, He would make sure of that. Feeling flush with his magic prepared, Hex smiled at his reflection. Not the reflection of an archmage or a high-sorcerer, yet, but certainly the reflection of a mighty mage nonetheless.