In the Shadow of an Eclipse

by reyin poetic

To Cast a Shadow

Twilight sat in what passed for a dining room in her library. In truth, it was better described as a table and two chairs set in a corner so as to be out of the way, but it was a cozy place to enjoy tea and some light reading.

Or at least, it was when an imposing stranger wasn’t sitting across from you, having drained much of the life from a Pinkie Pie party an hour ago.

The dark-coated alicorn watched Twilight as she sipped at the tea, his eyes glinting slightly. Twilight shivered. Those eyes still put her on edge. “Um, the tea is... good. What is it?” Might as well make an attempt at conversation.

“Rooibos,” he answered, Twilight recognized the name of the red tea plant, but had never tried it herself.

“Oh,” the conversation ended before it began. Eclipse had finished his tea, Twilight’s was now stone cold, and was walking around the library’s main room, reading the titles of the books as he passed. Twilight quickly gulped down her tea and followed him, hoping to extract something from him that might make him seem more approachable.

Eclipse walked slowly, and with a slight limp in his rear right leg, drawing her attention to his cutie mark, a ring of red, jagged on the outside smooth on the inside. An eclipse, appropriately. After several minutes of shuffling by the shelves, Twilight finally spoke up, voice shaky, “So, you’re going to be teaching me illusion magic?”

“In the sense that I’ll start in the future, no, I won’t.”

“What?” Twilight stiffened. He wasn’t going to teach her? Why not? And... why did he say it like that?

“But,” he interrupted, “in the sense that I’ve already started teaching you, I am,” Eclipse turned to face her, “Lesson one, how to identify an illusion.”

Twilight, having barely recovered from her initial shock, froze again. His face again had that affixed scowl that spoke of immense displeasure with what he saw, and his gleaming eyes pierced the tattered defenses of her soul. He loomed over her, seemingly ready to crush her like an ant if he so pleased. “What do you notice has changed?” his voice came as a soft rumble, breaking into Twilight’s mind like thunder through a home.

And yet, despite her fear, the devoted student in Twilight couldn’t let such a question pass by, “You’re scarier than you were a minute ago. You seem to have grown in size even though it’s my fear response. You seem to be much harsher, and seem like you really want to hurt me...” Twilight’s voice petered out as she answered, hoping beyond hope that her answer was correct. Eclipse drew up, either sizing up her answer, or readying to rear and trample her into dust. Twilight closed her eyes.

“Correct, on all but one count. I seem larger because of the illusion I put on myself, not due to your fear,” Twilight’s eyes snapped open, curiosity overcoming the fear that now seemed to be insignificant. Eclipse had returned to a somewhat normal size, perhaps a head taller than Twilight. His mouth, while still curved downward, no longer radiated displeasure, and his eyes were flat black again, neither catching light nor gleaming.

“How did you?” Twilight gasped.

Eclipse’s mouth tightened, “I am the Master Illusionist to Equestria. Or rather, I was then the title had any meaning. The shadow of deception is as much my place as Princesses’ is the sun and the moon.”

“N-no. I mean, yes, but... How did you cast that spell without your horn lighting up? Even an illusion to hide the glow would itself make your horn glow! Did you cast one when I wasn’t looking?” Twilight fought the words out.

The taller pony’s eyes widened slightly, “A clever observation, and an important one to make. Illusion magic takes many forms. Changelings, for example, do not light their horns to cast their illusions, correct?”

“No, they don’t,” Twilight answered thoughtfully, walking over to her shelf of books on magic theory.

“In a similar way, illusions are... as much an integral part of my being as my own skin and bones. It was forged into me from a very young age. The illusions are me, rather than a spell I must cast.”

Twilight had found the book she was looking for: A Basis on the Study of Magic: Laws and Theorem. Turning to a page about halfway through the sizable tome, she pointed to a paragraph, “But one of the most basic foundations of magical study states that magic is expressed through the horn! It should be impossible for you to cast magic without at least your horn glowing!”

Eclipse laughed, a heartfelt, if sparse chuckle, “Twilight, there’s one thing you must know before studying illusion magic as I practice it. The rules and laws of traditional magic will be of no help whatsoever. Textbooks will only serve to make your illusions weaker.”

Twilight’s reaction was a cross between disbelief, nausea, curiosity, and panic. “What do you mean, they won’t help? That’s what textbooks do, help!” she early shouted, nearly jumping onto Eclipse’s head in nervous agitation.

“Perhaps... this will be better explained in metaphor,” Eclipse sighed, and walked around the room, gathering a few candles with his magic, and blowing out the rest, leaving the library heavily shadowed.

Returning to Twilight, he held the candles he had gathered next to her, and pointed toward the far wall. “What do you see?” he asked.

Twilight turned to the wall, and against the wall stood a large, yet perfect shadow of herself, the outline of her mane, tail, and horn made her unmistakable. “I see me, or at least my shadow,” she replied.

“Correct,” he shifted the candles behind Twilight’s head, “And now?”

Twilight looked again. The shadow was largely unchanged, but for one important detail. “That’s not me, the horn is gone! The shadow is an earth pony!” she giggled.

“Oh?” Eclipse lowered the candle to around Twilight’s front knee, “You’re telling me that that isn’t your shadow?”

Twilight gasped. The shadow on the wall had grown magnificent wings, somehow. Her shadow had become a pegasus.

“Illusion magic is like the shadow of the magic you are used to,” he moved the candles around, “It is free-form, unbound, and can do many impressive things with only a mind to guide it, rather than formula or structure,” he returned the candles to give Twilight’s shadow wings again, “but no matter how hard you try, you cannot fly with the wings it gives,” he walked away, returning the candles he had borrowed to their place, and relighting the ones he had blown out. Soon, the library had returned to its usual cozy feel.

Twilight was stunned, trying to absorb what had been illustrated to her. Magic that functioned like nothing else she had studied before? Tempting, but such a strange concept. Was this another way for Celestia to get her out of her books? It seemed unlike her though.

“Can I ask you about our lessons?” Twilight shook off her stupor.

“Of course. That is why I’m here, after all,” Eclipse chuckled again. “Ask away.”

“Well, first thing I need to know is how we’re going to structure the lessons,” Twilight’s foremost concern came out as though she’d been thinking over it for hours, which in all fairness she had.

“I will be teaching you similarly to how I myself was taught, meaning that I will decide on your lessons based on how well you are advancing. Most of your teaching will be practical, show instead of tell, giving you practice. We will begin with casting illusions, and once you are ready and only,” he gave her a hard stare, “when you are ready, we will move on to illusions you can use to protect Equestria in the event of an attack.”

Twilight was off-put by the description, but it answered most of her questions, so she let it go. “So... where will we meet?” It was another good question. After all, a pony can’t attend class if they don’t know where the classroom is.

“For tomorrow? We’ll meet here, around noon. By the looks of you, you’re a night person, and haven’t been able to sleep in the last few days. I’ll need you rested for tomorrow. Goodnight,” he said as he turned and left, apparently done with the conversation.

--------------------

Well, that settled it. There was nothing about this ponies’ lessons that sat right with Twilight. No formulas to study, no set structure to the class, and by the sounds of things, not even a stable place to learn in! Celestia wanted her to learn from him, so she would. It only made sense then, that when Twilight had concerns about her new teacher, that she’d ask Celestia about them.

Twilight rolled out a piece of parchment on her desk, inked a quill, and started writing:

Dear Princess Celestia,

I have met with Eclipse, and we have begun planning my first lesson. Or at least I think we have. Eclipse seems very knowledgeable in illusion magic, even though I have no way of knowing what he says is true, due to his apparent distaste for books. I am also unsure as to what to expect concerning my lessons, as he has failed to say anything about them except that it is how he was taught. Could you clear some of this up, as I want to take advantage of this opportunity as much as possible.

Your faithful student,
Twilight Sparkle

Re-reading the letter to check for errors, she noticed the slightly hostile tone in her writing, “Um, oh. Didn’t mean for it to come out like- haaaah -like that,” she yawned, “I’ll try it again after I get some sleep...”

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The next pre-noon greeted Twilight Sparkle with a less than sunny day. The weather control team had covered the sky in a solid veil of gray clouds in preparation for a rainstorm that night. The rain would be welcomed, but for now it just filtered the sun out, giving the day a flat, wet feeling.

Twilight forced herself out of bed, the blankets begging her to stay. She brushed her mane into its usual tame style before a panic she hadn’t had in almost a year set in.

She forgot to study for class.

She’d spent a good minute darting around her room, searching for her materials before she remembered that there weren’t any. She sighed, and exited her bedroom to prepare for the day, deciding that following the smell of toast was a good start.

She wound her way down the staircase and over to the kitchen, seeing her number one assistant using a step stool to make daisied toast. “Good morning, Spike,” she chimed, inhaling the aroma of lightly cooked daisies and the light char of good toast.

“Hi, Twilight,” Spike said before looking at her oddly, “Um, Eclipse is here, didn’t you notice?”

“Huh?” Twilight span around, looking around the library. Sure enough, lying near the door, eyes closed as though sleeping, was Eclipse.

“He’s been like that since I let him in,” Said Spike, lifting the toast out of the pan, “He asked if you were up yet, looked around, and laid down there.”

“Oh,” Twilight said, still wondering how Eclipse had managed to avoid her notice, “Wait, he looked around? Was he near my desk?” The last thing she needed was for Eclipse to see that... less than flattering letter.

“Uhh, I was making sure breakfast didn’t burn too much. Why? What was on your desk?”

“Twilight, whenever you are ready, we can begin your lesson,” Eclipse’s voice carried over to the kitchen.

“Eep!” Twilight spun on the spot, “Eclipse! Sorry to have woken you!”

Eclipse stood in the middle of the library, facing toward Twilight and the kitchen, his face still bearing the deep frown and tired eyes he had since she had met him. “I wasn’t asleep, I was waiting for you. Once you’ve eaten we can begin teaching you the basics.”

“O-okay,” Twilight felt slightly cowed. Maybe he really did read the letter? Spike offered her the piece of daisied toast he had been making, and she chomped it down, barely tasting it, and then walked over to Eclipse, ready to learn, for better or worse.

--------------------

“There is only one true constant in illusion,” Eclipse began, “And that is that the most successful illusionists use their victim’s expectations to their advantage. Other than that, everything is fluid. Forms and categories serve as cages, limiting your ability to adapt.

“But all the adaptability in the world cannot help you if you don’t know what illusions are capable of in the first place,” Eclipse walked to a bookshelf and pulled out one of the titles, “All illusions can call under three paradigms: Shadows, Phantoms, and Glamors,” he set the book carefully on the floor between them, “Shadows are created from nothing, floating images controlled entirely by its creator.”

His eyes began glimmering, and a white mist appeared, condensing inward by the book until it resolved into a white pegasus mare with a sea-green mane. She smiled at Twilight before flapping her wings and taking to the air. Twilight flinched slightly as the wind blew in her eyes. “With practice, an illusionist can make a Shadow nearly indistinguishable from the real thing, even seeming to interact with the world around them,” the pegasus landed by the book and opened it, seeming to skim its contents before breaking away into an indistinct blur.

“Phantoms are very similar to Shadows, but they only influence the ponies you wish it to,” the blur reformed into a swarm of around ten parasprites, who took ff to the kitchen, where Spike was cleaning the dishes he had used in making Twilight’s breakfast, “Notice that though you and I can see them, he can not, and even if I were to make them destroy the dishes he was cleaning, only we would see or hear it, and he would notice nothing,” as he said this, the parasprites began picking up any dishes Spike wasn’t touching at the time and flinging them throughout the library, making a huge amount amount of noise and mess, while Spike seemed to be ignoring it all. The pests whirled away in a mist again, along with all the mess they had made, flowing back to where Eclipse and a very perplexed Twilight stood.

“Glamors are the illusions most rooted in reality, as they work off of a real object,” the mist settled onto the book, but had no obvious effect, “Open it,” he instructed Twilight.

Twilight opened the book to the first page, and was startled to see that the first page of the hardcover book was, in fact, the front cover! She felt the oddity, noticing that it felt exactly like the actual front cover of the book, and then turned the strange second cover. Again, she was met with a replica of the book’s thick, protective face. She looked up at Eclipse in total bewilderment, and he met her gaze with a low chuckle, “Perhaps it will make more sense if I break the illusion.”

The sound of breaking glass was heard from nowhere in particular, and Twilight was looking at page three of her copy of A History of Ancient Equestria: Volume 3. “You were flipping the pages, but the Glamor made each page appear to all your senses to be just like the front cover,” he paused afterward.

Twilight took this as an indication to speak, “So, Phantoms and Shadows can only seem real, while Glamors are real, they just seem different. And while Phantoms can only be seen by certain ponies, Shadows and Glamors can be seen by anypony, right?”

“Ah, this is what I was afraid of. You are already constraining your thinking!” Eclipse berated her lightly, his eyes dim, “Glamors can be seen by few or all. Your thinking along such strict lines could have limited you from some very useful illusions.”

“Like what?” Twilight asked eagerly. Even in her incorrect assumption, she was learning.

“Lights that only you can see. Hiding places that only you and your friends can tell are there. A message that looks blank except for the intended receiver,” Eclipse listed some off as he re-shelved the book, “But you are far away from any of those. Now that you know how illusions act in relation to the world, I would like to see you make one. Start with something simple, a Shadow of a block of wood. I will correct you when you make a mistake.”

Twilight furrowed her brow slightly. Who said she was going to make any mistake? She had done basic illusions like he had described before, though maybe not as flashy. A block of wood was simple. She closed her eyes and concentrated on the image of a block of wood, her horn lighting up, and in no time, a wooden cube about as wide across as Twilight was was floating between them, gently hovering.

Eclipse’s scowl curled slightly as he looked at it, before snorting and turning his head slightly.

A sharp pain and noise broke their way into Twilight’s head, as though someone had broken a large glass bottle on her horn. When she was able to ope her eyes through the pain, she saw her illusion was gone, despite her not dismissing it.

“Twilight! What happened?” Spike ran out of the kitchen, likely expecting to see a broken window, only to see Eclipse standing over Twilight with a stern look, and Twilight holding her horn with tears in her eyes.

“Nothing, Spike. Twilight is just learning,” Eclipse growled out.

Comments

[Deep Pond]

Why did I not get a notification that you'd posted a new chapter? Oh well, I can read it now.

This . . . is good. Interesting, engaging, and entertaining. Twilight is in-character, the story makes sense, and most importantly, Eclipse has his own personality. I like that he comes across as somewhat cold and standoffish; it's different but not alien. I also like your take on illusion magic, and how you're establishing the rules for it and working within them. Good stuff! I look forward to more!

A couple of points, though.

“Correct,” he shifted the candles behind Twilight’s head, “And now?”

The first comma should be a period, and "he" should be capitalized. You do this several times through the fic. Dialogue should end with a comma if it is not the end of the sentence; otherwise, end it with a period, exclamation point, or question mark, as appropriate.

I also noticed a couple of instances where you capitalized the first word after dialogue, despite it not being a new sentence.

Well, that settled it. There was nothing about this ponies’ lessons that sat right with Twilight. No formulas to study, no set structure to the class, and by the sounds of things, not even a stable place to learn in!

This? This is perfect. This is classic Twilight Sparkle. You could have omitted her name and just given me the thoughts expressed there and I could tell it was Twilight. Excellent.

. . . due to his apparent distaste in books.

Should be "due to his apparent distaste for books."

[reyin poetic]

1652220
Cutie Mark Crusaders Constructive Critics, YAY!
You are swiftly becoming my favorite commenter.

I try my best to keep the interest and personality of each character, both canon and fanon. As for Eclipse, he'll get more interesting yet!
As for the illusion magic, it's gonna get more and more in-depth as the chapters progress. This? This was a teaser for how I'm planing to take it.
As for the punctuation weirdness, blame me writing these in the time between midnight and dawn. I'll go back sometime and correct them.
About the Twilight quote... I was rather fond of that, and yes, I could have taken Twi's name out. Could have, but had reason not to. :evilspoilerhint:
The book quote... Who says he's not in a book in which he has distaste for something? Okay, blame colloquial speech for that one. I can fix that on my offline copy and edit the online chapter later.
Thanks for the read-and-review!