A Sky of Light

by Starlight_Flight

Moon and Spirit

Moon and Spirit

The day had come: a Tuesday, and a night with only one Court to hold. That gave us hours to teach and learn, for I had had the night's other work cleared fully away. The plan now instituted was Tuesdays to teach, Wednesdays to review, one long session and one short, so that we each could answer our other obligations without undesirable consequence.

Hidden Spring came to me at the appointed hour of moonrise, whereupon I turned to my sister. "Sister, this is Hidden Spring, my student. I hope to achieve much good with her." Then I turned to Hidden Spring and said, "Hidden Spring, this is my sister, the Princess Celestia, Mare of the Sun." She bowed to us both.

"It is good to see you again, my little pony," said my sister. "How have you been doing in your classes?" As if she had no idea! I did my best to hide a snort.

"Oh, Princess Celestia! They're good! I like them! Except, I get all confused about alchemy and try to add acid to aliment and yesterday I spilled some essence of fool's gold on the workbench and my classmates laughed at me for it, but Dazzler tried to get the professor to let her keep the rag after I cleaned it up, because it was so sparkly. He didn't and I apologized and I'm so sorry it happened." I tilted my head slightly, observing how her ears kept anxiously flipping up and down with her emotions, and the sense of frustration she tried to hide behind a flood of words and personal guilt. After so much time, one learns the power and value of words, and of keeping silent. So I kept silent and let them talk a little longer.

"I'm sorry to hear that. Essence of fool's gold can be dangerous if used improperly, but I'm sure you and your professor acted appropriately. Perhaps Dazzler would be interested in some lessons on how to produce it herself, as well as more valuable and useful materials. I'll speak with her teachers myself on the matter." Celestia paused. "Now, Hidden Spring, I do hear some good things about you, and I'm told a new power is awakening within you! I hope your lessons with my sister Luna go well, and give you new ways to enjoy your abilities."

"Oh! I do hope so, too!" The unicorn looked at me, and a sudden, enormous wave of hope flooded into me, involuntarily causing me to move closer to her. "I want to know more about all this, and why it's happening to me, and what I'm supposed to do! I didn't realize it was part of my special talent, but it makes so much sense that way."

But finally, it was time for me to speak again. "Miss Hidden Spring, I'm told your special talent involves the emotions of ponies. Let us speak of this further, while my sister closes her evening and rests." I turned to Celestia and gave her a brief nuzzle. "Goodnight, my sister. I will see you again at dawn."

And with goodnights among us, we were soon almost alone. My student and I walked out to the Moonwater Garden, where a large reflecting pool showed us the image of the moon and stars slowly crossing the sky.

"Hidden Spring, at this time, I must ask you to do something rarely known in this time. I must ask you to become my apprentice, for the work upon which we are to engage requires dedication of heart and spirit to the task. It is no mere lesson in equations or theories, nor in the construction of material things and forms of artwork, but a lesson on the Art of Truth Within upon which we now engage. This means serious acts for serious things, for knowing Truth can be a heavy burden even as it allows us to ease the burdens of others." She looked up at me, and I down to her, though the difference did not seem too great to me in that moment. "Will you apprentice yourself to me, and do the work I demand of you, and come and go at my desiring, to learn at my knee and my hoof the Art which I will teach you?"

She, too, had studied. "Honored Moon, I will." Her declaration was quiet, yet it had force, and I felt as if she were fixed upon the earth as a solid thing as she said it; she truly was, as they say, a "natural."

"Then I, too, will dedicate myself, as your Mistress, to teaching you the Art in which we soon engage. I will show you what it is and what it means, how it works and what it does, and how to craft it and shape it, allowing you to learn at my knee and my hoof all that I can show you of our work. By the Moon and Stars, so it shall be."

She echoed the last part, as she had obviously learned elsewhere. "By the Moon and Stars, so it shall be."

I nodded and stamped my hoof upon the still water, then took several moments to share breath with my new apprentice. The guards, to their honor, stayed silent and invisible at their stations.

"So. Now we have sworn to each other, I wish you to tell me of your special talent, and what you have learned about it thus far. We are safe here in the Moonwater Garden, so speak freely to me. On these nights, I am as much at your disposal as you are at mine."

So Hidden Spring began to tell me of her ability to feel the inner natures of those around her, as well as the emotions and personal wellness of those who had been in a place, or owned a certain object, or who were good friends with ponies who spoke with her. I nodded with familiar commiseration when she explained how shocked her parents had been to hear her as a young filly tell an old pony his heart was weak and he needed to see the doctor, and then how guilt-ridden she had also been when he died two days later of a heart attack. For quite some time, she had felt responsible for the pains and troubles which she so easily predicted upon sensing the state of health and inner emotion of a given pony. I was, in fact, moved to lie close beside her as her story continued, offering the comfort of my physical presence as she spilled over with grief and fear that had only recently begun to subside as her classes had taught her more about psychology and philosophy, giving her tools she had not known she needed in order to handle the strange powers by which she had earned her cutie mark.

In the end, Hidden Spring lay quiet beside me, tears dried away, spent and tired. I spoke to her of my own lessons, and how harsh they had been: Discord and unrule had been the nature of the world, and within me for years had been a wild rage which only iron discipline had brought to order. I told her how the histories gentled our stories, gave them distance and a dispassionate eye, attempting to justify the acts of force and even violence with which we ponies had tamed and retaken our world. I told her of finding soldiers, wounded, petrified, driven mad, fallen into despair, and how I had felt each one's injuries within myself. I told her how I had burned with rage for their sakes, and with love for each of my ponies, for all of them. And, haltingly, I told my apprentice how, after Discord had been imprisoned, I continued to ache with despair for them, a despair that turned into anger again as I saw how I had been disregarded after the calming and ordering of our world, with work and play each day and quiet rest each night. My discipline became my refuge, until I broke under the weight of my burdens and the whispering darkness, and turned darker than soft night itself, made to use my talent as a weapon in useless revenge. I let the matter briefly hang there, for Hidden Spring was falling asleep, and I would soon have duties to attend.

I nudged my apprentice, and told her, everything changed when the power of friendship and love for others flooded into me with sudden force. Yet there are things which even artifacts of great power cannot fully embody, and only the wholehearted and loving embrace of my sister gave me proper closure on that chapter of my existence.

Then I told her, tonight's lesson is done. I had a Court to hold, and she had a bed to take up, lest she be found sleeping on her hooves in public on the morrow. After goodbyes, she cantered straight off, with a guard beside her to see her safely to her rest. So ended the first of many nights together.