Forces of Nature

by canonkiller

Dinner

Good things had a habit of happening in bouts. For instance, becoming an orphan had been a rather sparse time, followed by a few pleasant months of game-playing and story-making with the other foals at the orphanage. After that came the first move, leaving behind her friends and her sister's hometown, the mare being too young to adopt and too old to go with her. That was a rather sad time, followed by new friends, new games, new places. The cycle was a rather repetitive one.

And then she had ended up on the outskirts of Ponyville, living in a house with a rugged old stallion and his brutish rat of a wife. Packing for the final move had been easy; she owned nothing more than a set of empty saddlebags and an old doll her mother had given her. When the doll was taken and her saddlebags torn, she left.

She had ended up alone and tired in an alley, taking scraps from a nearby boutique and stealing food from vendor's carts until she enrolled herself in school with a smooth, flat stone and a payphone. Things had started to pick up from there.

Now, she was sitting at a long, wide table, set with nineteen plates and dozens of foods. She had been given a seat between two foals; one was a orange-gold Unicorn filly with a two-tone red mane who had introduced herself as Firelock, and her other side was the only colt among the foals, a shy blue Earth Pony who had looked at her through a curtain of his navy-blue mane, who Firelock had introduced as Shady Daze.

A foal at the end of the table jumped back as her plate exploded into flame. A copper Earth Pony with a brown mane jumped out of his seat, waving his hoof down and stifling the flames with the mere motion.

Firelock snapped to attention as he looked her way. He sighed. "I told you not to stare at flammable things when you zone out!"

"Sorry, Burnt Oak." Firelock sighed, looking down at her hooves.

"Yeah, Firelock, look what you did to my sandwich!" The Pegasus filly frowned, holding up a black mound of ash. Her gray wings buzzed excitedly, and she threw the pile of soot at the other filly with a playful shout of, "you eat it!"

Firelock's face vanished in a cloud of dust as the pile made contact. Her green eyes shone through the mask as she opened them. "You'll pay for that, Tornado Bolt!"

The filly squealed and ducked as a bundle of fries shot overhead, pelting the gray filly behind her. The stocky Earth Pony turned slowly, fixing Firelock with an even, dark gray glare.

"You hit Grace Lightning." Shady whispered, stating the obvious. As if noticing this, he continued, "you are so incredibly dead."

The filly frowned, small blue sparks jumping from her hooves to the table. As the electricity started to expand angrily, a small, wavering voice spoke up from the other side of the table.

"You know better."

Grace's sparks stopped immediately, and she turned her attention to her plate. The speaker, an old Pegasus mare with a pale blue coat and pure white mane, scanned the table, pupils reflecting a faint blue sheen as she moved.

"All of you. Off to the bathroom at once; once you're presentable, you can come back." She paused, eyes flicking to Red June. "June, go with them."

Firelock and Tornado shuffled up the stairs in the next room, Red June following close behind.

"Why do I have to come with you guys?" She commented, sitting out in the hallway while the two fillies bickered over who got the soap. "I didn't do nothing."

"Oh, you're the new kid. I forgot." Firelock turned her attention away, yelping as Tornado struggled to pry the soap from the filly's magic.

Tornado Bolt pulled the soap free, lathering up her hooves before letting Firelock take it back. "Miss Knits likes to have a new apprentice make friends with two of the other apprentices to make training easier. It balances our skills better when we work together."

"Great." June scuffed her hoof on the floor - it was wood, but it had an odd sheen to it - and sighed. "I get to make friends with freaks."

The hallway suddenly filled with bubbles and smoke as a series of orange flames licked around the bathroom door. Firelock stepped out, remains of the soap bar smoldering in her magical grip. Flaming suds dripped from the doorway. Tornado Bolt peered out from behind a scorched shower curtain.

"Freaks?" Firelock growled, the last of the soap dissolving in her magic. "You call us freaks?! We've accepted what we are! You're in denial!"

"I'm not a freak!" Red yelled back.

"Than what's that, huh?" Firelock waved a hoof behind the other filly.

Red June turned around, suddenly aware that it took considerable effort to pry her hooves free from the floor. She looked down in horror, seeing vines wrapped around her hooves and plummeting down under the floorboards. Against the wall, a series of spiked vines had stretched out, waving tendrils dangerously close to the fillies.

"I-I'm..."

Tornado Bolt clapped her front hooves together, and the air in the hallway grew suddenly thick and humid. The flames struggling to cling to the floor dimmed and burned out under the pressure, leaving nothing more than semi-smoking piles of suds.

"I'm not a freak." June muttered.

"There's plant life coming through the kitchen ceiling." Florina called, trotting up the stairs. "Is everyone alright?"

Airheart trotted up behind her, grinning. "Good job, Tornado. Did you remember to open a window to correct the pressure?"

"Yes, mom." The filly droned.

Firelock turned to Florina, small flames flickering from her coat. "We're just fine. She's the one causing trouble."

"I haven't done nothing!" June protested. "If anyone's the problem, it's you, blowing up all crazy-like!"

Firelock launched forward with a screech, pinning June to the ground. Flames licked off of her coat, scalding pink stripes of skin against June's scarlet coat. Screaming in fear, Red struggled, finding anything she did completely useless against the older filly.

A rumble of thunder pealed across the hallway, and a sudden downpour erupted over the two fillies. Firelock's pelt turned cloudy with steam, and both fillies were quickly soaked to the skin. A young white Pegasus filly with a blue mane glared at the two for a few moments before losing her resolve and ducking behind a teal Unicorn with a golden-orange mane.

"Firelock!" The brown-coated stallion yelled, stomping up the stairs. "We never use our powers to hurt other ponies!"

The orange Unicorn ducked her head, glancing back towards June. "She called us freaks."

Burnt Oak hesitated, snorting and staring down the new filly. After a pause, he tossed her head, beckoning Firelock to his side. "We'll talk about this downstairs. Florina," he glanced at the mare, "remember we have no need for apprentices that refuse to learn."

Airheart quickly left after Oak and Firelock, Tornado Bolt trailing behind. Florina watched them leave before walking up to the filly, no expression showing on her face as she stomped a hoof and the flower wilted into itself and disappeared.

"I'm very disappointed in you."

June flinched at the lack of tone.

"Firelock is a Fire Elemental, and is very emotional because of it. She, like you, lost her family. However, she lost hers in an accident of her own creation; she didn't know of her powers, and she set a curtain alight during a feud. They all perished in the flames. There's no doubt that this accident will bring her nightmares back to full force." Florina tilted her head, taking in the damage. "Most of us have been ostracized for our unique powers our whole lives. After all, it's wrong for Earth Ponies to be able to nearly-conjure a flower. It's wrong for a Unicorn to be able to move the air itself with a hoof-stomp. It's wrong for a Pegasus to move fire just as easily as cloud."

"No, it's not."

"Then why did you call us freaks for our powers? I think you'd be surprised as to how many ponies hold fragments of elemental power. After all, Pegasi can create weather, giving them Ice, Air and Lighting traits. Unicorns can change the world around them, using Fire, Light and Shadow. Earth Ponies care for their crops and the world around them, using Color, Earth, and Water." Florina sighed, looking down at the filly. "If you're not willing to accept that you're an Elemental, you might as well deny you're a pony too."

"But I am a pony!" Red June shouted.

"Then act like one!" Florina snapped. "You were raised to be friendly and tolerant of others, and I expect you to uphold that!"

June shrunk back, the truthfulness of the mare's words stinging at her heart.

"Tomorrow," she continued, "You'll be sitting in on some training and learning what it truly means to be an Elemental. Understood?"

June nodded.

"Good. Now get off to bed. Your room is the one with the leaf on the door."

-----

Red June rolled over in her bed. The room was sparsely decorated, no furniture save for a plain white dresser against plain white walls and plain wood floors, beside a plain white bed with plain white covers.

It was comfortable, though, and she soon found she was having trouble staying awake. After a few silent moments, she heard hoofsteps outside of the room, quiet and small.

"I'm sorry." She called out in the dark.

There was a muffled sniffle, and then the hooves were gone. She hesitated, waiting for further response, before letting sleep wash over her.

-----

She was cold, and running, running, always running; the world sped by like it was spinning in the opposite direction, days and nights passing in hundreds as the thing behind her drew ever closer. Hot breath raced down her neck, feet pounding into the dirt-stone-grass that blurred underneath them, evaporating and condensing like mist as it tore through the obstacles around it.

Fear, hot and copper-flavored, shot into her mouth as she tripped, teeth slicing through her lip. The world's manic spinning lurched to a stop, the thing looming over her, a dark olive shadow. It leered closer, closer, eyes glinting as it poised to draw out her secrets and her spirit, feet pressing heavily on her shoulders. A strand of saliva hung from the things mouth, and it hissed, lunging in for the-

-Red June sat upright, sweat chilling rivulets down her back and shadows dancing around the white walls.

"Are you awake?" A voice called from the hallway, "breakfast is ready."

Red shook off the last of the night terror's grip, so entranced by the wafting smell of hay fries that she didn't notice the pair of green eyes watching from the window disappear, nor the solid beat of hooves on dirt vanishing into the morning din.