> Almost Immortal > by Katnine > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Chapter 0 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- PROLOGUE I groaned, stretching from my spot among the hard-soft mattress in my “room”, a nook among the interwoven natural caves that my dad and I lived in. The crystals in my room naturally lit up as soon as the sun had touched the ground at its lowest point in the sky: dusk. I arched my back, the slightly lumpy mattress leaving little cricks in my back and my legs. Aching just a little less, I attempted to look “mature” in the mirror, the mirror only being a clean slate of a cut amethyst on the wall, but didn’t succeed very much; I was only four, of course. I trotted happily out of my room, my hair tie held wobbly in my magic, tying my hair into a fluffy ponytail. “‘Evening, Papa!” I called cheerily, locks of curling hair falling away from the hair band. My father saw me, chuckling as I puffed up my cheeks in frustration as my hair continued to slip out of my weak magic. My father was a broad stallion: tough build and shimmering black hair that complimented his red eyes and dark green coat. It was cut short, allowing him to see and keeping the illusion of masculinity. He took the tie in his cherry magic and tied it for me into a beautiful, braided bun. He himself was dolled up in a nice suit, gell obvious in his mane, tail brushed. He used a wisp of magic once more, the shiny river encasing me for a second before my tail was unknotted and I was dressed in a beautiful dark blue dress. “Good evening, Starbound. The moon is rising, thy must travel quickly with thou to get to the castle before moonhigh.” “Of course, papa.” I nuzzled his coat and he buried his snout into the top of my head, a single, short and mildly curly cornflower lock falling into my face, contrasting my light magenta eyes and my cerulean coat. We set off together, occasionally reaching a clearing and teleporting a distance forward. We arrived barely an hour or two later, a simple spell cleaning our clothes and wiping the sweat from our fur. We stood in the line waiting for the night’s Royal Court. You see, my father and I had been living on our land for around 72 moons, and this meant that it was, legally, ours as soon as we got our deed. We had applied for much more than we had farmed on, but the area we were on was so remote from the popular towns on the Dragon’s sea, such as the growing Manehattan, and Canterlot in the Everfree, built around the castle of the two sisters, that it didn’t matter. We entered, at last, the bat guards glaring us down for a second before they caught my father’s eyes, which slitted at their glare. They instantly stopped their glaring, one nodding in respect and the other simply dipping their wings for a second. I never could get it; why was that? Weren’t we just unicorns? I knew my father had some slight mix in him, but it was so small it only affected his eyes! I didn’t have that. Quickly snapping me out of my thoughts, my Father’s name was read aloud by a lovely voice. “Nightscape Meadow. Thou art here to claim a 50-acre plot of land, is this not of correctness?” I looked up to the source of the voice. A mare that stood a head above my father had spoken. Her coat was a dark, sleek, beautiful denim. Her hair looked as if someone had reached above and taken a scoop of the night above and placed it upon this ground, galaxies and stars swirling in the water that blew in an unseen wind. She had on a silver chest plate with the crescent moon glimmering against and matching flat shoes. The ends of two majestic wings rested on the plate, feathers elegant and vast. A long horn peaked above the hair, all of this wonderfully matching two ocean-colored eyes. Princess Luna. “Yes, your highness.” My father bowed and I joined. We rose at her command, a small smile tugging at the slim muzzle on the royalty’s face as she caught the slitted eye of my father. “Thou hast, in accordance to my parchment, lived there for longer than seventy-two full moons and grazed upon this earth for this time?” “Yes, your highness.” “Mr. Meadow, thy grant thou and thine daughter, Ms. Comet, the deed to thy land. Your daughter wilt inherit the deed less anything may come to which thou longer not walk this ground.” In her magic carried over the scroll, my father gratefully taking the parchment and disposing of it in his bag. “Thou art dismissed. I wish thou the best of nights.” “I wish the same to you, my princess.” So we left, I practically bouncing that I met my idol in person. ONE WEEK LATER I sat in the clearing I had dubbed as my own, the tree I had planted only a year ago and nurtured with my own magic in the center next to a small clear pond, a few baby fish inside. I wasn’t sure how those fish got there, but a little stream that fed it was a likely way of how it got there. My initials have been carved into it with a little shooting star symbol, what I hoped and guessed my cutie mark would be since my name was “Starbound Comet”, after all. It’s not like I had a mother to go after, anyways, since cutie marks usually followed on the maternal line (so my father said). My head snapped up from the flower I was trying to nurture as I heard a sparrow twittering in the grass.  I crept toward it, moving through the brush and traveling far from the clearing. I pounced on the little bird, holding the delicate thing very gently between my hooves. I wondered if my father would let me keep the frantically cawing thing. I carefully held it in my mouth, fully aware my teeth were kinda sharp and began to try to head back home when I realized I wasn’t quite sure where I was. I didn’t recognize the tall trees, the dead leaves. It was so quiet here, even the bird in my mouth, that was still alive, I felt it breathing, had stopping screaming. That’s when I heard the heavy paw steps behind me. They very softly made little crunches against the fall leaves and I felt the urge to freeze up. But I didn’t. It could hurt me! So I bolted, the sparrow still in my mouth. I still tried to be careful not to hurt it. I dropped the sparrow as I reached a mountain’s cliff. Oh no. I dropped the sparrow but, thinking back to how its wing was limp before, it must have broken it and it simply backed behind my legs. I turned around and saw a horrible sight. A chimera. It had the head, front paws, and mane of a lion and two heads sat on either side of it. One of a dragon and the other of a goat, the goat also extending to its haunches and hind legs. Two large dragon wings were propped on its back, the tail of a snake hissing beside it. My breaths slowly became more panicked as I tried to remember the spells my father taught me. I frantically tried to summon a shield, the light magenta magic stuttering and stumbling as it barely held up. I frantically shrieked for my father, calling “Papa, papa!” in a high-pitched, frantic voice as the lion-like creature paced outside the perimeter. Just as my shield began to waver out, patches of it disappearing like when you stretch out gum too far, a dark red bolt threw the Manticore away. “Starbound! Get to Canterlot, get help!” He hissed. I yelped and nodded, bolting off as the sparrow had nestled itself into my mane. I teleported frantically, casting and performing spells I didn’t even know existed as I ran quicker than I thought ever possible. I carried a two-hour journey in less than fifteen minutes. It must have looked terrifying to the upperclassmen and the peasants as a filly ran that quickly, her coat smudged with dirt and her coat scuffed and bleeding with the brambles she ran through the streets. I huffed as I got the guards, one so shocked at my quickly spewed story that his wings fluffed up on his back. He called for guards, each of them rushing to a carriage as I cast a spell my father taught me to track back home. A purple thread trailed all the way back home and, by extent, to my father. But they arrived too late. My father laid under the paws of the beast, his horn cut at the end and a gash running deep in his chest. One of his hind legs seemed to be bent in the wrong way. The chimera was thrown back by the blast of one of the guards, the guard I had originally found, and they began to fend back the beast. I, of course, rushed forward to my father’s side. “Papa!” I sobbed, seeing the wounds. “Y-you’ll be alright! Y-you’ll be fine, r-right? I-I got help!” “Starb-bound,” He coughed, a little stream of red leaking from his muzzle. It’s obviously magic! Magic.. essence? Whatever! It just wasn’t blood. I was positive! He’d be fine. He couldn’t leave! “I’m not g-gonna make it, Comet,” He smiled grimly, no sign of the usual resigned pride or happiness that was usually in his grins. “But d-don’t worry, you’ll h-have a lot of time to get over me, alr-right?” He choked, swallowing the bubbling red that seemed to be choking him. I struggled to summon healing power, any, any at all! Please! He can’t leave me! “Don’t leave me! I don’t want to be alone!” I cried, wetness gushing from my eyes. He seemed to mirror that, reaching up and wiping at the tears. “Don’t cry,” He chuckled, “You’re m-making me cry, t-too.” He sighed, “Comet, you’re a Karkadann, you’ll h-have plenty of time to g-get over me, okay?” “But we were going to go to the lake tomorrow! You were gonna help me decorate my room! Please, don’t leave! P-please!” He reached behind his head, gripping a golden locket and looping around my own neck. “I-I’m sorry… Comet, I love you, remember that…” And, like a flame pinched out much too soon… My father was gone.