> The Storm Dancer
>  by Ice Star
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> Her Sanctuary 
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In a valley walled with stone and snow and where both day and night are always dreary
(and both dawn and dusk are an equally cold blur)
a filly who is still not yet a mare stops her aimless walk, finding herself with a heavy heart and weary
(her steps were too quiet for even the frost-bitten plants underhoof to stir)
and she sits upon her haunches tilting up her head so that might meet the looming weight of an ill sky

Every part of her small snow-sprinkled form runs with magic under an inky coat
(the trees slice their shadows across the moon-marked maiden goddess who sits all alone)
the low song, a hum that had been pouring from her throat stops, quieting with a single hushed note
(around her is a thankfully pony-less part of a suddenly-small world where she alone is surrounded with whispering pines, glinting ice, and grave-cold stone)
crunching needles shift as the youth of many centuries stands in a cloak of silence, the world's magic a dull pulse compared to the far away vale's

She, the small goddess, breathes in air crisp with cold
Her lit horn sparkles with a light neither green nor blue
(the winds pick up, pulled by magic heavy with loss)
and winds dancing with flakes of white leap along at the call of her power, dancing along her body of midnight hue
(with a stubborn snort, she gives her barely wither-length mane a toss)
and watches a sky alive with silver and gray grow darker with new layers of cloud to build only she gave a second glance

Every leap and bound she makes onto the stormy surfaces is filled with a swift and wild grace
and her blood of neither tribe - or any kind of pony - guides light leaps and jumps
(below her newfound and feral playground the world shivers and trees shake)
Hooves that know both the mountain and the stream with equal experience on paths unseen, carrying her lithe form  through any fluffy, silvery bumps
(and as she takes a single glance to the mountain pooled land not so far below that she barely escaped, what stretches out before her is a mountain-hugged vale of fantastic hues - an earthen lake)
and taking a moment she inhales another breath, shaking and deep, a sound lost in wind





She simply wonders at it all





Before her divine eyes is a sea with no shore, above and below as far as the eye can see
Thankfully free of ponies and those who would think to call her back down with their voices like chains
(swirling ever faster, the wind sings songs that will haunt her ears long after her leave)
and further do the magic-called clouds come to share her pains 
(as thoughts of a wizard and a sister intrude upon her mind's edge, her mimicry of true freedom she begins to grieve)
so she bounds up, as far as hidden wards might allow 

In the distance, the sun stumbles below the gray-streaked horizon
where it is guided by those not fit for the task, who will die moving what they could never master
(and the sky grows a cold pitch-dark only she could find beauty in as the distant stars begin to take their place in the sky)
Below her, the world echoes with another angry goddess' voice; as it calls to her with its divinity-enhanced volume, her heart only beats faster
(she knows that below her waits only the bearded wizard's stone tower prison, where few thoughts could ever fly)
roiling masses of clouds surrounding her start to quake and her night-blessed eyes gleam with a plan

Underhoof, her new world crackles and shakes as the night grows darker and the stars find themselves smothered by the tempest-to-be
The skies rumble and echo until silence and screams from below are sliced with deafening sound
(her horn shines bright with light only her superior eyes can see)
and blooming in the darkness is a storm fed with magic that bleeds into every neighboring cloud
(from the brightest flashes of her power punctuating the darkness after the thunder's clap are the strikes of light shine with uncontrollable power, illuminating her wonderstruck eyes and a rare display of glee)
a surge of power that crackles alongside lightning, blending its own light with the magic storm, fills her mane with white that shines once and fades

As storm subsides to her beloved silence sometime late into the night, the screams of her name stop too
On the clouds, with a coat wet with rain, the dark maned mare sleeps
(magic that ran wild with her own had long since faded from her, taking with it the mane of white)
but when she wakes again,  the feeble light of dawn has begun to reach into the sky as the sun makes its shaky climb, and upon seeing it, her eyes try to blink back tears, only to fail and she weeps
(and as the magic barrier she knows is there presses down upon her, the filly feels her chest grow tight)
Into the sky, her wings stretch, and she admires them as they are for what will surely be the last time in a long while, for she can already feel the wizard's magic plucking the proud flight feathers one at a time


> Epilogue
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Luna tried to move her wings for what must have been the tenth time. She hadn't been counting. 

The blood spotted bandages around each once-proud limb spoke only of the sharp pain that came from having that raging drunk of a wizard pull her feathers out so sloppily while mixing his boasts of how fine the quills he made from each would be with curses about a species that no pony could make heads or tails of beyond locking her and Celestia away under his 'care'.

She felt raw - even more so when she felt a forehoof press down on her left wing, and a bit too roughly despite the owner's graceful manner, Luna knew that she had yet to master her strength and that she did not have to turn her head to know that the hoof would be a dainty pinkish white that was never 'marred' with pine needles or the smell of fresh snow on the tree boughs. It was clad in a silken slipper by the feel of it.

"Selene."

It was the shackle that wasn't her name, but something of the wizard's own making at finding their true names to be not to his liking.

And when her sister said it, Luna knew it was an order that her elder sibling felt no need to finish as if her deceptively warm yet commanding voice that every noble in the Unicorn Court loved was enough for that infuriating calm sound that once guided her along with conversations like breadcrumbs in the more interesting woods of silence that hung between them was enough on it's own.

But it wasn't.

The hoof pressed on her wing and the slight increase in pressure caused Luna to jerk her body away from her sister.

"Selene," her sister said more forcefully, as if to imitate the mother they no longer had.

Luna simply didn't listen - not to her sister, at least. Her roaming mind had strayed to the dance of storms under her hooves and the feel of wind on her back.