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[s]Equestrian Legends the Original is back![/s] Rumours of my rebirth have been greatly exaggerated.

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The Mage's Apprentice; [Meadow]
Topic Started: May 25 2012, 06:13 PM (420 Views)
SilverDemonWolf
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And here it was. The thing she could not do. How many clean linens had perished at her infantile attempts to lift and hold? It was far, far easier to simply go places and lift the things physically.

She adjusted her position and eyed the stone cautiously. This was a different sort of test. She could not skitter it back and forth as she had when moving it, and could not simply smack it in an instant as she had when toppling it. This was the endurance run of magic. Not a trick of strength or accuracy or skill, but simply endurance.

Though... she didn't have to move it, did she? It just had to stay in the air. Like a bottle on a shelf. A shelf made of magic, true, but that was hardly the point.

She built it in her mind, though the only visual cue was that the pale pink aura of her magic enveloped the stone once more. A shelf, made of sturdy, if pink, oak.

After a few cautious seconds, she let her vision refocus on the stone, seeing it rather than her imaginary shelf, and to her delight it was still there, hanging in the air. Her loss of focus, though, made it wobble, and in a panicked over correction, the stone shot into the air, then clattered harmlessly to the ground.
Treble Clef || Unicorn || Stallion

Starling || Pegasus || Mare

Shuck || Diamond Dog || Male

Thanks Vee for the adorable Treble Chubby! %mh%23300%mh% %mh%23550%mh%
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Icefox

Anduriel grinned; twelve seconds. Much better than he'd been expecting. He stalked over to Meadow, carrying a large fish he'd pulled out of the lake earlier.

"Very well done. Here, eat up. It's not good to work so hard and go without food." He picked up his own fish, carving off a chunk with his claws and swallowing it. He gestured for Meadow to do the same.
Icefox || Pegasus || Male
Snowbird || Pegasus || Female
Blackflame || Unicorn || Male
Anduriel || Dragon || Male
Stone Henge || Changeling || Male
Kalidus || Phoenix || Unsure
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She could have wilted in relief. Not because she was hungry, though now that she let her mind focus on her body, she realized that she was starved, between the magic and the flight. But because she had been terrified, in a distant fashion, that during this excursion, they might hunt and slaughter things. Bird, rabbits, little mice.

But a fish, she could handle. Even if she had not eaten meat since the fox, when her newborn body's hunger had consumed anything like sense. But fish? Fish could be bought in pet shops for feeding to cats. Their little bodies felt no pain. They were not even smart enough to run from hunters and traps. Yes. A fish would be fine.

She picked it up delicately in one claw, and with the other, traced a circle in the scales. It is a fish. She reminded herself sternly. Not a foal.

But it made her uncomfortable all the same.

Her stomach growled in opposition to her imagined moral high ground, and she pried one of the larger scales up of off, with a small snap. It smelled like food, though she knew for a fact it wouldn't have last summer. the scale glanced through the air and fell silently.

"Does it not concern you?" She asked, eyes flicking between her fish and Anduriel. "Knowing that..." She paused, trying to phrase the question correctly. She had almost said 'you' but that wasn't right, because they were the same, basically. "Knowing that we end lives for our own?"
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Icefox

Anduriel shrugged, taking another bite of his fish. "Not really. We maintain the balance. If every fish was allowed to live until they died of old age, the population would become unsustainable as they ate everything they could. By killing them, we limit that destruction. And getting food." He glanced down at Meadow, who was obviously uneasy.

"If you wish, I have some gemstones you can eat instead. Those give you just as much nourishment as most organic matter."
Icefox || Pegasus || Male
Snowbird || Pegasus || Female
Blackflame || Unicorn || Male
Anduriel || Dragon || Male
Stone Henge || Changeling || Male
Kalidus || Phoenix || Unsure
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Meadow shook her head slowly at the offer of alternative food. Distasteful as she found it mentally, she could not deny that the scent of the fish was appealing, and that her palette and stomach had grown accustomed to the idea of it. She looked staunchly elsewhere as she took her first bite, eyes everywhere except on her paws and the fish within them.

It was good. And she felt terrible for liking it. After she swallowed, she replied, "That sounds very thoughtful, and true, and guilty. But I am thinking that if the Pegasi can kill innocent creatures in heavy storms, and the unicorns can varp the universe, and even ponies like me can send little bugs avay to die of starvation, I can eat a fish." She flicked her eyes down to it, then immediately away again. "This once."
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Icefox

Anduriel grinned as Meadow ate her fish, polishing his off before returning to their training. For the next few days, he continued drilling her on strength, skill and endurance, and once she had a solid grasp on those, he decided to move on to the next point of training.

"So, today, we're going to get started with ritual magic. I actually heard one unicorn call this 'prop magic', once upon a time, and I suppose that's accurate enough. This is magic you don't do on your own. Instead, you use tools, known as foci. This can be anything from a spoken word to an entire building, but for now we'll be working with one of the most basic foci: a circle." Anduriel picked up a stone slab and placed it in front of Meadow. He had been carving the symbol into the stone while she trained her endurance magic, and there was a groove about half an inch deep running through the rock.

"Now, the substance you're putting your circle on doesn't need to be carved. You can simply draw a line, or use a substance that's already round. This is simply more durable. Now, what I want you to do is press your magic against the circle, and imagine a wall being built up from it. This will create a barrier that blocks out ambient magic, and if you're inside the circle it becomes much easier for you to harness your own power. Try it."
Icefox || Pegasus || Male
Snowbird || Pegasus || Female
Blackflame || Unicorn || Male
Anduriel || Dragon || Male
Stone Henge || Changeling || Male
Kalidus || Phoenix || Unsure
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"I have seen this before," Meadow admitted as she studied the circle. "The Mareskowvy use them." There had been few bovines in Stalliongrad, preferring to stay in Moscow, far away from the 'infringement' of ponies upon their land. But there had been enough that Meadow recognized this as a child's tool, albeit one done in carved stone, making it fit for an adult. "They used mountain salt."

Not always. There had been an old, old bull with a hoop of wrought silver, etched in tiny pictures of clouds and rain and breezes. It could have bought the farmland of every Trotlova cousin out from beneath their hooves. But he used it only to read the winds and the future, as if he were some strange unicorn-pegasus hybrid, and forecast when the next wild storms would come. He had saved more lives than she could imagine.

Thinking about that, with her belly full of dead things, was disturbing. She wondered if he was dead now. There wasn't time for these distractions. She could write him a letter when she was at home.

Still, it raised a question. "Unicorns cannot do this. I have vatched them try." She thought of the pale pink lights that glowed around anything she attempted to do with magic. Anduriel had claimed that their magic wasn't the same as that of unicorns, which she supposed was probably true. He had no reason to lie. Still, it looked the same, and acted very similar. "Vhy can ve?"
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Icefox

Anduriel shrugged. "That is a matter of training, as much as anything. Most unicorns have trouble with ritual magic simply because they don't fully grasp the concept of using an external focus. The horn is actually an extension of the brain, and so they only think something to make it happen, instead of consciously channeling through an external focus. Of course, this is mostly conjecture; the theoreticals of magic were only starting to be studied when I entered my vigil." He sat back against a nearby rock, waiting to see the energies align within the circle and seal it off from the rest of Equestria.
Icefox || Pegasus || Male
Snowbird || Pegasus || Female
Blackflame || Unicorn || Male
Anduriel || Dragon || Male
Stone Henge || Changeling || Male
Kalidus || Phoenix || Unsure
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It was strange to realize again just how old her teacher was. The theories of magic, which she had never bothered learned in all honesty, still seemed like laws that had been established in the indecipherable past. The only bit of magic lore she had ever paid attention to was stone growth, including the tales of the legendary magic-stripping Inmaniptine, now eight centuries old and still a tightly guarded state secret.

And here was Anduriel, who had disappeared from the world when such a thing as silver runes were the only way to help bridle raw magical power. Moon Chaser was spoke of the night sky form before Luna's return as something she could not recall at all, when Meadow had seen more of Celestia's stars than Luna's. It had made her feel ancient.

How did Anduriel feel? Would she one day be like that? And if she never found a way to make friends among dragon kind, and stayed among ponies as he had done... how did he survive, knowing what he knew?

She shook her head slowly, clearing it. "Magic is a strange thing, I suppose."

And then, as requested, she studied the circle, thinking of the old bull who had pulled the future into the present with his hoop. Of the strange way light bent around it when he used it, showing no color or aura, but warping all the same.

Her own magic flared pink around the circle, brighter in places, guttering out in others, uneven as it could be, but still there. When it finally completed the circle, still spastically thick-and-thin, the strangest sensation met her.

It was not like using her magic to hold the stone had been. It was... it was an emptiness or sorts? Or an awareness...

She recalled being a little filly, watching her brothers pull the plows while her sisters planted seed after seed. She, of course, was not to strain herself helping in planting. She was the star athlete, and her body could not be risked to such pointless demands as dirt.

She had wanted it, as was instinct for an earth pony, though. She had yearned to go into that blank space, and make something from it.

The feeling was back, now. The instinctive knowledge that she could do something. No idea what, but it was there, promising greatness all the same.

A green sprout appeared within the circle, and she knew without analysis, that it was white wheat, that it would be a fine, rich grain, better for bread than drinking. THat it would taste almost sweet, so bursting with complex sugars.

THen realization set in, and she gasped, magic fizzling away.

There was a plant there. It collapsed without the support of her magic, tipping over, it's infantile roots already curling in the sunlight.

There was life there. Life that she knew, sickly, she had not summoned away from some other field. It was not the right time of year for nascent sprouts. Life that she had made.

"I did not mean that to happen!" She declared, suddenly terrified. This was not like lifting stones. This was something dangerous and beyond her grasp. It was no wonder the old bull had been able to rip through time and see what had not yet happened. She was certain she could have done it too, if she had even the slightest knowledge of how. If she had been a pegasus, perhaps, and treated the weather as a toy.

Knowledge of her ignorance was the only thing that kept her from shaking wildly: she knew very few things, compared to others. She knew how to grow wheat and potatoes. She knew how to drink. She knew how to land on a single limb without snapping it. Of these, only one had any kind of magical application.
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Icefox

Anduriel's eyes widened as he bent down to look at the plant, being careful to not break the empowered circle. A quick glance at the stone revealed that it was solid slate, but a plant had appeared in it all the same.

"Incredible...Meadow, how did you do that? Spontaneous creation of life is an incredibly complex arcane art, and is very tightly controlled. Can you do it again?" He sat back, watching intently for anything to happen.
Icefox || Pegasus || Male
Snowbird || Pegasus || Female
Blackflame || Unicorn || Male
Anduriel || Dragon || Male
Stone Henge || Changeling || Male
Kalidus || Phoenix || Unsure
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She wanted to vomit, though she realized distantly that she wasn't sure if she could do that any more. It was not an experience she'd had since the change.

She wanted to be sick and cry, and go back home and never look at magic again. She had done something here and now that was wrong on a level she could not quite understand. She felt as though she had violated something precious.

His words only made sense after half a minute of staring at the withering seedling. Hot rocks were not exactly their ideal habitat.

"Controlled?" She repeated dully. "Then there are others who... who do such... things?"

She scoffed at herself. "Of course they do. It vas easy. Horrible, and so simple. This is vhat magic is. Casually taking the universe." Her words dripped bile that spoke of long standing loathing. Even becoming a magic user herself, it seemed, could not erase her distrust. Only now, she had to fear her own actions as much as any unicorn's.
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Icefox

Anduriel frowned, folding a wing over Meadow. He had to break the barrier around her to do it, but it was a necessary cause.

"You treat this ability like a curse, young hatchling. It isn't. Rather, it is a blessing, one that could be used for great things. This is not as simple as you think; many great unicorns and other practitioners have gone before you, and many likely will after, who have never been able to do anything like this. To create a form out of raw magic, to give it life and substance, that is an ability beyond even myself. Imagine what you could do; entire villages that go hungry are given a field of wheat. Collapsing mountains are given grasses which take root and give purchase to the soil. You have a gift, young one. Never forget that." He held her close, waiting for her to calm down.
Icefox || Pegasus || Male
Snowbird || Pegasus || Female
Blackflame || Unicorn || Male
Anduriel || Dragon || Male
Stone Henge || Changeling || Male
Kalidus || Phoenix || Unsure
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She fought against the embrace at first. It was wrong. Did he not understand it? No, no of course he didn't She had never met a Unicorn that could comprehend the sheer violations that their magic created, taking the natural order and tipping it on its head. But at least they had limits, limits that apparently, if his words were to be believed, she had abruptly and inexplicably surpassed.

And his arguments made sense, it was true. But her mind refused to accept the logic of it. She knew he was right, but still she reeled from what she had done, from the break in her own knowledge of herself and of the way of things.

High, strangled laughter began bubbling in her chest, but with her jaws clamped shut, it seemed more like choking than anything. It was funny, wasn't it? She'd spent her whole entire life on one aspect of being an Earth Pony: being strong, be tough, being sturdy and stable. And now she wasn't even a pony anymore, and the other half of it came back to haunt her. Being the source of life.

She discovered that she could, in fact, vomit in this new form, though the sheer length of her neck meant it never made it out. Instead she just choked a little longer, then gasped, heaving.

Hysterical, some part of her mind provided with no explanation. It meant funny, usually. Not right now though. Not like this.

Her gaps quieted to hiccups as the sun moved along its course, the shock of realization slowly fading away. Still there, buzzing, tingling under the surface, waiting for her to notice, waiting for her to think and lose herself in it.

But it was something she could deal with now, something she understood at least enough to know how to avoid it.

"Controlled." She said again, looking for something else, anything else to do, at least for a little while, until she didn't feel like she was falling. "There are rules. Tell me about the rules."

Rules were good things, not quite like laws, but still. They provided a framework. Something that could, perhaps, explain why any of this was supposed to be 'okay'.
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Icefox

Anduriel sat back, beginning to go through what he'd learned about modern law. Most of it was still the same as when he had been part of making it, but with new discoveries came new regulations, and he still had a long way to go before he was completely caught up.

"I still don't know all of the current laws of Equestria, but here's what I know of life manipulation and creation. First off, you are not allowed to do anything within the vein without the approval and supervision of an authorized government official. Last I checked, I have the right approvals, but I would recommend you not make a habit out of it. Secondly, only plant life is to be manipulated; interfering with any animal is considered a crime and will be punished as such. Beyond that, I will tell you what you can and can't do as it comes up. However, even if it is tightly regulated, what you have is an incredible gift, young hatchling. You must learn to treat it as such."
Icefox || Pegasus || Male
Snowbird || Pegasus || Female
Blackflame || Unicorn || Male
Anduriel || Dragon || Male
Stone Henge || Changeling || Male
Kalidus || Phoenix || Unsure
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"I don't-" Meadow cut her words short, realizing at the last moment how much like a foal she sounded. Despicable. If she was going to have such disgusting 'gifts,' then the least she could do was behave in a decent fashion. Give those arrogant unicorns a role model of proper civility. She began again. "I don't know vhen I vill be able to see this as you do. But I vill attempt to do so, diligently."

She nodded slowly, still feeling the buzzing of anxiety, of disgust, hiding under the surface of her thoughts. But it would wait. There were more important things to do. She had to learn how to control this, to make sure such an abomination did not occur again. "Vhat next? Perhaps, if you gave me a goal, like the ones before, for vhat to do vith the circle?"
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