THE WIZARD APPRENTICE
(c) Copyright Alexandra Pollard, 2003. All Rights Reserved.

Moridion was a young earth pony, midnight blue, with purple and violet hair. She was only half-grown, neither a baby nor an adult. She was quite unusual, because while she seemed perfectly ordinary, the strangest things happened around her. Dragons attacked...

the Silverhorn Unicorns from the Dark Forest when Moridion played there; while visiting Sparklefall River she happened to fall in, and a giant squid (which Sand Dollar swore had never appeared before or since) attacked the sea ponies attempting to rescue her. Once a shade had even chased after the baby ponies as Moridion played with them.

As a result, Moridion was a rather lonely and neglected pony. She thought gloomily to herself that if she’d at least been born somewhere else, somewhere exciting, perhaps her unfortunate talent would have been useful; but here, in pink and pretty ponyland? Not likely! Moridion kicked angrily at a pile of leaves. She was upset, having just been kicked out of Meadowflower’s garden (Meadowflower had found a nest of cat-tailed caterpillars suspiciously close to where Moridion was standing) after which, when she tried to say hello to the baby ponies, they had screamed and run away. Consequently she was in a rather bad mood. “Nothing interesting ever happens here,” she grumbled. “I wish there would be a battle, or I was kidnapped, or something!” Little did Moridion know that she was soon to get her wish.

“We need something new to win this war,” the Dark Lord said terribly. He was sitting on his carved throne, frowning to himself. The Dark Lord was a fearsome looking spectre, hooded and cloaked so that only his slitted red eyes showed. Shadow looked at him respectfully. Shadow was a young unicorn, dark grey, and a powerful wizard, who had been lured into the Dark Lord’s service through promises of excitement and an opportunity to use his talent. These promises were true, Shadow thought ruefully, carefully rubbing a wound he had received in his last battle. He found things rather more boring than he had anticipated, though, and was currently in a fit of mild depression. He watched the Dark Lord scowl. “What we need,” the being announced, “is a search for new talent. I understand that King Mishrail has acquired some new witches; well then, we shall gather some too.” He looked at Shadow, who looked back. “I want you to scour the prosperous lands,” the Dark Lord commanded. “Look for some promising young individual who has talent but has been unable to use it. Get them here; use force if necessary. You may take some of the winged draiks with you.” “Yes, my lord,” Shadow said, bowing, and left his presence.

The winged draiks were medium sized, quadruped dragons, dull-black with shady eyes. They looked at Shadow evilly as he entered their tower. “The Dark Lord needs a couple of strong, winged young ones to accompany me on a kidnapping mission,” Shadow said curtly. The draiks conferred with one another. They couldn’t speak, but seemed to understand each other anyway. Two young ones slid forward, their wings rustling. Shadow saw, to his surprise, that one of them, a winged draik with slightly green eyes, appeared to be distinctly nervous; normally the creatures didn’t seem to feel any lowering emotions whatsoever. The green eyed one sidled past an elder, which snapped at it. The draik ran past hurriedly. Its companion snickered. Shadow tied a large crate to the green eyed one. “We need to bring back any suitable candidates in this,” he explained. “Do you two have names?” The ordinary draik made a noise rather like a hiss; the green eyed one looked hard at him. “Soothzer,” it croaked. “Well, Hiss, when I give the signal, I’ll need you to capture the candidate-without harming them too badly, I might add-and Soothzer, you can carry them back to the fortress.” Soothzer made a snorting sound.

Moridion was walking along the edge of the Dark Forest, looking for magical toadstools, when something flickered at the corner of her eye. She turned, but didn’t see anything. She shrugged. It was probably some of the forest goblins, spying on her again. They had a habit of doing that to anyone walking by. She began walking along again, and was placing an interesting plant specimen in her bag when she heard a strange noise. She looked around. To her horror, she saw nothing less than a fully fledged dragon diving straight for her! Moridion screamed in terror, and began to run as fast as she could, dodging between trees in an attempt to lose the giant reptile. It failed. Suddenly, as the pony ran between two saplings, the dragon dived and caught her in its talons, before winging away. Heart beating furiously, Moridion watched the ground pass underneath her rapidly. She tried to think, but was too scared. Suddenly the dragon tilted and spiralled towards the ground.

To her astonishment a handsome young unicorn emerged from a nearby clump of trees. He was dark grey, with gleaming silver-and-black eyes. “Thank you, Hiss,” he said in a cultured voice. The dragon let go of her and slinked of in the direction the unicorn had come from. Moridion backed away angrily. “No need to be frightened,” the unicorn told her kindly. When Moridion ignored him he sprang forward so that she stumbled and fell. He walked up close and looked at her keenly. “Fascinating,” he said interestedly. “Yes, I think you’ll do nicely for the Dark Lord.” He raised his voice. “Soothzer!” The dragon came out again, this time followed by a green eyed companion who walked up to the unicorn, dragging a large crate behind itself. Before she knew what was happening, the first dragon picked her up and dumped her in the crate. She screamed indignantly as the dragons began to take off. “Let me out!” she yelled. To her surprise the first dragon passed close to the crate. The silver unicorn jumped off its back to join Moridion. “Who are you? What do you want?” she demanded. He sighed. “My name is Shadow, and I serve the Dark Lord,” the unicorn said in a bored voice. “May I have the pleasure of knowing who you are?”

Moridion glared at him. “My name’s Moridion,” she said sniffily. “And you’ll soon be sorry you kidnapped me, because I have a hex.” Shadow looked interested. “A hex?” he enquired. “Yes, a hex,” Moridion said sulkily, sitting down. “Where ever I am something awful happens. Once dragons attacked the Silverhorn Unicorns while I was playing nearby, another time a giant squid attacked some ponies trying to rescue me when I fell in the water at Sparklefall River; and only this morning Meadowflower kicked me out of her garden because she found a nest of cat-tailed caterpillars eating her plants not a metre away from where I was standing! Now tell me, have you ever known cat-tailed caterpillars to appear outside their limestone caves, and in the middle of summer?” Shadow was startled and amused by the young pony. “I have to say, I have not,” he replied, sitting down as well. “You must have trouble making friends, however, if disasters befall anyone who comes near you!”

Moridion fell into charity with him as soon as he uttered this remark, and he sent her such a sympathetic glance that she was moved to tell him some of her difficulties. “The school ponies call me Hex,” she confided bitterly. “I’m a lot older, of course; I’m an apprentice pony. But even the adult ponies avoid me. That’s why I’m the only apprentice pony without an apprenticeship!”

Shadow listened, amused and rather touched. “I could take you on as an apprentice,” he suggested. “Actually, that was what I was sent out to find; a possible apprentice.” A suspicious look was bent upon him. “What do you do?” Moridion asked warily. “I’m Advisory Wizard to the Dark Lord,” Shadow explained. Moridion’s suspicious look was replaced by an interested one. “A wizard?” she repeated. Shadow nodded. “Yes, although I fancy you might be more of an enchanter,” he said coolly. “However, if you’re too scared...” he let the sentence trail off. Moridion cast him a surprisingly shrewd glance. “I might be young, but I’m not stupid,” she said scornfully. “Just because you think I’m a chicken pig doesn’t mean I’ll leap at the chance to be an enchanter. I want to think about it.” So saying, she rsted her head on herhooves and looked frowningly at he hooves.

Meanwhile, Shadow was enchanted. He had never met any young girl pony like this one before. She was powerful, though she obviously didn’t know it, innocent, and rather endearing in an annoying sort of way. And she was very pretty. He decided he would certainly take her on as his apprentice- well, she had to be trained to use those powers of hers, and who better to teach her than him? “Alright,” Moridion announced suddenly. “I’ll be your apprentice. But only because I want to learn magic, and I’m not going to do things just because you tell me to.” This was not a promising beginning, but Shadow recognised that it sprang more from an aggressive, independent streak rather than a desire to be antagonistic. “Very well, then,” he smiled. “Hex, you are now officially apprentice wizard to the mighty Dark Lord. Congratulations. I think you’ll find it very exciting,” he added. And so would he, training the stubborn little kid! But there was some time for her to mature, and she was such a pretty child... He grinned to himself, suddenly feeling that things didn’t seem so depressing after all.