I was really starting to wish I’d taken a few magic lessons from my mother.

At the time, I hadn’t seen any reason to ask her for training. After all, I was Princess Celestia’s personal
pupil. If there was anything to be learned about magic, the princess could probably teach me way
more than my parents ever could. Besides, I hadn’t exactly been on good terms with my mother
since ... oh, my fifth birthday.

Several runestones clattered around my hooves, pulsing with magic. I had no idea what exactly they
would do, but I was pretty sure I wouldn’t like it. Especially when the caribou who’d just chucked them
at me was smiling like a kid in a candy store. Sure enough, a couple seconds later a shimmering field
popped up between all the stones, leaving me trapped in the middle.

Since my mother was Equestria’s leading expert on runic magic, she might have been able to teach me
a few things that could help in this situation. Then again, since my mother was such an expert on
runic magic and had extensive contacts with the caribou, it might not be a coincidence that a caribou
runecaster was trying to apprehend me right now.
I wasn’t sure how I would get out of this one. The caribou coming after me looked entirely too
competent for my tastes. Caribou are naturally bigger than ponies, and this guy was larger than most.
His brown coat was shot through with a couple white strikes that marked old battle scars, and there
was a lean, toned look to him. Obviously a physical confrontation was out, and I didn’t like a magic
duel where my opponent knew a lot more about how my magic worked than I knew about his.

That left one option: running. I tried to teleport out, but that’s when I found out what those
runestones were for—my teleportation spell fizzled when I tried it. Of course; his opening move
would be to make sure I couldn’t get away from him.

That left fighting and trying to talk my way out of it. We’d attracted a bit of an audience, but playing to
the crowd wasn’t going to be an option—Coldharbor was a caribou city, and the locals would probably
side with their own kind. Fighting wasn’t exactly looking like a great option either. “Okay, you have my
attention.” I tilted my head up to try and give myself an air of casual confidence despite how bad my
situation was. “So who are you, and what do you want?”

The caribou drew himself up to his full height, which was more intimidating than I care to admit. “I
am Gothi Sigil Forestson, and you are my prisoner, Sunset Shimmer.”
I put on a confident smirk despite the fear growing in the pit of my stomach. “Don’t you think it’s a bit
early to declare me captured? For all you know, I’ve got a clever escape in the works.”

“Feel free to try,” Sigil answered with an uncaring shrug. “Though I would strongly advise not using
any pyromancy—you would cook yourself alive in my rune cage, and we can’t have that. Your mother
wants you back alive.”

“Well, you’ll excuse me if I don’t take your word for it.” I threw out a couple quick magical probes at
the rune cage, but it was every bit as tough as he’d claimed. I wasn’t going to test it with any heavy fire
magic for exactly the reason he brought up; being trapped in a small cage with a lot of fire that had
nowhere else to go sounded distinctly unhealthy. Thankfully, one doesn’t spend years as Princess
Celestia’s personal student without learning a bit of versatility.

I tried out one of the common weak points of any anti-magic barrier, conjuration. If you used magic to
make something real and non-magical, then that non-magical object could pass right through the
barrier. Seeing as I was up in the frozen north, ice was the obvious choice; there was certainly no
shortage of it around. Plus, nobody expects to see a pyromancer using ice magic, despite the fact that
Sunbeam’s First Law of Thermodynamics says that ice magic is just fire magic at lower temperatures.

I wasn’t as good with ice as I was with fire, but then I was probably the best mortal pony in the world
when it came to the latter. Ice might not be my specialty, but I could still beat a lot of ponies who did
specialize at it—being a natural genius who was tutored by the princess gave me a big edge. It only
took me about half a second to pull all the heat out of the air around me until it formed a perfect
spear of ice.

I hurled the ice spear at Sigil, though I was careful to avoid aiming for anything vital. I didn’t want to
kill him, after all. It’s not like he was one of the bad guys; he was probably just paying back a favor he
owed my mother. More importantly, outright murdering someone would be going way too far. Before
I’d left her, Celestia told me I could always come back to Canterlot and the palace when I was ready.
However, I’m pretty sure that invitation was dependent on me staying one of the good guys.

Yeah, I’d left Canterlot, and on less-than-great terms with Celestia, but I didn’t want to burn my
bridges completely. The princess had been like a mother to me. A lot more than my birth mother ever
had been—though apparently Mother did care enough to call in a few favors to sic a runecaster on
me.

My careful aim with the ice spear turned out to be all for naught, though. As soon as it reached the
line of runestones boxing me in, the ice lance shattered. Sigil smirked a bit when my attack failed,
clearly amused by it.

I suppose I should’ve expected it. Sigil was a gothi after all. The term didn’t have a perfect translation
into Equestrian, but it would be fair to call him the equivalent of a unicorn magus in terms of
experience and training. And if he’d worked with my mother in the past, he probably had a decent
amount of familiarity with unicorn magic. Clearly, that included knowing the standard maneuvers for
escaping a magic-containing cage.
The only other element I was really good with for combat evocation was light. I wasn’t terribly
optimistic about it doing any better than fire or ice had, but there was no reason not to try it. At the
very least, I could probably blind him through the cage. That might not get me out on its own, but it
would at least give me a bit more freedom to act.

I concentrated on producing a pretty standard thunderflash spell—essentially an explosion of light

and sound intended to disorient anypony who witnessed it. Admittedly, that would suck for any of the
innocent caribou passing by, but that wasn’t really my problem. I’d rather disorient some innocent
bystanders for a bit than let myself get captured. I gathered my energy and cast the spell with the
degree of utter perfection one would expect from Celestia’s personal student.
It fizzled the instant it left my horn.

“Dammit, not again!” I’d been having trouble with my light magic for a while now. It had started up
around the time I left Canterlot. I’m not sure what exactly the problem was, but I suspect it had
something to do with the way light magic works. The way Celestia explained it, I had to be in a state of
personal harmony to use a lot of the spells she’d taught me. I guess it’s no surprise that leaving my life
behind had thrown me out of balance. Still, it would’ve been nice if she could’ve taught me some light
spells that worked no matter what was going through my head.

Rather than waste more energy trying to smash through the cage, I sat down and thought it out for a
bit. I might not have studied with my mother, but I’d seen some of her work and heard her talking
about it with my father over the dinner table. That was pretty much the only thing they’d ever talked
about, even when I was around. Normally I resented that, but right now I wouldn’t complain about
any useful bits of knowledge I could use to get out of my current predicament.

So, rune magic. First things first, it worked a lot differently from unicorn magic. Aside from a few with
disabilities, every unicorn was born with some natural ability to spellcast. Even an idiot could figure
out basic light and telekinesis spells. Most other races didn’t have that natural talent; they either had
no inherent magic or else were like pegasi and earth ponies in that their magic manifested in ways
that didn’t allow spellcasting.

Rune magic, however, didn’t care about who used it. As long as you had all the proper runes, infused
them with energy, and activated them in the right way, it worked—even if you didn’t have a speck of
spellcasting ability.

The downside was that everything had to be done perfectly. Rune magic is not a good field of magic
for beginners. If even a single rune was slightly mis-carved or placed out of alignment, the whole spell
could fizzle. Or worse, blow up in your face. Any line of work that involves dozens of complicated little
details with no margin for error is going to be unkind to beginners, and with how sensitive rune magic
could be you might not get the chance to learn from your mistakes.

The other problem with it was its lack of flexibility. A unicorn could pretty much cast any spell they
knew any time they wanted to, or even make spells up on the fly so long as they knew all the basic
rules and principles of magic. Rune magic, as you might have guessed, doesn’t let you break from
fixed spells. On top of that, you had to have all the right runes and have them all charged up. Heavy-
duty spellcasting burns out runestones pretty quickly, and a caribou can only make and carry so
many. Especially since they had to be carefully stored; a bunch of magically active runestones
bouncing around randomly in a loose bag was just asking for trouble.

That’s probably the main reason rune magic never caught on in Equestria. Not many ponies wanted
to spend ten years learning enough rune magic to replicate basic unicorn spells. It was a lot less
trouble to just get a unicorn to cast whatever spells you needed.

Still, it was useful anywhere that didn’t have unicorns as a widely available resource. Plus there were a
few areas where rune magic was arguably more potent that unicorn magic. Divination was a real
strength, and it was also pretty good at enchantment. And most importantly to my current situation, it
could make nasty barriers and containment spells. Runes were very good at any kind of magic you
want to keep anchored in place.

That did give me one big advantage, though. If I could find a way to break out of this rune cage, I could
probably handle Sigil without too much trouble. Once it turned into an open battle, unicorn flexibility
was way better than static runecasting. I just had to figure out the tiny step of how to break the field
locking me in.

I took a quick mental survey of my resources. My magic didn’t seem like it would do much good. I
could try light magic, or any of the off-talent spells I’d learned from Celestia, but going down the
checklist trying every single spell I could think of until I found a weakness was not the best of plans.
Odds were I’d wear myself out before I found an opening. In fact, that might well be what Sigil had in
mind for me. A tired, burned-out unicorn is a lot easier to catch.

That left a non-magical solution as my only way out. Pity I didn’t have too many of those close at hoof.
The only things I had on me were my heavy wool cloak and a bitpurse that was mostly Equestrian bits,
with a smattering of caribou thalers as well. The cloak could be useful for entangling, but it wouldn’t
help me escape the rune cage. At least up in the frozen north I could wear a heavy face-concealing
cloak without getting any odd looks or sticking out from the crowd; it was cold enough that everyone
wanted to cover up. My coins wouldn’t do me any good either, unless I could buy Sigil off for an
insultingly cheap price.

So, I was down to finding a way through the anti-magic barrier when the only tool I had was magic.
That would be fun.

I could try to enhance my physical abilities and then brute force my way out of the cage, but that was
risky. Self-enhancement spells had never been one of my strong suits, and when you’re messing
around with changing your own body it can go wrong easily. The last thing I needed to do was
magically pump up my muscles only to have them rip apart my still-normal-for-a-pony bones, or
something like that.

Come on, think, Sunset. There’s always a way out. No way I was going to let anybody grab me and drag
me home like I was a runaway teenager. Besides, it had been more than a decade since my parents
gave me to Celestia for training, partially because they’d never been all that good at parenting to
begin with. There’s a reason I spent Mother’s Day with Celestia instead of my biological mother.
That’s when an incredibly crazy idea popped into my head.

I mean seriously crazy. As in if it didn’t work I’d probably end up spending a lot of time with a
psychologist. Actually, the fact that I was even seriously considering a plan this nuts was probably a
sign that I needed to make sure I didn’t have a few screws loose.
Still, as the saying goes, it was just crazy enough to work.

I hammered against the shield with a fireball. Just like Sigil warned me it would, the magical fire
bounced right off the barrier, releasing enough wasted heat to turn all the snow around my hooves to
messy slush.
“It won’t work, Sunset Shimmer.” The gothi grinned down at me. “Your mother told me you were good,
so I made this rune trap special, just for you. You should be honored, really. I had to spend a whole
week preparing these stones.”
“Well I’m only going to need a couple minutes to make you drop that shield,” I boasted, hammering it
with another fireball. The backdraft from it melted the rest of the snow inside the rune cage. “So I
guess you wasted a lot of time.”

“That’s a bold claim.” A smirk crossed Sigil’s face. “And one I see no evidence to support. I’m sure you
have a few tricks left, but nothing I haven’t anticipated, and accounted for with the cage. Your mother
provided me with a great deal of information about your abilities.” He paused, and his expression and
voice softened. “Come now, Sunset, there is no need to fight. Your mother simply wants you home.
You’ve gone out into the world and had your adventure, but now it’s time to return. At least long
enough to let your parents know you’re alright.”

Ugh. I liked it better when he was just gloating. Gloating I can handle. This caribou I’d never even met
before trying to make nice and empathize with me, on the other hoof ... that was more than I wanted
to deal with. Instead of answering him, I pounded against the shield with more fire, and then had to
discard my cloak—it might be all snow and ice this far up north, but it was getting way too hot inside
the cage to wear a thick woolen cloak.

Sigil frowned down at me. “Surely by now you realize you aren’t going to be able to break that barrier
with brute force. All you’re going to accomplish is roasting yourself alive.”

I grinned at him, deliberately making my smile just a bit too wide and toothy. “Oh yes, if I keep this up,
I’ll probably end up killing myself.” I hurled more fire into the shield. “Of course, there’s not much you
can do to stop me, unless you drop the rune cage.”

A unicorn probably could’ve adjusted their spell on the fly to keep me from building up too much
heat, but like I said, rune magic wasn’t flexible. He’d set up a barrier to keep my fire in, which meant I
could do whatever I wanted with it so long as I kept it inside the cage.

Sigil’s eyes narrowed. “You’re bluffing.”

I bugged out my eyes as wide as I could, just to try and make myself look crazy to go through with
this. “Try me.” I hurled some more fire into the cage, turning inside it into something resembling an
oven.

I had no intention of killing myself, of course. I wasn’t wild about being dragged back to Equestria
against my will, but it wasn’t worth dying over. Sigil almost certainly knew that too. We were basically
playing a game of chicken now; either I would lose my nerve and stop upping the temperature, or he
would drop the shield to keep me from hurting myself. Like I said, crazy plan, but it was the best one
I’d been able to come up with.

With any luck, he would crack first. After all, his job was to bring me back to my mother in one piece. I
was willing to bet that showing up with me covered in fresh burn scars would not endear him to my
mother. Not that I wanted to take things that far either, but I wouldn’t have to. I just needed to be
willing to go further than he would.

Soon sweat was pouring off my body, though it didn’t make it too far before it evaporated. For the
record, being locked in a magical hotbox is an incredibly unpleasant experience. The good news was
Sigil liked watching it about as much as I liked being in it. “Stop this, Sunset. You could severely injure
yourself, and it’s not worth risking your life just to get away from your mother for a bit longer.”

The only answer I gave was to chuck some more fire into the cage, pumping the temperature up even
higher. Which I suppose was answer enough.

Sigil pulled out a couple runestones and began idly toying with them. I might know less about rune
magic than I should, but I was willing to bet quite a bit that he was preparing some type of fire
suppression spell. He almost certainly had the runes for it ready; only an idiot would go hunting for a
pyromancer without having any spells that could deal with fire.