LEGEND OF THE GODDESSES

Twixt, 1,085 years ago

A pale pink filly edged nervously into one of the huts on the outer rim of Twixt. Blankets draped over the windows darkened the room, and Kolassa blinked rapidly, her eyes used to the intense desert sun.

"Don't step forward just yet, child," said a high-pitched female voice with a strong accent. "Give time for your eyes to adjust."

"Y-yes ma'am," Kolassa stammered.

"Spyder has been expecting you, young Kolassa, and heard tell of why you're here. But Spyder would like to hear it from you. Why are you here?"

Kolassa swallowed, her eyes searching the darkness for the source of the voice. "Well… ever since I was a baby, monsters have been coming into my room in the dead of night and trying to kill me or steal me. Every night that they come, my father has to rush in to rescue me."

"Don't move your eyes so much. Focus on a fixed point. Go on."

"I don't want to put my father in danger like that anymore," Kolassa said with increased confidence, her eyes holding stationary. "I want to learn how to protect myself. The monsters get more dangerous the older I get."

"Monsters, she says," the accented voice mused. "A monster is just an animal you haven't met yet, child."

"You haven't seen them," Kolassa said flatly. "They are monsters. Can you teach me how to kill them?"

"Spyder can teach you to be at peace within your body, mind, and soul—to be aware of all things. Whether you can kill monsters with this knowledge is entirely up to you."

Kolassa sighed. "Well, they did say you were odd."

"Spyder is not odd. Have your eyes adjusted?"

"Yes."

"Fantastic."

Kolassa caught a glimpse of a four-hoofed creature darting across the floor of the hut, pulling the blankets off of the windows and flooding the room with light. Kolassa clamped her eyes shut.

"Eyes open, child! Until you have been trained, your eyes are the only tools you have to be aware of all things! Alertness, young Kolassa!"

Kolassa heard a whoosh of air, and quickly raised both of her front legs, clapping her hooves together in time to stop a long, curving scimitar horn from colliding sidelong with her head.

She opened her eyes, getting her first good look at Spyder: a large gray antelope, with a black muzzle, black and white stripes on her face, slanted blue eyes, and two long backward-swept horns.

The antelope grinned. "Well done, child. Let us begin."

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

Kolassa sat on the crest of a sand dune, her eyes closed, and breathing in and out slowly. Spyder paced around her.

"Yes, well done… breathe, little one," Spyder said softly. "Make every breath exactly the same as the one before it. And think of nothing! Nothing but the breathing. Thousands of wayward thoughts run through a creature's head every day. Someday, you will come up here and truly think of nothing but your breath for a thousand breaths… but you must be honest with yourself and not claim that day has come before it has."

Kolassa didn't respond, but continued breathing.

Spyder smirked. "Hmm." She blew in the filly's face, but she didn't react. She feinted a punch to Kolassa's face with her hoof, and was thoroughly ignored.

"Aha," said Spyder thoughtfully. "You are better at this than Spyder thought you would be. But perfection of self comes only through years of study. Are you willing to commit to years of this?" After a silence, Spyder chuckled. "You may answer Spyder, little one."

"Yes, Master," Kolassa said serenely. "As many years as it takes."

"Eh, Spyder doesn't like that word, 'Master'. Call Spyder… Spyder."

"Yes, Spyder."

"Good," Spyder said pleasantly. "If you truly wish to commit, you will stay with Spyder. You will live in her hut, you will eat her food, she will fight off your monsters for you as you train. Agreed?"

"Agreed."

Spyder ruffled Kolassa's red-and-orange mane. "Good lass, Kolassa. Spyder likes you, she thinks."

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

Kolassa and Spyder jogged through the desert side by side, Kolassa balancing a bucket of water atop her head.

"Spyder?" Kolassa said raggedly.

"Speak."

"You're an oryx, right?"

Spyder's lip thinned. "A gemsbok, child. Spyder is a gemsbok."

"Oh," Kolassa said blankly. "Mr. Elan said you were an oryx."

"'Oryx' is the name the gemsboks were given by the horse and pony settlers who came to the Whispering Desert from other lands," Spyder said distastefully. "Different names for one folk, yes. But as it's her land and her species, Spyder thinks she would know the proper name."

Kolassa shrugged as she ran along. "Makes sense to me."

They ran in silence for a moment.

"So, these are gemsbok lands?" Kolassa said, frowning. "Ponies and horses moved here from elsewhere? But I've barely seen anyone who wasn't a pony or horse since we came here, except a few in the big city."

Spyder sighed. "That much is true, little pony. The Whispering Desert has a scant few livable scraps of land, and your kind drove out Spyder's kind and all the others. It's a sad truth—one that should be taught to more children, Spyder thinks."

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

"Mr. Elan?"

The green horse smiled at Kolassa, her baby blue eyes gazing at him from far below.

"What can I do for you, dear Kolassa?" he said, leaning against the well at Twixt's center.

"I've been learning about the politics of the Whispering Desert nation," Kolassa said softly, accepting a glass of drinking water from him. "I thought, as our mayor, you could answer a few questions for me."

"I'm not really a mayor, little one," Elan chuckled. "But I'm sure I can help you. What did you need to know?"

"Well, Spyder mentioned something a few weeks ago," Kolassa said calmly. "And I've read some pamphlets and things… I find she's right. Why do horses and ponies live so much better than everyone else? It's not fair."

The horse's jovial orange eyes quickly became serious as he grasped the seriousness of the question. He blew his two curls of blond hair out of his eyes. "That's just the way things are, Kolassa. My ancestors came here, they built cities and towns that made the nomadic lifestyle of the natives look like a joke. It was a long time before the native races were even allowed to enter our civilizations. And now, well, they've been forced to start at the bottom." He sighed. "I don't like it, Kolassa, but what can I do? I'm just one horse in a small village. I try to make Twixt a good place to live for whoever wants to do so, but I can't fix the injustices of the entire country."

Kolassa set her water glass aside. "I can," she decided. "Everyone who lives in the Whispering Desert should be as happy as I am. When I'm older and I've mastered all of my disciplines, I'm going to make it happen."

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

"She's been running you ragged for months," Chronus observed. "I'm glad that antelope is giving you days off, at least."

Chronus and Rhea were at their dining table, sipping cups of hot tea. Kolassa was pacing the floor, her own teacup forgotten.

"She's giving me days off, but I'm not taking them," she said firmly. "I'll be living with you again for a while, but I'm still going to practice every day. And 'that antelope' is Spyder, my master and my close friend. Show some respect."

Chronus smiled weakly. "She seems to have… changed you over the months, Kolassa."

Kolassa blinked in surprise. "I… I haven't changed, Father. I just understand things better. I know how to take care of myself. I think about the future now, and making a difference." She walked around the table and pulled both of her parents into a hug. "I'm never going to change, not really," she said cheerfully.

Chronus's purple eyes met Rhea's pale yellow, and they smiled in unison. Kolassa took a moment to examine her parents' cutie marks: her mother's winding river and her father's hourglass.

"I think I'll get my cutie mark soon," she said casually. "Once I've become just like Spyder, that's when it'll happen. I know it."

Outside the hut, Spyder listened in on this conversation. She touched a hoof to her heart, her eyes welling up with tears.

"And I'll also be… more like you two," Kolassa finished, beaming at her parents.

Rhea raised her head. "Did you hear something?"

"Oh, I'm sure that was just Spyder," Kolassa said quickly. "She's still going to keep an eye on me. She's been fighting off the monsters, but it's time for me to try and take one down by myself."

Rhea bit her lip in concern. "Well… we're all watching over you for when the next one comes, Kolassa."

Kolassa nodded. "I know. Thank you."

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

Kolassa was awakened in the middle of the night by deep, ragged breathing. She opened her eyes calmly. Standing over her was an enormous gray-furred creature, like a bipedal wolf, its red eyes glowing and its teeth bared in a snarl.

She breathed in and out calmly, and crawled out from under her covers, standing atop her bed. She bobbed up and down a bit, staring down the monster, inviting it to make the first move.

It lunged, teeth-first. She spun around and bucked it across the jaw with blinding speed. It fell back in surprise, rumbling deep in its throat as it ran a claw across its cracked teeth. It gaped at her, stunned by the strength in that little kick.

Kolassa stood on her hind legs, her front hooves pressed together just above her heart. She then lifted one of her hind legs, standing perfectly still atop her mattress on a single hoof.

"Come on, comrade," she whispered. "Give my skills a good trial run."

The wolf-monster snarled and swiped at her with its claws; she blocked its forearm with her own, batting it away with surprising force. It clawed at her head from above, and she punched it in the wrist, then gripped its hand between her hooves and twisted. It dropped to its knees, and she returned to her neutral, one-legged stance.

The beast stared in disbelief at its snapped wrist, then crossed its arms indignantly, glaring at her. It got back to its feet and revealed its second pair of arms, which had been concealed on its back. These arms were impossibly muscular, and rather than paws, they ended in shiny black pincers. It clacked these claws menacingly, before lunging at Kolassa with one of them.

Kolassa closed her eyes and didn't move, letting the attack come. There was a loud crack, and the creature jumped back a third time, howling in pain as it clutched what remained of its pincer. The beast's crab-like appendage had shattered in its attempt to squeeze Kolassa's skull.

"Whoa," Kolassa commented, wincing. She took another calming breath. "I shouldn't have toyed with you like that. I should have finished this already."

She jumped to the creature's eye level, pounding its face at least twice each with all four of her hooves before she dropped down to the ground. Gray-green blood spilled from its eye and mouth, and it coughed horribly.

She kicked it in the shins, cracking the bones. It collapsed, and she raised both of her front hooves and pounded them into its collarbones, breaking them as well. She placed her front hooves on the ground and twirled, bucking it in the chin with enough force to send it flying straight through the curtain that separated Kolassa from her parents.

It was dead before it hit the ground, its neck broken. Kolassa noticed her parents wide awake, clearly poised to rush to her aid.

"Kolassa?" Rhea said shakily.

The seemingly ordinary filly examined the body of the horrific monster she had killed. She beamed at her parents.

"It's definitely dead," she said cheerfully. More solemnly, she added, "I can handle them alone from now on. No one else has to fight for me. That makes me feel much better… you know, about this probably happening for the rest of my life." She nodded, sniffling slightly. "Yeah… well, goodnight."

She returned to her side of the curtain, pulling the monster's carcass along with her.