My wings draped over the edges of the cloud I had used as my perch, high above the latest research center planted in the Frozen North. The bitter air was dotted with snow, and it was relatively easy to flick up the tips of my wings and channel the sounds from below up the wind currents to my ears.

"...says the Northern Lights are caused by solar flares, which is why we've been sent up here to study them," a stallion's voice called. "If the lights don't coincide with the solar flares maintained by the Princess, we'll have to investigate further."

I tilted my head, tuning out the intellectual rabble. Instead, I focused my attention on the clouds, lighting my horn with a pale purple aura in order to clear the sky. Within minutes, both horizons and everything in between had become a vast network of glittering stars.

"Sir? We're getting some strange cloud dispersion. Look!"

Oh. Maybe that wasn't a good idea.

"Princess Cadence has often recorded abnormal cloud activity before the lights appear. She thinks it may have something to do with the energy the lights give off."

Well then, I lit my horn again, a pale pink glow forming around my eyes and lifting my mane up into a surreal, shimmering halo around my head. I could feel my tail turning to the same ethereal substance, and recited the colors in my head as I closed my eyes and focused on my magic. Pink, green, blue... pink, green, blue... pink, green-

My train of thought ended as my magic took priority, a straining, wild thing that I could barely channel; I could almost hear it screeching in my mind before it tore free from my control, streaming up, up, up, an invisible spiral, before colliding with the next layer of atmosphere and exploding into dozens of colors, dancing like ghostly snakes against the stars.

There were gasps and adjustments of equipment from below, but I was too focused on stifling the ringing in my ears. Mother Winter said that this would get easier, I muttered to myself, but I don't think it has.

The gasps were replaced by shouts, the ringing by a shrill shriek, and the insides of my eyelids turned into the aurora-filled sky. Something bright was falling behind the aurora's light, trailing smoke and flames. The beauty of my lights had been tarnished, and a fire flickered in my heart as the injustice took root.

My wings quickly opened to their full span, cutting sections of the cloud out where they had been resting. I turned my lying position into a quick crouch and, with a single flap of my powerful wings, I took off into the sky. The arctic air ruffled my black coat and bit at the bases of my feathers, but the Frozen North was my home, and it's winds lifted me like I was it's child.

Which, in a way, I was.

I flapped harder, occasionally folding my wings and dropping out of the sky to gather more speed. The falling thing, which appeared to be a rock of some sort, was growing nearer and nearer to both the ground and me. I was technically a Goddess, born from Mother Winter's breath and the ice of the North, but something of that heat could melt away my immortality faster than ice cream on a hot summer's day.

I tried harnessing the meteor with my magic, but it's flames tore away my grip constantly, leaving my horn burning and my ears ringing. I dipped one wing, aiming to move under the star, but an errant gust caught me and threw me forward.

Gale, you little prick. You control the wind better than I do. Where the heck are you?

With a powerful stroke, I righted myself, pulling up so close to the flames my feathers burned. The ground was growing closer, closer, closer-

I shut my wings, dropping below the falling star, and raced towards the ground. I pulled up at the last second, snow scraping my hooves for a moment, and darted over the barren wastes. The fireball was nearly close enough to melt the snow now. I had to stop it; the heat and he impact would change the whole makeup of the Frozen North, if not endangering the Crystal Empire or a research station as well.

"Mother, watch over me!" I shouted into the raging heat, flicking the tips of my wings and shooting upwards towards the fireball.

I saw, for a moment, the snow rising up on all sides of me, and the aurora's light reaching down around the fireball. There was a rush of heat, and then cold, and then nothing.

-----

Wow, my head hurts. Actually, I'm pretty sure most of me hurt. I can't move my legs. Damn, are they actually broken? I wiggled awkwardly, trying to lift up my head to see my body. Shit, something's holding my neck still too.

"Uh, Miss?"

I wedged my head against the wall and leveraged myself up into a sitting position. Thick casts wrap most of my body, with a thinner bandaged section around each of my joints and, luckily, my stomach and face. There's a pony looking at me quite worriedly. A pink Unicorn, I think, with a pink, purple and yellow mane. She's wearing a crown too, but it's pretty dinky and kind of lost in her mane. She looks pretty frazzled. Oh, there's the nervous wing shift. Alicorn, then.

I let out a long-delayed, "yeah?"

"A-are you alright?"

I nod as much as I can with the neck brace.

"One of the soldiers found you in a sludgy crater, along with a meteorite."