Gold Chisel stood back, wiped the sweat from his brow, and admired his work. Another masterpiece complete. This one a statuette of three small ducks swimming in a pond. He smiled to himself as he went over the details once more. The ripples in the pond were set in the marble such that it seemed as if it would spill if he tipped it, made more realistic by countless hours of, skipping pebbles in the town lake after his studies. The ducks, carved to perfection, from hundreds of mistakes littered in the form of rubble around his floor, seemed as if they would come alive and start quacking. And goodness knows how long he spent making a realistic cattail and reeds from carved marble.

A loud, blaring sound tore him from his marble fantasy, nearly causing him to bump it off of his desk-turned-crafting table. It was time for sunrise and a morning meal. Gold Chisel disassembled his work and hid it in various, inconspicuous corners of the room. The chisel handle could serve as a believable large wooden inkwell at a glance, and the head wouldn’t be noticed in his bag of coins. The marble chips could be hidden with the dust on the windowsill, as it was a while since the room had seen the light of day, and the sculpture itself (which he had decided to call goodwill pond), had to be hidden very carefully. Gold Chisel used the last of his magic to remove a stone tile from beneath his bed, and stored goodwill pond with the rest of his most precious sculptures. “Someday,” he thought, “they will understand.” Nudging the tile back into place with his hooves, Gold Chisel left his room and headed off to the courtyard, exhausted but satisfied.

“Late. Late. Late.” The headmaster marked each of the unicorns passing by with a large, blaring red “LATE” on their foreheads using a crude old quill. “Well, if it isn’t Gold again.” They were on a first name basis by now. “Late again for the sunrise? What if we didn’t have enough energy today to lift the sun by ourselves? What if it stayed night forever? Every unicorn makes a difference.” Gold Chisel had heard this lecture before and rolled his eyes as he accepted his “LATE”, trotting towards the crowd as if he had just woken up from a long sleep.

“Now that everyone’s here, we can begin.” The headmaster levitated a wand, scanning through the audience. The wand went up. “Unicorns, the daybreak verse!” In other words, the boring old poem every unicorn was raised on.

“Night to day, day to night, our chanting to bring back the light. For though we raise the night for sleep, without the sun the earth will weep. Sun shine down, and light the way, and come to us, the break of day.”
The headmaster then surveyed the crowd for a suitable unicorn to lead the daybreak. “Perhaps Gold can lead it this time. He probably doesn’t feel like he participates enough. I’ve heard rumors of how some of the younger unicorns see this as meaningless.”She thought to herself.

Meanwhile, Gold mumbled along with the rest of the unicorns, trying to make himself unseen. It didn’t matter, he was never picked anyway, as he was failing most of his classes, including Studies of Ancient Magicks, which included the spell of daybreak. And so he cursed his luck when the headmaster’s wand chose him, the “lucky” unicorn to hold the honor of bringing forth a new day.

“Here goes nothing…”Gold thought. He stared out the Dawn’s Porch and concentrated on the moon, willing it to go down. Nothing happened. He tried harder, but he was out of magic. His eye darted back and forth to all the students waiting expectantly. “Of all the times I wish I could just disappear…” he thought.

And then the moon dropped an inch. And then another. And slowly but surely, made its way to the bottom of the horizon, where the much larger sun began its rise. His fellow unicorns had joined in by now and the day had begun. But how?

Later that day, Gold reassembled his tools and cleaned his room, taking the utmost care to sweep the marble chips into a dustbin to be deposited outside in the dirt, as opposed to his trash bin. A knock on his door made him jump.

It was the headmaster. He just knew it. Gold shoved the dustbin into a corner and opened his door. Sure enough, Mysticia Spellhorn himself came in.

“There’s something we need to talk about,” Spellhorn said. “Earlier today, I chose you to lead the sunrise…”

“And I led it perfectly, even for my first time as a flunkie. I don’t see what’s wrong here.” Gold said, glancing at his dustbin.

The headmaster sighed. “You’re not the first to try to pull this, Gold. I’ve been here for a long time. There are some unicorns here and there who do not devote their full time to studying magics. These unicorns tend to have worse grades, like yours.”

“What are you getting at?” Gold replied.

“I’m ‘getting at’ this- when I picked you to lead the sunrise, I was unsure about your powers and thought to help you a little by keeping a steady hoof on the moon. But despite your struggling, the moon did not move at all. I was the one who led the sunrise this morning, Gold. You did not have a drop of magic left. Explain this to me now, what were you doing the entire night?”

Gold gave up. “I know this isn’t allowed, but let me start by saying it’s hardly misuse of magic-” Mysticia cut him off. “Magic is not to be used to indulge on personal pleasures. It is a tool and must be respected as such. Since you have admitted to misuse of magic, I am sorry, Gold, but you are asked to leave the School of Mystic Studies. You have until nightfall to gather your belongings.”

“If you would just let me explain,” Gold started, but Mysticia had already left. So this was it. His life was over. Oh well, a life he could never bear the monotony of, the pointlessness of, one that he would never want to live, was over. He could do without it. And yet, Gold felt a small sadness in his heart, perhaps an attachment to his bedroom-turned-workshop, to the school, to even his studies.

Before Gold left, he placed “goodwill pond” at the headmaster’s desk, along a note saying “I am sorry you cannot accept what I really am.” With tears running down his cheeks, he slowly walked away, never to return to the unforgiving stone structure of a school.

Next Chapter: Crossroads Estimated time remaining: 11 Minutes