Skyhoof rubbed his eyes blearily, forcefully shaking his head back and forth to keep himself awake in the dim candlelight. The etches and arcane runes littered across the parchment before him glinted dully in the pitiful light that barely sustained itself, and the candle sputtered as it began to die. What little light was left barely let him see his desk, let alone half of the already cramped little thatch roofed hut that he lived in.

He was so close, he could almost taste it.

For months, Skyhoof had procured every scrap of knowledge he could for this one project; of course, his job as Halter’s one and only alchemist didn’t provide nearly as many bits as he needed, forcing him to extend his work longer and longer until he could acquire the proper books. Spell crafting was fine and dandy, but it just didn't make much money. Thankfully, the inhabitants of Halter never seemed to quite catch on about his 'love potions' which they were always so eager to buy. Fanciful bottles filled with grass and water, and Skyhoof occasionally had difficulty keeping a serious face actually selling them. Bits and pieces of information from the few sages that he could find were things he was always on the lookout for, other unicorns like himself that worked on developing spells – each one clamoring to delve deeper into the root of magic just as he did, every one of them desperately searching for knowledge that lay beyond even some of the most powerful unicorns.

Skyhoof shoved a scraggly lock of brown mane from his face, glaring angrily at the candle beside him and forcing a magical spark into it. The candle sputtered and choked, but grew a little brighter and lit up the hut once more, making his grey coat shine a little.

He grunted satisfactorily, levitating his quill and scribbling out another long formula. Obviously, the inflammatory extension spell didn’t even last as long as a normal one – meaning that even though he had wasted a good portion of the spell components required to create the candles, at least he had a decently sized ration of short-lived candles.

Skyhoof wrinkled his nose with a hint of disappointment as he tiredly shuffled his work together as he let the magical candle die out, jamming it all into his desk before stumbling the few feet toward his hay bed.

No sooner had Skyhoof dropped onto his bed than a loud, heavy beating came slamming on the door of his hut.

Skyhoof would have liked to have said that he immediately leapt out of bed, promptly guessing that anypony desperate enough to run to the edge of Halter just to bang on his door probably needed him badly. However, Skyhoof did no such thing, and took a great deal of time making the obnoxious visitor wait as he meandered over to the door after dragging himself wistfully from his bed.

“Calm your teats, for Titan’s sake,” the unicorn grumbled as he pried open the door to his hut, revealing an out of breath tan unicorn. “I’m not sel- what in the name of Night happened to you?”

“Timberwolves!” Iron Wing gasped breathily, bleeding somewhat heavily from a cut just above his left eyebrow. The frightened pegasus nearly collapsed on his doorstep, motioning him toward the lights of Halter; which, now that Skyhoof listened, he could hear the faint sound of howling.

“Again?” he yelped, hastily snatching his black traveling cloak and throwing it over his back. “This is the third time this month, what happened to the barriers?”

“Gone!” the battered pegasus sped along beside the running unicorn, flapping his wings for greater momentum. “All three missin’ from their posts, nopony’s seen hide nor hair of ‘em!”

Skyhoof swore violently under his breath, straining to pick up speed as the sounds of fearful screams and the dreaded sound of barking timberwolves drew nearer the closer they drew to Halter. Smoke billowed against the clear night sky, urging them onward like a distress flare.

One of the thatched roofs of a house they sped past was already on fire, and Skyhoof quickly hurtled a dampening spell at the flames to bat them out – however, the moment he tried to do so, he felt a slight pressure on his right side of his flank.

Said slight pressure was very, very swiftly followed by an extremely painful and powerful swat from a timberwolf, which was strong enough to send him careening directly into one of the stone walls of somepony’s home thanks to the bulky timberwolf. If he had time, he might have noticed that it was easily three times the size of even a large pony, but Skyhoof was slightly more preoccupied with being in pain. Skyhoof grunted in agony, his vision blurring as Iron Wing slammed into the wooden construct of hunger, magic and wood, snapping one of the legs cleanly in half.

It was a short-lived victory, as the enormous creature merely jerked its leg back together in a stiff position, the wood and bark that it was constructed of merging perfectly back together.

“… Well, dammit,” Iron Wing frowned, and was promptly snatched up in the timberwolf’s jaws.

“Hold on, lad!” Skyhoof pried himself weakly from the wall, desperation clawing at his chest as he sought a way to save the pegasus – if he was even still alive by this point, as the behemoth was viciously whipping its head back and forth like a puppy would a chewing toy.

Again, Skyhoof directed his magic at the steadily spreading flame on the roofing above him; but this time, he shot as much of the burning roofing as he could in a telekinetic wave at the timberwolf’s eyes. It yapped in surprise and pain from the intense heat, dropping the limp pegasus to the ground and nearly trampling him beneath its massive paws. Leaving no time to recover, Skyhoof snatched the pegasus by one hoof and began dragging him away, flinging spark after magical spark at the monster to distract it.

Which, unfortunately, only served to set more houses on fire with his every missed shot.

Why did the damned thing’s weakness have to set the village on fire in the process?

Skyhoof dragged the limp pegasus around a corner and into an alley, huffing and shakily feeling for any kind of pulse with the back of his hoof. He shook Iron Wing exhaustedly, the panic in his system still filling his ears with the sound of his own pumping blood.

The pegasus did not wake up.

Swearing even more than he had before, Skyhoof propped the poor pegasus against a wall and darted toward more screaming, the ash and smoke beginning to painfully sting his eyes and throat. Although the sound of retreating timberwolves and howling began to fade as the great galloping beasts fled the fires, the weeping and shouting of many of the townsponies only grew louder. For hours they toiled, stopping what flames they could in vain attempts to save many a ruined home.

Skyhoof was on his way to help put out the last of the fires when he nearly tripped over the wailing foal.