1. Lending a Helping Hoof
“Come in!” the Mayor cried, looking bigger, and in did come the strangest figure! Her queer long cloak, from hoof to head, was half of yellow and half of red; and she herself was tall and thin, with sharp gold eyes, each like a pin, and light loose hair, and lips where smiles went out and in – there was no guessing her kith and kin! And nobody could enough admire the tall mare and her quaint attire. Quoth one: “It’s as my great-grandsire, starting up at the Trump of Doom’s tone, had walked this way from his painted tombstone!”
Lyra advanced to the council-table, “Please your honors,” said she, “I’m able, by means of a secret charm, to draw all creatures living beneath the sun, that creep, or swim, or fly, or run, after me so as you never saw!
“And I chiefly use my charm on creatures that do ponies harm: the mole, and toad, and newt, and viper; And people call me the Pied Lyre.”
“Yet,” said she, “poor lyrist as I am, in Tartary I freed the Cham last month from his huge swarms of gnats; I eased in Roen the Nizam of a monstrous brood of vampire-bats; and, as for what your brain bewilders, if I can rid your town of rats, will you give me one thousand guilders?”
The Mayor and Corporation looked between themselves. “I don’t know,” said the Mayor, “one thousand guilders seems like an awful lot just to kill rats.”
“But they fought your dogs and killed your cats!” Lyra pointed out with a stamp of her hoof. “They bit the foals in their cradles and ate the cheeses out of the vats, and licked the soup from the cook’s own ladles! Split open the kegs of salted sprats, made nests inside stallion’s best hats and even spoiled all the mares chats by drowning their speaking with shrieking and squeaking in fifty different sharps and flats! Which is actually kind of impressive for rats, though, that they can harmonize so well when they have that much going on at once.”
“What were you going to do with the rats, anyway?” asked one of the Corporation.
“I dunno, drown them in the river or something.”
“Drown them in the river?” demanded the Mayor incredulously. “Oh, yes, perfect idea, Pied Lyre! Let’s get a couple thousand rats and drown them in the same water we drink!”
“You filter it first, don’t you?” asked Lyra, casting a sidelong glass at the cup of water she apparently held.
“That hardly seems like the point!”
“I did say ‘or something!’ I won’t necessarily drown them in the river! Maybe I’ll lead them to a wonderful cave that leads to a magical world of plenty!”
“Do you know where a wonderful cave that leads to a magical world of plenty is?”
“…well, I do know where a cave is.”
“Who brought her here again?” asked the Mayor, looking around at the Corporation.
“Look, if you don’t pay me a thousand guilders then I’m going to get magic all up in here and drag you all to that cave!”
“I’m seriously doubting you could do that.”
“Oh yeah?” Lyra demanded as she leapt up –
– and came crashing down onto the floor of BonBon’s room, having fallen from her marefriend’s bed, backwards. Again.
“Ow,” she noted.
---
My little pony, My little pony
Ahh ahh ahh ahhh...
My little pony
Friendship never meant that much to me
My little pony
But you're all here and now I can see
Stormy weather; Lots to share
A musical bond; With love and care
Teaching laughter; It's an easy feat,
And magic makes it all complete!
You have my little ponies
How'd I ever make so many true friends?
---
Lyra scratched the back of her head, where the cloth full of ice had been. Her mane was all matted down against her skull there. BonBon, meanwhile, moved about the kitchen of her home, making breakfast for the two of them. Lyra would have helped, but her attempts at trying to cook anything had usually ended, at best, in something that was completely inedible. She’d learned to just sit patiently and wait.
“At least you didn’t land on your horn this time,” the cream-colored earth pony noted of her marefriend.
Lyra winced at the memory. Unicorn horns were…sensitive. Landing on one after falling out of bed was a singularly painful experience, one that she had unfortunately gone through at least twice this month. “I think I need to be tied to the bed…”
“Oh?” BonBon asked, stopping what she was doing and giving Lyra an arch look. “Do you now…”
The unicorn stared uncomprehendingly for a few moments, before realizing what she had said, began to correct herself, thought about the possibilities for a moment, and settled on offering a wry grin. “Maybe we can ‘test’ that idea tonight,” she suggested, leaning forward where she sat at the kitchen table and laying her head to rest on her fetlocks, eyes half-lidded.
BonBon shook her head sadly as she went back to the pancakes she was making for the two of them. “Maybe,” she said, “but I imagine you’ll be too tuckered out from your show in Canterlot.”
Lyra’s eyes widened as she remembered – she couldn’t believe she’d somehow managed to forget that the show she’d been waiting for all month, and preparing for over the past two days, had slipped her mind. Then again, there was the blunt force trauma to her head to consider. “Right,” she noted, sighing as she rubbed her eyes with her hooves. “I should have just gotten a hotel in Canterlot. I can’t believe I thought going there and back and there and back by train, two days in a row, was a good idea…”
“Mmn, but then you’d miss out on these,” BonBon pointed out, as she finished the last of the half-dozen pancakes and set it down on a tray, then brought the tray over to the table, which Lyra had set up with syrup and powdered sugar in between creating her ice pack. “And what’s more important, being fully prepared for your first solo show, or my pancakes?”
Lyra blinked a few times, sensing a trap. She bought time by taking a bite from her pancakes, but that only gave her a few extra seconds. “Pancakes?” she asked finally, hoping for the best.
“No. It’s your show,” BonBon noted, though she leaned forward and pecked Lyra on the nose, adding “but good guess. Besides, you’ve rehearsed, you’re a natural to begin with, and you’ve got ten hours for extra practice and rest.”
“Nine,” Lyra corrected. “I have that thing with Trixie first.”
BonBon made a slight face, pausing in her own meal. “Shouldn’t it wait?”
“She promised it’d only take an hour, at most, and it has something to do with Princess Luna and Corona...”
Lyra trailed off, as a slight shudder went through BonBon’s frame, and she again paused in eating. For the briefest moment, her eyes glazed over slightly in memory. Lyra and BonBon were two out of less than a hundred ponies who had the dubious honor of having both met the Tyrant Sun herself, in person – but the difference was in the details. Lyra had struggled through the dangerous Everfree Forest itself to get to the artifacts necessary to combat the mad alicorn, and had emerged from the other side as the Element of Loyalty, and along with the other Elements had driven Corona off and saved Equestria. But BonBon, on the other hoof, had been kidnapped by her, along with about a dozen other adult ponies and around fifty foals. Corona had been intent on using them to secure Ponyville’s loyalty as she had attempted to take over Equestria – had been ready, willing, and certainly able to murder them all if Ponyville had done anything else.
Lyra had previously intended to spend more time at her parents’ house before fully moving in with BonBon, but the cream-colored earth pony still had nightmares about the experience – dreams of fire and hate and the blank, mad eyes of Corona, the Tyrant Sun. The nightmares were less frequent, however, and less vivid, when she shared a bed with Lyra.
“I…” BonBon said in a low voice. “I guess that means that it’s important, too.”
Lyra nodded. “But like I said,” she noted quickly, “she says it’ll be fast. She knows about the show and promised me that nothing would get in the way of it.”
“Trixie lies, though,” BonBon said, dragging herself back to the here and now. “Habitually.”
“Yeah, but she’s not as good at it as she thinks she is,” Lyra countered, as she glanced to the clock on BonBon’s kitchen wall, which showed that it was currently 11:09 AM. “I’ll get there by eleven thirty, and be an hour, tops. Then I’ll stop of here, get my stuff, and grab the one o’clock to Canterlot. Even if I miss it, there’s the three o’clock train. Plenty of time.”
“I hope so,” BonBon said, then smiled brightly. “I know you’re just doing a few pieces for the Academy, but still…your first solo show! You first serious solo show!”
Lyra matched BonBon’s smile as she tucked into her pancakes again. She’d need to hurry at this point if she wanted to keep to her schedule. “It’ll be a piece of cake,” she declared.
---
Lyra noted with some interest that the repairs for the Residency of the Representative of the Night Court of Luna – that title needs to be shortened, Lyra thought – had been completed between the last time she had seriously taken them in, and today. The building was largely unremarkable, a two-story thatched-roof home like most of the rest of Ponyville, with the only distinguishing feature being the chest-high iron fence that surrounded it, and the front gate that was marked with the Equestrian coat of arms. The garden was partially buried under snow – Winter Wrap Up would be coming in just a few short weeks, but until then the weather ponies of Equestria seemed to be determined to make up for the havoc that Corona had played with the weather back during the Longest Night, when she’d kept the sun in the sky for twenty straight hours, and made it burn hot and bright, like a midsummer day.
The seafoam-green unicorn was curious about whatever it was that Trixie needed her for. She considered the blue-coated, white-maned unicorn a friend, and indeed their friendship was the very thing that had given them the power to drive off Corona. However, Trixie, though she disguised it well these days, had something of a low opinion of Lyra’s choice of profession. Well…not a low opinion, precisely. Rather, Trixie seemed convinced that Lyra was in constant need of work to pay the bills, not understanding that musicians could actually live quite comfortably even if they weren’t super-famous. No amount of patient explanation – nor terse reminders – had yet been able to disabuse Trixie of that notion.
Lyra found both the front gate and the front door of the Residency unlocked, and so resolved to let herself in – Trixie was expecting her, after all, and Lyra had a schedule to keep to. As she entered, she hung her hat, a gray Gatsby, on the rack just inside the door, but opted to leave her wool cloak on. It’d be hot, but it would help impress on Trixie the point that Lyra had places she needed to be. She opened her mouth to call out to Trixie to let her know that she was here, when a voice from Trixie’s living room interrupted her.
“…and that’s what happened. Pause for laughter. By the way, I need your help. No…story’s too long, not very funny anyway…”
Curious, Lyra stepped forward as quietly as she could, up to the door of the living room. Glancing inside, she saw two unicorns. One, with her back to the living room’s door, was obviously Trixie – if the blue coat and white mane hadn’t been a giveaway, the fact that she was wearing a bright purple cape, studded with silver stars, would have been the clincher, while sitting on the couch was her matching pointed wizard’s hat. She was sitting on her haunches, facing a seafom-green unicorn, with a mane that was split between white and the same shade of green, with a cutie mark of a golden lyre. The unicorn had a bright grin plastered on her, and –
Wait a second, Lyra realized, blinking several times. That’s me!
“Okay,” Trixie said, not turning around and instead focusing on Lyra. “How about…so, you’re looking to make an easy fifty bits, right?”
Lyra – the real Lyra, the one sitting outside of the living room – bristled at that, while the one sitting inside of the living room didn’t react at all. Trixie, meanwhile, sighed. “Yeah, brilliant, Trixie. Insinuate the jobless bum thing again. That’ll go over well…”
So well, Lyra grumbled as her horn glowed slightly, and she extended her magical senses outwards, focusing on the mysterious other Lyra. Almost immediately, she was able to perceive a blue aura that hadn’t been there previously, surrounding the doppelgänger. The aura rippled slightly, and as Lyra observed it seemed that her opposite became partially transparent.
Ah…she mentally realized, withdrawing her magical probing as she recalled what she’d learned at Luna’s Academy of Magic. Illusion. Glamor, specifically. But why did Trixie make a glamor of me?
Trixie suddenly reared back on her hind hooves, casting one forward, towards the illusory Lyra, while the other was raised up as though she was holding something in it. “Help me Lyra Heartstrings! You’re my only hope!”
It was all Lyra could do to keep a surprised burst of laughter down at that, as she realized what Trixie was doing: practicing asking her for help on something, and using the false Lyra as a reference point. She idly wondered how long Trixie had been at this, and briefly wondered if she should think it more sad than amusing.
“No…” Trixie intoned, coming down onto her hooves and letting out along sigh. “Agh! Why is it so hard to confess your true feelings to somepony?”
“What?” Lyra demanded – or tried to demand, but even that single-word exclamation came out as little more than an inane syllable as the illusion of Lyra disappeared, dissolving into blue mist, while Trixie turned around, wearing a sly grin.
“Gotcha,” the blue unicorn noted, then nodded towards Lyra’s horn. “Felt the magic. Decided to have fun.”
“That wasn’t funny!” Lyra objected. She realized she was blushing furiously.
“It was for me,” Trixie countered indignantly, as her horn glowed, and she telekinetically lifted her hat and put it on her head. “And you were spying on me, anyway.”
Lyra grumbled slightly as she came into the living room. “So you need help with something,” she said, deciding to move the conversation forward.
Trixie grimaced, and shifted her weight from right to left and back again a few times at the statement. “Yes,” she said, as though saying it was physically uncomfortable.
“You know there’s nothing wrong with asking for help from somepony…”
“Sure there isn’t,” Trixie responded, looking behind her, to the living room’s table. There was a large, thick book there, looking relatively new, its cover marked with the seal of Equestria: the sun, trapped behind a crescent moon with its horns pointed downwards, and with a star placed between the horns. “There isn’t when it’s, I dunno, needing help with gardening. Or baking something. But this…”
Lyra stared at the book for a few moments, then back to Trixie. “Okay,” she said, “why don’t you start from the top?”
Trixie grimaced again. “Remember Zecora?”
Lyra blinked. Zecora was a zebra, a race of beings hailing from a far southern continent. They had met her back during the Longest Night, in the Everfree as she, Trixie, and their four friends had gone into the forest looking for the Elements of Harmony. Zecora had claimed to be a friend; in reality, however, it had turned out that she had been working with Corona the whole time.
“Yes,” Lyra answered.
Trixie fidgeted slightly again. “Zebras worship the sun,” she said. Lyra recoiled slightly at the statement, and Trixie pressed on. “But not Corona. It’s…it’s difficult to explain, especially since we don’t know much about them. But from what we do know, they don’t equate Corona with the sun. They have some kind of…I dunno…big sun-spirit thing, in their mythology. She – or he, sometimes – is basically viewed like Corona was back when she was Celestia. You know: caring, giving, wise and strong but gentle…”
Lyra blinked a few times. “But that’s wrong,” she noted.
“It’s one of the reasons why we don’t have much contact with the zebras,” Trixie said. “But it’s also something that has us - ‘us’ being the Night Court – worried.” She let out a sigh. “We don’t know what Corona is doing right now. Now, the ambassador from Zebrica swears up and down that Zecora was acting alone, without the support of his or any other zebra nation, that this isn’t part of some larger move on the zebra’s part to invade Equestria. As far as we know, he’s telling the truth. Zebrica has no navy to speak of, and a large navy would be needed to launch any kind of invasion.”
“But,” Lyra noted, “you don’t trust him. Or Princess Luna, rather, doesn’t trust him.”
Trixie considered, then offered a shrug. “We don’t know much about zebras. If Corona shows up in Zebrica and claims to be their…sun-spirit…thing…and drops a few solar flares to make her point, they’d probably believe her. She might be able to recruit them and lead them on an invasion of Equestria.”
Lyra thought about that. “Doesn’t seem her style…” she noted. “She’s kind of big on making sure everypony knows who she is. I am Celestia, I am the Sun. That thing.”
Trixie shrugged again. “Maybe. Probably, even. But it’s possible. Which brings us back to: we don’t know anything substantial about zebras. Not their culture, not their tactics, we barely understand their language…and we don’t know anything about their magic.”
Trixie waved the book she was holding around, reminding Lyra that it was there. “This is a translated copy of a zebra…spellbook? I guess it’d be called? Princess Luna wanted me to look it over, see if I could figure out how zebra magic works. Y’know, ‘cause I’m the Element of Magic, and magic is my special talent. Should be easy, right?”
“But I’m guessing it’s not?” Lyra asked, as her own horn glowed, and she reached out telekinetically, grasping the book. Trixie let her, and Lyra opened it as it neared. The writing within was in neat, elegant script, and seemed to mostly consist of lists of random – sometimes very random – ingredients, and how to mix them together, and what to do while one was mixing them together. If Lyra hadn’t known any better, she’d of thought that it was some kind of cook book.
Trixie was again shifting uncomfortable from hoof to hoof. “I don’t know the first thing about magic!” she finally exclaimed, probably much louder than she intended.
Lyra blinked a few times at that, eyeing Trixie. “Huh?” she asked.
“I don’t know anything about magic!” Trixie exclaimed again. “I just do it! Okay, that’s a lie, I know some general stuff, I know the eight schools of magic, I think, and I know all the illusion subschools, but I don’t know anything about actually what goes in to magic a spell, I can’t tell you anything about how to identify a spell as it’s being cast…”
The seafoam-green unicorn stared, wide-eyed. “But…but what was Luna teaching you all these years, then?” she asked.
“Spells.”
“But – ”
“Cast something. Something you don’t think I’d know, but something simple.” Trixie said, standing and watching Lyra intently, horn glowing slightly as she did.
Lyra stared a few moments, then nodded, horn glowing. A golden sphere appeared in front of her. After a second, it popped, and Lyra’s instrument-of-choice, her golden lyre that had been a gift from her parents – the very same one that had first inspired her to pursue music, and had helped her get her cutie mark – appeared from thin air. She caught it in her hooves at it fell.
Trixie nodded. “Okay,” she said, horn glowing blue. A moment later, Lyra’s lyre disappeared from her hooves, as a cerulean sphere appeared in front of Trixie – and a second later, the lyre appeared from it. Trixie elected to catch it telekinetically, then passed it back to Lyra, who was blinking in confusion.
“What?” Lyra demanded.
“That’s how Luna taught me spells,” Trixie said. “That’s how I’ve always learned spells.”
“You…you cast by ear?” Lyra asked, eyes wide.
“What?”
“It’s a music term. It’s when you learn how to play a song just by listening to it, rather than actually learning the notes.”
“Oh! Then yeah. I just…watch somepony cast something. I pay attention to what their auras are doing and how magic is moving around…then I can usually do it, too. Anything complicated I need to watch several times, but…”
Lyra tried to wrap her mind around that. “I hate you,” she said, though with no real malice in her voice. “Do you know how much studying I had to do at the Academy?”
Trixie used a hoof to draw a circle in the floor, looking embarrassed. “Magic’s my special talent,” she said. “And besides, that’s why I need you help! I have no idea what I’m looking for in zebra magic. I’m never any good with spellbooks. Writing down all the steps in a spell always seemed like…like writing down the moves of a dance. You know? Everything that makes the spell work is just lost.”
“So what do you need me for?”
Trixie took the zebra magic book back, holding it up. “I want to cast one of these on you. Well…cast is the wrong word, really. I don’t know, zebra magic is weird. But I want to do one, on you.”
Lyra stared. “On me.”
Trixie held up her front hooves. “I know exactly what you’re thinking,” she said, holding the book forward and indicating one of the spells in it. “I picked an easy one: all it will do is turn you into a zebra. I don’t really know why zebras have a spell for turning ponies into zebras, but it’s right here. And,” she flipped the book’s pages, towards the back of it, “here’s how to end it. Plus,” she flipped to a few pages later, “this spell…ritual…thing…is sort of like a zebra-magic eraser. So even if the first doesn’t work, the second will, no matter what.”
She closed the book, looking at Lyra intently. “I’ll be casting it to get a feel for zebra magic. You’ll be watching me cast it, so you can see all those little details. Then a quick counterspell, and we’re set. Won’t take fifteen minutes.”
Lyra grimaced slightly, looking at the clock hanging in Trixie’s living room. It was now 11:41. She took the book from Trixie again, reading the ‘spell’ in detail. It was…Trixie was right, zebra magic was strange, bearing no resemblance to earth pony, pegasus, or unicorn magic. For ponies, magic was just something that was part of them, and each tribe of pony had its own unique way of manipulating it: earth pony magic was inborn, giving them their strength and endurance compared to other ponies, as well as subtle, rooting itself in the earth that they lived on and promoting life and fertility in the soil. Pegasus magic was partially inborn as well, in their wings which allowed them to fly, but also something that could be projected outwards through their wings and hooves, letting them manipulate the winds and clouds and cause weather. Unicorn magic was almost entirely projected, raw magical energy focused through their horns to create spells and effects.
But looking over the zebra spell, it seemed as though zebras had almost no magic of their own, and couldn’t really manipulate it themselves. The ‘spell’ seemed more like an attempt on the zebra’s part to manipulate reality itself, to exploit flaws or loopholes in the laws of nature and magic by doing the right things in the proper sequence to achieve the desired result.
Lyra grimaced when she realized that her curiosity had been fully piqued at this point. There were any number of music academies in Equestria that Lyra could have gone to – she’d picked the magic academy over all of them for two reasons. First and foremost was the scholarship, but second, and perhaps just as important, was the magic aspect of it. She was a unicorn, she couldn’t not be intrigued by the chance to learn magic, even if it was this bizarre, formulaic version used by zebras.
“Okay,” Lyra said at length, handing the book back to Trixie. “Make me a zebra, then.”
Trixie smiled brightly. “Alright,” she said, trotting past Lyra and out of the living room. “Follow me to the kitchen, I’ve got everything set up in there…”
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Yay, everypony loves Lyra!
Incidentally, the opening stinger is a slight re-wording of part of the The Pied Piper of Hamelin: A Child's Story, by Robert Browning, and basically ends with these two images:
th03.deviantart.net/fs71/PRE/f/2011/253/8/b/morning_bon_bon_by_johnjoseco-d49efcj.png
deviantart.com/download/257507148/morning_lyra_by_johnjoseco-d49b9sc.png
As with most else from the lunaverse, looks very good!
Oh god the lurking cloak is down, ABORT ABORT.
I foresee this not going well.
Love the characterization of Lyra and Trixie here. They really do work well together to read. And I'm also liking Lyra's thoughts on things like Bonbon and the big performance.
Interesting premise and set up. I like the explanation of the zebra and Trixie's own issues with magic. This story sounds like it's gonna be a crazy ride, can't wait for more.
Obviously, there's a little translation error: The spell that says it transforms a pony into a zebra? The word's not actually 'zebra', it's human!
My body is not ready for this. But I will soldier on anyway, because it's that awesome.
Alright, that intro was pure crazy. I'd like to say crazy awesome, but it maybe dragged on just a little too long. Still, props for being able to keep up all the flowery stuff, even if you sorta cheated by copying.
Love Lyra unintentionally suggesting some bondage play, love even more that she just goes with it anyway after the realization settled in.
And ooh, Trixie casts by 'ear' this could have some interesting potential in future fics, though I guess it also means that the books she salvages from Twilights wagon will be less use than some where hoping.
Otherwise not much to say specifically about this story yet, but I can't wait for things to start getting interesting.
Trixie is pretty great then
but she doesn't really live up to her potential does she?
This can't end well... can't wait to see what happens.
Great start, I really loved the intro sequence.
Definitely curious to see where this is going.
Well, im impressed!
Okay, this has me hooked! I like Trixie and Lyra, here, and how Trixie's talent can backfire against her. VERY clever!
Gee, if only there were somepony around who knew how magic worked, and could teach Trixie.
781433
There is. Her name is Lyra Heartstrings.
781441
I think what I'm trying to say is more like, her admission here that she's the Element of Magic, she should be able to cast spells seems at odds with her argument in Boast Busted that the Element of Magic is about more than just spells. Does being a Bearer of Magic imply superior spell-casting ability, or not?
781570 What she's saying here is that, to quote a certain hilarious fanfic, "her cutie mark is magic". The element of magic isn't the same thing as her cutie mark.
I think the real problem is that the zebra's spell-books are so different from normal Unicorn magic. Trixie does actually know how to read magic from spell books, it's just that her learning process is backwards. Instead of reading the steps of how to cast a spell, and then putting the steps together to cast a spell, Trixie prefers to copy the casting process and then piece the steps apart. Learning spells the normal way is harder than normal for her, and zebra magic is very different and new. She's translating the complicated rituals zebras use into the kind of spells that Unicorns use. Or at least, that's my headcanon right now.
Ah yes, this will turn out swimmingly.
I liked this before it was approved by EqD.
781570
My personal take on the matter (but this is in no way meant to be a Word of God statement) is that being the Element doesn't augment anything. Trixie happened to be in the right place, at the right time, with other ponies who happened to be in the right palce at the right time. As Trixie herself said when blasting Corona, anypony could have used the Elements.
782831
This story isn't on EqD, yet.
782845
Eeyup.
this wont end well
"Make me a zebra,": the kind of words one regrets for years afterwards...
Several hours ago:
, the new RDD Lunaverse story is up! Gah, have stuff to do, will read later.
Now: Totally worth the wait, though partly because of what I know is going to happen...
I can't wait for more!
I love that description of ritual magic. Also, Trixie, a blue unicorn, learns spells just by seeing them. I C WAT U DID THAR!
Poor Lyra, she wont see it coming.
Sounds like somepony put all of her skill ranks in Bluff, Concentration and Perform, and didn't leave any for Spellcraft or Knowledge (arcana). I can see it, too - Trixie really isn't the type who cares much for studying (unlike either version of Twilight), but she obviously has a knack for magic regardless. This can only end well.
I think you mean 'she's not as good at it'
783404
Just like "Make me a pony." No, wait ... I'd be okay with that.
Let's just hope this will work out, preferably without a trip through the Everfree Forest and pleading to Zecora for a remedy.
And then everything went to shit.
Look, if you don’t pay me a thousand guilders than I’m going to get
1. Then.
So Twilight is a naturally powerful wizard and Trixie is a naturally talented Sorceress?
I'm sure absolutely nothing will go wrong. All those other chapters are probably about Lyra's train ride.
> “Help me Lyra Heartstrings! You’re my only hope!”
-Line from Star Wars Episode IV: "A New Hope"
And interesting take on how Trixie learns magic.
Why do I sense Murphy about to make a move?
906071 Twilight can cast by ear too. She's multiclassed, and probably has a prestige class or two as well.
Actually, that's not true, is it. Twilight's just such a high-level wizard that watching a spell being cast is just as good as reading it in a spellbook. Some feat or other, I suppose.
I like this plan... there is no possible way it can backfire.
What?
your
______________
Good start. I like this plan of making a pony a Zebra for the lolz.
Make me a zebra she says, this won't end well I says.
I don't know why, but I really really love the difference in magic learning styles here. It takes me back to what happened during magic tutor and how Trixie and Twilight differed in their styles. One was more traditional while the other wanted more hooves on. And it is explained well here, Twilight is the type of girl who can learn by seeing a spell once, either in a book or by another pony, and have it down pat. She has a natral talent for books and studying the finer points. So in this case, Twilight is a red mage while Trixie is more of a blue mage. In this case, Trixie is like Goku, once she sees the spell she can do it. She can identify the ins and outs of it just by watching it ork. I like this becase it seperates Twilight from Trixie and makes them both unique, yet equally powerful in their own ways.
This just in, everypony: Lyra's about to be transformed into a zebra!
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To quote the great Jontron:
You do such a great job at drawing the scene with words.
I'm also a big fan of how you set up the introductory section before the opening sequence.
Does this mean that Trixie know the spell to raise the sun/moon? I mean, if she had seen Luna doing it enough times...
6215623 40 weeks. Yea. Sorry.
just started this series.
Any who, cast it, more than likely. Have the actual mana capacity and power, prolly not.
But given enough unicorns present to give her the power in say, a ritual, then most assuredly.
Best part, is she couldn't explain/teach it to another unicorn, so effectively they would need her.
I'd forgotten this detail in the story; it's nice to see that Trixie was so careful.
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Dangit, I was going to upvote this comment but didn't notice it was one of mine.
Now I'm wondering if I already made a comment about the Mare from UNCLE (RRNCL)
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I upvoted it for you, if that helps.
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Well, look on the bright side...
- MLP: FiM
- Random
"Why can't I cook anything without burning it? I can't even pour orange juice without it coming out burnt!"I imagine her cooking isn't quite that bad.