The Road Less Traveled

by SteamPoweredStallion

Walking In Circles

Rainbow Dash looked around herself for a few seconds, as if unsure of her footing.
“Not yet.” She repeated.
Now that i could see her clearly, i noticed how weird her eyes looked. Her pupils had shrunk to minuscule dots surrounded by thin, red irises.

I stood there, wondering what I could do. Rainbow Dash gulped, breathed in deeply and said: “Thou need to find the grimoire.”
My mind raced to find any possible explanation. Out of all the spells I knew, only a handful permitted to control someone’s actions and even those were very limited.
“Rainbow Dash! Answer me! Can you hear me?” I yelled at the top of my lungs.
“No. She cannot hear thee now.” The voice was… disturbing. It was different from her normal voice, but not so different as to make me think it wasn’t really her. It sounded like she was intentionally speaking in a lower, raspier tone.
“Who is controlling Rainbow Dash?” I asked. Her motions and posture were odd, somewhat out of place. She couldn’t keep her balance.
“I have had many names. It is unimportant now. I need to find my grimoire.”
“Free Rainbow Dash from your spell and I will try to help you.” I was walking around the table, making sure to keep my eyes fixed on her. “But you need to tell me who you are and what is this book that you seek”
“There is nothing I’d like to do more than freeing thy friend. But for the time being, I need her. Now, listen. The Grimoire I need is the Book of the Road Less Traveled.”
“I’m sorry, I have no idea what that is. And why would you need Rainbow Dash to…”
“But thou hast to know! Thou art a wizard! Thy friend’s thoughts have told me…”
“You can read her thoughts?”
“I am not here to discuss the workings of possession magic. But thy ignorance on the subject is revealing.”
I didn’t know what to make of this. On one side, I was curious about what kind of unusual magic this pony could wield. On the other hand I knew that my priority was to help Rainbow, even though I wasn’t sure heather she was in immediate danger. On the side, I felt quite offended because I had been called ignorant.
“The Grimoire of the Road Less Traveled is… unique. It is a tome which cannot be copied or destroyed. It has to exist in spite of however long I have been kept away.”
I circled around her again. I realized that was making her uncomfortable. Evidently, if what it had called possession allowed her to control Rainbow Dash directly, it probably had to adapt to her body.
“What can I do to locate it?” I asked
“The Princesses wish to keep it concealed. It won’t be found in the open.”
As I listened, I made an effort to recall a spell I had recently learned. After the battle with the changeling, I had looked for a spell to protect a pony’s mind from magic, in the hope I could prevent anyone from controlling minds like Chrysalis did. I had not had time to practice it though.
“The book” Rainbow mumbled “The book wants to be found. What do you know of black magic?”
“Black magic? I have studied about it… the unicorns of old had dangerous powers connected to darkness, but all of that is lost today…”
“Not all!” Rainbow jumped on me, looking straight in my eyes. “The book is not lost, nor destroyed! No disaster or cataclysm could touch it, and now that he has returned…” she grabbed me, dragging me closer.

I cast the mental protection spell. Rainbow let me go and fell to the ground, clutching her head and screaming. I took a couple steps back, preparing to cast the spell again. The scream grew in intensity and changed in tone. After a few seconds, I recognized Rainbow’s normal voice. When she stood up and opened her eyes, they were they normal purple colour.

She looked around uncomfortably.
“What did I do last night?” she asked. “Are we in Ponyville?” she added after looking around a little more.
“Yes. Do you remember anything about last night?”
“I remember… I had too much to drink, I think.”
“Do you remember a cavern?”
She gazed at me with a quizzical look.
“Pink crystals?”
“Are these euphemisms or…?”
“You don’t recall visiting the caverns under Canterlot and coming in contact with pink magically reactive crystals?”
“No…”
“This is… we need to run some tests.”
“Wait! How long have I been out?”
“Out? I don’t even know if you were out! I don’t even know if you’re in now!”
“Twilight, you’re starting to scare me…”
“There’s no time to be scared! Come down in my basement!”

The sound of a slammed door interrupted us as three pegasi royal guards came crushing through the main entrance. They immediately seized Rainbow Dash and pulled her away from me.
Behind them came another pony, a yellow-coated unicorn stallion wearing a white coat.
He ran to Rainbow. She was putting up a fight but the guards seemed to retain the advantage.
The doctor observed Rainbow for a few seconds. He seemed surprised.
“Have you… done something to her?”
“I have cast a spell to protect her mind from magical influence. You see, according to the theories of Rasponyn The Mad…”
“This is wonderful! I was hesitant to try magical treatment, but… good work. Are you a medical professional?”
“No… but I am a professional of magic.”
“Well” he turned to the guards “Let her go, please.”

Rainbow shook off the guards and slapped one of them of the horn. The guard didn’t react.
“Do you remember clearly what happened before you lost consciousness?” the doctor asked Rainbow.
“She doesn’t” I answered for her.
“Hum. I think I’ll have to perform a small psycho-physical examination, but I’m already quite convinced her condition has improved.”
“You can do it in my basement. I have a laboratory.”
“Yes” The doctor looked at me uncomfortably “I believe I’ll take care of things I the local clinic. Can you direct me there?”
“It’s just outside of town, past the bridge… but… are you… did you come all the way from Canterlot?”
“Precisely. They brought me with a chariot and we followed your friend. Fortunately she isn’t very fast or…”

Now, I don’t intend to write a manual on liminal space-time, but you need to know that in certain moments a singularity can be observed, a moment which represents a turning point sharply and unequivocally separating time in “before” and “after”.
The moment I realized he called Rainbow Dash slow right in front of her was one of such moments. I stepped back, decided to observe with scientific curiosity what would happen next.

The reaction was in fact slower than I had expected. Rainbow seemed to go through several emotions in the span of about 11 seconds, before grabbing the doctor by his collar and pulling him so close his horn touched her hair.
“You need to learn a lesson about what speed means.”
Rainbow shot up at amazing speed, even by her standards, carrying the doctor. She flew right out of the window. I and the guards simultaneously ran outside. When I was at the door, I noticed Spike was standing on the stairs, looking down at all of us with a severely confused face.

“Don’t just stand there! Come down and help us!”
“Help you do what? You cured her, right?”
“Yes, but… just come down!”

I ran out without waiting to see if he was following. As soon as I was outside, I saw something terrifying. The doctor was in mid-air, at least sixty metres off the ground, plummeting down and screaming. The lights in the houses all around us were lighting up. The guards were nowhere to be seen.
Before I could intervene, a Rainbow bolt flew diagonally down and collided with the doctor’s trajectory. Rainbow landed softly before me, with the doctor between her hooves.

“See, that’s what fast means. Now, are you still convinced I’m not fast?”
The doctor shook and shivered as Rainbow let him down on the ground.
“Yes. Of course I know. No further examination is required.”
The guards flew down and landed before us.
“Should we… return to Canterlot then?” asked one of them panting.
“No. YES.” The doctor answered. “Actually... Return to Canterlot with the chariot. I believe I’ll walk.”
The guards shrugged and flew off, dragging along the winged chariot they had parked in the middle of the street. The doctor slowly and steadily walked away. Every single one of the neighbours observed them in confusion.
I looked at Rainbow, who was still wearing a victorious grin.
“You’re about to tell me he asked for it, aren’t you?”
“He asked for it.”
“Of course… why don’t you go home and tomorrow I’ll have a look.”
“What exactly am I missing here?”
“I don’t know. Honestly. Maybe tomorrow I’ll have an answer.”
“So… yeah, maybe I do need some sleep.”
“Maybe we all do.” Said Spike, who, I realized, was standing behind me.

No one spoke. After a brief, uncomfortable silence, rainbow flew to her house while Spike and I returned inside. I went to bed and set my alarm clock to wake me up in the morning, about five hours later.

My examinations of Rainbow Dash revealed nothing of note- no magic energy at all was left on her.
For a few weeks, we forgot the whole thing. Life just went on. Rainbow didn’t seem to mind too much the fact that she couldn’t remember all that had happened- she seemed to ascribe it to cider more than anything else.
Just when I thought I could forget that I had ever had a brush with the Dark arts, I received the letter from the Princess which was going to change my life.

Comments

[142 with an 8]

This is good stuff here!
A Master of Magic should know all. Dark and Light magic is just different paths of magic.
Why is Celly afraid of the Dark?
It's not like Dark magic is Evil..... Right?

Make moar plz!!

Grrr!! Celly is just being a magic racist!!!

Hmmmm.....