Royal Duties

by biasedeyes

A Balance of Power

Twilight’s sigh at Discord’s theatrics was followed by a gagging noise and a scoff. Twilight turned around to see Rainbow Dash and Applejack.

“Hello!” Twilight said, unduly relieved that she wasn’t the only one dismayed by Discord’s antics. “What brought you here? Did you get my message?”

“Oh, y’know, just seemed like the thing to do, wanted to make sure you’re feelin’ all right.” replied Applejack, “’Dunno about a message though, hope the pony deliverin’ it ain’t too sore when they find out we came back on our own.”

“Sooo...” said Rainbow Dash, “what’s going on here? We gonna turn Discord back into stone?” she asked. It didn’t seem like a bad guess, what with the two princesses currently staring daggers at him.

“Um, no, not yet.” answered Twilight, “Discord’s going to be my adviser in Saddle Arabia... I’m going to Saddle Arabia to help protect it, would you maybe come along?” asked Twilight. She tried to keep her voice even, but she was pretty sure a little bit of her fear crept into it.

“Saddle Arabia? With all those fancy ponies?” asked Rainbow, grimacing slightly. “Nn-ooot so keen on the idea, but I’ll come with if you want.”

“If’n protectin’ it doesn’t take too long, you kin count me in.” said Applejack thoughtfully. “I need ta’ be home by plantin’ season though, so’s we’d best save it before then.” she finished.

“Saddle Arabia!?” exclaimed Pinkie, who had somehow avoided Twilight’s peripheral vision before popping up beside Applejack, “They make saddles there, right? Do they make arabias? Do you think they’d let me take one home for Gummy as a pet? Maybe we can find a levitating rug, I hear those things are awesome...”

“So you’re in too?” asked Twilight, cutting Pinkie off, at which Pinkie began nodding vigorously.

“Don’t forget me!” called Rarity, who had come out of the palace behind Celestia, “different body-types mean different fashion, and Saddle Arabia’s is very interesting. I may try and adapt some of it, in the time we have to spare from saving it of course.” she added.

“Um. I’ll come too, if everypony wants.” called Fluttershy audibly, but only just, from off to the side of the courtyard. “Angel can pretty much handle all my pets, especially if Spike helps.”

“Thank you, everypony!” said Twilight, gathering them together into one of the group hugs which were the norm for them.

“So,” said Celestia, after everypony had disentagled themselves from the group hug and been doled out their respective element. Cadance had bid everypony farewell and left after shooting one last look of pure poison at Discord, who was now draped in a standing position slightly off the ground. “What you’ll be doing in Saddle Arabia is a simple spell using the elements to protect it, by bringing it into harmony just like Equestria. I can’t perform the spell myself without the elements, and it’s difficult to explain, but hopefully Twilight will be able to cast it when I show her this... Twilight, watch closely...everypony else may want to close their eyes.” Celestia concentrated, and Twilight saw her start a complex barrier spell, drawing on the power of the sun. She targeted the space just above her horn, and Twilight could feel the air start to react to its sudden exclusion with some strange breezes. Twilight was watching Celestia’s horn to study how the spell was cast, but it still came as a shock when Celestia finished the spell and the area she was warding exploded in brilliant light. Twilight felt a gust of hot air rush past her and spots danced in the edge her vision, even though Celestia had cut the spell almost immediately.

“And now you know why I can’t cast that to protect Saddle Arabia myself.” whispered Celestia to her, giving a small, sheepish grin. Twilight probed the spot Celestia had warded with her horn, and found that it was powerfully protected. “In any case, I hope you got that Twilight?” Celestia asked. Twilight nodded, and Celestia looked relieved.

“Okay girls,” said Twilight, pausing only a moment to consider that this would certainly be by far the most powerful spell, if not the most complex, she had ever cast. She turned to her friends, who were looking somewhat stunned at the aftermath of Celestia’s spell, Rainbow in particular dazedly waving a hoof in front of her eyes. “Let’s give it a try.”

Twilight knew something was amiss right after she began to draw on the elements. She couldn’t see her friends in the conventional sense, what with all the magic welling within her, but she could feel them, and understand them in a way which she couldn’t just from vision, and she knew that they could feel her the same way. The problem was, they were lagging. Twilight needed a lot of power for the spell Celestia had given her, and this wouldn’t be enough. She tried increasing the power she was outputting, in hopes of getting more back, but this had the opposite effect. All of a sudden, the other five were draining magic, and the elements were in danger of falling apart. Twilight panicked, and tried to cut the spell, but she had put a lot into it already, and the elements fell apart anyway, draining even more magic from her as they did so. The rainbow ring which had held the bearers together fractured, and they were thrown apart by a burst of white light from their center.

Twilight stood up shakily, her horn achy from using so much magic, and looked around anxiously to make sure that her friends were alright. There was Rarity, standing right back up with no problem, there was Pinkie, already standing with wings folded at her sides, and Applejack, hair falling messily around her horn, but getting to her feet without any trouble.

Twilight blinked, and opened her eyes wide. Sure enough, she wasn’t mistaken. Rarity and Fluttershy looked just the same (maybe a little dirtier after being thrown into the ground), but Pinkie had wings, and Applejack and Rainbow Dash had horns. Twilight instinctively looked to Celestia for guidance.

Celestia’s mouth was open in an expression of shock. “I... I didn’t expect this. J-Just a moment, wait here, I have to ask my sister something” she said shakily, and galloped off towards the entrance to the Crystal Palace.

Twilight looked around at her friends, who looked dazed and confused, with extra appendages. Applejack was touching her horn lightly, unbelievingly, with one forehoof, hat held in the other. Rarity looked a bit put out as she touched each side of her barrel. Fluttershy and Rainbow were stirring, looking lightly grazed, but still alive. AJ, Pinkie, Dash... She closed her eyes and remembered their true forms, remembered group hugs in which there weren’t any excess muscles in her shoulders to shrug awkwardly...

Pinkie’s wings didn’t remain at her sides for long. When Twilight opened her eyes, they were spread out, and Pinkie was prodding them with a hoof.

“OHMYGOSHTwilightRainbowApplejackRarityFluttershy! I have WINGS! Wingswingswingswingswingswingswingswings... I can FLY!!!” she squealed, flapping her wings and rising into the air.

Twilight watched numbly as her friend began flying faster and faster, turning into a pink blur shouting “WHEEEEEEEE!” through a strong Doppler effect. All of a sudden, she took off in one direction.

“Pinkie wait!” called Twilight, flapping her wings halfheartedly and rising slowly into the air. It was too late, Pinkie was already gone, disappearing among the rooftops of the houses that surrounded the crystal palace. Twilight stopped flapping and let herself land, right next to a goat’s hoof and dragon claw digging into the ground.

“Discord!” barked Twilight, rounding on him.

Discord turned lazily to her. “Whaaat?” he drawled, eyebrows raised, “This is hardly my fault!”

“I don’t care. Do something!”

“Oh, right, the adviser thing.” he put his claw to his chin and looked thoughtful. “Well, I’m new at this, but the best advice I can think of at the moment is ‘you probably shouldn’t have done that’. Will that do?” He peered at her searchingly.

Twilight felt her aura starting to burn. Her hair began to lift from the name of her neck as she felt magic start to seethe not only from her horn, but the rest of her body as well. She was powerless to turn Discord to stone, only the elements could do that, but maybe...
She could hurt him. Teleporting nervefire with reactive targeting of the signal Celestia had shown her to summon Discord should do the trick. She turned toward Discord, smile much larger and falser than normal, horn sparking as she subconsciously prepared for the cast.

Discord must have read something from her expression or her horn, though, because the next words out of his mouth were a contrite ‘That is, ah... what did you want me to do?’.

Twilight considered, aura and horn quieting, and smile dropping into a slight frown. What did she want Discord to do? ‘Fix everything’ wasn’t a valid answer, she really didn’t want to see how Discord might ‘fix’ things in any case. Come to think of it, she really didn’t trust Discord in any task that allowed him to determine much at all.

“Go get Pinkie Pie.” she grunted, turning away from him. She felt him flash out of existence next to her, leaving her to feel guilty that she’d even considered using nervefire.

Use of nervefire, especially on a living being, had been banned almost upon its discovery by a petition to the royal sisters from a group which represented the foremost enchanters of the time, headed by the discoverer himself (one Grave Light, not generally known for his propriety). The only reason Twilight knew of it at all was from following some experiments Starswirl had done with the spell, to see whether it was useful for creating constructs or possibly even artificial life. The results were resoundingly negative. It hadn’t taken long for him to join the group petitioning its ban, where he testified to its uselessness in the field of constructs. She was chastened, imagining his disapproval of her idea.

She looked back to her other friends. Rarity had moved over to Applejack, who now simply held her forehoof close to her horn. It looked like she was trying to teach Applejack to use it, by practicing levitation on a piece of crystal which Twilight hoped had been separate from the ground before. Rarity was smiling, and AJ’s face was starting to break into a wide smile too. Twilight didn’t blame her, if gaining a horn felt anything like gaining wings. Ever since that night Twilight had felt better than normal, like she did when she had a cup of tea and watching the sun rise in the morning after studying most of the night. She always felt reenergized and usually was able to keep reading and even write down some proof-of-concept spells or reorganize her notes. Now it felt like she had always just had 10 refreshing cups of tea over 10 sunrises, which in turn made her feel a bit nervous, but good.

Rarity lit her horn and demonstrated lifting the crystal, but it looked like AJ couldn’t get a charge. Fluttershy was now sitting up and watching them, wide-eyed. Rarity saw her watching and beckoned her, waving with a forehoof and calling her name.

Rainbow Dash was just beside Twilight, so Twilight turned to her before she went to help Applejack. Rainbow had sat up and was touching her horn, but her expression was nothing like AJ’s. She looked like she might be about to cry. Twilight opened her mouth to say something, but before she could Rainbow’s wings rose up then took an enormous downbeat, and Dash arced into the sky.

“Wait!” Twilight’s wings fluttered and she lifted off after Dash, but it was no good. Even if Twilight had more practice flying, Rainbow was going at full speed, straight up into the sky. She had already reached the top of the Crystal Palace.

“What’s wrong?” asked a quiet voice from behind her shoulder. There was Fluttershy, flapping her wings slowly and looking very worried. Rarity and AJ had stopped their impromptu lesson and were frowning up toward the sky.

“I don’t know!” exclaimed Twilight. “Rainbow seemed upset, and then she just took off!” She narrowed her eyes and looked at the rainbow-trailed blue spot in the sky, preparing to teleport herself up to it. All of a sudden an explosion arched out from it. The rainbow circle that marked a rainboom, but also a sphere of swirling rainbow light, like a very colorful soap bubble. As it swept over her Twilight’s horn felt funny, then hollow. She tried to cast the teleportation spell she’d been preparing, but nothing happened. Twilight noted in horror that instead of the rainbow contrail that normally accompanied a rainboom there was just a blue speck, falling fast. She tried to teleport again, then looked at Fluttershy, and they both raced over to where Rainbow was falling. Face-to-face, Twilight and Fluttershy held out their hooves to catch Rainbow Dash. She was falling fast, and Twilight’s horn still felt empty. All of a sudden Rainbow hit her hooves painfully, then ripped through. Twilight looked down, preparing to dive, trying to lift Rainbow with her telekinesis.

It was too late. Rainbow fell to the ground, and orange began to seep from her.

The orange glow vanished and Rainbow hit the ground with a soft thud. Then there was some coughing, and Rainbow’s hoofs and wings sprawled over the ground. Her eyes popped open, and her mouth broke into a huge smile.

Applejack chuckled as she moved over to Rainbow. “Ah’m pretty sure yew weren’t counting on mah magic to save yew” she said, poking Dash gently on the nose with the tip of her hoof. Her expression suddenly went more serious. “Now why in Equestria would yew do a fool thing like that!?”

Rainbow Dash didn’t really seem to be listening. In fact, she seemed delirious from exhaustion. “I can still do it!” she whispered up to the worried faces surrounding her. “Even with a horn, I can still do a Sonic Rainboom.” Then her eyes closed, and she slept.

---

Twilight couldn’t help but grit her teeth a bit. AJ was bragging, taunting Twilight and Rarity with her magic, levitating a bit of crystal when Twilight couldn’t get so much as a spark from her horn. She now had an inkling of how annoying she would have been as a filly to other unicorns.

Applejack waved the crystal around in her new magic’s grip, then saw her friends watching her jealously. Fluttershy was carrying Rainbow to a nearby hospital with the help of a crystal pony nurse, while the rest of them waited for Celestia. “What’s this?” she playfully grinned, twirling the crystal telekinetically. “Has the student b’come the master?” she asked Rarity. Seeing how this soured both of their expressions, she dropped her smile and the crystal shard.

“Aw, ah didn’t mean it like that.” she said. “S’till,” she continued, “ah’ve watched you and Twi’ lift e’rything from combs to cupcakes with yer horns an’ niver said a word. Kinda funny, when you think about it.” she said as her smile returned.

Before this statement could be discussed the conversation was interrupted by Celestia, who rushed panting toward the center of the group.

“W-what happened?” she asked. For the first time Twilight could remember, her rainbow hair fell mostly limp, devoid of the shimmering aura that normally surrounded it. Her eyes had bags underneath them and she looked... old. Not Granny Smith old, but around the same age as Twilight’s mother. “I felt this shockwave... and now...” she lowered her head and lit her horn, and the aura was a dim lantern’s glow, instead of the normal undeniable bright yellow. “Did you do this?” she asked gravely, looking at Twilight.

Twilight stammered under her gaze. What had Rainbow done? Celestia looked worse than when they’d released her from Crysalis’ cocoon. Had Rainbow’s stunt done her more harm than the Changeling Queen could? It was unthinkable.

“R-rainbow.” she finally managed to get out. “She did a rainboom, but with another... another part, like a spell.” She realized as she said it that that was something strange about the rainbow sphere, and one of the reasons it felt so weird on her horn. It had been quite some time since she’d had a spell slip past her horn...

“She fainted after casting it... I don’t know. We could go to the hospital...” Twilight was miserable. How could this have happened? How could any of this have happened?

“There we are!” said an unwelcomely familiar voice from behind her, accompanied by some unfamiliar and unsettling squealing noises. “Perhaps next time your friend would refrain from dusting away all the magic in the empire without warning? My task became considerably more ‘inconvenient’ after all that.”

Twilight whirled around to see Discord, holding a surprisingly piggy-looking Pinkie Pie. She had a pig’s snout, no wings evident, and Twilight was sure she could see a curly tail, but then Discord dropped her. Pinkie’s wings flew out before she hit the ground and her pig nose fell off, revealed as a cheap costume piece.

“Oh, Celestia!” continued Discord, feigning surprise. “Back after the crisis I see? Finally feeling some of the aches and pains that come with old age too. I’ve been having those as well, couple hundred years as granite does a number on the joints.”

Twilight was surprised by Celestia’s reaction. Her mouth tightened to a line, and she raised a forehoof and moved as though to strike Discord, but thought the better of it and just kept the hoof raised. One half of Discord’s lopsided mouth tugged itself into a grin, and he begin to laugh cruelly.

“Stop it!” she commanded, stamping a hoof into the crystalline ground. To her surprise, not only did Discord stop laughing, but Celestia lowered her hoof and looked at her. To her further surprise, she felt her horn glowing.

“This is no time to argue.” she proclaimed, just to keep the two’s attention. She had started to smile from the restoration of her magic. “I don’t know what Rainbow did, but it’s obvious that it’s quickly wearing off. We have more important things to worry about, like... preparations for our journey to Saddle Arabia.”

“True enough.” her mentor agreed, and Twilight was glad to see the ends of her pastel hair were stirring once again in nonexistant breeze. “We have much to do before you and your friends will be ready to be of much help to Barbhdad.” Discord just raised an eyebrow.

Comments

[fireflutterpony]

Dash's Rainboom now nullifies magic? Nasty little trump card.