Another Cloud Zapper and the Gifted Crown Excerpt

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A poke in the side made the purple mare snort loudly, yelp as her eyes snapped open and lose her balance. She fell to the floor with a thump.

“You slept at your desk again.” An unimpressed purple dragon said simply. His scales shone lightly in the noon glow, the bold purple colour was offset by the vivid green of his stomach and spines. He wasn’t a tall dragon. Just a short one. An adult by pony age and a baby by dragon years, Spike looked over his keeper as she rubbed her head tiredly.

“What time is it?” The purple alicorn fluttered her wings a little to stretch them out as she tried to shake herself awake. In answer to her question, her small dragon assistant held up a clock. He cringed when she yelled, “NOON!”

“Twilight…” The dragons attempt to grab his keeper’s attention was futile as the bookish pony dissolved into a panicked state.

“I have to finish writing out my conclusions for Sunbursts theorem on ‘Mist Mane’s Material Amity’ and how it relates to Starswirl’s work on Ancient poultice remedies-”

“-Involving Somnambular Bloom and Heart’s Desire?” The dragon interjected with his arms crossed. Twilight Sparkle looked at him, her mouth still open from being cut off half way through her sentence.

“You finished all your notes before you passed out last night.” Spike, the dragon, explained. “I used the framework for the paper you’d already set out, wrote it up using your notes and sent it off to Celestia before waking you.” He then produced a toasted daisy sandwich. “Breakfast?”

Twilight paused and leant back against the wall with a breath of relief. “Spike, you’re the best assistant ever.”

“I know.” He said with a smile, watching her yank and wolf down the food. “But you really should go to bed at the right time, Twilight. You’re not good to anyone when you don’t get a good night’s sleep.”

“I sleep fine at the desk.” She defended stubbornly.

Spike gave her another unimpressed look at her. “If the bags under your eyes were any bigger, I could use them for trash when I take out the garbage.”

Twilight huffed grumpily before grabbing a nearby mirror and looking at herself for a moment. To her dismay, she couldn’t really argue. “Okay, maybe I do need a good night’s sleep.”

A slam of the door from downstairs had them both looking to the bedroom door. Rushing out to the balcony that overlooked the library below, they saw a hooded white mare in the middle of the room. “Zecora?” Twilight asked curiously.

“Twilight, you must come, dark things have just begun!” The Zebra mare called up to her in rhyme.

Twilight rushed down the stairs, her earlier tiredness forgotten in the moment. “What’s happening?”

Zecora shook her head, “I have glimpsed through mirror water at things unknown, and have come to warn you of what was shown. A darkness comes, it approaches fast, we must prepare or we will not last!”

“But mirror water, without Alicorn magic is indistinct. Can you really be sure of what you saw?” Twilight asked. She never wanted to second guess her friends, but mirror water was reputedly bad for fortune telling. It was only useful when combined with Alicorn magic and then drank, something Twilight had first-hoof experience with.

“Thrice I have looked, and thrice the results did not waver. Sure, I am that they portend something graver. We must act or we will be consumed by this threat; do not dismiss me, or on Equestria’s chances, I would not bet.”

Twilight looked at her sympathetically, “I’m not dismissing you. I’m sorry. What did the mirror water show you?”

Zecora breathed for a moment before approaching a table. She pulled out a golden ornate bowl from her cloak and placed it down, before pulling out a recognisable flask with a purple liquid. She slowly poured the liquid into the bowl and pulled out what looked to be some ground herbs. She gently sprinkled them into the water, muttering under her breath; “kioo maji, kuonyesha nini ni lazima kujulikana.” The water swirled unnaturally for a moment, and as Zecora added five seeds around the bowl close to the water, a ripple spread from each seed that caused images in the water to form.

Twilight watched carefully as Zecora began to speak again, and as she spoke, the shapes in the water took form.

“A darkness with presence. Ancient and untold, yet bound and unknown. Kept contained with ancient magic, magic weakened by something tragic.” The darkness seemed to lash out within the bowl, the indistinct shape of an alicorn and a battle could be seen, all displayed in shadow. These shadows split and lashed out at each other, almost like they were trying to swallow the other shapes and lights as they formed. “It comes to us soon, and its true intentions I cannot view. But what is certain,” she turned to Twilight, “is that it comes for you.”

“Me?” As Twilight watched with wide eyes, the darkness formed a six-pointed star, Twilights cutie mark, only for the blackness to tear the star apart with such violence, both Twilight and Zecora jumped back as, with a loud cracking sound, the bowl of water shattered and splashed purple water to the floor.

“This did not happen when I viewed it before,” Zecora said looking shaken. “I viewed it with the protection of a chime. It must have dulled the clarity of the brine.”

“So, what does it mean when the brine breaks the bowl?” The look Zecora gave Twilight at that question sent a shiver of fear down Twilight’s spine.

“It means we have run out of time.” The Zebra answered.

Twilight felt a tingle of awareness pass through the tip of her horn. And as though it were felt more than heard, there seemed to be a creak in reality…

…before the alicorn felt the world crack open.

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