Sneak preview: "Power Word: Weak." · 6:37pm May 25th, 2021

Quick update, y'all. Been writing the Cadence story on and off, first section seems to be in order for now. Fleshing the story out as we speak, on the nights that work hasn't been too tiring.

So basically, I'm writing on weekends, if I've managed to catch up on sleep.

Moral of the story has been altered somewhat, I think folks will really like Master Merlon's French accent, and Pharynx will be a nice voice of reason to play off of. Some of the mechanics need clarifying, though, that's always tricky when you care about how magic works.

In terms of theme and message, I'm a little worried, because it's closer to the Bastion trilogy and some original stories of mine than I'd like, but on the other hooves: no one here has either read those or will ever read them, so it's all good. Which reminds me, with Valt being such a letdown, I need a new avatar pic.

Enjoy!

Princess Cadence came to the breakfast table later than usual. She’d been having trouble sleeping lately, due to the usual array of impending disasters threatening the safety of her family and country. Still, she greeted her guards with all the decorum expected of her, and made her way in.

Shining Armour, it seemed, was busy giving their daughter some lessons.

“Power Word: Munch!”

She chuckled when she heard Shining Armour call out like he was casting a spell before feeding Flurry Heart. As she came into the room, mane carefully tended to with magic and coat brushed as protocol demanded (she still insisted on her personal hygiene being personal), she heard her daughter eating and gurgling down breakfast.

“And Power Word: Gulp!” Shining said.

Right on cue, Flurry Heart scoffed down a bite of mashed bananas and mango, a suggestion from the bat pony tribe further up north, or their ambassador, at least.

Cadence kissed her husband on the forehead and sat down opposite him, her back to the entrance. “Good morning.”

“Good morning,” he greeted. “You like our little practice run here?”

She rolled her eyes. “Honestly, Shining, if we’re going to teach Power Words already, we should start with the real ones, like Power Word: Pain or Power Word: Shatter. You know Twilight would never forgive us if we let Flurry Heart learn wrong spells.” After pouring herself a full cup of tea, Cadence took a slice of toast in her magic and smeared some lemon jam on it.

Today seemed like it was going to be a lemon toast day.

“Well, it’s either that or have her first word blow up the country,” Shining argued. “I’m not taking any chances, even if I have to deal with Twily afterward.”

“Of course. Speaking of taking no chances, have you taken your medicine yet?”

“I have.” He gagged. “And it tasted as bad as it always did. But it’s fine. I can think clearly now. No goose incidents today unless I get hit on the head really hard.”

Cadence took a bite of toast. The sour taste of the jam always helped her wake up on days like these, and the crystal berry tea kept her calm without impeding her thinking, which was always a good thing. “Very funny. You know you shouldn’t take any head trauma, the doctor said so. It’s bad enough no one noticed the damage for so long.”

“Well, you did, didn’t you?” he argued.

“Only after the geese, sweetie.”

“Aww, you have to admit, Twily did have to jump through some hoops to counter it.” He grinned at his daughter, before feeding her another spoonful of mash. “Otherwise Aunty Twily would have gotten a Power Word: Honk, huh?”

Flurry Heart giggled and gurgled in agreement, making a royal mess with her mouth full.

“I think Power Word: Clean would be more appropriate,” Cadence remarked. “Come on.”

Right as she went to cast a minor cleaning spell, the guards let a guest through. “What’s this I’m hearing about Power Words now?”

“Good morning, Sunburst,” Cadence greeted. She cleaned up her daughter with some magic, said daughter then laughed excitedly at the sound of her teacher’s voice, and the whole process was revealed to be an exercise in futility.

The piece of toast quickly disappeared between Cadence’s teeth. The teacup was drained in one big swig, then refilled.

She took another pair of slices.

Today was definitely going to be a lemon jam toast day.

Shining Armour noticed. “Our royal tutors will be arriving today for a crash course. So I thought we might as well get some practice in nice and early. Flurry Heart seems to be enjoying herself.”

Sunburst scratched his messy mane. “Really? That was today?”

“You didn’t know?” Shining furrowed his brow, not missing a beat with the spoon even as his white coat was becoming speckled and sticky from his daughter’s laughing fits. “We must have mentioned it, right? Didn’t we send letters?”

Cadence nodded. “They’ve rescheduled twice now because of our doctor’s appointments, we definitely sent a letter.”

“Oh, I believe you, must have gotten lost in the mail. And you’ll be working on Power Words? Are you sure that’s a good idea? The advanced ones are pretty, well, advanced.”

Cadence took over Flurry Heart, and gestured to Shining to clean up. His prestidigitation was still rusty, so she did it for him before he could embarrass himself. “It is advanced, but then we are supposed to be advanced ponies, aren’t we, Shining?”

“That’s right. We know all about arcane focus and mental intonation and vibration theory, don’t we, Flurry?” To illustrate, Shining blew a raspberry on Flurry’s belly, and the resulting giggles then caused her to almost lift up the whole table in her magic.

“It’s the easiest thing to work on for us,” Cadence explained, still working down the much-needed toast. She dispelled her daughter’s levitation spell with a loving, but stern thought. “No need to learn new spells, no complicated mechanics, just work on what we know already: find a concept, concentrate it in a word, then cast out the word. Primitive, powerful, hard to predict and hard to counter if you know what you’re doing. Nice and quick, good for beginners and dangerous for the advanced.”

Sunburst nodded. “You’ve been talking to Twilight about this, I presume?”

“Yes. I’m sorry, Sunburst, I know that branch of magic is a sore subject for you, but-”

“Oh, don’t be sorry, it’s fine.” He waved the remark away. “I’ve always been a little too scattered to use that type of magic, but I prefer the mental locus method, anyway, makes it easier to remember everything. So that means Flurry Heart will be with me today? And where will you be?”

“I will be down in Sombra’s old padded room, taking lessons from Master Cold Shoulder.”

She shot him a glare at that.

“And I will be wearing a helmet, obviously,” Shining added.

She kept glaring until he buckled.

“The good helmet, I promise.”

Finally, she relented. “Good. That’s all I wanted to hear.”

Sunburst shuddered. “Wow, Cold Shoulder? I’ve heard of him. He’s not a popular teacher, but a very strong wizard in close quarters. Evocation specialist, if I recall, a powerful ekriximancer, too.”

Shining Armour shrugged, continuing to feed spoonfuls of fruit mash to Flurry Heart until she had her fill. “Doesn’t matter how strong he is. If all he can do is give me cricks in the back, it’ll be a nice workout.”

Sunburst and Cadence exchanged a glance.

“I should probably tell him,” Sunburst whispered.

“Don’t you dare tell him,” Cadence hissed. “He’s sensitive enough as it is about his languages.”

“What was that?” Shining Armour looked up.

“I was just saying I’ll be taking lessons from the EEA’s master abjurer,” Cadence replied.

“More shield magic?” Sunburst said. “Isn’t that your strong suit already?”

“That’s what I thought, but that’s what they’re sending. Apparently the pony in charge of that likes their power words, too, so it’s a good match.”

“Power words and abjuration. Huh, that almost sounds like master Merlon. Good luck to you, too, then.”

“Merlin? I’m pretty sure we’re not allowed to drop that name around here, are we Flurry Heart? No, because that’s when Dizzy Studios lawyers come in, and we can’t afford those in our little Empire.” Shining proceeded to make baby noises that made Cadence wonder if he really had taken his medication that morning, or whether said medication was doing its job.

“Not Mer-lin; Mer-lon, like the ones on castle walls,” Cadence said. “He’s a specialist in shielding magic, and he’s got good language skills, so his power words are… varied, or so I’m told. Why, is he a problem?”

“Oh, no, not a problem, far from it.” Sunburst shook his head. “It’s just that Merlon tends to be really, umm, focused, when he’s teaching. No emotion to him, never looks like he’s enjoying himself, which I guess comes with the whole Power Word thing anyway. Plus, the accent can be a bit distracting. Power word magic gets tricky with multi-lingual ponies.”

Cadence chuckled. “Je vais devoir traverser ce pont quand je le rencontre, non?”

Sunburst nodded. “Hmm, right: diplomat.”

“It’s easy to forget Cadence has had her own training, huh?” Shining said with a grin.

“I try not to flaunt too much: I am a married mare, after all.” Cadence kissed Shining Armour on the cheek, then Flurry Heart on the forehead. “Be good, Flurry. Mommy won’t be too long.” She spread her wings and walked out to the balcony, ready to fly off. “Oh, and Sunburst?”

“Yes?”

“We were double booked for our session. There will be some changelings in the Empire today, but they’ll mostly be here taking lessons with us, so you don’t need to worry.”

“Ah. Good to know. I really need to clean up my mail pile. Kind of weird that we’re training changelings now, though.”

“They need to get their defenses up, too, and we are both relatively new nations. I want them to know we have some strength under our hooves.”

With that, she took off.

So, what to expect from Master Merlon, or Cadence's big lesson in combat? Well, wait and see. I'm hoping to finish and release it before the end of June, at the very latest. Same policy as before, though, disabled ratings, so I won't get any feedback that's not in PM.

Cracker out.