The guard yanked hard on Twilight’s engraved silver chains as he pulled her through the door and into the room where her fate awaited her. Twilight noticed Princess Luna and Princess Celestia instantly. The unmistakable duo was standing behind a table opposite the door. Twilight was mortified, and kept her head low and her eyes averted to avoid meeting her beloved mentor’s eyes.
Across the room there was a faint but audible gasp as Princess Celestia recognized her faithful student, and the merest flicker of Luna’s steely expression betrayed her own shock as she too recognized Twilight.
“Twilight Sparkle! Thou art the fiend?” Luna asked of the familiar unicorn shackled in the middle of the room before her.
Twilight raised her eyes to Luna’s for an instant before lowering her head in shame, and nodded. In her peripheral vision Twilight could see Celestia leaning over to whisper in Luna’s ear, but she couldn’t tell what was being said. The conversation didn’t last long, and soon both of the royal sisters were sitting with grim expressions and iron resolve.
“Twilight Sparkle, you have been found guilty of numerous counts of assault, illegal use of mind control, and most deplorably, murder.” Twilight suppressed a sob as Luna summarized her crimes. “Considering the nature of your transgressions, and the circumstances surrounding them, we have no choice but to sentence thee to death.”
As Luna’s last words rang through Twilight’s mind she only barely stopped herself from collapsing to the floor. She hung her head in defeat. She had been carrying the shame of all those nights constantly, and the burden had finally overtaken her. If her beloved teacher condemned her for what she had done, she would accept it.
Luna watched Twilight closely after she delivered the sentence, and seeing Twilight resigned to her fate, reached a conclusion. With almost no hesitation she turned to one of the guards and gave an order. “Bring in Cloudkicker.” Again Luna watched Twilight closely, though now her decision was unwavering.
Twilight’s blood ran cold at the mention of that name. She rallied and faced Luna as she spoke, “No, please don’t bring her into this! She hasn’t hurt anypony!”
The expression on Luna’s face betrayed no hint of sympathy. When the guard returned with the wisteria-coated mare, he shoved her to the middle of the room to stand beside Twilight.
Cloudkicker leaned close to Twilight and they shared a quick kiss. “Are you alright? What’s happening?” she whispered.
Before Twilight could whisper a distressed answer, Luna’s voice cut through the room again. “Cloudkicker,” Luna began, “you have been found guilty of assisting a creature inimical to ponykind in the assault and subjugation of numerous ponies in Ponyville, and that most despicable crime of murder. Have you anything to say in your defense?”
Cloudkicker looked Twilight in the eye before turning back to Luna. “No, I regret nothing I did.”
“Very well, you shall share the fiend’s fate. We hereby sentence thee to death.”
Twilight’s eyes glinted with fury as she faced the royal diarchs. “How can you do that!? She didn’t hurt anypony, she’s innocent! Let her go, I’ll do anything you want! Just let her go!” The engraved wards in her silver shackles crackled almost imperceptibly as they strained against the force of her glamour.
Luna’s grim expression didn’t so much as flicker as she called to the guards, “Our decision is final. Guards! Take them away.”
Celestia glared at Twilight coldly as the guards began to advance on her condemned student.
Twilight blinked tears out of her eyes as she shouted at Celestia. “How could you? I looked up to you!”
Celestia turned away from Twilight as the guards began fastening shackles to Cloudkicker’s hooves. Twilight cast one last hurt look at Luna, lowered her head, and lit her horn with magic.
Magic in Crimson
By rhiiazami
The pile of books Twilight had set aside to read later on reshelving day had finally dwindled to just a few. She eagerly looked through them, trying to decide which to spend her evening with. One or two of them had already been read and needed to be returned to the shelves. She could deal with those later. “Ah, this one should be interesting. Advanced Aquamancy: A Unicorn’s Guide to Water Manipulation." It only took a brief look to tell that the book was well past its prime. “Hey Spike, do you know when we got this one? It looks old, but I’m sure it wasn’t here last reshelving day,” Twilight asked.
The baby dragon sat in his basket across the room reading a book on archaic calligraphy scripts, wearing a monocle and holding a bubble pipe. He looked up from his book and paused briefly before answering in his best Canterlot accent. “I think it came in with a set of historical books from the Canterlot archives a couple months ago.” He went back to reading about the finer points of cutting a proper calligraphy point on a quill.
“Hmm, I’ve never seen a book devoted specifically to aquamancy before, most magic professors and scholarly texts only briefly mention it.” Twilight flipped the book open to the Introduction and began reading.
Though it has been an established branch of study for hundreds of years, aquamancy is still relatively poorly developed due to the rarity of unicorns able to master it. Arguably the only unicorn confirmed to have mastered known water manipulation techniques was Aqueous Seaspray, though a number of individuals have been able to become proficient in certain aspects of the discipline. Aquamancy has been used by explorers to survive in the expanses of desert beyond the Mild West, as well as to supplement pegasus magic during times of extreme drought or in certain ancient settlements.
Twilight paused to consider the possibilities a mastery of water manipulation could bring, and found herself thoroughly intrigued. “Spike, think you’re up for an outing tomorrow? I think I might want to give some of these spells a try,” she asked.
“I dunno, Twi. Water manipulation? Sounds kinda boring to me,” Spike answered.
Twilight let out an exasperated sigh, but smiled at her assistant. “Oh come on, it’ll be nice to get out for a while, and we both need a break. It’s been, what, three days of nonstop studying now? And the last time we went anywhere was for Pinkie’s end of summer party last week,” Twilight remonstrated.
“Alright, alright, I’ll go,” Spike grumbled.
Twilight continued reading, eager to study the basics of any spells the book might describe so that she could practice them the next day.
Twilight was awoken by the bright rays of the early morning sun shining through her window. She groaned and rolled over, burying her face in her pillow to shut out the offending light. Some time later, after much careful deliberation and dedicated procrastination, Twilight managed to motivate herself to slide out of bed. Spike was still sound asleep in his basket, mumbling something about burning hayfries in his slumber.
She walked to the bathroom and washed up, taming the wild bed mane that assaulted her vision when she looked in the mirror, and headed downstairs to fix a simple breakfast and put together something for their lunch later. The pantry was distinctly lacking in fruit of any kind, Twilight would have to visit the market soon to correct this travesty of dietary variety. She settled on making some oatmeal and strong tea, and prepared a salad for lunch later.
Spike blearily stumbled down the stairs conveniently at the same time the oatmeal was ready, hunger guiding his steps as he struggled to escape the grasp of somnolence.
“Good morning Spike.” Twilight smiled at him when she noticed him climbing onto his favored chair at the table.
“Morning Twi,” Spike yawned.
Twilight levitated a mug of freshly brewed tea over to Spike and set two bowls before proceeding to serve Spike a portion of the hot oatmeal. Spike sniffed the oatmeal and made no effort to hide his disappointment. “Plain oatmeal?” He raised his eyebrow at Twilight incredulously.
Twilight chuckled at him, “We’re out of fruit. We finished the last of the apples yesterday morning, you’ll have to make do until we get some more from the market later.”
Spike made a face but proceeded to hungrily devour his oatmeal nonetheless. Twilight retrieved her book from the other room and sat reading it as she ate her oatmeal.
A basic understanding of aquamancy allows for the collection and transportation of water even in environments where water would ordinarily be impossible to locate or extract. More advanced understanding of aquamancy can be used to create basic weather phenomenon, generally by the creation and maneuvering of water vapour. In modern times aquamancy has fallen into relative disuse as ponykind has flourished, and there are generally enough pegasi to meet the weather needs of pony settlements.
She reviewed the few spells the book outlined again before levitating the dishes into the sink and magically washing them. She walked out into the main room of the library to prepare her saddlebags before calling to Spike, who had found his way back upstairs. “Spike, are you almost ready to go? We should get an early start on our outing if we’re going to have time to visit the market this afternoon.”
Spike loudly grumbled something in response before making his way back downstairs carrying a collection of writing materials for Twilight. “Thank you Spike. Let’s see, lunch, paper, quills, ink, Advanced Aquamancy, and some bits for the market later. I think that’s everything.”
The two of them left the library and made their way toward the edge of town. Twilight had decided the best place to practice water magic would be a pond just past the outskirts of town. The pond in question was fed by a meandering stream that flowed from somewhere in the Everfree Forest. Twilight set her saddlebags down next to a small bush near the edge of the pond and found an open grassy hill nearby with a good view of the surrounding area.
“Okay, first I’ll need to collect some water. The pond would be too easy, we can use that for other spells later. Unfortunately the morning dew has already evaporated, so I’ll have to get it from the air or the ground,” Twilight explained to Spike, who was sitting beside her nodding his head absentmindedly as he watched some weather pegasi in the distance clearing the sky.
“Whatever you say, Twi,” Spike said.
Twilight settled her mind and focused on her magic. Her horn began to glow, and before long she had a rapidly growing sphere of water hovering before her as she pulled moisture out of the air, supplementing it with moisture from the soil of the shore of the pond. Spike whistled softly, increasingly impressed as Twilight expanded the area she was drawing moisture from, and her orb of water grew steadily.
When she finished, the sphere was easily several feet in diameter, crystal clear and so smooth in her telekinetic grip that it behaved rather like a lens as one looked through it. “Hmm, I bet we could put that refracting effect to good use…” Twilight began experimenting with the shape of her accumulation of water until she had an oblong shape. Beneath the hovering water the soil began smoking as the light refracting through the water superheated it.
“Whoa, that’s neat, but couldn’t you just heat things with magic? What would you need a lens of water for?” Spike asked.
Twilight smiled through her concentration and began listing all the ways one could put focused sunlight to use, and how one might make a more efficient water lens, but after a moment she trailed off and grew a rather devious grin.
“Spike, when was your last bath?” she asked, her tone carefully controlled to avoid raising his suspicion.
“Oh, it was probably last Friday, why- oh no.” Spike’s eyes widened as he realized where Twilight was going with this line of thought. Before he could protest further, Twilight had him in her magical grip and was rapidly heating the once-again spherical accumulation of water still in her grasp. When it began to steam Spike found himself plunged into the floating sphere up to his neck, and the water began to swirl around him. “No fair, Twilight.” Spike crossed his arms and glared at her.
Twilight giggled. “It’s not too hot is it? I tried to guess at a comfortable temperature.”
Spike rolled his eyes. “I’m a dragon, Twi. Even if you boiled it I’d be fine.”
Twilight smiled at him. “I suppose I forget how heat resistant you are, sometimes.”
Twilight set Spike back down next to her, and cast a quick spell to pull any lingering water off his scales, leaving him quite dry. “All right, next we turn it back to vapour, and then comes condensation.” She raised the water above their heads and began spinning it into a large circular disk.
Spike watched as the disk of water expanded to well over forty feet in diameter as it hovered above their heads, spinning gently as Twilight continued to enlarge it.
“What are you doing, Twi?” Spike asked, perplexed.
Twilight kept her eyes fixed on the water as she replied. “I’m maximizing the surface area of the water so I can vaporize it all at once without causing a big explosion of steam. Then I’ll cool and condense the vapour, and with any luck at all we’ll have a viable cloud.”
Spike nodded in understanding and sat down.
When Twilight decided the disk was large enough, she shifted her focus to heating the water in her grasp. In just a few seconds it was completely evaporated. Twilight focused on keeping her control of the sizable cloud of vapor as she began to force the water to condense. When she was done she had a fair sized cloud, hovering in the air about a hundred feet above them.
“Wow, nice job, Twi,” Spike said, gazing up at the newly formed cloud.
Twilight beamed at him before turning to examine her work and shaping the cloud into what she imagined to be a more natural shape. “Hmm, I wonder if I can make it rain…” She chewed her lip as she began condensing the cloud even further, urging it to form ever larger droplets. To her glee, the cloud soon began to let forth a gentle drizzle over the edge of the pond in front of them.
Twilight broke out in a huge grin at her success. She had surprised herself with how easily she was getting the hang of aquamancy. Her moment of triumph was interrupted, however, when a weather pegasus suddenly broke through from behind the cloud, leaving a sizable hole in it. The pegasus seemed slightly puzzled as she came around for another pass at the cloud.
“Hey!” Twilight called out to the pegasus, trying to get her attention. The weather mare didn’t seem to notice, as she knocked another sizable hole in the cloud. It stopped raining as the cloud began to unravel from the pegasus’ efforts. “HEY!” Twilight shouted, determined to get the mare’s attention.
This time she succeeded, and the pegasus flew down to hover just above Twilight, smiling brightly. “Hello! Is there something you need?” she asked.
Twilight sighed. “Yes, actually, I was hoping to stop you before you finished destroying that cloud, but I couldn’t catch your attention before it was too late,” Twilight said, as she watched what was left of her cloud disintegrate over the lake.
The Wisteria coloured pegasus frowned. “Oh, I’m sorry; I’m supposed to be clearing the sky. Forecast calls for a bright sunny day today and for a few more days to come. I thought I had cleared this area earlier, but I guess I missed one,” she said.
“No, the sky was clear, I made that cloud, I’m practicing some water manipulation spells,” Twilight replied.
At this the weather mare landed in front of Twilight, a shocked look on her face. “You made that cloud? Wow! I’ve never known a unicorn who could do that,” she exclaimed.
Twilight averted her gaze, unsure how to react to the mare’s sudden excitement. “I’m studying water manipulation magic, which involves some basic weather effects, including clouds.”
“Neat! Can you make another? I’d like to watch, if that’s okay,” the pegasus asked enthusiastically.
Twilight nodded. “Okay, I could use the extra practice,” she paused. “I’m sorry I don’t think I got your name, miss…” she trailed off, waiting expectantly.
The gold and lemon maned mare gasped softly. “Oh I’m sorry I completely forgot to introduce myself, I’m Cloudkicker,” she said.
Twilight smiled at her. “It’s nice to meet you Cloudkicker, I’m Twilight Sparkle.” Twilight turned to face the pond where her cloud had been just a few moments previous and began to focus on her magic again.
This time she drew the water for her spellwork directly from the pond, pulling a sizable sphere of crystal liquid from the surface. She levitated it high above their heads and began spinning it out into a large circular membrane. When it reached an acceptable size and thickness she promptly vaporized it and collected the newly freed water vapor, cooling it and forcing it to condense into a cloud, this one slightly larger than her previous one.
Cloudkicker gasped. “Wow! That’s impressive, mind if I take a closer look at it?” she asked.
Twilight nodded. “Feel free; tell me what you think of it, I’m interested to hear whatever you have to say about it.”
Cloudkicker nodded and flew up to the cloud now floating free of Twilight’s magic. She flew around it, examining it visually, and experimentally poking it with a hoof once or twice before finally landing on top of it. After walking around its poofy surface for a moment she jumped on it, causing the cloud to darken. A few more jumps and the cloud began to drizzle gently. A calculated jab and the cloud let forth a small but intense bolt of lightning which, when observed closely, had a slight violet aura about it, and a peal of thunder. Satisfied that she had played with the cloud enough, Cloudkicker flew down to land beside Twilight and Spike once more.
“It seems mostly normal to me. The only significant difference is that it needed to be coaxed a bit to rain and thunder. It’s weird though, it feels funny, I’m not quite sure how to describe the sensation, also it seems a bit… antsy, like it doesn’t quite want to do what I tell it to do, it has a bit of an unruly temperament,” Cloudkicker said, folding her wings and gazing at the cloud as it exhausted its capacity for precipitation.
Twilight nodded. “That sounds similar to what my book said, clouds made by unicorns tend to be a bit chaotic and can be difficult to predict if they get too large, and apparently they feel a bit fuzzy or frenetic compared to normal clouds produced by pegasi, which feel more smooth and balanced. Does that sound about right?”
“That sounds pretty close to what I felt.” Cloudkicker nodded at Twilight and paused briefly before speaking again. “What else can you do?”
Twilight lowered her ears as she replied, “Well, that’s all I’ve tried so far, but if you give me a moment, maybe…” she trailed off as she once again focused on her magic.
Cloudkicker gasped softly in surprise as the cloud began to ascend rapidly, collecting more moisture from the air and growing in size until it roughly matched the diameter of the pond it was now centered over. While no obvious magical field was visible around the untold multitude of water droplets held under Twilight’s influence, scattered scintillating sparks of light betrayed the fact that unicorn magic was at work.
The cloud had stopped raining but was now growing dark and heavily laden with moisture again. The sparks of light spread from the cloud to the pond below, and Cloudkicker guessed that Twilight was likely doing something with the column of air beneath the cloud.
A few more moments passed as Twilight’s spell worked, and Cloudkicker began to see some telltale signs of what Twilight was trying to accomplish. She bit her lip nervously and turned to Twilight, who was intensely focused on her spell. “Miss Sparkle, are you sure that’s safe?” she asked.
Twilight kept focused on her spell, not even glancing at the mare beside her as she replied, “It’ll be fine. I’ve got it all under control.” She smiled.
Spike perked up upon hearing the concern in Cloudkicker’s voice. “Why? What’s going to happen?” he asked.
As if in answer to Spike’s question, something splashed into the pond beneath the cloud, quickly followed by several more as the cloud finally began to unleash its magically induced fury upon the helpless pond below.
“Oh…” Spike watched in awe as the surface of the water was pelted with thousands of hailstones, something he had rarely ever seen before, as the weather pegasi avoided creating hail whenever possible.
Twilight smiled in triumph as she watched the fruits of her labor unfold before her. Cloudkicker turned to Twilight and spoke again, “Well I’m impressed, your cloud is a bit wild, but other than that it’s pretty good.”
Twilight grinned. “Oh it’s not that great. It’s just an experiment in cold weather aquamancy. I know the concepts, I just needed to practice applying them.”
“You don’t give yourself enough credit, hail is no small feat even for a pegasus, most need some special weather training to manage it. I’ve never heard of a unicorn managing more than a small thundercloud before,” Cloudkicker replied with a grin.
Twilight smiled modestly and levitated her saddlebag over from its position under the bush. “Would you like to share our lunch? I brought enough extra for a third pony,” Twilight asked, removing the salad from the bag and setting out appropriate dishes.
Cloudkicker glanced at the sky and nodded. “Sure, I have a little time to spare.”
In short order the trio were eating happily. Spike wasted no time on such frivolities as table manners, tucking into his salad with great enthusiasm.
Twilight eyed her cloud, reviewing her new spells and results. After a moment she let her gaze wander, taking in the sights of the day. As her eyes found their way to a point in the sky somewhat outside ponyville in the distance, she forgot to maintain her levitation and dropped a bite of salad midway to her mouth in shock. “What is that!?”
Cloudkicker followed Twilight’s gaze and, seeing what she was looking at, chuckled. “Oh that, that would be Ditzy Doo’s work. Some days I just don’t know what to make of her.”
Twilight shook her head in disbelief and turned to Cloudkicker. “She made a perfect great icosidodecahedron out of cloud!?”
Cloudkicker looked puzzled briefly. “Is that what that is? Huh,” she shrugged. “She makes things like that occasionally. She seems to have fun with it, and it doesn’t usually affect the weather, so the weather team just ignores it.”
Twilight turned to stare at the anomalous cloud again. The edges of the shape were shockingly well defined given what it was constructed out of. “I think I may have to talk to her about that someday,” she said as she resumed eating.
Their lunch continued and they chatted amiably about whatever came to mind. Spike finished his first and began nodding off as he lay in the sunlight while Twilight and Cloudkicker finished their food.
“Unfortunately I’m still on duty so I have to finish up clearing the sky and report to the team leader, forecast calls for clear skies this evening. I’d love to see what else you can do with your magic though, will you still be here this afternoon?” Cloudkicker asked.
“I might be back later, but I have to run to the market soon, and then take my groceries back to the library, I might not get back out here until late in the afternoon. I can wait for you at the library if you want, though I can’t promise anything too spectacular later. I’ll probably just be refining my technique on what I’ve already done today,” Twilight responded.
Cloudkicker idly scuffed the ground with one of her front hooves. “Okay, I’ll stop by after I get done with the weather patrol, see you then!”
Twilight watched as Cloudkicker took flight and headed off to finish clearing the few remaining clouds in the area. When Cloudkicker had shrunk to a distant speck in the sky, she turned her attention back to her own cloud and dispersed it into the surrounding atmosphere. Better not leave extra work for the weather patrol, she thought. With that, she and Spike made their way back into town to procure some food for their dwindling pantry.
Twilight finished putting away the last of the groceries from the market and walked back out into the main room of the library. I should have enough time to do a little reading before Cloudkicker shows up.
She walked over and lay on a sofa and levitated her book over, laying it in front of her. Perhaps she could glean a few more details that she could apply to her practice that afternoon. She opened the book to the last page where she had left off and continued reading.
She had been reading for about an hour when she heard a knock at the door. Spike had gone upstairs for a nap so she got the door herself. She was pleased to see her new acquaintance standing outside.
“Hi Cloudkicker! Come on in, I’ll be ready to go in just a minute.” She stepped aside to let Cloudkicker in and closed the door after her.
Cloudkicker’s eyes followed Twilight as she walked across the room, levitating a book and placing it on a shelf near her reading podium. “So you’re the librarian?” she asked, noting the absence of anypony else and the fact that Twilight seemed quite at home in the library.
Twilight chuckled nervously, unsure what the lavender pegasus might think of librarians. “Yeah, I live here and run the library. It’s a good place for my magic studies.”
Twilight glanced around the room to make sure she wasn’t forgetting anything. Satisfied that everything was in order, she led Cloudkicker out the door and into the afternoon sunlight.
“So, how long have you been studying water magic?” Cloudkicker asked as they walked.
“I only started researching it specifically yesterday, though I have read a little about it before; mostly only vague references and allusions though,” Twilight responded.
“Wow, you seem to have a pretty good grasp of it for only having started studying it yesterday,” Cloudkicker said, eyebrows raised.
Twilight chuckled modestly. “I’m a fast learner. I can learn and copy most spells I see somepony else cast without needing any explanation, and I pick up spells from books very easily.”
As they reached the outskirts of Ponyville Twilight angled toward the Everfree forest. She was making for the place where she knew the creek which fed the lake she had visited earlier in the day must exit the forest. She kept up a steady conversation with Cloudkicker as they walked, talking about her magic studies at length.
“So you’re on the weather team? What do you do?” Twilight asked, hoping to divert the focus of the conversation from herself, and slightly curious to learn more about the lavender pegasus.
Cloudkicker grinned and replied, “I mostly help maneuver clouds around, but in my free time I like to sculpt them.”
Twilight’s eyebrows rose as she listened. “Oh you’re a cloud sculptor? Is that difficult?”
Cloudkicker shook her head. “It’s no more difficult than moving them around, really, though it takes an eye for shape. But I really enjoy it. I especially enjoy sculpting them to take advantage of sunlight. You can achieve some really amazing sights with clouds and sunlight, that’s actually how I got my cutie mark.”
Twilight remained silent in thought for a moment before speaking again, “I’d love to see what you can do sometime! That sounds like it would be fun to watch.”
Cloudkicker smiled brightly. “Sure! I’m always happy to have an audience for my cloudsculpting.”
The trees of the Everfree forest were looming ahead as they neared the creek Twilight had been aiming for. The creek was small, perhaps a dozen feet across, but evidently quite old, as its meandering path cut deeply into the soil of the forest and the prairie beyond its edge. The late afternoon sun’s light was subdued beneath the heavy canopy of the forest.
Twilight’s hooves sank into the soft soil around the edge of the creek slightly as she walked down the bank to the water’s edge, followed by Cloudkicker.
“So what are you planning to try now?” Cloudkicker asked, excited to see what magic Twilight had in store.
Twilight paused to review her plans briefly. “Well, earlier I vaporized water and collected the vapor to make clouds, I’m going to try something a little different now.”
Twilight looked up and down the creek, and an idea occurred to her. “Actually, I wonder…” She lowered her head and her horn began to shine. The edges of the water illuminated slightly in answer to her horn, and a scintillating pulse of soft light rolled up the watercourse in either direction.
The luminescence of Twilight’s horn grew brighter, and the babbling of the water grew softer as the surface smoothed out until it was like glass. Twilight’s eyes widened as she watched the result of her work, and she strained even harder at her spell, channeling her magic with increased excitement.
The water became almost completely silent and the surface settled to a mirror-like sheet. Twilight was panting slightly as she continued channeling her magic, and the edges of the watercourse continued to gleam faintly. She narrowed her eyes and began a second spell in tandem to the first. The surface of the water flashed and the entire stream seemed to rise several inches, and then there was a faint snap and twilight let both spells dissipate, breathing deeply to regain her composure.
The surface of the water seemed unchanged, still mirror smooth and resting at the same level it had been at before, but as Cloudkicker looked, she seemed to see the creek flowing normally again some inches below the glassine surface. She turned to Twilight, a slight mixture of awe and confusion written across her face.
“What did you do?” she asked, mouth agape.
Twilight chuckled at the pegasus’ reaction, pleased with her work. “Well, I was just going to freeze the surface of the stream, but then a thought occurred to me. I wonder if I can make the water behave as a superfluid? It would lose all viscosity and flow with no friction. Water shouldn’t be able to become a superfluid, but I hadn’t read about anypony aiding it with magic. The only ponies I know of who have studied superfluids did so with certain condensed gasses.“
“So, I used magic to force the water into a superfluid state," she continued, "then raised a portion of the stream above the rest, maintaining its superfluidity, and then I froze it, changing the upper layer from a superfluid to a solid, and let the lower portion revert to a normal fluid. So we have a thick glass-like layer of ice fixed a few inches above the actual surface of the stream. The ice is pure water, without any of the bubbles or imperfections that would normally cause a frozen watercourse to appear opaque. I probably could have made a sheet of ice like this without bothering with superfluid water but it was interesting to try,” Twilight gushed.
Cloudkicker nodded politely throughout Twilight’s long-winded explanation, following as closely as she could. When Twilight finished, she smiled blithely. “Neat!”
Cloudkicker stepped gingerly onto the layer of ice and soon found herself sliding around uncontrollably as she struggled not to fall on her face.
“Careful, it’s very smooth and it’s going to be very slippery as it starts to melt!” Twilight called.
Cloudkicker flapped her wings and beat a hasty takeoff from the slick surface before fluttering back to the water’s edge. “No kidding! I think that’s the slippiest bit of ice I’ve ever set hoof on.” She grinned at Twilight. “What are you going to do next?”
Twilight paused and thought briefly. “I’m not sure. I would like to walk along the creek a bit while I make up my mind though. It runs fairly near the edge of the forest for quite a distance, if I remember correctly, so it should be safe. If we were to trace it to its source it would wind through Whitetail Wood to some springs a few miles away.“ Twilight quickly melted her handiwork and began following the meandering stream, Cloudkicker in tow.
“So what do you do for fun? Besides studying magic?” Cloudkicker asked, hopping over an intrusive patch of mud which Twilight simply teleported across.
“Well, I spend time with my friends, and I read. I’ve run in the Running of the Leaves and I try to help out with community projects like Winter Wrap-up, but that’s about it, I’m a bit of a bookworm.” Twilight averted her eyes at this last statement.
“Ah, an intellectual at heart?” Cloudkicker giggled.
Twilight grinned sheepishly. “I suppose you could put it that way, yes.”
As they walked around a bend in the stream they came to the edge of a wide pool of clear water on the near side of the current, surrounded by a small clearing.
“This looks like a decent spot for another experiment,” Twilight said, stepping up to the edge of the pool.
Cloudkicker watched with eager curiosity as Twilight’s horn began to shimmer with a violet aura. A faint sparkle of light radiated from Twilight’s hooves, flowing up her legs and enveloping her, before fading abruptly as she finished her spell.
“What did you do?” Cloudkicker asked.
“I made the hairs of my coat, mane and tail, and the outer surface of my skin hydrophobic,” she said, stepping into the shallows as she spoke.
Cloudkicker looked rather nonplussed as she watched Twilight wade into the shallows. “Uh huh… Well, that’s nice?”
Twilight smiled. “It is! I won’t have to dry off after I get out of the water, it’ll all just slide right off.”
As Twilight got into the deepest part of the pool, where the water came up to her withers, she paused. “Do you feel anything odd?” she asked.
Cloudkicker glanced around, looking for anything unusual. “No, not really, is something the matter?”
Twilight shook her head. “I… no, I just have a funny feeling.” She turned and began to make her way back toward Cloudkicker. She made it only a short distance before she felt a quick, sharp jolt against her hoof. She cried out and reeled, feeling faint, and staggered toward shore.
Cloudkicker rushed to help her, concern written across her face. “Are you okay? What happened?”
Twilight gasped, stammering an answer between shaky breaths, “I d-don’t know, I think I s-stepped on something.”
As they reached shore, Twilight’s vision was swimming and it was more than she could manage to remain standing. She collapsed at the water’s edge. Her hoof felt as if it had been set aflame, and the agony shot up her leg with each movement. Her veins burned like fire and it was all she could do to keep breathing as the pain seared its way through her chest. Her heartbeat sounded like a drum in her ears as she lay near the water’s edge.
“Twilight! Hold on, let’s get you to a doctor.” Cloudkicker kneeled and shouldered Twilight onto her back. Twilight’s vision clouded with a crimson mist, and she lost consciousness as Cloudkicker galloped out of the trees.
End Chapter One.