//------------------------------// // Chapter 3 // Story: Tales of a Wizard: Flesh Masks // by Applechip //------------------------------// “Oooooowww,” I moaned after a few seconds of dizziness, or it could’ve been a few minutes or an hour for all I know. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t meant to hurt you. You just scared me a bit,” said the purple unicorn in a soft feminine voice. She quickly made her way to my bedside, a look of concern in her large expressive eyes. You know, at one point in my life, a talking purple unicorn would’ve come across as an enormous shock. But I’ve been through enough weirdness to know not to try to fully understand a bizarre situation from the get go, you’ll just end up confusing yourself more. So it’s usually a better idea to just roll with the flow until you get a good enough handle to ask the proper questions. Even so, that was definitely weird enough to warrant at least some kind of remark. “You’re a unicorn,” I deadpanned. Master of wit and repartee, that’s me. She just gave me a blank expression and then raised a hoof to point at a pillow next to my head, “That’s a pillow.” She’s a smart-ass. I like her already, I thought cocking one eyebrow. “And you can talk.” She put on a frustrated expression, while putting hoof-to-face, “Yes, I can talk. You can talk. All ponies can talk.” Hells bells, that’s just adorable. “I’m not a pony,” I said, a slight chuckle coming to my throat. At that remark she just looked at me, genuine concern in her eyes. “Uh, are you feeling okay? You didn’t hit your head did you?” “Oh come on, look at me. Do I seriously look like a-” I paused midsentence while moving to pull the covers off of me and froze when I saw my arm, or what had been my arm. What I was moving instead, was covered in dark grey fur, and ended in a black hoof. In a panicked frenzy I struggled to get the covers off me, which is a lot harder to do when you don’t have fingers. After fumbling around for a few seconds I succeeded in removing the covers, only to gape at what had happened to me. I had indeed been transformed into a dark grey pony. About a million questions immediately sprang to mind, and with my brain still reeling from this unexpected shock, my mouth decided to try to ask them all, simultaneously. “I, wha… This isn’t… I shouldn’t… How?” I sputtered, a little bit of foam forming at the corner of my mouth. “Shhhh, calm down, you’re alright,” she said putting her two fore legs on my shoulders and gently pushed me back into the bed, like a mother trying to calm her frightened child. Through the physical contact, I felt the familiar spark of electricity that identifies a practitioner. So she has magic, interesting. My brain seemed to have finally caught up with the rest of me and produced a relevant, if basic, question, “Where am I?” “You’re in Ponyville. More specifically you’re in the Ponyville library, my home. My friend Applejack and I found you and your friend at the edge of the Everfree Forest and brought you back here. My name is Twilight Sparkle.” “Harry Dresden,” my mouth replied automatically, my brain still processing this information. “I… I’m Harry Dresden.” She tilted her head slightly as though she was trying to read my face for information. “Are you okay? You were yelling a bit.” “I had a bad dream.” “You sounded kind of angry.” I tried very hard not to think of Susan. “It was a very bad dream,” I repeated. Twilight watched me carefully, probably wondering just how crazy I was. “Okay. Well Mr. Dresden, after we got you here safely I called our local nurse and had her come and make sure you two were alright.” I remembered that my friend had also been with me, and had presumably been through a similar process as I had. “Michael! Is Michael alright?” “The white earth pony? Yes he’s fine. He’s in the guest bedroom downstairs. Nurse Redheart said that as far as she could tell, you two were in perfect health and that you just needed some bed rest.” “Uh, Miss Sparkle, what do you mean by ‘earth pony’?” I asked regaining some sense of manners, seeing as how she had evidently went out of her way to help both me and Michael. Twilight looked at me with that same sense of concern in her eyes, “I think you must have hit your head pretty hard. You might have amnesia.” “Just humor me,” I deadpanned. Twilight just sighed and shook her head. “Alright fine, earth pony means a pony without a unicorn’s horn or pegasus wings. Your friend Michael is an earth pony, and you are a unicorn.” She pointed a hoof at my head. “Wait, what?” I reached up a hoof to my forehead, and felt the long spiraled horn of a unicorn. “Well this is... interesting,” I said mostly to myself, but Twilight seemed to take it as confirmation of my insanity. Then a slightly more pressing question came to mind as I remembered how I got here. “Twilight, how long have I been unconscious?” “A little over two days, I was going to get you two rooms at the hospital if you didn’t wake up soon.” Two days? Damn it! The Red Court squad will have gone to ground by now and the tracking spell will have worn off. There’s no way I’m going to find them anytime soon. “Mister Dresden, can you remember where you’re from? If you can tell me that I can send a letter there so that somepony can come and get you,” Twilight said. “I’m pretty sure your letters can’t reach where I’m from.” I started to shamble out of the bed, “Help me get Michael up then we’ll exchange notes. I’d prefer not to have to repeat things twic-WHOA!” I cried out while trying and failing to stand on my hind legs. Oh great, I’ve literally got two left feet. This will take some getting used to. Twilight broke out into a fit of giggles at the sight of my superior walking ability, turned and walked downstairs. After Twilight left the room, I began the arduous journey of trying to work out how to move around with four legs. To my surprise, the learning process didn’t take all that long. It still took me a good few minutes, as the 'just put one foot in front of the other technique' doesn’t really work for anything with more than two feet. But after a few minutes of frustrated groaning and many bruised legs, something in my brain clicked into place and I began moving all four legs with practiced ease. It was as though I’d been a quadruped all my life. Well this is odd. Whatever magic that did this to me must’ve put the same basic instincts in my head as any other pony. Hope this isn’t permanent or I’m going to have a lot of explaining to do when I get back home. I made my way downstairs to find that Twilight was standing outside of Michael’s room, apparently unwilling to wake the slumbering saint. I had no such inhibitions. I walked up to the giant of a pony and thought to myself, Damn, human or pony, Michael is a tank. Maybe I should work out more. I put a hoof on his side and shook him enough to at least partially wake him. A smile spread over his new pony muzzle as he enjoyed whatever dream he was having. “Mmmmm, sweetie look, the kids are having another snowball fight.” He obviously wasn’t having the same kind of dream I had. I leaned my head down so I was talking into one of his ears, “Hey Michael, I know you’re having a nice dream, and I’m most definitely not your ‘sweetie’, but I do need your help right now. So if you wouldn’t mind, WAKE UP!” That got him up. Michael jerked out of the bed so hard, that he rolled right over and off the side with a loud thud of impact. He attempted to get up, but almost immediately realized that something was wrong and proceeded to examine his new earth pony form. After a few seconds of confused shock he looked right at me and said, “Harry, if this is another one of your failed potion experiments give me the antidote, now.” That stung a little. A while back I’d persuaded Michael to try a recent potion I’d been experimenting with. It was meant to increase all of a person’s senses at the same time as opposed to the individual potions that did just one sense at a time. The effects were... hallucinogenic. “Sorry Michael, no potion this time. We are very much alive, and you have not gone crazy. Twilight, would you tell Michael everything you told me. Then both of you meet me in the main room so we can properly get a handle on what’s going on.” My stomach growled loudly, “Uh, Twilight do you have any food?” “Out the room and first door on the right,” Twilight replied, walking into the room to face Michael. “Thanks, I’ll put a plate on the main table for when you guys are done.” I turned and left, Michael still staring at me as though I was speaking gibberish. I found the kitchen right where Twilight said it’d be. I searched around and finally found the cupboard that stored the food, and was faced with my vegan nightmare. The cupboard was filled with oats, beans, apples, celery, and practically any other vegetable or fruit you’d care to mention. I suppose a hamburger is too much to ask, I thought to myself while wondering if my new teeth would even be capable of such a task. Considering that ponies are herbivores there’s probably not going to be a butcher shop nearby. Despite my carnivore brain retching at the lack of meat, my stomach still rumbled and my mouth still watered at the sight of the vegetarian selection. So operating on the assumption that my stomach new more about this situation than my brain did, I grabbed a nearby platter with my teeth and carefully scooped a pile of apples onto it with a foreleg. I took the platter into the main room and calmly waited for Twilight to finish explaining the basics to Michael. It only took a few minutes, Michael always was better at dealing with bizarre situations than I was. Soon enough the two came from Michael’s room and made their way to the table. Michael, evidently, already had his equine epiphany on how to use his new legs as well. The three of us had a small meal together from the apples I’d piled up. Twilight levitated her food to her mouth in an odd purple nimbus I’d never seen, while Michael and I opted to separate a small pile for ourselves then dig our faces in them. We’re obviously a bit short on proper pony table manners, but Twilight didn’t seem to mind. In fact after a minute or two she giggled at our etiquette and dunked her face into her own small pile. After a minute or two, Twilight disentangled herself from her pile of apples to finally get down to business. “Now that we have a second, could I ask you what that is supposed to mean?” Twilight asked pointing a hoof at me. I followed her hoof and saw that she was pointing to the silver pentacle on my flank. “What in the… What’s that doing there? I never had a tattoo.” “You don’t know what it means?” Twilight asked confusion in her voice. “No I know what it stands for, I’m just asking what it is doing on my as-flank,” I said, trying to remain as polite as possible. “That’s your cutie mark. It’s a symbol of what makes you special. So what does it mean? I’ve only ever seen that particular symbol in books on ancient magic, but it’s never really explained in them,” Twilight asked, clearly eager for more knowledge on a subject she didn’t fully understand. “It’s called a pentacle. It’s the symbol of how magic should be used. The five points on the star represent the five base elements of magic: air, earth, water, fire, and spirit. The circle represents mortal will. So it symbolizes magic contained within mortal willpower, or power balanced with restraint,” I explained while Twilight drank in every word I said. “Amazing, what about you Michael? What’s your symbol supposed to mean? I don’t think I’ve ever seen it before,” Twilight asked Michael. Michael, who had turned to examine his own golden cross of a mark, returned his attention to Twilight with a look of immense pride on his face. “This is a cross, the symbol of my faith. It’s a reminder for why I fight. That all things will be as they should be, and that good will always prevail in the end, even if it might not seem so.” From there Twilight gave us a brief explanation on this magical land of ponies she dubbed Equestria, and its rulers Princesses Celestia and Luna. I found the information that these rulers had the power necessary to move the sun and moon across the sky to be particularly disturbing. If they had the power to move heavenly bodies, then I didn’t want to know what would happen if they got mad. In return Michael and I explained to Twilight who and what we were and how we came to Equestria. “So you two are, what was it, humans?” Twilight asked disbelief etched all over her face. “Yep,” Michael and I said in unison. “You’re some kind of wizard guardian and you’re a holy knight?” she asked, directing her attention to me and then to Michael. “A bit oversimplified, but yes,” Michael answered. “And you got here by chasing after three monsters and ripping open a hole in the fabric of reality?” “Now that’s an extreme oversimplification, but fundamentally yes,” I responded. Twilight clearly didn’t take our words at face value, but neither did she immediately dismiss us. “Hmmm, I think I have I book on the theory of a multiverse somewhere around here. Hang on, I’ll be right back.” Twilight got up from her seat an made for the stairs up to her room. I didn’t try to stop her, explaining the technical workings behind the Nevernever is akin to trying to explain quantum physics to a preschooler. There’s always an exception to every rule in a set of rules that’s constantly changing. Besides now that I was fed and the main source of questions was leaving to go do her own research, I could focus on prepping my magic to go back home. As I sat on my haunches with a full belly and a contented smile, my eyes seemed to move on their own to track Twilight as she went up the stairs. Some as of yet silent part of my new pony brain went, Dang, nice flank. My tail started twitching excitedly. When the rest of my brain caught up with what I had just thought, I made an immediate mental backpedal. No, bad Harry, she’s a pony, you’re a human. Think it through. But you’re not a human, not right now anyway, said that annoying little voice again. Hell bells, just no! Ugh, I actually miss my apartment now. Its constant cold showers made sure that this was never a problem, I argued with myself. Michael just looked at me with a disapproving glare, as though he knew what had just gone through my head. “What?” I said in an innocent tone that probably would’ve worked better if my tail wasn’t still twitching. “Just focus on getting us home,” he said in a mildly authoritative tone. So I shut my mouth and set out to re-familiarize myself with my magic, while my tail slowly calmed down. I felt the familiar current of magical energy in the air around me and drew in my will for a practice spell. I focused on a nearby candle stick and envisioned it popping alight. I formed the spell as I had done countless times in my apartment and whispered, “Flickum bicus”. Nothing whatsoever happened. I felt the magic, I formed the spell in my head, but I couldn’t release it into the environment. “Oh, come on… ventas servitas, fuego, ventas, come on!” I practically yelled. Being in a strange environment without the use of magic is every wizard’s worst nightmare. Granted my current environment was downright pleasant, but being unable to defend myself magically was still very distressing. So to prevent a stress migraine I tossed around for a topic of conversation with Michael. “Say Michael, Twilight seems to have a full range of emotions doesn’t she? I mean compared to humans anyway.” “Yes, what of it?” “Well if the other ponies of this land have similar complex emotions… Fuego, rrrrrgh. If emotions translate to a soul, do you think these ponies have souls comparable to humans?” “My preacher in school never really considered whether or not animals have souls like us. But if all of the ponies here have emotions and complex opinions comparable to Twilight, then I don’t see why they wouldn’t,” Michael said with a contemplative look. “Ventas, still nothing. Well if they have souls like us, I wonder if I could soulgaze them.” “I wouldn’t recommend that. I doubt any of these ponies would want to look upon your soul.” “I don’t want to do a soulgaze, I’m just thinking out loud. It helps me focus. Fuego, oh COME ON!” I yelled in frustration. “You have to use your horn, and what’s a soulgaze?” Twilight asked from the staircase. I nearly jumped out of my new dark grey fur. “My horn? You mean use it as a focus? I hadn’t thought of that,” I replied while reforming the candle light spell. This time I focused the spell through the horn on my head like I would my staff. I released the familiar spell through my horn and whispered the words, “Flickum bicus”. The candle exploded in a flash of light and a spray of wax. “Hells bells!” I cried as all three of us fell back in alarm. “That’s a bit more bang than I expected. I formed that spell the same way I’ve always done. So why was it so… Wait a minute.” I extended my wizard senses into the environment and confirmed what I had suspected, “Good lord, this place is packed with magical energy! Much more so than back home anyway, no wonder that candle exploded.” “What in Equestria was that?” Twilight exclaimed looking at the smoldering remains of her candle. “A simple fire spell with way too much juice. Usually whenever I do a spell I reach to the magic around me as a source of fuel, but the environment here is much more charged than what I’m used to. Say Twilight, I noticed earlier that you have some magic, do you practice it often?” I asked. “Well of course I have magic. I’m a unicorn, all unicorns have magic,” Twilight said in a matter of fact voice, as though this should’ve been common knowledge for me. “All, how many is all? How many unicorns are there?” I asked. “Roughly a third of the population of Equestria.” “A third of the population!” My brain started gibbering at the possibilities. “Well no wonder there’s so much magic here,” I muttered to myself. On Earth we’re lucky to get one out of every couple hundred thousand people to develop magical talent, and only a fraction of those grow to White Council strength. “You still haven’t answered my question, what’s a soulgaze?” Twilight asked, her voice now equal parts curious and frustrated. I really don’t want to get into this, but suppose I do owe her an explanation at least. “Alright hang on.” I repositioned myself more comfortably on my cushion. “A soulgaze is what happens when a wizard like me looks into the eyes of another person or creature that has a soul that’s at least similar to mine. Both parties involved get a look at the core of the other person’s identity. This is usually done in visual metaphor. Now when I say that, I don’t mean you see their history, I mean you see who they are fundamentally as a person, uh pony.” I noticed the look of growing excitement on her face. “And before you ask, no I will not soulgaze you. It’s not the kind of thing you do on a whim. Besides everyone who’s looked at my soul usually left looking like they saw their favorite pet die,” I explained to Twilight. “And we need to be getting back home Harry,” Michael cut in, apparently not wanting to see this particular conversation go on. “I still think you two are some crazy ponies, but if you know your way home go ahead. Please try not to set anything on fire on your way out,” Twilight added looking intently at me. Considering that she’d only just meet me and she already knew that me and nice flammable buildings don’t mix well, probably said something about how I like to use my magic. “Oh come on, I don’t always start fires. Sometimes I’ll knock the wrong support down with a force spell and the building will just collapse, completely fire free,” I said with a smile. She was not amused. I get no respect. “Come on Michael, I’ll open a Way just outside.” Then all three of us walked out into the sunny day. Twilight was presumably coming along to see if there was any truth to the Nevernever. I didn’t realize that Twilight’s house was actually inside of a massive tree until I got outside and saw the green leaves for myself. Damn impressive, I thought to myself. We walked around to a relatively flat spot on the outside of Twilight’s tree-house, where I prepped my spell to go home. I faced Twilight and put on a friendly smile. “Well it’s been fun Twilight, I expect whatever magic changed Michael and I will wear off when we leave this place. Thanks for looking out for us.” “Thank you for your hospitality Ms. Sparkle,” Michael added, ever the proper gentleman. With our goodbyes said I turned to the tree and whispered, “Aparturum”, nothing happened. “What the… I did that right, hang on.” I reworked the spell, pouring more energy into it this time. There was plenty in the surrounding environment after all. My horn flashed with red energy and I roared “APARTURUM!” This time I got something. The surface of the tree shifted and resembled something like a wall of pure blackness, and then almost immediately it went back to plain wooden bark. The visuals didn’t disturb me so much as the feeling did when I cast the spell. When I released it I felt the usual veil that separates the Nevernever from us tear, but there was something else. Some massive power behind the veil was keeping it from opening completely. This power had a slimy greasy aura around it, an aura I’ve only ever felt come from one source, Red Court magic. “What was that? What was that blackness?” Twilight asked, clearly frightened. I ignored her for now. “Michael, something’s wrong. I can’t open a Way, we can’t go home!” “What’s preventing you?” Michael responded in a clear voice that calmed my jangled nerves. “There’s something on the other side preventing me, I’ve felt something like it before. I’m pretty sure this is Red Court magic. Why would they isolate this one spot? That doesn’t make sense.” My heart skipped a few beats as I ran down the logic chain. “Unless it’s not just here, they must’ve isolated all of Equestria. But to isolate an entire land, the power needed… But that’s not all…” A cold feeling ran through my heart and into my stomach. “Michael, to maintain this kind of spell they’d have to be here, in this magic-saturated environment.” A horrified look came over Michael when he realized what I was saying. “The Red Court is in Equestria Michael, and we chased them here!” I finished mirroring Michael’s expression. Michael turned to face the nearby town, “Lord preserve us.”