//------------------------------// // Song of Immortals Part 3: Twilight Alicorn // Story: Brony Recon: Ascension // by Freescript the Bard //------------------------------// >><<>><< Shift's POV "Oh, uh… hey, Applejack," I said in Twilight's voice as I answered the door. My fillyfriend still hadn't come out of the bathroom, only letting us slide food under the door as a panicked rambling went on. Eventually, after sundown, the room went silent, only emitting the occasional snore. I had taken on Twilight's form to make sure there was no suspicion. Ponies could understand me being gone, sometimes to visit Storm or having a guys night in Canterlot with the other stallions. Oh, the debauchery… "Howdy, Twi. Ah was just stopping over to see if ya had a book on physical therapy," she said, entering the library. "Macintosh sprained his hoof on a pumpkin vine… again." I smiled warmly at her. "Okay, let me just… um…" I had no idea how the library was organized. Twilight usually had the placement of the books memorized down to the author name and title. But only being here two months is nothing compared to two years and an overly organized mind. I scanned the shelves, looking for a mention of the subject Applejack wanted. Suddenly, the taste of suspicion made its way to my tongue. "Shift, what in tarnation are ya doing?" Dang it. "What gave me away?" I asked with a sigh. "Fer one thing, y'all were scraping' at the ground like ya do when yer stumped." Wait, I do that? I gotta be more careful in disguise. "This ain't one o' yer and Spike's pranks, is it?" "Um… yes! This is a prank! I'm pranking you! Surprise!" Diggy Diggy grave, Shift. Applejack's suspicion increased two fold as she stared me down. "What's going on, Shift?" It was my crushed Changeling deceit against the unstoppable power of Equestria's best polygraph. I had next to no chance of successfully creating a cover for Twilight's disappearance. "Twilight…" I began. If I can't hide Twilight, maybe I can help her. "Twilight has been in the bathroom all day, Applejack. Something happened to her, but she doesn't want to come out to talk about it. The only clue I have is this." I levitated the lavender feather from the counter in the kitchen to have it hover in front of the orange farm mare. "Uh… is that a feather?" she asked, her suspicion turning to confusion. I nodded. "Are ya telling me that Twilight is sprouting wings? Honestly, sugarcube, that's gotta be one of yer worse jokes, 'cause…" She saw my deadpan and stopped. "You ain't kidding, are ya?" I shook my head in response. "I want you to talk to her and try to get her out. Whatever it is, she's extremely scared about it." She blinked, her face going to one of concern for Twilight. "Ah reckon ah'll give it a shot. Twilight is mah friend after all." "Thanks, AJ. With your support, there's no way she'll say no!" >><<>><< "NO!" Buck. "Sugarcube, ah know yer worried over what happened, but all we wanna do is help ya," replied Applejack in a convincing tone. It took us nearly five whole minutes to wake her up, and several more to get the lavender unicorn to reply. "I don't want anypony to see me like this! Not even Shift or even Princess Celestia!" Ouch. There was a moment's pause before I spoke. "Twi, you looked fine this morning. I doubt that something happened in the five minutes I was gone--" "You didn't see them, Shift…" I blinked my light-blue eyes in confusion. "Huh?" "I was under the blankets. You didn't see them." Applejack gave a frustrated groan. "Sugarcube, yer gonna start makin' sense or Ah'm gonna buck this door clear to Manehatten!" "Did Shift show you the feather?" Twilight's fear still permeated the door. "Yes, I showed her," I sighed. "Twilight, you're just freaking out again. Come on out." A detectable silence was heard. Applejack sighed at the door. "Twilight, Ah'm your friend, and Shift is yer coltfriend. Ya need to show somepony, sugarcube, and it might as well be yer friends." There was the longest pause. At first, I thought Twilight had simply chosen to ignore us, but indecision now flowed from the mare in the bathroom. "Promise not to tell anypony?" "Cross mah heart, hope t' fly, stick a cupcake in mah eye-- ow…" Applejack went said in an honest tone, going through the motions of a Pinkie Promise. I seconded the unbreakable vow, though with less force to my light-blue insectile eye. I swear to Celestia I heard the distant call of 'ffffffoooorrrrreeeeevvvvvveeeeeerrrr!'. "Okay, I'm coming out…" Twilight replied, the door edging slightly open. "Just… please don't hate me." "Twi, ain't nopony in this room gonna hate you fer something that ain't yer fault in the first place," Applejack soothed. "C'mon, now." Slowly, the door creaked open. Twilight stood with a wet mane, water droplets dripping onto the tiled bathroom floor. She must have fallen asleep in the tub, I realized. Yet as I stared into her violet eyes lovingly, a flutter at her sides stopped Applejack and I cold. Twilight turned to the side, revealing the source of her stress. A pair of lavender wings hung at her sides, fluttering in a reflex to dry her wet feathers. They were slightly longer than the wings of an average pegasus, and much more elegant in appearance, reminding me of Princess Cadence's wings. The only way to describe the figure of the mare before me was… "Shift, I appreciate the lack of discouragement, but that is hardly the way you should be reacting," Twilight said, facehoofing. "Huh?" "Yer wings, Shift," noted Applejack, motioning to my back with her tail. I looked back to see my transparent-blue insect wings buzzing uncontrollably. Facehoofing, I realized I was displaying the Changeling universal sign of arousal. In my defense, Twi did look pretty hot with wet wings and a soggy mane and coat. Blushing profusely, I turned back to my fillyfriend, chuckling nervously. "Well, you do look good as an soaking wet alicorn." "Shift! This is serious! Do you know what could happen to me if Princess Celestia finds out I'm an alicorn?!" I thought for a minute, very familiar with Twilight's lapses in sanity during a crisis. "Let me guess; she will think you're a contender for the throne, and that you'll start a rebellion in order to ascend to it. So she will either banish you and imprison you in the place she banished you, banish you to the moon, or worst of all, banish you to the sun." "No! She will think I'm a contend--" She stopped dead as she realized I had accurately predicted her rant. "You know me too well." "Sugarcube, don't ya think that's a might dramatic?" Applejack said, stifling a laugh. "Of course not! It's perfectly rational!" Twilight exclaimed, her face looking stricken at the farm mare's accusations. "Twi, this is almost as bad as that one time you put the 'Want-it-Need-it' spell on your doll…" I said, rubbing my face with a hoof. "I love you, Twilight, but sometimes you let your imagination and obsessive-compulsive mind run wild. You need to stop worrying and just be calm about this." She sighed at my small speech. "You're right, Shift…" the lavender mare chuckled. "At least my wings will take some of the stress when we talk to my family about our relationship…" Applejack startled at this looking at Twilight with a bewildered look. "Ya still haven't told yer brother that yer dating a Changeling?!" "This Changeling wants to live to see old age, thank you very much!" I rebuked. "Anyway, I hardly think your brother will be forgiving of my unfortunate relations for deceiving him and impersonating his wife. Plus, there's no telling what Celestia will do…" "At least Skyblaze and Luna can back us, right?" Twilight said hopefully. "Sugarcube, Princess Luna might be enough t' give Princess Celestia a pause, but yet brother has a standing death sentence on all Changelings he can get 'is hooves on. Not to mention he's mighty protective of ya." Applejack had a point. It may as well take the combined power of Sky and Luna to stop Shining Armor. "As fer what he'll do when ya show him yer wings, nopony knows." As if on cue, Twilight's wings fluttered upon being mentioned, drawing attention back to them. I pondered her new appendages as we all stared. Smiling, an idea came to me. "Hey, Twi, guess what?" She gave me a quizzical look. "What?" "Now that you have wings…" I said, enveloping myself in a green aura. Because my usual unicorn disguise was created, not copied, I was not constrained to being a unicorn. Where there was once a Changeling, a purple pegasus with a blond mane and tail stood, a perfect copy of my unicorn disguise, with the exception of wings instead of a horn. "…I get to teach you how to fly." >><<>><< Rainchaser's POV Dash wasn't in good condition. We were in her cloud home, getting ready for bed. A bed that hasn't been used for almost a month. Ever since we started dating, the three of us had always slept in Aegis' guest room in the farmhouse on Sweet Apple Acres, as our my coltfriend was an earth pony and couldn't walk on clouds without a cloud-walking spell. But tonight, we were using the bed in the cloud home, only because Dash found it easier to sleep at higher altitudes. It was going to be a hard night regardless. Dash didn't take the news of Aegis' passing very well, the normally pumped up pegasus slumping and not saying anything since. While Dash often took the occasional cloud-nap, she wasn't normally lethargic. Today, I had to cover for her while she slept the day away on the couch in her living room. Not a tear was shed, but her silence was depressing. We slid into bed, letting the cloudstuff mattress sink beneath our weight. The blanket was drawn up over us by Dash, using her hoof absent-mindedly. The ever-present depressed muteness was still there. "Dashie…" I said, trying to draw out her tomcolt-ish voice. "If there's something you want to talk about, I'm here, okay?" "There's nothing TO talk about," she said sourly. "Just… let me sleep." I sighed. "Okay." Markus used this trick on Sam when his grandfather died, and on me when… No, stay strong, Chloe. Be strong like Markus. Dash has to let it out by herself, when she decides to do so… Dash gave out a stifled sigh next to me. "Why did he call you Chloe?" I allowed myself a small smile. Rainbow Dash was talking again, and that's all that mattered to me. "Did I ever tell you about the bronies?" I asked, looking over to her. She was facing the ceiling, her head shaking. "We considered ourselves siblings, and over time, we developed second names for each other. It was Storm's idea, actually." It wasn't entirely false. Sam had come up with the idea for our pony names, dubbing himself Storm. It was lucky his chosen name was unisex. "Yeah I get that," she said a bit harshly. Calming down slightly, she asked, "but why do you call each other that? You call Shift 'Jon' all the time when we visit Twilight." I shrugged when we met each other's magenta gaze. "I suppose because it's something special we share to tie us together." I chuckled slightly. "Or in Kind Greetings' case, make conversations shorter." She said nothing, only rolling over to have her cyan back face me. I sighed for what seemed like the millionth time that evening. Still facing Dash's back, I began stroking her rainbow mane. Despite popular brony opinion, her mane is actually softer than most ponies', with the possible exception of Fluttershy. It was perfectly styled without any tangles or wiry strands. How it stayed like that without any work in the morning was beyond me. Once, my hoof slipped and brushed gently against her wing. Her body shivered at the contact of the sensitive limb. I assumed this meant discomfort, so I turned began to turn back over. "Don't stop…" came the whisper from the cyan mare. Complying, I turned back to her and started stroking her feathers. A shudder went through her body at the movement. Slowly, the sky-blue wings unfurled, becoming almost board-like. Yet the feathers were still soft as ever on my hoof, running through Dash's primaries. "Thank you, Chloe." I paused at the use of my human name. A name my closest friends always used when in close company. Smiling softly, I continued rubbing her feathers, until the sounds of snoring emanated from the cloudstuff blanket. I soon joined my fillyfriend in a deep slumber.