Beyond the Skies- Grounded
By the time that the morning sun came in through the window of his room, Calvin had a feeling that the next couple of days were going to be a headache, not because he didn’t feel well or anything like that, but more because today was the first day of being under lockdown at the castle. After making the poor decision to not tell Twilight the truth of what he was doing last time he was in the Skylands, the Skyshifter now had to face the consequences of his decisions. Not only was he grounded for the next couple of days, but Twilight had prepared a long list of chores for him to do around the castle that would normally be done by Spike.
It was something that he was reminded of when he came downstairs to find a long scroll of parchment on the table where he usually ate breakfast. Though, much to his surprise, Twilight wasn’t downstairs this morning. Aside from Dusty, it looked as if no one else was there to see him.
“Okay, that’s… weird. Why is nobody else here?” he thought, before going over to the table. His attention was a little more focused on the smaller piece of parchment that was on the table compared to the gigantic scroll. In his mind, the Skyshifter thought that perhaps Twilight left something behind to explain her absence.
Dear Calvin,
I’m sorry to inform you about this at the last minute, but something has come up. Early this morning, Celestia sent me a letter and asked for me to come to Canterlot for something important. I’ll try to be back as soon as I can, but if I’m not going to be back in time, then I’ll have Spike return to the castle to check on you.
Just because I’m not around does not mean you can use this as an excuse to slack off though. I enchanted all the doors that lead out of the castle, including the basement, to make sure you stay in the castle. Even though I’m not there, the fact of the matter is that you’re still grounded. Unless you want your time stuck in the castle to be extended, then you should tend to the list of chores that I left for you.
Have a good day.
Twilight
“Huh. That explains a few things,” Calvin said as he set the paper down. Part of him was curious as to what exactly was so important that Twilight had to be summoned for. Though, that was something he could ask about when she came back. Right now, he had to get himself something to eat first. After all, it was probably not a good idea to tackle the list of chores that were left for him on an empty stomach.
Of course, trying to find everything that he wanted to eat for breakfast was not exactly an easy task, mainly because the kitchen in the Castle of Friendship was rather huge. Aside from the bowl of fruit that was left out on the counter, there was no telling which cabinets had food inside and which ones just had something else, like dishes or cleaning supplies. After he found a bowl and spoon to use, it took him nearly fifteen minutes to go through all the pantries and cabinets to find what he was looking for. Not only that, but he couldn’t believe just how many pastries were stuffed inside there… and were probably left over from Pinkie Pie’s impromptu bake sale.
When Calvin finally finished getting everything that he needed, that was when he decided to open up the scroll and see what sort of tasks were listed for him. At first, he thought that the amount of tasks that were on there were pretty much endless. Though, when he had a look at it, that didn’t appear to be the case. If anything, what was actually on the scroll was actually a lot more beneficial than he was expecting.
“Well, that’s helpful at least.”
“What’s helpful, master?” He heard Dusty ask as the fire pup hopped up onto the chair that was next to where he was sitting.
“Oh, uh,” the Skyshifter scratched the back of his head, before rolling the scroll back up and setting it on the table, “Twilight wants me to help around the castle today. So, this scroll has a list of tasks I need to complete and instructions on how to complete certain ones.”
However, despite his response, the answer he got back from the lava dog was not what he was expecting, “H-how… does that help? W-what’s an instruction?”
At that, Calvin couldn’t help but blink in confusion at that as he looked back at her. In all honesty, he had no idea how to respond to that kind of question. Though, given how Dusty was more than likely not going to take no for an answer, he had to try somehow. “Oh, uh… W-well, instructions are… hmm...” Then, a thought came to mind. Perhaps the easiest way to explain it to her was to try and compare it to something she’s already familiar with. “You know how I would give you orders sometimes?”
Dusty was quick to nod back in response, which had Calvin let out a small sigh of relief. “Y-yes. W-why do you ask, master?”
At that, the Skyshifter decided to grab the scroll from the table and open it up for the lava dog to see, “Well, think of instructions as something that comes with an order that you haven’t done before,” As he spoke, he pointed out one of the lists of instructions Twilight had written for him to show as an example, “They’re a list of steps that you follow to make sure that someone can fulfil what they were told to do without making any mistakes, like ‘mini-orders’, if you want to call it that.”
However, despite Calvin trying his best to keep his explanation simple, Dusty looked as if she was having a hard time trying to understand everything. Though, that was when he realized that telling her about this was probably going to not be that effective. If the lava dog was going to understand what he was talking about, then showing her was probably going to be a lot more effective.
At least, in theory. “Um… master? W-what are t-these things?”
“Well, everything that’s written on here are tasks that I have to do today,” Calvin told Dusty as he rolled the scroll back up and set off to the side, “Some of the words might be a bit complex, but-”
“Master, what’s a word?”
Immediately, Calvin’s train of thought screeched to a grinding halt as he looked at the lava dog. “Oh… dear.”
Later…
By the time that Spike had finally returned to the castle, the dragon already had a rather rough morning so far. To start, he was disturbed from his sleep by a panicking Twilight at four in the morning, who thought that there was a legitimate reason behind her outburst when she said that she received a letter from Celestia herself, only to discover upon arriving at the doors to Canterlot Castle that he ended up getting dragged into something that he wasn’t even needed for. Originally, Spike thought that he could use Twilight’s blunder to go over to the House of Enchanted Comics to get the newest issue of the Power Ponies comic he enjoyed reading. However, it was only when he arrived that the dragon learned that the newest issue was already sold out, and it wouldn’t be in stock for another couple of days.
Disappointed by his lack of success, Spike was fortunate enough to get on the train back to Ponyville without any potential hiccups or delays. However, the ride back to Ponyville wasn’t exactly peaceful. Not only were some passengers talking a little too loud, but the sounds of crying children disrupted anything he was trying to do. Even when he tried to have a small nap, it was interrupted by the chatter of passengers gossiping or staff members trotting between the different cars on the train.
When the train finally pulled into Ponyville station, Spike was relieved to be back home as he quickly made a beeline back towards the Castle of Friendship. Though as he stepped through the doors, the greeting that the dragon got was not one that he expected. “Oh, hello, Spike.”
Spike couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow as he turned to see Calvin walking out of a nearby room as they closed the door behind them. “Oh, uh… g-good morning, Calvin,” Spike replied, just as he noticed the scroll that was coming out of the front pocket of his shorts, “How are you?”
“Alright, for the most part,” he sighed, “I’ve been trying to make some progress on this list of tasks that Twilight left for me. However, it’s not exactly easy by any means.”
“Well, Twilight’s the one that made the list.”
At that, Calvin paused for a moment. It looked like he was going to say something, but in the end, he just shrugged his shoulders and looked back at the dragon, “Fair point. Though, while we’re on the subject, can I ask for your help with something?”
Spike’s eyes narrowed at that as he folded his arms, “If you’re going to ask me for help with those chores-”
“No, no! Nothing like that,” the Skyshifter quickly assured him, “I don’t need help with the chores. If I tried to ask for help, Twilight would surely get upset at me about that. She strictly told me that I need to do them by myself. Though, that… also relates to what I need help with.”
The dragon couldn’t help but blink his eyes in confusion, “How exactly does that-?” Before he could finish, Spike noticed as the lava dog named Dusty was sitting in the middle of the hallway. She seemed to be sitting there, patiently waiting as if they were expecting for Calvin to tell her something. Though, it was at that moment that things started to click into place. “Oh. Oh, I think I get it now. Dusty?”
Calvin nodded at that, “I’ve tried to tell her that she doesn’t have to help me and that Twilight expects for me to do this on my own. However, she doesn’t really take ‘no’ for an answer. There have been a couple of times where I was trying to clean some of the rooms down here, only to stop because Dusty wanted to help, and I had to prevent her from making a bigger mess than the one I was trying to clean.”
“So, let me see if I get this right,” he then asked, “You want me to try and distract her? A lava dog that’s very attached to you and doesn’t listen to anyone else?”
“Yes.”
Spike now let out a low sigh as he looked back at Calvin, “And just what exactly do you have in mind for this to work? You must have some kind of good idea for a distraction in order to keep her occupied for… well, as long as it’ll take for you to get everything you need done.”
At that, the Skyshifter couldn’t help but let out a small grin as he looked back at Spike, “I have one, though let me ask you something. How good are you when it comes to being a teacher? Because, as I found out this morning, Dusty needs some lessons that are long overdue.”
“You’re going to have to be a bit more specific,” the dragon said.
“Well,” Calvin replied, taking a quick glance over to Dusty before he looked back at Spike, “As I found out earlier this morning when trying to show her the list Twilight left for me, Dusty can’t read. She doesn’t even know what letters are, let alone words.”
Now, the dragon couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow at him, “And you think that I am the best one to teach her.”
“More like getting started,” he corrected, “Originally, I was thinking of trying to teach her after I’m done with the chores Twilight wants for me to do. Yet, if Dusty tries to ‘step in’, I’m worried that it would take much longer. So, I was thinking that you can at least start teaching her with some letters, and then, I can lend a hand once I finish all of these tasks.”
Now things were slowly beginning to sound a little more reasonable, emphasis on ‘slowly’. Spike still had a few questions regarding what exactly was Calvin asked to do and why, but it was more than likely that he wouldn't get the right answers until Twilight came back… whenever that was supposed to be. “Okay, I’ll help,” Spike sighed, before he unfolded his arms, “But you better not leave me to do this on my own. Once you’re done-”
“I come back to help,” the Skyshifter finished for him, “I’ll make sure to do so. Though, as I mentioned earlier, I’m not sure how long this will take. Twilight did say that these chores are usually ones that she has you do, so I’m assuming it’s not going to be easy.”
At first, Spike just nodded his head and didn’t think that much about it. Though, when he saw Dusty heading towards him and Calvin walking down the hallway to the next room he was about to clean, something clicked. “Wait a minute, you’re doing my chores-?! Calvin, wait-”
Before he could even finish what he was saying, the sound of a closing door echoed throughout the castle as Spike looked down to see that Dusty was by his feet. “M-mister Spike? M-Master said that you could h-help me learn what l-letters are.”
Throughout the majority of her early start today, Twilight felt as if her mind was all over the place. After receiving a summons from Celestia early in the morning, the Princess of Friendship hastily raced over to Canterlot on the assumption that there was some form of emergency. Though, upon arriving inside the Hall of the Elements and finding both Celestia and Luna, she began to learn that not everything was as bad as she originally assumed it to be. Why yes, it was true that the summons was sent much earlier than expected, it wasn’t because of an emergency at the castle.
Instead, the discussion at hoof was about something Celestia had recently received word of from the Crystal Empire. After the changeling runaway named Thorax was accepted by the crown and allowed to stay in the Empire, he had been working his hardest to help Princess Cadance and the rest of the royal family. Though, after a recent conversation with him, there was something that Thorax told her that the Princess of Love was concerned about, and in turn, told Celestia. Based on his words, it sounded as if Queen Chrysalis was preparing to enact another plan to take over Equestria as revenge against those who foiled her at the Canterlot Wedding.
Despite how serious this sounded at first, there were a few problems with the information they received. The main issue was that, despite this coming from Thorax, there wasn’t any solid proof. Much of what Thorax said was based on what he remembered of Chrysalis, and he also mentioned to Cadance beforehand that it had been months since he parted ways with the Hive. So, any potential ‘theories’ of what Chrysalis might try and do sounded more like speculation without any actual evidence. The only thing that Thorax could confirm for a fact was that Chrysalis, despite how spiteful she was, was not one to enact the same plan twice.
This, in turn, led to the three princesses coming across another issue that hindered any attempt of formulating a possible plan. In order to combat a plan by changelings, you need to know a way to detect changelings. The only way that Twilight was able to tell that Chrysalis was impersonating Cadance during the wedding was subtle changes in behavior in the days prior to the ceremony. There wasn’t a known spell that could detect changelings or dismiss a changeling’s disguise, and coming up with such a spell would not only require Thorax’s cooperation, but also time… time that they more than likely did not have since they did not know if Chrysalis already put this plan in motion… or if she was waiting for the opportune moment.
After several hours of discussion, the three princesses agreed to hold off on any further discussions until either new information came to light or the information that they already have was clarified in some way. In addition to this, Twilight was asked by Princess Celestia to not tell her friends just yet, not because they wanted to hide this information from the other elements of harmony, but because rumors around Ponyville have the tendency to spread uncontrollably like wildfire. If word were to get out about a possible changeling attack, it could cause the civilians to go into a panic and inadvertently provide an opportunity for Chrysalis’ drones to slip in and hide among the townsfolk.
Despite Twilight’s best efforts though, trying to simply ignore everything they talked about was easier said than done. Thoughts and possibilities of what could and couldn’t happen continued to pop inside her head on her way back to the castle. Even when saying hello to ponies that happened to notice her in town, the alicorn was slow to respond because she was too deep in thought, so much so that she tried to hurry back to the Castle of Friendship as fast as possible.
Though, when Twilight finally stepped through the castle doors and into her home, she was greeted by a rather strange sight taking place in the Map Room. Spike was standing next to where her seat would be at the Cutie Map with a chalkboard rested against it, while all the different letters of the alphabet were written on the board. Meanwhile, the lava dog named Dusty was sitting on the opposite end of the table and watching the young dragon as he was speaking.
“Alright. Now Dusty, what’s the first letter of the alphabet?”
“D.”
“That’s… the first letter of your name,” he corrected her.
“O-oh, it is?”
At that, the alicorn couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow as she spoke up. “Uh, Spike? What are you doing?”
Immediately, both the dragon and the lava dog turned around and looked back towards Twilight shortly after she said that. “Oh, h-hi Twilight… when did you-?”
“Just now,” she replied, before looking at Dusty, “So, what are you-?”
“M-Master said that Spike could t-tell me what letters and words are!” the lava dog replied with nervous glee, which had Twilight raise an eyebrow as she glanced back at the dragon with a puzzled look on her face.
Which, in turn, had the dragon sigh as he got down from his seat and walked over to her. “Yeah, what she said. Calvin asked for me to try and teach her how to read,” at that, Spike also had Twilight lower her head so he could whisper into her ear, “He also said it would also keep Dusty occupied, so that way he could work on the ‘chores’ you assigned him without her trying to help him.”
Upon hearing that, Twilight let out a small sigh of relief. Part of her was worried that Calvin would put off the tasks on the lists that she had left for him in her mad dash out the door. Though, hearing Spike say that put her mind at ease. It was comforting to know that the Skyshifter was taking this seriously.
At least, for the moment, “While we’re on the subject though, I need to ask you an honest question.”
“Huh?” the alicorn tilted her head, “What do you need to ask?”
As soon as he heard that, Spike then walked towards her seat at the Cutie Map, before getting back up and crossing his arms, “Twilight, what exactly made you think that giving him my chores was a good idea?”
“W-what?” she blinked, a bit surprised by the sudden question, “Spike, d-don’t you remember all those times you told me that y-you wanted a break from your chores?”
“Yeah, but I didn’t think you would actually follow through on it,” he responded, “Plus, did you take a moment to consider that some of the chores that you would have him do would be too dangerous for him to do? I mean, you did tell him to do these chores without his powers.”
“Don’t be silly, Spike. I’m sure that Calvin can handle it just fine-”
Just as those words left Twilight’s lips, a loud explosion and the sound of breaking glass went off from farther down the nearby hallway as everyone quickly turned to see where it came from. Moments later, Calvin stepped out from behind one of the doors farther down the hallway. However, half of his shirt looked to have been burned off, and there were signs of smoke and dust all over his body. Yet, he was focused less on his own appearance and more on his task. “S-spike, where do you keep the broom and dust pan?”
“Calvin, what the hay just happened!? Are you okay?” the alicorn panicked, shocked at how the Skyshifter looked hurt, but he was trying to shrug things off.
“Funny story about that. Remember how you asked me to clean up around the place? As well as the Alchemy lab?”
“Alchemy lab? Why would-” Immediately, Twilight’s eyes widened once she realized what he was saying, “Oh, no.”
“Yeah, I was trying to carefully clean out the vials you left behind and pour out the liquids, but… one thing led to another,” he shrugged, “Now, I got a mess to clean up, so where do you keep the broom-”
“Actually, let me do that,” Spike interjected.
That response confused Calvin to no end as he tilted his head and looked back at the dragon, “Uh, Spike? Twilight was the one that wanted me to do the chores-”
“And I think it’s clear that, after what just happened, Twilight overlooked some things. So, let me do cleanup while you clean yourself up,” as he got off of the chair, Spike looked back towards the alicorn with a serious glare in his eyes, “After I’m done though, we need to have a serious talk about what you might see as ‘safe’ chores, Twilight. Because clearly, you can’t just hand off somepony’s responsibilities to somepony else.”
As soon as he said that, the annoyed dragon walked away from the table to grab the broom and dustpan from a nearby closet. As he walked away towards the Alchemy Lab, both Calvin and Twilight just stared in shock. Out of all the times that something crazy would happen, Spike had never taken matters into his own claws. Normally, it would be Twilight asking him to help clean up.
The silence was broken when the two of them heard Dusty speak up, “D-did I do something wrong? W-why is Spike upset, master?”
That had the Skyshifter slowly turn back towards the lava dog and give a small smile, “No, Dusty. You didn’t do anything wrong. I think Spike just needs a break.”
“A b-break?” Dusty asked, “B-but we only just s-started.”
“Well, if you want,” Calvin said, looking towards the unattended chalkboard by the table, “I can fill in and pick up where you left off for right now, until he comes back. Aside from that… hiccup just now, I finished what was on the list. If Twilight is okay with it, of course.”
At the time, Twilight was still trying to process what just happened as she just stared down the hall. Only when the Skyshifter waved a hand in her field of vision did she snap back to reality and look back towards him and Dusty. “Oh, uh, sorry. I kind of zoned out there for a minute. What were you saying, Calvin?”
“I was suggesting that we could help teach Dusty, since I was done with everything on the list, including everything that was on the back of it. Though, some of the stuff that was on there was a bit weird.”
That just had the alicorn blink for a moment, before looking back at Calvin, “On the back? What are you talking about? I didn’t write anything on the back of the list.”
“You didn’t?” Calvin asked, before pulling out the list and handing it for her to look at, “Then, what’s this then?”
At this, Twilight turned the paper around and began to read the items that were somehow on the back of the list, despite the fact that she never wrote them. Though, as she began to look them over, that was when the alicorn began to notice a particular pattern, as one last addition was being added to the back side of the page in real time.
Chores to Complete- Part 2
-Paint my research room with ‘Make sure to sleep’ reminders
-Prepare all the necessary material needed for Book Fort 2.0. (Make sure to only use books that detail past conflicts since those ones are sturdier)
-Clean Spike’s Food Tray (The one where he keeps his ‘precious shinies’)
-Check the entries in my diary are consistent (Just the dates, don’t ask)
-Make sure I’m not off my medication
-Make sure I don’t have any medication to be on
-Prepare Quesadillas for lunch (Spike knows where he keeps the recipe)
-Finally, the last thing to do here is just sit back, take a deep breath… and realize that you just got PRANKED, BRO!! Oh man, it feels so good to be back.
-Your friendly neighborhood chaos maker, Discord
“… Excuse me for a moment.”
In a flash of light, Twilight immediately teleported out of the room without a second thought as she left Calvin and Dusty in the map room. The two of them were a bit puzzled by the alicorn’s sudden departure. Though, for some reason, the Skyshifter could hear some noise from a nearby open window that sounded like something he would hear from the cartoons that he used to watch back home.
“Master?” the lava dog asked, “D-do we have to w-wait for her?”
At that, Calvin just shook his head, “Actually, let’s get started right now. Something tells me it might be a while before Twilight comes back.”
End Scroll 30