Magnetism!

by Souldin

Binding Bracelets.

“I wonder when my feelings of friendship became something more?”

Fluttershy asked herself this question as she laid in her bed, her body taking comfort in the plush butterfly blanket over her while her mind remained ill at ease.

“I’m sure it couldn’t have been immediately. I remember feeling grateful, and admiring her and us becoming friends but...”

Fluttershy’s thoughts continued to roam at the forefront of her mind, troubling her, as the more she thought of her initial question the less likely she felt in finding an answer.

“I don’t know when I started wishing we were something more, but I started too, and the thought of it was nice.”

The yellow mare tugged on the blanket adorned with her cutie mark, though in shades of red and purple rather than her own pink ones, pulling the coverage closer round her.

“But then, before I could act, we went our separate ways.”

The blankets began to move away from her but she did not notice as she stared blankly in the direction of the ceiling, overshadowed by pitch black darkness.

“But then we managed to meet again, only a couple of years later, but something had changed.”

She raised her right hoof that contrasted with the palette of the night to her forehead, only just now noticing her coverless body.

“I didn’t feel quite the same with her as I did back then, the more intense feelings I had...had faded.”

If one could have been in the room, gone about unnoticed, and pierced through the darkness they would have seen a look of certainty that was rarely seen on the shy mare’s face.

“I was sure then; that back then my feelings was but a crush and one that had disappeared forever.”

Fluttershy turned over in the bed, and what she saw to the left of her made her look of certainty be replaced by its exact opposite.

“So why..?”

Fluttershy couldn’t help but watch the fellow pegasus beside her, whose coat complimented the night’s hues much better than her own, and whose mind was so at ease she was able to whistle a cheery tune in her sleep.

“Why are me and Rainbow Dash in bed together?”

By the time Fluttershy was able to walk through the streets of Ponyville the day was well on its way, with the sun high in the sky and less than a couple of hours were left till the fillies and colts could make their way from the school and back to their homes. As for what the mid-day was like, it was a typical spring day in Ponyville and the yellow pony made sure to admire it as she trekked towards her friend’s house. The pony had her admiration of the day set on the clear sky when a rainbow streaked past, only to change direction and head towards her. Said rainbow zoomed to the ground, stopping once its origin, a rainbow mane pegasus, touched down on the ground, a small cloud of dirt and dust only just reaching the onlooker’s yellow hooves.

“Oh, hello Rainbow Dash.” Fluttershy called out to her friend with her quiet, whisper like voice, as she made up the small distance between them via walking.

Somehow the speedster was able to hear her meek friend and greeted her with eye contact, “Hey Fluttershy, what’s up?”

“I was on my way to see Twilight. I haven’t seen her yet this week and I thought it would be nice to drop by.” The quiet pony said with her naturally hushed voice.

“Huh, funny that, I was heading to Twilight’s as well.” Rainbow Dash replied, tapping a hoof to her chin, “I haven’t actually seen her all week either. You think she’s got her head stuck in some book again?”

“Um...I don’t know.” The mare murmured nervously, unsure if she was supposed to know this piece of information.

“Well, we’ll see soon enough,” Rainbow Dash replied as she began to trot towards the library and residence of their friend, “C’mon Fluttershy.”

“Oh, coming.” Fluttershy answered as she followed on after her closest friend.

Even when on the ground Rainbow Dash never failed to make her entrance into the Ponyville library loud, thus the reason for her swinging the wooden door till it banged against the wall.

“Hey Twi, just came t”- The pegasus pony’s words were silenced upon having a magically enchanted book tossed into her face.

Fluttershy squeaked in fright and lowered herself to the ground, casting a worried look back to her downed friend in case she needed medical attention. Meanwhile, a pony already within the residence yelled out in panic, “I’m awake! Awake!”

A wearied unicorn with a frazzled purple mane stood up at her table, her horn still ignited with a soft lavender glow from her little spurt of magic. Though her mind had suddenly snapped awake, her eyes were not yet with it, and they took their time scanning the room and its contents, and then sending the visual messages to the horned equines brain. Upon taking in the information of a familiar yellow coated friend of hers sitting beside and checking on a familiar blue coated friend of hers who was sitting up, rubbing her head, and a book near to them that had previously been in front of her, the magical pony began to access the situation and quickly came to a conclusion.

“Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, I didn’t...hit you with that book just now, did I?” The resident librarian asked what she predicted was true and got her answer in the form of a scowling Rainbow Dash.

“What gave you that idea Twilight?” Rainbow Dash grunted as she stood back up on all fours, picked up the formerly accidental projectile, and tossed it lightly towards the centre table of the room, “Here’s your book back.”

The moment the book went in the direction of the table Twilight Sparkle emitted an expression of panic, soon accompanied by a glow from her horn that encompassed the book. Twilight sighed at her prevention of the object falling onto the stacked table and interestingly enough for the book loving unicorn, set the article of literature to the side.

“So...” Twilight began to address her friends, though her focus was on inspecting the objects on the table, ensuring all of them were there and none had been damaged, “What are you two here for?”

“Oh, just checking up on you, you’ know, the fact that nopony has seen you this entire week.” Rainbow meant to state this fact in a scolding tone but her attention was being drawn to the mystery stuff laid out on the table and as such the words came out absent of focus or direction.

“That’s not true, Spike’s seen me-oh wait, nopony.” The unicorn blurted out her response before she picked up on the use of phrase that excluded her assistant, and when the words fully registered in her brain she halted her tongue and blushed.

“Oh yes, but you’ve been sending Spike out of the house a lot lately, I’ve seen him often visiting the Carousel Boutique and when I asked him about you not even he knew what was going on,” Fluttershy added, before taking note of Twilight’s rugged appearance and voicing her concerns, “Are you okay? You don’t look so good.”

“...And what’s all this stuff on the table?” Rainbow had walked on closer to the objects of note, a curious gaze eyeing each weird and ancient looking piece sprawled out in an organised fashion.

Only a second or two after asking about the items of interest did it take for Rainbow Dash to allow curiosity to take a hold of her actions and reach out for one of them; the closest being what looked like a spear combined with a spoon. It didn’t even take a second for Twilight’s surprisingly fast reaction, the unicorn swiping her friends cyan hoof away from the ‘spearoon’. After glaring at the curious athlete till she backed off, Twilight allowed her expression to soften, and motioned for the two pegasus to come towards the table.

“You remember how back on Nightmare night I helped Princess Luna become friends with everypony,” Twilight didn’t per say ask but mentioned, regardless an answer was received by two pegasus nodding their heads, “Well, afterwards we got around to chatting about things we liked and we eventually ended up discussing history. Now, I mostly filled the princess in on important historical events that have happened while she was trapped in the moon, but she told me stuff about the periods in which she was around, times of which today few records remain. It was during this conversation that she mentioned something particularly interesting...”

Twilight let her words stop there, drawing out the silence as she attempted to create an atmosphere of anticipation. Considering one rainbow mane pony was already scratching absent mind-idly at the floor with impatience, she felt the anticipation had already been generated.

“She talked of an intelligent, non-pony race that used to dwell within the Everfree forest.” The scholar enthusiastically revealed, garnering slight looks of shock from her two friends.

“Wait, a group used to live in the Everfree forest? That’s insane.”

“Twilight, this had to at least have been a thousand years ago. I’m sure the Everfree forest was a much nicer place back then.”

“Not according to Luna, the Everfree forest was larger back then and even considered to be a country independant of Equestria, but otherwise is pretty much the same now as it was back then.” Twilight Sparkle explained before going back to her original subject of the objects, “Anyway, me and the princess discussed this race for a bit, but it turns out that a lot of the historical records were lost in whatever incident caused the race to...die out. But it also turns out that quite a few of their tools and tablets were preserved by Luna herself, gifts she had received from a friend she had among them...and here they are.”

With a simple flourish of a raised hoof, Twilight presented that which she had been studying, which was kind of pointless as they had been in plain sight since the two pegasus got to library. The only difference now is that the winged equines had a little background about the artefacts on display in the middle of the library. The artefacts ranged vastly in what they appeared to be, some resembled weapons, others resembled tools for construction and farming, a few were garments and a couple were tablets with a long dead language inscribed upon them. Of course all of the objects had their similarities too, they were mostly plain and placed function over appearance, they had all taken on an earthly brown or rustic red colour from age, and all of them were designed by creatures with digits.

“As for why I’ve been so busy studying them well...” Twilight began to speak once more, drawing the attention of her two friends back to her, “I thought if I pulled an all-nighter I could learn quite a bit about these artefacts but then when I learnt next to nothing I tried to pull another one...and then another, and another after that...and okay I haven’t slept in the past three days.”

Fluttershy immediately flew on over to her wearied, sleep deprived friend and with a worried and caring tone advised, “Twilight, you really should get some sleep. It’s not good for you.”

“I know, I know. But seeing how little progress I was making with my studies on this subject was frustrating, and every time I attempt to sleep I just keep thinking about the time I’m wasting sleeping that I could be doing studying.” Twilight explained to the yellow mare, the cyan mare meanwhile looked round at each of the artefacts with mild interest.

“But it’s unhealthy for you and besides, wouldn’t getting some rest allow you to think better.”

“You’re probably right...although my continuing studies haven’t been without some merit,”

“Hey Twi, this bracelet here fits my hoof.” Rainbow called attention to herself as she waved to her friends, an earthly coloured brass bracelet attached to her waving leg.

“Rainbow Dash, you should ask permission before touching any of this stuff, some of it might be dangerous.” Fluttershy’s attempt at a scolding tone soon turned to one of concern, her eyes flitting across the table at the odd and unusual items.

“Well that bracelet and its counterpart are perfectly safe, I’ve already tested them out, and they do nothing.” The studier of the artefacts explained with a disapproving frown on her face, though willing to allow her friend to acquaint herself with the accessory she disapproved touching any of the mystery items, “Which is strange. All of the other objects seem to serve a purpose, like that spear you were trying to touch earlier. That was used to pry off a dragon’s scales in order to stab through the skin.”

Looks of disgust shot up on the two pegasus faces, as they gave the scale plucking weapon from earlier a glance, shivering at what it was capable of. Pushing aside her thoughts on that which she had almost touched earlier, Rainbow looked back to the thick, circular bracelet that managed to loop onto her hoof as if it were made for her, and admired the plain no-nonsense design.

Fluttershy soon also joined in admiring the foreign equipment, and picked up the second bracelet of the pair. She looked at it from all angles at first, taking note of its surprisingly soft feel yet metallic aesthetic, and realised it was the only item with a form of jewellery, a small white dull pearl embedded on one side.

“Um...Rainbow, do you mind if I try on the other one?” Fluttershy asked her friend, who was currently checking how comfortable her leg was with the additional weight.

“Oh yeah, sure, go ahead.” A disinterested Rainbow replied.

So, with both friends permission, Fluttershy slipped on the harmless and normal pearl embedded ancient accessory of a long passed race surrounded in mystery. It fit on her left hoof snugly, just as it did Rainbow’s right, and felt smooth and light, nothing out of the ordinary...until five seconds later when the pearls from both bracelets shone a blinding pinkish-crimson colour.

A startled scream, and a mix of surprised and questioning ‘what’s’ and ‘what the’ phrases sounded across the room as the light blossomed from the formerly plain pearls, blinding the ponies eyes. The force of magic made neither sound nor wind, and could not be felt by the rooms inhabitant’s sense of touch, its presence was made known only by sight, or in the current case, a lack of sight. The light soon began to dull down, or at least that’s what the trio of friends thought was happening, when in actuality it was just retracting into a smaller area. This took a while though and so Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy had their vision recover in time to see some of the light still present, now in the form of a red, magical string that shot out from Fluttershy’s bracelet, and connected up with the pearl on the counterpart bracelet attached to Rainbow Dash. The teal eyes of one pony and the pink eyes of the other pony watched, though it still stung their eyes a little in order to do so, as the glowing string slowly faded away, and the pearls returned to their normal, white colour.

Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash eyed the bracelets first, Twilight had her eyes skim the room, and then all three checked out themselves and one another in case any harm or change had happen to either of them.

“Well...I’m glad to see that nothing bad happened.” Twilight said aloud with relief.

The pearls shone once more.

Rainbow was about to say something, probably something witty or snarky, but halted when her body froze. Her muscles went rigid and her body became numb, and from the look on Fluttershy’s face across from her, the same thing was happening to her. The contraption round their hooves urged them forward, at first with a gentle tug, a slight nudge, and then they were pulled off the ground and flung into one another. The collision sounded with a small thud and caused the two to fall down in a two pony heap, small chirping birds and whizzing clouds spinning round their heads.

“Girls! What happened? Why did you just leap into one another?” Twilight exclaimed, rushing on over to her two dazed friends who lay against one another.

Rainbow was the first to steady her head, a long history of crashing helping with her fast recovery, and began to pull herself and Fluttershy up, the two using one another as leverage. Fluttershy stood a little shaky and unbalanced while Rainbow trotted a slight distance towards Twilight and retorted, “Leaped into one another? We didn’t leap into one another; we were thrown into one another by some crazy magic thing.”

The athlete looked down to her bracelet, and then lifted it up to Twilight’s face, “I thought you said these things were safe.”

“They are, or were. I checked and they were completely dry of”-Twilight did not finish her sentence because her listener was just then lifted off the ground and propelled into another pony, a dazed pony lacking her bearings who had in turn been propelled into Twilight’s listener.

Now the two pegasus lay on the floor once more, one too dazed to register the pain her face was in from colliding with the back of a rainbow mane covered head, and the latter quick to spring back up, rubbing the back of her rainbow mane covered head.

“Ow,” She uttered before turning her attention to her downed friend, “Fluttershy, you okay? That didn’t hurt too much did it?”

While being pulled up Fluttershy merely mumbled, “I’m okay, Rainbow Dash.”

Twilight Sparkle looked on at the scenes that had been occurring before her, and said, “Well, I’m not entirely sure what’s going on right now but I’m pretty sure you did not mean to collide into one another just now.”

“What gave you that idea?” Rainbow’s sarcasm came with a half-lid expression, “These weird bracelets keep glowing and then ‘bam’ having me and Fluttershy smack into one another.”

“I’d like to believe that I did not make a mistake when studying those bracelets but considering the light and all...anything else?”

“Well when the pearls glowed my body froze. Did that happen to you too?” Fluttershy asked the pony whom she was using to support her unsteady legs, and upon receiving a nod, began talking about the sensation, “I couldn’t move at all, and then I felt my body levitating a little and then I was thrown into Rainbow Dash.”

“Yeah, it’s like when you stop me with your magic, except creepier. Makes you go all cold and feeling-less.”

Twilight thought for a moment of what she had seen and what she had been told, and then observed the current situation.

“Well it seems to have stopped now...” Twilight murmured to herself, though apparently loud enough for Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash to hear as they nodded in response.

“Hey Fluttershy, you steady now?” Rainbow asked her supported friend with a cheery grin.

“Oh, sorry...” The shy mare said as she let go of her cyan friend and backed away a few steps, “I’m a little bit dizzy still but I’m fine.”

Twilight Sparkle looked to her smiling friends, smiling along with them...and then the pearls glowed once again. Shocked faces that expressed a clear dislike of whatever sensation, or lack of, coursed through their bodies showed up on the two pegasus faces, and if you were to look carefully enough you would see that without a flap of either ponies wings, none of the eight hooves total touched the wooden floor. Knowing roughly what was coming, the unicorn present intervened with her magic, telepathically grabbing a hold of her seeming telepathically grabbed friends. At least she would have if whatever was forcing her friends still and up wasn’t blocking her, and the mage’s attempts were as futile as trying to place something where something already is without destroying or moving the original something. So inevitably her two friends crashed into one another, this time facing each other so if you looked at in a certain light, it looked like they were so desperate to hug each other that they shot themselves out of cannons.

For the third time that day the two winged ponies of yellow and cyan fell downwards, slumping to the floor with their brightly coloured bodies pressed against one another, and their heads dulled from pain and shock. Both rubbed their heads in union, both helped each other to their hooves, and both were about to separate when Twilight quickly yelled out, “Don’t stop touching each other!”

They stopped, and an awkward silence followed. Said silence was broken quickly by Rainbow Dash, the only non-blushing pony in the room, “Uh, why?”

Twilight coughed once, ridding her face of its blush before addressing her two friends, “You see, the bracelets, their magic activated the moment you two stopped touch-um, discontinued contact with one another. I think those bracelets draw the wearer to whoever has the other bracelet; in this case, Fluttershy.”

“Oh.” Rainbow mumbled as next to her, a still blushing Fluttershy went about pulling the earthen mystical garment off her hoof.

“Um, Twilight, Rainbow, I can’t get it off.”

Rainbow Dash and Twilight both turned to Fluttershy, and upon seeing her struggling to pull off the bracelet, Rainbow beside her tried to remove her own matching accessory. Her hoof slid across to the bracelet and pushed against it but it did not budge. So naturally Rainbow pushed harder and harder till her hoof slipped away from the smooth edged, and then became aggravated. The pegasus flipped onto her back, pulled up her back legs till they pulling on the bracelet attached to her fore-leg, and attempted once more with all her might to remove it. A few minutes later, Rainbow Dash got up onto all four legs, panting in frustration and exhaustion, with the earthen wear still round her right hoof.

“Me...neither...” Rainbow Dash muttered with irritation, Fluttershy placing her own garmented hoof next to her.

Twilight meanwhile was thinking back on what she had seen while studying the bracelets from afar, “It’s odd, when together I can sense absolutely no magic from them. But once you are apart for just a few moments it suddenly explodes with magic and pulls you towards one another.”

“Hey, maybe we can break the spell by going really far apart. So far we’ve only limited ourselves to this room, but if I fly out at top speed I will surely fly out of the reach of this crazy magic thingy.” Rainbow Dash proclaimed her plan with the utmost confidence.

Hearing the plan in the midst of thought Twilight quickly objected, “Wait, no, that’s a terrible”-but she wasn’t quick enough for Rainbow Dash had already taken off, flying out the door and into the sky as fast as she could.

If the ponies of Ponyville were to look up to the sky they would have noticed a speeding blur of rainbow colours shooting across it. Then they would have known the source of the gust of wind that followed it, that the strong breeze came simply from a very, very fast pegasus.

Rainbow Dash had already beaten her wings ferociously in order to gain the height she needed to avoid colliding with anypony, and was now focused on flying in the general direction of forward. She had no destination in her mind; her flight plan was a simple one, fly as fast as she could and as far away as she could.

“Heh, I’m out of Ponyville already. Scratch ten seconds flat, I should be saying five seconds-urk” The well-deserved, bragging thoughts of the rash pony were cut off, just like her incredibly speedy flight.

Her right hoof had frozen in the air, halting her entire body from moving with it.

“Oh no, not again.” Was all she could mumble as the dim white pearl embedded in the earthly coloured bracelet shone an almost pinkish crimson. The strange and mystical force of the artefact activated, and the racer found herself being pulled in reverse by her accessorised leg.

Before the wind was in her face and her wings cut through the air gently, now the wind was pressing against her mane, and crushing up against her back as her efforts to fly out of Ponyville were undone. Against both the strong winds and the mystic force that felt like it was trying to tear her right fore-leg off her body, she could neither see nor hear that her destination was not her starting point. The reason being that as Rainbow Dash was being pulled back to the library by her bracelet, Fluttershy was also being pulled up into the air by her own bracelet, with Twilight Sparkle along for the ride as her attempts to keep the yellow pegasus grounded against an ancient gravitational power by holding her down to the floor proved futile and foolish. These two screamed because they could see the painful collision about to occur and were quite aware of the inevitable falling of great heights they were about to suffer.

“Once again Spike I must thank you for coming to help me on such short notice, I honestly thought I would fall behind schedule when my order of fabrics did not turn up on time...or even late.” The white coated unicorn, Rarity, spoke these words as she walked alongside the purple bodied and green scaled baby dragon that was Spike, and out of her shop.

“No problem at all, milady.” Spike replied with a curt bow that in turn hid his satisfied smile.

“Well, at least one good thing came out of this whole mess, I now know not to purchase my fabrics from that company ever again.” Rarity added with a giggle, accompanied shortly afterwards by her dragon companions own short spurt of laughter.

It was around this point, that on the fine, sunny, and clear skied day, that the peaceful hums of distance birds and numerous but pleasantly toned chattering of ponies in the nearby market, were overlaid by panicked screams. Everypony who could hear the noise turned their heads from side to side, trying to spot two screaming ponies. Luckily Spike was not a pony and so looked up instead.

“What the...Twilight and Fluttershy?” Spike mumbled in confusion as he spotted Fluttershy flying in an unusually fast and strange manner with Twilight clinging onto her.

Rarity had by now, followed the dragon’s gaze and looked up to the two screaming ponies, just as they knocked into a reversing Rainbow Dash. Seeing the three friends propel into one another, and proceed to tumble down towards the ground at alarming speeds, Rarity let out a quick scream of horror before springing into action.

Her horn lit up with a white magical aura, and with her magical energy she grasped an object from the boutique, and somehow pulled out the fairly large object out through the smaller entrance. The falling jumble of ponies was only a few feet from the ground when a red cushioned piece of furniture slid under their crash landing spot. They fell onto the red chaise longue, bounced off its soft surface, and lightly fell onto the harder, earthier floor.

Immediately Spike ran up to the dizzied and groaning Twilight and yelped out with great worry, “Twilight, are you okay?”

“Yes mommy, I would like syrup with my pancakes.” A spinning eyed unicorn mumbled out as she tried to lift herself off the ground, only to fall back down immediately.

“Why girls, whatever just happened?” Rarity questioned her friends as she began to help the one she was closest too, Fluttershy, up to her legs.

When none of the girls responded she wasn’t surprised, they had just taken quite a fall. Twilight tried to answer though most of the words spewing from her mouth were scientific in nature, or about random events from her past, but seemed to be getting more coherent as Spike helped get her balance steady. Along with her fellow unicorn and her spa buddy, Rarity also cast her eyes to check on Rainbow’s condition, and said pegasus was already up on her hooves, atop the sofa that she happened to be the only one to remain on upon landing. Rainbow Dash was with it much sooner than the rest and Rarity noticed a simple and old but remarkably made attire wrapped round one of her hooves, an attired hoof that Rainbow chose to give the strangest of stares before looking over to her and Fluttershy. When Rainbow Dash tackled Fluttershy to the ground she was surprised, Rainbow Dash did just suddenly tackle Fluttershy.

“R-Rainbow Dash! What in Equestria are you doing?”

“I need to keep touching Fluttershy!” Rainbow Dash proclaimed with such volume that many ponies out of the visual range were able to hear.

The designer was taken aback by such a proclamation that she halted all manner of reprimand, and instead stopped thinking all together. After looking flabbergasted at the two ponies, one yellow and getting up, the other cyan and insisting on touching the other, she decided to continue on with the reprimand but in a different fashion, “Not in public! Stop doing...such a thing here.”

“Rarity, wait! Don’t stop Rainbow from touching Fluttershy!” Twilight ‘incoherently’ blurted out.

Once again Rarity has trouble talking but soon managed to stammer out a response, “N-now dear, while I know Fluttershy here is...that way, which is perfectly fine I might add, I hardly think she appreciates such affection...in public.”

“Oh Rarity, it’s not what you think,” A formerly yellow faced but currently red faced mare stammered out as she was got up beside Rainbow, “You see, it’s because of these,” Fluttershy continued to say as she held up her bracelet attached hoof, “that me and Rainbow have to be...touching...”

“Go on,” Spike murmured before receiving a light reprimanding slap to the back of his head from the very pony he had helped to stand.

“We’re not sure on all the details but I’ll explain what we know so far,” Twilight said but paused shortly after beginning her explanation, as if she had just come up with an idea better than the one she had previously, “Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, now that I think about it, it would be much easier if you two demonstrated what the bracelets do rather than having me try to explain it.”

“Are you kidding? No way, I reckon these bracelets have given both me and Fluttershy plenty of bruises.” The cyan flier retorted.

“I assure you three; I do not need a demonstration...especially not in public.”

“It’s, it’s really nothing like that.” Fluttershy once again stammered out with a flushed face.

“I guess I’ll start at the beginning.” Twilight Sparkle said, beginning her lengthy explanation of events, going into more detail than what was needed and more complicated than what her audience of three could completely comprehend.

A fairly long 15 minutes later Spike summed it up, “So those bracelets have turned Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash into magnets?”

“Well that’s simplifying things a bit, but pretty much.”

A bored but now relieved Rainbow raised a hoof in the air and asked aloud, “Quick question, if me and Fluttershy are magnets, am I top and she bottom or does Fluttershy top me?”

A really awkward silence ensued.

“Uh, Rainbow darling, is there anything you plan on saying today that can’t be perceived as an awkward innuendo?”

The athlete turned to look at the designer with a frown, “I’m not sure what an innuendo is but I have a feeling I shouldn’t like what you’re implying about me.”

“Ugh, Rainbow Dash, just because the bracelets act like magnets doesn’t make them magnetic, they don’t have a north or south pole.”

“Oh, okay.”

“Now, here’s what I’ve gathered so far,” Twilight Sparkle began, her dark bagged eyes giving each pony a look, vying for their attention, “The pair of bracelets only activated once Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy put them on, before that I had studied them and found no traces of magic, meaning the artefacts draw their magic from a host body. Second, and an important detail you two should note, is that the bracelets don’t require being in contact, but it is the host bodies that need to be kept in contact.”

The looks of confusion were of a lesser tone than before; the audience of mostly ponies and one dragon understanding the jest but personally would prefer an example. Twilight saw these looks and so followed up with, “For example, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy need to be in contact with one another in some form, be it a hoof touching the other, a wing, any part of one pony’s body touching any part of the other pony’s body. You don’t have to keep the bracelets pressed together or anything like that and thus, it isn’t so much that the bracelets are...’magnetic’ but that they have made Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy ‘magnetic’.”

This was where the unicorn stopped for a moment, yawning briefly and mumbling gibberish to herself, before adding in another point of importance, “Third and unfortunately, the only other thing I can say I’ve accessed so far, you two are only allowed to go out of contact with one another for roughly over five seconds.”

“Five seconds!” Rainbow Dash blurted out as she stepped forth, “that’s barely any time at all and-“Rainbow and Fluttershy quickly noted the small distance between them and the absent of contact between them, quickly moving next to another to prevent another magically forced contact.

“Yes it isn’t much time but don’t worry, I will solve this problem immediately.” The proud and intellectually gifted student of Princess Celestia announced...before she fell to the ground in exhaustion.

Rarity gasped at this sudden and what was to her, unexpected action, and along with Fluttershy zipped to Twilight’s aid. Rainbow Dash and Spike simply walked the minor distance to the snoring unicorn, Rainbow Dash being sure to place a hoof onto Fluttershy when she got close enough.

“I’m guessing she lied about all those times she said to me that she went to bed after I did and woke up before I woke up?” Spike asked the question with an obvious answer with a deadpanned expression that made clear that this was not the first time Twilight had collapsed from exhaustion.

“I’m sorry; she told us she hadn’t slept in the last three days.” Fluttershy answered, looking up from inspecting the wellbeing of her now asleep friend, “She can’t possibly help us in this state; she really needs to rest up first.”

“Ugh, I was hoping to get these cursed things off as soon as possible but you’re right.” Rainbow said with various tones of reluctance, annoyance, sympathy, and light humour, “After all, I don’t even want to imagine the sort of things that could go wrong if a sleep deprived Twilight tries to help us.”

The thoughts of what could happen were worrying, but despite the problematic situation the mood was pleasant and jolly, so they saw the imagined scenario, a mad scientist Twilight diagnosing that the best solution was to amputate both pegasus’s forelegs, in a comical manner, and giggled at its absurdity. Spike was still lightly guffawing to himself as he went to lift Twilight up, struggling with her larger body, and trying in vain to carry his sleeping employer home.

“Oh, do you need a hoof Spike? Not to be rude to her but Twilight may be a little heavy for you.”

“N-no, I can handle it.” Spike strained out as he managed to take a step forward with Twilight resting on his upright back.

“Now, now Spike, you’ve done plenty of lifting today, allow me to carry Twilight.” Rarity said, as she telepathically pulled out from her shop a roll of fabric. With a small bit of application from her magic and dressmaking skills, Rarity looped her fellow unicorn under what was now a makeshift canopy bed, and pulled the sleeping mare off the ground with ease, “With this it should be no problem getting our dear Twilight home.”

Rarity then turned to address the magically bound pegasus friends of hers, “Apologies that you’re stuck in this predicament but it shouldn’t be too much of a hassle. A day or two of rest and Twilight will be sure to get those bracelets off in a snap.”

With that Rarity and Spike walked off, Twilight resting in a floating canopy alongside them.

“So…if we have to always be in contact, whose house are we going to? I can’t go to mine and you to yours because of these dumb things.” Rainbow asked, holding up her bracelet.

“Oh, I-I have to take care of my animal friends so if you wouldn’t mind I’d really prefer it if we could”-A hoof placed over the shy pony’s mouth stopped the flow of whispering words.

Rainbow nodded, “I get it, I get it. It’s no problem, your place it is.”

Okay then, as per usual I will try and keep these author notes short so I'll get right on with what I want to say here. First, thank you for reading the first chapter of my long planned fanfic, Magnetism, a first chapter to which I truly hope you enjoyed. Second, for those who are interested in this story and are wondering when the next chapter will come out, I plan to have a chapter of this fanfic uploaded once every two weeks so in the case of chapter two of Magnetism you should expect it to see it on the 22nd of September (give or take a day or two). However I cannot guarantee that each and every chapter will be uploaded according to plan as I do not know what changes of circumstance, if any, may occur, but anything which effects the chapter upload schedule I shall be sure to inform you readers via my Fimfiction.net profile blog. Speaking of which, the third thing I would like to say is that if any of you wish to learn more about Magnetism, its progress both past and current as well as trivia and sneak peeks then be sure to check out my profile blog to which I have already discussed this story several times.

Just to be sure I will say it once again but thanks for reading everyone. I'm open to any and all constructive criticism so feel free to comment, and I hope you enjoyed this chapter and shall continue to enjoy the chapters that follow in this fanfic. Cheerio!