My spell screamed through the air, a construct of pure force lashed out and the bottle exploded in a thousand pieces.
"Not bad," Shining Armor said as he looked at our improvised spell range. It was early, the sun setting towards the horizon but if we wanted to do this it was much easier when he could actually see.
"I was a bit to the left," I said with a small frown before I shrugged my wings, "...I'm a bit out of practice," I admitted.
It's been years since I had daily practice on this sort of thing. Paperwork and sitting on a throne thankfully didn't have much use for slinging combat spells around.
If that was a fortunate thing or not was up to the beholder however.
Shining nodded and magic shone from his horn as he sent his own spell across the range, a second bottle exploding, "You need to practice to keep your skills," he warned me, "I do mostly office style work now, but I still make sure to get a couple of hours a week."
Which was the reason for this entire thing. He was going to practice and to my surprise asked if I wanted to join.
"Time time time," I said and then smiled wryly, "If we ever get an alicorn of time, I will be so jealous. They might actually be able to squeeze enough of them into a night."
Shining grinned, "I know. I have hopes for Flurry, maybe I can mooch some of it if she does, but she's more likely to take after her mother."
"Not necessarily, maybe she'll be the alicorn of protection or something," I pointed out, "Shields and all that you know. Cutiemark themes tend to run in families. More or less."
Shining nodded, "That's true," he agreed, "But not necessarily. I mean, neither of my parents has anything to do with shields."
"Good point," I agreed and then shrugged my wings again, "Also, alicorn. Who knows how that works out with domains and such."
Shining made a sound of agreement and then sent a spear of fire at the last bottle, causing it to explode into fragments.
"Oh, nice one," I said, "I always had trouble with fire magic. Even now I can barely do a burst of it. Just keep getting away from me and... well... Twilight banned me from using it without supervision."
Shining grinned, "Didn't like when you smelled like burned mane, huh? Cady may have said something similar at some point."
"Yep. I'm better with ice magic for some reason."
He frowned, "But that's harder."
"I know, right!" I exclaimed and sighed, "And neither has anything to do with my domain either, so how that works, don't ask me."
"You have some training," he said, "Did you get as far as playing whip snap?"
That was a common training technique for guard unicorns.
I nodded, "Sure, my wife taught me when we worked on shields. Been a while though."
Shining nodded and walked some five meters away from me across the grass before turning to face me, "Ready?"
Facing him in turn, I gave him a nod.
Magic shone around his horn and a snap of magical energy flew towards my chest. I responded with a shield, the bolt hitting it with about the force of a hoof tap.
I dropped my shield and responded in kind and he brought up one of his own. Instead of my half sphere, his was the size of a diner plate, just intercepting the spell and nothing else.
That was the goal of this exercise, alternating shielding and casting spells as quickly and accurately as possible, the spell used just enough to let you know if you bucked up.
We slowly sped up as we got into it, and I had to say... Shining was good.
Really, bucking, good.
Small accurate shields took less energy to cast, but they took a lot more focus and concentration to manage.
Which meant that in a real fight, alicorn or not, he might be able to outlast me if it came to a spell to spell duel with no other tricks.
Of course, this wasn't. And it wouldn’t have been.
"Try a smaller shield," Shining said, holding his spell.
"Never did manage that before," I warned him, "Not against spells anyway."
"It’s why we practice."
Which was fair enough so I nodded.
He sent a spell flying at me and I focused, managing to bring a meter wide shield disk up before it just in time.
"Good," Shining said and blocked my return cast, "Don't try any smaller, focus on good form," he said before firing a spell back.
I brought a shield up again to block, "You miss being active guard?"
"Sometimes," Shining admitted and blocked my return spell, "But on the bright side, no more slogging through mud in the rain."
"There is tha-ow!"
A spell slipped through and marked me in the shoulder. Damn, I forgot how much those sting. Felt like somebody had smacked me with a puppy sized bee.
"Focus."
I sent a spell back at him. He blocked it with a shield the size of a hoof, looking smugly at me.
Bastard.