The components were prepared. The stars were right. The ritual began.
This, Misty told herself all the while, was a bad idea.
Of course, Misty had never had a good idea that didn’t involve instantly agreeing with what ever Opaline said. Opaline had told her as much plenty of times before. But in terms of bad ideas, this had to be the worst one she’d ever had.
Still, Opaline’s rarely given praise came a little more often when it came to Misty’s willingness to do anything to get what she wanted. So maybe, just maybe, the alicorn wouldn’t mind as much that Misty was using the throne room’s scrying pool for her own purposes while her mistress slept, her efforts lit only by the pale, eerie flames in their sconces and the magic radiance of the pool itself.
Opaline certainly hadn’t minded Misty going through the castle library to find the ritual in the first place… though she just might not have noticed the research when she hadn’t needed Misty herself. Anything Opaline needed took priority; not because she needed Misty specifically but because she'd be too busy with something truly important. Otherwise, Opaline would have taken care of it herself.
The library carried lore from across all of time, from faded, propaganda-filled tales of the usurper Twilight Sparkle to modern gossip rags from Zephyr Heights. Misty didn’t know how Opaline had collected most of it, but as with many things she didn’t know, she didn’t question it. That wasn't her place. She just thanked her lucky stars and worked with it.
Amid the yellowed scrolls and backlogged Sears-Roanbucks catalogues were some truly dangerous texts, ones that even Opaline treated with caution. The nastiest, according to their slightly less perilous contemporaries, could grab a unicorn’s soul through her horn and pull it right out of her body.
That turned out to be true, but the books needed the user’s magic to do so. Blank-flanked and dead-horned as she was, all Misty got from them was an uncomfortable tingling in her frogs as she paged through them.
She found what she was looking for in an especially tingly tome, one that seemed to have a face on its front cover and definitely had a cutie mark on the back. That was probably a bad sign in hindsight, but Opaline wouldn’t let a little squeamishness stand between her and more power, so neither would Misty. Especially when the ritual to reach out and take what she wanted promised to be so simple, even an earth pony could do it. And that was back before they could grow massive plants with a stomp!
The castle’s alchemy lab was as well-stocked as the library, so it was a simple matter to gather all of the components. Only once Misty started trotting widdershins around the scrying pool had her foolishness really struck her. Every poured reagent, every muttered syllable, every mystically significant ear sign made her internal panic build up more and more, but she kept going.
In fact, she couldn’t stop. She tried midway through, but her body was running without her input by that point, behaving like the spell was as much a part of her routine as sweeping the hallways or fluffing Opaline’s pillows. The Neighcronomicon had said that once started, the ritual would want to see itself to completion, but Misty had thought that had been an exaggeration like so many of the mad Saddle Arabian’s other warnings. It wasn't like she’d run into any octopus-headed minotaurs or congeries of spheres while preparing the ritual. She wasn’t even sure what a congery was!
A shudder brought Misty out of her thoughts just in time to notice the mists billowing out of the scrying pool, filling the throne room and washing out its polished golds and deep blues. A similar deadening of sensation struck Misty as the mist coiled around her legs.. The stink of the ingredients, the heat emanating from the pool, even the grit of the stone beneath her hooves seemed to fade from her mind, never entirely gone but shifting into the background.
That just left more room for her panic to claim, especially once she realized she hadn’t moved for several seconds. The ritual must have been complete, at least the parts it wanted to finish itself. That still left asserting her will over the conjured spirits, and Misty wasn’t sure how much she had left to assert after doing all of this under Opaline’s nose. At least the alicorn slept as mightily as she did everything else. No amount of bone-deep loyalty could get Misty to deny that Opaline snored like a sawmill and could sleep through an earthquake.
A shake of her head and a stomp of her hooves put Misty back on task. “Spirits!” she cried, her own voice sounding like it came from the next room. “O, ye departed souls, called back to this land of sorrows, hear me and heed me! By will and wit, be bound to my bidding! Ye dark and fearsome shades who have answered my beacon, know that it is I who control the gate and the key to this world ye once walked!"
Something like sunlight began to glow from the depths of the mist, a warm gradient of pinks and yellows and oranges, fading on occasion to a pure, bright white rarely seen in the castle.
Emboldened, Misty practically shouted the next part of the binding. “And by my name shall ye know thy master! Um, mistress! For I—”
“Are talking like that time Luna went to a Spear Shaker in the Park performance,” said a scratchy voice. “Seriously, when are we? Can ponies call you up before you die?”
“Rarity always said trends go in cycles,” said a more gentle voice. “Maybe it’s the same for language.”
A third, deeper one clicked an ethereal tongue, then spoke in an accent foreign to all of Misty’s limited experience. “C’mon, y’all, yer distractin’ ‘er. I ain’t happy about gettin’ pulled outta Elysium either, but this’ll go by quicker if’n we’re all civil.”
Much of the mist had faded as the three voices had made themselves known, revealing three luminous bodies hovering above the surface of the pool. One of each tribe, the bodies were vague mare shapes with no features but bright glowing eyes—difficult to spot on the entirely white unicorn—and clearly defined if incomprehensible cutie marks, impossibly present on all six flanks.
The earth pony, floating between the others and glowing like the alchemy lab's sodium lamp, nodded to Misty. “Go on now,” it—she?—said, with no visible motion of jaw or tongue. “‘Bout t’ introduce yerself, right?”
“Um, right.” Misty cleared her throat. “Uh, yea and verily, thou shalt know me as, uh…”
The pegasus on the earth mare’s right, like a winged chunk of sunset, brought a spectral hoof to her muzzle, shaking with mirth. “Oh, Celestia. Sweetie, do you remember that play you put on just after we got our marks?”
The unicorn gasped and brought a hoof to her own face. “The one where Rarity’s costumes kept everypony from noticing the awful dialogue? Gosh, I haven’t thought about that in centuries.”
The earth pony huffed out a sigh. “Right. Might as well drop all the fancy talk, filly. We ain’t ones t’ stand on ceremony anyhow. I’m Apple Bloom, the joker with the wings is Scootaloo, an’ Miss Playwright over there’s Sweetie Belle. How ‘bout yerself?”
According to the Book of Whinnied Names, Misty should have been trying to dominate the spirits, to coerce them into her service through force of personality. But this was as welcoming as the slumber party at the Brighthouse, at least while her cover had held out. She didn’t so much slump to the floor as her legs gave out, heavy with relief and exhaustion. “I’m Misty.”
“Pleasure t’ meet ya, Misty. Now, what can we do for ya?” The other spirits moved to Apple Bloom's sides, all three at least interested. Even if Scootaloo was still quietly laughing to herself.
“Um…” Misty tapped her hooftips together as she took in all she’d done. The request seemed a little ridiculous compared to all she’d gone through already. Then she looked to her own unmarked hindquarters and steeled her resolve. Turning back to the spirits, she stood back up, squared her withers, and said, “I want a cutie mark.”
Vague as their expressions were, Misty could still tell the spirits were shocked by that. They just stared at her for a few moments, stock-still and eyes wide.
Just as anxiety began to twist in Misty’s gut, Scootaloo said, “Did we ever try necromancy?”
“Not for ourselves,” answered Sweetie Belle, “but there were a few one-on-one clients where I broke out some parlor tricks. Mostly just burnt sage and spirit boards; it’s not like Twilight ever let us learn anything serious.”
Misty took a step back. “Twilight? As in Twilight Sparkle!?”
“Well sure. Ain’t she still around?" Apple Bloom looked around, as though expecting Opaline's ancient adversary to trot in from the mezzanine. "Ain’t seen ‘er in Elysium yet.”
"Hey, where are we, anyway?" said Sweetie Belle, floating higher. Misty knew the spirits couldn't leave the trotted-out circle, but that didn't stop them maneuvering in it, nor taking in the throne room as a whole. "I'm pretty sure this isn't Castle Canterlot."
“Uh…" Misty cleared her throat. "How about we focus on getting me a cutie mark? Like you said, faster we do that, faster you get back, right?”
The three spirits reconvened, muttering amongst themselves. Misty barely dared to breathe until they turned back and Apple Bloom nodded. “Fair enough. Granny always said it ain’t the dead’s place t’ go pokin’ their muzzles where they ain’t wanted.”
Scootaloo spread her forelegs and oddly tiny wings. Misty must have done something subtly wrong with the summoning. “Besides, if you want a cutie mark, you’ve come to the right place!”
“Necromancy usually isn’t the right answer to any problems," added Sweetie Belle, "but you’ve found an exception.”
That got another nod. “Darn tootin’. The Cutie Mark Crusaders’re happy t’ take you on as our latest client.”
All three thrust a forehoof into the air and shouted, “Yeah!”
“Yeah!” Misty added a beat later. “So, uh, what’s first?”
Sweetie took another turn around the room. “Well, we’re going to need you to get a chart together—”
“Misty?"
Misty's ears folded back. "Oh no." She scrambled away from the archway she should have been keeping an eye on the whole time.
"Who's that?" said Scootaloo, not at all helping.
Apple Bloom rubbed her ephemeral chin. "Almost sounds familiar, don't she?"
Opaline burst into the room, wings unpreened and mane still in curlers. She looked around the room, more furious every time she turned her head. Finally, she rounded on Misty, snarling and stalking towards her. "What have you done? What is the meaning of this!?”
Misty shrank into herself, trying not to tremble. Trembling was an unacceptable sign of weakness. “S-sorry, Opaline.”
“Opaline?” Sweetie echoed.
Opaline froze. She turned to the spirits.
“Diamond’s filly?” added Apple Bloom.
Ears folded back, eyes wide, the faintest shudder down her spine...
Somehow, impossibly, for the first time Misty had ever seen, Opaline actually looked afraid. “No. No, it’s not possible.”
Scootaloo tilted her head as she looked back at her. “How the hay did a Friendship School dropout become an alicorn?”
“Shut up!" the alicorn cried, loud enough to shake make the vials Misty had emptied shake and rattle. "Shut up, all of you! I’m finally free of your insipid lessons and I will not put up with them any longer!”
Sweetie Belle just sighed. “Yeah, that’s Opaline, all right.”
“I said shut up!” Opaline's eyes swept the room. She grabbed a flask in her magic, tugged out the stopper, and tossed the whole thing into the scrying pool.
A pillar of black smoke and foul-smelling water erupted from it, the former filling the room in short order. Misty choked and staggered helplessly until a breeze cleared the air. She looked up, saw Opaline flapping her wing and glaring at her, and immediately wanted the smoke back. Misty focused on the floor, telling herself the tears in her eyes were just from irritation.
“So. What were you thinking?”
“I, I was only trying to—”
“Never mind what you were trying to do." A wingtip forced Misty's head up until she stared into Opaline's furious eyes. Smoke still spewed out of the darkened scrying pool behind her. "What you did was waste countless reagents for some foalish errand that will take valuable time and resources to undo when we can least spare either." Opaline narrowed her gaze. "But before any of that, you and I are going to have a long conversation about not taking what doesn’t belong to you.”
Misty knew that that meant Opaline would spend a long time talking about all the ways she’d messed up, and she’d spend a long time agreeing with the one who knew best. Best to start early. “Yes, Opaline.”
“Yeesh. Somepony took after her grandma.”
Both ponies froze. Misty reacted first, looking further up. All three spirits hovered around Opaline like oversized fireflies. Scootaloo took special pleasure in drifting down, upside-down and hooves behind her head, until she was muzzle-to-muzzle with the alicorn.
Opaline glowered at her. “I dismissed you.”
“You just disrupted the ritual circle that kept us in place," said Sweetie Belle. "Which you’d know if you’d paid attention in Magic class.” She turned to Misty, and one of her eyes briefly dimmed to her background luminance. A wink? "Twilight didn't let us learn necromancy, but I had to prep for substitute classes somehow."
"We can leave," continued Scootaloo. "We just don't want to."
Both made way for Apple Bloom, who'd found a way to crack her fetlocks despite being a disembodied spirit. “Now yer ma an’ I made peace a long time ago, Opaline, but if you talk t’ this filly like that one more time, I’m still gonna smack you so hard Diamond’s gonna feel it.”
Sweetie giggled. “And if you think we’re bad…”
If Opaline had looked afraid when she'd first seen the Crusaders, she looked outright terrified now. Her pupils were pinpricks, her horn sending off useless sparks, her speech sputtering and incoherent.
Scootaloo patted Misty on the withers, which felt a little like a leg falling asleep. “How about we get out of this gloomy castle and help you find that special talent?”
It took a few moments for Misty to catch up with everything. She furrowed her brow. “I thought you’d find me a cutie mark?”
"Ooh, we've got a lot of work to do."
“Wait," said Opaline, "you summoned these three just to—”
Apple Bloom jabbed a hoof into her side, making the dread mistress of all ponykind flinch back like a startled foal. “Hush now. This here's adult talk.”
Opaline gave her a flat look, absently rubbing her ribs. “Really?”
Sweetie tossed her mane far more effectively than she had any right to, given how it was just an extension of her soul. “We’re more adult than you've ever been.”
"I'll have you know that I—"
“Yeah, sure, whatever." Scootaloo drifted to another archway. "Come on, Misty. Toxic home environments are another specialty of ours. Step one's getting out of them.”
And Misty, at least half as bewildered as Opaline, followed the three ghosts out into the dawn.