"Come on! Pull faster, Mayberry!" The excitable green unicorn exclaimed as she bounced in place on top of the wagon. The unicorn she was addressing heaved a world-weary sigh.
"Maybe she'll fall off from all that bouncing." Mayberry wondered idly as she struggled to pull the heavy wagon.
It had been an interesting start of the day. Bon-bon, the cream-colored earth pony friend/lover of her magic teacher, Lyra, had taken it upon herself to be both unicorn's alarm clocks.
A heavy buffeting by pillows later, the three ponies had left to grab some breakfast. Breakfast itself had been uneventful, as Mayberry managed to make it through the meal without causing her food to detonate with her magic, and instead ate it earth pony style as she had before.
Lyra had advised against magic use at breakfast since she didn't want Mayberry wearing herself out magically before she could do it the old fashioned way. Now the two found themselves working the orchard as a team. One of them pulled the wagon while the other levitated down as many apples as possible into the wagon.
"So why am I the one pulling not just this wagon again?" Mayberry asked between breaths. Lyra stopped her bouncing and leapt onto the seat of the wagon eliciting an indignant "Hey!" from her charge and promptly ignoring it.
"Several reasons. First of all, you have a larger frame than me, so pulling the wagon is easier for you than it would be for me. Second, and I apologize for the low blow, you can barely levitate an apple fritter without it exploding much less harvesting up to fifty apples at a time."
Mayberry would have liked to protest, but was too out of breath from hauling the now nearly filled wagon to do so. Instead she simply gave heaved another sigh and tugged against the harness again. Legs shaking from a mixture of exhaustion and the heat, she threw all her weight against the straps. The heavy wagon resisted for a bit but eventually started to slowly trundled forwards.
She and Lyra had been doing this particular haul-and-harvest job for several hours now. The human-turned-pony had tried to convince the mint menace to let her take a quick nap several times through out the day, but unfortunately, the human-obsessed mare turned out to be a harsh taskmistress in more than just magic. Lyra kept her student working nonstop despite Mayberry's objections.
Finally the setting sun signaled the teams of ponies that it was time to pack it in. Still panting and heaving at the wagon harness, Mayberry cursed the sun for moving so slow. She could have sworn the celestial orb had intentionally slowed its path across the sky just to spite her throughout the day.
Leaving their wagon behind with a team of earth ponies to unload, the duo headed for their bunkhouse to freshen up and in Mayberry's case, perhaps catch a nap before supper. Lyra trotted along beside her as they headed for the small cluster of cabins. The larger mare was just relieved that the cabins were just a short trip down the hill from the town. As they walked into their cabin, Lyra spoke up.
"Hey, great job, May! Think you're up for a magic less-"
Lyra got no further before the larger, wearier unicorn answered the unfinished question by accidentally toppling over onto her teacher.
"Gah! Can't breath! Mayberry, get off!"
The only answer from Mayberry was a small snore, the mare having literally fallen asleep standing up before finally heeding the call of gravity.
The mint unicorn was not defeated so easily, however, and quickly started to shove and lever the larger mare off of her. Normally she'd have used her magic to levitate the sleeping pony off of her, but the long day of working in the hot sun, not to mention excessive use of her levitation spell left her feeling like her horn was about to fall off.
So the musician pried, pushed, and squirmed to escape the lethal clutches of the Slumbering One, but it was to no avail. Flopping back on to the floor, Lyra just hoped Bon Bon could help her out when she came back, whenever that was.
"Hey, Lyra! Mayberry! How was your first day of work..." Bon Bon stopped as she stepped through the cabin door, her eyes going wide at the spectacle in front of her before narrowing back down and pinning a certain green unicorn with a lethal glare.
"Lyra Heartstrings, what in Tartarus are you two doing?!" She ground out, punctuating her words with a stomp as she closed with the two.
Weary of the look in her marefriend's eyes, the unicorn decided the best course of action was to simply tell the truth.
"Hey Bon Bon, I was hoping you'd show up. I've been pinned here for... about an hour." Lyra said pausing as she guesstimated the amount of time she'd been pinned under her own student. "May here collapsed from exhaustion and guess who didn't move fast enough?"
Stoney silence answered her. Lyra decided to switch tracks and try a different tactic. Covering her eyes, she let out a dramatic sob. "Save me, Bon Bon! I don't want to die crushed underneath Titanoflank, Scourge of the Apple Orchard.
"Ah'm narf fat." Came the automatic if dozy mumbled reply from the freshly awakened pony. "Jerst behg-boned."
Mayberry attempted to get up, but a mixture of still being mostly asleep and her unfamiliarity with the body despite her time as a pony, turned the simple act of placing all four legs underneath her and levering herself off the other mare into an uncoordinated jumble of legs, manes, and tails.
"Gah! That's my tail you're standing on!"
"Ow! Get yer 'oof outta my face, Lyra!"
"Easier said than done. My back legs have gone numb because SOMEPONY fell asleep, pinning them underneath her "big boned" body!"
"Move more, nag less, ya nag."
"Hey! That was uncalled for, horse-monkey!"
Bon Bon watched on in fascination as the two unicorns struggled to extricate themselves from one another. "I wasn't even aware pony bodies could bend like that! How did you two klutzes manage to accomplish anything today?!"
Eventually, the pair of unicorns sorted themselves out, though not without a multitude of scraps and bruises from accidentally horn prods.
Casting a look over her disheveled mane, coat, and tail, Lyra sat down and as Mayberry watched, summoned a brush to her. "Well, that was an adventure!"
Mayberry could only nod, the speech center of her brain still trying to fully come back online. Despite her short nap, she was still incredibly tired. "We managed just fine. Like before, I pulled the wagon all day and Lyra plucked the apples.
Yawning, Mayberry flicked a hoof towards Lyra's brush. "How do you do that anyway?"
Confused, Lyra looked at the brush she had been using to comb her light green tail and mane. "Ummm. It's a brush. You know. You brush things with it."
Mayberry facehoofed. "No, no! I mean how did you call that brush to you?"
Bon Bon saw how Lyra's face lit up at that, groaned and did her best to vacate to a friend's nearby cottage so she didn't have to listen to two unicorns dive into what looked like the beginnings of a very long magic lesson.
One magic lesson later, Mayberry as confused as well as unsatisfied with her answer. Lyra had told her how to teleport stuff to her, but that didn't help her in the least as teleportation of any kind was still far beyond her capabilities. Heck merely manipulating objects and levitating them strained her abilities to the max.
No, what she really wanted to know was the mechanics of how teleportation worked. Not that it would help her get home, but at least provide a picture of what happened to bring her to this world.
Lyra watched her student as she mulled over the complex spell. She knew very well why the other pony wanted to know more about teleportation and while Lyra hadn't quite gotten the wealth of information about her native species out of Mayberry, she could sympathize with the mare. A whole new world where species thought to be legend existed and having to experience a society she hadn't known to have exist before in a body that wasn't her own? Lyra shuddered at the thought.
What she didn't get was why Mayberry was a pony. The former human pretty much said she had literally landed on Canterlot Palace's roof as a pony. So bodily transmogrification as well? Some pony was definitely behind this. But who?
"Well this is a mystery." Lyra mumbled almost inaudibly. "So you were catapulted out of your world after touching a magical hanky and the next thing you know, you're sitting on a tower roof as a pony?
The unicorn mare nodded. "Yes. Did I mention the butt-clenchingly long fall to the valley floor off one side? And that I did fall off it while I was freaking out about being a pony?"
Her teacher's jaw dropped. "You what?! How did you survive?"
Mayberry held up her tail, the gnawed end of her tail fully on display. "Well, I had a bit of a life-line. Apparently the last part of my tail got phased into the roof."
Lyra dumbly looked at the tail. "So how did you get free?"
"let's just say pony tails are tougher than you think to chew through and that those hairs really like to get stuck in between your teeth." Mayberry reached up with her hoof and pulled cheek to the side, displaying a few stray hairs still stuck between her teeth.
"Ewwww!" Lyra gagged. Out of courtesy, her horn lit up with a minty green glow as she plucked the stray hairs out.
Mayberry smacked her lips a few times before running her tongue over and around her mouth, feeling for more hairs. After finding none and noting that her mouth lacked the gap in-between the front teeth and the molars that terrestrial horses and ponies had, she nodded towards her friend.
"Thank you! I had no idea how to get that out of my mouth without fingers! Also don't ask me why, but I half expected your magic to have a wintergreen taste to it."
Lyra could only guess what "wintergreen" was, but silently hoped it wasn't any nasty.
Both ponies were silent for a moment before Mayberry spoke up again. "What happens if two spells cast on the same object?" She asked, thinking of how she was teleported and transformed at the same time.
Lyra got off the floor they had been sitting on as they talked and trotted over to her bed before hopping on it and laying down again, tucking her legs beneath her. "It depends. If it's done by the same pony, nothing other than what both spells are meant to do."
"If it's two or more ponies?"
"Then it depends on what spells are being cast and if the spellcaster's have harmonized with one another."
"Harmonized?"
"Yup. Not harmonizing spells can cause both spells to not work properly."
"Meaning?" Mayberry urged.
Her teacher heaved a sigh. "Meaning all sorts of things. I don't mean to be vague, but what exactly happens is determined by hundreds of factors. What spells were being used, how much magic went into each spell, how adept is the caster and so on and so forth."
Lyra looked thoughtful for a moment. "But usually most of those variables tend to come down to "How big will the explosion be and how fast can I run?""
Satisfied at least for the moment, Mayberry stood up from the floor and arched her back while thrusting her front hooves out in front of her. It was an awkward pose, but much like her cat, Sasha, and her dog, Jake, she was able to get a very satisfying stretch out of it, and a series of pops sounded from her back. Standing up, Mayberry looked herself over. She was still a cream colored mare, with a dark blue mane and tail. And her flank was still blank.
"Do you think with me being…well, me, that it's just not possible for me to get one of whatchyamacallits?"
Her teacher merely looked at the golden harp on her own green flank and shrugged. "Maybe. I take it humans don't get cutie marks."
The tall mare snickered at the name as she climbed into her own bed. The guys around here must have a hell of a time trying to make getting a 'cutie mark' sound masculine.
"No, we don't. At most we have something called tramp stamps and they are usually obtained after ingesting a lot of alcohol and mostly at the urging of equally sloshed friends."
Both ponies laughed at this before a resounding knock on the cabin's door interrupted them.
Without thinking of what might, Mayberry's horn lit up. The doorknob (Why do ponies have round door knobs?!) lit up with the same icy blue color before twisting and promptly snapping off.
"Too much magic, May." Lyra deadpanned from her bed where she was currently burrowing underneath the covers. So far only her rear and the pale green tail stuck out.
"Sorry. Come on in!"
Hearing the conversation from the outside, Bon Bon facehoofed and groaned. After a day of bucking and hauling apples, her rear half felt as if it would fall off if she bucked one more thing. With no other choice, Bon Bon turned her back to the door and wound up and…fell backwards into the cabin as her hooves failed to reach their target. "Wha?"
Only then did she realize that the door was surrounded by a familiar green magic.
"Sorry, Bon Bon. May accidentally broke the doorknob off so I had to open the latch with my magic before letting you in."
The earth pony took a breath and held it, counting as she calmed down. "Fine. I came here to grab you two for supper since the supper triangle got run over by a wagon earlier."
Moaning like the freshly awakened dead, Mayberry and Lyra climbed out of their respective cocoons made from their covers and lurched after the earth pony.
"Wait, why are you moaning?! I hauled your tail all day!"
Canterlot was a buzz with activity even later into the day, but one melancholic purple unicorn failed to notice this. Twilight Sparkle was too deep into her own depressing thoughts to appreciate much of anything lately.
Despite the fact she left Canterlot at a fairly early age and before having spent most of her time in the Palace or with her teacher, Twilight had always depended on her family to be there for her and now a vital piece of her family was gone.
Twilight knew that ponies had to die at some point, but she had at least figured to have a decade or two with her mother to come to terms with it. Her mother had been a very active member of Canterlot, as well as a member of the Mage's Guild that pre-dated the Silver Pinnacle. It just didn't seem fair that her mother was taken away from all those ponies, including her family so soon.
Stuck in her thoughts, the unicorn wandered mindlessly through the palace. Both her brother and her father had already resumed their duties around Canterlot. Twilight had promised both Princesses that she'd stay another week or two visit with them and to cope with her lose before heading back to her highly isolated lab. They meant well, but this only lead to Twilight having more free time than she knew what to do with.
"Hello, Twilight. How fares thee?"
"Hmm?" Twilight started at the familiar voice. A familiar dark blue pony stood before her in the hallway. It seemed her wandering hooves had taken her in the general direction of the Princesses' Quarters. "Oh hello, Princess Luna. I hope I didn't disturb you or anything."
Princess Luna smiled warmly. "Not at all, Twilight. How about walking with me?"
Twilight barely nodded her head before falling in alongside the Princess. Luna watched her in silence wondering how to best breach the sensitive subject at hoof. Fortunately for her, Twilight spoke up.
"Princess, may I ask a question?"
"Yes?"
Twilight looked nervous for a moment before she continued. "I-is it true what ponies are saying about…my mother?"
The alicorn winced. In the two weeks after Celestia had retrieved Twilight, the two Royal Sisters had tried to keep the murder as quite as possible. Not hide it completely but to give the family time to grieve and some time to recover. None of the small family was anywhere near being over their grief, and the Sisters had tried to encourage Nightlight and Shining Armor to take more time off to spend with each other. It worked for a day or two, but it seemed to Luna that the entire family dealt with grief by busying themselves.
Nightlight poured even more time into his work as a Royal Astronomer while Shining Armor became about twice as vigilant in his duties as a guard captain and Luna herself had caught Twilight at least once in the library researching the multiple stages of grief. The Princess of the Night was tempted to add a footnote in the text of yet another stage, Exasperation.
Remembering Twilight's question, the blue mare nodded sadly. "Unfortunately, that's what everything points towards."
Despite her grave words, Luna congratulated herself on the inside for not mishandling the news as badly as the time she had informed Twilight's remaining family. Checking herself she continued. "And that is actually why I'm her Twilight. We have gotten a lead."
No sooner than those words left the princess' mouth, did the unicorn's head shot up. Luna was momentarily taken aback by the intensity of the gaze her sister's pupil gave her.
"Really?! What is it?" Twilight asked. Her body became taught as she waited. Luna waited for a second, fully aware of the mare's less than stellar mental history. There. As Luna watched, Twilight's left eye twitched rather noticeably.
Acting quickly to head of any shenanigans, Luna summoned a pail of water from the moat and promptly poured it over the unicorn.
"Gah! Cold! P-p-p-princess! W-what was that for?!"
"Your mental health of course."
"How does freezing cold water help my mental health?!" The soaking mare asked indignantly. Careful to avoid slipping on the now slick marble floor, she began magically pull the water from her fur.
The princess was completely unapologetic as she silently stifled her giggles and adopted an authoritative voice. "Thou were starting to show the initial stages of one of thy little mental breakdowns and now is not the time for such absurdities, Ms. Sparkle."
Twilight couldn't help but wince. Only her status as the Element of Harmony and several time savior of Equestria had kept her little "episodes" from become more than just one of Ponyville's many quirky stories.
Princess Luna pretended not to see this and continued on. "As I was saying, recently we received a lead from one of Shining Armor's investigative teams. A tall unicorn mare matching the description of the thief that attacked Blueblood paid for train tickets to Ponyville that very same day with coins stamped with Blueblood's house sigil on them."
Twilight suddenly understood. "She attacked Blueblood to get the funds to get out of the city!"
"She attacked more than just Blueblood." Luna intoned darkly. "The alleyway she attacked him in has a branch that leads directly to the fountain where your mother was found."
Twilight felt as if her heart had just fallen out of her chest. "This thief is the one responsible?"
At this the Moon Princess shook her head. "That unfortunately is unknown. Even newer evidence via residual magical resonance suggests that at the time there were three unicorns in that area. It seems our thief had some contemporaries. The truly odd thing is we have the magical signatures of those three unicorns, one of which is thy mother. There should be a fourth, the thief herself, but from what we can tell, the thief was magically inert."
"Wait, wait!" Twilight interrupted, rubbing a hoof against her head as she tried to process this latest information. "To be magically inert, this unicorn would have to have never used magic. Ever. Even as a foal, which almost every unicorn does to a degree."
"Indeed. Which is why we are concerned. This is no ordinary thief and the fact there are more of them worries us even more."
Twilight looked sheepish. "What now? Are you going to go after her?"
"Of course. We are here to ask thee if thou wishes to join us in bringing justice to these ponies. We-uh I mean I thought it might help provide some closure for you."
Twilight smiled, touched that the Princess had thought of her then she stopped. "What about Shining Armor, Cadance, and especially Princess Celestia? Won't they be….well angy at being left out of the loop?"
The Night Princess gave her a confident smile. "Well of course they would. However we shall simply be catching them to bring them back here."
"In that case, I'd be honored, Princess!" Twilight said with all the confidence she could muster.
Ten minutes into the flight towards Ponyville in Princess Luna's custom chariot, Twilight felt less confident and more air sick. The Princess of the Night's gothic looking chariot was far faster than anything she'd ever ridden in before and with night falling, Twilight couldn't even see the ground to help keep herself oriented.
After their conversation Princess Luna had gone on to inform her sister of their plans. Celestia had been surprised to say the least but allowed it only after extracting as many promises from Luna to keep herself and Twilight safe from harm.
After seeing how concerned her sister was, Luna had then called in a favor to get out of Night Court and to allow her sister some rest. Plus for Princess Cadance it was a chance to get some much needed experience.
Then they had departed towards Ponyville, first stop on the suspected train's route. It was then Twilight started having second thoughts. It hadn't taken much to start chipping away at her confidence. Just an idle thought on the likely fates of the ponies involved with this plot. Arrest and jail time were the punishments for thievery but what of murder? Twilight didn't know off the top of her head and she was hesitant to ask the Princess. In the end curiosity won out.
"Princess?" Twilight asked softly. The Night Princess didn't seem to hear at first as she stared ahead until Twilight made out a blue ear being rotated towards her in the failing light.
"Um what's the punishment for murder?"
A worried look crossed the royal's face. "I think currently it is either stone imprisonment or death."
"Stone imprisonment?" Twilight asked, suddenly worried about something a certain draconequus had said many years before upon breaking out of his stone prison.
"Yes," Luna replied "tis a sentence created by my sister in her hesitance to slay any creature and thus waste a life."
Twilight almost smiled before seeing the expression on Luna's face. "Her heart is in the right place, but ultimately in the worse cases, death would a mercy. Three centuries as living stone, forced to endure the elements and watch each day pass by slowly knowing that thou will never see thy friends and loved ones again."
Twilight suddenly started coughing violently, before finally spitting out the rathe large bug that had flown in her open mouth.
"That's horrible! Is that what we did to Discord and what we tried to do the Changeling Queen?!"
Luna nodded. "In Discord's case, he needs to be reigned in. However he has neither friends nor family and as an immortal, is better suited for such a passage of time. Despite our treaty with the Changelings, good job on that by the way."
Twilight blushed at the unexpected praise thankful the night hid it.
"As for the Changelings, we know so little about them, that just by simply imprisoning their queen in stone might have actually lead to their extinction." At the horrified look on the unicorn's face, Luna amended herself. "May. No guarantee though."
Twilight shook her head. "I don't know. Both the crime and the punishment seem equally harsh. Where are we going to stay for tonight anyway?"
Whoosh! A brilliant orange and red fireball plowed through the air, just barely missing the chariot. Twilight's head followed the ball of fire a second before turning her head to warn the Princess they were under attack. Before the words made it out of her mouth, the fireball in question turned around in mid-air and bolted towards them again. It was nearly upon them when Twilight realized what it was.
"P-Peewee?!" Sure enough, the young phoenix, now a large male flew alongside the chariot a short ways before alighting on the Princess's horn, much to her amusement.
Twilight was shocked. "Ah! No! Bad Peewee! The princess is not a perch!"
Luna laughed as the chariot coasted in to its destination. From their elevated position Twilight could see the light pouring out of the very familiar tree that housed the library she had spent some of the best years of her life in and in the open doorway, several familiar silluettes waved to them.
"Girls!" Twilight didn't even wait for the final touchdown before leaping off to greet her friends. Luna watched the exchange of hugs and laughter with smile. Had any pony been a little closer, they may have heard the Princess of the Night whisper, "Welcome home, Twilight."
A mountain range away and a good part of the country away, a different group of ponies were heading to bed, including two very chatty unicorns and one very exasperated earth pony.
"So you were mind-controlled by the Changeling Queen?" Mayberry asked, "What was that like?"
The other unicorn paused. "Well, it was kinda like everything the Queen said to us either in person or telepathically was the single greatest idea in the world and to make it work, you must do everything by the letter."
Mayberry paused. "Seems more… subversive than I thought. I always figured mind control would be brute force for some reason."
Lyra shook her head fervently. "Oh no! Mind magic only really works when the pony in question is completely clueless. The moment they suspect they are under control, then the spell starts to break down."
"So it's based on perception?"
"Yup! You certainly grasp the theories behind magic well enough if you have trouble learning it."
Mayberry wasn't sure how to take that. "Um, thanks? I guess."
By this time the trio had made it to their cabin and Bon Bon was ready to hit the sack.
Tapping her hoof against the floor for their attention, Bon Bon pulled a small piece of paper from her saddlebags. "Ok, you two. Your assignment tomorrow is to help harvest the north field. I'm on kitchen duty tomorrow so we all need to get some sleep."
The two unicorns nodded their assent and they all climbed into their different beds.
"Good night, Bon Bon. Sweet dreams Mayberry"
"Good night, Lyra. Sleep well, Mayberry."
….
"Mayberry?"
A loud snort and faint rustle of sheets revealed that the large unicorn had already heeded Bon Bon's words.
The other two ponies followed her into slumber land shortly afterwards.
The next morning, everypony woke up and set about their various tasks. Mayberry and her odd teacher began hitching Mayberry to the wagon while Bon Bon headed to the kitchen.
Meanwhile in Ponyville, Princess Luna practically had to peel Twilight Sparkle away from her friends to plan their day. Twilight's disappointment quickly dispersed as she was reminded what they were looking for. Thinking quickly, she turned one specific pony for help: Headbaker Pinkamina Diane Pie.
Sitting down with the pink earth pony at the table n the center of the library, Twilight outlined what she needed from the mare that knew everypony in town.
"Ok, here's the deal, Pinkamina. Princess Luna and I are looking for at least one new pony in town. A unicorn mare with a pale coat and a dark mane and no cutie mark."
Scratching her head with a hoof, the party pony finally replied. "That's a pretty tall order, Twilight. Do you know how many new ponies come to town everyday?"
Twilight nodded in resignation. That was one thing she had expected, but had hoped the baker could help her out somehow any way.
It still boggled Twilight's mind just how much the once hyperactive pink pony had mellowed over the years. She was by no means an old mare, but it seems with age came maturity that slowly brought the mare down to a less frenetic pace. Hay, she even wore her mane differently. Instead of a pink poof, it was a straight silky mane that Rarity absolutely adored working with.
"Howdy, Twilight! What brings you to these here parts?" A new voice interrupted them as an orange pony with a wearing a banded Stetson hat stepped into the library.
"Applejack! I'm so glad to see you!" Twilight cried happily as she galloped up to give her old friend a hug.
"Whoa, there partner! No need to run me over!" the farmer chided with a hint of humor in her voice.
"Sorry! As to why I'm here…let's just say I'm…. looking for somepony."
The cowpony heard the pause in her friend's voice as well as the slight change in tone. Something was up, but since it involved not only Twilight, but Princess Luna who she had seen lounging on the upper outside balcony like some giant cat, Applejack wasn't going to pry.
"So who you looking for? Spike? He's still in the Everfree with that green dragon feller. Been visiting him ever since they smoothed thing out awhile back."
All the ponies remembered that and had stood outside the cave, waiting with bated breath for the larger dragon's reaction to Spike's peace offering. Rainbow Dash had been waiting, crouched like polychromatic panther ready to spring into action to support her friend. It was the most she could do since flying him out of there since his natural growth spurt rendered him incapable of being carried.
Thankfully, the elder dragon had accepted his gift and begrudgingly accepted Spike as friends, spending some of his time teaching Spike about dragon lore.
"You know he'll be crushed to have missed you if he doesn't come back soon."
Twilight merely shook her head. "After we finish with what we are doing, I'm going to come back to spend time with you guys."
Applejack and Pinkamina gave her a smile and a hug each before Twilight continued.
"The pony we are looking for is, as I mentioned to Pinkamina, a pale colored unicorn mare with a dark mane and tail. Pretty tall in build and oddly enough, no cutie mark…..Applejack, is something wrong."
The earth pony's blush told them the truth even before Applejack ever spoke up. "Umm. Yeah. I met a pony that fit that description to the letter. No cutie mark, pale coat, and everything."
Twilight's eyes grew wide. "Really?! Where?" She urged, the volume of her voice drawing the Princess in from outside.
Applejack backed up a bit at the sudden switch in her friend's manner. "Appleloosa. Those brothers, Flim and Flam, were trying to get that monster of a machine of theirs off the train and I pretty much told her to help them out. I thought she would use her magic, but instead she simply pushed and pulled and basically looked as if she was trying to give herself a hernia."
"So this unicorn didn't use her magic?" asked Princess Luna.
AJ had never really felt at ease with royalty and answered as truthfully as possible. "No ma'am! I asked her afterwards and it turned out she didn't know any at all. Considering I asked her in front of the whole town, I felt pretty stupid."
Twilight merely blinked. "Really? How were you supposed to know that? A unicorn never having used magic is hardly the norm."
Applejack would have answered but Princess Luna interjected. "I'm sorry, but time is of the essence. Twilight and I must find this pony at once so we must leave as quickly as possible. With that she gestured for Twilight to follow her and galloped over to her chariot and hopped in.
Twilight followed her, but as soon as she was in the chariot the unicorn turned back towards her friends and shouted, "We'll be back soon and I'll tell you everything then!" as the craft accelerated and then took off.
Pinkamina and Applejack waved to her and just before the two were out of sight, Twilight witnessed Pinkamina's whole body quake like never before. Standing up woozily, the pink mare's mane and tail suddenly poofed outwards.
AN: That took way longer than I ever want to have between chapters again and you have my sincere apologies for that. Other than that, things are starting to snowball a bit more now.