//------------------------------// // BONUS - Helping...Wings? [Non-Canon] // Story: Helping...Hands? // by RainbowDoubleDash //------------------------------// Author's Note This is my entry into the Lunaverse's Alicorn writing contest. Unfortunately, due to it being a "what if" story that launches directly off from the middle of chapter 2 of "Helping...Hands?", the story failed to pass moderation to be published on its own. This is fair - it can't really stand on its own and so it shouldn't. So, instead, I'll be posting it here, as a bonus chapter of this story. It's, obviously, not canon. Enjoy! Hopefully. Chapter 2 is partially reprinted below, up until Lyra transforms. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Lyra fidgeted as Trixie used her telekinesis to apply the black paint to Lyra’s front and hind hooves. “It’s cold,” she noted, before a thought occurred to her. “And this washes off, right?” “Yes, yes,” Trixie said, waving a hoof as she worked the paint across Lyra’s face now. “I tested it on myself, though the ritual says that the paint will disappear anyway. Um…hold still, I have to get your horn, too…” Lyra kept her mouth tightly closed as Trixie applied the paint across her horn, coating it completely. She had to fight hard against the instinct to immediately use magic to clean it off as Trixie finished, stepping away from Lyra. The unicorn was now painted, hoof to head, shoulder to dock, in black paint, made from several natural ingredients that Trixie had prepared the previous day. Thanks to Trixie’s telekinesis, it had taken only a few minutes to apply it all. Only Lyra’s mane and tail were uncovered by the paint at this point. “It’s not a terrible look,” Trixie said with a wry grin, grabbing a mirror from her kitchen’s counter and showing Lyra herself. “Very…bold, anyway.” Lyra stared at Trixie. Hard. The clock on the wall read 11:57 “Okay, okay, time limit, I know,” Trixie said, levitating the spellbook over to her and looking it over. The spell they were casting was three pages long, most of it ingredients and how to prepare them, with the last being dedicated to the spell’s magic words. “Okay, most of this spell-thing is just in preparing everything. Paint, check, magic circle…” Trixie looked up from the book, glancing down at Lyra’s hooves. The mint-green unicorn was standing in a circle made from powdered coal, about five feet in diameter. Trixie examined it carefully, as did Lyra. “…no breaks, check. Candles…I think the candles are supposed to be a little closer to the circle.” Lyra eyed the tall candles, five of them arranged evenly around the circle, warily. “They’re close enough as-is to the coal, thanks,” she said. “if they’re too far and the spell fails, then the spell fails.” Trixie sighed. “Fine,” she conceded, looking the book over again. “Dust…” Trixie hefted a bag of dust with her telekinesis, levitating it over Lyra’s head. The musician let out an annoyed sigh as Trixie emptied it over her. “Sprinkle of pure water…” Trixie hefted a bowl, and used her telekinesis, again, to splash water across Lyra body, circling her as she did. “And last, the magic words…” “That’s a really weird concept, by the way,” Lyra said. “I mean, I know that sounds weird coming from me…but words can’t hold magic on their own. They’re mnemonics. When I do my spells through song I’m really just using them to help me focus, the words themselves don’t usually matter…” “Well, they matter to zebras,” Trixie said as she finished circling Lyra, looking her in the eye. “Okay, here goes…” Trixie closed her eyes, focusing, as Lyra readied herself as well. Both their horns glowed slightly. According to the spellbook, this was the most important part: it wasn’t enough to simply say the words, you had to believe in them. “Nini ana miguu nne asubuhi, “Miguu miwili katika mchana, “Na tatu miguu jioni, “Wewe!” Trixie’s eyes were closed, so she didn’t probably didn’t notice the lights in the house dimming – but Lyra did. Her eyes widened as she channeled more magic into her horn. There was definitely something arcane happeing here. As she focused, to her eyes, she could see the magic taking shape around her. Strangely, despite Trixie’s chanting in zebra, the magic didn’t seem to be coming from her at all – but rather, from the paint on her body, which was glowing blue now, and the circle of coal dust, glowing green, and the candles, each of which took on a red aura. The auras seemed to reach out and coild around each other and around Lyra. Lyra was more than enough of an adult to admit that she was wrong: apparently magic words did have power, and she had to admit that the zebra magic seemed to have power to spare. It was as though the spell, rather than taking or even touching Trixie’s own magic, was being pulled from the very air itself and shaped by the words Trixie was speaking. “Wewe ni binadamu, “Kutembea kwa miguu miwili! “Wewe ni binadamu, “Kushikilia kwa mikono miwili!” She remembered after a moment that she was supposed to be observing and learning. Focusing, she tried to identify what the magic was actually doing. Definitely transmutation, Lyra observed. Despite the alien source, zebra magic was certainly working along familiar lines as it moved across her body. But…with elements of conjuration? Is this spell from two schools? Is that – is that possible? Lyra had never heard of a spell somehow being part of two schools at the same time. As Lyra understood magic, it was fairly rigid: Everything could be grouped into the eight schools of magic. Then again, she knew that the schools of magic were, ultimately, created for conveniences sake, and had little to do with magic itself, instead having been named and organized by unicorn wizards long ago. It wasn’t impossible for there to be magic that Lyra didn’t recognize as being part of one of the eight schools, but it was certainly a jarring experience. “Wewe ni binadamu, “Ngozi yako ni wazi! “Wewe ni binadamu, “Msimamo wako ni mrefu!” Lyra wasn’t certain she could observe much more – magic positively flooded the air around her now, hurting her eyes and her horn to look at. She’d learned just about all she could, anyway, and so settled back, ‘turning off’ her horn, as it were, and waiting. The spell would take effect in just a few moments, and she’d get to see what it was like as a zebra. She didn’t imagine it would be too different… “Wewe ni binadamu! “Wewe ni binadamu! “Wewe ni binadamu!” Lyra convulsed at the last word. She had the very distinct sense that whatever was happening should have been immensely painful, but thankfully, it wasn’t – but that didn’t change the fact that all the magic in the room suddenly seemed to collapse into her, as though she had become a sinkhole for it – and began to shake her body around like it was a rag doll. That was when the first sickeningly wet crack split through the air. Lyra had just enough time to wonder if her neck had been snapped, when suddenly everything went black. --- Hearing was the first thing to return, as Lyra slowly opened her eyes, and found herself looking at Trixie. Her fellow unicorn was frowning, glancing over her book, then back to Lyra, her horn glowing. “That’s not right…” Trixie mumbled. Lyra blinked, as she slowly climbed onto her hooves. “What?” she asked, looking down. Her hooves were the same, her coat the same mint-green it was supposed to be – “Oh, right,” she said, touching a hoof to her snout, then feeling at her horn. She wasn’t supposed to be green, she was supposed to be a black-and-white striped zebra. “All that magic, and I’m still a unicorn?” Trixie glanced back to Lyra. “Not exactly,” she said, pointing behind Lyra. Lyra blinked a few times, suddenly freezing in place. What was she going to find when she looked back there? Was she going to find her hindquarters transformed? A fish tail? Tentacles? Was her cutie mark going to be missing? Would that means she had no special talent? Slowly, achingly, Lyra looked behind her… …and saw, in addition to her perfectly normal hindquarters and cutie mark, a brand new set of mint-green, feathery wings. Lyra frowned – and her wings moved of their own accord, drooping a little. This startled her – and her wings responded emotively like that of any pegasus, flaring up. The sudden movement startled her more, and her wings started beating of her own accord, taking her up, her wings apparently unaware of the fact that she was in a kitchen with a rather low ceiling. Smack. Thud. “Ow,” Lyra said, as she picked herself up off of the ground. Trixie observed her for a few moments, then looked back to her book. “See, this is why I hate casting from a book,” she said. “I don’t know, I said the magic words right, I’m pretty sure…all the ingredients are right…” She looked to Lyra. “By the way? Those things didn’t magically appear from nowhere, they grew out of you, and they didn’t have feathers at first. It was gross.” Lyra didn’t pay Trixie any mind as she extended and retracted her wings a few times, stretching them, examining the feathers and the way they moved and bended. It wasn’t everyday that somepony got a new set of appendages, after all. The sensation was…strange, especially given how easily it came to her…moving her wings was as simple as moving her legs or neck. “This is actually pretty cool,” she said, and she set her horn aglow as she cast one of the simplest cantrips, a spell that let a unicorn see magic. “Hang on, I wonder what their magic looks li – aaargh!” Lyra recoiled, wings beating, as her eyes were suddenly assaulted by bright, golden light, emanating not just from her wings, but her. She beat her wings in panic a few times, taking to the air, slamming into a wall, before finally thinking to dismiss her magic sight cantrip. Trixie was at Lyra’s side in an instant, leaning over her fallen friend. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?” she asked, putting a hoof on Lyra’s withers. “Yeah, I’m fine, just…ow! Don’t look at my aura right now, it’s…it’s bright. Ow.” Trixie frowned. “Hang on,” she said, stepping back from Lyra and setting her horn to glow. “I’m used to seeing really powerful auras, Princess Luna taught me how to basically put some magic sunglasses on…” Trixie’s eyes flashed blue, as she looked at Lyra for a moment. Her frown deepened. “That’s…odd.” “What?” “Well, first, those wings aren’t magical. They’re actually a part of you now. I…think they’re permanent. Well, Princess Luna might be able to get rid of them…or we could grab a saw and some laudanum. Otherwise they’re not coming off.” Lyra considered, looking to her wings, stretching and unstretching them a few times. She’d had them for five minutes and already they’d made her smack into a wall twice, but that was because she wasn’t used to them yet. All things considered, there were worse things to be trapped as than a winged unicorn – she could have been turned into some kind of naked bear or something. “Well, if they start to be a problem, we’ll go to Luna,” she said, standing up and stretching her wings. “But…I kinda’ like them.” She looked to Trixie. “Was there something else?” “Yeah. Um…have you always been this bright?” “What do you mean?” “Well, like I said, the wings are actually a part of you…which means that they shouldn’t be giving off any real magical aura in and of themselves. So what I’m looking at is you right now…your basic magical potential. It's huge.” Lyra considered the vast, golden light that had nearly blinded her when she’d looked at herself. “That’s…no, that’s not normal,” she said. “I think my teachers at the Academy said that I had a little more magic than was typical, but not much…” Trixie frowned, and opened her mouth to say something, when there was a midnight-blue flash in the room. Both mares yelped in terror – Lyra’s wings again beating of their own accord – when suddenly the two found themselves no longer in Trixie’s home. Instead, they were floating in the vast reaches of the cosmos…there were stars everywhere, of every brightness and hue. Above them floated the crystalline surface of the moon, bright and full, but otherwise, there was nothing but them and the endless expanse of space. “I’m going to admit, Trixie,” a familiar voice said, emanating from the moon, “that this has come far sooner than I thought it would…but that does not make it any less of a momentous occasion.” “Princess Luna?” Trixie and Lyra both asked at the same time. The two unicorns got the distinct sense that the moon frowned. “Miss Heartstrings?” Luna asked. Lyra looked to the moon – she supposed that this was where the voice was coming from, and so was probably the right thing to look at. She bowed as best she could, floating in zero gravity as she was. “Um…yes?” she asked. “Princess, what’s going on?” Trixie asked. The sense that the moon was frowning deepened. It flashed, and Luna herself was suddenly before them, standing tall and regal despite the lack of gravity, as she looked first at Trixie, then Lyra. She seemed confused. “Miss Heartstrings…why are you an alicorn?” Lyra blinked at the question. “I’m…uh…not?” “Your wings would seem to suggest otherwise.” Trixie raised a hoof. “That’d be me,” she said. “That zebra spellbook you sent to me…I think a spell or two in it is mislabeled. It gave Lyra wings. I think they’re permanent, but Lyra seems to like them…” Luna considered Trixie for a moment, then looked back to Lyra, her frown and look of confusion ever growing. “No,” she said at length. “Though I can see the confusion, Trixie, but no, that’s not what happened…” Luna sat down, heedless of zero gravity. Trixie and Lyra decided to do likewise as Luna looked between the two of them. “Alright, Trixie,” Luna said, “I’m afraid I have a confession to make…I did not merely take you on as my apprentice all those years ago simply because I saw potential in your special talent to do good for Equestria – although that was a large part of my motivation, and I want to make it clear that nothing has changed between us. But, in addition to my hope that you might become a force for good in Equestria, I also saw a…a spark, inside of you.” “A spark?” Trixie asked. “More like a seed, actually,” Luna said, “a seed that, if properly nurtured and tended to, would one day blossom. Within you, I saw a nascent godling – the possibility that you could become an alicorn, like myself.” Trixie blinked. “What?” she asked, then looked to Lyra. Her eyes widened. “What? Oh...oh no, I think I see where this is going…” Luna grimaced, looking to Lyra. “I don’t know how…” she said, “but I think that…somehow, the zebra magic ritual moved that seed from Trixie, into you, Miss Heartstrings. And then it somehow sprouted, and…well, now you are an alicorn.” “Give it back!” Trixie exclaimed, standing in the zero gravity. “I wanna be an alicorn!” Lyra blinked, looking to Trixie, then to herself. “Um, okay…” she said, standing. “I…don’t really want to be an alicorn, your Majesty. Besides, this was Trixie’s destiny…” Luna tapped her front hooves together. “See, the thing is,” she said, looking embarrassed, “I wasn’t even aware that the seed could be moved…and, now that it has, and now that you are an alicorn, Miss Heartstrings…I doubt very much that it could be moved again.” Trixie glared at Lyra, while Lyra looked to Trixie, and shrugged helplessly. “I didn’t know!” she exclaimed to Trixie. “I’m sorry…” Trixie held her glare for a moment more, before wilting. “I…okay,” she moaned. “Fine…you didn’t know…Princess, I guess you didn’t know…it’s just…just…I didn’t even know about this plan of yours – ” “I felt a long-term effort at molding you into a better pony was a wiser course of action than simply letting you know from the beginning,” Luna said, almost apologetically. Trixie threw her head back as she wailed. “I wanted to be a god!” Trixie stomped in place and turned in circles, muttering and ranting to herself, as Luna stood and trotted over to Lyra, heedless of the lack of a ground to trot on. “Give her time,” the Princess said. “I am certain that she will come to accept this.” “Her?” Lyra asked. “What about me? I don’t want to be an alicorn! I don’t want to have to move the moon and the stars around!” “Well, they’re mine, so you won’t have to,” Luna said. There was a slight pause as she reached out a hoof, poking Lyra as her face took on an almost petulant, childish look. “Seriously, though. Mine. I’ll let you move the sun on occasion, though, if you want, but the moon and stars are mine.” Lyra blinked. In an instant, Luna’s serene, regal look was back. “I tend to the heavens in any event,” Luna said. “I’m not certain what your responsibility will be, though I suspect strongly that it will relate to your special talent.” “But I don’t want responsibility! That’s why I’m a musician!” Luna frowned. “That’s not stereotypical at all…” she muttered. “Miss Heartstrings, I understand that this is a very big, unexpected change. I don’t expect you to give up everything immediately…in fact, I think that these things will simply happen naturally. That’s what happened with Princess Cadenza in Cavallia.” She bowed her head. “Simply live your life as you might otherwise. Nothing has changed yet.” “Except that I can banish people to the stars if they annoy me…” “Mmn, don’t do that, it’s taken me forty millennia to get the night sky just so.” Luna inclined her head. “If you need to talk with me about anything, simply look to the sky and speak. I’ll hear, and I’ll be around to run damage control if you do anything that you shouldn’t like release the Smooze or Tirek or Lavan or Grogar or Arabus.” “What about Catrina?” “What about Catrina?” --- Luna returned Trixie and Lyra to the earth, specifically, just outside of Trixie’s home. Trixie eyed Lyra for some time after she did. “Your horn is still short,” she insisted. Lyra looked up at her horn. It wasn’t short, she refused to believe it was short…but Trixie was in a mood right now, and Lyra supposed she could understand it. It couldn’t have been easy to deal with, learning in less than a minute that you were going to be a god, but then accidentally transferred that potential to one of your best friends. “Yeah, there’s that,” Lyra conceded. “I’m sorry, Trixie.” Trixie sighed. “It’s alright,” she admitted after several long moments. “I’m…happy for you, I guess. And also insanely jealous. Insanely, insanely...insanely jealous. But…I guess I can’t miss what I never knew I had. Maybe.” Lyra nodded. After a moment, she leaned in, giving Trixie a friendly nuzzle. “Still friends?” she asked. “Yeah…” Trixie confirmed, returning the nuzzle. “Still friends.” --- Several months later… Lyra dodged yet another blast of the Alicorn Reclamation Crystal that Trixie had constructed and enchanted over the past several months. “This is not how friends treat other friends, Trixie!” she cried out. “It is when friends steal stuff from their friends!” Trixie cried out, as she chased after Lyra on her magic carpet. “I want to be an alicorn…!”