Vinyl stood excitedly over the turntables, she had moved up to the balcony of the main hall, letting Octavia take the soundproof concert hall for her silly orchestra. It was beautiful music in its own right, sure, or else she may have bullied her out of it, but the world really did need the miracle of her dubstep.
Unfortunately for her, however, the balcony was inconveniently situated. It may have been the center of the hall at some point in time, but since then some expansion or other had been made, placing it closer to the western end of the hall. That didn’t stop her of course, quite the contrary; the spectacular view of the gardens from this vantage was giving her a flood of inspiration. She was typing in the keystrokes for some of the synthetic instruments she hadn’t touched in absolute ages.
She smiled at the quizzical looks she was getting from below, it was completely understandable of course, from that point it must have seemed like a ghostly orchestra had entered the hall with all the whistles bells and trumpets. It took a great deal of guessing to discover the mare, who looked more suited to entirely electronic sounds, was the one conducting the virtual symphony.
That Shadow guy may have been onto something when he said her synth was better than her dubstep. It was certainly attracting a great deal more positive attention. She liked the feeling, it was the same positive undertone and sweep of pride she felt at her usual concerts, but today it was spiced with a whole new wave of ideas and emotions. On something of a reminiscent whim she pulled up an old file she had very nearly forgotten about. Her first file, the music she had played to earn the double eighth note that was so very proudly emblazoned on her flanks.
There was a moment’s hesitation before she actually went about loading the sound. It almost didn’t seem right to be playing this piece now in front of all those ponies. She felt trapped under a brilliant luminescent spotlight that could somehow put her soul on display for all to see.
And suddenly it was playing. She gasped, unsure if she had actually pressed the start button, but her hoof was squarely on the spacebar. The sound rose up and over the hall to hang like a cloud of melody, ready to burst, the sound falling down onto the crowd like a lovely springtime shower. It was heaven, and she realized that not only was this her starting point, it was the final piece that fused all her music together. Her only regret was that her words and singing would never extend past this little booth.
Vinyl turned the music down and looked out the arching window once again. A blue glow had coalesced over the garden now, which her eyes read as the sun slowly moving to the afternoon position. It was such a fantastic sight, just like it had been when she played for the royal wedding. Thinking back, she really owed Pinkie Pie for that little gig. It had been her big break, and now she was the hottest thing in Canterlot, if she were honest with herself, this castle performance seemed like more of a sentimental game than a real gig. Its pay had been very low considering her demand…
There was a sudden crash, stirring Vinyl from her reverie to look at the window. Blue water had inexplicably started to pour through a large crack in the glass. She looked up to see a fantastic arch of water connecting the window to some far distant portion of the gardens. Canterlot was just as full of surprises as usual…
She grunted slightly as her hoof touched the water and instantly became sore. Whatever magic was in that water it was painful. The exit to the balcony was already supporting a makeshift waterfall of the stuff, but the only other way down without touching the poison would be to jump, and that was of course insanity.
There was another tug as her hoof touched the water again. Sure it wasn’t comfortable to touch, but what could a little water really do to her? She started walking back downstairs, ignoring the growing pain and steadily intensifying sense of vertigo. The ground seemed to shoot downward far more than it should have ever time she took a step. What the heck was this stuff? It made it seem like the floor was leaping up at her…
Vinyl tumbled down the last few stairs and collapsed, groaning as she felt her forehead touch the ground. The carpet seemed so close even at the height of her fall. She needed help, and tried to call out, but the only sound that emerged was a sort of most unlike her squeak. As a matter of fact she hadn’t made that noise since…
Completely unaware of the poor DJ lying unconscious on the stairway in the main hall, Twilight desperately read the seventh book she had managed to dig up on aging spells. It would’ve been grossly uninformative anyway, even if she wasn’t continually distracted by the two fillyfied princesses running amok around the throne room. The day was starting to wane and she still had no idea how to reverse this spell. If it had just been normal ponies she could’ve done the age spell without overmuch trouble, but this was a most unusual magic working on the princesses, and magic was difficult to perform on an alicorn anyway.
Twilight sighed; at the very least she could’ve returned Lightning and Shadow to their younger forms. Celestia and Luna seemed to have no memory of the days before their foal hood. Based on this there was a very good chance that the two in the same situation running the entire operation might be having memories from some point in the future. That could be devastating, but right now she needed the monitors right where they were.
“Miss Twilight,” came Luna’s voice, a bit more respectful since her earlier outburst “I have to…”
“You know where the chamber pots are,” said Twilight patiently “when you have to relieve yourself you do not have to ask for permission.”
“Thank you Miss Twilight,” said Luna, bowing and scurrying off again. Twilight smiled, Luna really was sweet when she managed to behave herself. Celestia wasn’t a terror anymore either, though she was rather reclusive after her fierce scolding. She had been brushing her mane in silence for almost an hour now, totally silent as she fumbled with the comb, not used to her lack of magic. Twilight had offered to help a few times, but had been rebuffed.
“I can do it myself,” Celestia had said angrily “I’m not a baby Twilight!”
No, that was true, but she did look like she would need help if this disastrous mane incident continued. Twilight’s mind snapped back to the two foals in adult pony bodies. If she knew memory spells, which she felt she knew very well, they would be having future memories bubbling through by now. That spell needed to be reversed, and soon or there might be unexpected consequences…
There was a knock on the door and Twilight quickly cracked it open, surprised to come face to face with an all too familiar brown unicorn. “Discord!” she exclaimed, trying not to sound offensive “What are you doing here…?”
“I’ve finished my tasks for today,” said Discord in a tone Twilight couldn’t read into at all “and I’d like to report a slight problem…”
Discord was actually reporting a problem? The prospect of something that bad made Twilight’s stomach turn into uncomfortable knots. “What is it?” she asked, her air of professionalism cracking slightly under the pressure.
“It’s the prince,” said Discord uneasily, “he and his friend went into the gardens just after noon and haven’t returned. I believe it may be necessary to send a search party. I am… quite worried about them…” He seemed reluctant to say this last bit, obviously embarrassed.
Twilight smiled “It’s not shameful to have friends, Discord,” she said happily “You have my permission to do whatever you deem necessary in order to find them. I can tell that you’re very worried.”
“Thank you!” said Discord, in a tone of barely contained relief “I hope nothing’s happened to them… I should leave now.”
“One moment!” said Twilight as Discord turned to leave “The aging spell may be affecting their memory in an incredibly derogatory fashion, and I have to reverse it as soon as possible.
“You want me to bring them to you,” Discord finished for her “I suspect I would’ve anyway, I would hate for anything bad to come of this situation, certainly not anything worse than it may already have become.”
“Thank you Discord,” said Twilight, amazed at her own ability to say these words.
“It’s no trouble of course,” said Discord, waving to Luna who had just returned to view “especially considering the predicament you’ve been in yourself all day. Hello little princess.”
“Hi mister old pony!” said Luna, waving back.
Discord’s eye twitched slightly, he was clearly irked by this comment but trying hard not to show that it bothered him “I really should get going now Twilight,” said Discord respectfully “good luck, and good night.”
“And to you as well,” said Twilight pleasantly, shutting the door as the lord of chaos walked away. It was a good feeling to have real faith that Discord was truly reformed at long last. She had never actually trusted him until now, keeping Celestia’s warning to keep the elements on hoof.
The elements brought up another thought. As the element of magic she was the key that truly held the elements together. Now she was a princess, would she effectively be able to fulfill that role? She would have to talk to the princesses about finding the new elements of harmony as soon as they had their memory back.
“Is the Prince’s memory gonna go boom?” asked Luna innocently, clearly having attained a limited knowledge of what was going on.
Twilight couldn’t help but giggle, Luna really was irresistible as an adorable little filly. “No sweetheart,” she said, resisting the urge to pick her up for a cuddle “The prince’s memory will not go boom…” her tone shifted sharply as she suddenly realized the solution for their problem had been drifting through the conversation this whole time.
“Luna sweetie,” said Twilight, horn beginning to glow a strong purple “can you please sit still for me? This won’t hurt a bit.”
Perhaps if Discord had been paying more attention to his surroundings as he started to patrol the halls, he would’ve seen the white unicorn wake up from her blackout and stumble toward the door. He was otherwise engaged, however, shedding his pony form and beginning to snake his way about the castle. The prince had to be found, it was an absolute necessity.
As he started down another hallway, rolling an eyeball to the end of it just to make sure no one was watching. His tail reached inconspicuously around the corner to scratch a small, complex rune in the corner. Yes…the prince absolutely had to be found…he was so vastly critical to the operation.
“Yes,” said Discord, retrieving his eyeball “but this is only the first of many…” his tail waved over the rune, causing it to vanish instantly.
The sun was fast approaching the furthest edge of the horizon as Discord walked outside. Seemingly on cue, a hooded pony figure slunk out of the Shadows. He had no obvious features, but based on his height it could be assumed he was a stallion.
“Status, Discord?”
“You may tell the queen that operation Everfree is ready to enter stage two,” Discord said smugly “everything has been taken care of. I will begin tomorrow on schedule.”
“I will alert the queen on my own time, for now it would be wiser to confirm the success of stage one. You have, in the past, proven to be overly confident and easily defeated when the conditions slide out of your favor.”
Discord’s horse-like muzzle took on the shape of a scowl. “Oh please,” he said “I’ve only ever lost once. Believe me, as the first to ever be working an inside job within Canterlot, I cannot fail.”
“It’s exactly that attitude that jeopardizes everything we work so hard to put in motion. You’ve only served to increase my doubt of your abilities. The queen will be alerted after stage one is complete.”
“Oh I will show you…” said Discord angrily “you’ll regret assigning me to stage one. I’ll do this job perfectly.”
“That is my assumption. You would be advised to not let me down. Now get back to work.”
The hooded form was suddenly gone. Discord was used to his mode of transport by now. The pony did not teleport like a normal pony would. When he was done with somewhere he simply wouldn’t be there anymore, and begin again in the next place.
If the princess knew who was on her castle grounds at such a time, or even at all for that matter, she would have been mortified. Even the alicorns knew terror at his name…
The slowly setting sun descended at the perfect angle to fall directly into the fatigued eyes of the small gray colt, asleep on the castle grounds. He wasn’t sure where he was, nor did he know how he might’ve gotten to this spot, or why he was soaked to the bone when there was apparently no water nearby. This poor colt was so completely disoriented by recent events he wasn’t even sure what the light now shining in his eyes was.
As he opened his eyes, he found he could see almost nothing. The light of the orb he now remembered to be the sun, was glaring in exactly the wrong spot. He snapped his eyes closed again, blocking the painful beams. He took a moment to find his strength, then stood shakily on his four hooves, wings flaring out instinctively to help him hold his balance.
“I think it’s about time to figure out where I am…” he thought in a haze “Grass…what does grass mean? It means I’m in a field. Water, I’m covered in water, was I swimming? Drowning maybe? But how could there be enough water for me to drown in an open field?”
Fur suddenly connected with his back legs, and his eyes snapped open, completely forgetting the piercing sunlight. The image of the red pelt was enough to send his memory flooding back. They had drowned! But if that was true, where were they now…? This wasn’t the eternal herd was it?
“Lightning!” he shouted in a high pitched, childish voice “Lightning! Come on! Wake up! Something’s happened!”
Shadow suddenly found himself being blown over with the force of a small train. Lightning had tackled him in less than an instant. She stood triumphantly, pinning him to the ground with a look of smug assurance.
“You should see your face!” she snickered “You sure didn’t see that coming did you? Can you believe it Shadow? We’re foals again! The spell must have been reversed by the magic water! We’re back to normal!”
Lightning’s inane babbling; now there was a familiar sound to shake off the last traces of remaining disconcertion. He tried to shrug her off but her hooves were pressing his wings painfully into the ground.
“Hey Light…” he said, cutting into her monologue “could you let me up? This actually really hurts…”
“Oh yeah…sorry…” said Lightning, stepping off of him “You don’t think we missed the party do you? That would be awful if we did…”
“The sun is setting…” said Shadow “See? It’s in the west. That means it’s probably still the same day we were checking the party stuff. Do you think all those chores will have taken care of themselves?”
“I’m worried about Discord…” said Lightning “most of my stuff was alright on its own, but Discord could get out of control.”
Shadow nodded, looking to his left to see the labyrinth at least a full hoofball field’s length away. “How did we get all the way over here?” he asked curiously.
“I was thinking about that too…” said Lightning “I think that as we got smaller in the water we were finally able to get out the hole you made in the dome. The water had to have been spouting out really fast, I mean look! It broke a window!”
Shadow looked at where Lightning was pointing to see one of the high windows had a large cracked hole in it. He doubted that water could make that ridiculous of a journey with that much force, but they had to have been expelled somehow. There was visible liquid glinting on the glass too, could it really…?
“I know,” said Lightning with a giggle “that was pretty much the awesomest thing ever!”
“Awesomest isn’t a word…” said Shadow “I think a better word would be…” he trailed off “never mind let’s just pretend it is a word.”
They both fell over giggling for a minute, but recovered quickly as Lightning suddenly gasped “Look!” she exclaimed “look, up there on the tower! The moon’s starting to rise!”
A small purple figure was indeed floating above the celestial platform, barely visible from so far below. As the shape ascended steadily into the air they recognized the rising moon on the distant horizon. It wasn’t quite as magical as when they had seen the spectacle up close, but moonrise was still marvelous.
Lightning suddenly wrapped her hooves around Shadow’s neck, looking him in the eye “Brother and sister, you and me, from now on.”
“Brother and sister,” said Shadow, returning the hug, “forever and ever!”
Lightning smiled, “Thanks BBBFF…”
“Oh come on,” said Shadow, blushing “I’m only a few months older than you...”
“I like big brothers,” said Lightning, giggling even more “and trust me; I’ve had a lot of experience with them.”
“Well lucky you,” said Shadow, rolling his eyes exaggeratedly “but seriously, we need to get back to the castle. Do you have any idea how worried mom must be?”
“Mom is our age…” said Lightning.
“Oh yeah…” said Shadow, ears drooping “that sucks…” he paused “Did you just call her mom too?”
“Well you are my brother now you know,” said Lightning “you have to share.”
Shadow shrugged, not really knowing how to respond to that, he instead turned his attention back to the castle. “We really should get going,’ he said “Twilight will probably kill us for being late or not finishing the checklist… or breaking the window…”
“Maybe we should just stay here…” said Lightning.
“Nah,” said Shadow “I’m so hungry I could eat a whole apple tree.”
“Oh yeah?” said Lightning “Well I’m so hungry I could eat the castle! If it were made out of gingerbread anyway…”
“That would be awesome…” said Shadow whimsically “a real life-sized house made out of gingerbread…”
“Stop it…” Lightning whined “You’re only making me hungrier…” Almost on cue her stomach released a growl. Shadow laughed until his did the same, causing them both to fall into conniptions yet again.
“Hey!” came a sudden high pitched voice “What the hay do you think you’re doing?”
Shadow looked up and squinted into the gathering darkness from where the voice had come from. He could make out the figure of a unicorn running toward them. A wild mane came into focus as the figure drew closer.
“Is that…Vinyl?” asked Lightning.
“I don’t know,” said Shadow, trying to get a better look “She still looks pretty far…” he was cut off as a bolt of white suddenly barreled into him, followed by a barrage of stamping hooves.
“What the hay!” Lightning exclaimed, trying to extricate the newcomer “What do you think you’re doing?”
It was obvious what Vinyl was doing, for indeed it was Vinyl. She was trying to beat Shadow into a pulp. “You did this to me!” she shouted in a high voice that cracked with every other word “You did this to me! I know you did this to me! The same thing happened to you! I’m going to…”
Lightning finally managed to dragon Vinyl off of Shadow, who honestly looked more shocked than injured or afraid, and for very good reason. The Vinyl Scratch who was being held at a distance was very different from the one they had met earlier. She was their height now; her mane looked more like a frizz than an intentional mess. The shades she had been wearing were gone, revealing the soft pink eyes underneath.
“Let go of me!” Vinyl Shouted “I’m going to beat him black and blue! How am I supposed to do magic like this? My career is over you evil jerk!”
Vinyl suddenly went limp in Lightning’s arms, anger transforming into wracking sobs. “Why?” she wailed pitifully “Why did this have to happen to me…?”
“Shh…Vinyl…” said Lightning, trying to sound soothing “It’s going to be okay. Can you tell us what happened?”
Vinyl wriggled out of Lightning’s grip and glared at Shadow. “I was just minding my own business, making some awesome music on the balcony, and then I hear the window behind me shatter! All this water started pouring in from the hole; I don’t even know where it came from!”
Lightning and Shadow simultaneously looked back over to the broken window; they could guess the rest before Vinyl elaborated. “I tried ignoring it for awhile,” she said “but then it started getting on my hooves and it felt all tingly. I started running down the stairs for help, but then I got vertigo and I fell down the stairs and blacked out.”
“Are you okay?” Shadow asked reflexively.
“Fine,” Vinyl grumbled “I woke up like an hour later with this splitting headache. I came out to find where the crazy magic water was coming from, and I realized I was like this! My magic’s shot and I’m too short to even get up to a turntable!”
“Well at least you’re cuter…” said Shadow, completely platonically.
“I am not cute!” Vinyl nothing short of screamed at him “I want you to change me back right now!”
“Calm down!” Shadow exclaimed, raising a hoof in case she tried to attack him again “It’s not like we did this on purpose. We should go talk to Twilight; she would know how to reverse the spell or whatever it is.”
“You think she’ll do it?” asked Lightning worriedly “we’re going to be in really big trouble with her already…”
“What do you mean you’re going to be in trouble with her?” asked Vinyl hysterically “I’m not going to go down because you’re pissing off the princess!”
“Vinyl!” Lightning exclaimed “Language!”
“Sorry!” Vinyl drawled “As if I care, look what you’ve gotten me into! If you can’t reverse this, I’ll…I’ll…” she trailed off, voice breaking “I don’t know what I’ll do…”
“Don’t worry,” said Shadow reassuringly “We’ll get this figured out. You’ll be rocking out tomorrow at the party, I promise!”
Vinyl turned, eyes glinting with the tears she refused to shed. “You…you better!” she exclaimed, giving him one more kick for good measure.
Shadow winced, but managed to force a smirk “I never break a promise…” he said.
“Would you slowpokes come on?” Lightning said exasperatedly “We’ll never know unless we hurry up and find Twilight. If they don’t have a search party out for us already…”
So they returned to the castle, lucky that they were on the right side of the moat or else it was probable they wouldn’t have made it at all. They saw no sign of the search party, or really any pony at all. The outlines of the whimsical decorations were just barely visible in the dim light as they walked past, not a single detail being divulged in the darkness.
They did end up getting lost in a variety of situations. Shadow, at least, was staggered by the sheer number of guest rooms. At Vinyl’s suggestion they had begun to throw open random doors in their effort to find the throne room, but all this had achieved was the discovery of many of the ponies staying the night for the next day’s excitement.
“I told you that was a bad idea,” said Shadow as Vinyl slammed yet another door and another utterly bewildered pony “I’m telling you, it’s a big red door with little golden orbs in it.”
“And I’m telling you I don’t know what that would look like,” said Vinyl, her exaggerated eye roll further emphasizing the absence of her shades “So I’m just going to try all of them.”
“The last door you tried was blue…” said Shadow “how could that possibly be the red door?”
“As if I listened to your description,” said Vinyl infuriatingly “anyway, you sent thunder ahead to go look for it; we’re pretty much just killing time right now aren’t we?”
“No…” said Shadow, getting very annoyed by now “Lightning is ahead of us because she walks faster, we are still trying to find the…”
“Found it!” came Lightning’s voice from far ahead in the hall “we must have walked past it in the dark like five times! Would you two quit flirting back there and hurry up?”
Vinyl blushed wildly at this, to which Shadow very nearly lost his cool. This was the second girl to display the obvious signs of a crush on him today. The cootie content must have been enormous! He took wing quick as a wink and flew ahead of Vinyl to catch up with Lightning.
“Gosh you left her in the dust,” said Lightning, looking past Shadow as he approached “what did she do, bite you?”
“Let’s not talk about it…” grumbled Shadow “Did you knock or anything?”
“Well I was kind of waiting for you two to catch up…” said Lightning, clearly hesitant to place her hoof on the gigantic door.
Vinyl finally managed to catch up to them, panting hard. “How…do you guys…run so…fast?” she said between shaky gasps.
“He doesn’t,” said Lightning, pointing to Shadow “The only way he’s ever able to keep up with me is by flying.”
“Which I am not half bad at,” Shadow punctuated his self-assuring sentence by spreading his wings to their fullest extent “I’ve been told I have the wings of a pony twice my size! I’m going to be able to fly faster than you could ever hope to run!”
Lightning stamped her hoof on the ground “We are not going to have this argument again…” she said, clearly annoyed “we’ve established this so many times already. You can fly; I can run and kick things. I’m just a little bit better than you at what I do.”
“Shouldn’t we maybe go in…?” asked Vinyl, hoping to quell the argument. Quite the contrary however, Lightning turned on her next.
“And you have your magic right?” she said “Everyone is equal! No need to talk bad about any pony for any reason!”
Vinyl really didn’t feel the need to mention her magical ineptitude since her reverse aging, and fortunately the need didn’t arise. At that moment the giant red door was flung wide and Twilight walked out. “My goodness!” she said “what are you three making such a ruckus for…? Shadow? Lightning? Discord just went looking for you…”
“These two idiots were passed out in the courtyard,” said Vinyl, clearly demonstrating a disregard for authority “I’m not surprised you sent some pony after them. Now can we please deal with the problem at hoof?”
“Yes, yes,” said Twilight “Come on in, who’s your new friend Shadow?”
“Oh, funny story,” said Shadow, rubbing the back of his neck “we got into kind of a mishap in the garden…this is actually Vinyl Scratch…”
Twilight tilted her head as they entered the room, wondering if she should know this name or not when she gasped “You two are back to normal!” she exclaimed “how did you reverse the spell?” The fact of course, hadn’t immediately registered because of how little time she had seen them as adults, and probably how little she had talked to them at all.
“Hold up…” said Vinyl slowly “Back to normal? What is that supposed to mean?”
“Oh yeah…” said Lightning “Vinyl doesn’t know does she…?”
“What don’t I know?” Vinyl asked indignantly “You dragged me into this mess, you have to tell me everything!”
“We’re actually supposed to be this age,” said Shadow bluntly “it’s not the first age spell we’ve gotten into…today…”
Vinyl looked like she was on the verge of fainting. “No way…” she said slowly “and I was planning on sleeping with him… maybe both of you…”
Twilight began to splutter, while a totally oblivious Lightning merely gave her a curious look “Well Shadow’s got a really big bed in his room I’m guessing, you still could if you really wanted to…”
Shadow, noticing Twilight’s violent reaction, queried further “Is there something wrong with that or something?”
“Well it’s not just…” Vinyl began, but paused “There’s… something else… I think…?”
Lightning and Shadow both gave her a look that plainly read “What are you? Crazy?” while Vinyl shook her head, trying hard to remember.
“She’s not supposed to be your age is she?” asked Twilight, regaining her composure “Whatever you two did to reverse the spell, she got caught up in it too didn’t she?”
Shadow and Lightning looked at each other guiltily “You can change me back though right princess?” Vinyl asked desperately “Come on please? You’ll get tickets to all my concerts ever, free of charge!”
Twilight’s horn glowed dimly, seeming to in a way taste the air around her, probing the magical charge. “This is an interesting signature…” she said musingly “it’s similar to the first age spell, old arcane magic. But somehow it’s even more complex than the one from before…”
“You can still fix it can’t you?” asked Vinyl “Please tell me you can fix it!”
Twilight shook her head slowly “I’m sorry,” she said “I couldn’t even reverse the first spell. My specialty is modern magic, I’m not sure any mage still alive could reverse this spell…”
Vinyl looked crushed, beyond crushed even. Her face paled beyond its usual white and her legs gave way. “No…” she said slowly, tears finally releasing and dripping off her face “this can’t be happening!”
“No!” Shadow shouted, holding back the squeak in his voice “I promised Vinyl she would be able to play her music tomorrow and she will!”
“Shadow, I’m sorry,” said Twilight “but there’s really nothing I can do right now. Once the princesses have fully recovered they may be able to help, but until then…”
Shadow moved to try and comfort Vinyl, who had lost all control and now burst into tears. Twilight turned her attention to Lightning again, a curious glint in her eye “Could you tell me where you got that necklace?” she asked.
“Oh!” said Lightning, having almost forgotten about the little blue gem “I don’t really remember, I just kind of picked it up the other day. Why? Is it important?”
“I just noticed it’s charged with a huge amount of magical energy,” said Twilight, bending down for a closer look “I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s like some sort of self replenishing manna battery…”
“Is it dangerous…?” asked Lightning, looking down at the gem hesitantly.
“I don’t believe so,” said Twilight, horn glowing lightly again “it seems to give a steady flow of magical power to the user. It may be slightly redundant given the fact that you’re an earth pony, but I don’t have any reason to believe it will hurt you.”
Shadow’s ears suddenly perked up. He stood up and looked quickly toward Lightning “Give me the necklace,” he said “Now!”
“Shadow,” said Lightning, “did you not just hear Twilight? This won’t hurt me!”
“Just give me the necklace!” Shadow exclaimed.
A little intimidated by the intensity of his demand, Lightning quickly brought the necklace up over her head. The moment it had cleared her mane her eyes flashed from blue to green. Shadow was a little surprised by this, but he was on a hot streak and was willing to ignore it. He snatched the necklace quickly from lightning and walked back over to Vinyl.
“Hey Vinyl,” he said “Can you lift your head up for me?”
She didn’t really comprehend what he was saying through her haze of tears, but she did raise her head up to look at him. Thinking she had heard him he quickly slipped the necklace over her head. He watched curiously as Vinyl’s eyes shifted from pink to blue.
“What did you…?” Vinyl started to ask.
“No questions!” said Shadow “Try to lift something with magic, no questions!” he repeated as it looked like Vinyl was ready to interject again.
Vinyl stood, a bit unsure as to why Shadow was so determined in this. She had, unfortunately, been too busy wallowing in self-pity to hear Twilight’s talk. She focused, the familiar magical sensation seeping into her horn and causing it to glow a pleasing blue. It was familiar, but she knew it was still futile; her magic was that of a young filly again. As she focuses randomly on a book laying open a few feet away she didn’t have any real hope of moving it.
Shadow almost laughed at Vinyl’s gasp. A book that had been left on the floor (probably by Twilight) was floating in the air, surrounded by an ice blue aura. Lightning too let out a little gasp, knowing that even older unicorns like Sweetie Belle were only just learning their magic. That gem was powerful, powerful enough to enhance a young unicorn’s magic by several years.
Vinyl let out an excited squee, proceeding to send a few more random objects floating around. She finally caught Shadow in a telekinetic grip and dragged him into a hug. “Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!” she squeaked, barely containing a bubbly giggle “I can spin my records again! You’re even better than the princess! Thank you so much!”
Twilight tried not to be overly offended by this, but still felt the need to intervene. “Alright, alright,” she said “I know everyone’s happy to have a happy ending but it’s too late to be playing dubstep. Come on Shadow, Luna had a room set up for you.”
“Oh yeah,” said Lightning, looking around the throne room “where did the princesses go? Did you manage to fix them?”
“What’s wrong with the princesses?” asked Vinyl, who was still holding onto a struggling Shadow with her magic.
“Nothing,” said Twilight, turning to the door “Come on then, I suppose these two will want to be in the same room?”
“Definitely!” Lightning exclaimed “Vinyl, can you please let go of Shadow? I think you’re strangling him.”
“Woops,” said Vinyl, having completely forgotten about her psychic hold “sorry about that, I didn’t mean to.” Shadow dropped with a thud to the floor a few inches beneath, breathing hard.
“Be more careful…” he muttered as they followed Twilight out the door.
Looking at the castle from the main gate an observer would be able to see two towers on either side. A clever observer could realize that these towers were built for the purpose of housing the princesses during their hours of sleep, assuming they had any. A view from the gardens, or maybe a glimpse from a pegasi’s vantage, would’ve revealed the two smaller towers on either side of the castle’s rear. These towers were designed more for architectural symmetry than any other purpose, and occasionally delegates from other countries would have the privilege of staying in that tower.
Of course it had been centuries ago that the castle was built and in the most recent decades one of these towers had been home to a young alicorn princess the princess of the crystal empire as a matter of fact. As it was, since whisper of the new prince had spread throughout the caste, none of the servants assigned to make the adjacent tower hospitable were surprised in the slightest. Quite the contrary, it had become something of a contest among the servants to see which accommodations the young prince would favor.
The young prince, as a matter of fact, found this a challenge himself. Shadow was met with a sort of sensory overload as Twilight opened the door to his new room. It was larger than his whole house, but at this that didn’t even faze him. What did shock him was the useless number of things neatly organized within.
There were, as a matter of fact, five beds, a huge plush bed with an overhead canopy with two sets of bunk beds, one on either side. All the blankets were done in the same royal blue that Shadow had started to associate with Luna, as well as the pillows and the half a dozen bean bags scattered around the foot of the bed. One corner of the room was piled high with stuffed animals of very size and species from alligators to timber wolves. The entire pile, however, was dwarfed in comparison by a massive teddy ursa leaning against the wall, at least six feet tall.
A plasma television was hooked up to another wall with a variety of video game systems attached to it, some of which Shadow didn’t even know the name of. There was both a popcorn machine and a soda fountain plugged in nearby and fifteen or so theatre seats were lined up in front of the television. Turning a full circle upon entry revealed the last wall to not be a wall at all, but a solid bookshelf with every shelf completely filled. Even the doorway was a swinging bookshelf.
“Well?” asked Twilight, leading the three inside “What do you all think?”
She was greeted with little more than a stunned silence. Shadow, Lightning, and Vinyl were turning around and around, trying just to see everything the room had to offer, not even bothering to try and comprehend it just yet.
“That’s a coltari 2100…” Shadow nearly drooled “that system isn’t supposed to be out for another two years…”
“Look at those speakers…” Vinyl said dreamily “I bet the bass on that is huge!”
“Teddy ursa!” Lightning squeed.
“The television plays video games, movies, and music CDs,” Twilight began to explain “3D glasses and controllers are in the tray underneath it. Popcorn, butter, and salt are all stored inside the machine. The books are most of the library’s children’s section as well as a few reference books all recopied. The room still has a little space if there’s anything else you want moved in here and you have a lever next to the bed that calls servants in. To open the door you pull on the book titled Fallout Equestria. You got all that?”
Shadow nodded vaguely, more worried about what he was going to do first than any of Twilight’s silly rules.
“I bet I can beat you at Fighting is Magic!” Vinyl shattered the silence and made a dash for the television.
“Oh filly please,” said Lightning, darting over to join her “I haven’t seen a pony who can take my thirty-two combo flank kicker!”
Not even entirely sure what the game Fighting is Magic was, Shadow decided to start with a snack and watch the girls duke it out on the game. He was very pleased to find Faygo on the soda fountain among the countless other choices, and quickly started mixing flavors.
“You’re seriously playing as Appleslice?” Vinyl asked as they entered the character selection menu “You do know the earth ponies are way underpowered right?”
“You’re obviously not playing it right,” said Lightning, rolling her eyes “Appleslice is a character who takes skill and timing to use correctly. Who did you pick?”
“Nightcanter,” said Vinyl with a smirk “that’s a character that pretty much fights for herself.”
“Figured you would need a handicap,” said Lightning, returning the self satisfied smirk.
As Vinyl and Lightning set about their attempts to defeat each other in a violent virtual struggle, Shadow started trying to get the popcorn machine to work. The instructions on the storage door were not much help, just a bunch of vague red images and multi-lingual instructions. Shadow rolled his eyes, wondering why you always needed to know so many languages just to read the instructions.
“Hey! That’s not fair!” Vinyl shouted “How did you get that golden lasso thingy?”
“Secret combo move,” Lightning said smugly “All the earth ponies have them. I guess you should’ve thought twice before picking the tank character.”
“Oh you are going down sister!” Vinyl grumbled, mashing the buttons harder. It was clear that while Lightning had greater knowledge of the game Vinyl’s magical manipulation of the controller was going to give her an equal advantage.
The popcorn machine was beginning to make strange noises as Shadow watched it eagerly. Not knowing any better he had dumped an entire bag of kernels as well as a solid stick of butter into it. He was in the process of popping the top off the salt shaker and pouring the entire contents into the mix as Vinyl and Lightning were finishing up.
“Come on Nightcanter…” Vinyl groaned “This earth pony has nothing on you!”
“Not a chance!” Lightning shouted, trying to break Vinyl’s concentration.
The game gave the call for a combo breaker as Vinyl’s character deftly rolled out of the way of Lightning’s repeated assault. Shadow watched eagerly as both character’s health bars dwindled down to almost nothing. Vinyl shot forward, horn aglow while Lightning prepared to meet the blow with a reverse kick. All three watched expectantly, desperate to know who would win this contest.
A high pitched whistle suddenly came from behind Shadow as the popcorn machine erupted, tipping over and spilling its contents all over the floor. Shadow panicked and jumped out of the way, tripping over the game’s power cord just as the sound of the blows connecting came from the speakers. The screen went black as Shadow fell, covered in a pile of popcorn.
“No!” both Lightning and Vinyl called simultaneously, dropping the controllers into the popcorn, seemingly too preoccupied in the lost game to notice the minor catastrophe.
“That was the sound of a kick!” Lightning exclaimed, glaring at Vinyl “Meaning I hit first, and I won!”
“Are you kidding?” said Vinyl, rising to the challenge “That was obviously the horn drill that hit first! Don’t even try to deny it!”
“Well if you want proof I’ll gladly demonstrate the sound of an actual flank kicking…” said Lightning, beating on the theatre seat with a hoof threateningly.
“Is that a challenge?” asked Vinyl, horn starting to spark in anger.
The sound of crunching suddenly interrupted their argument, and they turned to see Shadow sitting up in a huge pile of popcorn, eating calmly. “Well don’t stop on my account,” he said, mouth still full “I was looking forward to this.”
Lightning stuck her hoof in the pile, pulling it out again, yellow, sticky, and covered in bits of popcorn. “Did you add enough butter?” she asked sarcastically.
“Wow!” said Vinyl excitedly “It’s just like my fifth birthday party! My parents filled the whole pool with popcorn!” She proceeded to slide off the chair and begin stuffing her face.
Lightning stared at the two other kids like they were crazy. She gingerly stepped off her seat, walking carefully around the scattered snacks and moving toward the bookshelves. She was a little curious as to just how this door worked, but had forgotten which book exactly was supposed to be pulled on. She turned back toward Vinyl and Shadow, deciding after some contemplation that she didn’t want to go near that much butter. Instead, she pulled out a random book and started to read.
“It’s good to hear that the night guard, at least, has been taken care of.” said Twilight, addressing Nightwing by the castle gates “No suspicious activity I assume?”
“None your highness,” said Nightwing respectfully “Discord passed this way while searching for the prince but returned soon after, otherwise nothing noteworthy has occurred.”
Twilight sighed in relief; it looked like tomorrow would go smoothly after all. “Thank you,” she said to the bat-winged pony “Keep up the good work.”
Nightwing saluted as Twilight walked back into the castle. She had one more destination before she turned in for the night. She had yet to master the princesses’ spell that voided the need for sleep, which she found very limiting. As she made her way toward the small wooden door by the main staircase she couldn’t help but utter a long yawn.
The small hidden door under the staircase led down a long spiral staircase into the underground parts of the castle. Long ago this path had been passage out of the castle and into the smaller houses in case of a siege, but many of these pathways had long since been blocked by construction and modernization.
What Twilight was really interested in was what was at the very bottom of the staircase. There were no lights or torches down here, so she lit her horn to see the path ahead. There was a wide room at the bottom, littered with scrolls and ancient tomes. The Canterlot archives housed information enough to fill dozens of libraries. Despite the fact that she had been down here so many times the purple alicorn still felt a shudder every time she entered the place.
A second, pale orange glow was barely visible around the monolithic shelves. Twilight approached to find a spectacled unicorn mare, college age by the looks of her, with a frizzy brown mane and tail. Her horn was glowing to give her a view of a long scroll written in one of the languages of the zebra plains.
“Excuse me, Letterheart?” Twilight said, glad the mare hadn’t been startled by her entry “I need something looked up.”
“It’s been awhile,” said Letterheart pleasantly, “almost a whole week, never knew you would be able to resist a visit that long. What are you looking for this time?”
“I’ve been busy,” Twilight explained “I still am as a matter of fact. I’m looking for the family records for Vinyl Scratch, as well as the current occupation and next of kin.”
“You sound so morbid,” said Letterheart, levitating a slightly newer looking, but unnaturally large, book over to her “That’s the Canterlot census of this year. Vinyl should be in there, she moved here from Manehatten a couple of years ago. Any relevant information should be in there.”
Twilight cast her own magic around the gargantuan book and opened it carefully. The book clearly wasn’t made to be read by earth ponies or pegasi, which she supposed made sense, since it was a census of Canterlot. She blinked through a majority of the book, slowing as she reached the Qs and halting entirely at S, flipping through the pages one at a time.
“There are a ridiculous amount of ponies with an S in their last name…” Twilight muttered, but in reality she had found Scratch rather quickly “Honestly, fifteen pages of just SA and SB…”
“There are quite a few ponies in Canterlot,” said Letterheart “Don’t blame the messenger.”
Vinyl Scratch, listed as the daughter of Daisy Hearts and Crimson Melody, who apparently still lived in Manehatten. Twilight cursed under her breath as she saw they both lived in a home for elderly ponies. There was no way they would be able to care for the filly-again Vinyl. There were no other relatives listed and she would surely have forgotten any trustworthy friends as her mind reverted back to her younger age. Not that a DJ would have trustworthy friends anyway…
“Find what you were looking for?” Letterheart asked.
“Unfortunately yes…” said Twilight with a sigh as she shut the book again “We had an age spell go wrong and Vinyl Scratch has been, so far as I can tell, permanently transformed into a filly.”
“So that’s why you’re looking for her parents,” Letterheart said, clearly having pieced this all together a little while ago “and judging by the disappointment in your tone, you either didn’t find it, or it wasn’t an adequate solution. The time you spent reading it tells me it was the second one.”
Twilight smiled, marveling again at how observant her friend was “Think you would know a solution that would work?” she asked.
“Let her stay with the prince,” said Letterheart, not even looking up from the scroll “It’s not as if the princess can’t afford it.”
“I didn’t mention Shadow to you…” said Twilight, curious now “have you been out of here today?”
“No,” said Letterheart, “But it would take a child’s mind to activate either the ageless chamber or the lake of dreams, the only sources of magic you couldn’t easily overcome that are remotely available. The child in question would’ve also had to have been of exceptionally high status, and the ruckus going on overhead pointed back to the lost Prince Shadow. If she was mixed up in the age spell Vinyl must have been closely associated with him, and as such, most probably still is. You let her stay with Shadow for the foreseeable future and there shouldn’t be any lasting consequences.” Letterheart finished with a broad grin; she never got tired of explaining her brilliance.
Twilight could only shake her head in astonishment, “You never cease to amaze me,” she said “And you might be right… The presence of another foal in the castle certainly can’t hurt anything. Maybe it would be the best thing we can do for her.”
“Yeah…” said Letterheart vaguely, her attention having shifted back to the long roll of parchment totally now
“I’ll suggest the idea to the princesses then I think I’ll turn in for the night,” said Twilight, yawning and turning back to the staircase “Thanks for your help Letterheart. Are you coming to the party tomorrow?”
“I don’t think so…” Letterheart said vacantly, hoping to sound like her attention had turned away.
“Alright, but if you change your mind we would love to have you!” Twilight called as she began to trot back up to the surface.
Letterheart heaved a sigh, turning back so she could view the Pi symbol emblazoned on her flank. She had received the mark when she had discovered the impossible end of that number, after calculating ten to the fifteenth to the fifteen to the twentieth to the sixteenth point seventh integers. Her IQ was higher than that of both princesses combined; every problem put in front of her was a matter of ease, every language, childsplay. The world opened up before the power of her mind.
This was the hell she called life. She had grown up knowing everything, and everything that would happen. Life was totally without variables to her. It was always a prideful moment to bend her mind flexibly around every event that transpired within the range of her sense, but sometimes…no…all the time, it was too much.
The curse of her knowledge, she had long ago calculated, was her premonition. She could know well in advance what was going to happen given only a few details. Even adding all of her own possible actions, she would always know the outcome. It was the most horrifying thing in the world, knowing everything that ever could, that ever would happen, and not being able to change anything.
Her real name wasn’t Letterheart; her name was two simple letters. Pi.
She had crafted the alias Letterheart when she came to Canterlot. In her five minute meeting with Celestia she had been able to determine the events that would transpire everywhere in the world until Twilight became an alicorn. Merely being in the presence of Celestia opened her mind to godlike powers, but she weathered the psychic nightmare for she knew there was a solution. As a matter of fact, she knew weeks beforehoof that she would find this solution.
The mare by the name of Letterheart had been given the job of record keeping in the archives, and she had never been happier. So far underground her mind was safely isolated from her gigantic logical premonitions. The news she received, the equivalent of the entirety of Canterlot’s gossip, was during the times twice daily when a servant would enter, give her a meal, and change the used chamber pot with a new one. What was more, she was kept busy. The memorization of these billions of records was finally a task to keep her incredible mind busy.
It wasn’t so much that she didn’t want to meet the ponies at the party and get to know them, she had even debated the possibility of letting her mind absorb the entirety of all the ponies around the world, it would take weeks to get over, but would it not be worth it? No, Twilight’s visit had confirmed that. Aside from the return of the young prince of Canterlot, she had read dozens of other events from her body language. It was a shocking thought that the princesses were out of commission, more so exactly how Twilight had decided to go about fixing the problem.
But what was most shocking was the prediction she had been able to make about exactly what would transpire at the event. The horror of that would be more than even she could readily overcome. And worse, she didn’t have the details to know everything this terror would involve, and a certain irreversible magic, one she never wanted to know, was a heavy probability…
Letterheart rolled up the scroll again, figuring that it was time she got some sleep. Her dreams would surely be riddled with the wild half conjured illusions of things that were or things that would be, and perhaps, if she was lucky, she would dream of ignorance. That single, untouchable, bliss…
Shadow wasn’t aware that he had fallen asleep on the floor until Lightning started to nudge him awake. He opened his eyes blearily, noticing first the queasy feeling in his stomach, and second, the total absence of popcorn that had, last time he checked, been all around him.
“Shadow,’” he heard Lightning’s voice “get up already! This is important!”
He rolled over onto his stomach, wincing as he held back vomit rising in his throat. He opened his eyes again to see the dual green orbs that were Lightning’s own eyes staring back at him.
“I can’t believe you two actually ate it all…” he heard her mutter in the darkness “Come on, get up! You have to see what I just found!”
The clock on the idle television screen read that it was past midnight. Shadow groaned as he stood up, wondering what good reason Lightning had for being up this late. He cast his gaze over to where he heard her hoofsteps, seeing the glow of a small electric lantern that he probably hadn’t seen in his first analysis of the room. She had apparently built a fort entirely out of books while he had been asleep and was now crawling her way back into it.
“Well come on!” she spoke in a very loud whisper “Get in here!”
Shadow hauled himself to his hooves and struggled over to the book-fort. Lightning had a heavy looking book open in front of the lantern and was reading an article under a black and white picture of a large group of ponies and buffalo standing on a sandy plain.
“What’s that?” Shadow asked, still tasting butter on his lips. He tried to lick it off as he sat down next to Lightning.
“This is a book about the founding of Canterlot,” said Lightning “Apparently the pony settlers made a treaty with the buffalo that allowed them unicorn protection in case of an attack on the tribe. In return they were allowed to build the city on the mountain.”
“Wow…” said Shadow, reading through the article carefully “so if the buffalo came under an attack it’s our job to stop the attackers?”
“I don’t think we have to worry about that,” said Lightning with a shrug “No one is going to be stupid enough to disagree with buffalo after all. But that’s not what got me interested, take a look at this.” She pointed to the side of the photo “Does that look familiar to you?”
There were an awful lot of ponies and buffalo in the photograph, so it took Shadow a minute to figure out exactly what Lightning was pointing out. A few young people were a ways off to the side in what looked like an old fashioned photo-bomb. What irked Shadow slightly was that one of them was a Pegasus and the other an earth pony. All the other ponies he could find in the photo were unicorns.
“There are four of them you see?” said Lightning “A pegasus, an earth pony, a unicorn, and a buffalo.”
“Yeah,” said Shadow “So what? I would’ve done the same thing if I was there.”
“That’s kind of what I’m saying,” said Lightning “How many Pegasus colts are there with a wingspan that big? And look at the mane on the unicorn filly, looks pretty unique to me.”
“You’re right…” said Shadow slowly “And that’s the same ponytail that you have!”
“Yeah but Applejack has that ponytail too,” said Lightning with a shrug “It’s hard to tell without the color, but I think these might be our ancestors!”
“Huh…” said Shadow, stifling a yawn “I guess that’s really cool… I’m going to sleep now, I’m really tired…”
“Oh come on,” said Lightning “It’s only, what, eight? Let’s stay up for another hour at least, I want to finish book-fort one.”
“It’s past midnight…” said Shadow, not even trying to hold back his next yawn. “Come on, you can be crazy tomorrow, but I’m sleepy now.”
“Technically it would be later today.” Lightning pointed out.
“Just shut up and go to sleep…”
Shadow stood up again and trundled over to where the beds were set up. He was unsurprised to find Vinyl had taken the canopy bed, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t a bit chagrinned about it. He looked to the bunk beds, his disappointment evaporating as he wondered what it was like to sleep on the top bunk. He flapped his wings a few times, carrying him up to the top easily. Not even bothering to slide under the blanket, he turned a circle and slumped down.
There was a shaking that he was vaguely aware of, resulting from Lightning clambering into the lower bunk. “Goodnight Shadow!” her voice floated up from below.
“Night, Light…” said Shadow, too tired to laugh at his own pun.
He turned over once, staring out at the moonlight shining in from one of the arching windows. “Goodnight mom…” he said, smiling into his pillow as the soft tendrils of sleep carried him away to the land of dreams.