//------------------------------// // Joy Ride // Story: Ace's Spell Shop // by Aceofgods //------------------------------// Chapter Fifteen: Joy Ride Ace awoke softly to the sound of breakfast being prepared downstairs. Keeping his left eye closed as he rubbed the sleep-dust from it, he took his glasses in his magic to set them in place as he yawned and stretched. Ace’s horn lit up as he prepared a flash spell to transport himself to the kitchen. With a sigh of frustration, his horn burned brightly before Ace landed muzzle first on the kitchen floor, knocking his glasses sprawling across the floor to Spike’s feet. The dragon, scared that there was another prank being played, jumped and landed on the glasses with a resounding ‘crack!’ followed by several crunching noises as Spike realized what had happened. Twilight looked concerned as she turned away from the stove to see what noise was, a look of shock when she saw Ace in the floor without the enchanted lenses, but relaxed slightly as he kept his revealing eye closed. “Oh my gosh! I’m so sorry, it was an accident!” Ace nodded with a sigh as he motioned for the dragon to move aside. When he had, Ace took the shattered remains of the glasses in his magic and they started to piece themselves back together into the familiar black, large-circled frames and the lenses glowed slightly as the enchantments were put back in place. “It’s okay, I can just already tell I’m going to have an imbalanced day, don’t worry about it,” he said as he placed the glasses back upon his muzzle. “Well I made some mixed berry crepes, so hopefully we can balance the scales a little with a healthy and nutritional breakfast,” Twilight said as she brought the plates over to the table. Spike jumped into his seat at the table, then proceeded to drown the plate in syrup as he licked his lips. “Well, at least it was meant to be healthy.” The young dragon, already taking a bit of the sticky, sugary mass that occupied his plate. “F’whut? ‘tss gud!” Twilight shook her head, disappointed, before putting a minimum amount of syrup on hers and replacing the near-empty bottle in the refrigerator, knowing that Ace would eat his without syrup. Smiling, almost blushing, at the familiarity of the scene, Ace levitated the crepe to his muzzle as he took a bite and pulled a piece of parchment from the next room to review as he ate. Twilight looked at the note questionably. “What’s that? A message?” Ace shook his head as he took mental note of a few more details before floating the paper before Twilight so she could see it. It looked as though it were a list of seemingly unrelated spells and addresses. “Is that a work order for the shop? I thought you were going to finish making all of the spells first.” Ace nodded as he took the note back and sent it to wherever he had taken it from. “I woke up in the middle of the night, sometime shortly after you and Spike came to bed, I think. Not wanting to waste the time, I returned to my shop and finished the spells on the rooftop as I watched the stars. I went back to bed immediately after finishing the last one, planning to deliver them today. Did you have any plans for today?” Twilight looked thoughtful for a moment before nodding her head. “The Princess wanted to meet you today, if you’re not too busy.” Ace froze in place just as he was about to take a bite of the crepe. “Is there something wrong?” Ace shook his head as though he were shaking a thought from his mind. “Um, maybe… Which Princess wanted to see me, exactly?” he asked before taking a smaller bite than normal from the breakfast treat. Twilight, unsure of what was bothering him, just raised an eyebrow at the odd question. “The Princess. Princess Celestia. The Princess I wrote the letter to last night? She said she wanted to meet you personally.” Ace swallowed the pastry with perhaps a louder noise than was necessary. “Yeah… That’s the Princess I had thought you meant. Why, exactly, did she ask for me? I hadn’t even known she knew I was here. Wait, did the letter you write involve me?” Ace started to look more and more worried as the conversation went on, his normal casual smile fading to a guilty, nervous equivalent. Twilight looked as though she was a filly with her hoof caught in the cookie jar. “Uh, I might have. Was I not supposed to?” Ace sighed with a shake of his head. “Well I suppose it would be natural that you mention me to your original teacher. I must say though, it does put me in quite the spot. Do you happen to keep a copy of the letters you send?” Twilight nodded, pulling the latest copy from the next room in her magic as Ace relaxed slightly as he read it. “Good, thankfully you only used my first name. Maybe she won’t even recognize me.” Ace hunched he shoulders down in a hope he knew wouldn’t likely come true. “Well, I’m going to deliver these spells before we leave. Knowing Celestia, she’ll have already sent the train tickets for the ride, so I’ll meet you there in a short while. See you soon.” Ace took the last of his crepe into his mouth before walking into the next room to put on his saddlebags and teleport to the first house. Twilight felt a knot in the pit of her stomach, unable to think of a single way this could end well if Ace had reacted in such a way. Shaking such thoughts from her head, she decided to err on the side of doubt. Surely it can’t be anything bad, right? He’s probably just nervous to meet the Princess. Yes, that would make perfect sense; even I get nervous around her sometimes. Twilight started to clean the dishes, with Spike’s help. When they were finished, Twilight went back into the library and retrieved the train tickets. Up until now, she hadn’t looked closely at the tickets, but now that she had, she realized they weren’t generic tickets like she had thought. These tickets had a marked time and date, and the train was about to leave in twenty minutes! Twilight, not taking the time to prepare a saddlebag, slammed the door open as she shouted that she had to leave to Spike and charging through the door before slamming it shut again. As Twilight ran towards the station, remembering that she could just teleport once she had made it half-way, she thought to herself. What exactly is Ace’s relationship to the Princess that he knew she would send us a specifically timed ticket? Twilight appeared at the station with only five minutes before the train would depart, shortly followed by Ace appearing beside her with a nervous smile before they boarded the train. Twilight was inspecting the tickets as Ace led them to the personal rooms in the luxury car. “Wait a moment, I think these tickets are for a specific room, I think it’s-“ Ace nodded as he interrupted her, “Second car from the front, room four, upon the 7:57 AM to Canterlot. Yes, Celestia is never one to forget and rarely do I forget as well. Celestia does so very much love her little tricks and mind games.” Ace pulled open the door to the room and bowed softly to allow Twilight to enter ahead of him, “Please, after you.” Bowing her head in thanks, Twilight entered first, and noticed the cabin was rather plush, with opulent curtains and red plush seats. The seat pillows were puffy with swirling or solid designs and each with golden tassels. “Why did it have to be this room, in this car, on this train specifically?” she asked as she took her seat. Ace sat himself in the seat opposite of her as he laid down on the seat, making uncreative use of the pillows. “It all started when I was a child…” he started as though he were at a psychiatrist. "No, I’m kidding, and it didn’t happen that long ago. Well, you remember how Princess Luna was locked in the moon, thus bringing about the Mare-in-the-Moon era?” Twilight nodded as if he asked if Twilight knew her own name. “Right, of course. Well, do you remember the lesson I taught you about how the princesses sustain themselves?” Twilight nodded more curiously, not understanding how the two questions could coincide as the train began final boarding call. “Well, tell me, dear student; if Princess Luna was kept in the moon and unable to perform the ceremony, how is it that she is still alive today?” Twilight thought for a moment, then she realized that Princess Luna wouldn’t have been able to absorb the souls of ponies during the New Year’s Eve ritual herself if she was on the moon. “I’m going to guess that Princess Celestia must have used some sort of magic to keep Princess Luna alive?” Ace shook his head from the cushion he laid upon. “Half credit for the effort, but no. Princess Celestia had to sort of… capture the souls and then use them to sort of feed her dear sister every ninety or so years, when she performed the ritual herself. "There’s a reason why the normal ritual does not allow the capturing or storing of souls, Twilight. Would you like to guess why?” The train started moving as Twilight thought for a moment. “Is it because the souls would decay and not be as potent otherwise?” Ace shook his head. “Is it because something happen to the souls when they are kept here for too long?” Ace shook his head. “Sort of, but not quite. Remember that I mentioned that the souls are not yet claimed, and thus using them brings no ill tidings to the ones they belong to?” Twilight nodded that she did remember. “Well, that’s not true if the soul resides here over night during the Ritual of New Life. Should the souls remain, they are assigned unborn bodies that they will be born to during the following year. "Because they are confined, they never make it to that body. Celestia kept the soul for a number of days to allow for the claimed souls to settle and the unclaimed souls to return to… wherever souls go. Once our world is free of loose souls, she would mirror the ritual and cast the soul to the moon so that Princess Luna could be revitalized in her prison. "Because of this, because Celestia had to lock her sister away through her inaction, because she had to perform this abomination upon the Ritual of New Life, eleven pony foals were born without life.” Twilight could only stare in horror at the thought, at the feeling those poor mothers must have felt when their little foals were born still and lifeless. Ace nodded solemnly before he continued. “Because of this, the soul of somepony very important to me never made it to Equestria that generation. It was an incredibly slim chance, one in a billion odds, but one of those souls was the soul of a certain mare who is very, very important to me. “It is for this reason that I lost all respect for Celestia as a pony. I still respect her position, and I still respect that she is the law in Equestria, but in all matters not regarding to the country or the law, she is lower than a stranger to me.” The room was silent for several long moments, no pony moving or saying anything as the implications and images of what Ace had said sunk in. “Ace, I’m… I’m so sorry, I had no idea that…” Ace only shook his head. “Sorry about what, Twilight? That you know Celestia? That Celestia is your teacher? That you attended Celestia’s school? None of these things is of any consequence. Sorry for what Celestia did? You’re not the one who needs to apologize or make amends for that. "Never be sorry for what somepony else does, Twilight, especially when you had nothing to do with it and could do nothing to stop or change it.” Ace shook his head as he whispered the next part almost inaudibly, “Besides, you’re as much a victim as I am.” Twilight wasn’t sure she had heard the last part correctly, so she decided to move on to another question instead. “What does all of that have to do about this train ride, exactly?” Ace lolled his head to the side to face her as he spoke. “This is the same room, of the same car, of the same train, at the same time that Celestia first told me that she had found out who the soul she had most recently gave to Princess Luna belonged to. "How she knew, I never thought to ask, but for the rest of that train ride, I sat here on this very bench,” Ace pulled one of the cushions over his face before he continued, “and I cried here, just like this. I wept for the loss of somepony who was so very dear to me. Perhaps loss is the wrong word, as that pony would not be born again for at least another hundred years.” Twilight’s heart sank as she listened to yet another sad recollection of Ace’s past. Before she could give Ace her condolences, he continued further. “Princess Luna, upon her return, spoke with me. ‘We are truly remorseful for the loss of Little Raven’s soul,’ she said to me, using the royal ‘we’ to address herself, not her and Celestia. "‘We know that we could never replace her in thine heart. However, should thou ever have need of anything that is within our power to grant, thou shalt need only to call upon us.’” Ace tossed the pillow against the window of the car in frustration. “Princess Luna, not Celestia, apologized for her actions. Princess Luna, not Celestia, tried to make amends. Princess Luna, not Celestia, attempted to console me when I was inconsolable. Princess Luna, the victim, not Celestia, the perpetrator, apologized for the sole need of her kind to live.” Ace threw another pillow, followed by another, against the window as he spoke. “Celestia does not deserve respect when she cannot do what is right for a single subject, a subject she had once called her ‘brother.’ Celestia took from me a lesson and bastardized it to fuel her own selfish ends, and then roundly spat in my face as she brought me pain.” Ace picked up the pillows in his magic before fluffing them and replacing them on the bench he laid upon. Then, with a sigh, he shook his head as he spoke. “Second chances should be given to all, and many times have I forgiven Celestia for her mistakes, but such a grave error that was an accumulation of many mistakes…” Ace rested his face against his hoof for a moment at the memory, “There were so many other options presented to her, but she could never admit that she had made the single mistake that brought the events to fruition. Were it a single mistake, I would forgive her with so little as an apology. However, she has made many mistakes when others tried to aid her, and has uttered not a single apology, only explanations as to why what she did was right. “I would never argue that Celestia should not care for her sister, locked away in her prison, but ‘twas Celestia who put her there in the first place, and she should own up to her actions rather than explain the circumstances.” Ace started to throw the pillow once again, but stopped mid throw to cradle the pillow to his chest instead. “I bear no ill-will towards Celestia, truly, but I haven’t spoken to her since the incident, and I find it difficult to look her in the eyes.” Twilight, seeing the opportunity to turn the tone of the conversation, seized it. “Well, maybe this could be just what you two need. Would it really be so bad to talk to her after so long? I’m sure she must remember you, if she went through all the trouble of booking this train specifically.” Twilight ended with a smile, hoping to convey her good wishes on the matter. Ace sighed softly before nodding. “Maybe. But I have to say, that I do not find this tacitly planned train ride to be a good omen, Twilight. True, this is the last time Celestia and I had a civil conversation, but it was hardly a joyous one.” Ace held the pillow more tightly, “Though it would be nice to speak to my sisters more often again.” Twilight had a number of questions, but couldn’t overlook that he referred to the Princesses as ‘sisters’. “Ace, when did the Princesses start calling their brother, exactly?” Ace laughed at the question softly before throwing the pillow and softly hitting her in the face with the single word, ‘boundary,’ as he watched the pillow hit the floor in a flop with a light-hearted smile. Twilight glared at Ace, feigning anger as she did so. Noting the fake emotion, Ace held his hooves in mock surrender as he moved the pillow beneath her chin without using the magic in his horn to playfully strike her again. Taken aback by the sudden assault without seeing Ace’s magic, she could only stare in shock as the pillow repeatedly, though not harmfully, bashed against her face. Ace still sat with his hooves up and his horn not glowing as he laughed heartily. Twilight was still dazed and confused how Ace was manipulating the pillow without his horn taking on the black glow of his magic. “How are you doing that?” In response, Ace allowed his red tail that matched his mane to flow over the seat beside him as it was lit up black with his magic. Twilight’s mouth fully agape, Ace picked up two more pillows from his bench in his tail-magic as he used them to assault his student as he fell over the bench laughing with his hooves wrapped around his stomach. Twilight didn’t like being laughed at, so she started to pick up three of her pillows as well. Started, but never finished, as each time she would put the magic into her horn, Ace would hit it with a pillow to throw off her spell. “While our magic is more proficiently controlled by our horn, relying on a single part of your body during combat is impractical,” he managed through bouts of laughter. “It is for this reason that you must learn to control magic with your mind and body, not only your horn. Also, it is a required skill for casting multiple spells at once, using each limb or segment of your body to cast a different spell. For this lesson, I want you to attempt to control your magic while being surrounded and beaten by my,” Ace took a deep breath and altered his voice for dramatic effect, ”vicious army of pillow knights!” Ace was reduced to a short bout of coughing-mixed-with-laughter after stressing his throat, but Twilight was also laughing as the pillow knights continued their quest to defeat the unusually large purple Unicorn that had stumbled into their home. Twilight focused her magic into her hoof, but all she could feel was her muscles tightening before she tried to bat the pillow away and it instead exploded into a mist of feathers and fabric. Ace’s hoof lit up as the pillow began to reform in front of her, followed by an explanation. “That’s a good first step. You managed to move your magic to your hoof, but you focused the power too intensely, and it instead strengthened your muscles. You need to move the magic delicately to a new home, not force it into slave labor.” Ace took control of his revitalized pillow knight, which gave Twilight a soft uppercut for her efforts as Ace’s hoof stopped glowing. Twilight was beginning to grasp the lesson, moving a portion of her magic to her hoof. However, once she did so, she had trouble controlling the magic and making it do what she wanted. Ace noted this with a nod. “It will take practice. For now, just try to move the pillows in a set pattern. The familiarity will make it easier, and you’ll be able to feel the variations more swiftly. If it helps you at all, try first touching the hoof to the object you wish to levitate. This will help you transfer the magic to the object, while also learning the feeling of it as well.” Twilight nodded in her determination as the vicious army of pillow knights retreated across the gorge to the safety of the bench. Then, touching her glowing hoof to one of her own, less vicious pillow knights, she was able to pick it up in her magic, repeatedly moving it in the shape of a ‘C’ in front of her, now controlling it without touching it now that she had a presence of magic inside of it. At first, the shape was shaky and difficult to determine, but as time went on, Twilight was able to consistently make the letter before her. That was, until she started to pick up another one of her knights to start forming another letter. Twilight at first had trouble differentiating her control over the two knights, forming two letters that were a combination of a capital ‘A’ and a now lower case ‘c’. Twilight started to get the hang of it, and once she had, she used the third and final of her pillow knights to form a lower case ‘e’ at the end, proudly make an acrobatic show out of her knights to appease her opponent into accepting her surrender. Ace stifled a laugh as he acted out his head-canon, “Yes, fair Twilight, the acrobatic show that thine knights have displayed pleases your new king, and he humbly accepts your surrender on the single condition that you take him to meet the Princess of the land.” Twilight blushed at the role-play, not being entirely experienced at such things as the train pulled into the station in Canterlot. “Ah, I see we have arrived at the Princess’ dwelling. Please, fair Twilight, lead the way,” he said with a bow. Twilight’s blush heightened as she got off of her bench. “You’re doing that thing where you keep doing something you know makes me blush intentionally again, aren’t you?” Ace was taken aback at first, feigning his feelings were hurt, then he looked upward for a moment as if in thought before nodding committedly. “You truly are beautiful when you blush, I wasn’t lying or joking when I said that, Twilight. That also includes now.” Twilight’s blush grew larger, nodding in thanks to the compliment as Ace took her by the hoof and pulled her out of the room. “Come on, I want to look around in the marketplace before Celestia starts to get impatient and just teleports me to the dungeon to save herself the effort.” Twilight was stunned for a moment, both by him all but dragging her off of the train, as well as the thought that Celestia would throw somepony she had once called her brother into the dungeon. “Surely you can’t mean that!” she said as they made it off of the train. Ace looked over his shoulder with a cocked eyebrow as he let go of her. “I assure you, I can mean what I choose to mean. Though you are right; Celestia would want to speak to me beforehoof. Hey, I think I can see the market from here! Come on, let’s go!” As he said that, his horn lit up and brought the chain-and-leather strapped coin pouch out of nowhere to rest around his right hoof. Ace and Twilight strolled through the marketplace that rested outside the walls of the castle – that is, as close the castle as they could be without the guards being wary. Twilight was looking at each of the wares as Ace simply used his magical senses for most of his reviewing. The further in they went, however, the more Ace’s expression soured, though only subtle enough that Twilight would notice the difference. When they passed a stall that was selling various coin pouches, Ace’s expression soured much more than before. Finally, Twilight just had to ask, “What’s wrong? I thought you wanted to go shopping.” Ace looked at Twilight with a sweeter expression, an eyebrow raising in question before he shook his head. “No, I think you misunderstand my interest in the market area of a town. Where the castle, or town hall or so on is the brains of a town, the marketplace is the heart and soul of a settlement. In the market, all of the denizens of that settlement will come, and it is from these ponies and their wares that I can judge much of the town. "For example, did you see that coin pouch stall we passed a moment ago?” he asked as his face started to sour again, no longer keeping eye contact, not wanting to look at Twilight with a sour look. Twilight looked back at the simple stall that looked as though it were constructed overnight. “Yes, he had quite the variety there. He must have worked hard to make so many of them.” Ace spat to the side opposite Twilight before he spoke. “Do not praise that pony for his craft, Twilight, ‘tis unbefitting. That pony did not ‘make’ those coin pouches; he stole them.” Twilight looked as though she had just witnessed a murder. “Don’t act as though it is uncommon. Thievery is an easy way to make money, and there is no shortage of ponies here who have much to give. Despite this, there are still ponies who must work two jobs, maybe more, simply to feed themselves and their family.” Twilight looked around at the elegant city, each of the building constructed of stone, as well as the cobblestone street they walked upon. As she was admiring the masonry of the city, Ace bought a couple baskets of bread from a nearby stall. “What’s that for? I’m sure Celestia has already planned an extravagant lunch for us.” Ace looked at his student as though she had just said that the sky was pink. “Twilight, I care not for what meal plans Celestia has in store for us, we had breakfast just this morning. Come, I will show you the tainted flesh this city hides beneath its thin veil of stone.” Twilight, perplexed by the contradictions of that last statement, followed as much out of curiosity as anything else. After leaving the market and traveling a few more steps, Ace turned down a slim alleyway that the sunlight could not reach between the close together buildings. When the alleyway crossed another, it was then that was when Twilight realized what Ace had wanted her to see. Here, hidden from Celestia’s light, as well as the prying eyes of those more fortunate, laid many a pony who had no home and no work, as well as refuse and… leavings. Ace whistled sharply, bringing the attention of all the ponies in the alleyway as they stared hungrily at the bread he carried. He motioned for them to come and gather around him. Starved as they were, Twilight was able to count their rib bones. The alleyway was suddenly frightfully loud with the yells of the ponies as they rushed toward the nourishment they so desperately needed. “Calm down, calm down, all of you. Make a line and you each shall receive what I offer. I have brought enough that each of you may have half a loaf of bread. Be kind to your fellow ponies, my friends, and fortune will favor you.” All of the ponies served a single-file line, which was made easier by the small space the alley provided. After a few ponies had taken their bread and returned to their small claim in the trash, Twilight took some of the bread from Ace in her purple glow to help hand out the food. Each of the ponies they served happily and graciously thanked them, some even bowing to kiss their hooves. Once all of the bread was gone, and each of the ponies had what they needed to live for at least a few more days, Ace bowed courteously to them as he bid them farewell. “And remember everypony, you shall be stronger together than apart. Be kind to your pony brethren, and fortune will come to you.” Many of the ponies waved their goodbyes, others simply ate their bread nearly a crumb at a time as Ace and Twilight walked away. Once they were out of earshot, Ace had a short quiz for his student. “So tell me Twilight, out of all those ponies, who needed the food most: the ones who was finished with their bread before we left, or the ones who were still eating?” Twilight thought for a moment, certain that Ace wouldn’t have asked without a reason. “I would suppose the ones who ate it the fastest would have needed it the most.” Ace shook his head solemnly. “You are mistaken, my student. They ate swiftly because they were hungry, of course, but they had eaten recently. However, the ones who had to eat more slowly were the ones who needed the food the most. They ate more slowly because of a number of reasons. "One, they were too weak to properly ingest their food. Two, they wanted to savor every bite, knowing it may be quite some time before they find more. Three, their body had actually shut down their stomach, meaning that they had to eat slowly or they would fall ill, and the food would be wasted. Four, many of them likely wanted to keep some of the bread to eat later, so they could ration it out and make it last longer.” Twilight was horrified at the thought of needing food for so long that she would need to do any of those things. “Why… Why do they have to live like that when there is so much wealth, so many ponies in Canterlot who have more than what they need?” Ace shook his head at her naivety. “Because such is the way of many ponies. They keep what they have for themselves, even if they do not need it.” Ace led them along the path that would take them to the Canterlot Castle as he teleported he coin pouch back to their home. Twilight still didn’t know how such injustice could persist in Equestria. “Why doesn’t Celestia help them? Surely the Princess would have some way of helping them.” Ace sighed deeply as he looked at the sky, the lenses of his glasses darkening to shield his eyes from the offensive brightness. “Perhaps there is much that somepony in a seat of power such as Celestia could do, but the Celestia I know is cold and calculating. She would gain little from aiding the ponies who hold no power she can exploit. A life lesson for you, my student: judge not a pony by their words alone, but by the way they treat somepony who can do nothing for them in return.” Twilight took note of the lesson, as well as the implications it held for both of her teachers. Once she had catalogued the lesson, she turned her eyes upward as well, as the pair headed for the palace where the Princess would hopefully shed some light on more than just Equestria today.