Celestia stared at Practical Practice, eyes furrowed until a knowing, but sad expression graced her bright white face. “Riften…” Celestia sighed. “I´m sorry Practical, but in his time I was mourning Luna, and didn´t spend too much time outside of my bedroom. Many of the discoveries and advancements in magic he or others made at the time, I never heard of. It´s sad really, he holds the title of most spells invented by a single pony and in what little time I spent with him, he acted just like my most faithful student Twilight Sparkle.” Celestia smiled at the thought but a frown soon dominated her expression. “Shame I couldn´t hold a conversation at the time, at least not without breaking into tears once or twice.” She chuckled dryly.
Practical frowned a bit, both because it was hard to see her Princess of the Sun frown, but also because the thought of being too deep in mourning to speak to the greatest mind in history was probably going to give her nightmares, maybe it would be the books again, running away from her. Practical´s frown was replaced with a smile however as she remembered something about the crazy Archmage. “His personal servant at the time said he invented teleportation because his bathroom breaks were taking too much time from his studies.” That got a laugh out of the Princess and Practical had to wait for half a minute before her laughter died down.
“He really does sound like Twilight. She learned teleportation for similar reasons.” Celestia was again smiling but this time it stayed, until she saw movement in her peripheral vision.
The creature was moving again, very sluggishly, but it was moving. Practical saw it as well and walked up to it with her usual limp. Celestia erected a barrier in front of her to stop her from potentially killing herself but all Practical did was raise a hoof to it and let her magic flow a bit. The barrier shattered and the Archmage turned her head in Celestia´s direction. “Don´t cast any spells on or near him, it will make him angry.” Practical said in a very level voice. “And turn your mane back to normal.” She added as an afterthought.
Celestia looked skeptical but did as she was told, Practical had never lied to her before so Celestia had no reason not to trust her. Her mane stopped blowing in a none existent breeze and fell down past the knees on her front legs, its color changing from every hue of the rainbow to a light pink. “Him?”
Practical looked back at Celestia skeptically. “Really? You have watched and fought this thing, and not once did you -accidentally or otherwise- look at its crotch? HE is naked, and has been for the last hours, and without a sheath it´s been on display the whole time.” Celestia thought back on it but couldn´t say she had actually noticed it. “Well, maybe it´s just perverted old me. I haven´t been getting as much action as I did before I turned seventy.” Celestia and Practical shared a short chuckle before returning to the task before them.
The creature was now on its back and because of the earlier conversation, and to her chagrin, she couldn´t keep her eyes from wandering to HIS crotch area for just the tiniest fraction of a millisecond. As soon as she could make it out she averted her gaze to the cell, where two pegasi stood at attention. She couldn´t see Shining Armor, he´d probably teleported of to get some medics.
Because Celestia had averted her gaze from the creature she didn´t see the Archmage walk up to it and lay down by its head. Celestia turned her head and almost yanked the fragile old mare away from the creature, the human as the Archmage had told her. Celestia watched with fascination as Practical took his head in her hoofs and cradled it like a foal while keeping a small but steady stream of magic flowing out of her horn. The human seemed too disorientated to care for the yellow pony holding his head.
Soon though, the human raised a hand to Practical´s hoof and grabbed it. Celestia was ready to jump at him and pin him down but relaxed again as it just pulled on Practical´s hoof and she let his head go and stood up. The human rolled onto his stomach and propped himself up on his elbows and knees.
The two pegasi took to the air and hovered over the spot they had been standing on. Practical whipped her head around at the sound of takeoff. “Get your hooves back on the ground you foals!” She snapped at them. The creature snarled at them and they looked between the Archmage and the creature. “But mam,” The nameless pegasi said. “That thing´s dangerous.” The human got up on one knee and then pushed itself up to a standing position.
“Do as she says, now.” The princess´ tone was demanding and left the two little choice other than to obey. Almost as soon as the two landed the creature took its eyes of off them and locked its gaze on Celestia. Celestia was tempted to run by the nerves in her wing and leg as she felt phantom pains running through her body, there really weren´t many creatures that could harm an alicorn, their internal magic was simply too strong.
Despite her body´s concerns, Celestia was fairly sure she could trust the old unicorn and so she didn´t ready any spell. The human turned towards Celestia and took a single step, faltered a bit but it kept going, it took another step, and another.
The human was now close enough for Celestia to be able to smell him. He was sweaty and was suddenly having trouble breathing. Celestia looked at Practical who just smiled and pointed her head at the human. Celestia closed the distance between her and the human and stood at his side. The human put an arm around her and leaned on her. He was heavier than he looked and he seemed to tire her simply by touching her. “What now?” She asked.
“Now, we wait for him to recover.” Practical said as she looked the beast over. He had almost no body hair and what little there was seemed to be divided randomly. A bit on his head, a bit on his chest, a bit on his groin and a bit on his arms and legs, definitely a human.
The human moved to stand and Celestia held still as he pulled himself up with the arm around her back. His left hand moved to his head and rubbed it.
“How fast did he fly into that wall?” The Archmage asked.
“I sent him through the doors and into the wall so fast it looked like he had disappeared for part of a second.” The princess answered.
Practical shook her head and sighed. “You probably gave the poor thing a concussion.” Both of them looked at the human, he could barely stand now.
“And that thing gave a number of my guards concussion and at least one of them experienced serious trauma.” Celestia and Practical took their eyes of the human and looked at Shining Armor, a team of medics and a mix of guards behind him.
Unicorns, pegasi and earth ponies filled the hall behind Shining, five pegasi hovered in the air, two unicorns were ready to cast at a moment´s notice, their horns glowing like candles. Up front were four earth ponies, muscles tense and ready to tackle the creature. Three unicorns and a pegasus hid behind the others, shooting short, worried glances towards the containment cell.
Practical and Celestia turned back to the human and saw it looking at the newly arrived guards and medics with a glare. He snarled and Practical turned to the new arrivals with a mixed expression of frustration and fear. “Pegasi, on the ground. Unicorns, stop channeling. Earth ponies, relax. Medics, get in the cell now but wait until we´re gone before doing anything.”
The guards reluctantly did as they were told and the medics ran into the cell. They looked at the Archmage, all waiting for an explanation. “Look at it now.” The soldiers looked but the creature was no longer looking at them, it was looking at the palm of its left hand and over all it looked much better than just seconds before, and it was calm.
As Practical teleported something to her the human growled but quickly went back to whatever he was doing. Practical hung what she had teleported on her horn so she could walk up to the alicorn and human without using more magic.
Practical took it of her horn and handed it to Celestia. Celestia took it with a hoof and stared dumfounded at it. “It´s a… a collar. Didn´t you say it wasn´t an animal? And these spikes…” Celestia looked puzzled.
“There is a reason for this, a good one. Put it on him, Your Highness.” Celestia pried her eyes of off the senile old Archmage and used her magic to levitate the collar onto the human´s neck, it had a special lock that only levitation could open or close, and locked it in place. The human collapsed on the floor.
Practical looked annoyed. “Had I known it was going to collapse I would have teleported here.”
“What was that?” Celestia asked, genuine curiosity and some fear for the creature´s wellbeing plaguing her voice.
“The spikes, they are made of iridium. And the collar is made from a mix of 25 percent crystal sheep wool, 10 percent leather made from the back of a living cows head, and 65 percent Steel Spider silk.”
Celestia regarded the Archmage with a look a shock and awe, all of these were incredibly hard to find in Equestria, but the Steel Spider silk, that could only be acquired by ´´milking´´ a Steel Spider. Steel Spiders were incredibly rare, very territorial, gifted with night vision, spit a highly corrosive acid, lived deep inside caves and were overall really dangerous. The most amazing thing about them though, was their silk, a thin strand, as thin as a thread, was strong enough to hold several carriages filled to the brim with ponies. It was the rarest thing known to pony kind and was so expansive -when somepony actually had any to sell, which happened every two decades or so- that even the royal treasury wasn´t enough for more than ten grams.
Celestia stared at the collar. There had to be at least 300 grams of Steel Spider silk in that collar. “Where in the world did you get all that Steel Spider silk?”
Practical grinned at the question and waited for a few seconds, watching Celestia squirm and shake, before answering it. “It was Riften´s. It was made for humans, to counter their reaction to magic.”