//------------------------------// // Unicorn // Story: Three Magics // by Arkensaw Pinkerton //------------------------------// Twilight woke slowly, the deck shifting beneath her, and she staggered to her hooves as she got her bearings. The sky was dark and ominous, heavy with rain and crackling with lightning, and morning was hours away. Heading for the helm, she noted that her crew were performing admirably against the great, slow roll of the storm, and placing her tricorn hat firmly on her head she gave the helmspony his bearing- directly due home. The dark pony at the helm saluted her smartly, and she returned it as she retired to her quarters to consider the situation. In her quarters, there was her writing desk, with the afternoon sun playing across the pages, and a golden goblet with the remains of a drink in it. That was important, Captain Sparkle thought to herself as she eyed it more closely. The drink it contained had been black as night and slow as molasses, but it was bubbly and light on the tongue. It had tasted of blackberries and ash and bitter, unripe fruits. Why was that so important? She sat in her writing throne and considered the goblet carefully, holding it up in the sunlight to get a better look at it as the ship heaved back and forth rhythmically below her. Suddenly, the door to her chambers opened, and an unfamiliar pony stood in the door, tall and proud in her bearing. Captain Sparkle levitated her cutlass and threatened the interloper. "Who dares invade the captain's cabin? I'll have you keelhauled, ye loathsome wretch!" shouted Twilight, ready to charge. The newcomer simply raised an eyebrow. Her horn glowed and suddenly Twilight's perceptions changed. How was her writing desk in a ship? Why did she have a ship in the first place? Suddenly recognising the pony in the doorway, Twilight dropped her cutlass with a clang and started apologising. "Princess Luna! I'm so sorry about the cutlass. I think I didn't recognise you for a second. What- what's going on?" Twilight could hear panic starting to creep into her voice, and was grateful when Luna walked into the swaying room and started to explain things. "You did not find a calm and comfortable place to drink the elixir you were given, Twilight Sparkle. Your mind appears to have conjured up the image of a storm at sea for our meeting." Luna sat on the floor, and the room stopped swaying. She gesticulated with a hoof and Twilight sat next to her, suddenly smelling lavender in the air. Luna seemed to smell it too, smiling as she recognised it. "It seems as though your assistant has placed you in a more relaxed location. I am pleased. If you were seasick, this lesson would be even harder for you to learn." Luna said, placidly. "Really?" Twilight asked, peeved. "I don't know exactly what you're going to teach me, Princess. I don't mean to be pushy, but you're not even a unicorn. You're an alicorn- a pegasus and unicorn together. That's got to affect your magic. Plus, you raise the moon! The letter said you were the most powerful practitioner of unicorn magic, and I believe it, but how am I supposed to copy any of your spells?" Luna stood and indicated the door, and Twilight opened it with her horn. Instead of the ship, the door now opened onto a meadow studded with limestone rocks, lavender flowers dotting the landscape and the sun blazing overhead. "I am powerful, yes, but my sister is far more powerful than I. However, so many years of responsibility for lifting both sun and moon have given her far more strength than finesse when it comes to unicorn spells and she never had the same head for theory that I do. In any case, I am not here to teach you spells, Twilight. I am here to teach you about magic," said Luna. The alicorn leaned over and tapped Twilight on the forehead with her horn, and Twilight's vision changed. Suddenly the alicorn in front of her had distinct structures visible under the skin. Tendrils snaked around her hooves, her wings and her horn. Dark veins pulsed magic in each one, and Twilight had a moment of realisation. "You're an earth pony!" she blurted out, and Luna smiled at her. "I mean, you're an earth pony too. I thought alicorns were just unicorn and pegasus together." "They are, for the most part. Interbreeding of the tribes often crops up a pony of two types together, but earth pony crosses are easily mistaken for just a particularly hardy unicorn or pegasus. My sister and I are a different breed. We two, and we two alone are all three types of pony together. We are immortal. I wanted you to understand- I am not half a unicorn or a third of a unicorn. I am a full unicorn, a full pegasus, a full earth pony." Luna dismissed the visualisation spell, and Twilight saw the Princess was looking up at the sky, turning the sun to the moon with a glance. "If only it were always so easy," she murmured to herself before turning back to Twilight. "Twilight Sparkle, I have two things to teach you. I do not think either of them is going to be to your particular liking, but I am not leaving until you have heard each one, and understood it. Fully. One is to do with unicorn magic, and one is to do with Spike. There is also something I would like to discuss with you, if you are able to speak openly about it." Twilight could feel the princess's emotions feeding into hers, as with the previous two elixirs, but this time it was more detached. It was a good job, too- the Princess was hurt and heartbroken, angry and sad. Twilight didn't think without the buffering power of the dream she'd have been able to avoid getting swept away in them. "How about we talk about what's bothering you first, Princess?" Twilight said. "Then we can get to talking about Spike and magic." As she finished, she could feel the Princess tense up a little. She looked nervous, Twilight thought to herself. "Twilight Sparkle, I wish to ask a question. Has Pinkamena been- has she mentioned me? At all? I was neither courteous nor respectful in our last exchange. I would know what she thinks of me, if you feel at liberty to tell." "I honestly don't really know, Princess," Twilight grimaced. "I didn't even know you'd had an argument. I've been falling out of touch with- well, with everypony, I suppose. I could ask her tomorrow, if you like." The answer clearly wasn't the one Luna had been hoping for. She slumped down, and as she did the world around them shifted, great mountains rising around them as they sank into a stony canyon. "At Spike's birthday party, yes?" Luna asked. Twilight nodded, surprised that the princess even knew about it. "I was invited," Luna admitted, staring at her hooves. "I told her six months ago that I did not believe she loved me, and she has invited me to her friend's birthday party. I will confess that I do not know what to make of it." "Why did you think she didn't love you?" Twilight asked, too curious to hold her tongue. "Didn't she take your relationship seriously enough?" Luna looked up at Twilight and smiled, sadly. Looking away from Twilight, she started to speak clearly and precisely, as though she was narrating a story she knew off by heart. "There was only one alicorn in the beginning. She became fond of an earth pony- an orphan- who broke into her garden and tore up all the roses. She treated her as a younger sister, and treasured her irreverence. When that pony came of age, the alicorn offered the orphan a gift. Pegasus wings, a unicorn horn, an elder sister who would never die, who would never abandon her. An alicorn can only do it one time, only raise another pony to be a true alicorn once, and she'd been so lonely for so long- she was my big sister, Twilight, and the thought of getting old and dying and leaving her so alone again-" Luna took a great, shuddering breath and pressed on, closing her eyes and ignoring the tears coursing down her cheeks. "I chose immortality because I loved my sister, Twilight. When I offered it to Pinkamena- when I asked her to be my paramour, to live forever beside me- she was so excited at first, and I thought my heart would burst with joy. Then the next day she came and told me that she couldn't do it, that she couldn't watch everypony she loved so much die when she was never going to. She was so quiet, Twilight. She explained that she'd lose so many friends she'd forget how to do anything but cry. She didn't want to carry on forever. I tried to say we'd have each other, but she said she couldn't do it. I lost my temper, then, and I have a lot of temper to lose. I said such terrible things to her, Twilight." Luna scraped at the ground with her hoof, blinking away her tears. Twilight could feel her own forming as she tried to find the right words, and before she could stop herself she asked another question. "Do you love her still?" she asked, quietly. "Yes," Luna said, clearly and precisely. There was no doubt in her voice. "Enough-" Twilight swallowed, hoping the question wouldn't make the Princess angry. "Enough to watch her get old? To be with her her whole life? Even if she can't be with you for yours?" "Yes," Luna said, and there was a tone of admission to it, of letting a painful truth free into the world. "Then come to the party tomorrow. I'll be there. You can work out how to apologise then, " said Twilight. "I'll help you. Whatever you said, she'll forgive you, I'm sure of it." "How sure?" Luna asked quietly, and Twilight realised that that was the question Luna had really wanted to ask from the start. "Well, she forgave me for missing an entire scrapbook of parties and not speaking to anypony for a year or two. So I'm pretty sure." Twilight walked up to the princess and sat down beside her, and for a long time neither of them said anything at all. "I would attend Spike's party, but I fear I am unable. It relates to what I have to tell you about Spike. Rest assured, I will find a time to speak to Pinkamena, as soon as I can." Luna said after a while. The princess stood up and her horn glowed so brightly that for a moment Twilight couldn't look directly at it. When she opened her eyes again, they were in a room she knew quite well- the grand entrance hall of Canterlot castle. The only thing missing was the hustle and bustle of servants and petitioners, government officials and tourists. Instead, the place was eerily quiet, save for the clicking of her hooves and Luna's slippers on the polished marble. "Now, we should attend to your lessons. Do you wish to learn what I have to teach you about Spike first, or what I have to teach you about unicorn magic?" Luna asked, looking away from Twilight so the unicorn couldn't see her face. Twilight considered her options for a moment. While the unicorn magic lesson was technically her reason for being here, if there was a problem with Spike she wouldn't be able to concentrate if she didn't know what it was. It would be good to know why Luna couldn't come to his party, too. "Could you tell me about Spike?" she asked quietly, and Luna turned to face her again. Her face was grim, and Twilight could suddenly see in the princess that force of will that had led her to become Nightmare Moon. "Twilight Sparkle, you have been a careless mother," Luna proclaimed, and Twilight withered for a moment before anger flushed her cheeks. "I'm not his mother! I'm his- I'm his big sister! He's my assistant!" She shouted back at the princess, forgetting her surroundings and their roles. "You were all he had. You raised him. You were his mother whether you admitted to it or not," Luna explained bluntly, and Twilight found she didn't have an answer. "I have no doubt that you love him," Luna said, and Twilight felt her rage coil back up inside her. "But you rejected him at an emotionally weak moment- whether you intended to or not- and you triggered his next stage of growth. You have caused us an almighty political headache, Twilight Sparkle." "I have?" Twilight asked, confused. "Dragons are occasionally adopted by ponies, in cases such as yours. In those cases, care is taken to ensure that the dragon bonds to an ordinary pony, and not to myself or my sister. The dragon council is very firm on these matters- they will not entertain the concept of Celestia or myself raising a dragon child at any stage of his or her growth. This is an extremely serious matter to them. They fear a Princess's dragon on the Throne of Quartz, a puppet leading their people, and they will resort to war to prevent it if they feel they must. "When Spike entered his most recent phase of growth, he wrote to Celestia, and said he felt abandoned- his marefriend had left for a different city and his mother had informed him he was no longer required. Celestia was unable to reply. The council did not wish to risk Spike emotionally bonding with her. Celestia could not even contact you about the situation, because the council feared she would manipulate you into fully rejecting Spike and pushing him further towards her or me. Her every letter to you has been carefully scrutinised and limited, since Celestia believes it is the best way to prevent war. "Luckily, your friends care for Spike too, and the council had not foreseen this. Spike moved a great part of his life to Sweet Apple Acres, and one mare there- Fluttershy- almost immediately began to treat him as a member of the family, as her child. His emotional turmoil was eased by conversations with your friend Rarity to such a degree that his growth slowed to a crawl, even to the point that his wings have yet to develop. Had this been all, had Spike left the library and moved to the farm, then the council would have been satisfied that his parental bonds had shifted, and the princess or I would have been free to openly contact you. "Spike's loyalty to you, his love for you, has caused the political beartrap in which we find ourselves. He has not shifted his emotional bonds fully. He still cares for you, fulfilling not only his duties as your assistant but his new duties at the farm. He has neither left the library nor fully stayed there. As a result, the council have forbidden the princess and I from freely contacting you- or your friends- until the situation is fully stable and resolved. "Your fading cutie mark has been a stroke of luck. Celestia practically invented healing in Equestria, and the council allowed her to send you one package, so long as they could investigate the contents. They could not prove the last elixir was tied to me, and they do not understand oneiromancy in the slightest, so I have finally been able to tell you all this." Twilight's mind was buzzing with information. She'd been right in her research before she'd fallen asleep- she'd actually caused Spike's growth spurt. It all seemed very clear, very obvious when the Princess laid it out in front of her; Twilight understood it all, even understood why the Princess's letters to her had changed so thoroughly in tone. What she didn't understand- what didn't make sense, now- was why she'd acted the way she had. How had she become so distant from everypony? From Spike? "What should I do?" Twilight asked Luna in a small and shaky voice. The Princess gave her a sad, quiet look, and stretched a wing around Twilight before continuing. Twilight was almost as shocked by the familiar gesture as by how much comfort it gave her. She had missed touch, she thought to herself. If the last few days had shown her anything, it was that she'd missed holding another pony, or being held. "There are options," Luna said in an encouraging tone. "You could have Spike officially adopted by his newly formed family. You could attempt to rekindle your bond with him. You cannot ignore the situation any more, however. The council are starting to get very insistent that we simply remove Spike from Ponyville altogether." "I won't let that happen. I'll think of something. I promise." Twilight could hear the resolve in her voice, and she was pleased with it. It was a relief to know that she would not budge on that matter, that Spike would not leave Ponyville if she had anything to say about it. "Well, that covers your dragon friend. Now, we should proceed to the lesson itself. Would you follow me to the observatory?" Luna asked formally as she set off up the stairs. As Twilight followed, the surroundings warped slowly. Twilight realised the grand staircase was narrowing and twisting into the tight spiral stairs that led to the observatory, which would normally be a full seventeen floors higher. As the two of them entered into the grand dome, Twilight had a surprising pang of homesickness- the telescopes in here were all scaled-up versions of the ones she had at home, in the library, except for one in the corner, covered in dust. That was the one she'd left up at the farm when she'd moved out again. She remembered why, now- she'd hoped, at the time, that Big Mac would use it. That a little piece of her could stay there and stay with him. Luna pulled Twilight out of her reverie by clearing her throat loudly, and started her lesson. "Twilight, it is my sister's opinion- and I share it- that your fading cutie mark has something to do with a flaw in the way you perform magic. I must stress that I do not mean that your magic is somehow ineffective." Twilight stopped bristling, and sat down. "I mean that there is an unforeseen consequence to the spells you have been performing, and it is somehow draining you. Removing your passion for life, friendship and eventually for your studies, I fear. I am going to perform a spell now and you should look outside the observatory to see what flashes through my mind as I do so. In this place, the process is slowed down tremendously." Luna concentrated, and a soft glow appeared around her horn. One of the telescopes was surrounded by the same glow, and as it started to rotate, Twilight suddenly saw an image flash up on the walls of the observatory- a great, bleak, grey expanse, cratered and pitted, and a round blue planet in the night sky behind it. As soon as the image flashed up, the blue planet discoloured, becoming as grey as the plains around her, and then it disappeared. Luna stopped concentrating, and the walls of the observatory went blank again. The telescope slowly wound down to a stop, and Luna moved to sit in front of Twilight. "Did you see what happened when I cast? What happened?" Luna asked Twilight. The structure of the lesson, demonstration and then questioning of her observations, was familiar to Twilight- this was exactly how she'd been taught in Canterlot, before she'd moved to Ponyville. It was familiar, comfortable, and she was thankful Luna had decided to organise her lesson this way. "You formed your concentration and focused on the telescope, to make it rotate. When you did I saw- I think I saw one of your memories. Was that the moon?" Luna nodded, smiling at Twilight's correct assumption. "What does that imply? What else did you see?" The princess asked, encouraging Twilight further. "I think you used a memory to fuel the spell. But you didn't use the memory up, did you?" Twilight asked, and Luna nodded her assent. "I think you desaturated the memory. Pegasus magic needs you to currently feel an emotion, and Earth pony magic makes emotion easier to feel- were you pulling an old emotion to the surface? Putting it into the spell?" Luna clapped her hooves together for a second, smiling at her student. "Exactly! I took a memory and I stripped the emotional weight from it, and used it to drive the spell. As soon as the spell stopped, the emotional impact returned to the memory. If you remember your studies, you were probably told not to run a spell too long?" Twilight nodded, although at what the princess had said a nagging thought had arisen in the back of her mind. "It's true that the main reason not to run a spell to long is simple mental burnout. It's hard to concentrate, really concentrate, for any length of time. But the other reason is that you risk detaching the emotional foundations from the memories that rest upon it, so- my little pony? What's wrong?" Twilight's eyes were flickering from side to side, and her lips were moving as she worked something out. "Princess, do you know what my research has been in? I've been learning how to store magic. I've been storing my magic. It's got so many applications, it can be used so many ways and I've not been seeing any side effects. I don't get any burnout when I do it, but-" Twilight whined to herself, clearly distressed, and Luna leaned in, worried. "I've been getting so distant," admitted Twilight. "Everything seems so much less important than it used to, and Macintosh told me - when he left me he said he couldn't find me any more, like I wasn't there. Luna, I think I've done something awful to myself." Luna stood, clearly distressed. "You've been storing your magic? Not aiming or concentrating it, just putting it somewhere else? Twilight, we must cut our lesson short. You must destroy the devices that are containing your magic. This could destroy you, Twilight Sparkle. I am invoking my royal privilege and demanding that you do this," said Luna, and Twilight could feel as much as hear the fear behind her words. The walls started to trickle and run as Luna's voice became thick and compelling. "Twilight, I'm forcing you out of the dream ahead of schedule. You're going to wake up in three two ONE"