//------------------------------//
// The Spell 
// Story: The Nutcracker Colt 
// by Peewee the Dragon 
//------------------------------//

Finally, when the last family had trickled out the door, King Solaris allowed himself a massive yawn.

"Let's all get to bed, shall we?" he said, giving his hoof to his wife. Luna trudged after them, but Celestia stayed in the great hall for moment longer. She had kept the broken nutcracker in her hooves as she said farewell to the guests, but now she had to put him somewhere for safekeeping. She settled him on one of the large chairs that had been dragged up next to the fireplace, praying that the servants would have enough sense to leave him there. Then she too turned for her room.

The same two maids who had helped Celestia get ready came to undress her and unpin her mane, but she refused to let them take off her makeup. Despite their protests that it would smudge during the night, she wanted to look beautiful for just a little while longer. Besides, she knew she wouldn't be able to fall asleep for quite some time. She was still terribly worried about her nutcracker.

As she sat in her bed, she couldn't help fretting. What if the cleaning staff had moved him? They certainly wouldn't know that he had any sentimental value. They could have even thrown him away when they saw he was broken!

Celestia dashed from her room, terrified that her troubled musings were in fact true. As she ran through the dark great hall, her slippered hooves skidded to halt in front the fireplace. The chair was empty. Sinking into the now-vacant seat, she began to cry. The nutcracker had made his way into her heart, and she had let him slip through her hooves. It was her fault for leaving him here, out in the open.

Suddenly, the grandfather clock began to chime. Startled, Celestia looked up. She was astonished to see her godfather sitting cross-legged on top, his face once again hidden in the shadows cast by his hat and cape. Before she could say anything, though, a stream of rats began to pour out from beneath the clock. She screamed as they circled her chair, scrabbling at the legs in an attempt to climb them. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Tinker stand up from his precarious perch. He pointed first at the dolls he had brought to the party, which still stood in the corner, then at Celestia, then turned on the spot and disappeared with a flap of his cloak.

As soon as he was gone, Celestia felt a shift in the room. Everything around her began to grow, from the trees with their decorative angels nestled in every corner, to the rats beneath her hooves, to the very chair she was sitting in. The only things that remained the same were Tinker's dolls.

Then she realized. The room wasn't growing; she and the dolls were shrinking! Very soon, they were about the same size as the rats that were still trying to climb her chair. She peered over the edge that now seemed very far from the floor. To her astonishment, the dolls were now running over to her. They held their swords aloft as they charged the rats, yelling as each one sank them into the flesh of the nearest vermin. All at once the rats turned from their efforts to climb the chair and began to attack the dolls. Again and again the dolls slashed and stabbed, but they could not hold the rats back.

"We need reinforcements!" one of them yelled.

"He should be here any minute!" another shouted back.

Celestia watched helplessly as more and more rats streamed out from beneath the clock to take the place of the ones the dolls had killed. They clearly outnumbered the dolls, but the four figures fought expertly, taking on multiple opponents at the same time. Still, Celestia could tell that they were tiring.

An angry cry suddenly exploded from beneath the clock and Celestia stared, amazed, as her very own nutcracker ran out from under it, leading a troop of toy soldiers. She couldn't believe her eyes. Her nutcracker wasn't gone; he had come to life! And he was miraculously whole once again. Celestia couldn't see any sign that he had even been broken in the first place. The ribbon she had used to tie him back together was fastened around the hilt of his glittering sword. She watched the blade whistle through the air, cutting a path through the rats to join the dolls fighting on the other side. Everywhere she looked, Celestia saw toy soldiers engaging the rats in battle, swords clashing against teeth and claws. The fighting went on for minutes without end and filled the air with screams and yells. Celestia wondered that no pony in the house came running at the terrible noise.

From all the figures fighting around her, she found that she was transfixed on her nutcracker. His face remained woodenly impassive no matter how many opponents he took on, but his sword-work was spectacular to watch. He twirled his sword delicately through the air, creating dazzling arcs, before bringing it down mercilessly on each rat that stepped before him. The ground around him was littered with bodies that the other rat dared not drag away.

Celestia was so absorbed in watching the nutcracker fight that she did not notice the silence that was beginning to fall over the other soldiers. Soon, though, a figure striding out from beneath the clock into the middle of the battle caught her attention. She looked on in horror as a huge, grotesque rat with seven heads pushed aside both toys and other rats alike. He wore seven tiny crowns on each of his heads and a royal purple cape that flowed off his shoulders. In his hands he held the biggest sword Celestia had ever seen.

The Rat King pushed his way towards Celestia's unsuspecting nutcracker, who had his back turned as he continued to fight the swarm of rats around him. Celestia could tell that the Rat King would not hesitate to kill him while his attention was occupied. Desperate, she wrenched off her slipper and flung it at the King's hunched back.

"Nutcracker!" she screamed as she watched the slipper tumble through the air, finding its mark squarely in the middle of the grotesque rat's back. Both he and the nutcracker turned towards her, the nutcracker's eyes finding the Rat King immediately. As the monstrous creature began to turn back around, the nutcracker charged him. He was barely able to lift his sword in time to deflect the nutcracker's blow. They immediately began to fight; exchanging thrust after thrust and blow after blow. There was none of the nutcracker's beautiful sword-work here, only crushing, malicious, two-hoofed strokes. It was evident that the nutcracker and the Rat King knew each other and hated each other. They went after one another mercilessly, never pausing to catch their breath.

It seemed that the fight would go on forever when the Rat King managed to slip under the nutcracker's defenses and slice open his wooden side. Celestia couldn't see any blood and his face didn't change, but his mouth opened in a cry of pain. She leaned out as far over the edge of the chair as she dared, as the rat soldiers cheered for their king.

The nutcracker staggered back from the Rat King, whose seven mouths spread into identical gruesome smiles. He raised his sword far above his head to deliver the killing blow, and in that second the nutcracker flashed forward to plunge his own sword deep into the creature's chest. The Rat King froze, all fourteen eyes fixed on the sword emerging from his heart. Then, agonizingly slowly, he fell over backwards, his crowns scattering across the floor.

Everyone stood in stunned silence for a moment, staring at the dead king as his blood started to pool on the floor. Then, suddenly, the nutcracker burst into a blinding white light. Celestia nearly fell off the chair as she struggled to see what was happening. All of the soldiers gathered around the nutcracker turned away, shielding their eyes from the glaring light. Finally, as it began to fade, a murmur of astonishment rippled through the troops.

For, standing in the same exact spot where the nutcracker had stood only moments before, there was now an incredibly handsome young stallion. He wore the same red military coat and hat as the nutcracker had; yet he was unmistakably pony. The young stallion stared in shock at his own body, and then lifted his hoovess to touch his now clean-shaven face. As he felt his own pony features, a look of indescribable joy appeared on his face. It was the first emotion Celestia had seen her nutcracker portray, and it was achingly beautiful. For there was no doubt that this stallion and the nutcracker were one and the same.

The rats, quickly recovering from their shock, began to retreat back under the grandfather clock, dragging their dead and wounded with them. The toy soldiers let them go, hardly giving them a second glance. Everyone was transfixed on the stallion who had only seconds before been a wooden nutcracker. He turned and met Celestia's eyes and quickly strode towards her. The crowd parted easily for him, and when he reached her chair, he held out his hooves for her.

"Jump, Celestia," he said. "I will catch you."

Celestia had never obeyed anypony as easily as she did him. Within seconds, she had landed in his hooves. He let out a small grunt of pain but held on to her tightly.

"Nutcracker!" she exclaimed. "I'm sorry, have I hurt you? Was I too heavy?"

He laughed lightly and set her on her hooves. "No, dearest Celestia. You could never hurt me." He touched his side where the Rat King had cut him and came away with blood on his hoof. "That monster seems to have done the trick, though."

Celestia quickly ducked her head under his front leg on his uninjured side.

"Lean on me, Nutcracker. Do you have a – a toy doctor or something of the sort?"

Nutcracker laughed again, but quickly stopped, holding a hoof to his side.

"I'm afraid a toy doctor wouldn't be much help to a stallion," he said. "No, we must go back under the clock to the Land of Sweets."

Celestia stared at him incredulously. "Come again?"

He tried his hardest not to laugh once again. "The Land of Sweets, my darling. It's where my toy troops came from."

She managed a nod, trying to absorb the fact that there was another land hidden under the grandfather clock in her great hall.

Nutcracker smiled widely, seeming to revel in the fact that he really could do so now. "If you could just help me over to retrieve my sword," he asked. "It still has your ribbon."

Celestia moved gingerly with Nutcracker to the Rat King's dead body. It lay where it had fallen, abandoned by his ratty subjects. Before Nutcracker could reach for it, Celestia swiftly drew the sword from the King's corpse and handed it to him.

"I don't want you to strain yourself," she said. Nutcracker merely nodded and took the sword from her grip. He was beginning to look pale and drawn. Celestia knew he must have been losing blood quickly. Retrieving the slipper that lay close to the dead rat, she turned Nutcracker in the direction of the grandfather clock. She tried to move them along swiftly without causing her beloved Nutcracker too much harm, but she could see that each step pained him. On the verge of tears, she finally stepped underneath the clock. Ahead of them was a perfect arch carved into the wall.

"Through there?" she whispered, looking up at Nutcracker's pale face. He nodded. Leaning heavily on her, he urged them the last few steps into the perfect darkness of the doorway.