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// 2 Amber Aldis 
// Story: A Flicker of Despair 
// by Brass Polish 
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	Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash were on opposite ends of the sky above Ponyville looking for a big enough cloud to cover the library. Fluttershy was the first to spot one. It was drifting away from the town.
“Rainbow Dash?”
Fluttershy was never one to raise her voice.
“I found a cloud.”
There was no sign of her friend.
“Rainbow Dash?”
She turned towards the cloud, grasped it and tried to move it. It began to slide towards her, but it was difficult work for her. It seemed heavier than it looked. Then, Rainbow Dash arrived.
“Oh. You heard me,” said Fluttershy.
“Yeah,” said Rainbow Dash. “Since I met you, I’ve been practising straining my ears to catch small noises. I think I’m starting to get the hang of it.”

It was tough going. Between Rainbow Dash’s sore wings and Fluttershy’s lack of muscle, the journey to the Library was taking a long time. Suddenly, Rainbow got a cramp and the cloud stopped abruptly. As it did, Fluttershy felt it tilt to one side. Then, to both their surprise and alarm, another pegasus slipped off the cloud and plummeted towards the ground.
“Whoa, she was sleeping on there!” cried Rainbow Dash.
She dived to try and catch the sleeping pegasus, but even with gravity pulling her down, she couldn’t go fast enough to catch her. And they were directly above the pond. Rainbow Dash could see the wolf river tree was still there splashing around.
“Little help?!” Rainbow Dash called.

One of the ingredients for Twilight’s rejuvenation potion had to sit for an hour before it could be added. Before that hour was up, darkness filled the library.
“Ah, good,” said Rarity. “Rainbow and Fluttershy found a cloud.”
And that wasn’t all they’d found.
“Hey Twilight, we’ve got another victim,” said Rainbow Dash and she and Fluttershy flew in carrying the unconscious pegasus. “The Venomodo must’ve spotted her and scratched her on his way back home.”
“Who is that?” asked Pinkie Pie. “I don’t recognise her.”
Twilight’s eyes widened. “Amber Aldis?”
“You know her?” asked Fluttershy.
“Yeah,” said Twilight, smiling a bit. “She’s a friend of mine from school.”
“Friend?” asked Rainbow Dash. “I thought the only friend you had in school was Spike.”
“Well, I guess she was more of a study buddy,” said Twilight. “So she was the closest thing I had to a pony friend back then.”
She looked at the victim’s mane, which was messy and had a few leaves in it.
“You might not have noticed,” she said to her two pegasus friends, “But…”
She brushed some of Amber’s hair aside to reveal a horn.
“…She’s an alicorn. A hereditary alicorn.”

Amber Aldis’ eyes were shut tight and she was breathing heavily. The scratch from the Venomodo had paralysed her. But like Twilight said, there was a simple cure. One spray of cold water on the wound later, Amber shot upright looking very bewildered.
“What- what happened?! Where am I?!”
She spotted Twilight and lit up… in more ways than one. Her horn turned a bright orange-yellow as if it were on fire.
“Twilight Sparkle?! Is that really you?”
“Hi, Amber,” smiled Twilight.
“How did you find me?” asked Amber.
“Well, my fr-”
But then Amber jumped. She spotted something on either side of Twilight.
“You’ve got wings!” she exclaimed. “How did you do that?!”
Twilight, not bothering to wonder why Amber hadn’t heard of her coronation, told her than she’d become a princess.
“You’re a princess?! Wow. How did you earn that title?” asked Amber, her horn still glowing.
“Princess Celestia decided I’d learned enough about a certain magic to become a leader,” Twilight smiled. “And that was the magic of friendship.”
Amber’s smile began to fade. “Friendship?”
At that moment, the hour glass ran out. The last ingredient for the rejuvenation potion was ready. As Twilight went to add it to the mix, no one saw the light from Amber’s horn go out completely.

Soon, Twilight, Amber, Pinkie Pie, Applejack, Rarity and Fluttershy were outside looking up at the sky watching Rainbow Dash carry Spike high above Ponyville. Spike felt like a hot coal in Rainbow Dash’s hooves.
“Hang in there, Spike,” said Rainbow Dash. “You’ll be all better in no time.”
Once they were high enough, Rainbow Dash shot downwards. The extra weight of a baby dragon was certainly helping her get speed up. From the ground, the two of them were becoming clearer and clearer. Then at last, there was a loud bang and a whirlpool of colour erupted from Rainbow Dash as she continued to her descent.
“A sonic rainboom,” said Amber. “I’ve never seen one of those.”
As Rainbow Dash pulled out of the dive and zoomed around above the city, Spike recovered completely right before her eyes.
“Whoa!” he exclaimed. “I never thought I’d know what it feels like to be a pegasus pony!”
Spike had the ride of his life that afternoon. His heatstroke was completely gone and he felt fine and dandy.
“I wonder if all the cures for Venomodo poisons are as fun as this!” he said when at last Rainbow Dash set him down on the ground.

That evening, the Royal Taskforce had a celebratory dinner by the pond, which they’d roped off upon lifting the code red from Ponyville. Amber Aldis was their guest of honour and all of Twilight Sparkle’s friends were quite interested in their history in Canterlot.
“We were both studying unicorn magic,” said Twilight. “Amber knew I was Princess Celestia’s pupil and so she asked me if I could help her study more complex spells.”
“I did always want to learn more about magic than flying,” said Amber. “Not that I don’t like being a unicorn and a pegasus in one, but magic was much more appealing to me. The possibilities were endless.”
Amber’s horn lit up a bit.
“But Amber wasn’t a good learner,” said Twilight. “I mean no offence, but…”
“Yeah, I know what you mean,” said Amber. “I was a bit forgetful. So I asked Twilight to help me study. But it wasn’t long before she developed a… pretty interesting opinion of me.”
Her horn dimmed down.
“I thought Amber would make a better flight student than a magic student,” said Twilight. “You did have an average WP number of 9.”
“9?” repeated Rainbow Dash. “At that age? Not bad. Have you ever thought of trying out for the Wonderbolts?”
Amber shook her head.

“I did go to junior flight camp,” she said, “but I didn’t do any better there than in magic school. I just wasn’t interested in becoming a competitive flyer. So I went back to school. I was a year behind everypony else in my grade and I was the only one in my class with no cutie mark.”
Applejack looked at Amber’s flank, which sported what looked like a beam of light with a helical arrow winding its way from its source. “So when dija get yours?”
“About halfway through that year,” Amber replied. “I was trying to find Twilight. No one could tell me where you’d gone.”
“Oh, that must’ve been the year Princess Celestia arranged for me to go to Saltlick City to learn about translation spells from Professor Raisin D’etre,” said Twilight. “I thought I’d left a note.”
“I don’t remember you leaving one,” said Spike. “I had the week off when you left.”
“Well I wanted to see if you could help me study again,” said Amber, “And I wound up searching a part of the school I’d never been in before. Then a breeze blew in an open window and blew out all the lanterns in the hall. For several minutes, I couldn’t see a thing. Then my horn glowed and lit a path to my loft.”
“So your cutie mark signifies your ability to guide yourself in the dark with the light from your horn?” asked Fluttershy.
“Yep,” said Amber happily. “I can find anything with this handy-dandy horn of mine.”
“That’s kind of funny,” said Pinkie Pie, “Because you were the one who needed finding today.”
Everypony had a good laugh at that.

“So tell me about how you became a princess,” said Amber. “You said it had something to do with learning about friendship, right?”
“Yes,” Twilight smiled. “Princess Celestia sent me here to inspect the preparations for the Summer Sun Celebration, but I wanted to find out if Nightmare Moon was coming back.”
“You mean Princess Luna?” asked Amber.
“What? How do you know about Princess Luna coming back but not about Twilight becoming a princess?” asked Rainbow Dash.
“I’ve been… never mind,” said Amber. “Go on, Twilight.”
Twilight told Amber about saving Equestria from Nightmare Moon’s eternal night, staying in Ponyville to study the magic of friendship, and rewriting Starswirl the Bearded’s unfinished spell after inadvertently swapping her friends’ cutie marks.
“And that’s how you earned your wings?” asked Amber.
“Yep. At the moment, I’m…” Twilight paused. “Rainbow Dash, how would you say I’m coming along?”
Rainbow Dash looked away.
“Oh, come on,” said Twilight, rolling her eyes. “I can’t have been as bad as you.”

Rainbow Dash ignored Twilight. “So where were you when Twilight became a princess?”
Amber groaned. “I’m still a year behind. I went to Saltlick City myself. They’re not very big on politics there. You don’t hear much about what’s going on with the Royal Family around that place. Anyway, I had to pass over Ponyville on my way back to Canterlot. But I ran into that… what’s it called again?”
“A Venomodo.”
“Right. It took one look at me and scratched me right across the wing.”
“You sent that letter to Princess Celestia, right Spike?” asked Twilight.
“Yep. She knows about the Venomodo, Amber’s injury and the clean-up operation tomorrow,” replied Spike.
“Are you sure I shouldn’t be flying yet?” asked Amber.
“Your injury is not like Rainbow Dash’s,” Twilight told her. “It’s a pretty deep scratch. My rejuvenation potion won’t make that any better. It shouldn’t take you more than a day to heal. But look on the bright side. You can definitely use magic.”
“Yeah.”
Amber looked down at her meal.
That’s all that matters, isn’t it? she thought to herself.

The truth was Amber didn’t like the fact that Twilight had to learn how important friendship is in order to become an alicorn princess. She’d never had trouble making friends herself. Even at junior flight camp, some young pegasi offered their support when she was having a hard time. She’d always seen Twilight as antisocial and only wanted her help studying magic because she’d been hoof-picked by Princess Celestia herself to learn lots and lots of spells. There were times when they’d been studying together that Amber thought Twilight was more interested in learning about what she was studying than if her study buddy was learning anything.

That night, Amber couldn’t help but ponder Princess Celestia’s decision as she laid in the bed Twilight had magiced her out of a book.
“Why did she teach Twilight the value of having friends so she could give her wings?” she wondered. “I was born with a horn and wings and I wasn’t opposed to making friends. And magic is my stronger point. So why was I never a candidate?”
She thought about what Twilight told her about the dark morning when she and her friends ventured into the Everfree Forrest to find the Ancient Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters.
“Nightmare Moon nearly destroyed the Elements of Harmony,” Amber recalled. “If I’d been in Twilight’s place, we could’ve used them as soon as we found them.”
She found the thought of being in Twilight’s place during that time very pleasant. She liked Twilight’s friends and couldn’t help imagine how the scenario would have gone if she’d been chosen by Princess Celestia to learn magic directly from her and to go to Ponyville to supervise the preparations for the Summer Sun Celebration.

She must’ve dreamt about this because when she next heard Twilight’s voice, she was completely dumbstruck.
“Sorry,” said Twilight, “But we could use some help cleaning up the mess by the pond. Would you mind?”
Amber got out of her bed and stretched. “Sure, why not? What do you want me to do? Inspect the sky; make sure the Venomodo isn’t hanging around?”
Twilight shook her head. “You said it flew away after it scratched you. I think it was pretty disgusted to be anywhere near a place inhabited by ponies. Besides, remember your wing? You should wait until this evening before flying.”
“OK,” Amber sighed.
“So, if you’re not using that bed anymore…”
Twilight’s horn glowed and in a flash, the bed turned back into an open book.
“Meet me at Sweet Apple Acres,” she said before leaving the room.
Amber didn’t get right to work. She had noticed something. The book Twilight had turned into a bed and back again was open to a page with a picture of a Venomodo on one page and a unicorn on another page.
“This must be Twilight’s guide to Venomodos,” she said.
Curiosity compelled her to have a look at the page it was open on. As she read on, she become more and more absorbed.

Pg. 196. ‘Egg Banjo was not the discoverer’s real name. In fact, he was not even an earth pony when he first encountered the horrible creature. In his own time, he was known as Dystopia and he was a unicorn pony. When he and his fellow farm workers were attacked, many of them had been permanently poisoned, and while most would say that Dystopia was lucky to have found cures for some of them, Dystopia himself desperately wished they hadn’t encountered the beast to begin with. Hence why when Starswirl the Bearded claimed to have discovered how to travel back in time and sent out a want ad for a unicorn to try it out, Dystopia jumped at the chance. So he ate a big breakfast of assorted fruits and vegetables and made his way to Canterlot, where Starswirl told him that the time travel spell wouldn’t last long and to go back to a time and place where no one would see him. Dystopia said he would, but he intended to go back and warn Saltlick City about the Venomodo. But when he arrived back in time, he appeared to not have a body. He was a ghostly creature who couldn’t be seen or heard by anypony.’

Pg. 197. ‘Dystopia remembered that one of the carrots he’d eaten had been sliced in half while the rest were still intact. He reached the conclusion that it had been sliced by the Venomodo’s claw and now he was infected by it, and also Starswirl’s new spell. He floated around shouting at his co-workers, and when he approached the earth pony Egg Banjo, he shouted in his ear leaning closer and closer until he found himself being sucked into his friend’s body. To his surprise, he had become Egg Banjo. He wondered if the real Egg Banjo was now a ghost floating around trying to get somepony to see and hear him. But now that he was solid, Dystopia had to warn the farm and the town about the impending danger. The problem was Egg Banjo had a reputation for being a jokester and when Dystopia told him that he had come back in time to warn his co-workers about the Venomodo, they were reluctant to take him seriously. Then the most extraordinary thing happened. Egg Banjo’s head sprouted a horn just like Dystopia’s own. He found he could grow and retract it as he pleased and it was perfectly functional. Now everypony was listening to him, but sadly, he had taken too long to get his message out and the farm’s encounter with the Venomodo went almost the same as the first one. Only this time Dystopia was able to cure the victims quicker. However, he was never able to leave Egg Banjo’s body, or return to the time and place he came from. He was forced to assume the life of Egg Banjo from then on, and the present day Dystopia decided to let him take the credit for discovering the cures for Venomodo poisons.’