//------------------------------// // 4.5 // Story: How Hard Could it Be? // by Richardson //------------------------------// 4.5 “Twilight. Twilight, easy now.” Sunbeam whispered to her student as the alicorn trembled upon her high perch. It had been only a few minutes, but Twilight was still shaking atop the high shelf she had eventually teleported herself to in her bids to get farther away from the sensors. She had crouched down, peeking over the edge worriedly, barely visible via the tip of her horn bobbing with her shakes and the trembling tips of her ears. Rarity reached up with her magic again as they waited for Spike to bring a calming chamomile tea to help, carefully prying Twilight from her perch and putting up a barrier of light to trick Twilight’s mind into thinking there was a wall between her and the object of her phobias. “It’s okay, darling. They’re all dead.” Sunbeam took up her place by Twilight’s side as the alicorn shivered in place, soothing her with slow strokes of a hoof-brush through her mane. “Easy now, my student. They can’t hurt you. They’re over there, and we’re over here.” Twilight nodded stiffly, panting still as her jangling nerves left her ready to bolt in terror. Sunbeam, despairing at her student’s terror-stricken state, lamented and carefully wrapped a foreleg about her in a hug. “I know that she read too many Daring Do books as a foal, but her fears have never been this bad before.” Rarity leaned up over Twilight’s other side with a brush she conjured from her home. “The plunder seeds a year ago and the, um, tatzlwurm I believe, they amplified her phobias from what I understand.” Rarity concentrated on straightening Twilight’s mane as Sunbeam brushed out her ruffled coat. Thinking further, the fashionata continued as Spike’s foot-falls heralded his arrival. “It might also have to do with the rather unwanted transformation of the familiar into a fearsome terror for her.” Stiffly nodding, Twilight raised a hoof to her chest and began working through the breathing exercises Cadence had taught her that she neglected far too often. Mouthing an ‘o’ of worry as she finally reached the root of Twilight’s extreme reaction, Sunbeam hugged just a little tighter. She needed a plan, a plan most cunning; ah, a plan involving learning. Still, a wince was called for as she realized how painful the process would be. “That will be a problem, considering that the little one’s talent will likely be singing the song-spell of life.” Rarity pursed her lips as she sent Sunbeam a side-long glance. “Sweetie Belle?” “H-how can you tell?” Twilight asked stiffly, stiffly as anything else she was doing. Theoretically it might be possible to predict cutie marks, but no evidence for it had been found besides minor personality clues. Grinning like a shark, Sunbeam beamed a smile to Rarity as she resisted the urge to pump a hoof in victory. There would be no shame in her next admission. “Oh, Princess Celestia couldn’t do the particular feats that Sweetie performed nearly as well. That’s probably why she felt safe in having me use her personal ‘come to life and clean’ rhythm to see if Sweetie actually was a song-spell. She just can’t give things temporary life like Sweetie has shown.” She laid her head atop the crown of Twilight’s own and hummed, humming her guilt and hopes to Twilight to stave off the ache of failure. Trembling slowed under the onslaught of friendship and harmony, soothed away under the comfort of a familiar form covering her, suckered out by the twisting worm of the teasing of knowledge—and Spike wadding up to wave another mug of tea under her nose freshly brewed. Insidious little traitor, calming her down like that. “You can have specialties in spell-songs?” She asked before snatching the mug from Spike and drinking greedily. Sunbeam nodded slightly before she remembered her chin was scuffing up the straight lines of Twilight’s mane. “From what I understand, L-Princess Luna sings of transitions and change, and Princess Celestia sings of growth and connections.” She confided to Twilight, who silently mouthed her understanding. Staring off into the glowing purplish crystal walls, she continued. “I suppose every cutie mark would be a further metaphor for a pony’s song-spell talent would be if they had any ability.” “Oh my.” Rarity mumbled to herself; her tail flicked against her trio of diamonds as she looked back over her shoulder to Spike. Nodding back to her, they snuck quietly across the room to the pile of test leads to get them ready as Sunbeam kept Twilight busy learning. Nodding, Twilight mulled over the revelation as she glanced down into the half-empty mug of tea Spike had left between her forelegs. Had all those times Celestia had sung with her or hummed to her while been song-spells to her, song-spells to make her grow, to make her learn more, to be more than she could have been? There was no way to tell for certain, she knew any recollection would be tainted by her new knowledge. Letting her head slowly slide down the curve of Sunbeam’s velvet-furred neck, she laid her head on the thick muscle at the base of the pegasus’s foreleg. “Did-did Celestia use her talent often?” “Yes, I suppose so. Both to raise and set the sun and moon, and to encourage other ponies to grow better than they would be on their own, if that is what you’re asking.” Sunbeam puttered half-heartedly as she transferred the brush from being strapped around her left foreleg to being gripped carefully with her teeth. She glanced back to Rarity, trying to motion the alabaster unicorn to hurry up before she went back to stroking Twilight down. A nudge from her nose sprawled out Twilight’s wings so Rarity could start affixing leads to various spots before she continued distracting Twilight. “She had to be very careful to be general as far as I am aware.” Spike grunted as he laid the thick coiled bundle of leads behind Sunbeam’s rump before asking something. “Why be general?” “Imagine Sweetie Belle’s accident happening to one pony in particular.” Every pony shuddered, and Twilight took a shaking deep draught from her mug. Her nostrils flaring a bit as snorted with a further full-body shiver from the possibilities, Twilight nodded as a potential origin for Discord came to mind. Or for that matter, a certain alabaster unicorn suddenly convinced that she was supposed to manage the weather. Her head pounded as she focused on various possibilities until she banished her thoughts; she could afford to get hung up and fret herself mad as Sweetie was counting on her to teach her control. Given the mighty powers and dangerous abilities so far shown and hinted at, a key lesson might be to teach her when not to use it. Maybe she could learn from that pool of knowledge herself. As Twilight’s wing twisted and fluttered with her indecisive worry Rarity hopped back and ducked down to avoid getting a mouthful of feathers. She’d left enough slack in the wires to keep them from tugging the feathers they were wrapped through. Shooting a glance to Spike, along with a waving hoof of irritation, took a moment more as she tried to get him to hurry up with getting the thaumatoscope helmet ready to put on Twilight. Lighting her horn, Twilight wrote some notes across the room atop one of the black lab countertops on one of the handy notepads she had discovered the week before. Though she knew she was being distracted from the ssssssnaaaaaaaakes, the temptation of knowledge was too much to ignore. “You said earlier that song-spells require direction and focus, and that intent mattered alongside wording. I can’t quite think of any spell like that. They require fixed matrixes. What did you mean?” Glancing up into Sunbeam’s eyes did wonders, as did her unsure twitching smile on her face. The poor pegasus buttered right up. On the spot, Sunbeam jerked a little, surprised by the effectiveness of her ploy. She cleared her throat and grinned back to her student. “Well, what happens when you summon up a large quantity of magic without implanting a matrix or directing it at a target?” “Anything! Wild magic is highly unpredictable, and highly dangerous due to the chance of a high intensity discharge.” Nodding, Sunbeam leaned her head down again and playfully stroked Twilight’s mane down into her eyes before rushing back up to the crown of the alicorn’s head and pulling the brush down to the tip of the streaked straight mane. Behind her, Rarity and Spike gently lowered the padded helmet onto Twilight’s head as the mentoring pegasus covered for them. “A song-spell is in many ways directed wild magic given form. Unbound by a rigid matrix of an intended spell effect, it can take on a more efficient form. By giving little intent, the spell is left to its own devices. A misguided intent, or miswording could be-catastrophic would be a word for how bad. Two plus two equaling fish would be another.” Frowning, both at the weight on her head that she was willfully trying to ignore and at the oddity of the revelation, Twilight pondered further. “Okay, where does the extra magic come from? I’ve examined Sweetie Belle before, and she only has the average amount of magic in her core that any unicorn filly should.” Sunbeam gave a wise old grin and chuckle. Her slightly cold nose startled Twilight as she bent down and buried it into the alicorn’s cheek before tweaking Twilight’s nose with her freed hoof. “Of course not.” As Twilight twitched her nose, a twitch prepared to unruffle it, Sunbeam poked the poor purple point again to pin it in place. “That would require the power of a song-spell to come from within instead of being borrowed from the local environment and nearby ponies much as a heart-song would.” “Hey!” Twilight swatted the hoof away, pinning it beneath both of her own. “You can’t borrow magic from some-pony!” “Tirek.” That did it, as Twilight pushed up and frowned in righteous anger. “He’s an abomination! Evil! Horrible!” Her outburst gave Rarity and Spike the opening they needed to switch on the recorder as her incensed angry shouts covered the initial beeps and startup noises. “We’re lucky that he didn’t permanently damage some-pony’s magic, or worse, kill some-pony by draining them too much!” “Yes, Tirek is evil. That is not, however, how it works. I merely used him as an example of borrowing magic.” Sunbeam replied quietly as her wing slid up Twilight’s back and slowly pushed her back down and laid over her. She hummed again quietly, an old song that Twilight found soothing from her apprenticeship, soothing her down and quieting her from ranting further. “He would be more of an example of theft instead. A heart-song or song-spell is more of a gentle, willful unconscious gifting of magic instead.” “It was kind of freaky seeing you guys like that.” Spike broke the mood as he waddled back in a zombie shuffle with the pot of tea in his stiff arms. “You were all ‘maaaaaaaaggiiiiiiiiic!’ And stuff. Ish.” Sighing sufferingly, Rarity stroked his head spines. “Yes, thank you for your insight, dear Spike.” As he blushed greenish-pink under Rarity’s ministrations, Sunbeam rolled her eyes and pretended to gag over the pair’s banter. “Gugh! I’m allergic to love!” A foam dart was graciously donated by Rarity, bouncing off of Sunbeam’s head. “Every-pony’s a critic.” “So, uh, borrowing?” “Ah, thank you, Twilight. As you know, a heart song is the sharing of every-pony’s magic in a given area.” Sunbeam began, wishing that she had the new set of element bearer action figures—especially the little Twilight one that lit up adorably—to demonstrate with. “The song acts as a passive aura, allowing every pony, object, and gathering of natural magic to harmonize along a general set of instruction or intents.” “We—uh—never covered heart-songs.” “We didn’t?” “No.” “How-uh, Princess Celestia never-?” “No.” “Oh.” Sunbeam leaned up at that, pulling her chin and wing away from Twilight who was still resting her head on the old pegasus’s upper thigh. Now that she thought of it, the lack of knowledge on heart songs might explain why Twilight was never interested in making friends before. “So, I didn’t get into the advanced study of natural magic fields, or the study of how every-pony’s biologically-generated magic fields interact in normal society either?” Twilight’s ears cocked in puzzlement before the alicorn shook her head. “How did that not get covered?” She settled back down around her student quickly as she started to fidget from the test leads wrapped into her wings like spider webs again. Twilight’s hooves touched and danced against one another for a time, dancing in nervous energy as she sought to explain how the oversight might have happened to distract herself. “I know that there is ambient magic, but the P—ahem—Celestia never got a chance to cover it. I-uh maybe might have distracted her somewhat excessively via overenthusiastic study of advanced magical formula theory and construction?” The young princess shyly grinned in embarrassment as she cupped her tea mug and took a calming sip. She had been meaning to get around to the rest of magic theory including environmental magic given the nearby Everfree Forest, but all the ponies in Ponyvile were CRA-ZY and kept distracting her from remembering to do so. That was her explanation, and she was sticking to it no matter how many books she had read since she got to town. Rarity pursed her lips, pondering. “Ah, yes. That would explain where dear Spike learned some of his,” She tapped a hoof against her chin as she turned her eyes ceiling-ward for inspiration in word choice, “Stallion-headedness, so to speak, from.” Shrugging, Spike set the tea pot down on a cozy. “Wouldn’t that be from, I dunno, being a guy? Just saying, Rarity, it’s kind of our thing.” Dismissively waving the hoof she had been tapping against her chin, Rarity brushed Spike off. “Oh, don’t be so sexist, Spikey-Wikey. Despite the name, the trait is entirely learned. Trust me on the matter.” She shuddered as she remembered her father’s ‘bonding’ time with Sweetie; toast must never be served lightly bubbling! Sunbeam’s smile dropped to Tartarus as she remembered her experience with the ‘toast’ after Sweetie had insisted that she make breakfast for her earlier that week—that poor flagstone didn’t deserve to boil away like that. Enough of that, she forced it out of her mind before she broke cover and teleported to a bathroom to cough up her last five centuries of meals. “Right. Well then, yes, magic free floats. Every-pony radiates magic naturally to one degree or another. It is a part of their metabolism, radiating from them much as heat does. There is a great deal more to it than that, but that comes later.” Twilight’s brand new fountain pen straight from Manehatten scraped against notepad as she diligently took notes. “Magic: part of metabolic process! Got it!” Patting Rainbow Dash’s still napping form lightly to see if she would wake up, Spike lounged back against her when she didn’t move. “Doesn’t everything have a magic signature or potential energy or whatever it’s called bound up in it? You know, since it’s part of the fundamental forces like the professors have been theorizing at each other?” Twilight’s head cocked as she twisted around to look at her number one Little Brother Best Assistant-Friend Forever/Number One Assistant. When had he learned so much? Nodding, Sunbeam confirmed Spike’s vague and hazy conjecture; it gave Twilight a few seconds more to let her guard down before the raspberries came to deliver hickies to that fluffy neck. Only a few seconds, of course. More than a few seconds without distraction made Twilight a twitchy pony at that moment. After blowing a bout of teasing torment into the whorls of Twilight’s neck, Sunbeam settled in to explain more. “Very good, Spike. Everything does have a magic binding energy and signature as part of its essential makeup. That is why unicorns project their magic to-“ Looking up from where she had been trying to smooth the spike of wetted fur out, Twilight beamed as she realized she could see where the reasoning was going. “By projecting their magic around and through an object, they harmonize the object’s magic with their own, and thus take control through direct fundamental manipulation!” She didn’t mean to squeak like that. Magic theory kind of got her excited like Rarity in that ultimate fabric shop in Manehatten. “Correct, Twilight!” Sunbeam encouraged. “Traditional magic is the forceful structured will of a pony’s magic field exerted. Song-spells and heart-songs are not nearly so direct. By coaxing instead of forcing, they do not fight the natural magic but align gently with it to subtly or not so subtly influence it in a wider variety of ways.” Rarity blinked, then giggled her strange laugh of triumph as she got the gist of the lesson; the prancing in place didn’t help the silly looks she got either. “Much like the difference between a cheap rack suit and a work most magnifique by an artist such as moi?” She proudly preened, while holding a hoof to her chest. Fluttering her eyelashes lightly and beaming a million bit smile finished out her display, making Spike swoon against his snorting pillow. Rolling her eyes, Sunbeam nodded. “To an extent. Yes. That is the general idea.” She glanced over to Spike, and Dash his pillow who still slept in the corner. “It’s more of an art than a science still.”