Spell practice. It was the only thing that my brother and I could spend time doing these days. While he was busy being Captain of the Guard and taking care of an expecting wife, I was busy mulling over my duties as a Princess and spending time with my friends back at home.
The long rolling hills provided a great area for us to explore. My brother had wanted a wide enough space as possible to try new warfare spells, and he wanted me to tag along to record any possible side effects. Due to the nature and danger of these spells, we had to get Celestia's permission to preform this task. Mindful as ever she told us yes, but if we thought that our lives were in danger at any point we were to come straight back and report to her our findings.
She had the. Directed us to these majestic hills that were on the southern end of Canterlot. The field was wide enough to contain the blast radius for some of the spells, and all the animals had moved to the north to graze as the fall moved in. There were very few trees in the area, and the ones that were there already had leaves falling from them, creating the huges piles that we liked to jump in when we were fillies. I looked over to my brother who was standing next to me. He was standing shoulder with, and his knees bent slightly at what appeared to be at a twenty degree angle. I saw his horn start to glow, and levitated a parchment and quil from my saddlebag. I noticed the spell was beginning to take its toll on his body. His already huge veins were showing themselves like gushing blue scars, and I swore I sensed a ligament or two start to tear in his lower thighs. With a jolt of energy he fired the spell skyward.
"Twilight! Twilight! Did you record all of that?!" My brother said, running over to me. His legs looked like they were going to give way with each step.
"I got it! What spell was that anyway?" I asked while I examined my brother. His veins were just now starting to recede though I could see large amounts of sweat running down his mane as if he were a waterfall.
"It was just a simple seeking spell." He said, trying to catch his breath. He tried to shake the sweat out of his mane, and I used my hand as a shield to block the sweat. I gave him a small smile as his mane inflated, nearly covering his whole face.
"Simple?" I raised an eyebrow. "How is this a simple spell when your whole body nearly gave out?!"
My brother laughed. "It's a simple spell if you're talking about seeking spells! Even the most simple ones takes people years, even decades to master. The fact that I got that to fire off that small one without any part of my body tearing off is a miricle of its own!"
"You remember what the Princess told us about doing these highly dangerous spells!" I slapped him across the face. "What we're you thinking Shining?!"
He tended to the cheek that I had slapped, and chuckled. "Twilly, you of all people should know that in order to test your limits you need to find out what that limit is first!"
I scoffed at the notion. "Well yeah, but not if it kills you! You're going to have to be in an ice bath for the rest of the night just because of this one spell!"
"Twilight." My brother paused, and came over to me to put a hoof on my shoulder. "I think know what spells can kill me. After all I am Captain of the Guard who happens to have the highest magical reserves of any unicorn in Canterlot!" He straightened up and fixed his royal guard uniform, which was a little tattered after he cast the spell. I could see his eyes filled with pride.
"Don't get a head of yourself Starswirl. I still remember the time when you failed a simple teleportation spell."
He laughed again. "Teleportation is not my forte, but I think I got pretty lucky when I ended up only in Saddle Arabia. Things could have been much worse."
"That's true, but you should have never done the spell in the first place if you didn't know how well you controlled it!" I said, slightly punching him in the shoulder.
"Well I know now don't I. You of all people should know that researching spells isn't done in safety. You must go out and be able to take risks!" My brother said. He walked over and teased my mane. I tried to find some words to counter his logic, but could find none. I found some steam coming from my nose as I snorted. I hated it when he was right. I usually never admitted it, but I was jealous at how smarter he truly was than me. Sure I had all the book smarts, but when it came to people and even life, he was far out of my league. He looked at me and smirked. "Now come on, why don't you show me a special spell that you've been working on?"
"Alright, but can we move out of this blazing mid morning sun? I'd rather not be blinded when'd firing." I said, pointing to some shade that was created by a near by tree.
"Sure thing if it helps you focus more." He said, nodding. We moved to the tree. I turned away from the sun, not wanting to take any chances, and I began to charge my horn. This spell wasn't anything too challenging. I had used this one when I was battling Tirek. While back then it had strained every muscle and bone in my body, several months of constant practice has made it become one of my key moves in my arsenal. I was taking a little longer to charge this spell, wanting to simulate what I would consider a kill shot. Charging up I felt an invisible sphere of magic form around me, and felt the magic flow from my Cutie Mark, up through my stomach, and out of my horn where it was radiating purple energy. Soon after the invisible sphere was depleated, I gave one final push and saw a large beam of purple magical energy shoot out of my horn. I stood in awe at how powerful my attack was.
My brother walked over to me and gave me a pat on the back. I looked up at him and smiled. I felt good about training that day, and in most respect it was. By the time we were done, both of us were drenched from head to toe in sweat. I said that we had enough sweat to water the whole fields. My brother started laughing, and then I did too. We both were soon laughing on the grass so hard that we started rolling down the hill together. When we landed, we wiped the tears from our eyes. Shining then spoke to me.
"Little sis we've got to have more times like these!"
I nodded in agreement. "It's a shame that I'm staying here for the weekend then it's back to Ponyville for me. I'll try to come up as often as I can!"
"Come on. Let's go tell the Princess how we progressed to-" before my brother finished speaking we both heard the ringing of a bell. Pausing for a moment, we heard two more dings from the deep ringing, hollowed out bells that were kept at the southern guard tower.
"There weren't supposed to be any funerals today right?" I asked.
My brother shook his head. "Not that I know of. The next funeral service scheduled is in two days, and it's for Prince Blueblood's uncle." My heart began to sank as I thought more about who this could be for. I looked at my brother, and we exchanged worried looks.
"I-I don't know what to do." I said, shaking.
Shining walked over to me and tightly rapped his arm around me. "Hey, it's okay sis. Whatever happens in there just know that I have your back. Let's go and see what the buck happened!" I sheepishly nodded, and we galloped as fast as we could through the meadow. We were lucky that the hill we were on was less than a mile away from the Castle. Shining had picked this spot out for us as we could be close enough in case he was needed for an emergency assignment.
We made our way through the courtyard, accidentally shoving aside any unlucky bystander that happened to be in our way, and charged through the front doors. Running in I noticed that there were several guards lining up on either end of us as if they were preparing for a funeral procession. I noticed that the flags resembled that of the Crystial Empire, and they were half staff. I tried to point this out to my brother, but it appeared like he didn't hear me. Moving further down the hall I finally saw the two, pure golden doors that were the remaining obstacles between us, and whatever tragedy awaited us on the other end. I began to have a sinking feeling who was dead, and stopped when the doors were mere inches away from us.
"Twilight? What's the matter?" My brother said, gently stroking my mane.
"I want to turn back." I said, my lips quivering with tears beginning to run down my cheeks.
"We can't turn back now! Look. Let's get this over with so we can move on." He said, putting one hoof on the door. I nodded. Maybe this was just a big misunderstanding. Maybe no one died at all. Maybe one of the Royal pets died. Maybe it was one of Luna's practical jokes that she kept on playing, even though we've told her these kind aren't acceptable within our society she still does them anyway. I was willing to accept any answer that wasn't the one I had in my head.
With a deep breath my brother opened the door to the throne room, and I threw up in my mouth at what I saw. There in the middle of the room lay a body mutilated beyond recognition with a hatchet still stuck inside the stomach. Standing above the pool of blood were Princess Celestia, and Princess Luna who were both comforting each other. Shining ran over to the body, and cradled it in his arms, whispering to it. I saw tears streaming down his cheeks as he pressed the deceased's head over his chest.
"What are you looking at Twilight?!" He yelled at me, tears continuing to flow down. I stepped back in shock. Not because my brother yelled at me. No, he's done that plenty of times before.
It was because this was the first time that I ever saw my brother cry.