//------------------------------//
// Convalescence 
// Story: Magic's Shadow 
// by Reykan 
//------------------------------//

	Luke rested in the strange bed he'd woken up in that morning. He wasn't tired, true, but he just had no motivation, no reason to get up. Yesterday had maxed out his limited 'weird shit' tolerance. Hell, it would probably never recover. Would it bother him if today he met another mythological creature? Probably not, I mean he had one latched onto him at the moment, and he himself was no longer human.
He looked back at the little purple fuzz-ball, currently with it's nose in his hair and it's forelegs latched onto him. She had something to do with this, he was certain of it. It hadn't taken him long to realize the panic he kept feeling was actually from her, nor did it take that long for him to figure out that she was the only one who understood what he said, and vice-versa. He'd also seen her spark uncontrollably with energy several times when her panic reached melt-down levels. After the second bolt of energy that came near him left a smoldering crater in the concrete at his fe-hooves, he found it in his best interest to calm her down. It was difficult, considering his own panic over the situation, but self-preservation is a hell of a drug.
Luke managed to keep the girl from panicking long enough to get a name out of her (Twilight Sparkle? Who names their kid that?), and a species, though that one should have been obvious to him. The questions seemed to help though, as her brain seemed to reboot outside of panic-mode, and she started asking her own. His name, what he was (Hell if he knew), how he got there (see last answer), and so on and so forth. Then she proceeded to poke and prod his everything, because science. He was just getting to the point of yelling at her to stop when their mutual exchange of questions regarding what the hell happened was interrupted by the amazing goon-squad. 

These huge gold-armored guys came out of freakin' nowhere, grabbed the girl and slammed some ring on her horn. She immediately started panicking again, muttering about being banished, and the thing exploded, some of the shards cutting the goons. Luke tried reaching her, knowing just how bad her energy surges got when she was panicking, and was rewarded with a rear-hoof to the face which sent him into a nearby wall. After that things got fuzzy. Twilight later told him that eventually they pulled out a bigger ring, and slapped it onto her horn. She was still almost breaking it, so they threw her into the magic dampening cages they were stuck in when he came to. Then Big White showed up. At first he thought she was the one who sent the goons, but judging by the fear in their eyes as they scattered out of her way, and the look of shock on her face as she approached their current accommodations , she was either intercepting a child-slavery ring that was big enough to have uniforms, or the goons did something wrong. Twilight started to panic as she got closer, but he asked the filly "Twilight, what did I say about panicking?" and went back to his humming. She calmed down a bit, though he heard her moving to the side of her cage that was closest to him. Honestly, Luke was panicked out at this point, and every time he did panic the little girl only got worse, so what was the point? Nope, Twi was panicking plenty enough for both of them.

The big white one asked some questions, and pulled away the apparent leader of the gang. Then she returned a bit later and ordered the cages opened. Afterwards they were ushered into a carriage and the white one followed them in. She said something to the purple filly, who finally stopped hyperventilating around big/white, and that was when Luke noticed an issue with their current mode of transport.

It was airborne.

None of the others were worried about it, so it just left him confused. Why would you make a carriage that flew? Was it being pulled by those flying horses? Wasn't that kind of demeaning? Wouldn't it be easier to take a plane or a helicopter? Wait, he hadn't seen any cars on the road from the alley they'd ended up in, did they have technology here? So many questions, maybe he could ask-
It was then that he noticed Twilight was currently asleep. Apparently his younger sister wasn't the only one who thought he made a good pillow. He tried asking big/white, but she just smiled at him sadly, and whinnied something he didn't understand. With nothing else to do, he stared out the window until he dozed off as well. To be honest, he felt pretty refreshed after sleeping for whatever amount of time he was out. The only thing that brought him any anxiety in regards to his current location was the fact that he was in a girls room, most likely Twilights. Which meant that sooner or later he would have to deal with her parents.

The door opened, and an older light purple unicorn walked in, whinnying something he couldn't hope to translate at the fuzz-ball attached to his back, who started shifting. Seeing Luke looking at her, the smile became a bit strained, but she gave what he assumed was some type of greeting before nervously heading back out into the hallway. This was getting ridiculous, how long did it take her to wake up?

"Twilight, get up, were going to be late for bre-"



<-(0)-> 



Princess Celestia sat on a cushion in the living room, calmly enjoying her tea while talking with the fillies parents. She'd managed to worm her way out of Day court early, citing a need to follow up on the magic mishap the previous day. She'd even made sure that Twilights brother was given leave to check on his sister, despite the short notice, which was why the stallion was sitting across the way, chatting with his father. The mother, Twilight Velvet, was just reaching the living room tables when a shriek of surprise was heard from upstairs. Despite the princesses confusion, most of the sparkle family either chuckled or merely shook their heads. 
Before the sun princess could make any inquiries about the sound, a little purple blur was rushing by, headed for the kitchen, three brushes moving over her coat, a fourth getting tangled in the fins and hair-like silk of the changeling that was flailing behind her, dragged along in her magical grip. He clearly wasn't happy with the situation, grunting and muttering his displeasure the entire way. Well, until he slapped into the archway frame to the kitchen, then his muttering become much more volatile, eliciting several apologies from the purple unicorn as she dragged him into the kitchen by his stubby tail.

"Twilight dear, we're over here. Come and visit, I'll bring you and your, er,  friend something to eat."

At that the fillies mother walked to the kitchen, passing by the both of them as the unicorn and changeling walked back into the living room. The changeling was still muttering  at her, stopping just past the archway before raising his hooves, seemingly framing the dent in the wall. While the princess couldn't understand him, the giggles from the filly gave her a good idea what the subject was. Once the filly had greeted her father and hugged her brother, her attention focused on the princess. The fear wasn't as apparent, but she was certainly keeping as close to the changeling and her family as she could.

"Twilight Sparkle, it is wonderful to see you are well. As I attempted to say yesterday, you have much magical potential, more than any unicorn I have seen in a long time. Therefore, I would be most happy if you would accept my offer to be my personal student."

As soon as the princess had finished the offer, all fear left the filly, leaving only absolute joy. "YES! Yes, yes yes! Yes yes yes yes..."


<-(0)-> 


Luke was not having a pleasant morning. He still wasn't sure when he left the bed, or why he had the taste of mint in his mouth, but the second the filly started moving, everything became a blur. The next thing he was certain of  was that he'd left an interesting impression on the wall. Actually, he still hadn't gotten a good look at himself in a mirror since this whole thing started. The impression he made on the wall was the closest he'd gotten to a view of his current face. After saying as much to Twilight, who started giggling uncontrollably at the idea, he took a good look around the room that the family seemed to be occupying. Big/white was the only one he recognized, which didn't surprise him, there was an older looking stallion holding- wait, how was he holding that newspaper? Luke knew that Twilight could float things, but he seemed to be using his hooves to hold the paper. The flats of them. 
Filing that as something to ask the little filly later, he turned to the third unicorn in the room, a younger unicorn with what looked like military clothes on, glaring at him. Her father? Maybe the one reading the paper was her grandfather? No, wait. Twi had greeted the other unicorn that they had passed as her mom, so that would logically leave the older one as her father. Now that he thought about it the younger stallion didn't look old enough to be her dad. Did ponies age the same as humans? How old did he look to them? How old was Twilight? And what did he do to piss off her older brother?
Luke was getting frustrated, so many questions, and he couldn't ask a single one. Well, he could, but there was only one pony he knew who could give him an answer, and she was currently dancing happily around the table. 'Must be nice to be able to talk to others, huh Twilight? Wish I knew how that felt.'
He stomped his hooves in frustration, and he suddenly felt like someone had poked his brain. A shriek from the filly told him she'd most likely felt the same thing. As the pain dissipated and his senses returned, he was aware of voices again, though a problem asserted itself as they became clearer. 

"...never seen anything like it before, so I'm not entirely certain what kind of effects they may have on each other besides the obvious influence on emotions and reduction in the danger of her surges."

"Owie, what happened?" He heard Twilight mutter as she rubbed a hoof against her head.

All of the adults stared back confused, before Celestia leaned down to the filly and asked her if she was alright.

'It's fine, don't worry about me, sitting over here with a migraine of my own, I mean I couldn't possibly have head trauma after getting smashed into a doorway two minutes ago.'

"What? I-I don't understand. I don't understand what they're saying!  What's going on?" The fillies panic surged at him, breaking him out of his rambling. A second later he looked up, right at the princess. She seemed to have an idea of what was going on at that point, a spark of understanding in her eyes.

Luke just put his face in both hooves. "Thanks for letting me know you still cared, Murphy. I thought you'd forgotten about me."