Magic's Shadow

by Reykan


Spelling for Dummies

Breakfast that morning was slightly more endurable for the family and their guest. Shadow could feel the difference almost before she even took a seat at the table. Shining was still uncomfortable, but no longer glaring at her, leaving her twin much more relaxed. Twilight's mother and father were slightly more at ease as well, possibly because they were no longer reacting to their son's hostility to their guest. The unicorn filly ate hungrily, not being able to stomach much the night before, daring to even smile a little at her parents despite the friction from the last meal.

Everyone else was eating, and still Shadow merely nibbled at her food. She was starting to worry about her diet. Nearly two days and she hadn't been able to down even a full meal much less eat the entire meal in a single sitting. Was there something wrong with her? It didn't feel like anything was wrong. The only difference she noted was even more empathy, being able to read even the stone-faced Night Light like a book. Finally having enough, and hoping her absence would help things along, Shadow reached over and nudged the unicorn filly.
"I'm going to head back up stairs and work on this transformation stuff. I had an idea."

Twilight nodded, before returning to her meal. Taking one last glance around, Shadow excused herself and hopped off the chair, walking to the stairs. She kept telling herself the family just needed time, they just needed to adjust to the strangeness of the situation. She dearly hoped she was right. They couldn't keep acting like this forever. It would break the poor purple filly.

Finally arriving in their shared room, Shadow went to work. 'Focus on the image.' She brought to her mind a unicorn colt she'd seen earlier through the window, complete with a cutie mark of a few coins. 'Check every detail.' Shadow noted the colors of the mane, tail, eyes, even the scar on the colts left hoof. She couldn't miss anything; to do so would cause problems. People would notice if someone's scar kept changing position.
'Focus the energy to your horn.' The changeling brought the energy to her horn, the buzzing sensation signaling to her that it was ready for whatever purpose she had in mind.
'Set the image over yourself, and set it on fire.' With a burst of flames, the filly's body began to shift. Shadow was ecstatic! It had worked; she'd managed to work out most of the details from the unicorn's descriptions, and piece together what she needed to do.

Suddenly the energy backlashed, sending a jolt of pain through the foal. In a flash of light, Shadow once more found herself thrown across the room, a loud pop and fizzle from the dissipating energy the only other obvious reactions from the spell. Shaking her head and rubbing it with a hoof, she came up short, staring at the limb. It was black again, the chitin that had once covered her body now back. Checking her lower body, she was delighted to find that she was now using the wrong gender pronouns. With a whoop of joy, Shadow pranced across the room, chanting "Not a girl anymore, not a girl anymore, not a girl anymore!"

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Twilight's parents, while relieved the changeling no longer looked like their daughter, were a tad upset that their daughter had apparently felt the recoil from Shadow's spell mishap. Night Light even sat the two down in the filly's room and proceeded to explain, in excruciating detail, why it was that one should not cast new spells while alone. It was hilarious to Shadow, as Night Light managed to get ten minutes into the lecture before Twilight raised a hoof to interrupt her father and pointed out that the colt couldn't understand a single thing he was saying. So it was with great discomfort that Light asked his daughter to allow him to speak with the changeling. The stallion then proceeded to give him the entire spiel all over again; this time in a language the colt could follow. Afterwards he had the colt promise not to do such a thing again without at least Twilight nearby to use the dispel in an emergency, though he would prefer Shining or himself be around in most cases. Having said his piece the stallion left, leaving the two sitting on the bed. The moment the door closed though the filly turned to Shadow with a huge grin on her face. Backing away from the manic unicorn, Shadow swallowed loudly.
"Tell. Me. Everything!"

The filly ended up demanding every detail that led to the spells collapse. What he was hoping for, his process, what the colt he wanted to copy actually looked like, where he saw said colt, how much magic he tried to use, and what he felt as the spell started and ultimately failed.

"Ok, so according to Alchemy 104, while a result from a previous concoction may have the same chemical composition as another ingredient, you should never use the concoction in the place of the ingredient as the mixing can cause a collapse in the chemical structure. Since we're looking at your magic as being closer to alchemy than unicorn magic, I think it would be safe to postulate that your second disguise reacted badly with your active disguise, destabilizing the both and reverting you to your base form."

"I stacked too many cards and the whole house fell down." The shape shifter translated.

While she frowned at the dumbing down, the unicorn filly nodded. "While you may be able to hold several transformations or stack them at a later date, your experience, or the base of your house, is too small to support more than one disguise at a time." Suddenly Twilight brought a hoof to her chin. "We keep calling it a disguise, right? Could you pull it off, like trying to peel it off of yourself?"

"I think it would be more along the lines of burning it off, but first I want to make a disguise of my own." The changeling said, floating some crayons and scrap paper to their location. Selecting black for an outline, he attempted to draw a basic pony outline, but only managed to put the crayon through the paper. With a giggle Twilight took over, understanding his goal, and the two spent the next few hours working out a disguise for the changeling. Three disguises actually, as the purple unicorn was adamant that the changeling have a disguise for every situation.
The first was his unicorn persona. A small forest-green unicorn colt with purple eyes, allowing for both their colors to show in his magic without drawing too much suspicion. For the Pegasus, they went for brown eyes with a grey body and blue mane and tail. Finally for the earth pony, Twilight suggested they go with blue eyes, brown fur and black mane and tail, since she'd read that earth pony colors tended to be more subdued. Then came the hard part.

The emblem, the cutie mark, the symbol of what made each one special. It wasn't exactly needed at this point, as he was still young enough that the absence of the mark wouldn't draw too many eyes, but each mark was apparently specific to the individual, so it was not possible to use the same mark for each disguise. Grinning, the colt drew up a simple triangle near the picture of his unicorn disguise, leaving the other two to be discussed at a later time.

"It's the symbol for change!" he explained.

The filly looked at the symbol dubiously for a few moments, before using her own crayon to scratch it out. "It's too obvious, Shadow. The Princess was pretty adamant about keeping your species a secret for now, so we don't want to touch that. Maybe something else, like a moon or a star?"

"Twilight, I have purple sunglasses, purple hair, and tints of purple in my magic. If I add any more references to you, I may as well just go around all day looking exactly like you," Shadow said in an attempt to dissuade her. The colt scratched at his muzzle, thinking hard about the mark. It would likely be something he was stuck with for the rest of his life. According to Twilight, that mark on her flank was there to stay. It would be counterproductive to draw attention to himself by having his mark change every few years.

"You don't have to have one now, Shadow," Twilight told him. "Some fillies and colts don't get them till they're almost twelve, so you still have a few years to figure it out. Besides, your in a new world, right?"

She was right, he'd only just figured out a few basics of the new planet he was currently stuck on. Maybe he'd even find a symbol that didn't exist back home that he felt suited him perfectly? With one last glance at the picture of his unicorn persona, the changeling disappeared in a flash of green and purple fire.

"That's so cool!" Twilight cheered, instantly checking every detail of the colts disguise and making sure no mistakes were made. She stopped at his right rear leg, noticing an odd blemish. "Shadow, what's this?"

"A scar I got when I was younger. It was the first injury that ended up sending me to the hospital, and the scar never really faded. I want to keep it," the colt said, extending the leg so he could see the scar as well.

Twilight's face scrunched up in confusion. "But why would you keep a scar?"

The changeling in disguise chuckled, patting the filly on the head. "Silly Twilight, scars are cool."

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Lunch was a much more relaxed affair, the parents more at ease seeing a young unicorn colt at their table as opposed to a bug-pony or a copy of their daughter. Even Shining Armor was amicable, the white unicorn nickering and whinnying merrily with his sister. It was still impossible for him to even hear the distinctions between words at the moment, but he chocked it up to his mind attempting to dismiss the conversations like he did a dog's bark or a bird's chirping. Perhaps he'd eventually be able to break himself of the habit, but it would take time.

Taking another hesitant bite of his meal, this time some type of vegetable casserole, the changeling stopped short as his stomach began making odd gurgling noises. Next he felt the all too familiar surge of his body rejecting food. Clenching his mouth shut, the colt bolted from the table and dashed into the bathroom, barely managing to clear the rim of the odd toilet before spewing a large amount of green goop into the basin.
Twilight rushed in afterwards, sensing his distress followed by his confusion, asking what was wrong. Seeing what had happened, she returned to the door and shouted an explanation to her parents before returning to his side.
"Are you okay? What happened?"

The changeling spat one last wad of goo, trying to remove the remaining mess with his tongue and motioning for a glass of water. After washing the remnants from his mouth, he sighed.
"I've no idea. I've gotten sick before but it hurt a heck of a lot more than that. That felt like throwing up, but there was no burn, no ache afterwards, no sense of wrongness. Heck I can't even determine what that stuff is." He stared into the bowl for a few moments, almost tempted to poke the mess a few times. "Are there any books that may have something on changelings? There has to be information about them somewhere."

Twilight used her magic aura to flush the toilet, washing away the blob before the colt could follow through on his odd impulse. "I already looked at some of my books on strange creatures and I couldn't find anything, sorry. Maybe now that you can disguise yourself we can check the library? Oh! Once we get to the school we can check the castle's library!"

Shadow shrugged, dismissing the apology with a wave of his hoof. "Not your fault. Big White said it's been a long time since she'd seen a changeling, and if some multi-millennial being tells you it's been a while, you can bet it's been more than one mortal lifetime."

"Her name is Princess Celestia, not Big White!" the filly responded with a huff.

"Right, Princess Sun-stamp, that's what I said." The changeling retorted with a devious grin.

"S-stop it," Twilight said, desperately fighting the tide of amusement flowing back to her despite her irritation. "We, we're supposed to be respectful!"

"Does she set things on fire if she sits on them?" He asked, laughing at his own jokes. The pseudo-unicorn slapped a hoof over his barrel, shouting loudly "All hail Princess Sun-butt, destroyer of furniture! May all chairs and cushions quake in fear of her ponderous descent!"