//------------------------------// // Chapter 11 - Purple Reins // Story: Sisters in All but Blood // by scifipony //------------------------------// In non-dimensional space, all points intersect except as separated by time. The alicorn and I passed through the singularity at the same instant; essentially we touched horns. When unicorns touch horns, the intimacy lets us sense each other's magic. It may have been a teleport spell, but its equations were by-far more elegant and simple, and a magnitude more powerful, than anything I'd ever experienced. Revelatory. The pure mathematical beauty of alicorn magic left me more stunned than finding myself skidding and spinning on my right side across a floor to fetch up against a wall. As Nightmare Moon had fled Ponyville city hall, she had yelled, "I will make you love me!" For a moment, I did. I was so stunned by the thought, neither the frost that dusted my coat in prismatic fractal patterns in the moonlight, nor the frost-steam that curled up around me as I stood could distract me. In an instant, I'd learned so much—assimilated so much—it rivaled Celesta's personal lessons, though without those there'd have been no leap. And suddenly, I understood what Nightmare Moon felt: she thought nopony loved her, not even her sister. If she were truly not Celestia transformed by dark magic, but the book's sister moon left alone in the night, then loneliness had driven her mad. As I stood I thought, if Night Moon (or whatever she had been called before the "Nightmare" moniker) and Celestia had shared the responsibility of raising the moon and the sun, the story really showed not one sister restoring harmony—but two sisters violating harmony and sinking into disharmony. Nightmare Moon swooped down above a circular stone stage in the far reaches of another shattered great hall. Beyond her, a cracked but otherwise intact multistory window showed a starry night sky and the shifting mists that surrounded the castle. She flared her wings. She flapped loudly a half-dozen times, braking while pivoting to face me, all the while with the five marble spheres orbiting her rapidly. Sister Sun had demonstrated disharmony by using the elements, reputably "the most powerful magic known to ponydom," to chain the moon. It neatly explained Celestia's curse. Alighting, her electric green-blue eyes locked onto mine. Frost steam billowed around her as her mane waved in what Celestia had once referred to as "the ethereal zephyr of the magic pulse." Stars twinkled amongst her dusky blue hair, making her look god-like. The problem with the theory was that Celestia had no sister. The spheres spun slower and slower as we stared one another down. After about half a minute, the spheres made glassy skidding noises and soon came to rest before her. Worse for the sister theory was, first, the etymology of Celestia's name: she was named for the sun, the moon, and the stars, not just the sun—despite her cutie mark. Second, the book implied that six were needed to wield the elements, not one. Six had released the spheres. The alicorn began laughing malevolently. Obviously, she had a screw loose... Or was herself also cursed and not entirely in control of her actions. Both testable suppositions. I squared my shoulders, getting them to crack, and said evenly, "So, you said you would make us love you?" Caught by my non-sequitur, she blinked and her jaw moved wordlessly. I took a step and added, "How well is that going to work if the night will last forever? Food requires sun. Starving ponies are a notoriously unforgiving lot." I took an additional step after each sentence. Nonplused, she blinked at me. "My moon is very bright." Her attention wasn't on the spheres. The longer I stalled, the more likely my friends would find me before I needed them. "Oh, come on. The sun is thirteen magnitudes brighter astronomically. That's 400,000 times brighter." "I'll make it brighter." "And turn it into another sun? Wouldn't that defeat your purpose?" "It—it will not! I will make it sufficiently bright enough and no more." "Is that even possible?" I asked, still stepping closer. When she didn't immediately answer, I added, "Have you even planned what you'll do if we let you win?" "Let me—let me? You will submit to my w—!" I scoffed. "Even in your olden pony time, love could not be forced." "Enough!" she yelled, stomping a hoof that clattered due to the spiked armored shoes she wore. The sound echoed as her anger visibly agitated her luminous mane. I mirrored her anger, stopping and crouching. Could I get her to do something stupid? I pawed the stone with a hoof, scraping the metal of my shoe as loudly and as for as long as I could. I did it again. Her mouth opened and her eyes narrowed. It was a stallion move, but it had her attention. I pawed the ground again, even more loudly, staring into her eyes and breathing as loudly and angrily as I could. She stepped onto the stage stairs, her limbic system engaging. "You're kidding?" I snorted as forcefully as I could, flaring my nostrils, puffing myself up as much as my scrawny self was able, then charged forward with a powerful kick on my rear legs, head down, horn level with the granite floor. She stood in front of the stage steps. "You're kidding, right?" This was where a thinking unicorn would have simply blasted me with a force spell, but no—she crouched. I had to get to the spheres; I had to make the spark. Instinct winning over intelligence, Nightmare Moon leveled her horn and charged. She didn't even flinch when red magic lit my horn. Teleport first. I applied alicorn-magic term simplification to my lethargic numbers; they spun up like caffeinated fireflies circling a dozen racetracks. As I galloped at full bore, the virtual magical racetracks expanded to circle my head, intersecting at a point sighting down the length of my muzzle. I focused on the stage. The air around me turned icy and smelled of an impending blizzard. I galloped harder. In two heartbeats, the longer-legged faster alicorn would spear me with her longer, sharper horn. One heartbeat left… The numbers and time itself slowed, as if rushing against a terrible headwind. The spear of the purplish blue spiral corkscrew horn grew incrementally closer and closer but at an asymptotically slower rate. Ice crisped my mane. The numbers ground to halt, the number 66.28 in the center, red hot and flaming. Solution for distance. Time stopped. Now passed in an instant of complete darkness. I galloped on the stage; reflex shock kept me from launching myself through the curved curtain window behind it. As I dropped my flank to the ground to brake, an ear splitting bang echoed and rattled the glass. With finesse I didn't know I had, I spun to face into the hall through which Nightmare Moon still galloped. A thick mist rose around me. A headache speared through my right eye. I raised a hoof to rub my forehead and found frost silvered my fur. The spheres! Inert and pale in the moonlight, they lay arrayed around me. I started spell 42. A spark. I worked up the equations and calculated the sums as Midnight Moon's forebrain caught up with her hindbrain. Her tall shoes made an outrageous screech as she came to a halt and looked over her shoulder with pure venom. As she flared her wings and shot into the air, I groaned, "Just one spark. Come on! Come on!" The black and purple alicorn reached ceiling level and banked around to target me like a rabbit in a raptor-like glare. I couldn't trigger the spell in time. In desperation, I applied the alicorn-magic term simplification I'd experienced in Nightmare Moon's teleport spell, knowing yet neither theory of use nor concept of application. What I got was an approximation, an estimation that warped the neon-red numbers suddenly haywire behind my tightly shut eyes into fractal spirals and mathematical roots I was hard pressed to solve, and for purposes I had no time to determine. I felt myself flush and overheat, sweat beading instantly in globules across my coat. The air turned thick and steamy. I smelled ozone. I heard a Nightmare Moon cry, "No!"—the instant the world whited out. For a moment everything was an unbearable bright white, shot through with faintly jagged blue stained-glass lines vibrating prismatically. When it cleared, I found myself twitching and spasming, ears buzzing, my heart beating in my chest as if it wanted to explode out of my ribs. I smelled burnt hair despite the iron scent of blood. My right side was scrapped free of fur and cut. As I jerked, cringing pain told me at least my right rear leg and nose were both broken. Nightmare Moon's "No, no!" brought me back to my senses, enough so that despite my jerking muscles I was able to leaver myself into a sitting position and look to my left. A black thundercloud filled the upper reaches of the great hall with boiling roiling turmoil. Though it blocked out the moon, a rapid strobe of crackling electric-blue inter-cloud discharges lit the stage. The spheres had levitated on their own accord with a faint rainbow nimbus pulsing around and connecting them. Behind the spheres stood the alicorn, shaking, helmet scorched. A red glowing gash caused her breastplate to separate and fall to the ground. Flames in her mane flickered out, leaving red and yellow embers eating the ends and consuming stars. She stared aghast, ignoring all but the activity of the spheres. Part of me thought that a term-simplified force spell might knock Nightmare Moon out, but the other part sat mesmerized as much as she was. It was working. I had provided rather more than the required spark, but it was working. They spun slowly and vibrated— —And with a pathetic diminishing whine, the spheres settled lifelessly to the stage with a ceramic-like clack in front of Nightmare Moon. It was as if the last of their magic—retained since sister sun had broken harmony by attacking her sister moon—just drained out. A detectable, meager essence drifted on the winds of the storm that I had fomented and blew toward me to ruffle the bangs that lay across my forehead. The warmth of my body drained with similar finality. My ears flopped down and my mouth dropped in horror. "But... where's the sixth Element?!" Realization bloomed across the monster's face as a distinctly carnivorous smile. "You little foal! Thinking you could defeat me?" She reared, cackling. "Now you will never see your princess, or your sun! The night will last fore—!" I heard the distinctive puff of a pegasus-kick against clouds. A torrent of rain flooded the stage. Her billowing star-studded mane collapsed in a wet mess as the alicorn mare dropped to all fours to keep from being buffeted over in the deluge that cascaded in rivers down the stage stairs. As Rainbow Dash came swirling out of the cloud, her rainbow tail leaving a rainbow afterglow, I heard voices faintly calling from the stairs behind. "Don't worry Twilight, we're here!" Relief and a sense of unstinting support washed over me. And happiness. All the benefits of friendship that yesterday I would not have been able to name, nor understand I could expect. Rainbow Dash alighted behind me in a crouch, saying, "What's with your family and getting struck by lightning today?" I couldn't help but smirk. Determination renewed, I turned back to swamped Nightmare Moon, but first glanced down at my bloodied broken lower leg—then at my scorched and blackened cutie mark. One big star. Five small stars in orbit around it. Sum: Six. Despite my pain, my whole body turned to gooseflesh. Fur stood as a wondrously chill frisson traveled up my spine. A universe of rainbow numbers, each a bright star, each the smile of a potential friend, bloomed for the first time in my head and implanted themselves permanently in my heart. A half-smile grew on my face. Revelation. Understanding. Certainty. Q.E.D. My special talent wasn't magic after all. I faced Nightmare Moon. Recovered, she reared again, her laughter returning. She smashed down upon the spheres, tips of her hooves pointed at a perfect attack angle to cleave any crystal. A red magical membrane flashed as she struck a shield spell. A crackle and balloon-like woob sounded as she bounced sideways and lost her footing on the wet stage; wings gyrating uselessly, she crashed inelegantly and slid aside. Shining clearly moaned as the a bright ring of yellow reverberated through the shield spell bubble. Pegasi had carried him through the broken roof on a sling sewn from an ancient worm-eaten tapestry. Behind me, my herd burst into the room through doors, windows, and the roof. My friends. As they galloped to my side, Nightmare Moon struggled to regain her stance. Suspended on a wire, a beige pony with pink and purple locks swung a kick at her head; the alicorn ducked but immediately flopped over again with a meaty thump. "Let her stand," I said, also struggling up despite the broken leg, and as I spoke I realized, probably a couple broken ribs. I'd been thrown half-way across the hall. Hearts' aura supported me, lifting me up as the throng pressed against me to keep me steady on three legs. I finished: "She has clearly lost." Nightmare Moon was up and rearing again when I shouted, "Shining Armor, don't waste your strength on the spheres." When the red aura around them popped, the alicorn stood there nonplused—and not doing anything as if she expected at trap. I waited a few seconds, sighed, and grabbed a sphere in my magic. I was about to levitate and hammer it down, but the slight squeeze of my magic imploded it. Opalescent gravel splashed into a puddle. The spheres had become a mineral husk, a vacated cocoon, as fragile as the shell of an empty egg. Everypony gasped; even Nightmare Moon returned to all fours. Around me, I looked to Hearts on my left and Lunnettes on my right. She tentatively smiled as she pushed her blocky glasses up her nose. Beyond were Harps, joined by Bon Bon who looked ready to grab her away, and Twinkie, and Minuette who started to laugh at the absurdity of my confident and crooked expression. Beyond her were Night Wing and the other guard. On my left were arrayed the Ponyvillians, the Apples, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy, and beyond her that bouncing pesky pink party pony—who—who—had somehow gotten here with the seamstress Rarity, who'd probably sewn together Shining's aerial sling. My herd and my friends. Warmth radiated into my soul. "You think you can destroy the Elements of Harmony just like that?" I captured Nightmare Moon's electric gaze in my own. I flared my magic. With a touch the other spheres shattered like glass ornaments. Shards and gravel tinkled and bounced despite the rain upon them. "Well, you're wrong, because the spirits of the Elements of Harmony are right here." As Nightmare Moon heard, she puffed up with a laugh, dismissing my pronouncement. A shield spell formed between us and her. As her horn lit, the combined unicorn presence working in harmony pinioned the alicorn, wrenched out her wings, and flipped her upside down. They began spinning her midair to prevent her from targeting spells. "You see," I explained, "when friends come together for whatever purpose, they generate harmony. Amongst us, we have exemplars of the elements of loyalty, of honesty, of generosity, of kindness, and of laughter. These ponies got through every challenge you threw at us." Nightmare moon grunted and screamed, sounding nauseated. "You still don't have— the sixth Element—! The spark— it didn't work!" "But it did! A different kind of spark than lightning or electricity." I hobbled forward then faced the herd, turning my backside rudely, dismissively, toward Nightmare Moon. By the glow of unicorn horns alight, with pegasi ready to kick lightning from the strobing clouds above, I addressed them. "I felt it the very moment I realized how happy I was to hear you, to see you, how much I cared about you. The spark ignited inside me when I realized that you all... are my friends!" With Hearts' help, I faced around, my leg elevated to my side. "You see, Nightmare Moon, when those Elements are ignited by the—the spark, that resides in the heart of us friends, it brings forth the sixth element: the magic of friendship!" "No!" "I know this," I said, watching inside as the rainbow numbers coalesced into faceted gems that glowed with the light of their own sun, "because the magic of friendship is my special talent." On cue, six gems appeared one by one from the tip of my horn: Red, pink, orange, blue, purple, and violet. With a whoosh, they began orbiting above my head. I felt a tug and felt myself become suspended. My friends gasped, and I looked to see the five of them float upward behind me as the orbits of the gems expanded to include them all as well as me. A white nimbus surrounded us. Soon we floated half-way between the ceiling and the floor. The whoosh-whoosh-whoosh increased as the gems spun faster and faster. The single orbit split into two, intersecting in front of me. The gems became a thrumming rainbow blur, sucking up air from below and generating a gale that blew our manes and tails straight upward. "What's happening?" Harps asked. I looked down at the stage. "I think that the elements have decided it is time to break the curse their misuse caused. Girls, I think we must be in harmony with this purpose. Are we agreed? "Uh-huh!" they answered—in harmony. Suddenly, the gems spun so quickly, they encased us in a sphere. "All we can do now is trust where they lead us." In the sudden turmoil, the levitation spells on the alicorn broke. She fell to the stage with bruising force, spinning through puddles, but her dizzy eyes tracked us. She cried, "No!" For the second time in my life, I became more magic than pony. The ethereal zephyr infused every cell—energizing my body—the magic pulse wiping away ego. The first time this had happened, I had wreaked havoc throughout Canterlot, breaking open a castle tower, growing Spike from an egg to an adult, and amongst other things, cracked a fissure through streets, and a few buildings, to the edge of the mountain and beyond, running as far away as Tartarus. I had been a foal. I had been without friends. I had had no control. Celestia had saved me. She had seen my cutie mark appear, had arguably influenced its appearance. She had surely understood its significance. Cursed, she had lied about my special talent—but had worked to see it realized. A whine and a buzz, like a triumphal symphonic chord, wiped away my ability to hear. A bright white light lit the hall harshly wherever I looked. I saw a rainbow of light spear up and arch downward toward Nightmare Moon who tried to scramble away, mouth working soundlessly. I became all magic and no flesh—and ceased to experience anything.