Jade - 19th of Megan '15 EoH - NightJade - 19th of Megan '15 EoH - Night
“Right. Blade works. You can do this. You need to learn to do this, today totally proved that.” I said to myself as I pulled mom’s sword back to my side.
It’s hard to describe to anyone who can’t use telekinesis, but it’s not as easy as you'd think it would be to manipulate something with your magic. It’s a lot more like moving a body part, like trying to kick something in a very specific way. It takes time and mental effort to get a movement down.
Sure, anyone can move a cup to them, or pour some tea, but trying to get a blade to slice, chop, and cut in certain ways is hard. The cedar tree I had been practicing on for about ten minutes now was barely even marked, just a few lines on the bark. The best thing I could do right now was to just sort of ‘throw’ the blade point first into things… That seemed a bit crude. I knew I could do better.
I gripped the blade with my magic, holding it by it’s entire length as I’d worked out to do, and scythed it towards my target!
The blade sliced the air, whipped through some tall grass, and struck the tree, skipping off with only a tiny line to show for it!
“Ugh… bucking cordyceps!” I cursed, stamping a hoof angrily.
I pulled the blade back again with a huff. I was totally doing this wrong. Maybe David would have an idea on how to make sure you cut better.
I slid the blade into its scabbard and trotted back to the cart. We had stopped in a very small clearing, basically just big enough for the cart. This meant the second I made it back I saw David was already lying down, and either asleep or in his ‘listening time over, sleeping time now’ mode.
I growled a long, low, frustrated groan. There was no way in all Equis I could get David to even give me a sentence now!
The blond and white head poking up out of the cart surprised me. I had totally forgotten that we’d brought Azur along.
“What’s wrong?” Azur asked in an empathetic tone, “Were you hoping to cuddle before he went to bed?”
“No!” I muttered, “I wanted to ask him-”
I stopped mid sentence as the effeminate stallion’s words hit home. “Oh! No, we're not a couple.”
“Oh!” Azur exclaimed in surprise, “I mean I figured, you’re a changeling, you need love to eat sooo… I just figured you guys always traveled with a lover.”
I gave him a slow, grim nod. “Normally, yeah… I mean we can eat almost any positive emotion, love’s just the healthiest thing is all. I’m okay on friendship for at least a month before I‘ll need a real meal.”
“Well that’s good! You seem nice, it would suck if you died.” Azur mentioned as he sat back down in the rear of the cart. “Maybe I can help? What did you want to know?” He offered a half second later.
I hesitated. He was a mage, right? Why would he know how to use a weapon? Then I realized he was probably really good at telekinesis.
“Actually… Maybe you can.” I said as I snapped my wings open and awkwardly buzzed through the air to the cart, landing with a wobble atop a crate. “Whoa! … Okay… that needs practice too!”
Azur winced, “I’ll say… how young are you?”
“I uh… Young enough that I need help with my telekinesis.” I admitted, tapping my forehooves together in embarrassment.
Azur nodded, “I needed some help too. It’s actually easier than you think it is. But… May I ask how long you have been able to use magic, at the least? I graduated a mage’s college, I need to know what terms to use to teach you.”
“Um… as of now?” I asked rhetorically, “About a week.”
Azur’s ears perked in surprise, “But, you are fully grown, ja?”
“Yes. We don't get our magic till we are. I was told some stuff, but it’s hard to practice or care about something you can’t do.” I grumbled.
Azur nodded. “Agreed. Can you move things at all?”
I nodded.
“Allright, is the problem control, weight, or speed? Can you do more than one object?” He asked politely.
“Er, I’m trying to use my sword,” I said pulling the slender blade from its scabbard with my magic. “I’m having problems cutting with it, it just bounces-”
“You have the blade angle wrong.” Azur said instantly.
“Excuse me?”
He nodded and gave me a smile, “You need to move the blade so the edge is perfectly in line with the direction it is moving. I learned that in culinary arts class. If the edge is even a bit crooked a sharp blade can barely scratch even something like a carrot.”
“Really?” That did seem to make a good amount of sense.
“Ja. You just need to learn to feel the blade’s angle and rotate it to match. You should pick it up in an hour or so. It’s a lot easier with your magic than if you use a hoof, mouth, or tail.”
I tilted my head curiously, “Tail?”
“Ja, earth ponies can use their tails to move things… and so can Germane ponies. Eh… We're a mess of genes…” he admitted with an embarrassed blush.
“You mean you could use your tail like a hoof?” I asked eagerly. That sounded cool! “Can I see?”
Azur nodded, reached over with his tail, and picked up my saddlebags, setting them next to my hooves. “See? Not as good as a hoof, but useful. Almost worth the pernicious anemia.”
I guess my lips puckering into a confused frown asked my next question for me, because Azur just rolled right into an answer.
“Look, two generations ago, a very stupid pony did very stupid things with magic to make Germanes ‘pure’. He had no idea what he was doing, and broke a lot of things. Pernicious anemia is a disease we all have. Don’t worry you can’t catch it, it’s genetic. It prevents us from absorbing a very important vitamin from food easily, so we need to eat foods rich in that vitamin, or die. Fortunately, the pegasus parts of us let us eat meats. That's got plenty of the vitamin in it.”
That was terrible! My ears drooped sadly, “At least you can digest fish though…” My brain threw two and two together, my eyes lit up and a shocked gasp escaped my lips, “You’re part unicorn, pegasus, and earth pony! You’re an alicorn!”
“Nein!” Azur exclaimed instantly, with a look of deep shock. “I am not! None of us are anywhere near an alicorn! First off they have wings, we do not. Second off, while the idiot was trying to breed alicorns, he failed. There is a magic to making them that we never figured out… All we are is… beschissen zauberei!
“We are like if you cut apart ponies and shuffled their parts. I am not very strong, not very fast, and uh… I lived this long because of my special talent and magic. I’m thirty five, I have seen friends and family die from organ failures way younger than I am now. Fortunately I have saved a lot of them too.
“If I were an alicorn, I would have an earth pony’s strength… I might be able to pick you up, but that’s it. I can’t fly without the right spell, and I do not have anywhere near the magical reserve of an alicorn… Please don’t call Germanes alicorns, we are an insult to their majesty.”
“That’s… rough…” I said slowly, not wanting to make Azur feel worse.
“Ja… But it’s not so bad. We are getting help from other nations. Immigrants, medical supplies. Germanes will be fine in a generation or two… Sooner if they didn’t exile mages like me... but, well, my talent is in the same magic which messed us up, so… You can’t blame them.” Azur finished sadly. “Can we talk about anything else please? Maybe knitting? You would look adorable with a pink scarf!”
“Actually,” I asked, “Can we talk about magic? I need to learn it myself… What’s your talent exactly? I’m curious.”
Azur shifted uncomfortably for a few moments before sighing, “Well… While I like all kinds of magic, my talent is for Biomancy.”
He shifted position so I could see his flank and cutie mark. “See the iron star? According to Germane legend, Faust shaped the creatures of the world with a bolt of lightning from the stars. I am sehr gut mit spells which change how living things are and work. It’s not medicine, it’s more like… I can make that cedar tree grow peaches, or make its bark harder. I can change animals too, but that’s a bit trickier. I fixed most of my body’s problems myself.”
He fixed his body himself? That was very, very impressive. “So, this biomancy is a lot like my shapeshifting then?”
He nodded, “Ja, a little, but way harder und slower. I mean you guys just think it and boom! It can take me a whole day to work out how to cast the spell right. Also I can't make up something new, I can only change small things, a little at a time. It would take me months to change a pony into another type of pony, maybe a year to make a pony into a non-pony. But once I do work out the how I can basically do anything I want… As long as my tiny reserve has enough energy…”
“Wait, anything?” I asked, giving him a confused head tilt.
“Ja. Anything.” He answered in a happy tone.
“So… you choose to look like a mare?” I just had to know.
“Nein.” He giggled. “I am happy mit my body’s looks. I like being cute. Und sometimes stallions mistake me for a mare… Und they are too hot to correct.” He giggled again, giving me a playful wink.
“Oh! That makes so much sense now!” I exclaimed, laughing at his explanation. “I thought you were straight and happy looking like that!”
Azur instantly shot me a hurt look, but after a moment took on a look of sudden realization, then joined me laughing, “Nein! Nein… I like mares too though. I just prefer, being the, um… Equish doesn't have a word... “
Azur trailed off for a few moments, before to my surprise switching to a passable Changelish!
“Riduur harr ceryc riduurok.” He explained. “I think that was correct… Ja?”
I nodded twice, wondering what that hurt look had been about, “Yeah, you like being the one held. Seems legit. Where did you learn Changelish? I thought only batponies could speak it.” A blush crossed my face as I realized, “Oh… there’s bat pony in you too, isn’t there?”
“Nein,” he said, shaking his head gently before levitating a spellbook out of one of his bags and showing it to me.
It was a nice book, an obvious copy, but well bound with a soft looking leather cover, and simple silvery looking metal fittings, and a little latch. The cover was decorated with what looked like a cutiemark, a large six pointed star. A simple stamped title on the cover read 'Basic Advanced Thaumaturgy Omnibus: A Compilation of Master Level Spells.'
“Translation spell.” Azur explained. “It… It’s like having a dictionary of every language in the spell in your head. Twilight’s Friend Maker includes Changelish, und I always have it going… I’m sure you noticed I say Germane words sometimes. You need to think about using a language to do it, I forget a lot.”
That sounded really cool. It would be awesome to talk to anyone! I'd read a book about Sun Cats once, and they seemed cool. Maybe I could meet one someday and actually talk to her!
“That’s awesome! Can you teach me the spell?” I asked, and pleaded, with puppydog eyes.
I felt my heart fell as Azur shook his head. “Nein, fraulein der Käfer. It took me three semesters to understand Ms. Sparkle’s basic thaumaturgical principals.”
He held up his spellbook again before putting it back away in his bag. “This is a graduate level spellbook I had to get imported. It is not for beginners… Many have a hard time learning her spells because she understands magic very intuitively. Many need to think in the entirely opposite way about magic to understand her, und she references Starswirl all the time, making her spells that much more difficult, even for a trained wizard like myself. I can, und will happily teach you basic spellcraft, if you would like.”
I swallowed the bitter pill of disappointment and gave him a nod. “Yeah… I need to learn it anyways…”
He nodded again and shifted position in the cart to lay down on his belly. “Well, we can start now. I don’t sleep much, und I remember changelings don't need much either. Do you have a spellbook for beginners?”
“Sure, I mean, I’m not getting anywhere with my sword skills.” I said while reaching for my bags with my magic. “I got a book here too! I almost forgot that Mom slipped it into my bag.”
I reached into the bag and pulled out the small wooden slat and cloth-bound spellbook, then held it out for him to see. Azur took the book from my magic gently with a hoof, carefully opened it, and looked at the first page.
Then he dropped it, eyes shrinking to pinpricks, ears standing up in alarm. “Heilige scheiße-bälle!”
“W-what?” I asked, ears twitching in surprise.
Azur - 19th of Megan '15 EoH - Night
A half meter from my nose, casually laying on a wooden crate, was an archaeological relic my college’s archaeology professor had spent his entire life searching for. It was damaged, the original cover stripped away, replaced by this simple basic spellbook’s guise. Like painting a diamond grey to hide it as a rock.
The cover had been switched recently, the glue looked fresh, and the stitching was new. It had been done skillfully, and probably only so that Jade would unknowingly smuggle this irreplaceable text out of the hole it had been stashed in for who knows how many of it’s six thousand year long history!
The first page stared up at me, displaying the title in elegantly hoofwritten script, printed in the runes of Old Equish. Ealdorliaes Galdorléoð, The Principles of Magic. A tome nopony would care about having been lost to history, if it were not authored by Clæfre séo Searulicu. Or in modern Equish, Clover the Clever, the first Archmage of Equestria.
It’s common knowledge that knowledge is lost to time. The contents of this book, bar a spell or three, vanished. Before my eyes was the only copy of a tome in which there was knowledge no one else had seen in six millennia. Some of it certainly had been rediscovered by chance, and attributed to other mages. But this single book held at least three spells anypony with any degree in magic knew were lost forever, without hope of recovering them.
The Hoof of Faust, a spell said to have been able to transform the very land itself. To take any land and turn it into any other sort of land the caster could imagine. A spell to turn the most barren of deserts into the most lush of lands, or the most lush of lands into a flat plane of ashes.
The Breath of Life, a spell which gave the caster dominion over the force of life itself. A spell to bring back the dead, or to create something new from the ether. A spell believed to have spawned many of the world’s monsters before it was lost to time. A spell which made my own look like a foal’s macaroni artwork.
Forge of Demigods, the spell which my people had nearly been destroyed to recreate. A spell which embeds into a singular pony the powers of all ponykind. A spell which gave them great power above the reach of mortals, yet just below the gods. A spell a million mages failed to recreate. The spell to create an Alicorn.
“Heilige scheiße-bälle!” I squeaked a second time, this time my tail deciding to stand strait up in alarm too.
“What!?” Jade demanded, giving me that little huffy angry nose twitch thing she did.
“This is not a basic spellbook!” I said, thrusting one hoof at the book. “This is a very famous, very rare tome, which apparently has been sitting in your hive for six thousand years!”
“So… you can’t teach me spells from it?” Jade asked, not really getting it.
“I can’t teach me spells from it! This is something we could be killed over if somepony saw it sitting here! This is… this is…” I took a deep breath to calm down. “This is a book with spells in it that are so powerful, nopony has been able to figure out how they were done since this book was lost! If it fell into the wrong hooves, a mage who understood it could end kingdoms in a week!”
“Oh!” Jade said eyes widening in proper understanding. A half second later her eye’s glow dimmed to almost nothingness. “Oh sweet sunlight… that’s why Mom told me not to take Jasper… She knew I had this…”
I nodded rapidly, “Queen Chrysalis counts as the wrongest of wrong hooves!”
Her eyes brightened, blazing white for a moment, “So we destroy it!”
“Nein!” I shouted, jumping up onto my hooves to look as intimidating as I could. Which, judging by Jade’s snicker, was a negative amount of intimidating. “If we destroy this, ponykind loses who knows how much knowledge! Also, if anyone found out we would have the entire world’s worth of mages calling personally for our heads on pikes!”
“That’s nice, let’s burn it!” Jade insisted. “Risk kinda outweighs reward from what you're saying!”
“Nein!” I insisted again. “It needs to be taken someplace safe! There are spells in there to make a desert bloom! To bring back the dead as living people, not the undead… It must not be destroyed!”
Jade’s face pulled into a small frown, my impassioned plea hopefully having mattered a little. “Where would it be safe? I mean, I doubt Chrysalis's knows my hive had it, but… you know!”
“Well… She got her plot kicked last decade in Equestria, that’s before there were four Princesses too. I could take it there.” I mused.
Yeah that was probably the best plan. If the stories were true the Princess of the Night could teleport the tome to the moon. Not on this planet seemed pretty safe.
“Wait,” Jade said tossing up a hoof.
Oh Faust… Here we go again!
I rolled my eyes and sighed, “It’s a real country very far to the north east. You don’t hear much about it here because there’s griffons for thousands of kilometers to it and they don't trade with you, and there’s sand for thousands of kilometers to it the other way and they can't trade with you. If this were not perhaps the most remote and poor country in all of Equis, you could buy a map made in this millennium, and see that Equestria is on it.”
Jade winced, giving me a sympathetic look with a queasy face. “Wow… You should vent that to someone, sometime… That much irritation almost made me puke.”
“Was? Negative emotions hurt you?” I asked, actually shocked to the core. “H-how can Chrys-”
“Noling knows…” Jade sighed sadly. “They don’t talk politics around the Nymphs, but Mom's mom was one our Queen’s chamber guards, and my dad was on the Mage’s board so I’d hear things sometimes… We don’t know how she doesn't get sick or die from the fear and hate she causes… However it works, her soldiers must have it too, so it’s a technique we could use. But…”
“You don’t know.” I finished sadly. “That might have been useful to know…”
Jade nodded, then shook her head, “We are off topic! Equestira. David and I were going to try to go there. We heard griffons mentioning it as if it were real, so we figured we would be safe there. You're certain it’s really real, and that we can go there?”
“Uh, ja!” I said with an eye roll. “My best friend went there on vacation once, and I imported my spellbook from Equestria. It’s written by one of the Princesses! I wanted to find on written by the Queen, but everypony keeps telling me that Equestria doesn't have a Queen, which makes no sense, because then why is Princess Celestia not the Queen, being the oldest of the four.”
I blushed slightly realizing I was rambling again. “I need to know this book is safe… Buck taking you two just to the port. I will take you to Equestria. It won’t be hard, we can take a ship from Zebrica, they trade with them.”
Jade sputtered for a second, then looked me dead in the eyes. “Are you telling me that we can go to a place, which is really real, that my parents thought was literally heaven, by taking a ship from one nation over?”
I nodded. “Ja. That’s how bucking poor and remote Stalliongrad is. Oh! Prance is a real place too!”
“Where?” Jade asked, giving me a confused expression.
“Exactly!” I exclaimed with a slight grin.
Then I realized that Clover’s Principals was just lying there out in the open. I gingerly picked the ancient book up in my magic, closed it carefully, and put it into my bag. “I’ll guard this… Now… Um… Since we are guarding the most valuable spellbook in the world, let’s start to teach you wards and defense spells, ja?”
Jade nodded, “Ja.”
Dusk - 19th of Megan '15 EoH - Late Night
I work a very grim business. A very stressful business. A very dire business. A business nearly everyone makes a purchase from once. A business I very much enjoy taking a vacation from.
A business which had a certain account long, long overdue for cancellation.
I sat on a chair in the once lovely, now ransacked Royal Chambers of the Diamond Hive. The griffons who were working at the impromptu war table couldn’t see me. Nothing could. I was like the ghost of a ghost. Seeing all, but seen by none.
I get in a lot of trouble at work. My boss has strict rules, I’m not allowed to do anything outside those rules. Not even for the good of all. I don’t like that, so sometimes I break the rules.
This time rule breaking wasn’t an option. This particular scheme had to fly under his radar, just in case he had my brother undo my hard work. I loved this world, it’s people, it’s places. Sometimes it needed a helping hoof, and as mom always says, ‘If you can help, you should.’
Tonight, I had but one thing to do here. I needed to be sure that my client took the bait for the trap I had arranged. She couldn’t resist it. I knew her well. I knew every last desire of her black and dusty heart, and if it was within my power, she wouldn’t get them.
One might imagine it would be within my power to stop a single mortal dead in their tracks. But it is not my job to kill, just to guide, so it’s against the rules for me to slay someone. Against the biggest rule in fact, no direct interventions allowed.
Though, none of the rules say I can’t pull the strings just so to make a change. Though my success record is admittedly abysmal, I felt like this time I could do it. This time I could actually change the world for the better, in a way it needed the most. Unfortunately, failure was still an option, nobody's perfect, especially not my kind.
I watched the griffons chatter about the local area. Captain Blacktalon moved his patrol's markers as messages poofed into the room with updates. A few soldiers discussed forming a mining detail. A normal night.
The room dimmed visibly, candles snuffed out in a flash as a thick green ball of energy, no bigger than a pony’s head blazed into existence above the table. Within the ball of crackling energy Chrysalis's permanently delighted yet cruel face congealed like stale pudding flowing together.
There she was.
“My book, Captain. Give it to me.” Chrysalis ordered triumphantly.
The griffon’s black feathered face pulled tightly around his skull as he did his best to maintain composure. I could see his surprise, horror, and will to survive. I wondered if others could too.
“There’s a small complication.” He said diplomatically.
She laughed, the echoing, harsh, sandpaper cackling made everyone wince. “Ready your griffons for death, imbecile.”
“Your Highness, we found the book’s hiding place, it was here as I told you. However it is no longer here. We know for a fact that only one changeling survived, and that means she has your spelltome.” The Captain said quickly, “Surely you can understand how a member of your species can outwit a mere griffon.”
I smiled at his words. Blacktalon, your magnificent bastard, write a book!
Chrysalis smiled as well. “I see… I could not open the tome’s hiding place, just as you said. I will trust your word this once more. I trust you know where this stray is?”
“I do,” he answered with a nod, “and my men are tracking her. You will have your tome by dusk tomorrow. She is traveling with a Diamond Dog, and heading south from Applewood. I have a full platoon ready for them when they reach the marsh. I apologize for this breach of our arrangement. I had believed the mare to be dead, I personally saw her shot twice. The Dog she is with seems to be a highly skilled surgeon. My griffons will dismember her this time.”
She laughed again, “You broke our deal, Captain. It is as simple as that. I will make you a new offer, one you can not refuse. If you do not retrieve my tome before sundown tomorrow, I will suck the life out of you, and spit it into the sea.”
The griffons around the table slowly backed up a few paces. Blacktalon cleared his throat, “Your Highness, I have apologized for this honest mistake. Remember, the tome is warded by-”
“The tome is no longer guarded by it’s wards.” Chrysalis smirked, “I can retrieve it on my own now, you are not needed any longer. If you have my tome before I arrive to kill you, which I believe will take until sundown tomorrow, I might spare your life. Griffons do taste like rotting flesh after all. I blame your diets.”
There it was, she took the bait.
I smiled, and with the barest drop of will left Equis behind, returning home. David and Jade could handle themselves. Perhaps another nudge or two would be needed to steer them to Equestria, but for now everything was working as I had planned so far. I’d need to keep an eye on it, things could go wrong easily enough, but for now, it was working perfectly.
I conjured my carton of Lucky Strikes, slid one out of the package, gave it a light and took a long smooth drag. “Game on you mass murdering bitch… Game on.”