Elementals of Harmony

by FanOfMostEverything

Omens and Portents

"Now remember to do exactly what your father says."

"Yes, Mom."

"Don't wander away from the tour group until the tour is over."

"I know, Mom."

"And remember, if a sign says 'Authorized Personnel Only,' it-"

"-doesn't secretly say 'And Also Their Families'." Ditzy Doo, caught in the gangly grip of pegasus puberty, smiled at her mother. "We've been doing this for five years, Mom. I think I've got a handle on it."

Nimbus Lace bit her lower lip, then burst into tears, sweeping her wings around her daughter. "My baby is growing uh-huh-hup!"

"Moooom..." At least, reflected the younger blonde, they weren't in public.

Eventually, Nimbus released the pony who, in her mind, would always be her darling little filly. Tears were still streaming down the pale blue pegasus's eyes, but a smile was firmly in place. "You go and have fun with your Daddy. I know you don't want to spend another day listening to me dissect my clients' horrible taste."

Ditzy nodded, then frantically backpedaled. "I-it isn't like it's not important! Especially not if you like it, Mom! It's just-"

Her mother gave a soft understanding laugh. "Oh, I'm teasing you, you silly filly. Besides, even I'd choose the weather engineer over the interior decorator for Take Your Daughter To Work Day."

"I heard that!" Derby Doo practically pranced into the front room of the apartment, tongue firmly in cheek and bowler at a rakish angle. With a huge grin at wife and child, he boomed at the latter, "What ho, Little Muffin? Ready for another trip to Vulcan's forge?" His cutie mark, a pair of tongs holding a bolt of lightning, seemed to glow with the power of pure ham.

Ditzy returned the wide smile. "Lead on, Big Muffin."

---

Present Day

The first signs had been subtle. So subtle that only one could perceive them. Now, as forces beyond equine ken struggled towards existence, the ripples they caused took a turn for the more overt. Pursestrings seemed looser in the Carousel Boutique. Unicorns felt an odd sense of elation as they passed the library. Everypony felt a sense of euphoria in the Sugarcube Corner, independent of the baked goods. Nopony paid the phenomena much mind. Which is to say, no pony paid them much mind. Wiser, stranger creatures understood the meanings of such omens, and they made their own preparations.

One such creature was Angel Bunny. His devotion to Fluttershy notwithstanding, he was still a child of the Everfree Forest. Furthermore, he was technically a monster, a hyperintelligent rabbity thing known to crytpozoology as a lagomath. In addition to his being much smarter than the average hare, this also explained his opposable thumbs, and at least began to explain why he was currently meditating atop his hutch.

Fluttershy happened upon him, head balanced on the wide end of a carrot, and gave a small gasp. "Angel, I had no idea you could do something like this!"

The lagomath opened one eye and gave a small smile. Silly pony. It wasn't like he'd had a reason to wax monastic before now.

"Did Zecora teach you how to do this?"

Zecora? Ah yes, the shaman. His contacts had praised the zebra, impressed by an equine who could see a self-maintaining ecosystem without having a conniption fit. He shook his head as best he could in his current position. Driving the narrow end of the carrot into the ground would defeat the point of the exercise.

"Oh. Well, I didn't mean to disturb you. I just wanted to let you know that we won't have to operate on Mister Beaver after all."

Angel gave a thumbs-up, making sure it appeared as such from his pet pony's perspective. Tiny, dextrous digits meant that the finicky detail work that hooves just couldn't handle fell onto his plate. But that was neither here nor there. He returned his gaze inward, focused on the task before him. The lagomath did not know why the flows of magic were shifting as they were, but it was clear that they were, and he would be a fool to not exploit the new order of things.

---

(The author apologizes in advance to all speakers of the French language, and to all sentient bags of flour.)

"La lala lala..." Pinkie Pie was in her default state of merriment as she made her way into the Sugarcube Corner's cellar, intent on getting another bag of flour. Much to her surprise, one of the bags she had purchased just the day before had been nibbled open. The party pony frowned for a moment before returning to her emotional ground state. "Well, I guess I'll just have to call in Fluttershy! She'll know what to do."

"Zat des-pique-able pegasus? Mademoiselle, I zought you knew better."

The Prench-accented voice sent a chill down Pinkie's spine. "You... You aren't real." The statement was shaky, doubt creeping in at the edges.

"Ceci n'est pas un sac de farine? You cannot question ze evidence of your own eyes and ears, ma petite chevalette." The gnawed bag seemed to gaze knowingly into the pony's soul despite its lack of eyes.

Pinkie's frown seemed here to stay. "You aren't even the same bag! I used it to bake the cake for the Sorry I Lost Faith In My Friends party!"

The sack rose upright, its bleached viscera beginning to leak out. "Oui. You did." The tone made clear the ingredient's opinion on its last incarnation's fate. "But Madame LeFlour, she is more zan a zing of cloth e grain, non?"

The pink pony took a desperate look around the basement. No stacks of rocks or buckets of turnips. At least, none she could see. And she could see any number of places where a dust bunny could secret itself, especially a knight of Camelint. "You're delusions. Fragments of my mind that split off as I was going completely oatmeal."

The other bags of flour had risen behind their mistress, echoing her motion towards the Bearer of Laughter. "On ze nose, Pinkie. And ze miasma, its nature is clear to you, is it not?" Centipedes, beetles, and other creepy crawlies began to exit the wound in LeFlour's side, a verminous vanguard that swarmed towards the earth pony with a speed the baking supplies couldn't match.

For a moment, icy dread clutched the mare's heart. Then she looked up, and saw something that gave her hope. A grin returned to her face. "Uh-huh. Blacker and snootier than Nightmare Moon on her worst day. But it came here because of me. Because of the Element of Laughter." Only Pinkie's immediate family would be qualified to say if she'd ever borne a more serious expression than she did now. "But this. Isn't. Funny."

Sanity, such as it was, reasserted itself with that proclamation. The shambling horde of ground wheat returned to a neat and decidedly inanimate pile. The lint ball that had begun dancing in the mare's peripheral vision resolved itself into an eye floatie. Satisfied with reestablishing her tenuous grip on reality, Pinkie selected an unspoiled bag and returned upstairs.

As she closed the door, the young baker studiously ignored the whispered "Soon, Mademoiselle. Soon."

---

Twilight Sparkle did not have a very consistent sleep schedule. Oh, she tried, but when some especially obscure, difficult, or intriguing line of research presented itself, she dove into it like Pinkie Pie at an all-you-can-eat buffet, intent on extracting every delicious datum the subject had to offer. In such times, it took a friend or assistant to drag her back to the world every organ but her brain inhabited. With Spike molting and Owlowiscious taking a leave of absence (after giving his hoo weeks' notice, of course,) Applejack had had to act as the disrupting factor this time around.

While the unicorn was ashamed that such measures had become not just necessary but routine, she had to admit that getting pulled out of her studious stupor by a scion of the Apple family had its perks, like an impressive country breakfast the next morning. Granny Smith had waved off her offer to recompense the farmers for their hospitality. "A pony's friends is 'er second family," the matriarch had said, "an' us Apples always look out fer family." With a playful wink, she'd added, "Jus' don' go thinkin' yer gettin' hotcakes every time y' overdo that fancy book-learnin' o' yers, missy!"

Another benefit, at least in this instance, was the opportunity to discuss the previous night's incident on site, with two eyewitnesses on hoof whose combined recollections made a moment-by-moment reconstruction of the event. As she concluded her analysis of the Apple sisters' testimony and her own scans, Twilight was astounded. "This defies nearly every known law of magic, but everything is internally consistent." She turned to her freckled friend. "Applejack, incredible as your story sounds, I have to believe you. A teleporting pegasus is the only possible explanation for this residual magic."

Apple Bloom gave as low a whistle as her little body could generate. "No wonder Miss Ditzy always delivers th' mail on time!"

The unicorn shook her head, still deep in thought. "No, this is definitely new. There's simply too strong a signature here for me to have missed it if Ditzy had been doing it on any kind of regular basis. This kind of intensity could register without my even having to consciously try to detect magic for a few seconds after... oh, that was a joke, wasn't it?" Twilight gave an awkward chuckle as she remembered how conversation worked.

Applejack gave a grin at this. "Don' worry 'bout it, sugarcube. Keep on playin' Fetlock Holmes an' see if'n ya can tell where she done sent 'erself."

"Right." Closing her eyes, the Bearer of Magic devoted her entire conscious awareness to mentally following the faint æther trail that stretched away from the farm. Mote by mote, she followed the hours-old path, painstakingly reassembling a line since blurred by the wakes of pegasi, interference from the Everfree Forest, and even the omnipresent solar wind that rippled through Celestia's mane. The magical prodigy was about halfway there when her concentration was wrecked by something falling on her head. "What the?" She opened her eyes to see a scroll roll to a stop just in front of her.

The blonde farmer shrugged. "Puff o' green flew at ya from town. Prob'ly th' library. Ah'd've said somethin', but Ah figgered that'd break yer focus just as bad." She considered the scroll, sealed with Celestia's signature sunburst. "Ah did'n' know Spike could get letters t' chase ya down."

Twilight scrunched her muzzle in thought. "He can't. At least, he shouldn't yet be able to do so. The Princess must have worked some kind of magic on this scroll before she sent it." With that, she lifted and unrolled the letter, habitually reading it aloud.

"To my faithful student Twilight Sparkle,

"I hope this letter finds you well. I write to you because, through truly exceptional circumstances, the Postmistress of Ponyville,, Miss Desiderata "Ditzy" Doo, teleported herself and her daughter roughly 5.3 kiloponies above Castle Canterlot last evening. Rest assured that, save for an entirely understandable case of mana exhaustion, both are in perfect health. I am sure that you have countless questions on how a pegasus pony could teleport, but it is not my story to tell nor my place to tell it. Should the elder Miss Doo elect to do so, she will be the one who answers your questions.
"For the moment, however, Ponyville is without a postal service. For the duration of today, I, Princess Celestia, name you, Twilight Sparkle, Provisional Assistant Postmistress of Ponyville, and endow you with the power to deputize any ponies in the town as temporary postal workers. You may use this letter as proof of this decree. I strongly recommend you see Mayor Mare about this as soon as you are able.

"Your teacher,
"Princess Celestia

"P.S. Princess Luna will be accompanying the Doos when they return to Ponyville, along with a protege of hers with whom I think you will find much in common. Please do remember that my sister is still somewhat leery of public life after a millennium of lunar exile, and try to keep the town from having too grandiose a reaction to her visit."

Both mares took a moment to process this. Applejack came to a conclusion first. "Well, that woulda bin nice t' have an hour ago." After several seconds with neither quiet agreement or scolding for disrespecting the Princess, the orange mare glanced at her friend. "Twi?"

The unicorn had paled so much she seemed to have been dipped in bleach. Her pupils has shrunk to pinpricks. One lower eyelid was twitching so fast, Applejack thought she heard the occasional tiny sonic boom. The only sound escaping the shellshocked student's lips was a steady "P-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-"

"Twilight?"

"-p-p-p-p-p-p-"

The farmer rolled her eyes before not-so-gently nudging the quivering pile of panic that called itself Twilight Sparkle in the side. This seemed to end the motorboat impression and break the dams on the mare's worry. "Postmistress? Deputizing? Luna visiting? WhatdoIdowhatdoIdowhatdoIdo..."

Applejack sighed. "Twi, Ah say this as yer friend, but ya need t' shut yer yap b'fore Ah do it mahself."

Twilight's expression was still that blend of existential dread and constipation known as "high anxiety," but at least now she was quiet.

"Good. Now, take a deep breath." The apple-flanked mare put herself nearly forehead-to-forehead with her friend, trying to fill Twilight's field of vision with her own eyes as much as possible. Her voice was gentle and steady, an almost hypnotic cadence. "Remember who y' are. This here ain't nothin' compared t' Winter Wrap-Up. Ferget 'bout Princess Luna fer right now an' focus on th' mail. Make a plan, pick yer deputies, and git. The job. Done. Kin ya do that?"

After a moment, the unicorn nodded.

"Good girl. Go get started."

Twilight nodded again and made for town. Applejack smiled, satisfied that she'd averted some harebrained attempt to magic everything better. Apple Bloom, who hadn't ever left but felt she'd had nothing to contribute when the talk came to magic and royal duty, stared at her big sister in awe. "That was so cool!" gushed the filly. "How'd ya do that thing with the voice an' the close-up face an' all?"

"When Samoontha has 'er calf next month, ye'll find out." The older sister grinned to herself. It wasn't quite hypnotism, more exploiting the herd instinct. It became much easier to calm down a cow in labor or a pony in panic when you appeared to know what you were doing. To one so distressed, it meant that she could relax and let you worry about the problem.

"Uh, Applejack?"

"What is it, Apple Bloom?"

"T'day's s'posed t' be clear, right?"

The incongruity of the question broke the hatted pony's wisdom-afterglow. "Yer a big girl, Bloom, you kin read the weather schedule good as me."

"Well yeah, but what's that?"

Applejack followed her sister's pointing hoof. Sure enough, there was a cloud. And as she watched, she could see that not only was this cloud moving, it was moving towards the Everfree Forest, with nary a pegasus in sight.

"That," she said honestly, "is the second impossible thing Ah've seen in as many days."

---

Rarity frowned as she examined the dress. The design was, of course, near flawless. It would've been perfect had it been a commission, but there was only so much one could do with something without a single intended wearer. The interplay between wearer and worn was, of course, an essential aspect of fashion.

In any case, it wasn't form or fabric that had her flummoxed. It was the gems. The precious stones adorning the dress clashed horribly with both it and with each other. The colors seemed chosen entirely at random. In some cases, the jewels managed to clash with themselves, so obviously flawed or rife with inclusions that they seemed fit only for dragon fodder.

That none of this had been true the night before made it all the more vexing.

With a practiced eye and horn, Rarity determined that the emeralds were still emeralds, the sapphires still sapphires (except those that were now rubies) and so forth. Only color and quality seemed to have changed. Possible explanations for such alteration were few and far between, and one stood out in her mind, as much as she wished it didn't.

Going to her sister's room, the fashionista gave its door a knock. "Sweetie, are you awake?"

"Uh huh. Come on in, Sis!"

As she entered the room, Rarity was immediately struck by the odd assembly of pipes, building blocks, and other miscellany taking up the majority of the floor space, her sister at its foot performing some manner of arcane adjustment. "Sweetie Belle, dare I even ask what manner of... device that is?"

Her sister looked up from her work with a grin. "Do you like it? I had this amazing dream last night, and when I woke up, I remembered every little detail! That never ever happens to me! It's gotta be a sign for getting my cutie mark!"

"It's... certainly possible, dear." The designer was hardly one to question providence in such matters, but that still left a number of questions. "What exactly does this... Does it do?"

"It's not done yet. I can't really show you until it is." The young unicorn suddenly became fascinated by her carpet. "Um, I'm... kinda gonna need a few jewels to finish it. If that's okay."

The subject of jewels reminded Rarity of what had brought her here in the first place. "Have you taken any from the storage chest? Or anywhere else?"

Sweetie frantically shook her head. "Nuh uh! I know how important those are to you, Sis! I'd never touch them without permission! ...Which I'm kinda asking for now."

Satisfied that her prime suspect wasn't responsible for despoiling her design, the dressmaker gave said suspect a reassuring smile. "Well, I'm sure we can come to an arrangement. Are you going to need anything specific? Cut, color, size?"

The smile this engendered brought a stab of guilt to Rarity's heart, but it also made that sensation more than bearable.

---

"Ugh..." Waking up was number three on Rainbow Dash's all-time list of things she hated, right between losing and her middle name. Today was no exception, especially since she'd been having an enjoyably weird dream involving the Wonderbolts, a swarm of flying pies, and a mud wrestling tournament. Still, her stupid dumb stupid body had stupidly insisted she wake up for some stupid reason, and it wasn't interested in what she felt were very good reasons as to why she could sleep in until something important happened. Like the sun burning out.

As Dash grudgingly came to, she couldn't help but notice that her mattress and pillow both seemed softer than usual. Since both were made of clouds, this prompted her to awaken faster, as the only way such a sensation should've been possible was if she was in free fall.

However, once the pegasus had gotten to the point where she could open her eyes, she relaxed. It was clear that she was still in bed, and not on a terminal velocity date with terra way-too-firma. Then she tried to get up.

As one might expect from her hate list, getting out of bed was never an easy feat for Rainbow Dash. Today, however, this was not only because of sluggishness. The cloudstuff that constituted her bed had softened to the consistency of marshmallow fluff at some point in the night, and thus Dash found herself struggling against her mattress like a fly in a spiderweb. At first, she tried to set these struggles to some kind of rhythm, shouting in time with her tugs. "This! Doesn't! Make! Sense!" And it didn't. Dash had never heard of clouds behaving as her furniture was.

As time passed, though she'd never admit it to anypony, claustrophobia began to creep into the pegasus's mind. She sacrificed the timed straining for frantic, fear-fuelled flailing in her viscous bonds. Shouts of "Let me out!" came again and again, and not even Dash knew who or what she was yelling at. The clouds? Herself? Equestria as a whole? Time passed, heedless of her meaning, and she was paid just as little attention to that passage.

At some point, the fear overwhelmed her rational mind, and blind animal panic settled in. By the time exhaustion allowed her to regain lucidity, Dash was even more trapped than before, everything below her neck entombed in the taffy-like substance that clouds simply weren't supposed to be. Her throat was sore and her voice a hoarse whisper, but she kept repeating what had become a meaningless mantra. "Let me out."

Her limbs were stiff and unresponsive.

"Let me out."

She could feel the gluey gunk coating her every feather and hair.

"Let me out."

She couldn't tell where the clouds ended and her sweat-soaked form began.

"let me out"

To her horror, the shapeless mass that had been pillow and comforter began to shift and flow with a life of its own.

"let me out"

As it covered her eyes, she felt too tired to blink.

"lemme out"

As it covered her mouth, she felt too tired to scream.

"lemme ou—"

As it covered her nostrils, she felt too tired to breathe.

"..."

"LET ME OUT!"

In her frenzied return to awareness, Rainbow Dash reduced her sheets to a thin mist. She didn't even notice. She was far too busy curling into a fetal position, shaking with fear, convulsing with sobs that bordered on hyperventilation.

Eventually, she calmed down enough to register that what had happened was a dream. It took longer for her to compose herself to her satisfaction, dry the tears she'd never admit to shedding, and reassure herself that her mattress was the same chunk of springy cumulus on which she'd fallen asleep last night.

As the nightmare's aftermath passed, Dash could then notice that her bedroom seemed somehow darker than usual. A quick once-over determined that it actually was darker, the clouds that made up the walls slate gray and heavy with static. The pegasus frowned at this. After the ridiculous display Ditzy had managed yesterday, the place shouldn't have needed another discharge for a good three weeks. Now it looked as though the house hadn't been thunderbucked for more than a month.

"Lightning always used to give me nightmares," the would-be Wonderbolt muttered. She got up with no resistance from her bed and made for her kitchen. Something funny was going on with this house, and she wanted something on her stomach before she figured out what.

---

Ditzy was by no means the strongest or fastest flier in her class. She had no illusions about either. However, her determination easily made the top five. Finding a friend in Fluttershy had helped it flourish, encouraging the grey filly to try a new approach with bullies. In the past, she'd just ignored them as best she could, but when insults had shifted from her eyes to her flying the pegasus decided that ignoring the peanut gallery was no longer the best option. Instead, she would show them how wrong they were.

From that point on, Ditzy tried to spend as much time airborne as possible. Even if it was just a few inches above the white, poofy streets of Cloudsdale, she wanted her wings to grow as quickly as they could. One hallmark of her training was going straight to the window of her apartment from the street. It was only on the third floor, and she'd been using clouds to soften impacts before she'd even known what she was doing, so a sudden cramp held no fear for her.

As might be expected from a building made by and for pegasi, the apartment complex's balconies had doors rather than windows. As such, Ditzy was retrieving her key from a saddlebag when she heard a muffled knock come through the door. Curiosity piqued (and the possibility she was on the wrong balcony acknowledged,) the young pegasus pressed an ear to the shaped cloud.

"Mistral Lace?"

Ah. Well, that confirmed that this was the right balcony. But where did she know that voice?

"Can I help you?"

"My name is Fair Day. You husband worked for me at the weather factory."

Of course, Mister Day! Ditzy just hadn't recognized him because he usually sounded much... happier.

Wait, did he say-

"W-'worked'?"

"I'm very sorry, Ma'am. There was an accident with a high-tension thunderhead. He... he made sure everypony else got out first. He insisted."

No...

"I... I was the last pony to see him. He said to give his love to you and to Ditzy. And... he said to give you this."

No!

"I think.. I think he honestly believed that he could fix the thing. He actually charged at it just before it went critical. His last words were... they were the motto of the Royal Guard. 'Pro Mannulus.'"

"Mommy?" Ditzy wasn't sure when she'd retrieved the key or turned the lock. All she remembered later was staring at the singed brown derby held in her mother's mouth, getting progressively darker with the mare's tears. The entire world seemed to vanish save for that single piece of headgear.

And then, the nothingness became chaos, and the hat became a bubble.

---

"Mmm... Ah!" Ditzy awoke with a start, momentarily disoriented as she struggled to reconcile her solid surroundings with the clouds by which she'd just been surrounded. As her mind made its way out of the memory, she regathered what had actually happened before she'd fallen asleep to dream of it.

"Ah, you're awake." Princess Luna poking her head into the room rather nicely scrambled the assembled events.

"Y-your Highness!" There was a confusion of bedclothes as Ditzy tried to get up and kneel at the same time. That the alicorn briefly appeared to be a pony-shaped black hole to the pegasus's mana sight made the urge to genuflect all the stronger.

"Please, Miss Doo, relax." The princess of the night moved to the bedside. "You exhausted yourself getting here."

The pegasus took that last sentence and rebuilt her memories around it, coming to an astonishing conclusion. "I... I teleported all the way to Canterlot!"

"Coolest Mommy ever!" Dinky chose that moment to enter the room.

"Dinky?"

"Hi, Mommy!" The young unicorn seemed to be dealing with a sudden translocation quite well. "Princess Luna's been teaching me about consternations!"

The umbral alicorn smiled. "It's nice to see a young pony with an interest in the stars. It didn't happen much before..." The princess glanced at the floor. "Well, before."

For a moment, there was an awkward silence. Then Ditzy's mind went to her dream, and she smiled. She knew how to break the ice. The pegasus drew herself up to as dignified a posture she could manage and intoned, "What has passed has passed. The future is ours to clutch. Let us never speak of this again." She then followed this up with a dopey smile and her eyes at their least aligned.

Luna's expression shifted from guilt to attentiveness, and then to confusion. She looked at Dinky, only to see her nodding sagely at her mother's proclamation. "Quite."

So much incongruous dignity was compressed in that single syllable that it tipped the absurdity running through Luna's mind over a critical point. She began to shake with barely contained laughter. After a few moments, she dropped to her knees as she let loose a raucous bout of hilarity that seemed out of place coming from the smaller goddess. Finally, after managing to compose herself again and wiping a tear from her eye, the Mistress of the Dusk gave a contented sigh. "I needed that more than I knew. Thank you Miss Doo. Both of you. Now, if you're feeling alright, Celestia and I have a few questions for you, as you might imagine, but—" She was interrupted by a sound like a snoring Ursa Minor. As Ditzy fought the urge to hide under her borrowed sheets, Luna continued with a smile. "But first, I'm sure you'd like something to eat."

With her daughter's laughter in the background, a mortified nod was the only reply the pegasus trusted herself with.

---

Once she'd eaten more in one sitting than she could ever remember, Ditzy watched the dishes being taken away with a longing gaze. She wasn't hungry, but as long as she'd been eating, she didn't have to answer any questions about how she'd managed to do something most unicorns couldn't. Still, unless she repeated the feat, it was inevitable, and she could tell that her mana bonds were still mostly exhausted. She wouldn't be planeswalking any time soon, and teleportation in the same plane was right out for at least a week. With a sigh, she looked to the head of the table, where both regents were having their own plates bussed. "All right," she said resignedly, "let's get this over with."

Luna looked sympathetic at that, but Celestia seemed... amused? mischievous? Her face had the same gentle benevolence as always, no doubt cultivated over centuries, neigh, millennia of political maneuvering. It wasn't her expression that gave Ditzy pause, but her eyes. There was something there that was disturbingly reminiscent of Pinkie Pie. "And what exactly," said the princess of the sun, "are you expecting from 'this,' Ditzy Doo?"

The pegasus quirked an eyebrow. All right, Princess. You want to play? We'll play. "Well, either recruitment into some secret police force of spellcasting pegasi or dissection in the Academy for Gifted Unicorns." Ditzy smirked. "Maybe both if you just need tissue samples."

Luna bolted up from her seat, wings angrily erect. "Why I've never heard such outrageous accusations! And to think that you seemed so... so nice when you'd awakened! Sister, I—" She stared in shock at her co-ruler. "Are you snickering?"

To be accurate, Celestia was now laughing outright and rapidly approaching what might be called "guffawing." Ditzy had to bite her lip to keep from joining in. Luna, meanwhile, looked from one to another, wondering if in her millennium of exile, everypony else had gone insane. And what did that say about her own mental health if it had taken her ten months to notice?

Just as one sister was certain that she'd returned to a world of lunatics (oh the horrible irony...), the other managed to compose herself. "My apologies, dear Luna. It's been quite some time since I met someone who not only recognized my jests but was unafraid to respond in kind."

"Jest? Sister, this is a momentous occassion! A pegasus capable of teleportation! Imagine what this could mean for all of ponykind! All of Equestria! Why, we could..." Luna then realized that her sister's grin was not just a vestige of her earlier mirth. Resignedly, the younger sister asked, "This happened while I was in exile, wasn't it?"

"Mayyyybe."

"You made sure that it was never recorded, didn't you?"

"Mayyyyyyyybe." Celestia was enjoying herself to, in Ditzy's opinion, an indecent degree.

"Well, that certainly explains why I never came upon it in the archives. If you would be so kind to enlighten us?"

"Oh, very well. It was, oh, about two thousand years ago—"

"Two thousand?" Luna interjected.

"'Maybe' can mean 'no', dear sister." That smile just kept getting bigger and bigger...

"But...but why wouldn't I—"

"As I recall, you had no patience for matters of court at the time. Something about some charming young stallion."

"Oh, right."

"It was either Aristrotle or Brayto if I remember correctly."

"Oh. Right."

"You did court both master and pupil, didn't you?"

"OH. RIGHT." The reverb sent chills down Ditzy's spine and made her very grateful she'd visited the bathroom prior to the meal.

Celestia seemed wholly unfazed. "Why Luna, that was a near flawless impression of Aunt Teleute!"

"In any case." Less reverb that time, but maybe it was hard to pull it off when speaking through clenched teeth.

"Yes. Thousands of years ago, an earth pony—"

"An earth pony!" Luna exclaimed. Ditzy suddenly found herself feeling passé.

"Yes, sister, it was definitely an earth pony."

"Did he fly?"

"No."

"Teleport?"

"Not on his own."

"Raise an army of zombie ponies?" This made both of the other mares look at her bemusedly. Blushing, the younger princess slowly knelt, giving the impression that she was trying to sink under the table. "My apologies, sister, I've been interrupting you far too often. You were saying?"

"Well, he really only cast one spell. One with which Ditzy Doo is quite well familiar." The mirth had taken a sudden leave of absence from Celestia's gaze.

The pegasus offered the only guess that made sense. "Planeswalking." Luna perked up at this, but it seemed her curiosity was now outweighed by her reluctance to endure further embarassment.

Celestia delivered Smile Number 53, "Student who has answered logically, but incorrectly." "No, actually. But he had much to tell me of those who could, among other things." Her smiled shifted to an uncategorized one of fond remembrance. "Ah, the times we had."

"Sister!" Indignation was apparently not part of the balance of Luna's silence.

"Luna, we merely talked for a few minutes."

Ditzy felt it was only appropriate to give Celestia a turn to blush. Well, appropriate and funny. "And the rest of the time?"

No blush, just that same all-concealing grin. (Number 12) "A lady never tells, Ditzy Doo, and a princess is nothing if not a lady. But I digress. As I said, the gentlecolt in question told me much about many things I'd known nothing about, among them planeswalkers. Those who could move beyond Equestria and its cosmos and, for that matter, into them from beyond. More importantly, he told me what to do in case one ever made herself known to me."

Ditzy swallowed. Here came the test of whether that joke of hers was, in fact, reality. "And that would be?"

"Planeswalkers make every effort they can to hide their exceptional nature from all but their own. If one was to ever reveal that nature to me, he said to find out what she wanted, and if I judged that her cause was just, assist her in any way I can." In an impressive feat of balance, the princess of the sun crossed her forelimbs on the table and rested her head upon them. "So tell me, whoever you are: What matter was so important that you teleported in plain sight of two of my little ponies to my castle, miles away? Taking one of them — a flightless child, I might add — along for the ride. What is it that has captured your attention and yet has escaped the notice of we who guide the sun and moon?"

Any leftover levity evaporated under that unyielding stare. Ditzy swallowed the sudden lump in her throat and considered her words carefully. "Firstly, Princess Celestia, I assure you that I am Equestrian. Dinky really is my daughter, and I never meant to put her into any danger." Her voice shook with emotion. "I... I don't know how I can prove it, but I am one of your little ponies."

Celestia's horn glowed with the gentle light of first dawn. Ditzy cringed for a moment, then felt a gentle pressure just beneath an eye. Glowing in the spectrum of dawn through dusk, there was a drop of liquid swathed in the princess's magic. The smile on her face was now one the grey mare had often worn herself, a mother's unconditional love. "That you shed tears at the thought of my believing otherwise, Ditzy, is all the proof I will ever need. Please, continue."

"O...Okay." That had shaken the mailmare more than she'd thought. Dang it, a crisis of faith wasn't supposed to entail the goddess questioning her belief in the mortal! "W-well, I have determined that the unique properties of the Elements of Harmony, now that they are bound to the souls of living ponies, are acting as a sort of magic attractor. As such, mana is aggregating around the places that the Elements' bearers spend the most time in, that is, their homes. As they do so, they are increasing the density of magical energies in and around those places to far beyond Equestria's norm. Once that density goes beyond a certain threshold, it will allow intangible concepts to manifest in material bodies."

The white alicorn's expression was all business. "Concepts like those embodied by the Elements."

"Exactly. Once the threshold is passed, all that energy will collapse into entities the likes of which Equestria has never seen."

Luna frowned. "But the Elements are in Canterlot! Shouldn't we be seeing this phenomenon here?"

Ditzy shook her head. "The physical items may be here, but those aren't the Elements entirely. Not anymore. Living ponies embody them now, and life grows."

"So why didn't something like this happen when Celestia and I were attuned to the Elements?"

The walleyed pegasus considered this for a brief time. "You two maintain a heavy restraint on your power, correct?" The context of the question hit her. "Er, that is, if you don't mind me asking, Your Majesties!"

Celestia cued up Smile Number 23, "Pony who thinks s/he has offended me." "The integrity of our world hangs in the balance, Ditzy. As far as I'm concerned, propriety can take a flying leap for the duration. In any case, we do. If our full power was on display, anything nearby would be vaporized or flash-frozen in an instant."

"Well, there you go. You were already used to holding back phenomenal cosmic power. The Elements were just six drops in the bucket."

"A bit more than that." The sun goddess's expression turned serious again. "Now, aside from the obvious, what other consequences might all of this carry?"

"That's where I'm really concerned. Every plane of existence exists in a certain state of balance between the mundane and the fantastic. Normally, concept elementals will arise only within planes heavily weighted towards the latter. Compared to some of the places I've seen, Equestria is certainly fantastical, but it isn't quite there. However, if these things appear, well, that's where the logic of magic hits us in the hindquarters."

Celestia nodded. "The Law of Precedence. It is most difficult to do something the first time."

"Exactly. Once a precedent is set, it becomes easier. And if it's easier for concepts to manifest in Equestria, that means the balance is tipped further in favor of the immaterial. It becomes a vicious cycle, and I don't know where it ends."

The princess of night shook her head. "Magic turning cause and effect on their heads. Typical. So, what would the end consequences of this scenario be?"

The grey mare shrugged. "What would the end consequences of changing the intensity of gravity be? This may uncontrollably alter one of the fundamental constants of our entire universe. Every pony in the world might sprout wings and horns. Cutie marks could detach themselves and mutate into mind-rending aberrations. Every leyline in the universe might collapse into an octarine hole. All I can say for certain is that it wouldn't be pretty."

All three digested this for a time. Luna was the one who broke the silence. "How long do you think we have?"

Something clicked in Ditzy's mind. She wasn't sure if it was the degree of hunger she'd felt, how badly she'd had to use the bathroom, or just a hunch, but she realized she'd been making an assumption that she had no reason to. "How long have I been unconscious?"

"About a day," said the night princess.

"Then by my most optimistic estimate, about a week."

"And your most pessimistic ones?"

"Two, maybe three hours."

Celestia did not show anger very often. She had a giant, seething mass of white-hot plasma to do it for her. At that moment, a series of short-lived sunspots stretched across the Sun's photosphere. Had anypony been able to see them, they would read "FFFFFFFF".

---

Party of One 1UU
Enchantment
Each noncreature artifact you control is an Illusion creature with power and toughness equal to its converted mana cost in addition to its other types.
At the beginning of your upkeep, if you control a non-Illusion creature, sacrifice Party of One.

Comments

[DreadedCandiru2]

Okay....we have more backstory on Ditzy, more of Twilight's literal-mindedness and tendency to panic biting her in the flanks, Sweetie Belle being five minutes away from telling Steve and the other gentlecolts to behold silence, Celestia's numbered smiles and finally Ditzy explaining exactly how real things have gotten. That being said, I can't wait to see how the day gets saved.

Interesting assortment of tags... One of them NOT being dark (which hopefully suggests no gore, violence, or death)... And one of them being comedy (my favorite tag)...

But I know NOTHING about Magic: The Gathering.

Do I need to know about Magic the Gathering to read this, or will it introduce the concepts as I go nicely?

[FanOfMostEverything]

9370 I'm trying to introduce the concepts as I go. Basically, just ignore the card I put at the end of each chapter and you should be fine. Hopefully.

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFF written on the sun. Now that is comic relief that I would have expected from a silverbordered UN-set. Keep this up I love it.

[Warhammer of Fillyhoo]

Subtle Discworld reference? Me gusta.

[Zam-brony]

I want to build a deck around "Party of One." That looks like such a fun card.

[CMDR Kovacs]

'Pro Mannulus.'

i109.photobucket.com/albums/n53/sage1161/Misc/ForPony.jpg

[bomble]

a hyperintelligent rabbity thing known to crytpozoology as a lagomath.

I think you mean lagomorph

[FanOfMostEverything]

6389106
No, no I do not. A lagomorphic polymath. A lagomath.

[yamgoth]

6389233
I... whu? I have no idea what that means. Does that mean Angel tastes like candy instead of bunny and if any pony finds out, he will be licked more than a salt shaker at the salt bar?

Or maybe that he's a vizzerdrix except in dwarf form

Or maybe he's some sort of monkey. Or panda

Or a floaty insect thingy that's Tim Curry in disguise Wait, was it the other way around?

[yamgoth]

6389233
And then I looked up what lagomorph and polymath mean I'm still keeping the whole candy tasting thing as a possibility

[Nanimonai]

Nothing better than a pure ham in my opinion.

Also ... that was one amazing roller coaster of emotions starting from Ditzy's nightmare.
I love how you portrait the two princesses.

Party of one feels a bit odd being pure blue, considering what colour is attracted to Pinkie. .. then again the effect fits blue the best I guess ... even if, in my opinion, it's effect feels slightly black in the context of Pinkie's past experience with the French flour.

I really should do more with my MtG cards...

[Chyre]

All three digested this for a time. Luna was the one who broke the slence.

I think "slence" was supposed to be "silence" there.

[goldfencer]

smarter than the average hare,

[QueenMoriarty]

Okay, that bit with the sunspots is very funny.

[Alchemystudent]

...Trixie is in this fic, my life is good.

Anyway, I love Twilight's freakout in this, the calmness of Applejack, and the silliness of sweeite Belle. Of course, I had to laugh at some of the Luna bits, because all I could think of was, "This is not Luna, bomastic Princess of the night. This is Woona.ie, it is not-

But instead...

Because this is pre-luna eclispe Luna.

Anyway, i also love the calmness and power Celestia has thoughout her scenes with Ditzy

[FanOfMostEverything]

7602099
Yeah, that's what happens when you write the story before "Luna Eclipsed" airs. I've been here for a long time.

[Malandy]

Rereading... Still haven't found Pinkie FightingLikeACardPlayer...

Aunt Teleute? And as said in later chapters, they know of humans... There's possible conflicts with Sideboard Of Harmony, 'cause they remember a Mom, but Sideboard could be the future of an AU, and their memories have been messed with, after all.

Who was that planeswalker? Surely not Sorin...

Typos:

both are (in?) perfect health

https://www.fimfiction.net/story/1048/8/elementals-of-harmony/allies-assembling

library, ti was > library, it was

[UrsaMajor]

8184257
A couple years late, but this is also for FoME... I believe Aunt Teleute is a reference to the Death of Discworld, who SPEAKS IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS. Teleute is a Greek word for death.

[FanOfMostEverything]

9937888
Different Death; it was a reference to Neil Gaiman's Sandman comics. Mind you, I abandoned this idea and retconned it as a memory Celestia fabricated as she trked to reassemble her sanity after defeating Discord. Neither sister truly remembers much of her childhood.

[Dragon Turtle]

He actually charged at it just before it went critical. His last words were... they were the motto of the Royal Guard. 'Pro Mannulus.'"

The stupid amount of cheese suddenly on display stops this scene from having any impact for me. Not like when Ditzy lost her husband.

[Malandy]

Took me until this reread to notice that Apple Bloom spotted the clouds moving on their own, like Ditzy said. Or just that I noticed that I noticed.

Continuity though!

Typo:

both are perfect health > both are in perfect health