Not Another Alicorn!

by LordBrony2040

Chapter 7

Chapter 7: It’s Not So Great To Be A God

Rainbow Dash looked down at the unconscious unicorn resting on her chest as she tried to decide what to do. After Twilight had practically jumped onto her bed to give the alicorn a hug and cry her eyes out for about two minutes, she had quickly fallen asleep on top of Dash’s chest.

She thought about just rolling Twilight off of her, but a dozen little things about the situation told her Twilight probably needed the sleep. The unicorn’s hair was uncombed, her eyes had bags under them, and the mare smelled like it had been awhile since she’d bathed. Added to that were all the books piled up on the desk in the room made Dash pretty sure of Twilight’s location during all that time too.

Then there was the fact she was wearing her Element. Dash didn’t want to even consider how bad things were if her mother had dragged those things out of storage.

That brought Dash to the disturbing thought that they were actually in a hospital. How in the hay did I get in here anyway? Dash wondered. Had she been hurt? Was that even possible for alicorns? Tartarus, the last time she had been hurt had been… well…

“Ow!” Rainbow Dash cried out as her mother touched the injured wing with her hoof. She glared at the white alicorn towering above her for the curious poke.

“What were you thinking child?” Celestia asked the rainbow maned mare while examining her injury.

“That your flank was too big to-OW! Fit through the braches in the-ow! Tree. And stop doing that!” the pegasus demanded as she swatted away her mother's giant hoof.

Celestia poked Rainbow’s wing again. “You know, I have half a mind to let this heal on its own to teach you a lesson.”

“Pffft!” Rainbow replied as she shorted a burst of air through her nostrils. “So you’re a sore loser now huh?”

“Excuse me?” Celestia asked as her eyebrow raised.

“You didn’t follow me through the trees, that means I win our wager!” Dash told her with a triumphant grin.

Celestia rolled her eyes at the declaration. “Yes, I failed to break my wing on a tree and crash into the ground hard enough to make a trench. Clearly that proves your superiority in the air. Come along now.”

A glow surrounded Rainbow Dash as Celestia lifted her into the air. “Hey-what? Unhorn me Mother!”

“If you insist,” Celestia replied before planting a small kiss on the pegasus’s cheek and placing her on the alicorn’s back. Even though Dash was almost full grown, the size difference between the two still made her seem like a foal barely off her mother's teat.“Come along now Daughter, we shall retire to the castle.”

“Hey! Put me down! I am not some foal to be carried bareback! Mother!” Dash shouted as they shot into the air.

…

Rainbow Dash blinked as her recollection of that event came to an abrupt end with Celestia carrying her off to Trottingham Castle. She stared at the wall on her upraised bed for several minutes with her mouth hanging open while she tried to process what had just happened, and came up with nothing but confusion. What…that…WHAT THE HAY WAS THAT?

It had been like she was remembering something, but Dash knew bucking well that had never happened to her before. And then there was the image of Celestia her mind had conjured up.

Celestia was cool and all. Any ruler that could keep Equestria together for as long as she had was 100% awesome in Dash’s book, but she sure as hay wasn’t some fantasy mother Rainbow Dash dreamed about having!

Her mother was a fiery pink pegasus named Firefly. She had been an amazing stunt flier and winner of the Best Young Flier’s competition, as well as a shoe-in for the Wonderbolts until a celebratory night with her very special somepony had put those dreams on hold. Then…

Dash shook her head roughly to try and stop that train of thought. She didn’t need to be thinking about her mother outside of visits. Doing that always made her feel all kinds of bad.

Okay, need something to do. Come on and think, Dash told herself before looking back down to Twilight. Can’t get up. So her hope of a drink was now gone.

She looked over to the book laying on the side of the bed that Twilight had thrown to the side before she had hugged Rainbow Dash. Not an egghead…

…but, it wouldn’t be cool just to stop the story like that, she reasoned. Stopping something halfway was too much like quitting, and Rainbow Dash wasn’t a quitter. Unless, of course, she was quitting something because it wasn’t cool; but those things were special exceptions.

So, her awesomeness fairly secure, Rainbow Dash reached for the book at the foot of her bed while making sure not to disturb Twilight. But the book being quite a ways away from her forelegs as she was sitting up at the head of the bed while it rested on the end, meant the object was far out of reach.

For a moment Rainbow Dash looked up to the tip of her horn and considered using it. Although she didn’t know the inner workings of magic, Rainbow had seen it done plenty of times by Twilight, Rarity, Lyra, random Ponyville unicorns 2-6, as well as both her aunt and mother plenty of times. It can’t be that hard, she reasoned.

Rainbow Dash frowned at the book, and pictured it being surrounded in a magical aura that changed every few seconds while she tried to decide on a color before it floated over to her and opened for easy reading. But, in defiance of her desires, the book sat on the edge of the bed.

Her brow furrowing in concentration, Rainbow tried again.

…and again.

She tried throwing out her hooves towards the book in an attempt to make the magic work better.

She added vocal commands and incantations…

“Here book.”

“Come here book.”

“Magic go get book.”

“Allakazam.”

“Wingardium Leviosa.”

“Darkness beyond twilight. Crimson beyond blood that flows. Buried in the stream of time is where your power grows…wait, that one’s probably not a good idea,” Rainbow muttered as a memory played in her mind of the time a dragon invaded Equestria and her aunt blew up a small mountain along with the creature.

Seriously, you’re doing that again? Rainbow shouted at her brain before she knocked herself on the side of the head with her front-right hoof. Maybe she was in the hospital because her horn started growing in the wrong direction and was causing brain damage. It would explain why every time she brought up the image of her mother, a memory of Celestia would creep into her head.

Just thinking about it made her remember the last time her mother had come to tell her goodnight. It had been a rather harrowing day of exploration and secret passages inside Trottingham…

Stop it, Celestia is not my mom!

Even if Rainbow Dash could remember all the times Celestia had tucked her in at night, or kissed her on the forehead, or ticked her stomach in that way that made her let out an embarrassingly squeal of a laugh…

I SAID STOP IT!

To reaffirm reality. Rainbow Dash reminded herself her mother was Firefly of Cloudsdale. From what Dash knew, she had been a warm, kind, sweet and caring pegasus and the best flier anywhere. Sometimes, if she closed her eyes, Dash could remember things like the smell of her mother’s mane, the mare's kind eyes and matching smile, her cutie mark. Rainbow Dash tried to clear her mind and think of other things, but like always, she couldn’t remember the sound of her mom’s voice.

Rainbow sighed and shook her head as she gave up on trying to recall her mother’s voice before more memories of Celestia could creep their way into her head.

“What’s wrong with me?” she mumbled to herself.

Was she going crazy?

Was she really in some kind of mental hospital?

Before the universe could give Rainbow Dash a proper answer, the door to the hallway started to open. “Hey Twilight we’re back and we brought muff-DASHIE!” Pinkie Pie shouted as she finished opening the door before she zipped in and started jumping around in joy. “Dashie’s awake! Dashie’s awake!”

Rainbow blinked as the rest of her friends rushed in and gave celebratory but tearful greetings before Dash managed to quite them down with a shush to avoid waking Twilight. “Hey guys, you’re all here?”

“But…you…how?” Rarity mumbled.

“Course we are Sugarcube,” Applejack replied to the alicorn's question. “How you feeling?”

The billion bit question made Rainbow rub her head. Thanks to her horn it took two tries before she succeeded without hitting the thing. “Confused. What happened?”

“We were rather hoping you could tell us that Darling,” Rarity said cautiously. “We heard you had some kind of episode at the Canterlot Spa…”

Rainbow groaned. “Right, I lost a bet with Cadence, and had to go to the spa…and then…sorry guys, it gets a little hazy after that. I think I was talking to M-…Princess Celestia, and…then... I got nothing.”

Fluttershy stepped forward and gave her a reassuring smile. “Well as long as your back, that’s all that matters. Oh, the princess is going to be so relived.”

“What about her?” Rainbow asked as she raised an eyebrow at the pegasus.

“Rainbow you shoulda seen it, Ah never seen anypony that out of sorts since the time I saw Granny hear about Ma and Pa,” Applejack said as she took off her hat to hold it over her chest for a few moments.

As a somber mood seemed to overtake the room, Rainbow Dash tried let out a reassuring chuckle. “Come on girls, it couldn’t have been that bad. I must have just slipped and hit my head or something.”

“Slipped and-Rainbow! The Princesses couldn’t heal you!” Rarity exclaimed. “We even used the Elements, and they didn’t work! You…how are you even awake?”

Rainbow Dash looked at the sleeping unicorn in her forearms. “Twilight did something…I was someplace real bad and I heard her voice talking to me and I dunno followed it or something…not too sure after that.”

Everypony in the room looked down to the sleeping mare and Rarity stepped forward to look her over. “Is she alright?”

“Yeah-”

“Let’s find out!” Pinkie Pie said right over Dash as the pink pony reached into her mane to pull out a megaphone. “HEY TWILIGHT, ARE YOU OKAY?”

Everypony in the room shook with the sound of Pinkie’s amplified voice. Of course, with it being right in Twilight’s ear, it had the added effect of getting a panicked yell form the unicorn as she bolted upright and out of her slumber, then quickly fell out of the chair she was in since Twilight had been on the edge of it.

“Pinkie!” Rainbow yelled at the pink pony as her wings unfurled for dramatic effect, something she almost immediately regretted, the things felt sore, like they hadn’t been used in days.

“Ow my head, did somepony get the license number of that cart?” the unicorn mumbled.

Rainbow Dash temporarily forgot about Twilight as she looked over to massage her wings. However, the second she looked at the things, she froze. In the back of her mind, she was aware that Twilight was getting up and everypony was asking if she was alright and what kind of magic she had used to fix Rainbow, but that hardly seemed to matter at the moment.

As an expert flier that did her best to maintain her physical form, Rainbow Dash knew everything there was to know about her wings. She could feel when even a single feather was out of place, and now that the blood was flowing freely behind her back again she could really tell something was off. Her wings were different. It wasn’t a simple loose feather or cramp, the whole structure of her wings were very different.

Disbelief filled her mind as she looked at the altered appendages. This isn’t real, the alicorn told herself. She had been having weird hallucinations and junk since she woke up, seeing her wings in the state they were was probably just another one.

She reached out to touch the things, and found them quite solid. Okay…maybe it is real. But if it was real that meant…her wings were different!

Could she fly like she used to?

Could she even still fly at all?

Panic overtook her mind and Rainbow Dash threw off the bed sheet before getting herself up in the air, and grabbing the attention of her friends. For a moment Rainbow ignored the questioning words of the mares as she savored the relief of putting some of her fears to rest until she heard the purple unicorn shout at her.

“Rainbow don’t touch the-”

A shock ran through her system and Rainbow found herself crashing into the empty corner of the hospital room.

“-crystal matrix above you or you’ll break the circuit,” Twilight finished while the alicorn picked herself off the ground.

“You okay there Sugarcube?” Rainbow heard Applejack ask as she felt the familiar farmpony’s hoof on her shoulder.

“Yeah I-” Rainbow cut herself off when she noticed she was looking at the top of AJ’s hat barely creeping into the bottom of her vision. “-bwa?”

Applejack looked up at Rainbow and tilted her head a bit. “You sure?”

“W-WHAT THE HAY?” Rainbow Dash shouted as she jumped back to try and gain some vertical distance and hit the wall, then she fell on her rear.

After shaking off the weird sense of crashing onto the ground yet again, Rainbow Dash looked around the room for an answer about what the hay was going on. As Twilight was in-between bites of her breakfast, the alicorn went for the shortest route to find answers by just asking her. “Twilight, what the hay happened to me?”

The purple unicorn stopped mid-bite on her muffin, and looked over to the distraught princess. “You mean your height? Well, while you were unconscious for the last few days, your body had been catching up with its changes. Considering your relationship to Celestia, you may not even be finished growing.”

A wave of panic overtook Rainbow’s mind as she processed that bit of horrid information. “This is bad, this is bad, this is very, very bad!”

Twilight sighed as she watched Rainbow do a pretty good impersonation of the unicorn when she was in full panic mode, trotting back and forth in front of her while Twilight finished off her muffin. The power nap she had taken while her friends had been gone had helped alleviate a bit of her exhaustion, but she needed good food and some real rest before she would be back to her normal self.

“Ah quit bein’ so fussy Rainbow, so you put on a few pounds. It ain’t no big deal,” Applejack told her.

An instant later the alicorn was towering over the farmpony for all she was worth. “Says you Appleteeny!” Rainbow Dash told her before getting back into the air. “You can probably put on a hundred pounds and it wouldn’t matter cause you get to throw your weight around kicking trees! I got to keep a slim and fit profile if I want to be a fast flier!”

“I like the new you Dashie, your booty is extra squishy,” Pinkie Pie said as she poked the alicorn’s posterior with her hoof.

Rainbow Dash slapped the pink pony’s hoof away and looked around for answers. Part of her considered for the briefest of moments flying through Canterlot and asking her mother some questions, but experience had told her that the sun goddess never gave strait answers that weren’t fifty percent lies and she would have to wait till P-Lu was out and about to…

Rainbow Dash froze in mid-flight, then fell on her flank again. For a moment her weight gain and new wing anatomy was completely forgotten as she realized what she had just let run through her mind. What was worse was the fact she could think of at least ten separate occasions to back up the opinion she had of her moth-Celestia!

“I…I gotta get some air!” the alicorn told them before rushing out the door despite a few cries for her to stop and wait.

---

“Rainbow Dash wait!” Twilight shouted right as the mare disappeared into the hallway before she could snag her in a TK field. A second after Dash was out of sight, Twilight let out a disgruntled sigh. “Great.”

“What’s wrong Sugar? If Rainbow’s needin some air, I don’t see the problem of letting her get some,” Applejack told her.

Twilight shook her head. “It’s not that, she’s still wearing her Element! Princess Celestia will freak if something happens to it!”

The comment was waved away by Rarity. “Oh please Darling, not even Princess Rainbow Dash is that irresponsible,” she assured the unicorn. “Princess Celestia knows I’d be having a fit if I woke up with a magic deficiency that cut into my seamstress abilities.”

For a minute Twilight thought about bringing up the fact that had nothing to do with putting the safety of an Element of Harmony in danger, but she didn’t see the point. Rainbow Dash was gone, and the rest of the Elements still needed to be returned to Celestia for safekeeping. With food in her stomach, no friend in reach having a crises of species, and the promise that the energy gained from her power nap would soon wear off, Twilight decided she would be the perfect delivery mare for the Elements and the good news before casually mentioning that one tiny flaw in this morning’s events and hope her teacher didn’t banish her to the moon or something.

So she let out a yawn and nodded to her friends. “Well girls, I need to catch up on my sleep.” Then, before anypony could ask her what she had been doing for a good amount of the day before when she had supposed to be getting sleep, Twilight headed out into the hall where the guards were waiting. “Gentlecolts, with your charge gone and you having nothing to do, I need an escort to the palace so I can return this box to Princess Celestia.”

Thanks to the early hours, the trip through the city took far below par as there were not many ponies out trotting about. As soon as she made it to the castle, Twilight lost her escort and asked for Celestia’s location before she headed to Princess Celestia’s private chambers.

For a moment she stood outside the door, then raised a hoof to knock. When no answer came, she tried again, and a third time. Finally, the purple unicorn threw caution to the wind and slowly opened the door to stick her head in. “Princess, it’s me, Twilight. I need to talk to you.”

Across the room, the Goddess of the Day was hunched over a desk looking at a small but old magical tome with dozens of pages of parchment scattered abut the desk and the floor around it. Another three books floated open in the air above her. From the things she could see on the floor, they had something to do with magic. “Twilight I’m…”

Celestia paused for a moment and shook her head before she continued in a warmer tone than before. “Is there something you need to see me about?”

“I have the Elements, Princess,” Twilight told her before levitating the box into the princess’s bedroom. “Well, all of them except Loyalty…um, Rainbow Dash still has it around her neck.”

The goddess nodded. “I see. Well, it will be easy enough to retrieve. I-”

“And Rainbow Dash is awake,” Twilight told her when she saw her mentor wasn’t going to explode over Twilight’s lapse in judgment. Or if she was, the second bit of news had preempted it.

The books Celestia was holding aloft fell to the ground and made Twilight wince at seeing the damage to old tomes that had been around longer than her own father. “What did you say?”

“I tied to stop her Princess!” Twilight said in her own defense. “But she just started acting crazy over nothing and ran out with the Element of Loyalty still around her neck!”

Celestia continued to stare at her for a moment, and Twilight found herself becoming nervous. Celestia looked…stunned. In all the time she had known the princess, Twilight had never seen her at a loss for words.

“…Rainbow is awake?” she finally asked softly. “How?”

“Well I…I don’t know! After everypony left to get breakfast, I just started talking to her and then when I couldn’t think of anything else to say I started reading her a Daring Do book because it was the only thing I had on me that wasn’t-well, okay I could have read Beohoof too, but that story is just too old fashioned and not really her style…even if Beohoof does have some of Rainbow’s traits-”

Celestia cleared her throat to get the unicorn’s attention. “Twilight, what were you doing when Rainbow Dash woke up?”

“I told you, I was just reading her Daring Do!” Twilight exclaimed. "Then, I stopped, and she looked over and told me-no wait, she asked me why I stopped, then I hugged her and…I think I may have passed out.”

The goddesses gave her a scrutinizing look. “That’s it? You read her a book?”

“Well…” Twilight began as she tried to think of anything else that had occurred. Her mind replayed the memory over and over again, listing all the variables it could find.

She had started apologizing to Dash again.

She had confessed her jealousy to the alicorn, both old and new.

She had read the Daring Do book.

Then Dash woke up when she stopped and Twilight had hugged her. She had been so thrilled she had even bothered keeping the poise needed for the Element of Magic to stay on her…head.

“I was wearing my Element!” Twilight exclaimed. “And Dash was still wearing her’s…that must be it! I opened up to Rainbow and The Elements must have used our bond to…well, she said she had been lost somewhere and it was like following a voice.”

Celestia was silent for a few moments. Then, she nodded in understanding and shot Twilight a smile. “It seems that I underestimated the magic of your bond,” she said before letting out a chuckle a few minutes later. “Perhaps this time I should be writing you a letter about the lesson you just gave to me.”

The mirthful statement had Twilight tilting her head in confusion. “Princess Celestia?”

The sound of paper being torn only deepened Twilight’s confusion as a small bit of parchment floated up from underneath the larger tome in the middle of Celestia’s desk before it was joined by a quill. “Dear Twilight Sparkle,” Celestia said as the enchantment she placed on the quill began to write for her.

“Princess you don’t need to-”

“The magic of friendship is truly an amazing thing. The bonds it forms can reach further and do more than even my sister and I are capable of. So you should never doubt in its power to see you through the darkest of times. Your mentor, Princess Celestia.” Then, the goddess moved out from her desk and walked over to Twilight before bending down to pull the unicorn into a hug, and kissed her on the top of her head. “You are truly amazing Twilight Sparkle.

“Now if you’ll excuse me, with Rainbow Dash awake I no longer need to research those old books quite as much and the state demands attention. I need to attend to other business,” she said before her horn lit in a golden light and she disappeared in a flash of light.

After Celestia vanished, Twilight turned her head to look around the room, settling her gaze on the desk and books that Celestia had been hunched over. Even from halfway across the room, Twilight could tell the tomes were of an ancient lore that no pony besides the princesses had seen in over a thousand years. Still, the energy boost from her nap had long since worn off, and Twilight was tired.

Her body ached and demanded sleep, but her mind was a different matter. She couldn’t help but wonder what sort of magic Celestia was looking through in her attempt to help Rainbow Dash. Twilight saw the several tomes of arcane knowledge Celestia had assembled and demanded a look.

The battle between her exhaustion and curiosity lasted a moment, and Twilight found within herself a new source of energy as she trotted up towards her teacher’s desk to look around. As she got close enough to look at the titles, a bit of hesitation crept into her mind. Wait a minute Twilight, remember the LAST time you researched some old magic without Celestia’s permission? Twilight asked herself while the fact replayed in her head.

It had been nearly two years ago, during the nine-hundredth-and-ninety-nine Summer Sun Celebration. Thanks to an error on her morning checklist, Twilight had forgotten to cross out a date on her calendar and found herself looking for Princess Celestia when the goddess had left Canterlot in order to attend to the festivities in another city. Twilight had gone into the princess’s room and discovered an old book half shoved under Celestia’s bed that described spells she had never even knew could exist before.

A spell to make an object irresistibly desirable.

A spell to make a pony irresistibly admirable.

And another spell that made a pony incredibly unlucky.

Those were the only ones Twilight had time to go over in detail before Shinning Armor came by to take the younger unicorn out to lunch for her day off and correct Twilight on just what day it was. By the end of lunch, she had forgotten all about the book on black magic.

Twilight shook her head quickly to clear away her doubts. Oh come on Twilight, this kind of stuff was meant to help Rainbow Dash, how bad could it be?

She lifted herself onto her hind legs to see over the top of Celestia’s giant desk and took a look at the various books. Her gaze ran over their various titles. The sight made Twilight’s eyes widen in horror as she went from title to title.

They…they’re all…all…

“They’re all in Unicornian!” Twilight shouted as she looked at the evil tomes that were next to illegible to her without the translation notes she made. And even with her notes... “I can’t read any of these!”

Angry at the cruel trick that circumstances had played on her, Twilight put her forelegs back onto the ground and got ready to just walk off when she noticed a small book underneath one of the larger tomes. Unlike the others, it had modern binding and lacked any signs of age. With the oddity enough to peek her curiosity, Twilight snatched the book out from its hiding place with the power of her horn to examine it.

It had no title or anything that made it seem important enough to share space with everything else Celestia had collected on her desk. It wasn’t even that thick, just two inches of bound paper inside a plain white cover. Still, Twilight opened the tiny book and was pleasantly suppressed. It was horn written (being too neat to be done by hoof or mouth) in modern Equestrian by what she knew to be the princess‘s own script, and the dates weren’t that far from today. In fact, they started from the day before Dash had fallen unconscious.

“It’s a…research journal?” Twilight mumbled before she began reading.

After Luna’s accusations and observing Rainbow Dash in her sleep, I have decided to investigate the oddity that we have discovered within my granddaughter. As my own foray’s into my sister’s dark magic have merely scratched the surface, I believe it prudent to consult with Andromeda over this oddity rather than trying to understand the magic behind the event with my limited knowledge of Necromancy.

Current observations on subject on Rainbow Dash by myself shows her soul-self and aura manifestation to be identical to her's. Luna also heard Rainbow Dash use knowledge that should have been unavailable to her. At this time, I have no conclusions as to the cause or if this is all just a strange resemblance.

Final note, Rainbow Dash’s cutie mark is nearly identical to Aurora’s, with a cloud placed atop the rainbow bolt my daughter possessed.

Final note: Rainbow Dash’s Element of Harmony is a lightning bolt, no cloud. Important?

Twilight blinked as she lifted her head from the book and frowned in thought. “Okay that’s…confusing,” she mumbled. By the date on the book, Celestia had started the journal before Rainbow Dash had gone into her coma. Had she known something was going to happen?

Then there was the snippet about Andromeda. It sounded like she was still alive somehow. The whole thing just made Twilight feel like she had started in the middle of some great novel. And what in the heck is Necromancy?

In search of answers, she read on. Unlike before, the writing on the second page was much more sloppy and a few parts had telltale signs of splotches where water had dripped onto the ink.

Where to begin?

Luna has yet to return from our old palace, I should go check on her to see if anything went wrong. But that’s not for these reports. ORGANIZE YOUR THOUGHTS TIA.

I confirmed Luna’s claim about Rainbow Dash possessing knowledge she should not have. When she and Cadence intruded on my lesson with Twilight earlier today, she knew of my aversion to Sea Ponies and their shanty as well as a speech of Luna’s I quoted when instructing Cadence on her duties as a princess. Rainbow Dash also seemed to be displaying several similar personality traits as well as an undue formality, but I do not know enough about her to guess if this is just the way she acts naturally or if it is also a symptom of her condition.

At first I intended to accompany Cadence and Rainbow to the spa in order to instigate further, however I changed my mind when it came time to place us apart from the group and chose Twilight instead. She had been looking uneasy. When I found out why I-Note to self: show more understanding and affection towards Twilight. You mean more to her than just some magic teacher you idiot. Look at what happened with Sunset, maybe if you had been more loving and understanding and actually explained some things instead of just telling her-burn it all, stupid transcribing spell.

After meeting up with Rainbow Dash again, she started to explain why I was so against Sea Ponies when she became confused and passed out. So far my only theories to this is that she noticed for the first time she was accessing old knowledge and fainted, or had an overload in her mind with too much information and passed out from that. Judging by the look on her face, it’s the former.

Supplemental entry: It’s been two hours and Rainbow has yet to awaken. If she is still unconscious by moonrise, I’ll have to get Luna.

Twilight gulped before turning the page as fear rolled around in her stomach. “I shouldn’t be reading this,” she told herself before turning back to the previous page and looking at what Celestia had said/written about her. Despite the information on Rainbow Dash and her impossible knowledge, it was those lines that drew Twilight’s attention. Hesitant, and yet eager at the same time, Twilight turned the page to find a much shorter entry than normal.

Two days of reading up on my sister’s magic and I’m not any closer to finding the cause or finding an answer to Rainbow’s condition. But then Sister was always about slavery and death, I shouldn’t have expected her work to help me save lives without a great deal of study when it comes to its internal workings.

Twilight is also doing her own research into the matter. I need to check and see where that’s headed.

Supplemental: Twilight’s research is a dead end, but it‘s keeping her busy instead of moping around. Am I doing the right thing by letting her chase red hearings?

I should have been more comforting to her.

Twilight closed her eyes. This…this isn’t just some research journal. I shouldn’t be reading this. But, despite the unease in her gut, she continued on to the next page. She had already started reading it after all, leaving a book half done would be…unsettling.

The meeting with Andromeda was as disastrous as I’d feared it would be. I pulled her from her stone prison into the ethereal to prevent her from hiding secrets from me. Seeing her as she used to be was disturbing.

Luna’s attempt to awaken Rainbow Dash failed, she blames exhaustion; will try again tomorrow.

Information I gained from Andromeda explained what would eventually happen to Rainbow Dash. Correction, what has happened. I killed her. I made a stupid and selfish decision thousands of years ago, and that has cost what is one of the greatest pegasi alive her soul.

And now I have another impossible task to perform.

Why does this keep happening to me?

Why am I having to lose all the ponies I’ve ever loved?

I just got Lulu back. I thought I was getting another chance with Rainbow, and Twilight…

Oh Heavens, Twilight! I-what am I going to tell her? I know she’s been doing her own research on the matter. I’d bring her into this, but ancient languages were never part of her curriculum.

I should check up on her.

No, she had friends for that, I’m still just a teacher.

But.

No, she has her friends now. That should be enough. They can comfort her after I do what must be done.

She’s going to hate me for this. They’re all going to hate me for this.

Supplemental Entry: Removing Rainbow Dash is not an option.

I couldn’t do it. I sat there for hours just staring at her and I just couldn’t do it. I was able to banish my sister to the moon after a five minute temper tantrum, but this time, I just couldn’t do it.

Even with the evidence Twilight gathered to support a new theory of Rainbow Dash’s condition, I can’t help but doubt myself. What if something does go bad and I am unable to do what needs to be done?

Special Notation: The theory I now hold thanks to Twilight’s research and her memories of Rainbow Dash have me hopeful that something has occurred to stop the soul transfer from occurring-no, it did happen, only this time she wasn’t riding along as a passenger. The reasons for this are known own and I feel as if I’m grasping at straws when I reread this. Until I can explain how this happened, I will be working under the assumption Andromeda gave me.

Also, the Elements of Harmony failed to awaken her. I’m still unsure if that means she is no longer Rainbow Dash despite their similarities, or the Elements cannot be used while Rainbow Dash is unconscious.

Of course that also begs the bigger question of what happens if Rainbow Dash is gone. One thousand years passed before Twilight and the others gained control of the Elements, I’m not foolish enough to think the Element of Loyalty will simply find a new bearer. The Elements remade themselves in the image of the Bearers. It’s possible that the Elements will never accept new masters. The horrors that possibility raises are too terrible to contemplate. I have to keep focused on my work. I’ll just have to cross that bridge when I come to it.

Tonight I will try another option. Once the Elements are returned to me, I will take them and Rainbow Dash to the Tree of Harmony and beg it to save my daughter. Until then, I need to do more research into the Soul Implantation spell to understand how this all happened in the first place in case the theory I gained from Twilight pans out.

Twilight blinked as she finished the last page, then re-read several of the last bits as the questions formed in her mind.

What was the Tree of Harmony?

What did Celestia know about Rainbow Dash’s condition?

And why in the Pit of Tartarus was she calling Rainbow Dash her daughter?

---

Rainbow Dash flew above the skies of Canterlot.

She flew up, down, turned left, right, weaved side to side and did a few barrel rolls followed by a loop. She flew as fast as she could, she slowed down and accelerated several times. She flapped her wings as hard as she could to gain altitude, tucked them in to let herself fall into a dive before spreading her wings and puling out of it.

However, all of this was in an attempt to change her mind about something she had figured out five minutes after taking to the air: it was all wrong.

She was too heavy. Her wings were too long. Her feathers were too big. Her body was the wrong shape. Her stupid horn didn’t help her profile at all. Then to top it all off, there was Rainbow’s habit of thinking about stuff whenever she was just flapping around. The problem was the thoughts that came to mind made no sense!

While she was above Canterlot, she found herself comparing the castle to what had been Trottingham back before it was an overgrown forest and the ruins known only as The Castle of the Two Pony Sisters. She wondered if her mother’s new castle had any of the secret passages that the old one did, or what the citizenry did when it was time to expand the city, or what was the tribe ratio compared to one of the older towns.

Every time she would catch herself thinking such thoughts, Rainbow would fiercely shake her head and try more experimental flying to see how badly her skills had fallen thanks to her ascension into an alicorn.

When she ran out of things to safely test, Rainbow zipped away from the city in preparation for one final test of speed to avoid shattering every window in the city like she’d done the first time she performed a Sonic Rainbom over Trot…

“GAAAAAH! THIS IS SO FEATHERING ANNOYING!” Rainbow Dash shouted to the empty sky as she grabbed her mane in frustration.

Shouldn’t these stupid coma dream things have disappeared by now? Rainbow Dash asked herself with a frown. That’s the way dreams had always worked for her before anyway. Even the worst of nightmares was gone in an hour after she awoke.

But what made everything even worse was that these bucking coma dreams weren’t just sticking around, they were so bucking detailed and fragmented. She could ‘remember’ dreaming about a bunch of snooty unicorns that were looking down their noses at her all the time. Morning Star was the worst of the lot, she knew that plot-hat’s whispering into Mother’s ear sounded all sweet and dutiful, but the results of all his advice had always been so catastrophic in the end that Rainbow had no idea why neither Mother or Luna had been able to see through the red unicorn’s manipulations for so many years.

It had only been after Rainbow had left the court and settled down to start a family that…

“BUCKING TARTARUS!” the rainbow pegasus shouted as more than a dozen other images and experiences came to mind at that particular thought. Experiences like being with a stallion, getting married, having sex, having foals…

Rainbow knocked herself in the head a few times to try and clear her thoughts. “Flying! Focus on flying!” she told herself.

Went through all the basics and tried the tricks, too big and wonky for some of the tighter stuff, what’s next? Rainbow Dash asked herself while checking off things on the list involving all her moves. Right, Sonic Rainboom.

“Okay here we go,” she told herself as she rose into the air to get the distance from the ground she needed.

Then she dove towards the ground at an angle. As she flew, Rainbow Dash adjusted the position of her wings for maximum effect and concentrated on going faster. Like several pegasi with unicorns for friends, she had heard the idea that a good deal of pegasus flight was magically based, and some even argued that they might not even need to flap their wings to fly.

Of course being wingless, they had no idea what they were talking about.

As she felt the air beginning to bend around her, Rainbow Dash willed herself to push forward and snapped her wings to give herself an extra little bit of push. The cone of air bent…

…and strained…

……and then…

………Rainbow Dash stopped moving forward before she felt the air around her launch her back like an evil invisible trampoline that also sent her body into a spin-out.

Dash unlocked her wings and adjusted them to pull out of her air tumble when she realized something very bad: she had absolutely no experience correcting her messed up flying with a body as big as she was. This is gonna hurt, Rainbow Dash told herself a second before she went limp and hit the ground. She managed three rolling bounces, followed by a long crash that left a two foot deep trench for a good five yards.

Rainbow’s vision went white for a moment and there was a brief ringing in her ears as she mentally checked herself out while moving as little as possible to avoid aggravating any injuries. She could still feel her wings and all her legs. Her jaw wasn’t broken and no teeth were missing.

The only thing better that having no injuries was the fact that no one had saw her mess up.

“Are you alright?”

The calm but slightly worried voice drew Rainbow Dash’s attention. “Mother?”

She rolled onto her stomach and looked up to the sun goddess that was standing over her with a barely contained look of surprise in eyes that were slightly wider than normal during a day in court. Which meant she as surprised as hay. “Bucker.”

Celestia blinked. “Excuse me?” she asked, slightly perplexed.

“Mother-bucker!” Rainbow Dash said as she got to her hooves while trying to sound upset, although it sounded more like a squawk than a shout. “I…um…new trick! Couldn’t do it! Really upset! Needed to curse!”

“…I see,” Celestia replied before the confusion on her face turned to concern. “Now, are you alright?”

As she had checked everything she could, Rainbow Dash put her wings back to her side and looked over to Celestia. The sight of the princess’s neck at eye level had her staring. Yeah, so not going to get used to that anytime soon, the blue alicorn told herself before speaking. “I’m okay. I stand by my record, over one hundred crashes and not a single fatality.”

The look on Celestia’s face showed she didn’t appreciate the humor. “I see.”

“So uh…what’re you doing here?” Rainbow asked before she found something interesting to focus on in the dirt. Just looking at her mother brought those stupid phantom memories pouring in.

“After I finished my courtly duties for the morning, I decided to look over Equestria before lunch was prepared and saw your…accident,” Celestia explained.

Rainbow Dash hung her head. “So you did see me…uh…”

“Attempting your Sonic Rainboom before hitting the wall and going out of control?” Celestia asked before she answered her own question. “Yes.”

The information made her groan. The fact that her mother of all ponies…that Celestia of all ponies had seen Rainbow screw up on something that she should have been able to do made it even worse.

“What’s wrong?” the goddess asked.

“I…I just…” A thought occurred to her, and Rainbow Dash looked up to Celestia again.

A dozen memories flashed through her mind of events so similar to this one, the two of them just talking away from the trouble of the capital. She could ask her mother anything, talk about anything and she would never laugh at her, or be too judgmental. All her mother ever did was listen to her problems and offer advice and love.

Thankfully, this time her delusions worked in Rainbow’s favor and she found herself being able to ask Celestia what she needed to. “Can you turn me back into a pegasus?”

The question left Celestia floored, literally. Her rear hooves fell out from under hr, and the alicorn's plot hit the ground with a loud thump “…what?”

She collected herself rather quickly and looked down at the alicorn in confusion. “Granddaughter, why would you want something like that?”

“Because being an alicorn sucks!” Rainbow Dash before going into a nearly panicked tirade. “I can’t do all that princess stuff like holding court and dealing with snobby unicorns! I’d buck them in their teeth!”

“Well-”

“And what if something like the Solar Empire or the Lunar Republic happens again?” Rainbow continued. “What if some neighboring country decides I’d make a good ruler but they don’t like you or Aunt Luna and they just want me to boss them around in return for special considerations?”

Celestia tilted her head. “Those were annexed into Equestria thousands of years ago. Equestria covers the whole of the land now. How did you even know about-”

But Rainbow wasn’t going to let her mother calm her down or stop anytime soon. “And look at me!” Rainbow Dash nearly yelled before taking in the air to hover. “I’m huge! I’ve got the crappiest aerodynamic profile in the history of Equestria, my wings are too long, my fathers are too big, and my plot is so bucking fat! I’ll never get back to where I was when I won the Best Young Flier’s Competition! I’ll never be able to do another Sonic Rainboom again!

“I never asked for this junk! I just made a stupid friendship report and you just yanked me up to your little starry hallway and stuck this horn on my head!” she finished before coming back down to the ground and gasping for air. "I...want...out."

Her mother stared at her in silence for a long moment, then took in a deep, calming breath. “Is flying truly that important to you?” she asked.

“It’s all I have!” Rainbow actually shouted at her. “It’s the only thing I’ll never really be good at! It’s my talent! And if I’m not the best flyer, then I’ll never be a Wonderbolt, and if I’m not a Wonderbolt then…then…it means Mom wasted her…”

Rainbow Dash found herself unable to continue until her mother reached out with a wing and placed it on her shoulder. “It’s alright my child.”

The words sent a sock of realization through Rainbow Dash. Once again, she had been thinking as if Celestia as her mother. The fact that this had been going on while Rainbow was talking about her mom made the blue alicorn nearly throw up. It was the most horrible betrayal of Firefly’s memory that Rainbow could think of.

“Tell me about her?”

“Huh?” she asked before looking back up into the eyes of the goddess.

“Your mother, could you tell me about her?” Celestia asked.

Thankfully, the question gave Rainbow an excuse to get her mind off the mountain of crazy standing in front of her and focus on something else. Even if it was just a little something. “Well she was a great flyer, best young flyer of her generation and was a shoe-in for the Wonderbolts. They practically begged her to join! She was in their training program when she found out she was pregnant.

“Truth is, I don’t remember much about her personally. She…she died when I was just a filly. I’ve seen pictures and stuff, but…I don’t know. Sometimes it’s hard for me to remember if the stuff I do remember about her was some really young memories and junk, or just stuff I made up as a filly by hearing a bunch of second-hoof stories.”

The feeling of a wing even larger than her own being draped across Rainbow’s back made the alicorn repress a shudder. Part of her was telling her, screaming at her to bury her face on Celestia’s shoulder and let out the pain that was welling up inside her heart, that the larger alicorn would be able to soak up that hurt and take it away. But the part of her brain that wasn’t a total idiot remind her that Celestia wouldn’t understand. It was that stupid coma fantasy thing that was making Rainbow think along those lines.

“And your father?” Celestia asked as she continued down the obvious line of questions.

Rainbow Dash sighed and shook her head. “Dad is…complicated.”

For a moment Celestia was silent, then when Rainbow looked up at the goddesses expression to see the small bit of tension, she wished she had kept her mouth shut. The only time her mother got that kind of look on her face was when she had already made up her mind about somepony, but was holding back passing the sentence till she had something she could make the judgment seem justifiable. “In what way?”

“He’s not a bad pony!” Rainbow Dash tried to reassure the goddess. “It’s just…look, my dad hated my guts. He, he always said how I ruined his life, how I was like some kind of curse or something.”

“I fail to see how your father taking such actions does not make him a bad pony!” Celestia told the smaller alicorn with a dark look on her face as she stared off in Cloudsdale‘s direction.

Almost on instinct, Rainbow threw Celestia’s wing off and spun around to face her. “You’re one to talk!” Rainbow shouted in anger. “Me and Dad may not of gotten along, but he did his job! He put food on the table and made sure I came home at night, which was a lot more than you ever did after the bitch queen was…finally…ummm, oh mare.”

Rainbow gulped as Celesta examined the blue alicorn with her head half turned away as if she was looking at something that might bite her at any second like a wild snake. Then, she closed her eyes and hung her head. “I suppose you’ve got me there.”

The two alicorn sat in silence for a moment. After Rainbow managed to calm herself down, Celestia picked her head up. “Well, I have some good news, and some bad news for you then Rainbow Dash.”

“Let me guess. This horn isn’t going anywhere,” Rainbow said as she tapped the extra extremity with her hoof.

Celestia nodded. “What has been done by the magic of Harmony cannot be undone. However,” she said before pausing while Rainbow focused her attention. “Need I remind you of our trip to the spa? An alicorn can come in any shape or size that she wants…if she knows the magic.”

The information made Rainbow want to bash her own brains in. “Of course! Alicorns have shape shifting magic! You and Luna did it all the time back in Trot…uh, the old castle where you used to live…I think. Maybe? Least…that’s what I’ve heard from my old family stories you know…got to keep Celestia’s ego in check with all kinds of embarrassing stuff. Pranks, sea ponies…you know. Eh-he.”

“Yeeeeeees,” Celestia drawled out cautiously. “Well, before you start learning alicorn magic, I would suggest starting with some unicorn spells. In fact, I believe your first magic lesson is scheduled to begin after lunch. Although you may need to rouse your instructor from her bed with the odd sleep cycles your friends have been keeping lately.”

Rainbow blinked, then hung her head as she remember just why Twilight had been so out of it so many hours ago. “Right. And, I should probably go and check on everypony else, make sure they’re okay and all.”

Before she could take off, Celestia spoke again. “About your plans for the Wonderbolts…”

“Hm?” Dash turned around and rolled her eyes. “Um yeah, about that… I don’t want any special treatment just cause I got this horn.”

Celestia gave the mare a hesitant look, then shook her head while muttering something that Rainbow Dash couldn’t make out before she addressed the rainbowed alicorn directly. “So, shall we race back to my chambers? I need to store that Element around your neck.”

Another memory surfaced, and Dash gave her mother an accusatory frown. “No teleporting.”

---

“Okay, use your horn.”

“Ugh!”

“Harder!”

“Rugh!”

“Come on harder!”

“GRAAAAH!”

“HARDER!”

“….look, I just can’t get it up, okay?”

Twilight sighed and backed away from the blue alicorn before she looked over to the small round stone in the middle of the empty lecture hall. Perfectly round on all sides, it was one of the best things to start teaching telekinesis with as it had good balance and easy to grab.

“It’s okay Dash. Unicorns have a bit of an emotional-depended block when we start trying to consciously access our magic for the first time in any real way. I just need to find the proper motivation to get you to do it,” the unicorn told her friend before she crossed out the ‘sports coach encouragement’ method.

A quickly forming headache had Rainbow drop her plot to the floor and sigh. “How’d you do it?” she asked.

Twilight gave her friend a nice smile. “This really cool pegasus caused an explosion of light and color to happen outside that window behind you,” she said with a gentle voice. “It completely freaked me out, and then…boom.”

Rainbow eyes widened, and she found herself having to gulp from all the saliva forming in her mouth before she looked away towards the window Twilight was indicating. “So uh…this is…um, you know…where you got your cutie mark?”

“Yeah, I thought it might bring us some luck. One second, the sun’s starting to go down, I should open the blinds some more” she said as she trotted over to said window to do just that.

As the unicorn walked away, the alicorn found herself moving her gaze closer to the floor and focusing on Twilight. The lavender mare was probably in the most…average condition Rainbow had ever seen when it came to unicorns, she was not fit, but that was a long way from even pudgy like Ms Cake.

Rainbow blinked as she realized what she was beginning to do and looked away from Twilight’s cute plot. No, she told herself. You do NOT need to be doing this right now.

Twilight was cool and all, but… Well, she was more than just cool. She was talented, sweet and kind. She always tried to do what was best for her friends, even if the actions to get those results turned out to be a little disturbing. But she was working on that last part.

She was also responsible. Spike had to be only five or six years her junior, but Twilight took care of him like a son. She was just as hardworking when it came to her magic as Rainbow was when it came to flying, and…

Rainbow remembered Twilight hugging her while she had still been in the hospital bed. The little unicorn had passed out in Rainbow’s forearms with relief and the alicorn didn’t need a bunch of stupid coma fantasy memories to tell her that probably meant Twilight had been up researching a cure for her condition since Dash had gone under.

She was smart, dedicated, loyal, caring, and willing to push herself past her limits for those she care about. In short, she was…perfect.

“-bow, RAINBOW!”

The alicorn let out a startled cry as her wings made her airborne. She didn’t bother landing before moving her attention back down to Twilight. “What’s up?”

“I said we’re calling it a day,” Twilight told her.

Rainbow’s face twisted in confusion. “But…it’s still daylight out,” she said before looking out the window. The sun was starting to hide behind a mountain range in the distance, but they could get another hour of practice in at least.

Well, attempted practice at any rate. It was kind of hard to practice something when she couldn't even start to do it.

“We have to meet the girls for dinner in half a hour, remember?” Twilight reminded the alicorn.

Rainbow Dash blinked as she recalled having lunch with Applejack and Pinkie, and the party pony's plans for a big dinner in the ballroom. Of course, if it was Pinkie’s idea then dinner probably meant a party with lots of food. Added to the fact that it was the first day out of Dash’s coma, and the alicorn would have bet her wings on it.

“Oh right, kind of slipped my mind,” she said. It's be good to hang out with the girls, Dash supposed. She had kind of left them hanging after freaking out about how big she was. That was pretty uncool of her. She hoped they would forgive her for it.

So Dash dropped to the ground, and looked over to a stack of papers and books that Twilight had brought in with her. At first she had thought they were some kind of teaching aids, but Twilight didn’t even bother looking at them throughout the lesson.

“So what is that stuff anyway?” Dash asked before she took at look at the page on top of the stack.

Twilight chuckled and trotted over to her. “Oh just some old magic research project I wanted to look into,” she said.

“Aren’t you being schooled by M-Princess Celestia when you’re not with me?” Rainbow Dash asked.

The color of Twilight’s cheeks reddened a bit. “I have some free time you know.”

“Oh…” Dash looked over the unicorn’s shoulder. “Need any help?”

For some reason the alicorn couldn‘t understand, Twilight let out a laugh. “Come on Dash, you can’t even do basic levitation. I doubt you could read what’s written on that page. I copied it from…a book I got from Princess Celestia.”

“Soul Transference,” Rainbow Dash read as she went over the almost blockish lettering next to some other kind of letters. There were other annotations on the page written differently too, but Dash could recognize her mother’s hornwriting in all three. “The transfer of a soul from one container to another is best accomplished in the middle of the eleventh hour on…”

Dash stopped and frowned at the information about the spell before looking away from the book and back to the unicorn. “Twi you sure Mother wants you looking at this? It sounds a lot like Necromancy.”

The lavender unicorn just stood there with her mouth hanging open.

“Uh…Twilight? You okay?”

Comments

[Gelion]

Oooh busted. Excellent. chapter can't wait til the next.

[Rainbow87dash]

LOOOOOOOOOOOL

[chrismonteith]

hehehehehehehehehhehehehheh, brilliant and funny chapter. also a sweet one

[RemareShadows]

Dragon Slay!!!
Pinkie like that squishy Flank.

Once those sexual inuindos start... They keep rolling.

Your mare better know how to use her horn.

[Silent Shade]

Bloody Second-Puberty

[Daring Cammie Do]

“Wingardium Leviosa.”

Been reading "Harry Trotter," have we, Rainbow?

“I like the new you Dashie, your booty is extra squishy,” Pinkie Pie said as she poked the alicorn’s posterior with her hoof.

No DashiePie! Please!

Rainbow blinked as she realized what she was beginning to do and looked away from Twilight’s cute plot. No, she told herself. You do NOT need to be doing this right now.

She was smart, dedicated, loyal, caring, and willing to push herself past her limits for those she care about. In short, she was…perfect.

Think these thoughts, Princess RD, think them! Don't let your dreams be dreams!

6378395

OMC, this made me laugh too hard.

[wlam]

“….look, I just can’t get it up, okay?”

I hear there's a pill for that.

[detectivebrony]

I tied to stop her Princess!

You left the r out of tried.

Her rear hooves fell out from under hr, and the alicorn's plot hit the ground with a loud thump

left out an e in her.

It’s the only thing I’ll never really be good at!

might want to get rid of that n.

[Lightningflare fics]

And this is where I stop reading this story....I hate shipping.....COMPLETLEY....ugh...it just ruins stories for me

[Arcanum -Phantasy]

7061816
Only if it's done poorly.

[Kessie_amarra]

“Darkness beyond twilight. Crimson beyond blood that flows. Buried in the stream of time is where your power grows …wait, that one’s probably not a good idea,” Rainbow muttered as a memory played in her mind of the time a dragon invaded Equestria and her aunt blew up a small mountain along with the creature.

You won the internet