A Dark Shade of the Past

by InfinityBreach

Learning Magic

A Dark Shade of the Past
by InfinityBreach

Chapter 14: Learning Magic

*Canterlot Castle*

Celestia was in the royal garden's watering the plants that existed there. The sound of birds chirping and the feeling of the crisp, clean air, was enough to put Celestia into a peaceful mood. She walked up to a lone statue in the middle of the garden, about to speak to it. Then she heard a strange sound coming from above her. She looked up, and saw a small glint in the sky.

Luna was in the Canterlot library, retrieving some books about magic. After gathering a small assortment of books, Luna began to walk out of the library. Upon exiting the door, she heard a shrill scream in the distance. She recognized the voice, whispering, "Tia!" right before she ran off down the hall to the gardens.

When Luna ran through the gate that lead to the garden, she saw Celestia cowering in fear right next to the gate she entered through. Luna looked around, trying to figure out what sort of horrible thing could have scared her sister, and upon seeing nothing, decided it would be best to ask.

"Tia, what's wrong?" Luna said, keeping her eyes peeled for any danger.

"T-t-the tr-trees!" Celestia responded, now in hysterics.

"... What?" Luna said, baffled.

"THE TREES! THEY WERE ATTACKING ME! SAVE ME LUNA!"

*Eclipsal's POV*

I was quite surprised with myself when I found that I had made it to the Ponyville library without any issues. Remembering how peeved Twilight was when somepony knocked on her door, I just opened it.

Inside, Twilight was frowning at a letter, obviously displeased with what was in it.

"Uh, is this a bad time?" I said, slowly taking a step in.

"Oh! Eclipsal! It's fine, it's fine. Princess Luna just sent me a message, saying how she's having to force Celestia to rest for a while…" Twilight responded.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"Well apparently, Celestia has been overworking herself lately. Staying up while she has to be asleep, doing more work than needed, etcetera. Princess Luna says that today was the final straw, because Celestia was having hallucinations about trees flying through the sky trying to strike her down, or something." Twilight shook her head.

Upon hearing this, I could feel a searing red strike my face. There's no way that happened did it?

"Uh actually Twilight… I think that was me." I said, feeling a mix of shame and embarrassment.

"What?" Twilight said, staring blankly at me.

"This morning I was being taught by Mac how to applebuck, and instead of just bucking the trees, I pretty much bucked them out of the ground, and they all flew away somewhere. I guess now I know where they went…" I closed my eyes, shaking my head, waiting for Twilight to piece it all together.

"Wait…wait… you nearly hurt the princess! Oh my gosh, I need to take a letter. SPIKE! SPIKE! Where are you!" Twilight was franticly yelling and trying to find her letter-sending assistant, just to prove her teacher's sanity to Luna.

After Spike had been found and sent a letter explaining what I did to Luna, Twilight started bombarding me with questions.

"How strong are you?" she asked first.

"I honestly don't know. It didn't take a lot of effort to buck that tree, so I'm a little afraid to figure that out."

"Did anything else happen?" she asked the second I finished speaking.

"Uh.. actually that's why I'm here. I used my magic again today, except this time I sort of controlled it." At this, Twilight's ears perked up. "I just kind of felt like this huge need to help out Applejack and Mac, and was so frustrated I couldn't do the simplest things, I started stomping the ground, which knocked all the apples from all the trees in the acres. Then my magic did that for me. It conjured up some sort of limbs from the ground, almost like the hands Spike has, and started taking all of the buckets of apples to the barn. I had no control of it while it did that, it simply did that task I thought of, and then dissipated, to put it simply." I finished.

Twilight nodded her head, and put her hoof up to her chin, obviously thinking.

After a few minutes, Twilight finally decided on something.

"We need to teach you how to control your magic." She said.

"Um… Twilight. I thought my magic was different than any other horse's. Plus, you're a unicorn. How would you teach me?" I objected.

"Well I taught Spike how to use magic, and he's just a dragon. All beings have magic, and using it is basically the same. All magic exerts itself through a part of the body. For example, with Spike, it's his fire that's magical. For me, it's my horn. All you have to do is focus your willpower and thoughts to that part of the body, and it naturally happens." Twilight tried to explain.

"So how would we begin then?" I asked.

"With foal steps. Obviously you're powerful, so we should tread carefully." Twilight began. "I'm guessing you're magic comes from your hooves, correct?"

"Well… maybe. I don't know anything about magic though, so I'll leave you to figure out stuff with my magic." I said.

She nodded her head, and came up to me, sitting right next to me. Twilight took my hoof carefully in her hooves, and lifted it up to her horn, holding my hoof next to it.

Her horn began to glow, and I could feel a sort of transfer between my hoof and her horn. Before I was able to ask if this was really safe, she started speaking.

"It appears as though my assumption about your hooves was correct, Eclipsal."

"Okay so what now?" I asked.

"Concentrate on that book right there." She said, randomly pointing to a book on a table. "Then just think to yourself that you want to pick it up."

I nodded my head, and closed my eyes.

I want to lift that book.

I want to lift that book.

I want to lift tha-

"You're doing it!" I heard Twilight say excitedly.

I opened my eyes, and saw a shadow grasping the book. It held it in its hands, holding it a few feet off the ground.

"Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes…" I heard Twilight saying next to me. "This is going to be amazing studying you!" She looked up at me with her eyes glittering. She seemed a little too excited about this.

Then all of a sudden, her eyes widened. "I-I just remembered, I'm hungry! We should go to Sugarcube Corner and grab a bite to eat!"

Author's Note:

(A/N) I made this chapter... acceptable. So guess what? State Assessment tests are over, then all of a sudden I have a friend's birthday party to attend to. So I rushed this, AGAIN. I'm so sorry, I feel so crappy for doing this, but I promised you all 1 chapter a day for a week, and tomorrow is the last chapter of that. I'm going to definately write AT LEAST 2,500 words for the next chapter, I swear.

From FanFiction:

SCI-FIWIZARDMAN: Dude, don't worry about being original. There are alot of stories in the world that have the same concept, but the storylines are completely different. Don't strive to make something so different from everyone else's that it ends up being what you didn't want it to be. Plus, I'm sure that once I get around maybe chapter 20-25 my story will have a completely different storyline then yours. So just go for it!

Supreme Phoenix King: I'll be updating with a long chapter tomorrow, like it says in the Author Notes, then I'll be doing my best to update every week, or every few days.

From FiMFiction:

valientfan25: Yeah, if you're saying you were the first to comment on Chapter 13, you're right! You rock! Woohoo!

Comments

[Telly Vision]

woo first again this story is getting good