Changing Tune

by Eyeswirl the Weirded

Chapter 4: Learning Experience

A problem with not knowing the culture of a civilization you're infiltrating is having no idea how you must look when doing things. For example, two grown mares entering a library in search of a beginner's spellbook (Adagio wasn't even sure that was what they called them, but Blueblood didn't say anything) that only one of them would be able to use. Luckily, any concerns about whether or not an adult unicorn looking for the most basic starting points in casting spells would turn heads and raise eyebrows were quashed when the pony at the counter, a dull-blue mare with a grey-ish mane, barely gave them more than a glance before pointing them to the right bookshelf.

"Hey, Dagi?"

"What is it, Sonata?" She was leafing through the first volume of Your Horn and You, which sounded a little less patronizing than the book right next to it, That Pointy Thing On Your Head and the Stuff You Can Do With It. Not that she was ruling anything out yet.

"What do you think Aria's up to right now?"

"I would guess something between complaining to herself about things and lying about in a bored daze." Next page. "Which is fine, because I didn't specifically tell her to do anything else. Ah!" She slid the book across the table they'd been seated at so Sonata could see the instructions for what the letters in bold indicated was a light spell. "See if you can perform this one." She couldn't remember if ponies had flashlights or not, but it seemed as good a starting point as any.

Sonata smiled, spending a minute or two scanning the page before sparks of magenta flickered on her horn. When they stopped, she looked at Adagio. "Did it work? It doesn't look any brighter in here."

The room was indeed well-lit by ornate chandeliers, so she couldn't say whether the spell was even cast. "I definitely saw something, try again."

She did, a few more sparks gathering at the tip of her horn before the effect fizzled out. "Now?"

"I don't think so. Whatever it is you're doing, can you do it harder?"

"Hold on to your hairband!" She audibly grunted with the exertion, but with no increase in magenta embers.

Adagio wondered if it was actual magical fire that made unicorn magic, and in that moment had a theory. "Hold on, let me touch it."

"Huh?"

"Do it again, and I'll check the temperature to see if it's making a difference."

"Ok!"

Holding a hoof to Sonata's horn, she didn't really feel any warmth from the energies that may or may not have been making the room imperceptibly brighter. "Hmm. Nothing, can you-"

"Again, harder?"

"Smart girl."

"Hmmmrrrrrgg!"

No change in temperature. "Again."

"Rrrrrrrmmmm!"

It was a little hard to tell through the layer of fur on her skin now, but she might have felt the tiniest trace of heat. "Keep going."

Veins visibly rose on Sonata's face. "RRRRRRRRRRGGGH!!"

Her whole horn was sheathed in a thin, magenta glow. Adagio withdrew her hoof, grinning with delight. "Yes, excellent! That should be-"

She was cut off by a pony quickly stepping from behind a shelf, raising her voice considerably above what they'd thought would be permissible in a library. "What the hay do you think you're doing in here?!" She was a pink earth pony, her mane a dark purple. She seemed to have a light-blue handkerchief tied around her neck for some reason, but at least it was in-season. Anger in her expression immediately melted into confusion as she looked at the two of them, sitting at the table as they had been, a beginner's spellbook between them. "What, um... W-what are you guys doing?"

Adagio raised an eyebrow. "I'm helping my colleague here learn a few spells. Is that a problem?"

The stranger immediately went red in the face, badly stammering her reply. "I-I-I-I, I uh, wh-what kind of, s-spells were you, I mean, you can't cast spells like that in-"

"Miss Polomare? What are you shouting about over here?" The pony they'd seen at the desk stepped from behind the pink newcomer, who jumped in fright. "Did something happen?"

Still blushing furiously, 'Polomare' pointed a hoof at the two at the table. "Th-these two were practicing se-erm, I mean... unauthorized spells in the library, okay?"

"Really?" There was a tinge of very well-contained panic as Adagio watched the desk pony step closer, Sonata looking at the book curiously. Taking a minute to read the spell they'd been attempting, the apparent librarian's face contorted to an unamused scowl. "Oh," she deadpanned, "yes, I agree, it's a travesty that ponies can do this kind of thing in broad daylight."

Daylight, thought Adagio, maybe it really is just too bright in here to see the effect of the spell?

She turned to Suri Polomare, her voice suggesting patience was very thin. "Imagine, ponies casting starter-level light spells in public. There goes the neighborhood."

The unfortunate librarian's assistant could barely form a sentence, her embarrassment only deepened. "B-but I-I-I, it sounded like, I-I was s-sure they were-"

"We'll talk about this later, Miss Polomare, just get back to dusting the shelves."

As much as she'd wanted to protest the situation, Suri knew she was lucky to have even this lousy job, for now, with pretty much the whole fashion industry giving her weird looks. As such, her reply was much more in line with library audio regulations. "Yes ma'am."

She said a few hasty apologies and the two departed, leaving Adagio and Sonata alone again. "What," Adagio muttered, "was that about?" She could admit that more light wasn't strictly needed right then, but it was hardly worth raising a fuss over. Had they committed some kind of faux pas? The librarian didn't seem to think so.

"Beats me," Sonata said with a smile, "but I think I've figured this spell out!" Not exerting nearly as much effort this time, Sonata's horn was again sheathed in a thin magenta glow, a sphere of dim light in the same hue shining at the tip.

Adagio grinned in kind, until she glanced at the book. "It says it's supposed to be a pure, white light."

"Aww, shoot!"

---

There weren't a lot of ponies in the castle around noon, not even that many guards. Aria briefly pondered whether or not it was likely they had anything really valuable lying around with this low (for a castle, at least) security. Stealing wasn't an option, of course, even if things ended up going south with the prince and they needed money to get by on, because Adagio would murder her if she got caught and blew their cover. The sirens had never killed anyone, never even saw much blood in the worst conflicts they'd started, but when she looked their leader in the eye, Aria sometimes wondered how far she would go if truly provoked.

Still, innocently walking about, concealing herself as best she could when she heard ponies talking, was perfectly fine, right? Few had anything interesting to say, talk of sporting teams, of weather reports, of a new paint job covering up some cracks in a wall somewhere, and more that made her feel like she was spying on the Rainbooms again was all she heard for the first hour or so.

And then she heard somepony talking about the prince.

"Hey," one gold-plated stallion said to another, "you heard about what Blueblood's been up to?"

"What, he does things? First I'm hearin' it."

"Heh, yea. He brought three fillies here. Cute ones. They're staying in a room in the Northern wing."

"Probably shouldn't, man."

"Shouldn't...? Oh, I know that! Anypony that comes with that guy is on a strict speak-when-spoken-to basis."

What?

"Yea. Not sure what it is about bein' Celestia's nephew that brings in the weirdos, but after his last fillyfriend..?"

"PON-3 was actually a little different than the usual."

"In that Ralph's left ear never healed right."

"Ok, there's that, but you know what I mean! He sees a magician for a while, she goes and tears up a town with black magic."

"Ralph's left legs never healed right."

"He takes a liking to Celestia's pupil as a colt, she flies into a rage, swears vengeance on the princess, and disappears into a mirror-portal thing."

"Ralph's left ribs never healed right."

"He's seen chatting up some stunt flier, she causes a hurricane at the Wonderbolt academy."

"Ralph's left wing never healed right."

There was a pause. "Is Ralph really all mangled now, or...?"

The other guard chuckled. "Nah, just seein' if you were awake."

With the clank of a hoof against a helmet and a little more laughter, the first speaker continued. "This is serious! He goes out with a mare nopony's ever heard of or seen before for, she vanishes without a trace."

"That one doesn't sound so bad."

"We saw her again, remember? She was wearing the face of Princess Cadence before the invasion."

"Oh, yea. Ralph's left-"

Another clanking noise. "Really?!"

"Guardin's a dull job, gotta make your own entertainment."

"Ugh. You get what I'm saying though, right? Anypony with Blueblood is bad news."

"We could keep an extra eye on them, but then we have to deal with Blueblood himself if they complain."

"Do you think that, if we did that and got fired, we'd be hired back when they turned out to be as insane as every single other friend he makes?"

"Wouldn't wanna chance it."

"Right. We stay away as much as possible and hope if they ever snap, it's far away from here."

Slinking away as the conversation died down, Aria tried to put her thoughts in order.

They know. Or, they really, really think they know, but they do, because we are! And, Blueblood is cursed. They're trying to stay away from us, though, Adagio might be happy about that. We're gonna die.

She had to make her way back to the Pisces room to be able to take several deep breaths and let her wings flap a few times (whatever it was that was making her want to do that. Panic, maybe?) without fear of somepony noticing. Sitting on her bed, she knew she needed to calm down, but every possible reassurance she came up with for herself was immediately countered by three ways it could all go wrong. Her wings started flapping faster as the stress ate away at her focus.

The prince is onto us, the guards are onto us, Adagio doesn't give a damn, Sonata's a bonehead, we might as well just-

Bonk!

Her head lightly impacted with the ceiling, which made her look up, then down in alarm as her wings unconsciously stopped what they'd been doing. She fell on the bed, which caught her so gently it was as if she'd laid down on it normally. What did Blueblood say about cumulus stuff earlier? Didn't matter, she had something to distract her until the panic died down; the two appendages she needed a better control on and the ability to fly.

Glancing out at the balcony, she immediately decided against testing her abilities there, but this room was big enough to move around a little. She opted instead to try liftoffs for a while, maybe even getting the hang of landing.

---

"Ooh, let's try this one next!"

Scanning the page, Adagio raised a curious eyebrow. "Why would you want to be able to turn toast back into bread?"

"I dunno, maybe if it's burnt or something?"

"The idea behind all of what we're doing here is that food not be a prime concern in the relatively near future." Having been overheard once, she knew better than to say anything specific.

Sonata frowned a little. "Hm, I guess." Flipping the page, she brightened again. "Look, a spell for instant sunglasses!"

Of the twelve spells they'd looked at here in the library, the one for making light had been the only one that didn't sound utterly useless. Well, the 'uses' were clear enough, it was just that no sensible pony would prioritize being able to make things stick to other things for a short time or detect frogs. Still, she supposed that if they left with Sonata not knowing much more than when she started, they'd truly wasted their time. She sighed. "Alright, give it a try."

As Sonata briefly studied the page, Adagio tried to imagine what she'd do if this spell blinded either of them somehow. The magenta glow on Sonata's horn indicated that she'd at least gotten a feel for casting a spell, followed by the world tinting darker. Blinking twice, Adagio took the conjured sunglasses off, silently marveling at the creation of a physical object through ethereal energy, and wondering what else could be done with that kind of power.

Looking back at Sonata, she found the unicorn to be beaming proudly. "Neat, huh?"

She couldn't muster more than a deadpan stare. "Are there any useful spells in that book? Magic that might actually benefit us in day-to-day life?" It was doubtful there was a such thing as magic that conjured food, or every eating establishment in Equestria would surely be out of business, so she didn't bother asking about that specifically.

"Maybe, I'll check!"

As she flipped through the pages, Adagio checked the clock on a nearby wall. It was still too early to return to the castle, Aria's meeting with Blueblood shouldn't be starting for another few hours, so they had to stay out of sight to keep the plan on track. She tried to think of something to look for in the spellbook, something she could feasibly tell Blueblood if he asked what they'd been hoping to find, specifically, but the only magic she'd ever really known was that of the gems.

Anything destructive wouldn't do, as it was virtually guaranteed that there would be battlemages (the two princesses they'd met and one they'd heard about came to mind) more powerful than the best Sonata could hope to be, and brute force wasn't really their style anyway. Well, apart from forcing others to do what they said, but she liked to think of that more as enticing the enemy to fight on her side. There was a subtle art to that kind of manipulation, or the targets would most likely realize they weren't acting of their own accord and promptly stop if the song wasn't powerful enough to completely overwhelm them.

Perhaps she could say that while they found a thing or two, the magic they were looking for eluded them? She could coyly wink and say a mare has her secrets if he asked what it was, specifically, but that was a gamble of arousing suspicion versus... arousing something else. She decided against it, if he pressed further thinking it was flirtation on her part, she'd have no answer. As such, they needed to find something worthwhile before returning to the castle. Well, telling what technically amounts to the truth has been working out so far.

"Sonata, is there anything you've ever wished you could do on a whim, but couldn't?" If they could find something she actually wanted to be able to do, the story she gave this morning would be air-tight.

Thinking for a moment, she nodded. "Kinda-sorta? I mean, there's something that I might want to do that I can't that I would if I could, but if I do then I will, so does that mean I should?"

"If you can't and you do, then you can, so yes." Aria would always groan or facepalm(hoof) when Sonata talked nonsense. Adagio liked to treat it like an exercise to keep her mind sharp. "Now what is it?"

Sonata smiled. "I wish I could show exactly what I was thinking!"

"What?"

She pointed a hoof across the table. "See? That! Whenever I'm talking and nopony knows what I mean? I wish I could just like, POOF what I was saying so everypony understands, y'know?"

"Some kind of reverse-telepathy, you mean?" She didn't dare contemplate the existence of spells that let the casters peer into the minds of those around them, if only because the likely series of related counter-spells, detectable to scryers or not, was a can of worms that would likely amount to nothing but headaches were she to open it.

"I dunno, just something I could do that makes everypony like 'oh, that's what you mean,' or at least make it a little easier to figure it out. Do you think there's a picture-book spell?"

"There are pictures in this spellbook. Give me a moment..." Checking a few pages in the index, she found Projection under the list of spells. There didn't seem to be anything along the lines of an effects index, but she supposed searching for spells based on what they did would require a book all on it's own to cover the sheer breadth of possible descriptions. Turning to the appropriate page, she waited the minute and a half it took Sonata to read and possibly memorize the instructions. That was something she'd have never given her credit for, actually, but time would tell if her apparent aptitude at this held in the long run.

Her horn flickered a few times, beams and spots of light appearing and fizzling out as quickly as they came. By the look on Sonata's face, this was one of the upper-beginner spells, which might have put it on the level of 'normal.'

Would it raise questions if I asked Blueblood about these things? He's had a horn for years, he must know a thing or two by now.

After a few attempts. she managed to summon a rectangular window of light, only for it to dissipate an instant later.

Sonata glanced up at her almost fearfully, likely afraid she was taking too long to pull it off.

Adagio regarded her coolly. "Just focus. Remember, this is still a beginner-level spell, or it wouldn't be in this book." If magic was like much of anything else, it was probably easier when you were calm and collected, and they weren't in a rush anyway.

The struggling sorceress smiled shakily. "R-right!"

In the next several minutes of attempts, she managed to project vague, badly-distorted images through the little window framed in magenta light, until eventually managing what looked like a picture of the instructions for the spell she was casting. The words were too blurred to read, but that Adagio could make out even that much seemed like good progress.

As Sonata was staring straight at the book, Adagio cleared her throat and the image shifted to a fuzzy, orange blob when Sonata looked up at her. "What?" The reply was a quick nod to the floating image, which started to grow sharper. The two of them could barely make out the image of Adagio, sitting at the table exactly as she was, an eyebrow curiously raised.

One wouldn't know that by looking at the projection, but it was what the real one was doing as she pieced together how the spell might have worked. "This may be just what you were hoping for, Sonata. It seems to show what you're currently imagining, which, if you're not imagining anything, is just whatever you look at."

"Yea, it said something like that in step three. So if I think about...?" She closed her eyes in concentration, the image shifting to what looked like some kind of stick, curved around to form a hook at one end, the whole thing white with red stripes. Or red with white stripes, hard to say.

"I don't think it's coming in clearly, the picture still makes no sense."

Looking at her ethereal creation, Sonata shook her head. "Nope, that's totally what I meant to happen!"

"What is it supposed to be?"

She answered entirely too cheerfully. "I have no idea!"

"Then why did you want to picture it?"

"I saw it on the way here, some ponies were moving one of these big, crooked, stripey-thing sticks somewhere, along with some leafy, circle things and-Gasp! I can show you!" Closing her eyes again, Sonata changed the image to a bushy ring, or a ring-shaped bush, with bells and red bows on it, then shining, well-decorated orbs with little hooks on the top.

Not sure what to make of the random objects, Adagio no less smiled, seeing a perfect demonstration of the spell in action. "Right, well, it seems like you have a good hold on that spell now."

"Yep!" Looking at her lightly-glowing creation with a smile, the image shifted, then continued to project exactly what it had been.

Adagio blinked. "Wait, why is there an extra layer of the frame? Did something go wrong?"

"I don't... think so? It's still just the thing I was thinking about." Looking at it harder, Sonata tried to see if something had changed besides the magenta border of the frame looking a little thicker. The image shifted again, she could clearly see a little of the library around the image, within the image, around the image, and within the image again.

"S-Sonata? Are you thinking about the image that you're projecting?"

"No, I'm thinking about the image of the image of the image I'm projecting, so why's it doing this? Hang on a sec, let me see if I can..." Her tongue poked out of the counter of her mouth as she concentrated, the layers of the hook-orb things spreading out above them, each image branching out one after the other, creating a chain of hook-orb frames. Then more.

And more.

And more.

"What are you doing?!"

"I don't know!" The picture spread like wildfire, until there was a cloud of the copied image shrouding the two of them and many of the surrounding shelves. "Huh. I might be overdoing this a bit."

"You think?"

They heard a chuckle in the sound of the desk pony's voice. "While it's nice to see such holiday spirit, we really don't need help decorating the library for Hearths Warming this year."

Thankfully, whatever it was keeping the spell going evidently vanished, the floating frames following suit. With a grin similar to the one she displayed right after grabbing Sunset Shimmer's arm, Adagio seized the opportunity to mitigate the situation. "Sorry about that, she's never done that spell before." She was starting to miss lying, but there was an odd feeling of security in not doing so.

Strangely, there wasn't a hint of irritation in Unnamed Library Worker's expression. "Please, don't worry about it. It's always nice to see some seasonal cheer, even weeks early. Will you two be checking out that book, then?"

Glancing at Your Horn and You, Adagio determined that Sonata being able to practice spells in private sounded appealing for at least four different reasons.

Sonata blinked twice. "What book?"

Five reasons.

Amused, the librarian indicated the plainly-visible tome on the desk, the one they had been using for an hour or two. "That one there, unless there are others you'd like to borrow for a while?"

Adagio did her best to smile pleasantly. "There may be a few we'd like to look at, can we get back to you?"

Still looking cheerful, she nodded. "Certainly, let me know if there's anything you need. And, happy Hearths Warming, you two!"

With that odd closing note, she was off, leaving them alone. Connecting a few dots, Adagio made a guess that the hook-orbs Sonata saw and filled the room with were involved in this 'Hearths Warming' holiday somehow, which came only in weeks. The librarian's utter lack of annoyance at Sonata's shenanigans told her it must have been a well-loved one, at that. What kind of opportunity that was for them, she'd have to find out when-wait...

They were in a library, a treasure trove of information. Too jubilant to feel like an idiot for only realizing this now, she instead felt a vicious grin spread across her face. "Sonata?"

Her enthusiasm must have bled into her tone, because her cohort jumped, looking back at her as though expecting new orders. "Y-yes?"

"What's the most advanced spell in that book?"

She leafed over to the table of contents. "Umm... It says the harder ones are overrrr..." More page flipping. "Here! Why?"

"See if you can cast any of those. I'll be looking into a few things that should make our-" she glanced about, wary of the librarian, Polomare, or anypony else, "-task here more manageable. Take your time, let me know how many you manage and how well, would you?"

She gave a crisp nod. "Can do!"

"Good, I'll be back in an hour or so." Getting up from the table, she wandered out of the manuals section, briefly scanning shelves for books on history, newspapers on recent events, and information on Equestria in general. Maybe I can learn a little about Twilight Sparkle and our host while I'm at it...

---

When the consequences of screwing something up weren't all that bad, or were even kind of nice, if you were into that kind of thing, Adagio said it was something between a soft penalty and rewarding failure. Possibly a pyrrhic victory. Lying on the soft, soft bed, Aria couldn't decide which her repeated almost-successful landings were. She'd flap her wings, get a feel for how hard and how fast she had to do that to just hover in place, float up to the ceiling, stop flying, then try to start again so as not to hit the ground as hard as possible. That was why she was still practicing over the bed, which got a little cosier every time she failed.

It was when she tried just stretching her wings out as tautly as possible that she learned doing that made her glide, not fall slower, which ended with her landing face-first against the wooden foot of another bed. Tenderly rubbing her snout, she guessed it was at least lucky she didn't break anything, in the room or her body, as either would have raised questions later. She wanted to experiment with gliding a little more, but the room was too small for that kind of thing.

Getting up, she floated into the air again, dropping about halfway up, and impacting the mess of quilt and pillow atop what used to be a well made magic bed a little softer than the last several times. That probably had more to do with her not having fallen as far than the speed at which she tried to recover. With several more attempts, she determined that maybe she just wasn't high up enough to get enough lift to not smack into the bed. At least she mastered gently drifting down with controlled wingbeats, settling on the bed a final time for the day. Glancing out the nearest window, she guessed it was getting late in the afternoon. When was she supposed to meet Blueblood? Did they set a time, location, anything?
She couldn't remember, and felt like there was something she hadn't wanted to think about anyway. Lazily flopping down on the bed, she opted to get a nap in before the time came to go with the prince and try to get into his head.

Author's Note:

Library pony is also never coming up again. Nor are those two guards. Or Ralph and his many deformed left things. Probably.

Comments

[ShadowLDrago]

There weren't a lot of ponies in the castle around noon, not even that many guards. Aria briefly pondered whether or not it was likely they had anything really valuable lying around with this low (for a castle, at least) security. Stealing wasn't an option, of course, even if things ended up going south with the prince and they needed money to get by on, because Adagio would murder her if she got caught and blew their cover. The sirens had never killed anyone, never even saw much blood in the worst conflicts they'd started, but when she looked their leader in the eye, Aria sometimes wondered how far she would go if truly provoked.

Yeesh, and I thought the implications of what Discord did in Return of Harmony was bad.

"PON-3 was actually a little different than the usual."

What?

"Ok, there's that, but you know what I mean! He sees a magician for a while, she goes and tears up a town with black magic."

What?

"He takes a liking to Celestia's pupil as a colt, she flies into a rage, swears vengeance on the princess, and disappears into a mirror-portal thing."

What?!

"He's seen chatting up some stunt flier, she causes a hurricane at the Wonderbolt academy."

WHAT?!

With the clank of a hoof against a helmet and a little more laughter, the first speaker continued. "This is serious! He goes out with a mare nopony's ever heard of or seen before for, she vanishes without a trace."
"That one doesn't sound so bad."
"We saw her again, remember? She was wearing the face of Princess Cadence before the invasion."

WHAT?!

"If you can't and you do, then you can, so yes."

Eh?

Sonata smiled. "I wish I could show exactly what I was thinking!"
"What?"
She pointed a hoof across the table. "See? That! Whenever I'm talking and nopony knows what I mean? I wish I could just like, POOF what I was saying so everypony understands, y'know?"

That would actually be a really useful spell.

She answered entirely too cheerfully. "I have no idea!"

Oh Medic...

"I don't know!" The picture spread like wildfire, until there was a cloud of the copied image shrouding the two of them and many of the surrounding shelves. "Huh. I might be overdoing this a bit."

What makes you think that?

[EchoWing]

Yikes. Blueblood sure knows how to pick 'em, doesn't he?

[Seether00]

Pop ups!

[Jetto]

That Blueblood guy sure has a good taste in mares... not perfect though, as he missed on the second best pony while he had a chance. And no, I'm not talking about DJ-Pon3. Or Sunset Shimmer.

[Europa]

I really love your take on Sonata's ditziness. Also, I want that See-What-I-Mean spell!

[ZombieMan]

She was leafing through the first volume of Your Horn and You, which sounded a little less patronizing than the book right next to it, That Pointy Thing On Your Head and the Stuff You Can Do With It.

reactiongifs.com/r/2013/09/oh-my-takei.gif

[keaton-furman-prower]

Blueblood has a really weird taste in mares

[ColdGoldLazarus]

I think these are my favorite versions of the Dazzlings out of any story I've read involving them. Including my own. Excellent work!