Harmonic Light

by BloodHive1998

Ancient Magic

"So let me see if I understand. Magic flows in all pony races. Unicorn Magic is naturally active, but has a passive form. Pegasus Magic is the same and naturally flows through the magica nerves within the wings, hoofs, and eyes. Like with a Unicorn's horn, if a Pegasus looses their wings, they could still perform magic through the hoofs and eyes. The downside to those is that, for a Pegasus, it requires extreme concentration for the hoofs, while it is harder to control and a little painful when using the eyes. Anypony of any race can perform the magics of any other race as well as their own at will, but only after a short term magic stasis can the body safely perform the magic of other pony races, this stasis is the adaption period as the passive effects of the magic take root within the bodies natural magic systems. Examples of passive magic are things such as a Changeling's ability to walk on walls and ceilings, a Nightmare's shadow being separate from them, a Unicorn's ability to sense the strength of the magic around them, and a Pegasus' ability to walk on clouds." Rainbow, who was currently resting on a cloud that glowed and was the same color as her mother's mane, said. Red and blue clouds were floating around her and wind currents, the same color as the cloud she was on, flowed around her wings (there were some red currents as well, but they only appeared every now and then).
"Correct Rainbow. Now what is the indicator of the aura color?" Spectrum asked, she had been teaching Dash the basics on Air Magic for the past few hours, though that alone required some teaching of basic magic theory.
"Our soul cage, the unseen straps of magic around our souls that prevents us from being destroyed by our own power, are the indicators. Nopony knows what chooses the colors of our soul cage, but scientists believe that it may be genetic."
"Very good! Now explain those." Spectrum motioned to the red clouds.
"Under certain circumstances, a pony's soul can be bound to another's, this causes a tether between them to form. The tether is made up of a part of each pony involved's soul cage, alternating colors like these are created from this bound when the two souls have different aura colors. When this occurs, the pony's natural aura stay's dominate, but the aura of the other, when being drawn on (intentionally or not) will sometimes show itself, resulting in a different aura that flashes through the existing aura occasionally. You're aura is different though, it's a rare coloring that hasn't been seen in thousands of years."
"You're right!" Spectrum hovered in the air happily, from what she had learned about Rainbow Dash, the Pegasus wasn't the kind that usually listened well.
A few hours later Rainbow looked around at the multiple miniature tornadoes she had created with the air flow spell. There were six tornadoes, all under her full control and all with wisps of her aura around them.
"You're a quick learner, you sure your talent isn't in Pegasus Magic and not flying?" Spectrum asked playfully as she rested on a rainbow cloud that she had created.
"Technically they are the same thing." Rainbow said playfully, then remembered something.
Rainbow shot in the air with a bit of panic as she saw the time. "We need to hurry, your party will start soon!" Rainbow yelled, Spectrum quickly took flight and they left for Sugar Cube Corner.

The two managed to get to the party just in time.
"SURPRISE!!!" Pinkie yelled as she jumped out from somewhere.
The party was huge, most of Ponyville was there.
Rainbow brought Spectrum over to meet her friends.
As Spectrum walked to meet Rainbow's friends, she used her Unicorn magic to take hold of a drink and levitate it to herself. This caused Twilight to stare in shock.
"What, you thought Unicorns were the only ponies able to perform Unicorn Magic, that wouldn't be very harmonic now would it? Really though I would have expected Princess Celestia's personal student to know the nature of all pony magic." Spectrum smirked a little at that.
"But... how?" Twilight asked.
"Rainbow?"
Rainbow nodded before explaining. "All ponies of all pony races have at least two points on their body where the Magica nerves are, the eyes and the hoofs. If a Pegasus trains in the active Pegasus Magic (Air Magic) then they will usually use the magica nerves in their wings. Once a Pegasus masters Air Magic, then they can perform a small ceremony to allow them to access Unicorn Magic, this requires a three week long adaption period where their bodies adjust to the passive effects of Unicorn Magic. After that though, they can learn any spell a Unicorn could. That is a tuned down version of Starswirl's theory of magical distribution and adaption." Rainbow said.
Twilight stared at her with shock. "Since when did you care about magic?" she asked.
Rainbow giggled. As Air Magic wrapped around her wings and she jumped onto a blue cloud that had appeared, she smiled. Small tornadoes formed around her as a small lightning storm began from the cloud. "Since Spectrum Light here showed her own magic while visiting. We're not related so you know, she's just the only other Pegasus in hundreds of years that has a rainbow mane."

A few hours later, Light was resting in a cloud house she had built over the Everfree forest. A knock suddenly sounded at her door and she opened it with her magic.
"Hey Light, how are you?" Loyalty asked as she walked in and laid down next to her little sister.
"pretty good. Rainbow showed me around town and I taught her some Air Magic." Light said happily.
"Light! You know mother wants you to keep from revealing yourself."
"Hey, I had a cover story. I've been doing things like this for thousands of years remember." The giggle that left Light's lips ruined that false anger she had had.
The two sisters shared a few more laughs before Loyalty left and Twilight came.
"Hey Twilight, what brings you here?" Spectrum asked.
"Rainbow Dash decided that we should each visit you for a bit, one-at-a-time." Twilight said.
"Oh."
"So, I was going to ask you a few questions about yourself, if that's alright."
"Shoot."
"Okay. How'd you learn that magic Rainbow was using at the party?"
"Knowledge of Air Magic has been passed down my family for generations, it use to be a common thing for Pegasi to learn. When the tribes merged and before the princesses, Unicorns ruled. They forbid the use of Terra and Air Magics and so the practice of Air Magic became something only done in secret. Now though, only a few families practice Air Magic and only in secret. I think there are a few Earth Pony families that still practice Terra Magic as well."
"Oh, what about other magics? What else do you know?"
"I know Unicorn Magic, though being able to sense the strength and power within the magic all around me is a little annoying. I know Light and White Magic, of course that means I can't safely learn Black and Dark Magic. I also know a little bit of Dream/Nightmare Magic. Other than that though, I haven't tried to learn any others." this, of course, was partially a lie. The truth was that Light knew almost all magics, except Dark, Black, and Chaos Magic.
"So, Rainbow said that anypony can learn any form of pony magic. Would Chaos Magic count?"
"Yes, Chaos and Harmony Magic are both pony magics. Though, if you were thinking about learning Chaos Magic, then you should know that you can't since you're an Element of Harmony."
"How come?"
"Just like Black Magic is with White Magic, if you were to so much as cast a simple levitation spell with Chaos Magic, it would fight your natural Harmony Magic. This would end with a rather painful magica backlash from the Chaos Magic as your Harmony Magic has been within you for far longer."
"Oh... wait, I'm not in danger for using Black Magic am I?"
"What? No, if you don't attempt any White Magic then you'll be fine, of course, that means you'll have to learn healing spells that don't rely on White Magic should you ever find you're in need of them."
Twilight nodded and asked about the unnaturally strong magic signature that came from Spectrum.
Spectrum thought about what to say for a while before smiling in a playful way. "Where's the fun in giving you all the answers Sparkle?" Spectrum hopped off her couch then and headed for the door, "If you want the answers, then you have to find them yourself. I'll be going over to Sweet Apple Acres now, I wouldn't want to burden you with having to cast a cloud walking spell. See you around Element of Friendship." with that, Spectrum flew off.

Author's Note:

sorry it's not that good, I'm suffering from some writers block.

Comments

[Bed Head]

Alright, alright, that does it. Hoof's coming down now.

I regret to say that I thought I saw a little potential in this story. At the very least you'd thought about the backstory behind your new element instead of just dumping some "secret element" on everyone's heads and saying your character embodied it.

Hate to say it, but enough is enough.

You said you weren't just making a story about an OP original character. Well seeing is believing, but what I'm seeing is exactly that. Spectrum is a pegasus/secretly an alicorn/secretly a living embodiment of harmony? She can use magic that's never been seen or hinted on the show before? Yeah, Pegasus ponies can control clouds and air currents but since when can they do it like unicorns can with their magic? Never, that's when.

The start of this chapter clinches it for me. Dash comes across a strange pony, with a rainbow mane, using magic she's never heard of, and just accepts it? Hyper-competetive, accused-Twilight-of-being-a-spy-just-for-knowing-about-Nightmare-Moon Rainbow Dash doesn't think it's weird or suspicious in the slightest? AND she somehow grasps the basics of magic theory with just a few hours of studying?

I'm sorry, did you even see the episode "Testing, Testing, 1, 2, 3?" Dash doesn't learn like that! I didn't even read any further than that because it's becoming abundantly clear that you're not only introducing an overpowered character into the world, but you're also only attaching to the surface elements of the canon characters (like Pinkie Pie) without respect for the deeper nuances of the characters that make them special. And if the canon characters are supposed to have a major role in your story, that's not a good thing.

I wanted to give this a chance so I tried to offer some advice. I'm glad that you took that and at least tried to flesh out your backstory even if it was still rushed, hard to read, and over all poorly executed. But you're falling back into terrible old habits and this story is feeling less and less like it has much of a point other than "this is my original character and she's best friends with Rainbow Dash! Isn't she awesome?" Sorry if I'm sounding harsh, but if this story is gonna have a chance it needs to be taken back to its foundation and reworked from the ground up.

[BloodHive1998]

5260258 Thanks.
All I'll really say about the problem with the magic thing is that the AU tag is there for a reason. (Granted, I shouldn't have made Twilight not know about Air and Terra Magic)

Though to be honest, I'm starting to loose interest in this story, mostly from a thousand other stories having entered my head since I started this one. I might actually end up cancelling this story (it'd be the first time I ever cancelled a story while it was in the works though.)