62 - New boundaries
"Gingey tells me you have a little problem up in your horn that reduces your output?" The bright yellow mare with Penny was gesturing to the lunar unicorn's black-tipped horn.
Penny nodded to Giddilee. "Long story but yeah, it amounts to that." She looked at the five weight set in the corner.
"Ignore those, I don't take well to using them to measure but it is the standard, so once a week we will see how you do. Factors of ten… they should make a proper scale that climbs-" The mare was off on what appeared to be one of her favorite topics.
Trying not to zone out, Penny interrupted. "So, uh, what will I be doing, Giddilee?"
"Call me Giddy, and today you will be holding energy."
Penny tilted her head. "Holding? How does that help?"
Giddy seemed to brighten all the more. "First, excellent question. Second, by holding your magic, even as you channel it, it expands your capacity. You stretch all the pathways that carry magic from within you, as well as enhancing that source by simply using it. Your magic is a muscle, work it hard, regularly, and it grows stronger."
This made sense, at least as a metaphor. Penny nodded. "So if I keep practicing this it will help me lift more?"
"Only do this when supervised, until you know your limits, also, keep asking questions. It is the best way to learn!" Giddy looked just like her nickname. "Right then, ready to try? I will reach into you, guide you to start."
Penny's nod was indeed the start. The mare's eyes drifting to the small pile of oat-cakes on the bench to the side. She had a feeling it would be a long day.
A touch brought her from her external examinations, feeling as Giddilee did just as she had said, she was reaching into Penny's horn with her own magic, shunting the flow from outer and keeping it inner-focused. "Right, start to channel and try to get all you can into… oh!"
Penny had started, Giddy feeling the extra paths magic took in her horn.
"Right, those are the problem I take it, they make you leak which means you have to push harder." Penny's teacher… or trainer as she now thought of her, was directing her and the mare focused and pushed. "Good, keep it steady and constant. Now we want it to stay inside you, but not all down those paths."
It took more than a little concentration and Giddy reaching and helping to direct her, but Penny finally got the loop sorted, panting a little at the almost purely mental effort required. She felt warm, growing hotter by the minute.
"Good, keep that up." Giddy pulled a little stand over and pressed it against Penny. Not willing to give up her focus to find out what it is, she doubled her efforts and started channeling more. "Better, keep this going, you can eat and not lose your focus?"
Penny gave a slight nod and felt one of the little cakes press against her snout. She almost lost her focus at it, Stick was usually much more gentle with her feeding. Penny blushed and suddenly lost her concentration as her marefriend's antics had her grinning.
"A great first try, come on, eat that up and lets get you hotter this time." Giddy's enthusiasm was horribly contagious and Penny started again, chomping on the carbohydrate-rich snack.
Stick was marveling at the buildings around her. She had asked one of the guards at the castle and been directed to this particular office. Lifting a hoof, she clopped gently at the door.
A mare answered, a unicorn that looked, at least to Stick, every bit as graceful as an alicorn. She had a moment where she had to pick her jaw up.
"A changeling? Oh dear, were we late for our appointment this week?" Her voice was rich and vibrant but there was not a hint of the 'upper classness' Stick had gotten used to hearing in her time in Princess Cadance's court.
"Uh, I am not from the local hive… well I am, but not really…" Stick was tongue-tied a moment. "Okay, can I start again?" The mare smiled and gave a little nod, her eyes closing as the delight at her visitor. "Right. My name is Stick. I was hoping to have a meeting with Fancy Pants."
"Fleur." The mare introduced herself. "Fancy is out at the moment, would you like to wait?"
"Thank you, I would." Stick followed as the graceful mare backed inside and made room for Stick to walk in. It was a normal office, a little desk to one side where Fleur now headed while there was a door that likely led to Fancy Pants' own study. "I would have loved to have brought my mare… my partner here, Penny Farthing, but she has duties to the crown to take care of."
Fleur's ears came instantly to attention. "Oh, you are THAT Stick? Well, we have much to talk about. That mare has stirred up my husband to no end with her ideas. Would you believe he's sunk nearly a third of our savings into that little scheme in the Crystal Empire?"
Stick brightened up when she realized she was speaking to Fancy Pants' wife. "Oh! Wow, he must… he really has that much faith in her?"
A cup of tea for each of them were pouring themselves to one side. "Of course not. Fancy might trust some ponies, but he trusts sound planning and a clever mind a whole lot more. He and Perfect, his assistant, took your mare's letter apart bit by bit, they picked all the holes they could in it and of course that is why Perfect herself was sent, she knew all the flaws in the venture and already knew ways to keep them from marring the business."
The changeling realized how very, very out of her depth she suddenly was. "So… uh…" The tea chose then to float over, Stick catching it from Fleur's grip.
"Do not get me wrong, Fancy is delighted to find that his trust in a human-turned-pony so well placed, but he didn't rise to where he is by making bad decisions. I do wish Perfect were able to return, however…" Fleur's words confused Stick, the changeling was quite sure the mare was lying through her perfect teeth with that last statement. Then it hit her. Perfect had been Fancy's personal assistant, a role his wife now filled.
"Oh, it is. Did she mention a unicorn?" Stick grinned, the tea soothing her throat and mind. This was every bit as much of a battle of words as she had fought in Princess Cadance's court, but the mare in front of her seemed a cut above the courtiers there for guile.
Fleur batted her lashes after she took a sip from the tea. The changeling had seemed just another fine representative of her kind at first, but the mare was starting to realize more. She was playing The Game. The unicorn had only recently learned she enjoyed this new sport. It was much like gossip but there were real repercussions for winning and losing. Repercussions her husband had started to take advantage of.
"A unicorn? Perfect's letter had been strictly business. The only pony she mentioned apart from Penny and yourself was a court-appointed accountant, Articulate I think was his name?"
Stick nodded. "You may want to send a reply, inquiring into her well-being and asking if she has found a unicorn who could match her."
Fleur laughed, the sound genuine and full. "Oh lets stop this. We are on the same side here and I really want to hear about any stallion that could get Perfect's attention for longer than it takes him to open his mouth."
Relaxing further, realizing the intriguing would take a back seat to real gossip, Stick sipped her tea. "He is a stallion fixated on law and numbers," Fleur nodded to Stick's description so far, "apart from an invasion of the Crystal Empire… near invasion, he is the only thing I have seen her really drop her mask for."
The unicorn giggled and clopped her hooves together. "And here I thought my time with my husband might be reduced again. I take it, if he was court appointed, that there was another hoof guiding this?"
"Of course, how could the princess of love keep herself from pairing up two ponies so... perfect for each other." Stick grinned at her pun and got a groan from Fleur.
The door opened and a very well dressed Fancy Pants entered. "Back, dear, how is-" He froze his greeting of Fleur when he noticed the visitor. "A changeling visiting my business, with holes in her hooves and looking for all intents and purposes like a drone. Welcome, partner Stick, to my office."
Stick nearly coughed her tea at how astute the stallion had just proved. "Thank you, I was just discussing some facts about the events in the Crystal Empire with your assistant."
Fleur cut in on the end of the changeling's introduction. "She was just telling me Perfect has found herself trapped, by the love of a stallion!" The way the unicorn phrased it she clearly meant there to be some tension while she spoke, but she was too excited to let it build properly.
Fancy lifted his brows, monocle dropping out into his waiting magic. "Well, that is good news. Unfortunately for her the only stallion in Canterlot was already quite taken with his wife." He had taken the cue from Fleur as to treating Stick as more friend than acquaintance, stepping up to the mare and giving her a rare moment in their public persona, an intimate kiss.
Blushing, Stick turned to look at something else so the pair could have a touch of privacy.
Drawing back, flushed herself at the intensity of Fancy's advance, Fleur seemed to perk up. "Oh, her arrival reminded me, we are late with our donation."
Fancy looked appalled. "This wont do. I say, Stick, would you mind escorting us to your princess' hive?"
Stick brightened at this, even just mentioning there was a princess of changelings made her feel special. "It would be my pleasure… well, yours too I guess." Stick blushed, not knowing what sort of thing the pair would be in for.
Fleur's laugh was more restrained but her eyes danced. "We go every week, to make sure Queen… Princess Fast Change has a good handle on things. We mostly discuss business and let them drink a little. They are the newest ponies in the empire and deserve to be welcomed."
Her speech, of course, ignored the fact that Stick was herself a changeling.
"Not completely true now. The umbrum are the newest ponies, they were the ones invading the Crystal Empire. Turns out they were just lost and needed somepony to give them a hug… or something like that." Stick explained, in the most shorthoofed of ways, the recent events.
"Really?" Fancy's mind began to file away information, finding this oddly well-traveled changeling visitor to be a font of interesting facts. "My dear," he turned to Fleur Dis Lee, "let us be off."
Stick trotted to the door and held it open for both of them, she wasn't quite sure why, but just the way Fancy acted, it made her think of him, well, as a noble. It wasn't a history of richness. It wasn't a family heritage. He just was a fine example of everything a 'good pony' should be.
The couple smiled and let the changeling lead them out to the street and toward the hive.
"You came to Canterlot with the others." Fancy wasn't asking, Stick could tell. "But tell me, what did you do before you came?"
It wasn't always something Stick wanted to remember but this stallion was worth it, she thought. "I tended to the breeders… the males that the queen would uh… need… to make eggs… new changelings." She blushed delightfully. "They weren't the brightest, Chrysalis was… really, the worst queen ever. But then I only know two and one is Princess Fast." Saying their names left Stick feeling sick and relaxed, in that order.
"Interesting. So these breeders, along with Chrysalis, are your parents?"
The ill-feeling was returned again. "Not… not as I would think them." She breathed a few times, to try and take a more objective view of it. "Parents are the ponies that care for a larva… foal. They guide them, help them grow. Chrysalis and the breeders were just present. They were not my parents."
Fancy realized he had hit a sensitive topic. Sensitive but intriguing. "Well, all in the past now, your new princess has shown herself to be quite the pony by comparison."
Stick looked up to the tall stallion and nodded, her melancholy mood lifting just by thinking about Princess Fast Change. She took a deep breath, even being away from the hive so much, just talking about her new queen… princess, raised her spirits.
Twilight was a little nervous. It was one thing to talk with a changeling, even getting a surprising kiss from their princess. But it was quite another to have a whole hive around her. It helped that they were friendly, waving hooves and buzzing wings at her in greeting.
"And this contraption measures magic?" Princess Fast was stepping around one of the machines Twilight had gotten some of the hive's drones to install.
"It takes images of magical auras." Twilight reached up to the panel and turned the unit on. It began to hum and some bulbs lit up green. "I want to try and trigger it to take various pictures while you change shape."
Fast blinked and tried to make sense of it. "The college I attended had some fancy equipment, but nothing like this." She walked around it again, avoiding the hefty power cable that fit into a standard socket on the wall of the hive. "Does this count as our next date?"
Twilight colored immediately and looked back at the changeling princess, getting an almost-coy look from the queen of the hive, looking back over her shoulder at Twilight. "I… it's not a date, we are just… seeing how things… I like you, Fast." Twilight gave a sigh, her ears tucking back as she gave up trying to dance around the subject. "I don't know if I am ready to like-like somepony, but it is nice to be with another mare who doesn't look at me as if I will solve all of Equestria's problems with one hoof. You are a friend, first. Something else may happen, and if it does, it happens. But I wont force it."
Fast smiled and turned, keeping her eyes on the mare who just bared her heart. "Twilight." The princess moved closer to her peer. "I wouldn't have it any other way."
The changeling didn't try to steal a kiss this time, Twilight had expected her to. Did she want her to? "Does this mean you will let me take pictures of you shifting?"
"Princess Twilight Sparkle, I would not deny you pictures of myself, under any circumstances." Fast's look could melt ice right then.
Twilight blushed at the tone, and held up a copy of the half-finished book on changelings, along with more notes besides.
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Foo-stealing intensifies. Why Foo-stealer? Why?
On a more serious note, lavae, grubs or foals?
6982982 Eggs -> larvae -> foals -> changelings
Insects molt remember, I figure there is a stage where the form best for surviving in an egg is shed and the more mammal-like pony shape is taken.
6983135 So foals, not grubs (pictured super-cute swaddled-baby-grubs, for the record). Good things to keep straight.
a vary good chapter good work.
was horrible contagious - was horribly contagious
likely lead to - likely led to
he sunk - he's sunk
do, I say - do. I say
richness, it - richness. It
first, something - first. Something
happen and - happen, and
tone and - tone, and
*****
Penny and Stick will always be my favorites, being the focus of the story and all, but the small side story of Princess Twilight and Princess Fast Change, really has my attention.
Tease.
*****
I'm curious to know what she was going to say. The only other scales I know about are linear and logarithmic, and neither of those seem like a better way to assess magical strength. Curse my inadequate math skills.
6984653 exponentially? But that would hardly be better...
Finally Penny can truly do some real training.
Keep going! ;)
6984653 Logarithmic would be my guess, but don't ask me, I am just a writer
Should probably be Princess of Changelings, but still works as is.
Queen... Princess
7108801 The first one is outside of quotes, doesn't have the actual name, can stay lowercase. But the second is fixed
7108824 As long as it's a title, it needs to be capitalized (because then it becomes proper nouns).
other."
shorthoof [shorthooved would be shorthanded, but you meant shorthand]
This sounds odd, I'm not entirely sure what you meant by this sentence to be honest.
7736253 Dang it, Britishism sneaking in. Fixed.
http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/what-does-a-treat-mean-in-england
Isn't it supposed to be Fleur Dee Lis ?
this reminds me of one of my favorite authors on this site, Estee. he came up with an interesting rule where unicorns are tested in TWO traits, "field strength" and "field agility".
it's interesting to note that Rarity has average strength but EXTREMELY high agility.
9881944 If you take a look at my Life of Lyra story, I delve a lot more into unique magic stuff there, in particular how an untrained unicorn can be brought up to having comparable magic power and stamina to compete with some of Equestria's best unicorns. Also delving heavily into how spells are formed, how they're memorized, and why not just everycorn can be a spellcaster in addition to their regular lives.
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