The Enforcer and Her Blackmailers

by scifipony

Chapter 9: Theory into Practice

I did not sleep over at Sunset's.

I had plenty of questions to pepper my Magic Dynamics instructor with the next day about how unicorns actually cast spells. Essentially, everypony was different. You had to understand the math that implied the spell mnemonics (the poetry). You had to understand the spell mnemonics that implied the math (the equations). It boiled down to how well you could manage the perceivable result of preparing and casting a spell, the feedback, which in turn allowed you to tune your magic. The best way to visualize was, in her opinion, meaningless—an exercise for philosophers and competition spell casters.

My point exactly. Still, Sunset Shimmer's paradigm seemed lame to me, and I meant that in the sense of limping and being crippled. I needed to help her with that.

Miss Peppercorn lowered her glasses on her muzzle and arched an eyebrow when I asked her about spell canceling. I vowed I'd look at that star on my forehead in a mirror tonight, even if I had to go out and buy one, as I was certainly getting a lot of looks lately. She said, "Why would anypony want to do that?"

Then again, my teacher wasn't a high level unicorn herself, having demonstrated nothing beyond levitation. I could agree that attending a magic school was rounding out my education, teaching me history, health, civics, charms, and earth pony magic (potions)—all topics I had ignored—as well as spells I was just plain bad at, like wards. To the extent that I could ask teachers questions, I had thought it worth the trouble to attend class instead of becoming the favorite patron of the librarian at the well-stocked Canterlot libraries, my usual method of operation. I was beginning to wonder if I could tough out the end of this semester and the senior year before I entered university study where I might get much better answers.

My prospects were circumscribed by what I didn't know more than the advanced arcane knowledge I excelled at.

For a while, that evening while I continued reading the SBS Omnibus, I came close to saying to Tartarus with it all. Maybe I ought just go somewhere my past couldn't follow me. But then thanks to Sunset Shimmer, I had knowledge that Princess Celestia's Tartarus prison really existed. And thanks to knowing Sunset Shimmer's name and her father's, when I came to a chapter that unexpectedly ended in the omnibus, I realized that I not only had access to a rare book, I also knew what "redacted" meant and also knew of the existence of the ultimate library: the Star Swirl the Bearded Time Wing of the Canterlot Library.

Many nights later, with moonlight streaming through the open windows of my always comforting hovel, laying buried in my haystack, I decided I would tough it out. Cool air blew in, scented by a trash heap burning down the street, but devoid of other pony smells. The mountain city of Canterlot was a much cleaner city than others I'd lived in, but it felt more like home than Grin Having ever had. Sunburst's abandoning me had proved that a pretty town of wealthy ponies that seemed perfect probably wasn't. Cutie marks could ruin anything good.

Imperfection reassured me. The dynamic of ponies finding their place on merit could be symbolized by burning trash. Purification brought a new start. I needed a new start, now that I accepted Sunburst was lost forever.

That was what drove me in the night to experiment on my own flesh. I had a good idea now how Dr. Flowing Waters used Barthemule's work. What took time was finding the equations that fit the numbers I'd sensed and reconciling that with a spell that could be transformed.

Eventually I got that by solving Levitation simultaneously with Force. This worked because both were practically transforms of the other, allowing Barthemules's various transforms to slot into the result. The necessary equations were enormous, and the corresponding spell mnemonics daunting, but I was good at simplification and enjoyed it. My first success happened late in the night when I reached in and found myself massaging the muscles from inside my rear leg.

It wasn't external pressure applied by Levitation. Shockingly, it felt very good. It felt very relaxing.

I slept better that night than I had in ages.

Author's Note:

Next:
Chapter 10: Blind-sided
A punked-out blue pegasus delivers an order from Running Mead. Starlight doesn't like that it contains the word "eliminate" in it.