The Science of Magic

by cammerhammer

Chapter Fourteen - The Power of Memories

Bedside Manner stopped outside a recovery room with a pair of guards posted at the door. He braced himself in preparation before entering the room to deal with the patient on the other side, already dreading the scene that was going to greet him from the other side. He didn't know where Princess Celestia had found the stallion, or why he was an alicorn (and a two-horned one at that), or what the ruddy Tartarus was going on with him, but he was starting to lose his patience with the pony, who seemed insistent upon pretending the recovery room was an office.

"Are you sure you don't want to take this one for me?" he called over to a nurse who was pushing a cleaning cart.

The nurse checked the room number and shook her head. "Sorry, Doctor Bedside, you're on your own." Before he could make another attempt to change her mind, she quickly pushed the cart further down the hallway, leaving him to deal with the patient himself.

Bedside drew himself up resolutely, gritting his teeth in a passing semblance of a smile, and reached for the door handle. "How are we doing to—"

The door practically exploded outward in a whirlwind of brown feathers and ink, as if some eldritch chicken-squid abomination had awoken from its slumber and crawled through a portal directly into recovery room three. Bedside Manner was sent into a dazed spin as the brown alicorn tore out of the room at full pelt, catching both of the stationed guards by surprise. A trail of paper followed the pony out the door, pulled along by the wake of his hasty exit.

The doctor landed roughly on his rump one and a half rotations later, giving him a perfect view of the stallion escaping the hallway, the guards quickly giving chase. A small part of Bedside's mind noted that the unruly patient had, once again, pulled out his IV, and was leaking his vital fluids on the floor. He reluctantly hauled himself to his hooves and joined the rapidly growing conga line of royal guards following the stallion, pushing through the double doors to continue the pursuit in the castle itself.

"I knew I should have stayed home today..." Bedside muttered under his breath. "At my old hospital, we didn't have to *pant* run down patients."

He closed the gap between himself and the alicorn, the heavily armored guards having trouble following the escaping stallion's sudden changes of direction. "Would somepony *wheeze* be so kind as to *gasp* cut him off for me?!" Bedside called out loudly to another pair of guards just up ahead, who reacted just fast enough to leap in front of the escaping pony and send him sprawling to the floor. The stallion tried to regain his footing, only for one of the guards to stand over him and press a firm hoof into his back.

"Let go! Let me find my book!" the pony wailed mournfully into the floor as he was held against it. He managed to get his hooves under him and nearly threw the guard holding him down before a couple more piled on top of him.

"Don't break anything! It's hard enough to tend to him without having to put a cast on him, too!" the doctor growled at the guards as they dog-piled on the struggling stallion. Bedside stood by and watched as the pony continued to beg to be released, directing the guards to bring his unwilling patient back to the recovery room.

"Excuse me, doctor, what seems to be the problem?" a familiar voice asked.

Bedside Manner flinched and slowly turned around, silently praying that it wasn't who he thought it was. "P-Princess Luna! I'm so s-sorry that we disturbed you! Please d-don't be angry!" The doctor dropped into a hasty bow, a slight tremor running through his body as he imagined the nigh-legendary wrath of the lunar princess descending upon him for waking her. He waited for her to shift into the Royal "We" to start laying into him for his disturbance.

A pregnant pause filled the air, in which Bedside refused to open his eyes. The only sound to break the silence was that of metal shoes tapping against the tile as Luna presumably walked over to the pile of guards. "Ah, the previous container of Chaos is finally awake." A note of disdain was woven into her words, neatly disguised for the most part by an air of detachment.

The pinned stallion squirmed underneath the guard's hooves, unable to see the princess any better than out of the corner of his eye. "Prince Nocturne? Is you?" he gasped out, wincing as a guard leaned on one of his wings.

The cowering Bedside Manner had by now worked up the courage to turn and open his eyes to see what was going on. As he did so, he noticed the princess's eyes widen, then narrow in quick succession.

"Release this pony, guards. I wish to converse with him further." Luna drew herself up as the guardponies reluctantly let go of the struggling faux alicorn. The brown pony quickly stood up, shaking himself off a little before turning to face the princess properly.

"I felt a troubled mind here. I did not expect it to be yours," Luna muttered to the troublemaker, almost too quiet for Bedside to hear. "Doctor, I thank you for caring for this patient. I relieve you of the obligation to treat him for now. You and the guards may go back to your posts."

"Y-yes, Princess." Bedside gave the lunar alicorn a confused look, but he wasn't about to question her order. It rid him of the maddening stallion, which is what he wanted in the first place. He quickly turned to get back to the medical center, all too eager to leave the princess behind as she fixed a cold gaze upon the smaller alicorn in front of her.

---

"Hello again, Discord," Luna spat, standing imposingly over the smaller pony. "I trust that thou art feeling better?"

He looked at the floor with a distraught expression, seemingly unfazed by the venom in her words. "Book is gone."

The princess tilted her head in confusion, narrowing her eyes at him. "What are you talking about, draconequus? What book are you speaking of?"

"L-Leyline's book. Leyline needs to find it. Life's work is in it..." He pawed at the tiled floor impatiently. "That's why Leyline was running."

"Straighten your tongue, demon. Who is Leyline?"

The pony brought his head up slowly, letting Luna get a good look at his face for the first time since he was drained of his magic. He shuffled in place, tapping the floor with his hoof. "Leyline is me, Prince Nocturne."

Luna stepped back in mild surprise, reappraising the small, two-horned alicorn before her as the vaguest sensation of memory asserted itself. Brown coat, red eyes, black mane. His name is Leyline, and he has a book that is filled with his life's work. He thinks I am Nocturne....

She felt the vaguest sense of familiarity coming to the forefront of her mind, and Luna strained to recollect memories lost by her descent into madness. The trauma surrounding her attempt to overthrow Celestia had muddled her memories of the times before the event, but her farther reaching memories were mostly unscathed. Included in those recollections were her experiences within her mentor's old school, Nocturne's School for Gifted Unicorns.

As the seconds passed by, Luna honed in on one of her old classmates. The reason he stuck out in her mind was that he was the only earth pony in the school, and he had earned that honor by his absurd devotion to spellcrafting and magical study. He had the exact same colors as the alicorn standing before her, and his name was...

Princess Luna abruptly tore her mind from the memories, bringing herself back to the present. The pony before her had waited patiently for her to reply, his muzzle still damp with tears of distress for his book. "Leyline... Leyline Tracer?" she asked shakily, stricken with disbelief.

"Y-yes, Prince Nocturne. You know. I am me. You helped make me Senior Mage, remember? Remember?" He looked up hopefully, giving her an innocent smile. "Memory. Name. Friend."

Luna remained frozen for a few seconds as Leyline trailed off into a muttering of standalone words. "How..." She narrowed her eyes again, as if she expected for him to shift back into a draconequus at any moment and shout "Just kidding!" in her face. She deliberated for a few seconds longer, then lifted her head and cast an illusion spell over herself. The light of her horn took shape and settled upon her body in a form she had not had for millennia. Luna's body warped and shifted into that of a common unicorn. Her mane stopped flowing and took on its original periwinkle coloration once more, and her body shrank down to where she was slightly shorter than Leyline now.

The lunar princess cleared her throat, and her voice took on a higher, softer pitch. "Leyline."

The stallion disengaged himself from his aimless mental wanderings and returned his attention to the pony in front of him. "Luna?" He cocked his head in confusion before his eyes lit up with an almost childlike excitement. "It is! Hi, Luna! How..." Leyline paused, and the princess could see a shudder running through his body before he resumed his sentence. "...have you been? Your coronation supposed to be soon, right?"

Luna merely stared, mouth agape, at the stallion as he greeted her like eons had not passed since she had last seen him. Her brain scrambled to catch up, grasping frantically at long-forgotten knowledge. "Er, yes. Nocturne has decided that..." She paused once more before continuing carefully, "he has lived long enough, and that he and Solaris shall pass the torch."

"Good, good! Me and Rockslide and..." Leyline trailed off once more, sinking to his knees abruptly.

Luna felt the stallion's thoughts fracture like a glass pane beneath a hammer. His abrupt mental shift scraped roughly across her psyche, his anguish overwhelming Luna's attention to his subconscious. She quickly dropped her illusion spell to focus on holding back the tide of emotion flooding from his mind into hers, but Leyline gave no indication that he noticed, his lips forming a single word over and over. "Leyline? Are you well? Leyline!"

---

Twilight stood outside the door to Lyra's bedroom, fidgeting under her saddlebags. The item contained within them was so heavily enchanted that it made her body itch just from being in close proximity, not to mention the effect itself was more than little unnerving. That, combined with the fact that the only sleep she had gotten was during the flight back to Canterlot, made for a very on-edge unicorn. Twilight closed her eyes and took a deep, calming breath, steeling herself before knocking on the door. "Lyra? Are you here?"

When the knock produced no response, she tried the handle to find it unlocked. Twilight pushed open the door and stepped inside the room, only to recoil in surprise as the rug beneath her hooves squirmed and wriggled away. The rug slithered over to the end table and hid beneath it, raising one end of itself to "hiss" at Twilight. She shuddered and made a point to ignore it, instead looking around the room for Lyra. Splotches of color oozed and crept along the walls, changing shape and entwining with each other in regular intervals, pulsing as if in tune with some monstrous heart.

Twilight added the walls to her rapidly-growing "ignore" list and turned her focus to the bed, where she noticed the blankets rise and fall. A white and green mane peeked out from underneath the covers, the rest tucked away into a misshapen lump on the bed. "Lyra?"

The lump flinched, then shifted around until Lyra's head emerged fully from underneath the blankets. Bloodshot eyes struggled to open fully, straining to focus on Twilight. Lyra rubbed at her blotchy and tear-streaked face with a hoof. "H-hello, Twilight."

Twilight gasped softly and quickly walked to the minty mare as she struggled to sit upright. "What happened to you? Are you alright?" she asked, reaching to Lyra tentatively.

"Have you ever killed anything?" Lyra's head drooped sullenly, her voice thick with tears still unshed.

Twilight recoiled at the unexpected question. "Have I what?"

"Killed anything. Like, another pony or something else that..." Lyra swallowed, drawing a shuddering breath, "...was intelligent?"

The purple mare shook her head bewilderedly, visibly sickened at the very thought. "No, why? Why are you asking about something so horrible?"

Lyra swallowed again, her horn lighting up and the gentle glow of her magic collecting around a sheet of paper on the nearby writing desk. She brought forth the neatly scripted notes, offering them to Twilight.

The purple mare frowned, glancing over the sheet. "This is my spell on summoning items."

Lyra nodded, keeping her eyes trained downwards. "I used it to summon the human. You know, the one from before... The one that might have freed Discord."

"Yes, I remember. But what does that have to do with your question?" Twilight scanned the spell once more, and her face paled in realization. "Lyra, this spell wasn't designed to summon animals, much less intelligent creatures! Do you realize–"

"I'm perfectly aware of what I have done, thank you!" Lyra shrieked back, bursting into fresh sobs. She drew her feather-mottled foreleg across her muzzle, sniffling while she cried out in anguish. "I – I didn't mean to... I didn't know that it would happen like this."

Twilight stood there, speechless, as the mare hid her face. She coughed to clear her throat, and sat hesitantly on the bed next to Lyra. "Look, I don't know what to tell you. I wish I could say that everything will be alright and that we can fix everything.”

Lyra looked back to Twilight with a sullen face. “But you can’t. It’s probably dead already.”

The unicorn flinched at the word “dead,” but she drew herself up and continued. “No, we can’t. What we can do, though, is keep moving forward. We have to get Discord out of you and safely imprisoned, where he won’t hurt anypony else. Speaking of which…”

Lyra perked up the tiniest bit as Twilight started rummaging through her saddlebags, pulling a large dull brown cloak out of it and shaking it out in front of Lyra. “What’s that, Twilight?”

“Rarity and I worked together to make something for you. It’s not much, and Rarity is still unhappy with how it looks, but we managed to make a cloak for you. I enchanted the fabric so that it would dampen Discord’s influence. Rarity also provided a minor illusion spell to help draw attention away from your ‘asymmetric’ features.” She offered it to Lyra, her magical grip fading as the mare reached for it and grasped it in her foreleg.

The mare shot Twilight a somewhat disgruntled look for the unintentional slight, then started to slip it on her body. “So, how does it work?”

“That’s the beauty of it! All you need to do is wear it and the enchantment will detect your chaos infection, and automatically counter it!” Twilight beamed proudly as she noticed the walls and floor stop their dizzying kaleidoscope of colors, the effects bleeding away into nothing. “So, what do you think?”

“It’s great! This thing is really comfortable, and I can feel it working.” The seafoam colored pony turned to check her reflection in the mirror. As she pulled the cowl over her head, the fang overhanging her lower lip seemed to diminish. “Thank you, Twilight.”

“You’re welcome. It’s definitely not a permanent measure, but it will help slow the onset of the effects.” Twilight noticed the cloak shimmer slightly, a faint band of light spreading from where Lyra’s knee presumably brushed against the fabric. “Wait, hang on a second. Poke the inside of the cloak for me, would you please?”

Lyra looked at Twilight confusedly, giving a shrug and nudging the hem of the fabric with her front hoof. Another diminished ripple of color flowed from the spot, reaching the far reaches of the cloak before fading. “What is it?”

“It looks like Rarity couldn’t help herself. Don’t worry, it’s nothing important.” Twilight giggled softly and tucked the flap of her saddlebag back into place. “Now, I really have to get back to my research.”

Lyra nodded and turned back to her writing desk, levitating the notes and overdue book off the surface and presenting them to Twilight. “Here. Your notes and the library book.”

“Ah, well… I kind of don’t have time to return to the library. Can you hang onto them for a little while longer?” Twilight reached for the door and paused for a moment. “You know, you can walk around the castle a little. You aren’t a prisoner here.”

The cloaked mare sighed, removing her hood. “I know. I don’t feel comfortable with myself right now.”

Twilight gave a concerned glance. “Well, it might be good to get away from your room anyway. You will have to leave it sometime soon anyway, if only to find you a cure.”

Lyra nodded, sighing and walking over to her window. Her cloak shimmered, just barely noticeable ripples overlapping as she moved and sat next to the window and opened it. “I’ll keep that in mind.” The mare reached for her lyre with her magic, the aura flickering between shades of silvery-green as she brought it over to herself and began to strum mindlessly at it, producing disjointed chords.

The purple mare shook her head and walked back out of the room, closing the door behind her. “Back to the library it is, then," she muttered, turning to walk down the hallway.

A sudden swirl of dark, nebulous magic coalesced into the form of Princess Luna directly in front of Twilight, eliciting a surprised squeak as she staggered backwards a step or two. The alicorn opened her eyes and focused on the mare before her, her face drawn. “Twilight Sparkle, I must have words with you if you are not busy.”

“O-of course. How can I help, Luna?” Twilight stammered.

Luna nodded to a direction deep within the castle. “I have someone I think you would like to meet, on two conditions.”

Twilight furrowed her brow. “Conditions?” she ventured cautiously, tilting her head. “What do you mean? Who is it?”

Luna sighed. “Someone from a long time ago. I’ll introduce you to him when I take you. First, though, the conditions.” She raised her hoof. “One, you must remain calm when you meet him. He is in a delicate state at the moment and it would not do to startle him. Second, you cannot, cannot, mention any recent events to him. Let me take the lead when talking to him, so I can properly set the tone for the meeting.”

Twilight thought over the odd restraints on the meeting, nodding slowly in agreement. “Okay, I can do that. When are we going to see him?”

Luna smiled broadly, flaring her wings as her horn glowed with the subtle tint of her magic. “Right now.”

Author's Note:

Shush.

Comments

[Lorthalis of Crows]

*Squee!* you're back!

[The Serpent Mage]

rs1ci.memecdn.com/175/5084175.jpg

Almost a year. Now, I have to find the time to go back and read, because I've forgotten most of the details of this fic.

...not that that's necessarily a bad thing.

[Treble_Sketch]

What is this email gracing my inbox!

It's an update! ^^ Welcome back =D

[Treble_Sketch]

5880545
Same here ^^

[The Grimm Reaper]

That pic is AWESOME!!!

[Ocean Waves]

Mental breakdowns for the win!

[Asheram]

This is probably my favorite fic about the origins of Discord yet! Eagerly looking forward to more!

[Veo Skride]

Huh, that update gap.

[Cast-Iron Caryatid]

Hrm, well, you asked me to comment on this when I got around to reading it, but I'm not really sure what to say. The concept is good, and the scene-to-scene writing is good, but how it's put together just feels… well, kind of chaotic and disjointed at times. This might sound appropriate, given the subject matter, but in reality it's just a bunch of things that bug me enough to keep me from saying, "hey, this is great." Things like Twilight being told to keep an eye on Lyra and then almost never being in the same room with her, or Bon Bon going on a quest to find Lyra and then leaving her without a word at a time when she could really use a friend. It just feels like the individual pieces of the story don't quite line up here and there, not enough to put me off reading it, but… yeah… not much else to say.

[Treble_Sketch]

After six weeks of not reading the chapter, I've decided to re-read the entire story!
Worth it ^^
3 1/2 hours....
Couldn't wait for more =D

[AdventurePone]

Rip story

[Remnant Viscera]

Welp. I just read this story for the very first time. Been going backwards through the entire list of featured stories looking for interesting stuff. I found this. It's great. I want to know what happens next. Might be my massive bias towards Lyra as a character, but even then, I don't want to just leave the story here.

I can only hope you continue to write this someday, dear author. It's got the spark of actual life in it. That can be hard to find.

[Jest]

Lots of upvotes, interesting idea, fun looking cover art. Not been updated in 2 years... Hah, you almost made me read you, cheeky story but i wont be drawn in only to get a cliff hanger ending that will never be solved.

[Princess Skitzy]

TO THOSE THINKING OF READING
Seriously give this a read. Sure it's on an extended hiatus but it doesn't actually finish on that bad a cliff hanger.
Story kinda finishes mid plot devolpment but the read up to it was truly wonderful.
Author, please come back. I'd love to see you finish this wonderful tale. I hope that all is well for you.

[Skulljack17]

I too would like to see how this plays out...it's a wonderful tale, and it feels sad to leave so many questions and points left hanging.