Tales of a Wizard: Flesh Masks

by Applechip

Chapter 20

The door to my room in the Canterlot barracks swung open in a cloud of red energy. I stood aside to let Twilight walk inside first. For the brief walk from the castle’s entry hall back up to my room Twilight had been very silent and her eyes darted around inside her head. I could tell that she was still trying to process what had just happened to her and package it away in a neat little drawer somewhere in the back of her mind. However, powerful emotions such as the vengeful rage she had touched on moments before are rarely ever that neat and compliant. Those kinds of emotions imprint themselves into your mind and onto your soul, for better or for worse you are changed from the experience. That didn’t stop her from trying to package it away though.

Without saying a word she entered my room and lay down on the bed while facing the door, the hooves of her forelegs dangled over the side. Her expression remained unchanged in her internal struggle of trying to control emotion with logic. I sighed softly and moved over to the bed as well, my hooves crunching slightly on the papers that were still littered over the floor.

“You might as well ask,” I said as I hopped up on the bed and settled down next to her. “You really don’t hide your thoughts all that well.”

Twilight’s focus cracked for a moment as she turned her head to look at me. In the span of few seconds, her expression shifted multiple times; her face changed from her carefully constructed neutral mask to wide eyed worry and fear, and then finally settled into nervous insecurity. Her ears dropped low next to her head and her worried eyes locked onto mine.

“I…” she started but then paused, at a loss for words. She shook her head slightly in an effort to clear her thoughts. “What happened to me back there?” she finally asked, her voice shaking a little with nerves. “I-I’ve never felt anything like that before, and I can’t make any sense of it. I knew it was just a conjuration of the Red King and that we weren’t in any danger, but I wanted... I wanted to…”

I raised a hoof to stop her, a familiar weariness falling over me as I did so. “From the moment you saw him you felt intensely angry that the creature that had caused you so much pain was so calmly standing in front you,” I stated as Twilight’s eyes grew wider in surprise. “That anger then fed on itself and grew and grew until the only things that mattered to your mind anymore were the Red King, you, and your magic. You had an unbelievably strong urge to let that magic loose, no matter who was nearby you, in the slim chance that injuring the shade would injure its real counterpart. Sound about right?”

Twilight just sat there and stared at me, completely dumbfounded at my words. “H-How did you know?”

I looked away and gave a defeated sigh, as my fears were confirmed. “That was called vengeful rage, and I know because it’s something that most all White Council wardens experience eventually.” My gaze shifted back up to track Twilight, “It’s something that I assumed you’d never encountered before and I had wanted to keep it that way.”

Twilight frowned at me in indignation, “Of course I’ve felt anger, Harry. You saw me in Manehattan and during the Red Court’s attack on Canterlot. I was using those emotions to fuel my attacks.”

I shook my head at her, “No, I’m talking about something beyond simple anger and fear. During those fights you were using a myriad of emotions and desires to fuel your spells,” I explained. “Fear for your own wellbeing and the safety of your friends for example, are ample sources of energy and control. What you almost did at Luna’s party was nothing like that.” I could see that Twilight was drinking every word I was saying and was processing it to try and make sense of what she had felt. I ignored all of that and continued speaking, “You weren’t afraid, you weren’t thinking about anyone else, you could only think about the Red King and what you could do to hurt him.”

By this point small tears began to form in the corner of Twilight’s eyes. “But I don’t want to think like that, I’ve never wanted to think like that,” she said, her voice heavy as she fought to hold back more tears. “How am I supposed to stop it?”

I shifted away a little so that I could reach up and place a hoof under her chin. I lifted her head slightly so that she was looking directly into my eyes. “You can’t, you can only control it,” I said as bluntly as I possibly could. I removed my hoof from under her chin but continued to hold her gaze, “This is incredibly important for you to understand, you can’t get rid of that anger. It’s as much a part of you as your horn is,” I said with a short gesture at the horn on her forehead.

“C-Control it?” she stammered.

I nodded and gave her a small smile, “Yes Twilight, you need to be able to control it. As much as I hate to say it, there is no way to stop it.” I raised my hoof and swept it through the air in a vain attempt at theatricality, “That being said, that kind of emotion is a practitioner’s most potent and most dangerous weapon. With it, you could turn the tide of a losing battle, you could decimate entire forces, you could level city blocks.” I brought my gaze back to hers, “You could even kill the Red King.”

Twilight was still looking none-too-pleased with the situation. I cast around in my memories for a moment, trying to find the best comparison to match what Twilight had felt. I needed her to know that the anger she felt wasn’t inherently bad and that she wasn’t a monster for thinking like she did.

My initial thought was the first time I’d used magic to wholeheartedly attack another mortal, but the more I thought about it the more I realized that didn’t quite fit. My old adoptive parent, Justin DuMorne had been a right bastard and had betrayed my trust to try and enslave me. After I resisted him and escaped, I simply ran as fast as I could; but DuMorne had other plans. When DuMorne couldn’t capture me, he tried to kill me. He summoned a powerful demon from some dark corner of the Nevernever and sent it to hunt me down and rip me apart. I just barely managed to beat the thing by getting it to stand in-between two gas pumps and letting my magic do what comes naturally. After the resulting explosion, I had time to stop and gather my thoughts. I knew that DuMorne wasn’t just going to leave me alone, he was just going to keep coming after me until either I was dead or broken to his will. So to preserve my life I returned to my former home and killed my adoptive parent.

While definitely fueled by vast amounts of fury at DuMorne’s betrayal, that action wasn’t entirely based on my emotions. I had time to stop and think about what I wanted to do, and what I needed to do to survive. It was an action that was based in logical thought as well as desire for retribution. Depending on who you asked, it probably would’ve qualified as premeditated murder rather than preemptive self-defense. That was not what Twilight had experienced. If I hadn’t intervened, her actions would’ve been a purely emotional reflex to the Red King’s presence, no logic or rational thought involved at all. So instead I settled on the experience that had kick started all of this madness.

I looked into Twilight’s eyes and held her gaze before I started talking. “Twilight, I need you to just listen to me for a second. Okay?” She hesitated for a second before silently nodding her head. I relaxed a little at the assumption that I had stymied her questions for the time being. “You remember that Red Court gala I told you about right?”

Twilight frowned a little, “The one where Susan followed you and got captured?”

I nodded my head, “Yes, well like you said Susan followed me to the party, but Michael was also there as my guest.” I paused for a moment to reconsider that. “Okay more like a bodyguard, but that’s beside the point. After a while things went sideways, mayhem broke loose and Michael, Susan, and I were in the middle of a large building that was completely packed with very angry vampires. We were trying to get out of there as fast as possible, but we got separated. Michael and Susan were pulled away from me and disappeared into the mess of blood and violence that the gala had become.”

Through her contact with my hoof, I felt Twilight shudder as she tried to imagine what enraged vampires could do in an enclosed space.

I tried to suppress that mental image myself and pressed on, “I didn’t really know what to do. I genuinely believed that I had gotten Michael and Susan killed in that damned building.” I hesitated for a little as the details of that particular memory resurfaced. “I was so angry, Twilight. I was angry at myself for leading my friends there.” I narrowed my eyes at Twilight, “But I was furious with the creatures that had taken my friends from me. I was so angry that I released all control and surrendered completely to that fury; and I had never channeled so much fire in my life, before or since. Because I lost control, I killed almost every living thing that was in that building.” I felt Twilight give another little shudder, this time not from the vampires. I lifted my hoof to recapture her attention and stop her sudden unease, “But, the chaos I’d created gave Michael and Susan the opening they needed to escape from the mess of vampires. They managed to fight their way back to me and get all of us out. If they hadn’t, I would have died in my own conjured flames. It’s because of that rage that Michael and I are still alive.”

Twilight’s eyes shifted around in her head as she thought, “But, how…”

I sighed and shook my head slowly. I was never too good at delving into the emotional issues of right and wrong when applied to others’ values. I crave structure, logic, and I love creating a daily routine. I knew how I felt about my actions and values, but I could never really grasp the subtleties of explaining those same values to others. When you toss in exceedingly powerful emotions into the mix, everything gets so much more complicated.

“The point I’m trying to make is that the anger you felt isn’t inherently good or bad, it’s just powerful,” I tried to explain. “And like with most kinds of power, it’s how you use it that matters.”

Twilight’s eyes grew a little wider as she began to realize the potential power she had tapped into earlier. “But I couldn’t even begin to control it!” she cried, her features dropping back into nervous fear. “While I listened to the Red King talk, I just kept getting angrier and angrier, and before I knew it I was holding so much power together. I tried to remind myself that he wasn’t actually there, but it didn’t work. I just couldn’t stop myself.” She raised a hoof to rub the cheek I had nuzzled to calm her down, “But then you…”

“You tried to use logic and willpower to control your anger, and while those are important, they just weren’t enough for what you were dealing with,” I offered and moved closer to lie next to her again. “Emotions as powerful as rage have nothing but scorn for petty little things like reason. In order to reassert your willpower over yourself and regain control, you have to fight emotion with emotion.” Twilight cocked her head at me in confusion. I smiled and lowered my head to rest on my forelegs, my face angled so that I was still looking at Twilight. “You have to use a second and just as powerful emotion to counteract the anger, once you do that you have a kind of base line to allow you to use your willpower and regain control over yourself, and more importantly over your magic.”

Twilight’s eyes unfocused as she concentrated on dredging up some information from her memories, “I’ve read one or two books on therapy practice, but I never really paid them much attention.” She refocused her attention onto me, “How am I supposed to fight emotions with emotions? What emotions do I use? How do I use them?”

“I can’t really answer that one for you, Twilight. Ultimately it’s up to you to find exactly what would keep you grounded in reality.” I lifted my head back up on level with hers and rubbed a hoof under my chin, a chuckle beginning deep in my throat. “Though I suppose I could tell you what keeps me sane… most of the time. Based on what I saw earlier, it could probably help you find your answer.”

Twilight nodded feverishly, “Please.”

A smile spread over my face as I lifted a foreleg to my chest. I dug my hoof under the suit vest I was still wearing until it found its prize. As I lifted my hoof away, my mother’s silver pentacle amulet was pulled free and dangled in front of my face.

“Your amulet?” she asked, her head tilting to one side. “I thought that was just your symbol for magic.”

“Yes, it’s also the only possession my Mom left to me,” I responded. “What I know of her is all word-of-mouth, but from what I’ve been told she was very outspoken, did her own thing all the time, and didn’t let the White Council control her.” I released the amulet and let it fall back to my chest. “I dream about my Dad from time to time, and he gives me advice when I really need it. The man’s been dead for most of my life, and he’s still taking me to school,” I said with a slight chuckle in my throat. “Michael is my oldest friend and has had my back whenever I needed him, and not just when I was heading for a fight. Applejack, Pinkie, Rarity, Fluttershy, and Rainbow all abandoned their respective lives to come help me fight an enemy that they barely understood, and you are the glue that’s holding us all together.” Twilight gave me a warm smile at those words, even as my own smile grew weary and brittle. “I have been through so much, seen so much, that the only way I can continue to exist as I am now, is if I have friends and fond memories to keep me balanced. Whenever I feel myself slipping, and my anger begins to take over like it did at the gala, I think about the connections I’ve made to those near me and they remind me why I fight and what I fight for.”

As soon as I said that, Twilight’s eyes grew very wide as something visibly clicked into place somewhere in the back of her mind. Her entire body relaxed as she began laughing and swinging her head from side to side. “Just like with Discord,” she muttered under her breath.

It was now my turn to stare perplexed for several moments. My mind went into overdrive as I struggled to remember the facts that went with that name. Wait a minute, I thought to myself. She told me about him at Sugarcube Corner. Discord the god of chaos, or something like that. He’s supposed to be a… Oh crap, what was it? A dragon? No, that’s not right. He’s a draco… a dracon… a draconequus, that’s it! But what does he have to do with anything?

Twilight evidently noticed my confusion and rushed to provide an explanation. “I know I told you a little about this at Sugarcube Corner,” she said, her ears sheepishly folded back behind her head. “But I didn’t really tell you everything. I’m sorry, but I didn’t know you too well at the time, and it’s a little personal.” Twilight inhaled deeply through her nose and seemed to the puffing herself up. Rarity’s dress strained around her as her chest expanded with her lungs. She released her pent up breath and began talking, “After Discord broke free of his captivity he turned all my friends against me. I still don’t know how, but he changed all of their minds and their base traits into a twisted mockery of who they were before.” Her head drooped with the weight of sudden weariness, “I tried to get them to cooperate and help me, but they wanted nothing to do with me. For the first time after I made friends, I was alone again and I couldn’t stand it. I lost all hope and just didn’t care anymore, about Discord, about my friends, about myself, nothing. I wanted to leave Ponyville and never look back.” Twilight looked back up at me, her face distinctly brighter and all-around happier, “But when I got back home, Celestia had sent me back all the letters I had sent her about my friends. As I reread them I remembered the friends I had once and could have again, if I fought hard enough.” She leaned her head forward to tuck her muzzle under my chin. “I think I know exactly what I need to do, but thank you for reminding me.”

My mind was so busy processing this new information that I only dimly registered her display of affection. She had told me about Discord and how she and her friends had defeated him, but all this stuff about temporarily losing her friends, and by extension her will to fight, was new to me; though I could easily understand the desire to keep that information private, given the sensitive nature of the memories.

At first I was deeply worried about the wellbeing of those under my command. If I had understood Twilight’s words correctly, she said that Discord had performed major mental magic on her friends and had tied their brains into knots. If there was one thing that my years of experience with warlocks, not to mention the more than a few personal experiences, have taught me, it’s that mind magic is a bitch. If we were back on Earth I would’ve expected Applejack, Pinkie, Rarity, Fluttershy, and Rainbow to all be raving lunatics after that ordeal, if not just completely homicidal. But after I thought about it for a second, I decided that there was no real need to worry. That kind of damage almost always has signs that would be extremely obvious to anyone that knew the victim. The fact that they were all apparently fine and acting normal, Pinkie not included, meant that they were likely just fine. I assumed that if there was any lasting damage caused by Discord in my friends’ minds, then it was likely repaired by the Elements of Harmony. If the Elements could repair the mind of a thousand year deity warlock, then they could repair five fresh victims of mind magic.

What had surprised me more was that Twilight had already been subject to severe emotional damage. So much so that she had actively decided to abandon her life in Ponyville, however briefly. What Twilight had described to me were the early stages of an extreme depression. Most tend to underestimate just how powerful such a depression can be. Rage is a fairly explosive emotion, and when combined with magic, it makes a practitioner a great danger to friend and foe alike. Depression is much more implosive, and if left unchecked, it makes the practitioner a danger to himself or herself. If Twilight’s letters hadn’t been sent back, and if she hadn’t found strength in those memories, then there was every chance that Twilight wouldn’t have been laying next to me in my room; and by extension, I likely would’ve died back in that Manehattan alleyway.

I smiled and closed my eyes at that, my guilt receded a good bit as she nuzzled against me. Maybe it was the general aura of relaxation that had settled over me or maybe it was the mare rubbing her snout across mine, probably both, but at that moment something clicked in the back of my pleasure addled brain and I started moving on autopilot. I instinctively returned her motions with my own and began running my muzzle across hers, sighing contentedly as I did. What we did wasn’t so much kissing as it was passionate nuzzling. The countless small dark grey hairs covering my snout swayed and displaced one another as they meshed with Twilight’s, producing a delightful tingling sensation as they stimulated the nerves below them. The sensation bypassed my brain and reached down to the muscles of my neck which responded eagerly with increased movement, causing more and more of the sensitive fur on my muzzle to be displaced with Twilight’s. As a result, the pleasant tingling grew positively euphoric.

I reopened my right eye a crack to try and feed information to my clouded mind, my left eye was unavailable owing to the fact that it was still buried in purple fur. The eye immediately traveled over Twilight’s form. It was only then I noticed that the dress she was still wearing, instead of hiding her body, served to define it more. As the dress pressed down on her fur, it outlined the curves and ample muscles that trailed over her back and particularly those over her flanks that would’ve been otherwise hidden. Both my breathing and my heart rate practically jumped through the roof and my tail began swishing around with a mind of its own.

I could sense that not only was I deeply enjoying the new sensations and the possibilities thereafter, but Twilight was as well. Her eyes were shut and a smile played over her as she moved her muzzle with an increased urgency, even her breathing was speeding to match to match my own. Twilight grew more forceful and pressed forward to rest her mouth somewhere near my left ear. My ear twitched in time with her breaths and I could feel every bit of heat that came with them. Soon after that an odd scent reached my nose that I couldn’t quite place but thoroughly enjoyed, and it served to further cloud my thoughts.

Right then my mind decided to point out one or two important facts, such as the fact that we were on my bed, we were lying right next to each other, and I wasn’t wearing pants. Granted most ponies don’t wear pants anyway, but it was still worthy enough for my brain to point out. I also noted that the bed underneath me was becoming increasingly uncomfortable to lie on. With my body still running largely on autopilot, my hooves tensed beneath me and very slowly began lifting me from the mattress. The muscles of my neck took great care to ensure that the fur over my muzzle never stopped being tickled by Twilight’s.

Whoa there, rein that in Harry, said the annoying little voice of reason somewhere in the back of my head. This is not the time for that. Need I remind you about the very angry and very powerful vampire that wants you and Twilight dead? You’ve helped her with her problem and fixed the immediate threat. You need to get back to work.

That thought brought with it a distinct amount of clarity and the fog around my head cleared somewhat, letting the logic driven portions of my mind play catch-up. Once those bits of my consciousness woke up again, I finally got a firm grasp on the situation and what the more primal portions of my being were screaming at me to do. For a brief second I dimly wondered if it was ultimately worth ignoring reason and continuing regardless, but I conceded that the little voice was right and my time was probably better spent stopping the Red Court… probably.

I exercised no small amount of willpower to regain control over myself before my body ran away on me. I couldn’t really do anything for my heartbeat, or my tail for that matter, but I managed to bring my legs back under control and my muzzle to stop questing over Twilight. I forced my legs to lower me back down to the bed and then tucked them underneath me, diligently ignoring the discomfort that provided. After several seconds of wishing I still had my old apartment’s perpetually cold shower nearby, I finally managed to slow my breathing back down to a normal rate.

“Got to keep focused Dresden,” I whispered to myself as I begrudgingly moved my muzzle away from Twilight. “Can’t let myself get distracted, no matter how…” Twilight huffed another warm breath into my right ear as I turned my face away from her, threatening to shatter my willpower and drop me back into my previous state of mind. “Work, need to work!” I grunted under my breath, my face heating up as I fought back several distracting thoughts.

Twilight, who had evidently also been somewhat lost in her own mind, opened her eyes to search blearily for where my muzzle had disappeared to. “Wha-huh?” She shook her head and tried to collect herself. “I-I think I blacked out for a second there, what’s going on?” she asked, her speech just a little slurred and her eyes just a little unfocused.

“Papers, Twilight. Papers are what are going on,” I responded and levitated a small stack of the damned things onto the bed, my own speech just a little winded by my heart rate. “We still have a job to do.”

“Oh, right,” she mumbled. “Research.” For the first time since I’ve known her, the librarian looked apprehensive at the prospect of looking through more raw data. It was a little funny to see the priorities shift in the normally studious mare.

I chuckled and levitated the piece of paper on the top of the stack to float in front of my face while another floated over to Twilight. Despite the definite change in mood and the new focus of attention, we never actually moved further away from each other. Our sides were still pressed against each other and my tail had calmed down to rest intertwined with Twilight’s, somehow managing to work its way under her dress to do so.

We stayed like that for well over an hour. The stacks of paper and books shifted as we searched through them. The pieces that we had already gone through were stacked out of the way of the others as we stumbled across them, leaving us free to search through the other potential sources of relevant information. We barely spoke except to clarify some random historical fact or figure. It was usually me doing the asking in those instances as Twilight already had most of Equestria’s history at the tip of her tongue.

After the first hour, I was already becoming irritated with the whole ordeal. Given the nature of my work I frequently have to do research in order to find the target that I’m trying to reduce to ash, but I usually have a much tighter focus and more specific resources with which to do that research. While I was given a definite subject to search for, my resources couldn’t be broader. I hated having to search in the massive pile of potential information, only to find a bunch of useless data and historical facts. I couldn’t help but see it as a massive waste of time that I could be spending on more interesting pursuits.

“Hey Harry,” Twilight whispered, finally breaking the long quiet that had settled over the room. She levitated a book over to rest on the growing pile of uselessness, “I’ve been wondering something. Have you faced anything like this Red King before?”

I pursed my lips in thought as I considered the question. “Hmmm. Well sort of, yes,” I said and floated a few more loose pages to sit on top of the book Twilight had just moved. “There was this necromancer I tangled with a while ago. I called him Cowl, and he had a real talent for completely ruining my day.” Twilight gave a soft laugh at that. “He was performing an enormous ritual spell that would have put him on the level of a minor league god.”

“How’d you beat him?” Twilight asked.

I felt a large smile spread over my face as I thought about one of my favorite bad-guy-takedowns of all time. “It’s simple really. When he was in the middle of the spell, I ran up to him and smacked him in the jaw with a big ol’ stick. The spell backfiring did the rest.”

Twilight let out a short bark of laughter at was probably the simplest and most barbaric method ever used to defeat a dark wizard. Granted getting close enough to deliver that blow wasn’t quite as simple, but she didn’t need to know that. After the initial spurt of disbelieving laughter, Twilight settled down and thought about the specifics of what I described.

“If there was enough power to ascend to godhood in that spell, then…” Twilight’s face contorted with anxiety as she tried to picture the result of that spell. “Sweet Celestia, what happened to him when the spell backfired?”

I shrugged my shoulders slightly. “Disintegrated, as far as I can tell,” I answered back. “There’s probably still a thin layer of him over the university we were at.” I paused to consider Cowl’s relation to the rouge Red King. “I’m pretty sure we won’t be able to do anything like that here though. Cowl was seeking to absorb power by drawing in a lot of ancient spiritual beings and consuming them in one massive spell.”

“While the Red King has been absorbing power a little bit at a time ever since he got here,” Twilight finished, a ridge appearing between her eyes as she became lost in thought.

I levitated a particularly old and yellowed piece of paper over to me before I continued, “It certainly makes our job a whole hell of a lot harder,” I commented. “With Cowl’s massive spell, it was painfully obvious where he was when he started. With the Red King, it’s virtually impossible to track him through his spells. That’s not to mention that he already has a surplus of power from the brief time he’s been here.”

“We could try to track the victims,” Twilight offered, her eyes shifting around in her head as she thought out loud. “If we could figure out where most of his victims are or were, then we could narrow down our search significantly.” She frowned again and groaned in frustration, “But all of the other disappearances because the other vampires are going to make that difficult. Still it’s something I think I’ll suggest to Princess Celestia.”

“You may not have to. Look at this,” I said excitedly and brandished the old yellowing paper for Twilight to read.

Twilight looked at the paper and squinted, her eyes moved across its surface as she read it aloud, “Equestrian Records: Volume Eighteen, recorded by Captain Silver Shot. This documentation holds a complete record of all of the Royal Guard’s accountings in the several years after the King left this world and before both of the Royal Sisters took power. Included inside are arrest records, property damage claims, and…” Her eyes widened as they traveled down the page. “And dossiers on all of Equestria’s most notorious criminals of the time!” she cried excitedly. “See index for more details.” She immediately hopped off my bed and began searching through the pile it had come from. “Where did you get this? Where is the book this came from?”

“I don’t know,” I cried back, my own excitement spiking at finally finding a tangible lead. “It was just a loose paper on the pile.” I slid off my bed as well and joined Twilight in her frantic search through our pile of loose papers and books.

For several minutes we checked and double checked the covers of the thirty to forty books included in the boxes of history I had delivered to my room, but to no avail. None of the other books were anything even remotely close to that or any volume of “Equestrian Records”. The closest was a hard cover book labeled, “Recorded Griffin History: Volume XV, Commander Buckbeak’s Reign ”.

“Damn it! It’s not here,” I growled through clenched teeth.

“Celestia!” Twilight cried. “Let’s take the paper to her, maybe she or one of the other researchers has found it.”

I nodded my head feverishly, “Yeah, sounds like a plan. Oh wait!” I stopped with my hoof still in the air as I made for the door. I glanced down at my suit jacket and began to unbutton it. “I want to grab my gear first. I think I’m a tad overdressed for an intelligence meeting.”

“You want to wear your combat gear for a meeting with the Princess?” Twilight said disbelievingly.

“I wanted to wear the combat gear to Luna’s party, which wasn’t supposed to involve the Red King, and you saw how well that turned out,” I retorted. “If I’m going somewhere to say or do anything that involves the Red Court or the new Red King in any way, I want my gear.”

Twilight nodded her head once in agreement and rushed over to my storage chest. With a few flashes of purple light she withdrew her dark purple spell layered overcoat, which she had stored there several days ago, and replaced her formal gown with it by the simple expedient of teleporting the dress off and the overcoat on. From there she waited for me by the door, all four of her hooves danced impatiently beneath her. I was having significantly more trouble than she was in switching out clothes. I just couldn’t seem to grasp the subtleties of undoing a button with telekinesis; I felt like a little kid trying desperately to learn how a latch or keys work. Twilight, who by this point got fed up with waiting on me to figure out a freaking button, repeated her spells by withdrawing my brown overcoat and swapped it out with my suit with a few more flashes of light.

“Come on, let’s go!” she cried and resumed her shuffling at the door.

Little sparks of static danced across my fur, the result of the conflict between Twilight’s spell and my natural magical aura. I shook off the odd sensation and looked around for the reason for our haste. I took the yellowed piece of parchment, carefully folded it, and placed it in an inside coat pocket. As soon as it was safely tucked away I turned towards Twilight and my bedroom door. “Alright, let’s get gone.”

Twilight leapt out of the door and made for the stairs at the end of the hall. Right before I left my room I floated over the little band of silver and rubies that was my shield charm from my desk and slipped it onto my horn. As soon as that was secure, I ran out of my room and slammed the door shut behind me. With our only lead to finding the Life Drinker’s lost lab and hopefully the Red King tucked away in my overcoat, I put on a burst of speed and galloped after Twilight to go meet with Celestia.

Comments

[Obsidian]

Awww.... Dresden and Twilight almost got it on. Honestly, though I don't mind Clop so much, it's good to see you leaned away from it, for now anyways.

[NaughtSought]

2008933

Speaking of, anyone else find it awesome that butcher puts stuff in and it drives some of the overarching plot without requiring it at all? Maybe i'm just thinking too much into it but I kind of like the shying away while still being there. Makes it a bit like the canon works. Or i'm just tired and rambling. Maybe both!

[TEK101]

I like it so far. It has plenty of action to keep me entertained, as well as plenty of beauty in the relationship between Dresden and Twilight. It has almost everything I want in a story, and that makes it great.

[Applechip]

2023056

Thanks, it's always nice to know that my work is appreciated.

[Bjorn Aleswiller]

Damnit.... I caught up with the story.... now I have to wait give me Moar of this amazing story before I go

[dbanksischillin]

... Go on my friend

[DiscordDraconequus]

The almost-sex-but-not-really scene was in true Butcher fashion. Seriously, are you Nemesis or something, because you seem to really be getting into Jim's head.

[Applechip]

3014056

Nemesis... Wasn't that from Star Trek? I know there was a Star Trek movie with that title, but I never really saw it. And if it is Star Trek, shame on you. Dresden is a Star Wars man. If it isn't Star Trek, then please disregard my ignorance and assume I've taken one too many boots to the head.

On a side note, the next chapter is done and is being pre-read now.

[That Strange Mint Pony]

3014391 Sorry if this is already answered for you but Nemesis is mentioned in Cold Days.
I won't say any more in case you have not read it yet.