A Series Of Egotistical Events

by Estee

Shut Up And Dance With Me

She wasn't entirely sure of what had just happened. Having an eye for a well-lofted wing, well, that was just taste. But to just spontaneously have a pony's hind legs go out from under them like that because somepony was preening... anyway, she had the supplies in her saddlebags, along with an open invitation to come back any time she wanted to try making some more art. Plus when she was this low on funds, it was always nice to know when somepony might be willing to buy her dinner.

With Sun descending and the temperature beginning to dip into boringly-scheduled summer coolness, Rainbow landed in front of the main entrance to her house. She automatically checked the door. The complete lack of Condemned notices reassured her somewhat, and she went inside.

Housing (a short hoof-height light blue cylinder, to be capped off by an eventual dome) and wire were carefully arranged on the living room floor, and the molding readily accepted the presence of something inanimate which she'd personally brought into the residence: just one more tenth- bit of evidence as to how perfect she'd been. (Food was left on the only table she currently had, waiting for later.) After that -- well, much to her surprise, Mr. Tinker had been willing to lend her some basic tools, things which would let her put angles into the wire without using her teeth and what she'd expected to be some rather uncomfortable hoof and tongue work. Copper certainly twisted easily enough once it had been stretched into wire, but she needed to match the bends in the diagrams (which she was sure she remembered accurately, especially since she had been flying through some of them in her dream) as precisely as she could.

There were other things which needed to go inside the housing, but they were surrounding her: portions of cloud which she'd personally molded. They would serve as the internal support structure, and having her unique field residue on that portion of the wonder was supposed to boost the whole thing. In the end, it was almost a little like assembling a jigsaw puzzle: something Rainbow had always disregarded as boring because it took too long to flip all the pieces over after spilling and besides, if anypony really wanted to know what the finished result looked like, all they had to do was glance at the top of the box. But with this... for puzzles, somepony else had created the picture and then broken it on purpose, mostly just to irritate everypony who came after them. For the wonder, there was a master pattern which she needed to follow, but it was her work in the end. Her creation. She'd never really created something physical before, and it was a strangely intriguing process.

She made sure to put a little spiral at the very tip of one cloud piece, just to make everything hers.

Everything was arranged within the open housing, compared to calorie-deprived diagrams which had been fixed in her mind by sheer mental force. Rainbow was sure she had it right.

But that was just the physical construction. There was another hoofstep to come.

She closed her eyes. Concentrated as she put her left forehoof forward, lightly touched the single exposed end of wire.

That's... weird.

There's no power here. I'd know if there was, and the residue faded a long time ago. But it's like...

It was like having somepony brush against a wing and then when she turned around to see who had done it, there was nopony there and her wing still felt like somepony had brushed up against it. It was like trying to remember something she'd never done. It was like being in the presence of a --

-- they're all made up. Every last one of them is made up.

Concentrate.

I can sense my field. Where it's strongest, where it's a little weaker. Most of it stays around my hooves and wings. Some in my skin, always.

Unicorns project. Earth ponies... something, I guess. Pegasi conduct.

There was no display of light when the magic began to move: that was something limited to those with horns. It took a pegasus to feel the casting taking place. But there were other signs, for those who knew what to look for. There had been more diagrams in the book, ones she'd paid close attention to. Angling of the wings. When to flap and how quickly. Lift this leg, lower it as another came up, while keeping that one hoof in contact with the wire at all times.

For a pegasus, magic was movement. For Rainbow, movement was life.

Let the power move forward. It wants to flow along a conducting route, and copper is our metal. It knows us. It's been with us from the -- whatever was on that history test I sort of passed. It flows, but it never separates from the source. There's always a channel back to me.

Changing that is supposed to be the hard part.

Her wings kept moving, legs shifts added to a small toss of her mane. To an observer, it would have come across as a silent dance conducted with a partner who had never learned a single step.

I'm moving heat. I'm moving little things from one place to another, from where they don't need to be to where they're needed. I can sense how much heat is around me. I'm weaving. I felt the magic inside that box, and I just have to adjust my field until it feels exactly like that, and then...

Does the wonder see things?

Did it think about what it was seeing?

She didn't know. She'd never thought about such things before, and she didn't have time to truly think about them now.

(There was a thin shimmer around her body now, a light heat haze moving over her skin, one where the temperature itself never reached her. She never saw it. Everything was focused on the growing weave.)

She danced. The magic danced with her. There was a song resounding within her, a rhythm born from the heartbeat of the air. Her tail swayed, her wings suggested lift without ever quite reaching it, her ears twisted as she listened to sounds which could only be heard by the soul.

Rainbow gave of herself, and the magic went into the wire, flowed through all the twists and channels before returning to her. She was teaching it. Taught the copper what it was like to dance, when it had never moved at all.

But that knowledge wouldn't stay with it. Thaums went out, lost something for their travels, returned. Her field conducted, and when she took her touch away from the contact point, just about everything she'd given it would be hers again. The wonder would be silent, motionless, and never remember what the dance had been like, or even that dancing had once been possible.

Rainbow's field conducted. It didn't project, or whatever it was earth ponies did when they grew plants, which was probably something. There was a continuous channel. There was company. Air moved naturally when there was atmosphere to support it, water flowed fastest in rivers, heat danced best in flame.

The book said... there was something about... strength. That I won't be weaker in my own magic forever because I do this. But the enchantment will still take -- something? I think it said I'd be tired for a while, like anytime after I use a lot of magic. But I just have to eat, and sleep, and then I'll be fine. With internal frustration added to deep offense, The one nap I got to take today was interrupted.

Oh, and there was something about what could happen if you did it wrong. But I couldn't read the part under the header through the scorch marks and it doesn't matter because this isn't snout-tilting adequate. It's not ostentatious, whatever that is, unless it's something really good. It's just perfect.

We're dancing. (Her body shifted, swayed, feathers spread to catch the air.) You know how to dance now, because we've danced together. I felt how your sister danced, the one waiting in the store for somepony to take her home. I learned her dance. I taught it to you.

You have to remember.

Remember.

And with the second-greatest effort of her life, Rainbow's soul reached out for the connection -- and severed it.

The magic tried to surge back towards her, return to the only home it had ever truly known, found no route remaining. Heat glowed at the tip of the wire. The pieces of cloud inside the cylinder flushed grey, flashed into black, surged to white again. And Rainbow's eyes finally opened as all deliberate movement stopped.

She stared forward at nothing for a moment, while hooves thudded into vapor and every wing joint unfurled into full droop. Then her eyes rolled back, just as her tail went down and somehow managed to drag her body with it.

The captain of the all-time Wonderbolts team took a moment for offering congratulations before they all began their nightscape flight. Rainbow decided it had been very classy of her to do so.

Comments

[Crack-Fic Casey]

...because somepony waspreening...

Two words got glued together.

[erictheblue]

Unicorns project. Earth ponies... something, I guess. Pegasi conduct .

well, in "Tryptich", Applejack says that Earth ponies "sing" to the Earth to manipulate rocks...

[Arkonfleight]

I'm waiting for an Estee story where Big Mac buys a new cider press and gets it to work perfectly through the dark sorcery of reading the instructions and following directions.
Also wondering if the chariots are wonders, not devices, for this and also what principles they run on.

[Nyperold]

8451401
And it's gonna be a looong time before Rainbow knows that.

[SWEETOLEBOB18]

Unicorns project. Earth ponies... something, I guess. Pegasi conduct.

I'll go with "connect"

I'd say Dash's problems with this device are that she over powered it. IMO, her magic is more than most Pegasi & she put too much in. It probably needs to be recharged every now and again.

[TimeturnerJ]

This was amazing! Probably my favourite take on Pegasus Magic I have ever seen. So creative and dynamic!
Now I really want today's Rainbow Dash to use this power in front of her friends. It must look very strange and fascinating to an outsider. Twilight would probably get a nerdgasm or something. xD

[djthomp]

Hmn. I wasn't really expecting this plan to fly, but that didn't really read like a failure to make the wonder. It still has to actually work though, and pass inspection, and both of those remain to be seen.

[Estee]

8451675

But where's the fun in that?

(Although there is a certain something to the idea of Apple Bloom & Scootaloo progressively losing their minds as they wait for him to do the Crusader thing and get to work after skimming the first three paragraphs.)

8451401
8451401

Field-wise, it's radiate.

8452281

In-'verse, Twilight is just starting to learn what pegasus magic can truly do, along with some of the subtler ways it operates.

The term FOME once used for 'verse pegasus magic was 'thermodynamic.' When you start to think about everything which has to be done in order for weather manipulation to occur, the complexity starts to come in rather quickly. Microtelekinesis is just the start of the process. It's violating multiple laws of physics, sometimes with the goal of enforcing those same laws. It has to be more complicated than flap-and-go just because of what it does, and that's part of why having the smallest acts appear so casual is now kicking Twilight for multiple loops.

[CrystalWaters]

Rainbow Dash is certainly a ... well, 'idiot savant' definitely feels like the wrong term.
So let's just call her a rainbow prodigy.

Others have said it before, and will say it again, but your descriptions of ponies performing workings are literally and literately, magic.

[SWEETOLEBOB18]

She wasn't entirely sure of what had just happened. Having an eye for a well-lofted wing, well, that was just taste .......Plus when she was this low on funds, it was always nice to know when somepony might be willing to buy her dinner.

Voice of Experience

Sweetheart, "free" meals like that ain't free. There won't be a monetary cost, but you WILL be expected to pay. Guys can get extremely cranky about this.

I don't know this from personal experience but I have heard my sisters comments on this subject.