The Magician's Name

by ManaMinori

3- Everything will surely be alright

Chapter 3
Everything will surely be alright

"Zettai Daijôbu da yo." The faint, fading whispers of words spoken in a foreign tongue by an unfamiliar voice tickled teasingly at the back of Twilight’s conscious mind. Exotic and almost eerie, the alicorn Princess noted that the words sounded nothing like she had ever heard before. Neither were they modern Equestrian nor the language of Old Ponish that Starswirl the Bearded and the other Pillars spoke, but yet…..somehow, they put her at ease, almost magically drawing the tension from her shoulders and quieting the frantic thoughts within her mind.

Twilight’s violet eyes glazed, unfocused as the pony lie in her bed. Her brain buzzed as she stared down at the tiny key that she held in her hoof, as if it would provide her with the answers that she sought. Where did it come from? What purpose did it serve? A thousand questions fought for dominance within her mind. Tiny droplets of water dripped down from her damp bangs to moisten the curious star-shaped symbol that bore striking resemblance to her cutie mark in the center of a small ring atop the strange key.

Her shoulders sagged under the self-inflicted pressure and drawn conclusion that no matter ho long she stared, nothing miraculous could happen, as she expected. ‘Silly foal.’ she silently chastised herself, with a shake of her head and slight pull of her lips into a smirk. How long had it been since she had seen the sun, she wondered idly. After getting a good night’s rest, she figured some fresh air, sunshine, and stretch of her legs would do wonders to clear the cobwebs out of her head. One thing that she knew for sure was that she had spent far too long in the library over the past few days. And here she had told herself that she wouldn’t allow that to happen again, as she did during the three days where she had been holed up in her castle to reorganize her library, only to learn that her closest friends were having fun with Discord the draconequuis and self-proclaimed lord of chaos. ‘Old habits die hard, I guess.’ she reasoned with a roll of her eyes, leaving it at that. Twilight hoped that she hadn’t worried her friends too much with her absence. After experiencing such an awful dream, and recalling the words that Celestia had uncharacteristically spoken, Twilight longed to be in the company of the ponies who she had become the best of friends with.

For the time being, the mysterious object that she had found would be kept in the safest place that she could think of. With nary a thought to it, a spell was invoked, causing brilliant sparks of light to float around her horn amid a soft magenta-colored aura. As if it were made from morning dew and gossamer, the key in her hoof was trapped in her magic’s containment field and gingerly lifted into the air to be raised at eye level. As much as she desired to decipher its origins here and now, as the crowned Princess of Friendship, she had an obligation to her friends to fulfill. So, too, as a Professor of the art of friendship in her school, she had a duty to not just ponies, but to creatures of all sorts across Equestria and beyond, who sought such a precious education.

Twilight’s violet eyes widened, a stunned gasp leaving her lips as realization struck her like a bolt of lightning. “Classes!” The pony Princess neighed loudly, as she drew her ears backward. “Sweet Celestia, I’m late to instruct my class!”

Hastily, she used her magic to call forth a pocket dimension, linking its entrance to the dimension that she resided in, while she tossed the key haphazardly inside of it. It had been a relatively quickly learned trick that the skilled pony had been able to pick up after she had pulled Starswirl and his friends out of the space that existed between her world and another, that they called Limbo. In almost no time at all, Twilight had advanced to pulling a portion of space from the uncharted location in order to craft convenient pocket dimensions. A simple sealing spell over the dimensional coordinates caused it and the key it contained to vanish.

“What time is it?!” In a panic, the lavender pony leapt out of bed and frantically trotted around her room; when her body froze of its own accord. Her muzzle wrinkled, and she looked at her surroundings. Yes, she was most certainly in her bedroom. “I thought for sure that I had fallen asleep in my study.” Somehow, she hadn’t realized it in all of the time that it had taken her to draw her bath and spend an hour soaking in it, and another half hour staring at that darned key! Her head shook from side to side, attempting to fix her train of thought back on track. She made a mental note to question her scaled assistant about it later, but for now-

She found herself lighting up her horn with another spell, reaching for a sheet of parchment that was in the side drawer of the bed table. A quill was snatched up in the magnetic magical field of her sparkling aura, and a note was scribbled in mid-air. With so many questions and concerns jousting and clashing in her mind, she decided that a physical note to remind her was better and less likely to be forgotten about. With her tendency to keep to her checklists, Twilight could affirm that she would address the issue at a later time. With a satisfied and self-assured nod of her head, she resumed her frantic activities of trotting about and filling her saddlebag with the necessary supplies to teach her students.

“I’m tardyyyyyyyyyy!” the desperate howls from within the walls of the castle were loud enough to cause many residents of Ponyville to pause in their own daily activity, lifting their heads and casting concerned and confused gazes toward Princess Twilight Sparkle’s castle.

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“Uhhh, what are all these ponies,” Starlight Glimmer paused as she decided to more carefully choose her words to more accurately describe her audience. “All these creatures doing here?” the unicorn corrected herself, as her cheeks began to tinge with a faint blush that signaled her immediate embarrassment. With a crease settling on her brow, she cast a look of confusion to Ponyville’s resident party planner, Pinkie Pie. In harmony with her name, she was a cotton candy colored pink mare with a voluminous magenta mane that was fluffier and bouncier than anything Starlight had ever seen!

Though the pink filly had her hooves awfully busy with loading heaps of fluffy white whipped cream out of a metal can onto a mountain of warm pancakes of various flavors and textures, she paused momentarily to bat her big blue eyes at Starlight in response. “Well what’s it look like, silly?” she smiled, teasingly, as she took the opportunity to plop a bright red cherry on her finished creation before moving onto the next undecorated flapjack stack. Without waiting for an answer, though the heliotrope horse had already begun to open her mouth, Pinkie flicked a ruby red cherry into Starlight’s mouth without missing a beat.

Caught off guard, Starlight wrinkled her muzzle and hacked violently as the fruit collided with her uvula and pinballed down her esophagus without warning.

“I’m putting together a pancake dinner party for the Parent Professor meet and greet that will be held at the Friendship School tonight! With so many students from the Dragon lands, Yak tribe, Hippogriff clans, and Changeling Kingdom, it’s important for their parents to be given a tour of the school and updated on their children’s curriculum and progress!”

Once the coughing fit subsided, Starlight cleared her throat and surveyed the piles of pancakes that took up all the space on the crystal table in front of the party pony. “Ok, but why pancakes, if its a dinner party?” Though Pinkie was eccentric in every way, Starlight knew that she could’ve simply chalked it up to “Pinkie being Pinkie”, as most of her other friends had, but being a methodical mare, Starlight couldn’t help but take the opportunity to try and pick the odd mare’s brain to try and make sense of her workings.

Pinkie Pie sighed, her body slumping over momentarily, as if all the life had suddenly been drained out of her, like a deflated balloon, at that very moment. “Sugar Belle is working as an apprentice for Mrs. Cake in Sugarcube corner.” In order not to lose precious time, she sproinged back up and got back into her rhythm; hooves seeming to blur as they grabbed a stack of flapjacks, slapped them on a plate, and topped them with various assortments of cream, cherries, and candy colored sprinkles. “Well, it just so happened that due to my pet alligator, Gummy, getting himself into the unfinished batter to sneak a taste before Mr. and Mrs. Cake’s super secret anniversary surprise cake could be baked, Sugar Belle wound up getting distracted between cleaning up a battery baby gator and keeping the Cake’s anniversary cake a surprise, that she accidentally canceled the dinner reservation that was meant for the Parent Professor Meet and Greet, and ordered an excess of pancakes to be shipped to Sugarcube Corner, instead.” she detailed, promptly filling her lungs to capacity with an exaggeratedly deep inhale.

“Okaaay.” Starlight Glimmer couldn’t help but roll her eyes, beginning to wonder why she had even bothered asking in the first place. Taking a step backward, she hoped that she should leave the room without Pinkie roping her into assisting her. There were many pancakes yet to be given the “Pinkie Treatment”, though the mare was working at such a frantic and frenzied pace. “I’ll just leave you to the task at hoof, and get out of your way, then-”

No sooner had she stepped hoof out of the school’s dining room, was she blind-sighted and bowled over by a galloping purple Princess who had most likely been on her way to her office. Dazed, the royal’s pupil shook her head, picking herself up off of the floor to just barely catch sight of Twilight as she scurried down a corner. “Excuse you!” she huffed. Rather than a Princess of any sort, she could swear that filly had been raised on the rough and tumble, fast-paced streets of Manehattan, instead! When Starlight looked to Pinkie, hoping that she had a thought to share on Twilight’s unusual behavior and lack of assistance when Starlight had been knocked down in the purple pony’s haste, the lightly bruised unicorn found that more attention was being payed to the preparations for the dinner party. Oddly enough, that came as no surprise. “I’d better go check in on Twilight.” she decided aloud, as she left the party planner to her own devices.

A light and cautious knock on the tightly shut door of the Head Mare signaled Starlight’s arrival some moments later. Though her ears was drawn back with concern for Twilight’s odd behavior and adherence to her own earlier bruises, the alicorn’s pupil decided to reach for the handle, pacing momentarily before her hoof made contact. Amid the sound of hurriedly shuffled papers and closing desk drawers, she managed to hear a slightly muffled invitation; “Come in.” Starlight Glimmer pushed the blockade open a centimeter or two, cautiously standing at the door’s threshold. “Twilight?” she breathed, peeking into the office with concern. “It’s me. I just saw you come in and…..” the door opened a little more and the mare gingerly stepped inside, only to duck her head as a stapler whizzed through the air, held by the Headmare’s magical aura. “Um, what are you doing?”

Immediately, Twilight turned her attention to her guest. Her brow creased with concern and stress, and the lavender fur of her cheeks was damp with tears. “I can’t find today’s itinerary!” the usually organized Princess sobbed.

The unicorn grimaced at the unsightly image of distraught royalty before her. “Everything will be alright. Let’s just calm down and we’ll look for it together.” she spoke, keeping her voice even in hopes to provide some semblance of calm of the chaos unfolding around her. Twilight hadn’t made her the school of friendship’s guidance councilor for nothing! Her first order of business was igniting her horn and snatching up a square of tissue out from the box that occupied space on the floor rather than upon Twilight’s desk. Levitating it to her friend’s nose, she silently commanded the Princess to blow, which produced a most undignified honk. “If you don’t mind me saying, though,” Starlight hummed, as she pitched the sullied square into the trash bin. “You really need to take better care of your belongings.”

From within the pocket dimension that Twilight had earlier manifested, the copper key that had been so haphazardly thrown there hung weightlessly, as if levitating itself. The decorative, six-pointed star that sat within a ring at its head gleamed faintly in the inky black space it lay contained in.