The Lawyer and The Unicorn (T-Rated Version)

by Firesight

2: Roses of Revisitation

MUSIC: Spiritwalker

Phoenix couldn’t sleep.

It had been over twelve hours since Twilight’s all-too-brief appearance and departure, but he couldn’t stop thinking about her. He lay in bed for hours, his mind every bit as active and alert as if he was cross-examining a witness in court, trying to make sense of what he was feeling.

What made it particularly frustrating was that unlike in court, he couldn’t simply select a key piece of evidence that would reveal the truth from a reluctant witness… particularly when that witness was himself. The heart knows what it wants, and mere logic or evidence rarely dissuades it, a sympatheticMia had told him after his murder trial acquittal, when he had to tearfully face the reality of Dahlia’s betrayal and his own foolishly desperate actions in trying to protect her. In some ways, it was little different here—Twilight’s appearance had thrown him for a large loop, and he simply wasn’t sure what to think or do, his head and heart operating at cross-purposes… the former warning him that any relationship with Twilight was doomed while the latter insisted otherwise.

I said we needed some time and distance, and we certainly had some… five whole weeks, in fact. I thought maybe I’d lose what I was feeling for her when I left Equestria and yet… I really didn’t… he had to acknowledge, that fact driven home by all the awakened emotions churning within him.

He also wasn’t sure what he thought of her human form. It just seemed… off, somehow, for her to be anything but a unicorn. If he was honest with himself, he certainly enjoyed her kiss, and yet… as he held her, she didn’t feel quite right to him. Like it was her, and yet it wasn’t… was the only explanation he could come up with. Could it actually be I prefer her as a pony…? he found the thought disconcerting but also strangely heady, and suddenly wondered why she’d taken human form. I mean, did she do it just to disguise herself, or so she could actually date me and nobody would be the wiser? He simply didn’t know the answer, and realized it’d be another month before he could ask her. Even assuming I could get up the nerve to…

---

Four Weeks Later

“Come on, Nick! I know you’re nervous, but try to sit still, will you?” Came the voice of an unsympathetic Maya, who was hastily cleaning up the office in advance of their expected visitor’s arrival. “You know, she’s not going to be impressed with you if you keep acting like a gawky pimple-faced teen whenever she shows up!”

“Sorry…” he offered, wincing at the image, but he couldn’t help it. He’d gotten word of Twilight’s impending visit just two days before—an actual phone call from the violet unicorn telling him that the next ‘trans-dimensional ley line alignment’ was coming up and asking if she could visit again, promising she could stay longer this time—at least half a day. He’d managed to say yes before she’d lost the connection, her voice so distorted and delayed and it sounded like she was calling from the other side of the world and her signal bounced off six separate satellites.

Did she get it? Did she hear my response? What if she thinks I hung up on her? he couldn’t help but fret, wondering if he’d get his answer when she simply didn’t show and he never heard from her again. No other word was forthcoming, and he’d barely been able to sleep for being so nervous, hopes and worries whirling endlessly through his head… his dreams alternating between lurid fantasies that made him blush to nightmares of her saying he wasn’t good enough for her and telling him she’d found “a REAL stallion!”; his subconscious somehow coming up with the orange pegasus bailiff with blue mane they’d seen back at the trial.

He shook his head and rubbed his eyes. Oh, come on. We barely SAW that stallion! Why would she be interested in HIM? he told himself, but wasn’t reassured. Well, if I’m thinking like this, at least I can pretty sure what I feel for her is real now… he chuckled softly to himself, but that hardly made it any better. Nervous and not eating, he’d even thought of asking Maya to channel Mia just to have someone more sympathetic to talk to… though he had no idea how his former chief and mentor would react to the news he was interested in a single-horned purple-furred equine from another world.

The wait was interminable and nerve-wracking, but at the appointed mid-afternoon time, a magical glow appeared in his office and the familiar white bubble appeared surrounded by some electrical discharge that made Phoenix’s already pointy hair stand even further on end—“you don’t think a killer robot that looks like an Austrian bodybuilder’s gonna come out of it, do you?” Maya snarked, which didn’t help Phoenix’s nerves—but when it faded, it revealed…

“Twilight!” he immediately greeted her in genuine happiness and relief, noting that this time, she hadn’t changed her hair or eye color and was wearing a more-passable but slightly-odd outfit, a light blue blouse with poofy shoulders tied off at the collar with a violet bow paired with a short violet skirt emblazoned with her cutie mark, the ensemble finished off a red crystal pendant hanging from her neck and knee-length boots overlaid with argyle socks.

“Phoenix!” she locked onto him, her purple eyes lighting up at his sight. She started to move towards him and immediately lost her balance, falling into him, making Phoenix catch her. “Sorry. These boots are giving me issues…”

Though she’d been initially inclined to be moody at Twilight’s reappearance—she still wasn’t fully sold on the violet unicorn or her visits and was mostly making nice for Nick—Maya couldn’t help but laugh at the sight of her. “Tell Rarity that she needs to look at something other than schoolgirl animes to get an idea of how to dress you,” she snickered, but stood and bowed anyway. “Welcome back, Sparkle.”

“You too, Maya,” she nodded and gave her a half-bow back, floating her a pair of scrolls. “You’ve got mail!”

Maya blinked. “I do…?” she accepted the scrolls and started looking through them. “Oh, from Pinkie! Nothing from Vinyl though…?” her eyes lit up and went downcast in rapid succession.

Twilight’s expression suddenly turned sly. “There’s a reason. Is Pearly here?” she looked around.

Phoenix shook his head. “No, sorry, she’s at her village this time. I did let her know you were coming, and she’ll meet us later, though!” he promised. Though I did tell her late enough to make sure she wouldn’t be here when you first appeared, he didn’t say, finding himself already anticipating another kiss, mentally urging Maya to leave.

To his surprise, Twilight looked disappointed. “Oh! That’s too bad. I’ve also got some mail for her, and I wanted to show her something—this!” she held up the pendant around her neck.

“What is it?”

“The reason why I’m going to be able to stay longer this time! This is her bat-er-y. It’s a specially designed and enchanted ruby with a highly conductive mythril support lattice that can accept and store magical energy! We figured out how to charge it with my mana over a period of time and then be able to use it as a magical reservoir to power my spells. This means I’ll be able to hold the transformation for nearly an entire day!” she said eagerly, moving a little closer to him, holding it up for him to see.

“Wow…” Phoenix examined the pendant, finding it a simple faceted ruby in what looked like silver lattice hanging from a thin strap. “You came up with this yourself?”

She hesitated, looking embarrassed for a moment. “Well… I started to, but… it turned out that a certain somepony had already done most of the groundwork on it. She already had a working design, and… well, there was a price for her help. You both might want to step back,” she informed Phoenix and Maya, gently herding them both towards the side of the room.

It was then a second sparking white bubble appeared, fading to reveal a new figure inside. She, too, had the appearance of a young human woman though there was no mistaking her shock of electric blue hair or magenta shades over her pale skin. She’d been dressed in simple white zip-up shirt and skirt with some blue trim that matched her hair, a facsimile of her two-note cutie mark sewn into the side of the latter. She’d also been given some boots of her own, dark blue ones with violet leggings.

“Vinyl!” a delighted Maya called out as Phoenix looked on in surprise.

The DJ-pony-turned-human turned to Maya and grinned. “Hey, Maya!” she replied, raising her hand to wave and immediately losing her balance, her arms pinwheeling for a second until Maya caught her.

“Whoa. Walking on two legs is freaky, dude. How do you guys manage it?” she asked as Maya steadied her, the formerly unicorn DJ looking at her hands and fingers, tentatively grasping the edge of the desk with them as she took a few tentative steps. “And seriously, these boots ain’t exactly helping. Ain’t much of a fashion statement if I can’t walk!”

Maya giggled. “Okay, yeah, I’m gonna have to write Rarity a note. Okay, first thing we’re doing is taking you two to the mall for some new clothes. But seriously, though… why did you come?” she asked her Equestrian friend, holding both her hands. “I mean, it’s great to see you again, but didn’t you have any party gigs?”

“Or court cases?” Phoenix asked, uncertain if he was happy to see her or not.

She shook her head. “Nah, I’ve given up the whole prosecutor thing for now. You throttled me good in the Sonata Tarot trial and Octy said I was just embarrassing her anyway. Don’t get me wrong, I love that filly to death, but having her watch me in court cataloging every mistake I made was never any fun.” She rubbed the back of her head, her words suddenly making Phoenix wonder about the nature of their relationship.

THOSE two…? I mean, surely not…

Vinyl went on, unaware of his thoughts. “But that’s okay. I’ve got a new sidelight now—been working with Sparks a lot on getting these crystals to hold mana and music like Maya’s ‘smart-phone’ can, and once we get the design perfected, I’m gonna start selling them. Think I got you and Pearly to thank for that!” she grinned at Maya. “So, just thought I’d come thank you personally and see what your world was like!” she looked around curiously, then her eyes fell back on Phoenix. “Hope I’m not imposing…”

“Of course not!” Maya said with far more eagerness than she’d shown for Twilight. “Can’t wait to show you around!”

“Good to see you too, Vinyl, but uh… blue hair and red eyes aren’t exactly normal here,” Phoenix pointed out.

Maya grinned. “Anybody asks, we’ll just say she’s a raver… and she is!”

“Works for me!” Vinyl grinned as well. “Sorry, but I ain’t changing my colors—they’re kind of my signature, you know? DJ PON-3 turns it down for nopony!” she proclaimed with a wide grin. “Folks can deal. And while we’re here, I’d love to check out the music scene! Would be cool if I could DJ sometime, too…”

“You’d totally rock,” Maya agreed. “But your timing’s bad. Raves and parties only happen on the weekend, and it’s Tuesday,” she noted a bit sadly. “But that’s okay. I can still show you my setup and how I compose my stuff!” she offered, gently tugging the pony DJ towards the back room.

“Deal,” Vinyl nodded, following her human friend slightly awkwardly into the other room, her boots clomping hard as she went.

Twilight and Phoenix watched them leave, waiting until they were out of earshot. “Sorry, Phoenix. I meant to tell you she wanted to come when I called you, but I lost the connection before I could and had to save my power for the trip,” she explained, her tone sheepish.

“It’s okay,” Phoenix told her, drawing close to her. “As long as you’re here, that’s what matters.”

She smiled and blushed. “So… no Pearly…?” Twilight looked around cautiously.

“No Pearly,” he confirmed with a grin.

“That’s all I needed to hear.” And with that, she pressed close against him and kissed him deeply.

---

It was another minute before the two finally separated, at least momentarily sated. “You don’t know how much I look forward to that now…” she told him slightly breathlessly, her hands resting on his shoulders much as her hooves had as a pony when she reared up.

“Likewise,” he agreed, his tone turning wry. His powers of observation automatically kicking in, he noted she was roughly the same weight but stood just a little taller as a human than she did as a unicorn, and had perhaps three inches and fifteen pounds on Maya. She also had a more pronounced figure as befit her age, which Phoenix would have guessed was in her early twenties. Come to think of it, never did ask how old she was… “Especially after you kind of left me hanging last time,” he teased gently.

She blushed. “Sorry. But it makes you feel better, I ended up getting my tail chewed out by my friends for coming here and not telling them.”

Phoenix was puzzled. “Why didn’t you tell them?”

She blushed harder. “I… didn’t know if it would work, if you’d be here, or… even if you’d be happy to see me,” she explained, going downcast. “I just thought failure would be easier to deal with if they weren’t there to see it. I know it was stupid. They told me as much.”

He gave her a surprised look. “You honestly thought I wouldn’t be happy to see you?” That’s exactly what I was worried about YOU!

She forced herself to meet his eyes. “It’d been five weeks since you left Equestria, and… I really didn’t know if what we had was only because I was magically influencing you. If I really was, then…” the rest went unsaid.

Phoenix’s expression softened. All this time I was afraid of the same thing. Even worried it might be true. And here I was thinking that maybe SHE didn’t want to see me again… he shook his head, deciding Maya had been right—he had been acting like a gawky teen around his high school crush, and being generally worried for no good reason. No more! “Well, let me put your mind at ease, then…” his worries assuaged and confidence restored, he slipped a hand around her waist, pulling her close as he moved to kiss her again.

“Mister NICK!” Pearl’s shocked voice broke in, causing both Twilight and Phoenix to nearly jump out of their skin.

His heart going a mile a minute, he looked up and Twilight whirled to see… an evilly-grinning Maya, looking very pleased with herself, having pulled off a frighteningly accurate imitation of her cousin’s voice. “Sorry, we interrupting something?” she asked with a smirk over crossed arms, though Phoenix thought he caught a momentary glimmer of something far less amused in her eyes.

“Nice, Sparks. Enjoying the local scene already, I see,” Vinyl chuckled from beside her human friend, her shades up to reveal her dark red eyes.

Twilight blushed hard while Phoenix gave his unrepentant assistant a momentary glare. Way to kill the mood, Maya! he mentally told her, but Maya just stuck out her tongue. “I know you’d like to just stay in, Nick, but… we’re going to be proper hosts and take these two out!” she proclaimed, her arm going around Vinyl’s waist, who looked momentarily surprised but then pleased by the unfamiliar gesture. “We’re going clothes shopping, giving our guests the nickel tour of town, and then we’re meeting Pearly at the park for dinner…”

“That’s fine, but… we need to be back here by midnight,” Twilight warned, still blushing.

“Why? What happens at midnight? You two turn back into pumpkins or something?” Maya smirked.

The reference was apparently lost on the pony-turned-human pair, who gave each other an odd look. “Well no, but… at midnight, the return spell will pull us back, and you know the magical effects that accompany it,” Twilight explained. “I have to leave a large enough safety margin on these bat-er-y-s, and to be honest, I can already sense they’re draining faster than I thought they would. Holding these transformations takes a lot of magic, and… it seems like you need more mana in general here to power spells,” she said apologetically, Vinyl nodding in agreement, trying to levitate her shades with her magic but only managing a few weak and barely seen sparks off her hidden horn. “Otherwise… I’d be more than happy to stay the night.” She blushed again.

“You could always stay as a pony,” Phoenix suggested to his own surprise. “Would it save power if you only have to hold the transformation when you go out?”

Twilight blinked at him, startled, and Maya gave him an odd look as well. “Well, that’s… very nice of you to say,” she acknowledged, her cheeks warming, surprised by the note of eagerness in his voice. Does he actually prefer me as a pony…? she suddenly wondered but didn’t know how to ask, the thought making her giddy. “The problem is… the transformation itself takes a great deal of magic, and doing it more than once might overtax me.” But if I transform from the magic in the bat-er-y… her brow furrowed, suddenly lost in thought.

“We’ll see if we can improve the design on these for next time,” Vinyl promised, holding up her own pendant. “I’m sure we can figure out how to squeeze some more mana into them. But we’re here now, so in the meantime… how ‘bout we see this town of yours?” she suggested with a smile.

“Yeah, let’s!” Maya quickly agreed, all smiles herself even as she stepped between Twilight and Phoenix and all but shoved them towards the door, anxious to get them outside before Sparkle could put her hooks in Nick again.

But once again, she was denied. “Oh! Before I forget, Phoenix, I brought something else,” Twilight mentioned, pausing in mid-stride to pull what appeared to be a purple candle out of her half-saddlebag-turned purse.

Maya blinked, increasingly antsy to get them on their way. “Uh, Sparkle, the thought’s nice and all, but we don’t really need an extra source of light unless the power for the building gets knocked out.”

Twilight shook her head with a smile. “This isn’t a standard candle,” she said, as she lit it with a brief glow of her hidden horn. The green flame on the candle caught the other three off-guard.

It was Vinyl who recovered first. “Whoa, you made a dragonfire candle? Not a bad idea, Sparks,” she nodded in approval.

“A dragonfire candle?” Phoenix parroted, thinking the flame reminded him of the kind Spike breathed.

“Yes,” Twilight said, holding it before him. “This one is keyed to send messages directly to Spike. I thought of this the other day, after I tried contacting you via that combined summoning/telepathy spell. And it occurred to me that dragon magic works on a different level than unicorn magic, so dimensional barriers and leylines aren’t as much of a hindrance.”

Remembering that Spike was capable of sending such messages, Phoenix smiled. “Ah, so this way, we can keep in contact without relying on such a taxing method like that combined spell you were using.” And hopefully no accidental summonings either!

“Right!” Twilight beamed, setting the candle down on Phoenix’s desk, then showing him how it worked by jotting down a quick message on a piece of notepad paper using the quill pen made from Fluttershy’s feather, holding the finished note in her aura over the flame. It was consumed by the flame instantly, which flared strongly for a moment, the paper disappearing without so much of a wisp of smoke. A half-minute later, the candle flared again to reveal a small scroll with Twilight’s note rolled up inside, the former containing a message written in Spike’s flawless script that confirmed the message had been received. “Now you try it!” she invited. “Don’t worry, the flame won’t burn.”

Surprised, he did so, writing a quick note to Spike, asking the baby dragon if he wanted Twilight to bring him something back from Earth. He held the note over the flame and jerked his hand back as the paper suddenly caught, though the only effect the flaring green flames had on his fingers was a mild tingling. Another twenty seconds passed and then the candle flared again, disgorging the same piece of paper, this time with a new note that followed his:

Hmm… how about some human comic books? —Spike

Twilight rolled her eyes but chuckled along with Phoenix. “He’s got a one-track mind. Oh, and I enchanted the wax to make it an eternal candle. Basically, this means that you won’t have to worry about the candle burning down—it runs on ambient magical energy of the kind dragons use. It won’t even drip on your desk, even if you leave it lit for years on end,” she promised. “The one caveat is that it can only handle so much—if you send too many messages too fast, or maybe something too big, the dragonfire magic will run out and the flame will go out along with it,” she explained.

“If that happens just wait a day or so—it’ll automatically recharge. And if you need to extinguish it for any reason, you can—just blow it out. You can only send or receive messages when it’s lit, but you can always relight it the same way you would any regular candle. A simple match will do.”

Phoenix whistled. “Not bad. It’ll certainly make preparing for future visits from you easier,” he noted as the group started to leave, Maya trying to herd them outside again.

Twilight nodded happily, then turned to her fellow Equestrian. “Before we go out, remember the rules, Vinyl?” she asked, but the unicorn DJ waved off her concerns.

“Yeah, yeah. Expect meat-eating, don’t use magic, and always wear clothes. I got it,” she promised, smirking at the scene of Maya herding the two away and keeping herself between them. “Seriously though, doesn’t feel like I can manage much magic here anyway…” she shook her head in some disappointment as she followed them out the door.

The first thing that hit the visiting pair was the heat of the day, a blast furnace of 95-degree air smacking them hard as soon as they stepped outside; Phoenix grimaced at the sight of them wincing. “Sorry, you guys picked a hot spell to come. It’s not normally this bad,” he told them, but the pair weren’t as perturbed by that as a sight that made them freeze in their tracks, leaving the two staring slackjawed at what would be an impossibility in Equestria… or would at least indicate something was very, very wrong.

“Dude…” was all Vinyl could immediately say, removing her shades to stare up at it.

“How…?” Twilight couldn’t find the words to express her own bewilderment.

Confused, Phoenix and Maya followed their gaze to see… a half-moon rising in the eastern sky, visible in broad daylight.

Understanding dawned on their human hosts at once. “Right. Well, you guys aren’t in Equestria anymore. Our sun and moon aren’t controlled by pony princesses,” Maya grinned broadly, delighting in their reaction. “Instead, our entire solar system is held together by gravity.”

“But gravity is merely the force that keeps objects from floating off the ground, right?” Twilight asked, bewildered.

Phoenix shook his head. “Not on Earth.” He tapped his chin, then looked at Maya. “Think you can pull up a picture of the solar system on your phone?”

Music: Hidden Knowledge

Grinning, Maya did just that, showing it to the two unicorns-turned-human. “As you can see, we know of nine planets in our solar system, plus an asteroid belt, and the sun in the center of it all.” She paused a moment. “Actually, we technically only have eight planets, but the first few years I was in school, they told us we had nine, so that’s what I’m sticking with.” She shook her head, and regained her composure. “Rather than someone raising the sun and moon, Earth revolves in an orbit around the sun, while spinning like a top in space as well once every twenty-four hours. That rotation is what gives us our weather, by the way, causing swirls and eddies in the atmosphere that manifest themselves as fronts and storms.”

Twilight blinked as she puzzled that out. “So… as the planet moves in a circle around the sun, it also spins in place?” she struggled to comprehend such an unfamiliar and alien concept.

“Right,” Phoenix confirmed with a nod, unable to suppress a grin of his own. “The same holds true of every planet in our solar system as well. Days are measured by how long a planet takes to spin once, while years are measured by how long it takes to complete one circle around the sun.”

“So what about the moon?” Vinyl asked. “How the hay can it be…” she motioned towards it in the daytime sky.

Bringing up another picture, this one showing the Earth and its moon, Maya took the reins of the conversation, happy to show the bookish unicorn she wasn’t in Equestria anymore. “Like it says here, our moon is roughly one-fourth the size of Earth in terms of diameter and orbits the Earth at a distance of 238,000 miles, taking 29 days to complete an orbit. It’s much smaller than the Earth, so it’s held in thrall by Earth’s gravity. When it appears in the sky is dependent on where it is in its orbital cycle—if it’s waxing towards a full moon like it is now, meaning it’s moving behind our world and showing more of its daylit face, then it rises progressively later during the day… but if it’s waning and moving in front of our world, it rises ever later at night until all you can see of it is a small crescent,” she explained, taking no small amount of glee in Twilight’s jaw dropping ever further towards the ground.

She then brought up a new picture showing different stages of the moon and where it was in relation to the earth and sun.

“So a new moon will rise at 6am, a waxing half moon at noon, a full moon at 6pm, and a waning half moon at midnight, all give or take. But our moon isn’t just a nightlight, either—its gravity influences the Earth in subtle but important ways, most notable through our oceanic tides. Water levels at the beach thus rise or fall by at least a couple feet every few hours, and in some places it’s much greater than that!”

Phoenix blinked. “So when did you become such a science and astronomy buff, Maya?”

Maya grinned impishly. “Well, when you live way out past normal civilization, the stars are VERY pretty to look at come nightfall.”

Twilight’s mind was reeling, struggling to comprehend the astronomical differences between Earth and Equestria—Argh! My brain! My poor, poor brain! I can’t even comprehend such a crazy system! GAH!—while all Vinyl could do was shake her head. “This world is whack, Maya!”

“And we’re just getting started,” the young mystic grinned, looking very pleased to have finally left an agape Twilight at a complete loss for words.

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