Auroras & Souls

by Blues Rider

9: Responsibilities of Magic

Chapter 9

Starlight lead a group of students from their dorms and across the corridor, inviting them into her office.

Twilight watched from a distance down the corridor as she turned out of her office, finally having sorted the last of the students out. She looked back down the other side of the corridor. The halls were empty now. Unless being lead by Starlight, the students should all be in their dorms or in the canteen.

Twilight took in this one moment of peace, taking a deeply relaxing breath in and out. She felt like finding a bed and just collapsing straight onto it. But she didn’t have that option right now. If only her other friends were here too, everything would be so much easier. Well, she would hope.

She trotted past the canteen and paused at the door for a second, watching the students all working together warmed her heart. Some serving other students, a few were helping to calm or distract the scared and worried, others had placed a few of the long tables in a 'U' shape and were telling stories. It was an inspiring sight to see. The fight for each other.

She caught the eye of Sandbar, one of her more mature students and quickly looked away, trotting down the corridor towards the dorms which is where she wanted to check next. But Sandbar was too quick and had caught up with her after only a few steps.

“Principle Twilight.” He called after her.

Twilight stopped and adjusted her manner to a more professional and yet friendly one.

“Yes Sandbar? I hope everything is okay, I have to check on the..”

“Yes it’s fine.” He interrupted her accidentally but it was enough to break Twilight’s train of thought. “Oh I’m sorry.”

“No it’s fine, go on.” Twilight replied, listening truly. Well she was in this conversation now, so she would have to let it play out. Wouldn’t be a very good friendship principle if I just dismissed it now – she thought to herself.

“It’s just. Although we know that there is a magical threat out there, we were wondering, well me and my classmates, what it was exactly. Like, what’s so big that we can’t just go outside. And what’s the deal with the sun not being set, you know? Can we contact out families and tell them we’re okay? We’re all just a bit worried.”

“Everything will be alright Sandbar.” She was more principle like than she expected she could be, it seemed to come naturally now, the reassuring and honest tone, her strong sense of leadership. “I will try to get in contact with your families as soon as possible, but for now we’re not entirely sure on the nature of the threat or for how far it is spread. The Royal Guard are working with us and hopefully it will all be sorted by morning.”

She even believed it herself.

“For now, I have to ensure the school is secure, but please know, I will keep you informed as we confirm everything.”

“Okay Principle. Well, if there’s anything we can do.”

“I’ll come and find you if I need you, thank you Sandbar.”

The colt ran back into the canteen. Twilight looked at her hooves to reassure her she was purple, not white. It was almost like Celestia had taken over her body for a moment. She chuckled to herself.

Then, looking back at the canteen, she teleported herself back to her own throne room.

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The 6 empty chairs disheartened her. But she would retrieve her friends.

She analysed the map once again. The Crystal Empire was now a glowing mesh of blue and red, not just solid red. She approached the map with curiosity and caution. That meant it wasn’t just Sombra left. Surely that meant something was fighting back. 'My brother?' The thought, the hope went through her head before she could tell herself it wasn’t possible.

But the map indicated that it wasn’t all evil. Something was happening, and it wasn’t all bad.

She wiped the stress away from her head with her hoof. As much as that might indicate a battle, a resistance to Sombra would at least mean they might have some time to think up a vague plan. Just like the last time he had returned.

She would come to that later, once her, Spike and Starlight had regrouped.

She grabbed a chalkboard from the supply closet across the hall and dragged it into her throne room. This just reminded her of how she had always been some kind of teacher before she even had a 'school'.

She set it up in the middle of the room overlooking the map, grabbed a chalk, and started tapping into all the spell forms she had learnt in the schools of communication and Cutie-map Entanglement (although this was a fairly new school for anypony to have studied).

Then she whittled out spells too specific to their cause and erased any that she needed to talk with Princess Luna. Then she had to erase any that linked to the Elements of Harmony as well...

This left her with a few basic contact spells, a couple of encryption, decryption and masking spells, one time-travel spell that she proceeded to wipe off the board as well (it was only there to cover all bases anyway) and a few that seemed to allow movement, manipulation, shielding and enticement from the Cutie-map.

Phase one complete. Next job was to locate two books in her library – Predictions and Prophecies & The Underlying Fields.

As she galloped quickly down the corridor she felt a light tapping from the veins in the side of her head. Oh not now, she thought as she rolled her eyes, this is not the time for a headache.

She opened the doors to the circular library and without a seconds hesitation headed straight for the third shelf on the left, three shelves up. The library was organised by Author, Author First name, Title, Title second word, Subtitle, Reference and Index code. It was one of her finest organisation schemes and in times like this, everything was made easier.

In the midst of her excitement to be in the library again, she grabbed a few other books which contain more useful spells, and finally she headed back with a pile of books.

As she trotted back upstairs with the books she stopped at a window and sighed, looking out through the purple, stained glass window to the dusk sunlight.

She then got back on track, got to the throne room, put the books on the table to the side of the room and found the spells she needed.

After a quick glass of water from the emergency water jug, she got to work picking the correct spells from her black chalk board. Erasing the rest of her work, she set about attempting to combine four spells and a calibration spell into one.

She took a breath, poured another glass of water from a jug on the side table, and started writing.

Hydration was important on days like today.

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“Now if you need me, I’ll be checking in every hour on the hour. Use an hour glass to time me. And don’t worry, Nurse Fall and the prefects should be able to handle most things in the time I’m not here.”

Starlight showed the young group of foals and fillies out of her office and into the canteen. Five meetings with different groups of students in half an hour, but it’s all sorted. Hopefully.

As they walked past Twilight’s office she peaked in but could see no sign of her friend. Unlike her to leave the door open. She closed it in passing. When they got to the canteen, she dismissed the students and looked around again but still no sign of Twilight.

She saw Sandbar, Yona the clumsy Yak and Ocellus the green Changeling calmly calling her. She waved and they trotted up to her. Yona nearly tripped over her hair..., twice, bless her. Their other friend Silverstream the hippogriff was tucking happily into food behind them.

“Councillor Starlight, has Twilight managed to make contact with any of our families yet?” Sandbar asked. The group was clearly a bit nervous. And wait, what did they say? Twilight making contact...

“Um I’m not sure, sorry, I haven’t seen her since my last meeting. Did you see where she went?”

“Oh she told Sandbar she was going to check on the dorms.” Ocellus replied.

“Right. Thank you, you three. I’ll go and find her and see what we can do. For Now, please stay here.”

She trotted calmly out of the room and down the corridor until she couldn’t be seen anymore. And then she galloped for the dorms.

The corridors of the dorms were bustling quite a bit. The prefects had set up card games and other entertainment in the public spaces. 'They’re doing well,' she thought to herself. The first two ponies, well not ponies, she met were Gallus the griffon and Smoulder the dragon.

“ 'Scuse me you two has Princess, um, Principle Twilight come through this way?”

“Nah, haven’t seen her. Everything alright?”

“Yep it’s fine, I’m just trying to find her that’s all. Thanks Smoulder.”

Starlight trotted back down the corridor and into the nearest classroom. There was a flash of light but nopony saw it.

“What did she mean by that?” Gallus grunted. Smoulder laughed a bit and gave him a friendly punch.

"Whatever, stop trying to get out of playing cards. You have 15 more bits I'm gunna win." Smoulder taunted. Gallus grunted again.

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Twilight saw the flash of light behind her and whizzed round to face Starlight who looked a little annoyed but Twilight didn’t care.

“I’VE DONE IT!” she yelled across the room.

Starlight was more than a little bemused. There was something she had prepared to say, and now she was stunted.

“Done what?”

Twilight had no outer energy to display but she was bouncing like Pinkie Pie internally.

“I’ve combined four spell forms together to hopefully create an illusion based tracking spell that should tell us exactly what this whole spell is that we’re trapped inside right now. Look!”

Starlight moved over to the blackboard behind the map and examined it.

“This is really impressive Twilight. To use the negative feedback of a communication spell to track and predict the spell fields in a given space, in this case using the Cutie-map as an...”

“An illustrative presence, yes!” Twilight interrupted with excitement, “So you think it can work!”

Twilight could have bounced around the room in circles, but she looked exhausted as she sat instead in her throne around the table.

“Yes but Twilight, you’re exhausted. You have to raise the moon and lower the sun. You Can’t handle a 5 layer spell like this as well. Not today.”

“But Starlight, I need to know, we can’t leave, the students.”

“I know Twilight.” The headachy pain returned to her head again, but she tried to ignore it “I will cast this. You need to deal with the moon and sun.”

“I know, okay, yes well. Starlight, are you sure?”

“yes.”

“Thank you.”

Twilight was sincere. Twilight was exhausted. She took a deep, deep breath and focused her mind. There was absolutely no way Starlight was going to let Twilight cast the spell. In the interest of preserving her energy, she accepted Starlight's offer.

She stood up and Starlight gave her one more hug. Then Twilight made her way up the winding staircase to the roof.