Twilight Sparkle: A Canterlot Day

by Blues Rider

5: That Afternoon

Come the afternoon, Twilight was glad to be back inside the inner walls of Canterlot.

Here, she needn't be followed around constantly by royal guards.

She didn't mind the escorts. As she had said to Fancy Pants, they were necessary but sometimes it was just nice to be able to walk around freely without a patrol. And here in the uppermost part of Canterlot, she was allowed that privilege.

Minutes down the street from her castle, she found Celestia's School of Magic. The place she had tutored magic, friendship and cutie-mark knowledge for the past thirty years as a primary member of staff. And this week was one of her most exciting lectures; Cutie Mark Synchronicity 1.0.9.

Over the years, she had been able to expand this course, with the help of the Cutie-Mark-Crusaders back in Ponyville who had made strides in the field of cutie mark knowledge.

She opened the staff door and made her way down the long, stretching corridors of the school. A board of previous staff photos passed her on her left, hanging pictures Celestia, Luna and Cranky Doodle (Who, Twilight was assured, was a great geography professor and had travelled most of Equestria by himself.)

She passed door after door, each with a square window in the upper half allowing you to see into each classroom. Eventually she reached a T-junction at the end of the corridor. Directly in front of her, stood the grand purple, double doors to the biggest lecture hall in the school.

She took a breath and made her way into the centre of the hall. Hundreds of eyes trained on her from the surrounding seats of the arena style hall. Each, a student with a note pad in front of them, ready to learn from her.

She made her way to the podium in the centre which had been set up for her, and nodded to the hall's technical operator.

The light's lowered, focusing everypony's attention on the stage.

You could hear a pin drop amidst the anticipation of the ponies in the audience waiting for the lecture to start.

Twilight's opening slide was flicked onto the screen. A collection of groups of cutie marks that had been attained by ponies in each group at the same time. Her friends and the CMC's cutie-marks up there with the groups.

She cast a spell to amplify her voice throughout the arena without having to shout, which made lecturing a lot easier.
Her horn glowed and a small purple orb floated from the tip to her throat, which is was absorbed by her larynx.

"As we have discussed in the past, cutie mark magic is not something to be meddled with. We have talked about the effects of premature cutie-marks and the problems with changing cutie marks. We have even been over the complications of simultaneous cutie-mark development." (Which students loved because she got to tell the story of how she and Starlight had time travelled.)

"Today, however, before we go onto the reasons why and how cutie-marks appear simultaneously, we have to go back and look at the link between a cutie-mark, and the purpose they link to within each pony's life." Her lecture was strong and confident. She owned the stage with a commanding presence.

Sure she had done this a few hundred times now, but it was the grandeur of this topic that was so fascinating.

"SO." She started, "As we know, the cutie-mark of a pony indicates the kinds of special skills they might be best honed for. As an example, I take my friend applejack again, and her cutie-mark: three apples." Onto the screen behind her flickered a picture of Applejack, with her cutie mark obviously displayed.

"This cutie-mark obviously indicated that her skills would be linked to that field. However, what is hidden from view is the 'purpose' of the cutie-mark. If this doesn't make sense, let me explain it another way."

The slide behind her changed to a slide with Pinkie Pie bouncing lively into the air. Again, her cutie mark was obviously indicated.

"Take my good friend Pinkie Pie, whom I have mentioned many times now. As you all know, she's a party planning pony and very good at baking. Neither of these skills indicate her 'purpose', but without them she would have struggled to find her purpose. Here's why.

"Pinkie is a party pony. She uses her skills to make others around her smile, and to bring joy to situations, diffusing the scary and helping you smile when you need to get through the serious. She's a friend you can rely on.

"But if you take Applejack's cutie-mark. Her skill-set, and gave it to Pinkie." The next slide flickered up, a picture of Pinkie with an apple as a cutie-mark and Applejack with a balloon. "Her skill-set suddenly wouldn't match with her purpose."

"Now, as we know, we get our cutie-marks from the bond we share with an activity, skill or interest. But once you have it, there's still a wide variety of possible activities you can do and perfect. But here's the catch with a 'purpose'. It doesn't matter what your skills are, your purpose will always find you somehow.

"However if your skill-set, your cutie-mark, is erased, nullified or changed for whatever reason, you might find yourself in a situation you need to make the right decision for, but can't." She flicked up a photo of Apple Bloom from when she got the cutie-pox trying to hula-hoop and plate balance at the same time.

"So why are we going over this? Well today we study a piece of magic, I think you will all find fascinating. If you turn to page one-hundred and fifty-seven in your Friendship textbooks, you will find this spell." Another slide flicked up behind her, this time it contained the back page of an old book, with a long two page spell written on it.

"This is Starswirl the Bearded's great unfinished masterpiece. To earn my wings as an alicorn, I completed this spell using a new kind of magic that Starswirl had never discovered before. The magic of friendship.

"This spell was originally intended to allow the user to harness their full skill-set and apply it to their purpose. Notice the wording, see: From one to another, another to one. A mark of one's destiny singled out alone, fulfilled." She pointed at the page on the screen behind her with a long wooden pointer kept under the pedestal at the front of the stage.

"The problem was, Starswirl didn't understand two things: friendship magic, or cutie-mark synchronicity magic. Cutie marks earned together, tend to work together. I discovered this when I cast this spell by accident. Where my cutie-mark, my purpose, was intertwined with my friends, casting this spell actually forced each of them to temporarily live separate lives where their cutie-marks did not match their purpose.

"In Rarity's case, she tried to control the weather using unicorn magic. But her purpose was guiding her to make beautiful couture. So the result became this:" another slide flicked up of a unicorn made weather pattern with snow, sun, rain and hail. From a pegasus perspective, it was an abomination.

A few chuckles came from the crowd.

"From this point, it is evident to see that a purpose and a cutie-mark MUST link together. But what effect does this have on ponies with synchronised cutie-marks? For that, let's think back to synchronicity one-O-two. Cutie-marks earned together, boost each other. If one pony falters of falls, another in the group will always be there to help catch her with the magic of friendship.

"Luckily in the case of this particular event, I was unaffected by the spell, and I was able to save my friends by reminding them of their true purpose, and syncing them to the element of harmony they represented. Out of which I learned the true way to re-write Starswirl's spell, which looks like this:"

Again the slide changed, this time to a picture of the same book containing her amended spell. "From all of us together, together we are friends, with the marks of our destinies made one, there is magic without end." She read from the screen even though she already knew it by heart. But the book reminded her of how strong their friendships were. She lingered, reminiscing, just for a moment.

She turned back to the audience.

"This spell defines just how strong our bond of friendship is, and that together we are always better than when we're apart. If we had not stayed together, I would not be where I am today, because my friends and I would not have worked through all the tough times we faced to spread the magic of friendship across Equestria, making it a better place."

She took a moment to let that sink in.

"As I started by saying; nopony can every 'truly' know their purpose, because it will change all the time. But when those friends with synchronous cutie-marks work together, their talents combined help solve all kinds of problems. From saving Equestria, to helping your local town with day-to-day chores.

"Me and my friends are lucky to have the Elements of Harmony, which made it slightly easier for us to understand the idea of our 'purposes', but even we get surprised. As was proved by the Legends of Equestria; each element can be interpreted multiple different ways. As such, Applejack's honesty was always crucial to the rest of us who relied on her. But that isn't necessarily the whole story behind her purpose, and I'm not sure we can ever really know."

She took a break, flicking back to the first picture of Applejack above her.

"But if a group of ponies or just one pony, mismatches their purpose to their cutie-mark it can become a disaster. Just as you will learn when you study Trouble Shoes with the CMC's later this week." She finished up, nodding to the technical operator to raise the lights. The screen behind her turned off as well.

"Now, I'm here for half an hour more to talk about this topic if any of you have any questions."

Of course there were questions.

They wanted to know exactly what she had to do to fix the spell.
How she got wings from just fixing a spell.
Why a purpose is so important if you already have the correct skill-set for your cutie-mark.
And so on.

It was rare she ever got to answer everypony's questions. That's what studying and private tutorials allowed for.

So after her half an hour, she waved gracefully goodbye to her students and left the building, heading straight for the gardening shed behind the grand gala ballroom back at the palace.

---

She knocked on the door to the rickety old shed, but nopony answered.

She studied the garden that surrounded her. Then she heard a whistling coming from behind some bushes.

She followed the sound around a couple more trees before noticing the old gardening pony.

"Green Bark, excuse me!" She called cheerily through the foliage of the garden.

"Watch yall step!" He called with a whisper, "There's a family of hedgehogs out hun'ing for bait somewhere round 'ere."

"Oh yes, of course, I'm sorry." She replied. He was probably one of the few ponies who treated her like a normal pony and almost always forgot to add the title 'princess', which Twilight didn't mind. He was always friendly, helpful and hard at work. If anypony could ignore custom, it was him. Green Bark probably lived at the palace more than Twilight did anyway.

Twilight lifted up her wings and hovered herself over to the clearing Green Bark stood in.

"What can ah do fo' yall?" He asked.

"Well, I have some specifications here from Fancy Pants for the next lawn layout. I hope they work for you." She pulled the paper out her satchel and handed it over. He unfurled it, and read it aloud.

"Dear Princess Twilight, ah have been anticipating college fee bursary." Twilight interrupted him there.

"Oh! No, sorry. That's royal correspondence. It's this one you need." She grabbed the letter from the earth pony's hooves and replaced it with the specifications Fancy Pants really had given her. Checking it this time to ensure its correctness.

"Ah yea, that makes more sense. Sure ah can get this done in six days time ah reckon." He replied confidently.

Twilight thanked the old pony before returning to her office in the palace on the top floor to answer some rather important letters.

---

Comments

[Comickook]

Superb work on this latest chapter. Love how well done the exchanges, characterizations and future chapter set-ups were done in all the right places. I especially liked Twilight's lecture on "simultaneous Cutie Marks" as well as the chat with the gardener.

[Blues Rider]

9950381
Cheers Comickook. Glad you enjoyed it.