For a moment, Kyle was entirely paralyzed by her sister's presence, as though what had happened in the stables was her fault instead of the baby's. But it only took a few seconds for her to recover enough to respond. She stepped slightly to the side, separating Kara from Fay. Whether she was protecting her sister from the baby's incredible magic, or the alien from her sister's rage, that she couldn't have said. "You think she could just change people?" Kyle asked. "Well... okay, I thought that too. We were both wrong."
She gestured around the room with a wing. She was getting pretty good at controlling it now, or at least pointing it where she wanted it to go. Whether they could somehow fly... that didn't make sense. Eagles were pretty gigantic animals, and they could fly. But seeing a creature like her in the air would be taking that to another level. "I think it's... subconscious? Looks like she's trying to make her world in ours or something."
Kara made her way into the stable, shutting the door quickly behind her. She moved slowly, possibly feeling small compared to all this horse-sized furniture. She circled towards the baby, and without thinking Kyle backed away. "There are diapers here," Kara said. "Why the hell would there be diapers?"
"Because she was wearing one when I found her?" she suggested. "Oh hey, that's a really good idea. Fay, I need you to stay calm for a minute while Kara here puts one of these on for you. I'd do it, but—" I'm still not convinced I can do something that takes so much dexterity with a bone poking out of my head. "She's got hands, and I don't."
Kara raised an eyebrow. "You're making an awful lot of assumptions, Kyle. Like me wanting to be anywhere near her." She looked around the room—then pulled her phone out of her pocket and started snapping pictures. "This is the craziest thing I've seen since I found you. Fucking nuts."
"I know," she said, exasperated. "I'm with you all the way, Kara. But..." She turned towards the baby. Fay was hiding behind one of the little stuffed animals. Well not so little anymore. That's a strange selectivity from your magic, kid. Why did those get to stay when so many things didn’t? “Come on, Fay. Kara is going to get one of these on for you." She reached to the side, levitating over one of the diapers without thinking of it. "See? I bet you'd rather be wearing one, wouldn't you? You wouldn't want to make a mess in this... physics-defying abomination you've just created from whole cloth."
"You’re not even trying to say things she'll understand," Kara muttered, annoyed. At least she wasn't hiding in the corner of the room anymore—she stood beside Kyle, looking down at the diaper. Then her eyes widened. "Wait a minute. Did she do that? Your, uh..." She held a hand up over her head. "Your thing is lighting up."
"Horn," she muttered, glowering down at Kara. "Yeah, it's me. I've been practicing. I can't get it to do anything useful, like change me back, but... I figured I should start with something I could actually figure out."
Kyle watched nervously—for a minute it looked like Fay wouldn't actually put up with Kara's help. But then she started giggling, putting Kara at ease enough to actually try touching her.
When the diaper was finally on, and another disaster was averted before it even began, Kara backed away again, getting out of reach. "Kyle, do you realize what all of this means?" She gestured around the room. "Like... this creature. I guess you knew she wasn't natural, but... this is insane."
"Fay," Kyle corrected. "Her name is Fay. I don't think she likes it when you call her that."
Kara rolled her eyes, reaching out and mussing Kyle's mane. "Yeah yeah, right. Fay is some kind of reality-bending... time and space kinda deal."
"I think she might be like Q," Kyle said. "She didn't like how dark and awful it was in here, so she changed it. When she was hungry, she made me. Like a... baby goddess or something."
Kara did not seem reassured by that hypothesis. If anything, her expression only grew more terrified. "That could be, bro. But if it is... don't you think we should call... somebody? For like... the good of civilization or something?"
Without thinking, Kyle picked Fay up in her non-physical grip, holding her against her chest. "She's just a baby, Kara. I know she's scaring us... but she just wanted someone to help her. She's not causing any harm."
"Except by ruining your whole life, turning you into a freak of nature, and transforming our stable into a crazy..." She looked around. "Nursery. For giant horses."
"Exactly." Kyle crossed the room to the crib, depositing Fay inside before walking back over to Kara. He'd been a little taller for the last few years now, but she was still adjusting to just how small Kara looked. Small enough to ride on her back without much effort, probably. "She didn't make some evil invading army. She didn't hurt me. She made the stuff a baby needs, because that's all she is. And as soon as I figure this out, I'll fix it."
"You were moving things around," Kara muttered. "Maybe you can do something amazing and put everything right. But Mom and Dad aren't going to buy your disappearance forever. I can lie and say you went to school with me, but they'll get a call when you don't show. Sooner or later they'll have to find out about this."
"At least I'll have your help when that happens," Kyle squeaked nervously. "So they'll know who I am, and Dad won't bring out that rusty old shotgun again."
Kara met her eyes in silence. For a moment it seemed like she was going to say something else, but then she turned away. "Just... figure it out quickly, sis. At best, you've got until tomorrow after school. If I don’t tell them the truth then, they're probably going to call you in missing. Then the authorities get involved whether we want them to or not."
Kyle shuddered at the thought of a policeman knocking down the door to the stable. Maybe they'd get jumpy and just shoot. Or maybe Fay would be so afraid that she took matters into her own hooves.
I don't even really know that bullets would work on us. She should check in on her thread on the supernatural board, maybe someone had made a useful suggestion.
"I should probably get going," Kara said, backing up the way she'd come. "Anything else you need for the night, Kyle? I guess not, if you have all this..."
"More food," she exclaimed, before Kara could leave her.
Kara stopped, spinning around to raise her eyebrows in disbelief. "You already had half the crisper."
She winced. "Yeah, uh... I'm pretty sure it got lost when this room was made. I'm just grateful she didn't blast my laptop away while she was at it."
"Okay, I'll look into it for you, Kyle. No promises I'll be able to get anything—there's already too much missing from the fridge, so I'll have to raid the garage this time. I'll bring some stuff right before bed. I can't come sooner, or they might realize where I went."
Kyle nodded, then stuck out one of her wings, wrapping it around Kara in an awkward hug. "Thanks, Kara. I don't know what I'd do without you."
"Me neither," Kara muttered, patting her awkwardly on the back. "Just... hold in there, Kyle. We'll figure this out."
To say all was not well in the Crystal Empire was about as powerful an understatement as Twilight Sparkle could know to make.
She hadn't even wanted to stay behind to do her spellcasting there, but to return to Ponyville and her magical lab to get the best of it done. But Princess Cadance didn't look like she could endure the stress. She'd see Twilight leaving like an admission that she'd failed at her spell. Sunburst had passable magical resources as their court wizard, even though he did almost none of the actual magic himself. At least he didn't mind Twilight coming in and stealing his laboratory for herself.
Sympathetic magic was difficult stuff, requiring the utmost concentration and precision. When it came to large distances, even a small variation in the initial heading could send the tracker hundreds or even thousands of miles in the wrong direction. What happens if I can't find her? Will Cadance think of me as the pony who lost her daughter for the rest of forever? It wouldn't be like any other pony hating her. She was family, and she'd probably live an awful long time. Even Twilight was sketchy on the details.
After eighteen hours and almost as many cups of coffee, Twilight finally set down her engraving pencil, taking a step back to appreciate the finished tracking spell. She'd carved it into a single piece of aluminum, slicing away at the even sheet until an intricate pattern with a large opening in the center remained. The outsides were now covered in glowing symbols, as perfect and symmetric as anything Star Swirl himself had made during the First Age.
"You're done," Sunburst said.
She jumped, nearly dropping the spell from her magic in surprise. "Woah! You're, uh... you're still in here?"
"Yeah, I get that a lot." He circled around the laboratory table, levitating a little brush and dustbin along. He cleaned her metal scraps off the table, not skipping a beat. "I know it's not my place to tell a princess to get some sleep, but... believe me, you can't survive on a diet of caffeine alone. I tried that a few years ago. I didn't leave the library for four days. But they had to take me to the hospital when it was over."
Twilight nodded weakly. She probably wouldn't have said anything to him if she'd been more in control of her senses. But she was so overwhelmed from the crafting that she'd have talked to a stump. "We'll be flying in the Crystal Empire's flagship once we leave. I'll get some sleep on the way."
She turned, picking up Flurry's stuffed toy and dropping it into the hollow center of the tracking spell. It caught there, suspended in the perfect center of the metal. It spun a few times, as though its little eyes were searching for the princess directly. Then it extended a stuffed paw. South-east. Though from the hesitation... they'd have to follow it all the way to be sure. We could be wrong. I'm not in any state of mind to be making complex judgements about Worldgates right now.
She brought the spell all the way back down to the throne room, through a gaggle of the Crystal Empire's finest. Most of them didn't look like they had a clue what they were supposed to be doing. Cadance was pacing, and whenever she drew near they would snap to attention, looking as fierce and regal as they could. Twilight didn't envy them their job.
"Cadance," she said, waving a wing in her direction. It didn't seem like the other Alicorn had slept either. Shining Armor was nowhere to be found this time. Presumably her brother was out supervising the search. "Have you learned anything new since I went to work?"
Princess Cadance almost didn't seem to hear her at first. Her eyes looked right past Twilight, and out the entrance to her throne room. Then she jerked, horn glowing defensively for a second. Twilight stood calmly, waiting for the other Alicorn to realize who she was looking at. "Oh!" Cadance shook her head. "No news, Twilight. We're widening the search outside the Crystal Empire, but the weather out there is so cold that... the royal guard don't last too long." Her silence was a simple enough message then: And if the soldiers can't last long, what hope does Flurry have? "But look, you're back! And you've got, uh... what is that, exactly? Did you finish the tracking spell?"
Twilight nodded. "I finished, and it's still working. That means..." She stopped whispering, speaking loud enough for all the ponies nearby to hear. "That means that Flurry Heart is still alive. It would've given me nothing otherwise."
Cadance instantly started crying, pulling her close and squeezing her like she'd already handed her back the missing foal. "Twilight, you don't... you can't imagine what this means to me. Without one of your own... we've been so worried all this time..."
Twilight winced, but didn't pull away. It hardly felt like she was ready to deserve any of that praise yet. "The spell was the easy part," she said. "I've got reactions like this from magic before. She's far away, way too far to walk. We'll need the airship after all."
Cadance nodded, gesturing for the little door behind the throne. "Th-this way. My husband has been preparing the Radiant Hope this whole time. We wanted to be able to leave the second you were done."
That doesn't give me enough time to get any of my friends. Twilight felt a brief, involuntarily surge of fear at the thought. Facing this challenge without them to keep her sane wouldn't be easy. But if she asked Cadance to delay for even a few moments, she'd probably snap. If I'm right about the Worldgate, I'll call for backup. This might just be a simple flight.
"Just so long as..." She yawned, then shook her head once before she started dozing right there in the hall. "So long as there's an empty cabin somewhere. I haven't... slept yet. Since this started. And I think I'd like to."
Cadance went as far as the lonely stone hallway beside her throne, finally stopping to look at her. "If you can explain your spell to me first, I could do that. Does it need you to be nearby to keep it running?"
"No." Twilight levitated it towards her. "I enchanted this thing to last. The toy inside helps point the way, see?" And when we get there, if it points at the marks along the rim, we know we're in trouble. "Just follow the bear."
"Follow the bear." Cadance yanked the spell out of her grip, with enough force that Twilight nearly stumbled over. "Right. We can do that. Follow the bear, get my daughter back. We're coming for you, sweetheart."
Nice reference to the comics.
What's the reaction going to be when they discover the contents of Flurry's room have been switched with the inside of an old stable?
Pointing so far away...the mirror perhaps?
10023060
If that's what happened.
Flurry Heart transformed Kyle into his mother without changing the original Cadance. That could be more transformation magic rather than conjuration magic.
What is it about magic that takes some people so long to process?
So instead make a mess in this very specific subset of the physics-defying abomination, which is a cloth. Logic!
As for the tracking spell... Twilight probably should've explained the runes. The last thing we need is Cadence taking after her daughter after the bear shrugs.
Where's chapter nine? it went from 8 to 10 with no in-between, was chapter 10 mis-labeled?
I'm kind of surprised it could actually pick out a direction. A completely different world is a bit beyond your standard compass points. Wonder if it's pointing to a portal or something more than Flurry herself.
Whut? Chapter... 10? That can't be right.
10023096
Flurry didn't copy Cadance though... She just turned Kyle into a random nursing female Alicorn... While as for the room she straight up seemed to either Copy her room, or she switched places of the barn and her room...
Chief...
We’re missing Chapter 9ine.
10023237
its proberbly doing its best by either pointing to a poral, rift or maby it is just pointing to the area flurry is in kyles world in relation to theirs because he found her in a foresst and brought her home
Sunset and Twi-Sci?
10023079
One interpretation of the many worlds theory is where every possible “reality” exists in the same “universe”. So if the universe is infinite you could theoretically go in any random direction in a straight line and encounter literally every conceivable and inconceivable reality in existence. Simply because the number of combinations that matter can make up, while a truly gigantic number(something like 10^80, is still finite. And when you have something finite inside something infinite it will repeat. Infinitely. So TECHNICALLY it could point in a direction towards Flurry. Then again it could point any direction and be “correct” if and only if it was physically pointing her out and if and only if that interpretation of the many worlds theory was correct.
Old shotgun AGAIN? Whazzat about?
10023382
No chapter's missing, my bot put in the wrong chapter number when I submitted it. This is the correct chapter nine.
Cadance. Just wait till you be your substitute
Gonna be more complicated then that.
Gonna be totally honest here, I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop at this point. This story has been a very consistent and captivating build to an initial climax that is sure to be delightfully dramatic before the real meat of the plot begans. Then they just gotta fix the problem and, knowing what I know about Starscribe stories, I have a feeling Kyle will not be included in the solution.
"I think she might be like Q," Kyle said. "She didn't like how dark and awful it was in here, so she changed it. When she was hungry, she made me. Like a... baby goddess or something."
Kara did not seem reassured by that hypothesis. If anything, her expression only grew more terrified.
I think Kara is thinking what I'd be thinking. If that's a baby goddess, what's going to happen when Mama comes calling?
And things continue to converge... let's see if Cadance and Twilight can catch up to Flurry and Kyle before the human world comes looking for Kyle and complicates things more.
bet money on them attacking first and asking questions later, maybe I'm wrong as the alicorn of emotions wouldn't let her emotions get in the way of reuniting with her baby. Just hope the reunion is as hilarious as the hype I have for it.
10026618
Yes, but that was a blast of magic. Unfocused. Plus, the crystal broke from her wailing. If anything, that just shows she's able to use the RCV or otherwise has strong lungs.
Yes, she has raw power, but what I'm saying is it's the equivalent of Twilight when she had the power of all the alicorns. She never cast any spells, she just threw her power around because she had enough of it that it didn't matter. We've never seen Flurry actually cast a spell outside of beams and the odd teleportation, which is the same stuff that Pumpkin cake was capable of, in essence (levitation, teleportation, though the latter was more phasing through matter than teleportation but still). I'm just saying that this portrayal of her, able to cast spells to transform someone and transform an entire room accurately down to the diapers from memory is a bit much.
10026618
10026683
I’ll second what Charles Farrow said, if for another reason perhaps: tell that to the show.
How magic works in the show has been illustrated so badly that you have to question why they even need to be educated or use anything beyond will and intent to be skillful, because so much can be done even by non-alicorns and non-adults, either purposefully or not. And it doesn’t help that the writers of the show almost always make characters powerful/successful/skillful or weak/insufficient/inept because it gets them the results they desire, rather than setting anything up for us to understand how and why that is.
Whenever I think about how Trixie, a stage magician, a profession where making things disappear is ubiquitous, only realizes after who knows how long that she has the ability to teleport things and only has to be instructed to focus on the object one wants to teleport to succeed, millions of my brain cells cry out in terror, then are suddenly silenced.
10027384
Well yeah, shows don't have to think about things making sense unless they're blatant, especially in kids shows.
But that's where the fans come in. We have the chance to fill in the gaps based on the information the show has provided. Try to make sense of it all. Just because the show's writers never intended for there to be rules to their magic, doesn't mean there can't be.
I like to think, and have others used the same idea, that foals are born with loads of magic to help them grow and to help keep them safe. Incidentally, it also means they can throw around that power willy nilly in tantrums a la Twilight v Tirek. Mini-surges basically, akin to what Twilight had at her exam. The exception being that stuff that would be considered complex is out of their reach. The best we see pumpkin do is phase through matter, the least we see is levitation. Compared to teleportation I wouldn't consider that difficult.
The best we see Flurry do is shoot beams of magic and I think she teleported at one point. But she's an alicorn, so naturally, she'd have access to more.
My argument isn't that Flurry wouldn't react as a foal would a la "I want this, so my magic gives it to me". Rather, my argument is that her transformation of not just a person, but the entire inside of a building including creating objects necessary for her care out of seeming nothing is a bit above what she's capable of.
10027436
I vehemently disagree. Both on the “it’s for kids” excuse, and how that’s where the fans come in. A writer doesn’t have to explain and give rules for everything, but you should almost always have at least one of either for something of consequence, especially if it’s pervasive — which magic definitely is. And writing for children should mean that it’s simple enough for them to understand, not that it doesn’t need to make any sense at all.
Also, just because something is left for others to figure out, that doesn’t mean we’ll be able to make sense of it, if the writer (writers, in this case) doesn’t keep track of what they do with something and that creates questions, conflicts or outright contradictions on how it’s shown to work — and this show has that problem with magic.
To address your suggestion that teleportation is more complex than levitation and portals through solid objects, I can direct you to the beginning of the series, episode three, where Twilight teleports both herself and Spike before saying, “I didn't even know it was gonna happen.”
And, again, since it’s still relevant, I’ll point to Trixie teleporting something simply by wanting to and being told to concentrate on the object she wants to teleport, and both are no different in difficulty from how a month-old unicorn levitated various objects, herself, and created a portal to bypass her entrapment. Basically, if you have the desire for something to happen, even if it’s not a conscious one, and have enough power, the magic will do the work.
That said, transmutation/transfiguration, which is at the crux of this discussion, appears to be no harder to accomplish. At least, when I saw Twilight change her parents into perfect replicas of something else without intention or thought, instead of some random, nonsensical horror, I’m given the impression (and not just by this specific example) that there’s something about ponies, their magic, or both, that does a lot of work on a fundamental level — meaning less effort and knowledge needed for the pony.
Which might explain the case where Trixie tried to transfigure something into a teacup, as if she had no basis. All it took for her to succeed was to be told to imagine what the teacup looked like, which should have been one of the first and simplest lessons for that kind of spellwork, if you can call the combination of magic, imagination and will that. (And I can’t fathom an in-universe explanation for Starlight needing to give that kind of correction, beyond a lot of ponies being too challenged in the mental department to even try something so basic, thanks to the writers being lazy/uncaring and sacrificing substance for the sake of humor or making their job easier.)
So, personally, I don’t believe it’s beyond Flurry to change the inside of a stable. (And I’d like to point out that she may not have created anything out of nothing, since some things were noted as missing, so I’m inclined to believe that something new had once been something else. And the transfiguration that’s been done throughout the show hasn’t shown that mass matters, unless magic was also involved in that.) I don’t even think it’s an issue of whether she’s an alicorn or not, although I lean toward them being especially powerful if Twilight can match Tirek with the magic of four when he has the rest of Equestria’s magic and Discord’s.
If you still feel that Flurry can’t do what she’s done, we’ll just have to agree to disagree.
10027559
This is precisely why I started to become a bit... dissatisfied with the show sometime after Starlight's introduction.
I have absolutely nothing against her as a character. But her presence coincides with the writers using magic more as a plot device than usual. More casually, I should specify.
I mean, in the beginning of the show, it was just a set of abilities. No real "mechanics", just who was good at magic and who wasn't, and who had studied more. But aside from some cartoon physics, it was relatively sensible at what could and couldn't be done, and if something was done that was impressive, it usually held some sort of consequence, whether energy or burnout, or something.
Leading up to "Twilight's Kingdom" the show writers started to subtly use the fan theories on how magic worked. Or the theories were just what the writers had in mind to begin with. Nevertheless, when that episode confirmed that pegasi flew by magic (and not their too-small wings), and earth ponies had some sort of magical strength, I was ecstatic, despite a few minor plot holes that finale had.
Starlight's first appearance made a sort of sense. She had studied for as long as Twilight, if not longer, as Twilight stopped her intense study of magic to focus on friendship. And that spell of hers was her life's work, so beating Twilight with it made sense. But once she messed with time (in a different way than time travel had been introduced before), and became part of the main crew, her magic, and by extension, most other magic just became a "do whatever you want" card.
I mean, I still enjoyed the show, and they got better at handling Starlight later. In fact, I love how friendship magic was expanded upon.
Flurry Heart, though, was introduced at the peak of the problem, and was the poster child of it. And with her freakishly large wings, it was even hard for me to find her cute. (It also cemented Baby Cakes, one of the early episodes that "weakened" magic canon to serve a plot, as hard canon.) That was even before the alicorn stuff that ruined a lot of headcanon.
The sense of helplessness I felt as I watched the episode was very similar to Kyle's here. So while I find this scenario unlikely, where Flurry Heart has the ability to change a person's form and instincts, and change a room entirely to her liking, especially after her errant magic was sealed, it was extremely easy to suspend my disbelief for the purposes of the story. It fits Flurry's "character" perfectly.
(I have enjoyed Flurry Heart in other things. I can't really keep a level of hate for practically anything.)
10023079
Or the planet Earth. It might start pointing upward as they travel.
10027436
I think Flurry Heart in this instance is employing Gen 1 wish magic. My theory is they can just wish when they're babies and they can get stuff that's important to them. When they're older they lose it or are educated out of it. I think because Ponies are inherently lawful they want to use systems and theories of how things work. Discord because he's chaotic just does it without worrying about how he does it. Discord, if he'd bother, would know how it works but it is not important to him. He might be a Yoda... "do or do not, there is no try." The only thing limiting baby unicorns is raw power. Flurry as an Alicorn has that in spades. So her wishes are more powerful.
There are a lot of double paragraph breaks in here for no clear reason. Accident?
I just learned that Radiant Hope is a character in the comics, not just an EAW added character, so I feel rather stupid now.
You should really specifically mention the subject when switching from one "she" to another...
That's probably as close to the truth as they can get
Whoops, next victim of the subtle mind-bending magic. She's calling Kyle "sis" now.
Fairly sure that somewhere along the way you'll have to take the second star to the right and then go on till the morning comes
10044234
Yeah Flurry Heart's introduction was definitely not handled the best if you ask me. One episode "we're going to be parents" next episode baby with Celestia sized wings.
I sincerely hope that Flurry Heart was actually a year or three old when we met her...otherwise big ouchies for mama.
That being said I agree that the show suffered from a case of what I refer to as "too many cooks syndrome" add some corporate meddling and yeah.
Is that the mantra you want to go with? You already look crazy.
Either Cadance yanked that spell very hard that make Twilight nearly tumble or that Twilight is too tired to even stand and a slight yank made her lose balance. I can't tell. Probably a little of both.
10840754
yeah. storyline after that season is a mess.
like. celestia can't take over luna job? a pegasus filly can outsmarts everponies. then got life sentence into the place that's literally hell.