Just Like Magic of Old

by computerneek

Chapter 20

“...Hang on,” Lunar Wing mutters, squinting at her panel.

Flight looks up at her. “What is it?” They’d descended successfully down into the ocean; it’s now been about a day and a half since the splashdown, almost three full days since her decision to land. She’s swimming the ship towards the shore- and about three hours away from the subsurface parking location they’d selected on the way down.

Wing glances up. “I’ve been looking over the footage we captured on the way in, and I haven’t seen a single thestral. And, there seems to be a much higher proportion of adults to youth than anywhere we’re aware of.”

She scowls. “They must have longer lifespans. Maybe it’s the magic? In any case, that kinda takes out all our options, doesn’t it? Most of the crew is thestrals.”

Night Skies nods. “And the rest below age ten.” She looks over at Wing. “Any suggestion at what age a local is considered an adult?”

Wing scowls. “Haven’t seen anything definite, but I’ve found what looks like a higher education institution up in that mountain city- and several smaller schools scattered across the nation, one or more per town. They seem to be attended by anything from foals- age five or six- to mid-teens. So, if I had to guess… Fifteen, twenty?”

“Great,” Flight grumbles, and looks sideways at Skies. “I think we might want to build Coils’ wind tunnel- and make sure we all know how to fly before we go exploring. It’d be good to actually have the abilities ponies will assume we have. We can keep the stuff they won’t assume hidden, just in case.”

---

“Soo… now what?” Flight asks. It’s been a few weeks since the “landing”; the recon probe she’d launched has been in geosynchronous orbit for a few days, and confirmed Wing’s observations. The wind tunnel had been a soaring success, and everypony had learned to fly- though while the thestrals adjusted fairly quickly to their flight power, and thus didn’t crash more than once or twice across the bunch of them, nopony acquired more bruises than Flight herself. Coils had, rather fortunately in Flight’s opinion, already been able to flap her wings in time with each other.

So some of the thestrals had come out to the village they’d parked near… only for all the locals to scream and vanish into their homes or other structures. The recon drone had spotted an armored pegasus flying away from town at the same time, in the direction of that mountain town.

Now, everypony came with- after some judicious use of makeup and, in Flight’s case, a dress, to hide all the bruises. And… ponies still vanished into their homes. They’d walked to the middle of town, and paused to look around. Star and Coils had tried knocking on a few doors, but only managed to make screaming houses.

Skies looks around the town square, and the abandoned market stalls. “I don’t know. At this rate, they might be less frightened if we came in powered armor with the ship floating overhead.”

Flight blinks a couple of times. “I… Actually, I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“Incoming,” Wing announces, pointing up into the sky.

Flight follows her hoof, recognizing the twitch left over from the mare’s habits of using Hands, to find… it looks like a large, dark blue version of herself, with both wings and horn. And… Yes, that looks like a crown as well. She scowls. “Princess or queen?”

“She matches one of the two we’ve seen on murals, and the auditory arrays haven’t ever heard the term ‘queen’, only ‘princess’, so…” Wing shrugs. “Looks to be one of a diarchy, though what they call her I’m not sure.”

Flight blinks, as the incoming pony comes near. “Wait. You mean to tell me that the common pony screams and hides in fear around here, so they send in a member of the royal family…” She looks up at the incoming pony, who is very definitely within earshot by now. “With no guards?”

The incoming royal snorts, marching industriously forwards after her touchdown. “We need no guards,” she declares… and her horn glows briefly, launching all the thestrals out to sea in but a moment.

Flight immediately crouches down, spreading her wings to cover the other two. Her dress rips clean in half in the process, but at this point, she doesn’t care. “Don’t touch them,” she orders.

The royal, however, stares at her for two seconds… before her horn starts glowing briefly. Her blue aura appears around Flight as well… then both ponies vanish into thin air.

---

Princess Luna could hardly believe what had happened. She’d gotten word early this morning that some strange, pony-like creatures had been sighted in that coastal town, looking around… and everypony wanted to know if she thought they were safe. They’d been described as ‘creatures of the night’, so she’d come.

They’d been there in force… with three foals. A dark grey-brown unicorn colt, a blonde-maned, grey pegasus filly, and a blue-and-white-maned, mint green unicorn filly with a dress. The pegasus had been very visibly favoring one leg, and the creatures had looked more monster than pony, so she’d banished them from the town.

The unicorn filly- who had greeted her by asking after her guards, not something an undistressed pony usually does- had responded by spreading the wings that were hidden under her dress, splitting the dress in half in the same motion… and revealing extensive bruising.

She hadn’t heard the filly’s words while she stared in shock; she had not expected to find a filly princess. Realizing that, and knowing just how dangerous an angry, despairing, injured, or otherwise distressed Alicorn can be, she’d then taken the filly back to Canterlot Castle in a single teleport… and, immediately upon arrival, used a quick cleaning charm to clean any open wounds the filly might still have.

She’d been wholly unprepared for the result. As it turns out, the filly’s coat had been dyed, hiding even more extensive bruising all over.

She can’t stop herself. She grabs the poor filly up in a hug, holding her tight. “Oh, you poor thing,” she begins. “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure-!”

With a bang and a momentary glow of gold, she suddenly finds the filly forced out of her grip- and herself flying rapidly backwards through the air, straight into her drawing desk, which fractures apart.

It takes her a couple of seconds to recover- and mourn the loss of the drawing desk- before she realizes what the filly is doing, having fallen back to the floor.

She’s gasping for air.

She nearly facehooves; she’d been crushing the poor filly to death in an effort to comfort her.

Which was, almost certainly, not the most comforting thing she could have done.

---

Princess Short Flight scowls at the wall across the room, sitting defiantly in the middle of the floor. The royal mare had attacked her, multiple times- and so, she’d fought back. By now, she’s fairly sure the mare is trying to pamper her… and failing dismally. Not only is the mare not listening to a word she says, but she seems to think she’ll be interested in baby toys.

Now, after a good few hours of varied combat, capture, and evasion, she’s run out of ideas… and so she’s allowing the mare to drive that scratchy brush violently through her mane while she searches for an opening that might afford her an escape.

She scans the carnage for a second. Nearly everything in the room had been destroyed during the fight. Two desks have been reduced to splinters, one that she never got a good look at until after it died, and one a worktable with important-looking documents littering it. The massive chandelier had been reduced to very tiny fragments all over the bed, which had then been… popped, for lack of a better term, when a solid kick had sent the mare into it so hard it’s now about six inches long. Naturally, broken glass had gone everywhere after that. Both nightstands had been demolished; one still vaguely recognizable and on the other side of the room from the bed, having been thrown as ammunition, and the other embedded in the ceiling from when she’d hidden under it.

The bathroom door, and surrounding wall, had been shattered by multiple hits, of both physical and magical sorts; all of the porcelain inside is in fragments, and only a frantic valve turn by the mare had kept the thing from flooding the entire castle. During that valve turn, she’d nearly gotten away, through the balcony doors that landed somewhere in the gardens below. Six bookshelves have been reduced to cinders; three more to splinters, when used as clubs. The books, to pulp.

The closet door is lying flat on the floor, snapped clean in two; the mare had retrieved some baby supplies from it early on, before getting kicked- baby bed wrapped around her barrel- straight back into it for some rather loud crashing. That’d been the first near-escape, which had been foiled by some kind of magic wards on the main exit doors.

Even the ceiling has taken its fair share of hits. There’s fragments of marble everywhere, and at least one cake- she’s not entirely sure where they came from, but they’d afforded her another near-escape, this time through one of the new windows- had hit the ceiling so hard it’s still up there.

Oh, and there’s at least six new windows, two of which are larger than the balcony doorway itself. And, the mare now has more bruises than she does, though she’s acquired a few new ones of her own as well. The fancy armor that had been proudly displayed on a stand in the corner is now all over the floor, crumpled like tinfoil and shredded apart, the gemstones embedded in it all blown to smithereens. There’s even a couple rings the mare had used to block her from using her horn- but when she’d pushed hard enough with her mind, those rings had exploded as well- and violently, at that. The first one had disoriented the mare long enough she actually made it outside before the mare caught her and dragged her back in.

Very suddenly, a potential opportunity presents itself… though, she’s pretty sure it’ll only be an opportunity if she pretends to have fully calmed down.

A voice is drifting in from outside, and seems to be catching the mare’s attention- reminding her of something important, it would seem. If she’s lucky, she’ll be able to convince the mare that she’ll stay… then that something important takes her attention far enough away for long enough for her to escape.

Author's Note:

Land Ho!

... Sorry, Luna.

Patreon, Discord.

Comments

[Venerable Ro]

Well this is a right proper argy-bargy. Curious that there's apparently no such thing as a thestral on Equestria, I'm sure this won't have immediate and pressing consequences.

Short Flight's worked with spacers yeah? She should unpack the full lexicon of that venerable profession's profanity, with accompanying descriptive gestures. There's really nothing that shatters assumptions and premeditated plans like vibrantly descriptive cursing where it's not supposed to be.

[Argentyros]

Interesting take on a possible deviation in maturation times, given that Flight, while still a filly, should be seen as old enough at 8 to at least talk to normally, even if her education is far beyond norms on Equestria, you'd think a pony would still expect her to be capable of some kind of response.

Poor thestrals, even on Equestria, they're still immediately believed to be up to no good.

Flight training bruises, oh how you've been misinterpreted, lol.

[borgvicugna]

10203977
Poor thestrals, indeed. Guess they "will" be back, with ship in hoof.
🎱🎱
._/^U\_

[LostArchivist]

Well, that was not what I was expecting. It's even funnier!

There are cultural misunderstandings, and then there's that. Aggressively pampering a diplomat (even if that part isn't known) "for their own good" has to be a new one!

[hyperburn3r]

interesting that either the thestrals apparently look a bit odder than the general fan interpretations of "pegasus but with bat wings and cat eyes" in this universe, or the equestrians have a very low cutoff for "monstrous"

leaning towards the latter, to be honest

[keybounce]

So many "wtf?" here.

First: How did they go undetected? How did neither Luna nor Celestia notice something new in the sky? Or the landing into the water?

Second: The spaceship is an underwater capable craft? The same wind tunnel design will work for practice in outerspace and in a gravity well?

Third: Why did Luna attack first? Realize: These creatures were peacefully standing in town. They were not attacking anyone.

Fourth: Once teleported back to the castle, and "I will hug you and hold you" / "I can't breath" (that WAS a Loony-toons shout out, right?), we find that Luna apparently attacked multiple times? I would think that she would have done nothing but basically take whatever Flight tried to do, and not done anything but trying to talk to her.

Fifth: Why does she think Flight would be interested in baby toys?

[computerneek]

10395666
So many good questions.

First: They didn't approach undetected. However, because of the measures they took, nopony was able to localize them. And they descended over open ocean, no terrain- or ships- in sight, so they weren't seen descending.

Second: Yes, it's apparently an amphibious craft. See the Starship Enterprise in that one Next Generation clip... As for the wind tunnel design, yes- because in both locations, the ship's artificial gravity is powerful enough to override the environmental gravity, and provide exactly the same gravitational environment to the wind tunnel. Which probably meant a reduced gravitational strength (and tunnel force) for initial training, then up to full 1.0g- and for the hardcore ones, even harder. We all know the ship can do it...

Third: Because she let her first impression rule her, saw their sharp teeth and Coils' learn-to-fly bruises, and assumed they were monsters. Ergo, attack. They're lucky she didn't go for something lethal.

Fourth: Yes, Luna's foalsitting skills are quite rusty. She's had a thousand years to forget...

And five: Same as #4, she can't foalsit to save her life. Once Celestia figures it out, you can bet she's going to be refreshing Luna's skills to keep such a disaster from happening again.