Fantasy
The Soul of a Pony
Chapter 1: Fantasy
"No, no, no! That's not right at all!"
"Uhh, Twilight? You're yelling at books again."
Spike had come to Twilight’s bedroom to make sure she was ready to leave. They’d scheduled a nice group dinner with the rest of their closest friends for that night, and the time was drawing near. Unfortunately, the unicorn had apparently become so lost in her books that she’d forgotten what day it was. Again.
Twilight jumped at the unexpected intrusion to her reading, then relaxed when she realized it was only Spike.
"Sorry Spike," she said, an embarrassed flush rising to her cheeks. "It's just this book! The descriptions of magic are completely wrong! You'd think the author had never even heard of unicorns before!"
Her assistant peered at the cover questioningly. "The Blackstone Cases?" he read aloud. "You know that's a fantasy series, right?" Her behavior was beginning to worry him. Obviously, Twilight always took her reading seriously, but she could at least tell fact from fiction. Most of the time, anyway.
Twilight sighed. "I know, it's just…" she started as she set the book down on her dresser. "The rest of the book is so good. The characters are well-written, the setting is believable, but the magic is just… wrong."
Spike scratched his head with a claw. "Isn't that sort of the point? It is fantasy, after all," he noted. "The rules are supposed to be different." Suddenly, he remembered why he'd come upstairs in the first place. "Oh yeah!" he exclaimed. "It's almost dinnertime! We have to get going if we want to get there in time."
Of course, Twilight thought to herself. I promised I'd meet up with the others tonight. She could deal with the book later, she decided, before following Spike down the stairs and into the cool evening.
Sleep refused to visit Twilight that night, despite all her efforts to welcome it. She tossed and turned beneath her covers, unable to get comfortable. The real problem, of course, was her mind: no matter what she tried, Twilight couldn't get her thoughts to stop racing. A certain something in that book had her brain tied up and wouldn't let go. She hadn’t even been able to focus on dinner.
Groaning in frustration, Twilight flipped over onto her other side, glaring at the thin volume on her dresser. Luna's moon was a waxing gibbous, not quite full, but getting close. Its light fell through the window of the bedroom, illuminating the aggravating text in a silver pool. It's not going to let me sleep, Twilight realized. Darn you, book. This is your fault.
The book remained silent, unfazed by the angry mare. It was the first in a long series, centering on the life of Blackstone, a unicorn detective. Shining Armor, her older brother, had recommended it to her. Apparently, the snarky protagonist had reminded him of her.
Ridiculous, she thought. Blackstone is nothing like me. And his magic shouldn’t work.
After a few more seconds of internal debate, she lit the lamp on her bedside table with her own, much more sensible magic. Then, throwing off the covers with an exasperated sigh, she retrieved the book and sat down to finally put her thoughts to rest.
Now, where was that infernal passage? Her horn aglow, she flipped through the pages at a dizzying speed, barely glancing at the words flashing by.
Aha! This looks familiar!
Twilight's frantic search had stopped for the moment, the book now open to a description of the main character fighting off a vampire. Evidently, this was not the part she was looking for, as she quickly resumed turning the pages, albeit much more slowly and carefully than before.
It wasn't that much after the vampire… There!
She'd finally found it, the passage that had captured her imagination. Twilight studied it intensely, all hope of a good night's sleep now gone.
“A mountain of gems? For me?” Spike asked, awestruck.
“But of course! Nothing less would suit such a brave and handsome dragon as yourself.”
Spike nodded, before making a sweeping, graceful bow. He made for quite an impressive sight: a full five-and-a-half feet tall, with rock-hard scales and powerful muscles. It was only natural that Lady Rarity should be madly in love with him, especially given how he’d saved her from imprisonment at the hands of the tyrannical Dark Lord Blueblood.
“I am honored, milady,” he said. “It is a beautiful gift. Though not, I fear, as beautiful as the giver.” Oh yeah. I'm smooth.
Lady Rarity blushed, giggling. “Oh Sir Spike, you flatterer! But this simply will not do,” she declared, the laughter fading from her voice.
“Whatever do you mean, milady?”
“I simply cannot abide the thought of your bravery going without proper reward. Second-best is not good enough!” She shook her head, her perfect lavender curls bouncing at the motion. “No, you must have the most beautiful prize of all.”
“Oh?” Here it comes, he thought.
“Sir Spike,” she whispered, leaning in close. Her eyes shimmered, sparkling brighter than all the gems in the world.
“Yes?” Spike replied, breathless. Say it, he silently urged. Tell me to kiss you!
“Wake up!”
“Spike! Wake up! We’ve got work to do!” Twilight shook him again. “Spike!”
“Wha-?” he answered, groggily. “Rarity?”
“Research!” Twilight corrected. “Come on, there’s no time to lose!” Without waiting for a response, she levitated Spike out of the basket he called a bed and carried him down the stairs.
Spike grumbled and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, too tired to care that he was floating several feet above the ground. “Research? On what? Can’t you get Owloysius to help you instead?” He was still miffed at being woken up. That dream had been one of the best yet.
“He’s asleep. I had him helping all night,” Twilight explained, as she reached the main floor of the library with her floating assistant.
“All night?” Spike asked, concern showing in his voice, replacing the annoyance. “What about sleep?” Then he noticed something rather worrying about the library around him. “Why is everything upside down?”
“Oh, sorry.” She flipped him right-side up and set him down on the floor. “Anyway,” she said, “I need you to find me that reference on mind-magic. The big one.”
“The Mind’s Eye? Or did you mean Hidden Thoughts?”
“Hidden Thoughts,” she replied immediately. “No, wait, bring both.”
Spike found the texts easily and brought them to the desk where Twilight sat. Several books were piled up on top of it, with still more scattered on the surrounding floor. She obviously hadn’t been kidding about working all night.
“What do you need these for?” Spike asked. He was used to Twilight's unhealthy study habits by now, but that didn’t mean he was any less concerned about her. When she really got into something, she’d often forget little details, like eating or sleeping. He could only hope this would be over with before she made herself sick.
“Hm?” came the distracted response. “Oh, good, you brought them. I couldn’t sleep last night because I kept thinking about that Blackstone book, and this piece of magic I read about in it, and I had to know if it was real.” She had a large notebook open in front of her, and she would occasionally look up from one of the books on her desk to scribble something in it. All Spike could make out were a bunch of confusing magical symbols and, at the top of the page, underlined several times, the word “soulgaze”.
Author's Note: Well, here it is. My first ever attempt at fanfiction of any kind. Obviously, the soulgaze is from The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher. I wanted to see what would happen if you soulgazed a pony, but I didn't want to try writing a crossover as my first work. So, I just borrowed the idea, threw together a semi-plausible way that it could exist in Equestria, and here we are. Please, don't hold back with your criticisms. I won't get better unless I know what I'm doing wrong.
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I love you for your reference already.
Time to read :D
Edit: Good use of sentence structure and grammar.
Usage of proper punctuation and paragraphs, along with pacing and an overall good feel to your style of typing/writing is refreshing after all of the trainwrecks I've come across recently.
Sir, you've gained a favouriter, and maybe even a follower.
images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110804163643/fantendo/images/c/cc/Twilight-clap.gif
And now I want to read The Blackstone Cases.
Well written, both from a technical and a story viewpoint. I'm interested in seeing how you handle the soulgazes.
Note: If you haven't read them, I would suggest reading The Dresden Fillies: Strange Friends and The Dresden Fillies: False Masks by Psychicscubadiver. Both stories are excellently written and people have, mostly jokingly, speculated that he's actually Jim Butcher, because of how similar his writing is to Butcher's. There's a scene in Strange Friends where Twilight and Dresden soulgaze that might give you some inspiration.
*Gasp*
People actually enjoy my writing? My life is a lie!
But seriously, thanks for the feedback. It means a lot. As for The Dresden Fillies (and My Little Denarians, for that matter), I have read them.
I've read exactly zero of the Dresden Files books, but this story might just be the final push to get me to take the plunge. Tl;dr awesome story, moving on to chapter two.
1259364
How was your first comment tl;dr? It was a single sentence.
Interesting concept you have my attention.
I like this concept! Definately going to follow this!
Good job
That happens to me all the time...
...I feel for you Twi... I'sa feel for you...
This is impressive for a first fic.
Normally I say "Keep up the good work" but I can see you already have.
So, I guess...
I will now go and read the good work that you kept up with!
1416489 Don't you just HATE when that happens?
1239807 There's also Forever! and My Little Denarians, by Chengar Qordath, but I don't recall mention of Soulgaze in them--- through the Denarians one has alot more battemagic use than the others.
No idea what Soulgaze is. Don't exactly care, just want to enjoy the story.
>Please, don't hold back with your criticisms. I won't get better unless I know what I'm doing wrong.
Saying that is known as Doing It Right™
1710358 >alot
Heh, doing a quick vanity search on Google yields my Dwarf Fortress forum account first, followed by my FimFiction account. That pretty much sums me up, there.
In tangentially related news, how is SoaP not on TVTropes yet? I know it's bad form to ask for a page, but c'mon people, it's always been my dream!
I love your work
Soulgaze, huh?
I don't know what that is but it sounds cool!
I'm definitely going to enjoy this, and it's sequel.
Okay, you have me intrigued. I shall have to see where this fic takes me.
There's a fic called "The Dresden Fillies" here (with proper sequels, too) that actually starts out with an accidental soulgaze... ;]