Restoring a wasteland.

by Aiwhisper

Ch9. Day two.

The storm had finally ended and the five us were sitting outside on one of the castle’s many balconies overlooking the city proper. The weather was finally getting closer to what Spring should have been in Equestria after the rain cooled everything off so we had decided to eat breakfast outside.

“What a dump.” Rainbow broke the silence while we looked over the city from the railing after eating.

“Rainbow!” Fluttershy and I shot her a look.

“What?” She shrugged. “Look at it out there.” She motioned with her forehooves.

“No, it is a bit…” Sunset didn’t want to finish as she looked over Canterlot.

“Decrepit, destroyed, destitute, dilapidated?” Twilight listened, apparently stuck on the letter ‘D’.

“I was going to say rundown but thank you Twilight.” Sunset sarcastically replied with an agitated flick of her tail.

“You’re welcome.” She smiled, missing the sarcasm Causing the rest of us to groan quietly.

“Honestly it’s not as bad as I feared.” The girls all looked my way when I spoke up. “Sure almost all the buildings have heat or fire damage but at least the important structures like the Library and utility building look intact.” I pointed out. Both buildings were in similar shape to the castle, probably due to their higher level enchantments. Plenty of mansions looked to still be intact for similar reasons, even if they most likely had been cleared out in the exodus making them basically useless. “Oh and the train station looks in relatively good shape too.”

“Library?” Was all Twilight heard.

”And look, there’s some green out there.” Rainbow pointed off in the distance towards the Everfree forest. It was hardly a forest at this point but a swath of trees were still alive at it’s core with more sporting fresh buds.

“I should have know that forest would survive.” Sunset begrudgingly smiled.

“Why’s that?” Twilight asked With a tilt of her head.

“The Everfree has been filled with wild magic for centuries causing all kinds of strange phenomena and is home to all kinds of wild animals and beasts, or it was. To bad we can’t really use it for anything except maybe wood.” She sighed.

“Looking at it all really makes you realize how much work there is.” Fluttershy gulped. They all too another look over the now muddy landscape, crumbling buildings, and other issues around the city and beyond.

“Well we do have a plan in place At least.” Sunset proudly stated.

“We do?” Twilight’s eyes sparkled at the thought of proper plans.

“Yep.” Sunset nodded. “Step one is securing the castle and getting our food growing. Step two getting the portal unlocked so we can travel whenever we want. Step three is somehow finding volunteers to move here.”

Rainbow held up her hooves. “Hold up, aren’t those some fairly big steps?”

“Yes~?” Sunset winced as she held the ‘s’.

“Just checking.” Rainbow nodded at the accepted answer while Twilight’s jaw hung open.

“There will of course be more to it than that however we don’t exactly have the best details for the plan.” I spoke up trying to calm Twilight down as her eye twitched.

“Plan? That’s hardly an outline.” She finally had enough and yelled while throwing her hooves up so fast she rolled onto her back, mumbling about getting stuck in pony land with no plans.

“Just remember you followed us.” Sunset booped her nose causing Twilight’s eyes to cross.

“Lets just focus on today shall we?” I smiled at their antics as Rainbow and Fluttershy were having a side conversation.

“Please tell me you have a proper plan then?” Twilight begged as she sat back up.

“The start of one yes. I figured you and Sunset could get working on fixing the wards to recognize only our magical signatures while myself and these two.” I motioned to Rainbow and Fluttershy who began paying attention again. “We will scout out a good place on the grounds to start farming and maybe practice some more flying.”

“Sounds great.” Rainbow smiled at the idea of more flight practice.

“That is a good idea, what about keeping in contact though?” Sunset rubbed her chin.

“I brought walkies.” I smiled before reminding her of all the other tech I brought. The other girls looked surprised.

“Wait you brought computers and movies to a magical land?” Rainbow laughed.

“Hey you’re going to thank me after a few months.” I smirked as she stopped laughing while Fluttershy just nodded. Twilight had gained a contemplative look and said she could work with that under her breath.

“Well now that we have a plan let’s get moving.” Sunset grabbed the remnants of breakfast in her magic and we followed her inside.

---

“So what exactly are we looking for here?” Rainbow had gotten the hang of hovering and was following along with Fluttershy and I as we traversed the castle grounds.

“Mainly just an open area we can start a large food garden.” I looked around. There were statues, dead plants, and other remains that was making the search difficult.

“What if we just cleared out a spot?” Fluttershy asked while looking at the dead remains of the hedge maze. Rainbow added in her agreement with Fluttershy.

I shook my head, “we could. I was just hoping to find an easier place to start without having to clear an area. Especially considering…” I pulled the walkie from my saddle bag and pressed the talk button.

“Hey Sunset? Over.” I released the button.

“Yeah? Over.” She eventually responded and I could hear her chuckling.

“Do you care if we move any of the statues around or anything. There’s not as much open space as I was hoping for. Over.” The other girls chuckled at us using walkies in the age of cellphones.

“Sure. I would rather have plenty to eat than worry about how the castle grounds look out there. Now I need to get back to focusing so over and out.” I put the device back in my bag and focused back on Rainbow and Fluttershy.

“Guess that answers that.” We continued the search and eventually found a good spot to clear out near one of the fountains after considering it would be useful as a water source.

The first thing to go was all the dead bushes and plants. I ripped them up using magic while the other two piled them onto a freshly made bonfire and all of us chatting idly.

---

After Sunset put the radio away she turned back towards Twilight who had been taking notes.

“Now where we’re we?” Sunset tapped her chin.

“You were just explaining the various wards on the castle and how you’re changing them.” Twilight answered.

“Right.” Sunset clapped her hooves. “So the castle wards are very unique. They allow for the Princess, her staff, or any other people to enter most areas without issue and can be modified, relatively easily, to add and remove ponie’s access to various rooms.”

“Kind of like a bunch of accounts of various permissions for the same computer.” Twilight didn’t look up from her notes.

“Um, right. Anyway what we are doing is removing everyone except the five of us from the wards so we can enter and exit the private areas of the castle without issues and our magic won’t be limited anywhere. Not that mine currently is but the rest of you do have limits.” Sunset lit her horn and began modifying some of the magic, the gems around her neck glowed faintly as she worked.

“Limited?” Twilight looked up from her notes.

“Yeah, unknown to the public, the wards around the castle weaken the magic of anyone not on the ‘list’, for lack of a better term, while the guards and such are unencumbered. I myself currently have the highest authority over all the wards as Celestia’s daughter which is why I can modify them without much trouble. Even if it’s time consuming to do every area.”

“What would happen if I had tried?” Twilight’s academic curiosity getting the best of her.

“It depends. In most of the lower security areas it would trigger an alarm if you couldn’t overcome the ward. In other areas, like the vault, it would knock you out and give you quite the shock of pain.” She slowly replied as she finished the section she had been working on.

“Why even have wards if they just sound an alarm?” Twilight asked.

“Well that’s not all they do. Like I mentioned, Anyone not on the list has their magic restricted so things like teleportation and other large spells won’t work on the castle grounds. It gets fairly complicated on a place like this which has wards built up over hundreds of years. Simpler wards normally can’t be modified after the fact, so you have to dispel them and replace them with new ones that have your changes.”

“Wait.” Twilight scratched her head as they stopped walking to the next ward point. “So why would anyone bother with wards that you can’t modify later?”

“Oh many reasons, mostly it’s cost. The magic cost and the cost of proper materials you can embed the wards into. Have you noticed how all the hallways have gold trim?” Sunset posted it out. “That’s not just a design choice, gold is a great magical conductor with silver then copper being next in line. The gold allows for magic to flow into the wards easier through the castle walls from us Alicorns.”

“So you’re powering all the wards right now?” Twilight looked shocked as Sunset shook her head.

“Not exactly. The wards collect the excess ambient magic and store it so they can last a really long time without maintenance but, they are significantly better off if an alicorn like Mom or myself is around to help power them directly especially if they come under attack.” Sunset motioned for them to continue walking.

“This is all making a good amount of sense.” Twilight followed along while writing more notes. “By the way I meant to ask earlier but what are those gems around your neck? I noticed Dawn has a set as well he doesn’t always wear and they don’t look like just decoration.”

“These are the elements of Harmony.” She lifted up the necklace with her hoof. “Each gem is a powerful artifact that have been around as long as anyone can remember. The represent core values of pony kind.” Sunset continued her explanation as Twilight listened intently.

---

“So, what now?” Rainbow asked. They now had a significant part of the area cleared out of plants and artwork.

“Now, we take a break.” I huffed. I had used quit a bit of magic ripping up dead plants then moving statues and benches around.

“I’ll go get us some lunch.” Fluttershy then flew off towards the castle.

“So do you really think we can restore this place?” Rainbow sat down next to me and looked over our work. The fire was still burning strong as we would need the ashes for fertilizer.

“Honestly. I don’t know. Sure we can restore the buildings and the land but it’s the ponies we can’t easily bring back. A city is only as good as those that live in it after all.” Rainbow nudged my side just as Fluttershy came back with some pasta.

“Here you go.” She said sweetly and laid out the food.

“Thanks Fluttershy.” Rainbow and I both said while digging in. When we finally finished and the fire had burned out we began spreading the ashes on the freshly cleared area and I used my magic to till the soil. Rainbow and Fluttershy followed behind planting seeds though not without complaints.

“I can’t believe I’m doing farm work. We really should have brought AJ along.” Rainbow had just finished a row.

“You know she couldn’t leave like we could Dash.” Fluttershy tapped another stake into the ground for the row of tomatoe plants.

“Yeah I know. I would just rather be doing weather work.” She sighed.

“Well you’re about to get your chance.” I said, having just finished planting my own row of seeds. “It’s time to water everything.”

“Um, didn’t it just stop raining?” Fluttershy meekly asked.

“Yes but we are doing it mostly to add our magic into the water and soil.” I lead them over to the fountain that was running after the rain had refilled everything. “First things first you two, making a cloud. I read up on the process myself so we’ll all be learning.”

“Wait you haven’t done this either?” Rainbow looked surprised.

“Nope. Now we need to slowly swirl the air above the water and pull the moisture into a small ‘seed cloud’ first.” We all began trying to form a cloud when.

“I got one.” Rainbow held a small cloud in her hooves just before I got mine. Fluttershy was having a harder time but eventually made one.

“Great job Rainbow. Okay now that we all have a seed we slowly add some water to them for making rain clouds.” The clouds quickly expanded as we added the water. Eventually we stopped once they were a reasonable size and moved on.

“Next we just tap them with our hooves and think ‘rain’ while hitting them and let them rain over the seeds.” Fluttershy was a bit nervous to hit her cloud at first but once they were all raining and shrinking we got the fields watered. Rainbow hoped up on here’s before it was completely gone and had it stop raining then yelled out.

“This is awesome! I’m riding on a cloud. Oh man is this thing soft.” She nuzzled it then began snoring moments later. Fluttershy and I laughed at that before we laid on our own clouds and cooed at the softness.

“It’s like laying on a…” Fluttershy stared saying before her eyes went wide. “It is a cloud!”

Her unexpected shout caused Rainbow to snort. “I’m up, I’m up.”

I laughed at there antics then released my cloud into the sky.

“Why let it go like that?” Rainbow tilted her head, still atop her own cloud.

“Well I just remembered something, since clouds we make are filled with Pegasus magic, by releasing it above the castle it will help keep the weather in check. One won’t really do much but if we make some more.~” I smiled and Rainbow got the hint and released hers. The three of us the proceeded to make clouds until dinner.

---

“Why are there so many wards? I hope the others work is going smoothly.” Sunset huffed.

“Is it really that difficult?” Twilight had finished her notes and was instead practicing her magic by floating two small objects in an orbit around her.

“Not really, it’s just the amount of points you have to modify. I can’t just change the castle wards all in one go since they were designed against that kind of tampering.” She sighed.

“I’m surprised the princess didn’t have a way to change them all at once.” Twilight tapped her chin. “Like a master key or something.”

“If she did mom never told me about it. We at least made some good progress today.” Sunset checked off a box of her own list. She had managed to reconfigure about a fourth of the castle’s primary wards already.

“Sorry I couldn’t be more help. Maybe I should have helped the others with the garden.” Twilight’s ears fell.

“Nah you were great company and kept me on task.” Sunset bumped her. “I would have gone crazy doing this alone. Besides you’re practicing your magic in order to be more helpful in the future for this kind of work and that’s a great use of time.”

Twilight perked up at that. “Yeah. Thanks Sunset.”

“No problem Twi. Now why don’t we go meet up with the others for dinner. It’s about that time.” Sunset’s stomach grumbled.

Comments

[NevianDragonPhoenix]

Nice interaction and some magic lore I like it.
Personally I have silver and gold have similar affinity to magic but each has it upside like gold having higher capacity while silver purified any taint.
And that iron(and it alloys) ironically is the best conductor but it can't hold magic in itself, as well as warping magic in a way that poisonous to most magic beings in prolonged exposure. Cold iron is the 'best' alloys in this.