Chapter 4
A hoof poked Dinky ever so gently in the side. The filly did her best to ignore it.
The hoof poked again, and then a third time. Dinky groaned and shifted beneath the covers.
“Five more minutes, mom,” she grumbled, rolling over.
“Um, okay,” responded an apologetic voice that was definitely not Dinky’s mom. “I just didn’t want you to be late.”
Dinky rolled over and opened her eyes. Even with her vision still bleary from sleep, it was easy to tell that she wasn’t in her usual bedroom. She blinked a few times and remembered suddenly that she was at Celestia’s Academy, and it was Honeydew, not her mom, standing by her bedside.
“Oh, morning Honeydew,” she greeted softly.
“Good morning,” Honeydew replied. “I didn’t want to wake you, but we’re going to be late for class if you don’t get up. Most of the colts and fillies have probably already gone to the main hall for breakfast.”
Dinky glanced out the window and realized her roommate was right; the sun was higher in the sky than she would have liked.
“Is Clarity awake?” she asked. Honeydew shook her head.
Dinky climbed out of bed and shimmied up the ladder to Clarity’s bunk. She took a look at her roommate and couldn’t help but snicker.
Clarity was lying on her back with all four legs in the air, like a dog waiting to have its belly rubbed. Her ample mane was a mess; the wavy hair spread itself haphazardly all over her pillow. Her mouth hung open a tad, and a little drool was running down her cheek.
Dinky poked Clarity in the ribs. One of the sleeping filly’s hind legs twitched, but she didn’t stir. Dinky shook her gently, but she simply rolled onto her stomach, burying her face in the pillow in the process.
“Hey! Wake up, Sleeping Beauty!” Dinky said loudly.
Clarity’s ear twitched and she lifted her head. “What do you want?” she asked, not bothering to push her mane out of her eyes.
“We’re late,” Dinky said curtly. “Get up, or we’re gonna miss our first class.”
“Wha—?” Clarity glanced out the window, just as Dinky had. “Oh ponyfeathers, you’re right. Move over.”
Dinky climbed back down the ladder and Clarity quickly followed. The grey filly immediately made for her suitcase, but Dinky stopped when she noticed Honeydew was not only awake, but fully groomed and ready for class.
“How long have you been up for, Honeydew?” Dinky asked skeptically.
“About three hours,” Honeydew said matter-of-factly.
“Three hours?!” Clarity gasped. “Why?”
“I’m used to getting up at sunrise,” said Honeydew simply. “Though maybe now that I’m not living at home, I could try sleeping in now and then.”
“What did you do for three hours?” Dinky asked, shocked.
Honeydew shrugged. “Watched the sunrise, styled my mane a bit, packed my saddlebags, reviewed my schedule… you know. Little things.”
Clarity pulled her hairbrush out of her suitcase with a brief magical flash and began to yank it through her disastrous-looking mane. “Well good for you, seizing the day and all that!” she laughed.
Honeydew smiled and rubbed one of her front hooves against the back of the other shyly. “Speaking of schedules, my first class is called ‘Practical Magic.’ Do either of you have that class?”
“I’m pretty sure we all do,” Clarity said. “Practical Magic is required for first-term students.”
“Well, we’d better get going,” Dinky pointed out as she finished grooming her mane and tail as well. “We'll have to skip breakfast today; we’re going to have to move quickly to get there as it is.”
The trio of fillies grabbed their saddlebags and made for the stairwell of the residence tower.
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It was unusually warm for such an early spring day. It probably would have been an excellent morning to sit outside and enjoy oneself. Dinky and her friends were completely oblivious to the beautiful weather, unfortunately, as they barreled down the stone pathway and burst through the big castle doors.
“So Clarity,” Dinky asked between sharp breaths as the three of them quickly made their way up a long marble stairway, “what’s this ‘Practical Magic’ class about, anyway?”
“Well, as my sister would say, 'it’s an accelerated compound course that teaches the use of a group of simpler types of magic that are usually applicable to everyday life, rather than focusing on a specific discipline,'” Clarity explained. “Or as any normal pony would put it, the kind of magic you’d see the average unicorn use to perform daily tasks.”
“Like the sort of things in my beginner’s magic guide?” Dinky theorized, checking her saddlebag to make sure the aforementioned book was tucked safely inside.
“Sort of like that, but more complicated,” Clarity answered. “We all already know the simple stuff. The teacher’s going to expect that we’re already able to easily do things like cast light or carry objects.”
The trio arrived on the second floor and took a moment to catch their breath. The vaulted hallway was regularly punctuated with wooden doors, each bearing a golden number.
“These must be some of the classrooms,” Dinky guessed. “Honeydew, what room does the schedule say our class is in?”
Honeydew scrutinized the sheet of paper. “Room 201, at the end of the hall,” she answered.
The three fillies made for the classroom, but stopped short when another trio of ponies appeared from around the corner at the other end of the hall: The FrostFire Twins and their little brother, Scuffle.
“This is your classroom, bro,” Scorch said, motioning to the door. “We’ll see you later. Frosty and I have to head to… uh…” He paused and scratched his head. “What was it again?”
“Advanced enchantments,” Frosty said, crinkling his nose. “Dear Celestia, that class was so dull last year.”
The twins trotted off back the way they came, continuing to complain about their enchantments class. Scuffle waited until they had disappeared, then turned and entered room 201.
“Scuffle’s in this class,” Dinky groaned, her ears drooping in disappointment. “You think he’ll try to pick on us again?”
Honeydew shrunk back. “He’s a bully?” she asked meekly.
“Don’t sweat it, you two!” Clarity said encouragingly. “He won’t try anything when there’s a professor in the room. Besides, since all the first-term students have to take Practical Magic, it’ll probably be a huge class, unless they have a half-dozen different classes of it meeting throughout the week.”
Clarity led the way, taking the three fillies into the classroom.
The first thing Dinky noticed was the noise. Clarity had been right in her assumption that the class would be large; there were probably sixty or seventy colts and fillies, most of whom were chatting as they sat in rows of wooden desks. The walls of the classroom were adorned with posters and scrolls pertaining to specific spells. Interestingly, only half the classroom was filled with rows of desks. The other half was completely empty.
“Hi girls! Take your seats please, we’re about to start!” called a friendly male voice from the front of the room. Dinky looked in the direction of the call and recognized the green unicorn who had introduced the dean at the opening ceremony the night before. He grinned at the fillies and tilted his head subtly to a few open desks on the right side of the room, his greyish mane swaying as he did so.
Scuffle had taken a seat across the room, far away from the open desks, and was busy fumbling with his saddlebags, so the fillies had no trouble avoiding him as they trotted to the unoccupied chairs. The professor waited until the girls had taken their seats, and then gently closed the classroom door with magic. “Good morning, new students!” he called. “Welcome to your first class at Celestia’s Academy for Gifted Unicorns! My name is Professor Morningstar, and I’ll be your Practical Magic instructor during this term.”
The professor trotted to a large cabinet near his desk and opened it up, ignoring the cloud of dust that issued forth. His front half disappeared inside as he rummaged around, and Dinky took note of the eight-pointed white star marking his still visible flank.
“As you might know,” he continued, somewhat muffled as he dug through the contents of the cabinet, “Practical Magic is, by the standards of this Academy, an easy class. Unlike some of the other classes, which have gradually more advanced iterations for students in each year, Practical Magic is a class that you only need to take once. Once you move on to your second term, there will be plenty of electives available to fill the gap it will leave in your schedule.”
The professor finally pulled his head out of the cabinet, carrying a large pile of textbooks in his hazel-colored aura. He placed the mountain of tomes on his desk with a loud thump.
“So, let’s get right down to business!” he said in a peppy tone. “This is your textbook, Practical Magic: Advanced Application of Simple Spells. It’s also your first assignment; retrieve the textbook without leaving your seats.”
Professor Morningstar watched as one by one, the books were enveloped in multicolored light. They levitated across the room and touched down on the desks. A few books faltered in midair for a moment or two, but none dropped to the floor. Dinky watched the book she had selected float obediently over in its cloud of yellow light and drop down onto her desk.
“Not bad!” said Professor Morningstar appreciatively once all the books had reached their destinations. “I suppose this means each of you knows how to perform a basic levitation spell. I daresay you'd probably struggle a bit at this Academy if you didn’t.”
Dinky silently thanked Twilight Sparkle again for her lessons. She’d managed to retrieve her own book with more ease than some of the other ponies in the room, and that left her feeling hopeful.
“Now, go ahead and set the book aside for now,” the green stallion called, “and get out a quill and some paper. It’s time for our first, and probably most important, lecture in Practical Magic.”
The professor lit his horn, and a chalkboard on wheels came hurtling out of a closet, stopping just an inch or two before it would have barreled into the stallion. Unfazed, Morningstar picked up a piece of chalk and scrawled five big letters on the board: L.I.M.I.T.
“Limit!” the professor said aloud, as if the students didn’t realize the acronym was a common word. “This is the most important word in studying Practical Magic. Does anypony know why that is?”
Dinky had no idea, but perhaps unsurprisingly, Clarity raised her hoof.
“Yes, you! The little grey and blue filly.”
“L.I.M.I.T. is an acronym, isn’t it?” Clarity said haltingly. “It, uh… helps you remember the different types of Practical Magic, right?”
“Exactly right!” the professor replied enthusiastically. “There are five types of magic that make everyday tasks drastically easier for unicorns than they are for pegasi and earth ponies. For many unicorns, these five types of magic are the only ones they will ever learn to use, but here at the Academy, we condense them into a single class, since our students usually find them easy to master.”
Professor Morningstar drew a circle around the ‘L’ of L.I.M.I.T. “So, who can tell me what the first type of Practical Magic is?”
At least a dozen hooves were raised. The professor called on a studious-looking orange colt in the front of the room.
“Levitation,” he answered.
“Correct,” the professor said, swishing his tail in satisfaction as he scrawled ‘levitation’ on the board. “Levitation is one of the easiest and most straightforward types of magic we know of. Many foals learn to levitate objects before they can even walk properly. Levitation’s practical uses should go without saying; it allows the user to move any object from one place to another while expending virtually no physical effort. I’m sure none of you stood there dragging your suitcases up the stairs of the residence towers last night; you simply lifted them with magic and carried them along as if they were no heavier than those sheets of paper on your desks right now.”
He grinned. “Now, it’s one thing to be able to hold a bunch of objects. It’s another entirely to be able to differentiate between them while you’re holding many at once. Tell me, if I were to give you a stack of dishes and dining utensils, do you think you could set a table using nothing but magic, while holding all the objects in your aura simultaneously?”
No hooves went up this time.
“I thought not,” the professor laughed. “One thing we will be covering in this class is delicate and intricate use of levitation for handling many objects at once.”
He turned back to the board, circling the second letter. “Now, the first ‘I’ in L.I.M.I.T. stands for another very common type of magic: illumination! Illumination, in its most basic sense, is the conversion of your raw magical energy into the form of visible light. Interestingly, magical energy seems to already be similar in wavelength to light, so this spell is much easier than producing some other type of energy like, say, fire.”
A few students experimentally cast a bit of light from their horns, spreading haphazard beams of various colors around the room. Dinky watched beams of her own yellow light mix with Clarity’s cinnamon and Honeydew’s pale green.
“For reasons that unicorn researchers are still trying to determine, a pony’s magical aura and the light they produce are both precisely the same color as their eyes,” Professor Morningstar pointed out. “We assumed for a while that since latent magic is stored somewhere in the skull, the color was simply reflected in the owner’s eyes, but if that’s the case, then what gives pegasi and earth ponies their eye colors? It’s still a mystery; some of our professors at this Academy have written papers on their theories, though.”
Now the professor circled the ‘M’ on the board. “‘M’ stands for ‘manipulation of objects’. At first, that might sound strikingly similar to levitation, no?”
A few heads nodded.
“Well, it should!” the professor cried. “Levitation is typically involved in manipulating objects, but this field goes further than simply picking objects up, moving them, and placing them down again. Manipulation allows you to use an object held in your magic to accomplish something. With practice, the amount of dexterity a unicorn can gain from this far exceeds that of most pegasi or earth ponies.”
The professor picked up a small box on his desk with magic, and to Dinky’s surprise, he placed it in front of her. “Alright, miss, you’ve been selected,” he announced. “This is a music box. Try to turn the little wind-up key on the back using only your hooves.”
Dinky looked at the box. Although her hooves were much smaller than Professor Morningstar’s, they still seemed large and ungainly compared to the delicate brass key. She turned the box on its side and placed both hooves around the crank, and after a few moments and some awkward shifts of her shoulders, she managed to turn it once or twice. A few sad, tinkling notes played before the box fell silent again.
“Lots of effort for very little payoff, wouldn’t you agree?” the professor asked, taking back the box as Dinky nodded. “Small, intricate work is often almost completely off limits to earth ponies. Some find using their mouth to accomplish tasks is often a bit easier than using hooves.”
The stallion kicked the chalkboard suddenly, and it flipped over in its wheeled stand to reveal a chalk sketch of a pegasus on the back.
“Pegasi have it somewhat easier,” he continued. “Many of them have learned to use their wings as manipulative appendages, a bit like overgrown versions of the hands or paws found on some creatures. But unicorns can manage with magic what the other two pony races typically struggle with.”
The professor lit his horn, and with a little flourish, spun the brass key several times, and a playful melody flowed from the music box.
“We will be practicing manipulation at length in this class,” he said, setting the decorative box down again, and giving the chalkboard another quick kick to flip it back over to his acronym.
Dinky sat at her desk, pondering how magical manipulation of objects would make certain tasks easier. The first example that sprang to her mind was the dress shop owner, Rarity, who used magic to handle scissors, thread needles, and intertwine pieces of fabric while she worked. Suddenly, the filly was able to understand the tailor’s ability to make several beautiful pieces of clothing in the span of a day; she was clearly a master at manipulating small objects magically.
“Now we get to the fun stuff!” Professor Morningstar chuckled. “The second ‘I’ in L.I.M.I.T. stands for ‘illusion’!”
Dinky smirked and cast a sidelong glance at Clarity. The grey filly sat up straighter at the mention of that particular type of magic.
“Now, illusions are one field that extends beyond just basic practical uses,” the professor admitted. “We’re going to cover them in this class because, while their effect may be very different, they actually stem from the same type of magic as simple illumination spells.”
That comparison led to a few moments of confusion for many of the students.
“Some of you are no doubt wondering how a spell that creates an illusion is related to simple light generation,” the stallion said, “and the answer is simple: An illusion spell has no effect on the object it’s cast upon. It merely creates the appearance that the object has been modified. It fools the sense of sight, nothing more.”
“And everything we see is based on how the light reflects off it!” said one excited filly.
“Exactly, dear,” Professor Morningstar said with a smile. “An illusion spell modifies light wavelengths pertaining to a certain object, causing ponies to perceive it differently from its natural appearance.”
The professor’s horn flared, and his coat cycled through all the colors of the rainbow for a few seconds before coming to rest on its original green. The shenanigan garnered a few laughs from the class.
“Illusions range from simple things like color change to much more complex spells, like creating an image of an object that’s not actually there, or turning a real object totally invisible. And, while they have a wide range of uses, ponies with particularly strong eyes or sharp minds can often tell that there’s an illusion at work."
Dinky noticed Clarity grinning. The grey filly underlined ‘strong eyes or sharp minds’ in her notes.
“Now, let’s move on to the one you’re all waiting for,” the professor said dramatically, drawing a big circle around the ‘T’ in his acronym. “The last type of Practical Magic, and by far the most complicated to cast, is teleportation!”
There were a few delighted cries from the students, Dinky and Clarity among them. Even Honeydew seemed engrossed enough to forget her usual nervousness for a bit.
“It’s an exciting prospect, isn’t it?” the professor asked, sounding almost as giddy as the students seemed to be. “One moment, you’re standing in one location, and just a fraction of a second and a flicker of magic later—”
He disappeared suddenly in a bright burst of magic, and reappeared an instant later at the back of the class.
“—you’re somewhere else entirely!” he finished.
The students cheered as their professor strutted back toward the front of the room.
“That is so cool,” Clarity said to Dinky. “Imagine it! You could be anywhere you want in an instant!”
Professor Morningstar laughed as he overheard Clarity’s comment. “Don’t get ahead of yourself!” he chided. “Teleportation is very useful, but it’s not quite as unlimited as it may first appear.”
He kicked the chalkboard, and it flipped over again. Somehow, the drawing of a pegasus had been replaced with notes and diagrams on the mechanics of teleportation, much to the bewilderment of the students.
“Teleportation, believe it or not, also uses similar magic to levitation. At first, that may not seem to make any sense at all.”
He scanned the room for a moment. “You there!” he called, pointing to Honeydew. “Remind the class, what exactly does levitation do?”
Honeydew clearly did not want to be put on the spot, but she managed to mumble a response. Unfortunately, it wasn’t loud enough for even the ponies sitting right around her to hear, let alone the professor. Strangely, he smiled and nodded at her muted reply.
“That’s right! Levitation is used to move an object from one place to another with magic! Teleportation, believe it or not, does pretty much the same thing, except you’re moving yourself rather than an object, and doing so infinitely fast.”
He pointed to the board. “Now, using magic to move oneself is, for some reason, much more difficult than using the same spell to move another object. The longer the spell needs to be maintained, the more energy it consumes. That’s why you don’t see unicorns using magic to fly along with the pegasi; the toll that would take on a unicorn’s stamina is so astronomically high that it would be simply impossible to maintain for more than a minute or so, and it would leave the caster dangerously exhausted for a long time after.”
The professor cleared his throat when he noticed a few students exchanging concerned looks. “But we’re getting off topic here! Teleportation is sort of a form of self-levitation, but it only needs to be maintained for an instant, so it doesn’t put substantial pressure on the user’s body since the magic output needed is comparatively low. The trade-off is that you need to transport yourself beyond any measurable speed, which, as you might expect, requires its own fairly significant energy input, but it’s still well worth it. Moving at a speed that cannot be obtained by non-magical means has the added benefit of allowing you to ignore the laws of physics that govern everything else, which allows you to teleport through solid objects and appear unharmed on the other side.”
“So… you can’t just teleport anywhere because of the amount of magic used?” Clarity asked.
“Correct,” the stallion replied. “The further you want to teleport, the more magic you expend. As you’ve no doubt noticed, using magic in excess without allowing it to build up again within you will begin to sap your physical strength, so teleporting repeatedly or trying to teleport a very long distance will leave you completely drained.”
Once again, the professor flipped the chalkboard back to his acronym.
“Five types of magic: levitation, illumination, manipulation of objects, illusion, and teleportation,” he summarized. “Together, these five spells form the basis of the world of magic. It’s because of these skills that unicorns have been able to make such great strides in Equestrian development and culture over the last thousand years. Simple as their purposes may be, these are the spells that were used to build the great city of Canterlot, and mastery of all five will leave little that one can’t accomplish.”
He clapped his front hooves together. “And so… I don’t see any reason not to start practicing right now! The other half of the classroom has been cleared out to make a practice arena, and I’ll be available if you need any help or have questions, so for the remainder of the class period, I’d like you all to start practicing levitation and illumination spells at whatever level is challenging for you. Get to it!”
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A few minutes later, the professor had unloaded hundreds of assorted objects of various sizes from a closet, and set the foals loose to begin an open practice period. Dinky, Clarity, and Honeydew immediately regrouped in one corner of the arena.
“Professor Morningstar seems really awesome,” Clarity observed. “He’s really passionate about this stuff, even though it’s just ‘run-of-the-mill’ magic compared to what we’ll probably be learning in the other classes.”
“So this is supposed to be the more boring magic?” Dinky asked incredulously. “But that lecture was really interesting! Some of those more advanced spells weren’t even mentioned in the book my tutor gave me.”
“I wish we could try some of the illusion or teleportation spells today,” Clarity sighed, her ears drooping slightly. “I guess we wouldn’t even be able to until we’re proficient in the easier spells, though.”
“I like the professor too,” Honeydew chimed in. “I don’t think he actually heard my answer to his question; he just pretended to because he could tell I was nervous.”
“Well, we probably shouldn’t get too comfortable,” Clarity pointed out. “Professor Morningstar works with first-term students all the time. Some of the other teachers are probably not going to be quite so friendly and lenient.”
Honeydew frowned and nodded.
“Oh girls,” came Professor Morningstar’s chipper voice as he trotted toward the three fillies. He glanced at his clipboard, searching for their names. “Let’s see: Dinky, Clarity, and Honeydew, right? Shouldn’t you three be practicing?”
“Oh, hi professor!” Dinky said. “Sorry, we were just discussing the lesson. We’ll get started now.”
The professor smiled. “Oh, don’t worry, you’ve got plenty of time. Besides, your first day of class can be a lot to take in, so I don’t blame you for wanting to discuss it a little. Have the three of you had a lot of practice with this type of magic before?”
All three fillies nodded.
“Well, let’s see it then!” the professor coaxed. “One of you, go ahead pick up as many objects as you can.”
Clarity gave Dinky a nudge, and the purplish filly stepped forward. Her eyes fell upon a big pile of simple wooden blocks stacked next to the professor, and one by one, she began to lift them into the air.
For a while, it was easy; Dinky had carried more than a dozen books around Twilight’s library before, and only near the beginning of her training had that ever been a strenuous spell for her. Within a minute or two, she was holding double that number in the air around her.
But as Dinky began to try to add more blocks to the cloud of them already suspended around her, she was beset by a curious sensation. It was almost as if her mind was receiving a kind of feedback from the other blocks, a wordless plea for her attention. She was able to continue lifting new blocks into the air, but the strange, nonvocal cry became harder and harder to ignore.
Soon, Dinky found it difficult to keep her attention focused on each and every one of the objects held captive in her aura, and she had to strain to concentrate hard enough to hoist the next block. Some of the others faltered as she did so. The feeling it produced was odd; it certainly wasn’t painful, but it was quickly becoming overwhelming as the filly found herself unable to give the proper attention to any one block in order to keep the others afloat.
Dinky grunted in frustration and tried to lift the next one off the pile when she reached some sort of breaking point. Her magic sputtered and went out, and all the blocks dropped from the air for a moment before they were all caught simultaneously by the professor, who set them gently down.
“Just one shy of three-dozen,” the stallion said, nodding in approval as Dinky tried to catch her breath. “Slightly above average. Keep practicing that same procedure, and you’ll find that number will go up. By the end of the term, students are expected to manage at least a hundred.”
“A hundred?” Dinky gasped. She knew it was already very likely that unicorns had greater powers of concentration than other ponies, but splitting one’s attention a hundred ways at once seemed all but impossible.
“It’s not as hard as it sounds,” the professor said soothingly. “You’ll find that as you continue to practice, your mind will gradually get used to the demand for multiple-target concentration. We use levitation as the typical spell to practice that skill because it requires less energy than most other spells.”
“Oh,” Clarity cut in, “so just because Dinky can lift three-dozen blocks doesn’t necessarily mean she could… I don’t know, cast three dozen illusions at once, even if she knew how to do an illusion spell?”
The professor nodded approvingly. “Now you’re getting it. This class is not only for mastering these simple spells; it’s also sort of a training regimen, to increase your magical endurance so spells you learn about in other classes that require vast amounts of energy become more manageable.”
Clarity smiled, and the teacher returned the grin. “You seem to know your facts pretty well,” he chuckled. “I guess you’ve been practicing with your sister.”
The grin dropped off Clarity’s face immediately.
“How… How do you know about my sister?”
“The professors all have lists of students, of course,” he said. “I’m sure a lot of the staff here will be delighted to meet Lucid’s sibling.”
Clarity flattened her ears against her head. “Yeah, they’ll… they’ll be thrilled.”
There was a loud crash as another colt’s magic fizzled out and scattered the objects he had been levitating all over the floor. The professor darted away to help clean up, leaving the fillies alone again.
Dinky and Honeydew walked up next to Clarity, whose perkiness had once again slipped away at the mention of her sister.
“Clarity? Are you okay?” Honeydew asked finally.
“Well… I’m not exactly ecstatic about that news,” Clarity said with a pout. “Looks like all the teachers already know I’m Lucid’s little sister. So much for starting fresh; their expectations for me have nowhere to go but down now.”
“Aw, don’t be like that,” Dinky countered. “Professor Morningstar recognizes that we’re all new students. He’s not going to expect you to be a master of magic on the first day just because your sister was one when she graduated.”
Clarity looked across the room, where the professor was offering some friendly advice to a colt about the strength of his illumination spell. He didn’t seem at all concerned that the student wasn’t able to cast more than a faint glow.
“Maybe you’re right,” Clarity admitted. “It’s the first day of class. I shouldn’t let myself get all worked up about my sister’s reputation before I even get started.”
“Good!” Dinky said, relieved to have restored her friend’s optimism. “Now come on, let’s see how many blocks you can lift at once!”
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The remainder of the class seemed to fly by. Another hour passed before the bell rang, and the trio trotted out of the classroom, already discussing their next practice session.
“That was more fun than I thought it’d be,” Clarity laughed. “Especially near the end when we were trying to stack the blocks higher than each other.”
“Honeydew beat us both at that,” Dinky reminded her. She turned and smirked at Honeydew, who blushed a bit.
“You two can hold a lot more objects at once than I can, though,” the pink filly muttered shyly.
“Well, a couple more classes will fix that right up,” Clarity said. “And I’m totally winning if we play the stacking challenge again next week.”
As her friends bantered, Dinky opened her saddlebag and carefully removed the magic guide she’d been using during her tutoring. No wonder she’d mastered all of its spells so easily; her very first class at the Academy had already demanded more from her than the book’s guided lessons ever had. Dinky supposed the guide was written with the average unicorn foal in mind, rather than students at a prestigious school, but it had been helpful nonetheless.
Dinky began to make her way down the hall, her nose tucked into the levitation section of her old guide. She’d only gone a few steps when she paid the price for being distracted by crashing right into the rump of another pony.
“Oh, sorry!” she squeaked, embarrassed.
The other pony said nothing. Instead, he turned slowly around, and his angry, slate blue eyes locked on Dinky’s.
The filly felt herself shrink under the stare she already knew all too well. “Oh! Scuffle! Uh, sorry about that. I’ll be more careful next time, I promise…”
Scuffle snorted. “Hey, you’re one of the scaredy-fillies from the train,” he said. “Oh, and I see your little friend is back there, too.”
Clarity, despite her apprehension, trotted over to back Dinky up. Honeydew, understandably, didn’t want to get involved, and remained behind.
“Just leave us alone, Scuffle,” Clarity said. “We aren’t bothering you.”
Scuffle smirked at the grey filly. “Your friend ran right into my behind,” he said. “If she’s trying to pick a fight, I’d be happy to oblige.”
He lurched forward, and laughed as both fillies squeaked with fright and backed up a step. His eyes fell upon the book Dinky had been carrying. Curiously, he picked it up in his aura and examined the cover.
“Beginner’s magic, huh?” he asked finally. “Well, that’s convenient. The professor wasn’t impressed with my levitating skills in class just now. He says I need to practice the basics more. Guess I’ll just hang onto this for a while.”
Scuffle unceremoniously stuffed the guide into his own saddlebag, eliciting a cry of outrage from Dinky.
“Hey! You can’t just take that! It’s mine!”
Scuffle raised an eyebrow. “So?”
“So, it’s not for you! Give it back!”
“You want it back?” Scuffle asked mockingly. “Come on, then. Take it back. I dare you.”
For a moment, Dinky almost considered stepping forward and using what little magic she knew to give the colt a piece of her mind, but right at that moment, Scuffle’s older brothers trotted around the corner at the end of the hall, having just returned from their enchantments class. Even on the off-chance that she could have overcome Scuffle, she certainly didn’t stand a chance when his magically-adept older siblings were around. She frowned and backed off.
“That’s what I thought,” Scuffle said smugly. “Now stay out of my way, you losers.”
Scuffle turned and galloped toward his brothers, and the three of them disappeared down another corridor, taking Dinky’s beloved book with them.
Dinky slumped defeatedly back onto her haunches in the middle of the hallway, and Clarity sat down next to her. Honeydew, deciding it was safe to approach, carefully trotted over to them.
“Well, you were right,” the pink filly mumbled. “He’s quite a bully. Who did you say he was again?”
“That was Scuffle,” Dinky mumbled. “Clarity and I met him on the train. He’s nothing but a big bully who likes to pick on the other first term foals.”
She sighed. “And now he’s got my book. Who knows if I’ll ever get it back now?”
“It’s not that big of a deal, is it?” Clarity asked. “You already knew how to do everything in that little guide. You don’t even need it anymore.”
“That’s not the point!” Dinky replied loudly. “My tutor gave me that book. It was the only way I could practice while not at my lessons. I wouldn’t even be here today if that guide hadn’t helped me master the basics in such a short time. It… it means a lot to me…”
Dinky felt her anger dissolving into sadness. She didn’t want to start crying right there in the hallway, so she changed the subject.
“Come on, let’s just go get some lunch. We can figure out if it’s possible to get the book back later.”
Without looking back, she made for the dining room. Clarity and Honeydew glanced at one another and then followed quietly along.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The afternoon sun hung over the Academy. A number of students sat outside, reading through the first chapters of their new textbooks or simply enjoying the pleasant weather. Indoors, the girls examined their schedules over a plate of daisy sandwiches.
“My schedule says I don’t have another class today,” Dinky said, peering at the large free period written in the Monday column.
“Really? I do,” Clarity replied. “A class called ‘Magic in History’ to be precise.”
“I have that today too,” Honeydew said. “Do you have that class, Dinky?”
Dinky scanned color-coded paper. “Oh, here it is,” she said. “Looks like I have it on Wednesday afternoons instead of Monday.”
“We’ll catch up with you after class then,” Clarity said. “Try not to worry about that jerk Scuffle too much. We’ll figure out how to get your book back another time.”
Clarity hopped down from her chair and made for the door. Honeydew gave Dinky a brief nod in farewell before following the grey filly out of the hall. Dinky continued to munch on her sandwich, chewing slowly as she tried to figure out how to spend the afternoon.
I know! she thought. Mom is probably wondering if I made it here ok. I should write her a letter!
Filled with a new sense of purpose, the filly swallowed the last of the daisy sandwich and then headed for the residence tower.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear mommy,
I'm writing to you all the way from Celestia’s Academy! I wanted to let you know that I’m doing fine so far. The school is beautiful and the professor I had for class today was very friendly. I’ve already made two friends, too!
Tell Mr. Breeze and Miss Twilight that I said hi, and I can’t wait to see you all again on Saturday.
Lots of love,
~Dinky
Dinky set down the quill and looked over her note. Her hoofwriting had never been particularly good, but it was certainly more legible than her penmanship when she tried to hold the quill with magic. There was a whole chapter in her Practical Magic textbook on writing with magic, though, so she expected that would soon change.
The filly wrapped the simple note in a small piece of ribbon, but before she could even leave her dorm room, a thought occurred to her.
Where do I need to go to mail stuff, anyway?
Dinky thought hard, but she couldn’t recall seeing any mailboxes on the Academy campus, or for that matter, any pegasi to pick it up or drop it off.
Dinky wandered down the stairs and into the lobby of the fillies’ tower, but there didn’t appear to be any sort of receptacle set aside for the mail.
Dinky noticed Sparkler’s door was open just a crack. She trotted over to the door concealing the Overseer’s suite and knocked lightly.
“Come in,” a bored female voice droned.
Dinky pushed open the door and looked around the Overseer suite. The room was about as large as the one she was staying in, but instead of three ponies it only held one. Sparkler was lying on her stomach on the large bed, her nose buried in a copy of a very thick textbook titled Enchantment Enhancement: A Complete Guide to the Use of Runes to Contain and Amplify Spells.
“Hello, Sparkler,” Dinky said tentatively, not entirely sure if the older student was paying any attention.
Sparkler looked up from her book. “Oh, it’s you,” she said, flashing a brief, sterile smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “Sorry, I don’t think I caught your name last night.”
“I’m Dinky Doo,” Dinky replied. “Sorry to bother you, but I have a question.”
“That’s what I’m here for,” Sparkler said, flipping through her textbook rather than looking at her visitor.
Dinky tried her best not to be put off by the Overseer’s indifference. “I want to mail a letter,” she explained, “but I’m not sure where I need to go to send it. There aren’t any mailboxes in the tower.”
“Oh,” said Sparkler. “Yeah, I guess I forgot to mention that last night. I knew there was something I was forgetting.”
A purple glow surrounded her horn, and a small map of the Academy’s campus levitated over to her. She beckoned to Dinky and pointed to one of the building surrounding the castle.
“You need to go here. Just give your letter to the postmaster, Twinkletoes, he’ll send it for you right away.”
Twinkletoes? Dinky thought. That’s a funny name for a pony…
“Alright. Thank you,” the filly said, memorizing the location indicated on the map.
“No problem,” Sparkler said, returning to her book without so much as a ‘have a nice day’. Dinky waited, but Sparkler said nothing else. After a few moments, she turned and trotted from the room.
Sparkler’s perfunctory attitude was quickly forgotten as Dinky exited onto the castle grounds and turned her focus toward finding the building the Overseer had suggested. It was a grey stone structure at the end of a cobbled pathway, and it seemed suspiciously large for a building that apparently only functioned as a post office for a few hundred students.
Dinky’s magic commanded the doors to open, and they obeyed, allowing the filly inside. In contrast to the other buildings, this one’s interior was strangely dim. Perhaps even more curiously, there didn’t seem to be anypony around.
“Hello?” Dinky called as she walked further inside the single, large room. Surely there had to be a reception desk or an office somewhere, but the chamber appeared to be completely empty. There was nothing to see save for three plain stone walls and one wall that appeared to be decorated with some sort of pinkish, overlapping tile.
Convinced that Sparkler must have directed her to the wrong building, Dinky turned to go. She had taken only a step or two toward the door when a tremendous boom echoed through the room behind her, followed by a loud, deep voice uttering something in a foreign language that was more than likely an expletive.
Dinky wheeled around just in time to see the tiled wall begin to shift and twist about. It took her a few seconds to grasp the concept that she was not looking at part of the structure at all, but at the scaly, shifting bulk of a truly massive creature.
“Blast it,” the booming voice said. “I’ve really got to learn not to sleep like that. I bang my head against that Celestia-be-darned wall every day.”
From somewhere behind the mass of scales in front of Dinky, a long neck topped with a huge, horned head lifted into the air. The creature snorted, and a telltale puff of smoke blew from its nostrils, confirming that it was exactly what Dinky suspected.
A dragon! It’s a full-grown dragon!
For an instant, Dinky considered bolting, until a little voice of reason in the back of her head reminded her that there would not be a dragon on the Academy campus if it was dangerous in any way. Nevertheless, she made sure she was just a few feet from the door before speaking up again.
“…Hello? Mr. Dragon?”
The dragon blinked and lowered its head toward Dinky. The filly flinched as its massive snout came within a few yards of hers.
“Well, hello there!” the dragon said, his gnarled lips curling up to reveal a toothy grin. “I don’t recognize you; you must be one of the new fillies who moved in yesterday.”
“Y-yeah,” said Dinky, doing her best not to appear intimidated. “Um… you wouldn’t be Twinkletoes, would you?”
The dragon laughed coarsely. “Actually, I am,” he said. “I was quite the nimble little fellow in my younger years, so the pony who raised me thought it was appropriate. He knew, of course, that once I grew up the name would become ironic rather than accurate, but perhaps that adds its own level of humor.”
The dragon laughed, but stopped when he noticed the smoke he produced was making things uncomfortably warm for Dinky.
“You were raised by a pony?” she asked, blowing away the smoke with a hoof.
“Oh yes,” Twinkletoes replied, his eyes sparkling with fond memories. “He was the dean of this Academy some three-hundred years ago.”
“Well, if he’s gone, why are you still here?” Dinky asked.
“I like this place,” the dragon said simply. “The unicorns are friendly, I’ve got enough to eat and a place to sleep, and all I have to do in return is send mail. Not a bad deal if you ask me.”
“So you are the mail pon— er, dragon,” Dinky stuttered. “Can you send a letter for me, please?”
“Sure. All I need is the recipient’s name.”
“It’s a letter for my mom,” Dinky said. “Her name’s Ditzy Doo.”
Twinkletoes reached for some dark corner of the room and picked up a book. It was a massive publication; Dinky was pretty sure it was bigger than she was. Even so, it was tiny when clutched between the claws of a dragon one hundred times her size. He set it down and began to delicately flip through the pages with one claw, leading Dinky to believe that perhaps his name wasn’t as ill-deserved as she had first thought.
“This is the latest Equestrian census, complete with pictures,” Twinkletoes explained. “Equestria doesn’t have a whole lot of mail dragons, but those of us who do work for the postal service each have a copy of this book so we know who to send to.”
He pointed to a picture on one of the pages. “This her?”
Dinky looked at the photograph of the grey and blonde mare and nodded in assent.
Twinkletoes smiled. “It says she’s a former mailpony! I wonder if she’s already familiar with dragon mail.”
With what could only be described as extreme dexterity, the dragon plucked the tiny, ribbon-bound letter from Dinky’s hoof with the tips of his claws, held it to his lips, and blew a tiny wisp of flame over the parchment, transforming it into a cloud of green light that floated out the door and into the sky.
“That should get to Ponyville within a few minutes,” Twinkletoes rumbled contently. “Dragon mail’s the most efficient method of message transport in Equestria! If you ever want to send anything else, just drop by! I’m in here all day anyway.”
“I will, and thank you!” Dinky called as she made for the door.
Twinkletoes watched the filly disappear, and then with a loud moan, he curled up and went back to sleep.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Clarity rolled on the grass, kicking her hooves in the air gleefully and threatening to laugh her tail off.
“Sparkler didn’t tell you Twinkletoes is a dragon?!”
Dinky pretended to pout, but she couldn’t hide her own smile when her friend was so mirthful.
Dinky, Clarity, and Honeydew were lounging by a pond at the edge of the forest, relaxing in the orange rays of the evening sun. Honeydew, as usual, seemed content to listen to her friends discuss the day, and busied herself instead with tossing breadcrumbs she’d saved from dinner into the water and watching the fish scramble to gobble them up. Even the shy filly seemed to be chuckling to herself, though, as she watched her thoroughly entertained friend roll around on the grass.
Clarity got a hold of herself and shakily got to her hooves. She gave herself a good shake, flinging a few stray blades of grass and flecks of dirt into the air. “I can’t tell if Sparkler did that on purpose or not,” she said finally. “I mean, I probably would have been a little shocked too if I hadn’t been expecting to run into a dragon all of a sudden.”
“Maybe it was payback for the trouble we caused last night,” Dinky theorized. “Sparkler doesn’t strike me as the kind of pony who’d do something like that, but then again she’s always so dull that I don’t really know what she’s thinking.”
“Doesn’t change the fact that it was pretty funny,” Clarity said, ignoring Dinky’s indignant snort. “I guess you can chalk another one up to the fact that you don’t have much prior knowledge of magic or this academy.”
Honeydew raised a hoof. “Well, I wouldn’t have been expecting a dragon either, Clarity,” she admitted. “Not all of us have family members who have been here before, you know.”
“Yeah, that’s true,” Clarity replied. “You know more magic than Dinky does, but I guess you aren’t any more familiar with the place than she is.”
“We’ll figure it out eventually,” Dinky insisted. “And until then, any heads-ups you can give us would be nice.”
“Well, here’s a heads-up for you right now,” Clarity said. “The sun’s almost set. Let’s get to the residence towers before we get in trouble.”
Dinky glanced at the sun, which was still poking over the horizon. “I guess you’re right. We should probably read over the first chapter of the Practical Magic textbook anyway.”
“You think you have work to do?” Clarity asked. “Honeydew and I have to get started on an essay about the earliest uses of magic for Magic in History.
The grey filly trotted in place. “Come on! I’ll race you girls!”
Without waiting for an answer, she took off toward the castle. Dinky cried out indignantly, and she and Honeydew scurried after her.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Two tiny blue eyes stared out from between the leaves of a thick shrub, watching intently as the three fillies disappeared from view. Their owner began to mutter to himself once again, as if confirming his own statements.
“The grey one will not suit my purpose at all, no she will not,” it hissed. “She knows far too much already, she’d not be fooled at all, she wouldn’t. And the pink one seems too cautious, yes she does. Much too cautious, and not powerful enough!”
The bush rustled as the creature concealed within it quivered. “The purple one though…” it continued, its voice no more than a raspy whisper, “the purple one shows promise, oh yes. With practice, her magic may become strong enough to fulfill my desire before she even learns something is amiss!”
The bush shuddered violently as the creature reveled in delight. “I shall have to watch the purple one, yes I shall. Maybe, just maybe, she is the one I’ve been waiting for…”
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Umm... First? Yeahhhh.
Sorry, it was obligatory.
This Story reminds me of Harry Potter.
it looks like scuffle wants to scuffle it up with dinky
"What my own kid?"
2337646 Bannable offense
Ok, I'm a little confused on one point. In Shippping and Handling, Dinky showed the ability to learn a spell from simple observation and be able to copy it almost immediately. She doesn't seem to have that ability in this story, am I missing something?
OH, crud. She is the target.
More please. Can't wait,
Unicorn magic isn't always the same colour as the eyes, most of the time it's the same colour as their cutie mark. At least it is from season 2 onwards.
Flim and flams is the same as their eye colour and Rarity, Twilight and Celestia's colour is the same as their cutie marks.
2338018
He/She might have forgot, or maybe because the LIMIT spells are more uses of blunt magical force, not as a result of spell structures.
If... you were talking about the LIMIT spells.
2338480
PLOT HOLES. Oh well, the show makes it's own from inconsistent writing because of hasbro toys.
Yay! Dinky! Oh no! Foreboding!
2338566 Not really plot holes, it just was never said in the show what determines the magic aura colour.
I love your explanation on magic.
Too bad Dinky doesn't have an invisibility cloak because I think that would be the only way to get the book back from Scuffle.
I am inclined to wonder why Dinky didn't report the theft to Sparkler
2338018
Dinky has higher-than-normal ability to master spells.
In S&H, yes, Dinky was able to instantly copy Glow's trapping spell. That was probably a combination of the fact that:
A: It wasn't a difficult spell
B: Adrenalin makes everything work better. Dinky WAS in danger in that scene.
Anyway, I haven't thrown out Dinky's ability to learn new spells rapidly. In fact, the only reason Celestia agreed to let Twilight tutor her is because she had heard about this ability and knew Dinky could learn quickly enough. (Twilight taught Dinky more in those few months than most foals would be able to learn in such a short time.)
Dinky can't just instantly copy ANY spell, though, especially ones that require stronger magic than she currently has, like teleportation for instance. It's just she can handle a sharper learning curve than other fillies her age, so she's destined to improve very quickly.
Hopefully that clears up that concern.
2338601 I like to think that an especially skilled unicorn (in finesse, I mean) can change the color of her aura. Most can't, not even Twi, because of her sheer channeling power doesn't allow as fine tuning as it needs.
...I've been reading too much lunaverse.
Oh well, maybe we'll have a season 4 episode about it.
2339138
Yeah I was wondering that too, especially since it was a book gifted by Twilight. Also, why didn't she ask the mail dragon about Spike? That would have been the first question I would have asked in her position.
Looks like Lord Voldemort is eyeing Dinky now.
2339361 2339138
How would Dinky prove that? Even is she told on Scuffle, couldn't he just claim it was his and she was the liar?
Don't forget, Sparkler is already slightly inclined to keep an eye on Dinky and Clarity because of the trouble they caused on move-in night.
2339724
I am pretty sure Scuffle bad rep would work against him, besides Dinky has three witnesses.
2339724 You make a valid point, I suppose, but so does 2339730. Mightn't there be a stain or crinkle that Dinky could explain to prove her ownership? (i.e. "On page XX, there's a small tear from when such-and-such happened")
2339994
With all due respect, I think you're reading into this a tad much.
Once chapter 5 is released it'll be clear why I added this bit to the plot of the story in the first place. Sometimes you have to remember that, although there might be an alternate solution, it just wouldn't make for a very good story.
Sure, it may not be Dinky's best decision ever, but I certainly don't think it can really be considered a plot hole.
2339994
Wasn't there a message in the book from Twilight to Dinky? Or did I imagine that?
2340103 I think you're thinking of the afterword. Or is it afterward?
2340070 I just remembered that I was really only wondering why. If it comes down to "it didn't occur to her" that's ok
2340103
There were random notes scribbled in the book, but there was no message from anypony to anypony else save for the afterword, which was just a message from the book's author to whoever the reader happened to be.
of course there's a dragon for the mail.
I'm loving it, and now the title makes complete sense ^_^
Wonder what the other creature is and what it wants...
2339139 Ah, I see, that makes a lot of sense. I mainly asked about it because she made no mention of her ability when Clarity first mentioned her illusion detecting ability. I thought she woud have mentioned it then.
2341179
Yeah in retrospect I probably should have mentioned it there.
The reason I didn't is because Dinky isn't convinced that ability is related to her Cutie Mark, and they were discussing Cutie Marks at that time, which is what led Clarity to bring that up.
Still should have said something though. My bad. Hope my explanation was a decent replacement for it.
2341203 Ah, I see, well I'm looking forward to Dinky wowing her friends with it later.
2338480
While you are right about Celestia's magic, I think Twilight's is closer to her eye color.
2339019
But if she gets good at the first type of 'I' spells she won't need an invisibility cloak.
Anyways, MAGIC! Time to learn about magic. Gosh, I love a story that comes with world-building guaranteed.
*Eagerly awaits the next chapter.*
----------
Comma.
Comma.
Semicolon should be a colon.
Unless you're implying that it is the job of the professors to write papers on mysteries, this semicolon should be a period. However, as I typed this, it became more apparent that this is likely the case...
No comma.
I'm really thinking that the comma should be a period, as both sides could be stand-alone sentences. However, if you want it to remain a single sentence, this might work...
"Remind the class what, exactly, levitation does."
doing "it" infinitely
Comma.
Comma.
No comma.
2338480
- 
- 
Uh, Rarity's eyes are blue, Twi's eyes are purple, and Tia is an Alicorn.
You can see them in the emotes if you zoom in enough.
In most cases the aura is a lighter shade of the pony's eye color, yes, but still very close in most cases.
*Ahem*...
Also, don't know if voice is evil force of EEEville, or just overenthusiastic about passing on knowledge.
Seriously hope it's the latter, seriously fear it's former.
Jeez, how does Ditzy's family attract the mean ones?
2343812
I fear that the voice belongs to an Evil Voice of Evil™. Soliloquies appear to have fallen out of fashion with the Righteous Forces of Good™, but remain in vogue with the Diabolical Legions of Evil™.
As far as where they come from...
If fannon is anything to go by, Doctor Whooves is especially fond of Ditzy et al. He has obviously pissed off legions of evil beings by thwarting their diabolical plans. It stands to reason that while few of the Doctor's enemies can challenge him directly, they can certainly attack him through his family and loved ones, continually wearing them down with a steady stream of low-level malaise.
Either that or Ponies being dicks + Ditzy/Derpy with a physical "handicap" + Dinky being a bastard runt = Easy pickings for bullies from all ages and walks of life.
(Of course PRB probably has a different, much better reason...)
2346557
Nothing you just said made much sense.
To clarify, in case you were being serious, the Doctor and Ditzy are barely more than acquaintances in the S&H and Hocus Pocus timeline; she certainly hasn't been on any time-traveling adventures with him.
Also, in your equation, it should be worth pointing out that Dinky's not a bastard child. Her parents were married before her father died. (See Shipping and Handling ch. 11 for further details if need be.)
Ok, I'm done setting the record straight. Have a nice day!
2346557
first off, the only thing letting me combat the diabeetus-inducing effects of your avatar is a recent D'aaaahw overload from the image of Dinky snuggled up with an Eevee in a pile of fluffy happiness.
Second off, the Diabolical Legions of Evil™ has recently been renamed by their new Head Lord of the 'ruling' council of Evil Overlords to the Villain's League of Evil™, in an attempt at managing a more positive publicity. It's looking good, the more savvy and suave-looking League finding more support in the minion polls for continued employment, especially now that the Minion's Union and Support Services™ now includes dental coverage, something they'd campaigning for over the last few decades.
Thirdly, Dinky isn't a bastard, as it's implied that her parents were, in fact, married when she was born. But he died. As for 'runt', she's not much smaller or less capable than the others, and is in fact showing some promise in multi-object levitation already. Ditzy may have a 'handicap' as some see it, but I think having fully independently-controlled eyes able to focus in any two directions, with the only apparent limitation that those two directions can't coincide.
And yes, PRB almost definitely has a much better reason, because PRB is greater than us both combined.
2346778
heh heh. No, it was not supposed to be serious. Just a silly possible explanation based off of selected bits of fan back story.
2346845
I take it that the Villain's League of Evil™ has also implemented an affirmative oppression policy by becoming an equal opportunity oppressor as part of their PR campaign?
2347014
Well, actually, they've simply instituted a 'temporary' measure in which anyone can be targeted, unless they've applied for the League's Platinum Victim Program™, and made sure that they're paying their dues in time. It's all quite orderly, and prevents any unwanted invasions or takeovers that might impede the overall progress of the world. After all, they're villains, not conservatives.
Hee hee.
This vaguely reminds me of a similar section I wrote in Mood Wings. I don't assume you've read it, but the thoughts there are similar enough. Love that you had the same ideas!
2349804
Actually, since I'm a bit of a pegasus enthusiast myself, I have read Mood Wings! (It was fantastic, by the way.)
The line you highlighted seems general enough, though. For example, in the show, we've seen Fluttershy, open her saddlebag with prehensile wing movements while at the market. So I wasn't trying to swipe any concepts from your story, in case there was ever a suspicion of that.
Neat comparison, though, and thanks for reading!
2350046
Hah, no worries, wasn't trying to accuse of swiping. And yay, you've read it :D
I was referring to that particular episode myself when writing that section of mood wings, so I guess that explains the similarities. It definitely does show a lot of dexterity vs the simple wingbeat :)
Okay, the title card art leads me to believe that Scuffle might turn out to not be such a bad pony after all, since he's depicted with Dinky's friends. Still, that was a really rotten thing to do, stealing Dinky's book.
She had better get it back.
Also, while I can't say for sure who or what is watching them from the shadows, there is this one pony I'm already a little leery of. I know he hasn't actually done anything bad yet, but I wonder about the Professor teaching their Practical Magic class. Call me paranoid, but the name "Morningstar" just sets off a warning bell. The story doesn't mention his eye color (or if it does I overlooked that part), so they might match the shadow creeper's blue.
2353480
I didn't mention Morninstar's eyes, but I did mention the color of his magic (Hazel) and also said in his lecture that eye color = magic color.
hmm, I can't think of an original comment, so I'm just going to leave this comment of generalized praise for the story here, m'kay?
It is to my liking so far, looking forward to the next installment, etc.
well, anyhow, happy April first!
2354089 Okay, overlooked that part. It seems then that he's off the hook for being our shadow stalker, but he'd better not leave town... (Mouths "I'm watching you" while pointing)
A story where my avatar makes sense! :3
2359835
Very much so, yes.
The only difference is that you're name has "Hooves" on the end, while the Sparkler in the story is not related to Dinky.
Actually, Dinky's family name is "Doo" in this fic so I guess it doesn't matter!
2359914 You're right! I just live Sparklers character! Call me crazy, but I think she's hilarious!
2359925
Well she's going to be a very major character in this story, so you should have plenty more appearances to enjoy.
She's on the cover for a reason, you know!
Glad you're enjoying the story.
2359959 Ooooooohhhhhh! I just realizes that! Derp! :3
I'm doing this on my phone, so there aren't any emoticons :'(
I just knew Scuffle was going to either take that book or destroy it.
And there is still time for the latter too.
And Sparkler's attitude doesn't exactly scream "I'm here to help", though that might be because she is a bit put out by Dinks and company.
I am gonna laugh if that sinister thing watching the girls is totally benign.