Young Peanut has to clean his room, under orders not to use magic. But what his mother doesn't know can't hurt, right? He's not very good at magic yet, but surely he can finish before... wait, how do you turn this thing off?
Young Peanut has to clean his room, under orders not to use magic. But what his mother doesn't know can't hurt, right? He's not very good at magic yet, but surely he can finish before... wait, how do you turn this thing off?
It wasn't fair. It just wasn't fair. All the other kids at school got to go bowling, and he had to stay home and clean his room. All because he'd come home from school late after hanging out playing games at a friends house and he'd forgotten to tell anyone where he was or how long he was going to be out. Even the two colts who were always in detention had gotten home before he had, but it wasn't like he made a habit of disappearing.
"Anything could have happened to you!" His mother had scolded. "What if something did? How am I supposed to know where you are?"
He'd apologized and protested that he'd lost track of time, but in the end in hadn't made any difference. Peanut stood now in front of his open doorway, staring in at the piles of dirty clothes heaped on the floor, his collection of hoodies and hats mostly, some of which had been there since before the schoolyear had even started. Pencils and markers belonging to long abandoned art projects were scattered across what he was pretty sure had once been a desk in the corner. He tended to gain and lose interest in things faster than Rainbow Dash's Wonderbolts records.
He was a young thing, about Crusader aged, although from what he understood the founding members of the Cutie Mark Crusaders were all grown up and off doing their own thing now. The Cutie Mark Crusaders organization had flourished and expanded first in Ponyville, then Manehattan, then had only recently opened up a third branch here in Canterlot. He regretted not being able to be a part of it, and glanced behind him at the mark on his flank. A single stem growing from a plant, on which drooped a large, single peanut. He'd gotten it in the after school gardening club, one of the first in his class to do so.
In any case, his disappearance did not excuse him from a grounding, and his room honestly didn't look THAT bad. He threw his backpack in the corner, startling several cockroaches who desperately scuttled under the bed. Okay, maybe a SMALL cleaning was in order.
Peanut looked in both directions, as if a pegasus was going to come swooping in from any moment and take him out from his blindspot. He was a unicorn, but had not had any proper magic lessons, and had been instructed early on, as all unicorns were, that attempting to cast spells on his own without proper technique. There will be no foolish horn waving or silly incantations in my class, his magic teacher had warned. As of now, they were still on safety and energy, and hadn't actually gotten to the fun magic part yet.
As such, his mother had warned him that he was not to attempt to use magic to clean his room, that was part of the grounding. But what she didn't know couldn't hurt her. He tried to remember the little instructions that the older fillies had told him, even though he wasn't supposed to know yet. Relax your mind, summon your will. Or was it relax your will, summon your mind? Eh, didn't matter. It was probably the same thing anyway. He focused his attention on the drawing utensils on his desk, somewhere in that general area.
"Rise," he commanded. "Clean!"
Nothing.
He tried again, focusing all his attention into his horn. This time he felt a burst of energy leave his body, the ferocity of which left him barely able to stand up, breathing heavily as if he'd just rounded the last lap of a marathon. A flash of tawny light burst from his horn, a color which matched his own dark brown coat and sandy hair.
The pencils and markers twitched at first, then rose and began to dance in vertical positions.
"Yes!" Peanut shouted in triumph. "Now put yourselves away!"
His joy was short lived, however, as the drawing utensils did just about anything EXCEPT put themselves away. The colored pencils and the markers separated like small armies, then floated up towards the ceiling and began to dance across the walls, not in the least heeding their masters commands.
Peanut stared in shock, unable to properly react for several precious seconds. "What.. no! Stop! Stahp!" He cried, but the markers did not stahp, they continued to expand his mess rather than diminish it, and his horn was still recharging. Even if it wasn't he didn't know how to turn off his own spell.
"Water... I need water!" He bolted from the room where his markers were still dancing across the walls, racing downstairs into the kitchen and flinging the closet open. He didn't know when his mother was going to get home, but this all had to be done by the time she did. Inside the closet he snagged the mop and water basin, hauling them towards the bathroom, desperate to undo what had been started.
Oh, yes. This would perfectly. And his mother would never be the wiser. He hauled the mop and bucket upstairs to the bathroom, the latter of which was shoved underneath the shower. He turned the faucet with his hoof, and cold water sprang to life, shooting from the faucet into the bucket. He tapped his hoof impatiently while the bucket filled, then quickly turned the water off and hauled the two items back towards his room.
His walls and ceiling were already rapidly being covered in scribbles, nonsense hieroglyphs that looked like the ramblings of a madpony. It was a complete mess.
Peanut lifted the mop and stuck it in the basin, scrubbing frantically against the wall with the brush but he couldn't reach high enough, nor scrub hard enough. His horn already ached and he wasn't sure if he could put on a repeat performance, but he had to try. He had no other choice.
He focused his attention, his willpower, on the dripping mop, his eyes burning with concentration.
Peanut was overcome with joy and excitement upon seeing the mop rise from its bucket into the air. The expenditure of magic at such a young age make his horn hurt and his head throb, but it didn't matter. He was doing it! He was doing magic! He felt a bit of guilt that his mother wasn't here to witness it, after all, she had worked so hard at teaching him the rights and wrongs of spellcasting, even though she hadn't actually gotten around to teaching him magic yet. According to her, he wasn't ready yet.
At least, that's what she thought. From the looks of things, he was more than ready. Right now. The mop obeyed his commands, both mental and verbal, and began scrubbing its dripping, cleansing end upon the wall. The effect was admirable, and immediately began removing the markings which had been made there.
The young unicorn grinned. It was working, although it wasn't working fast enough. There were dozens of markers and drawing utensils drawing upon the walls, and only one mop. It was being outplayed!
"Dangit... I need more water..." Peanut muttered, consequently still under the influence of his glowing horn. The mop and bucket both rippled as if he was viewing them through the haze of the Neighvada desert, and pulled apart like a multiplying cell. There was now two buckets and two mops, each attacking a different wall. Peanut was relieved by this, and ran from the room to find something to deal with all the mess. He trotted downstairs and bolted into the kitchen, pulling drawers open. There was the usual assortment of rags and plates and cleaning chemicals, but he didn't see anything that looked like it would help.
Time was running out, his mother would be home soon. He briefly considered that perhaps he should have just cleaned his room in the traditional sense to start with, but if its and buts were candy and nuts we'd all have a happy Hearth's Warming. Or something like that. It was an old phrase one of his teachers at school used, and he'd never understood it. Heck, he'd never even taken much interest in it, but it was funny how the most random of things popped into your mind at the inconvenient of times. He'd gone through several math tests where he couldn't remember a single thing except the theme songs to his favorite radio programs, and consequently failed. But lo and behold, as SOON as he got home from school that day, his mind would be filled with algorithms.
CRASH! A loud noise from upstairs. That didn't sound good.
Peanut got up and scampered back around the corner. Water was pouring down the stairs like the suburban equivalent of a poor pony's waterpark, rushing down the carpet and surging out the screened front door.
"Bwaaaaah!" Peanut cried out, and tried to run up the stairs. He would have had better luck defeating an Ursa Major blindfolded, as the rushing current prevented him from getting more than two steps off the ground. He was swept off his hooves and slammed against the door, held there against his will by the force of the water. Above, on the landing, he could see a mop and bucket, which replicated once again even as he watched. Water overflowed from its basin and added to the current already flooding the house.
"Stop!" He cried. "No more! No more water!" But his horn was still glowing, and although it was not currently casting any new spells, the water did not stop. He was drenched in seconds, sputtering and coughing as the water held him in place. He reached out with his foreleg, fumbling for the latch on the screen door. Eyes ablaze with concentration, he found the latch and pressed down on it. The door swung open, and Peanut was thrown out into the grass, the water spreading out in all directions as it ran inhibited.
He looked on in dismay. In a matter of hours he'd marked up the walls of his house and flooded said house, all just to get out of cleaning his room. Okay, so it hadn't been intentional, but as things stood now, the situation could not possibly get worse. At least, that's what he thought.
PEANUT! A voice shrieked. A voice he knew all too well.
His heart sank. No. Nononono. His mother was home early... she NEVER came home early. Of all the times and all the days, why did she have to come early today?!
Peanut turned around slowly. He'd recognize his mother anywhere. Sure there were lots of mares with blue coats, and a large handful with hair that looked like toothpaste. Hers had not a single gray strand in it, although he suspected she dyed it, or altered its color with magic. Perhaps both.
That said, he didn't know of any others who insisted on wearing the ridiculous purple magician's ensemble she wore everywhere. He didn't know where it had come from or what the significance of it was, his mother had worn it as long as he could remember. There had been numerous interventions to try and get her to part with it, but none of them had been successful.
"There is water pouring from the house! Trixie demands an explanation!" The mare shrieked.
Peanut went pale. There were numerous explanations that came to mind, but not a single one of them that he could think of involved talking his way out of this.
"Uh..." He stammered. "I accidentally blew up the pipes with heat vision?" He offered lamely.
"And where did YOU get heat vision?" Trixie demanded.
"...Internet?" Peanut offered. A lame excuse, made up in desperation.
Trixie blinked. "What's that?"
"I dunno... sounded fancy..." Peanut said.
"Trixie does not want to hear your excuses!" She shouted. "Get inside, now!"
Peanut had gotten a verbal butt kicking from his mother, without any sort of resemblance that she was impressed with his learning magic so quickly. He had been in more trouble than he'd ever been in, at least as far as he could remember, in his entire life. He'd been made to clean up as much of the mess as possible by himself, without magic, where his mother had cleaned up the rest of it afterward, such as the ruined carpeting.
"Trixie hopes you learned your lesson!" She called downstairs, where young Peanut had been ordered to do the laundry. Of course, he didn't want to do the laundry, and was shooting sparks of energy off his horn to get the few articles of clothing they owned to wash themselves. This was Canterot, after all, and formal settings were often required.
A pair of suit pants rose up from the laundry basket, stretched, and folded over limply, as if bowing to him.
"Get in there!" Peanut ordered, pointing a hoof at the washing basin.
The pants had no intention of getting in there, and instead grabbed him, who was too overcome by surprise to react quickly enough, and threw him into the machine before turning it on, watching in what appeared to be amusement as the colt disappeared into the large vault of soap.
