The Apple Does Fall Hard for the Tree

Twilight lay on the floor, two concentric halos of open books and one long scroll full of notes spread out around her.  She stood and almost fell, legs stiff from hours lying prone while she studied.

“Ugh.  Spike?  Are you still awake?”

“Not,” Spike yawned, “really.  Are you ready?”  The little dragon slunk down from his perch in the bay window with its cozy seat, claws clicking on the wood floor.

“Yes.  I think that a restoration spell with this block from a clean-up spell used as a prefix, with Starswirl's limitations against harm active throughout should provide the desired effect.  The effects should also be permanent, so I won't bloat up again at midnight or something.”  Twilight tapped various texts as she spoke, confidence rising in her tone as she talked out the procedure.

“Well that would sure be a disappointment, seeing as how it's nearly midnight now.”  Spike yawned again, muffling it behind one paw.  “What d'you need me to do?”

“I'll need a piece of chalk, a bag of silver dust, five pieces—no, six pieces of quartz, and a cookie.”

Spike was already on his way towards the cellar to fetch the components when the last item froze him in his tracks.  “Is...that for the spell?”

“No, I'm just peckish.  I've been studying for hours after all!”  Twilight blushed at how defensive that came out, and let her head drop.  “Sorry Spike.  I know you're not trying to guilt me.  It's just hard to forget how mean the townsponies were.  I can't wait to look like my old self again.”

Spike tossed his arms in the air and grumbled a good-natured “Yeah yeah,” before disappearing downstairs.  He only kept Twilight waiting a few minutes before returning with the supplies she had specified.

Taking them in her telekinetic grasp and shifting the books off onto a nearby desk, Twilight began her preparations.  First she drew a circle with six breaks on the floor of the tree-house with the chalk.  Six smaller circles filled in the gaps in the perimeter.  Into each smaller circle, she placed a piece of quartz.  Using the silver dust, she traced a smaller circle within the primary one, right around herself.  By then, Spike had scared up a cookie for her and waddled out of the kitchen with it.

Twilight set the bag of dust and chalk aside, swapping for the cookie, which was gone in three bites.  “Ahh, macadamia nut.  Thanks Spike.  Now, you might want to get behind something.  This is a pretty rough amalgamation, and there's bound to be some thaumaturgic turbulence.”

Spike gulped.  “Turbulence, huh?”  Spike bent double to crawl beneath a heavy table, then pulled chairs in to make a cage around himself.

Twilight winced.  She realized that when she threw around words like 'turbulence' it often meant a lot of extra clean-up time for poor Spike afterward.

~It will be worth it though.  I'll help him out, if it's too bad.~

Twilight closed her eyes, summoning the formulas and structuring the theories in her mind, building the house of cards that was the start of every major magical effort.  Her horn fluoresced as power gathered, coalescing and arcing at the tip.

~Safety first,~ she thought, invoking the limitations against harm.  Especially vital when working magic upon the bodies of living creatures, this partially-aware spell would prevent any magic she worked from twisting her physical form to a lethal degree.  The silver circle around her flared up, a column of coruscating white light encasing her in a pillar that stretched right up to the ceiling.

~Now for the experimental bit.~  The first part of the spell was something she had cast before; it had been familiar, and it came to her easily.  She knew the 'smell' and 'texture' of the magic, though neither descriptor truly fit.  Unicorns had other senses above the usual five that helped them comprehend and manipulate the ethereal fields.  This next part Twilight had to fumble with.  She knew how it should feel in only the most basic, primitive sense.  As she folded and forged the spell, it developed character, blossoming in the direction she guided it even as it drained power from her inner reserves.  Her horn flared brighter as she channeled more magic, feeding the demanding construct.  Just as the spell was about finished, and it strained to be unleashed, Twilight fought to hang onto it while grafting a second construct to its gleaming matrix.  A second, paler aura flared around the first enveloping her horn, and sweat rolled down her face as the effort involved doubled.  Not only was she taxed physically by the magical drain of the working, but the mental effort of recall and suspension of three spells at once was exhausting!

Bright, lengthy arcs of power sparked from Twilight's horn, scorching the floor meters beyond both circles.  Occasionally one would strike a piece of the quartz, and it would begin to spin.  Before long, all six were whirling on the floor, shrieking like tiny teapots.  The windows seemed to bulge outwards, and Spike whipped his head between them and Twilight, torn between the urge to open them and the desire to remain un-disintegrated.

Twilight yelped as she let the completed spell slip its leash, a deep magenta dome expanding over her to cover the outer-most chalk circle.  Every light in the library guttered and blew out, from magical lanterns to flickering candles.  The glowing dome pulsed once, twice, thrice, before vanishing with a pop and a whiff of burnt almonds.

Spike shoved the chairs he'd been cowering behind away, and scurried off to re-light lanterns and candles.  Slowly the light level in the room rose, revealing Twilight in the center of a clean floor...no evidence of circles, dust, or stones left behind.

“D-did it work?”  She whispered, her eyes squeezed shut.  She heard Spike gasp, and her eyes flew open just in time to see him fall over, spasming with gales of helpless laughter.

“Oh-oh-oh-oh Luna's sky, T-Twilight!”  That was all he could squeak out between the giggles.

Twilight patted herself down, and felt...no pudge.

~I'm back to normal!  What is this silly dragon laughing about?!~

She rose from her haunches and immediately tipped forward onto her face.  “Ow!  What?!”  Twilight lifted her head and for a moment thought she'd embedded her horn in the floor, but soon realized her head was simply very heavy.  She soon managed to heave herself upright, and warily crossed the library to the window Spike had been resting in earlier.  Her reflection was distorted.  Her head was far larger than—wait.

~This window is flat glass, not curved at all.  There's no distortion.~

“You look like those bobbleheads at Wax Lips' store!~  Spike choked out, before rolling onto his stomach and gasping for breath.

“Ponyfeathers.”

“R-Rainbow, don't you think you should take a break?”  Scootaloo called up at the older pegasus, watching her run the obstacle course she'd crafted from clouds.  The orange filly checked the clipboard on the grass by her hooves.  This was Rainbow's 242nd run through the course today.

“No way!  Look at me; I'm still a blob!”  Dash paused long enough to slap her barrel with a forehoof, setting the pudge there quivering, before darting back into her latest circuit.

Scootaloo swallowed, and glanced around the field she stood in, but the two were fairly isolated out here.  Rainbow hadn't even wanted Scootaloo tagging along, but she'd made her case to her mentor well enough.  Somepony to fetch water and keep away certain school photographers was practically a necessity!

She hunched her shoulders a bit, before adding another hash-mark to the clipboard as Dash completed another trip through the course.  Rainbow was working the weight off.  Flying burned a lot of calories, calories Rainbow would normally be replacing by eating big nutrient-dense meals.  Instead, she'd been drinking nothing but water and eating exactly zilch, at least as far as Scootaloo had seen.

Rainbow's mane was plastered to her neck with sweat, the brilliant colors looking painted-on instead of the awesome, fluttering riot of motion Scootaloo was used to seeing.  Each trip through the course seemed to be getting slower, too.  She winced as Rainbow clipped a cloud pillar with a wing, and tumbled through the air.  She recovered, barely, and bobbed in the air as she flapped back towards the obstacle run.

“Rainbow, please?  Just five minutes!  Drink some water.  I'll go get you a daisy sandwich!”

If Rainbow heard her, she gave no sign of it, and flew on.  Scootaloo clenched her teeth, stomping one forehoof into the grass, pounding a patch of it flat.  She swung her head around one last time, scanning for somepony, anypony.  Coming up dry again, she heaved a sigh.  Scootaloo turned and cantered towards her scooter, ears back, her jaw set, muttering.  “There has to be someone you'll listen to.”

“Whoa, no!  Whoooooooooah!”

Rainbow's voice startled Scootaloo into glancing up again.  She was in time to see a blue blur plow straight through one, two, three pillars, then head straight for an elderly oak tree, wings fouled by a mass of fluffy cloud.  She spun, completely out of control, struggling to even right herself much less pull out of the rapid descent.

Scootaloo jumped on her scooter, wings buzzing before her hooves had even settled atop the wooden plank.  She took off across the grass, bouncing over hillocks and tufts towards the distant tree, heart beating so hard it felt like it was trying to outrace her there!

Rainbow beat Scoots and Scoots' heart both, crashing into the spreading branches of the left side of the massive tree.  Leaves and twigs were still falling when Scootaloo arrived beneath Rainbow's suspended form, the filly shading her eyes to peer up through the limbs and crisp autumn leaves.

“Rainbow?!  Are you alright?”  Scootaloo sprang from her scooter, letting it tip over, standing on her hindlegs to stretch herself up the tree's trunk.

“Nnngh.  Ye-yowch!  No!  No.  Definitely no.  I'm, ah, uh...horseapples.”  Rainbow was silent  for a long moment while Scootaloo fidgeted below.  A sigh finally escaped the vague cyan spot in the branches twenty-five feet up.  “Squirt, could you find someone on the weather team and tell them I need an air-lift?”

“Sure Rainbow.  I'll be back soon!”  The filly slid off the tree and made for her scooter.

“Don't bother, Scoots.  You can meet up with me at Ponyville General instead.  They'll...want to take a look at me,” Dash sighed again.

“O-oh.  Okay Dash.  They'll take good care of you!  See you soon!”  Scootaloo tipped her head down to fasten her helmet's chinstrap, and noticed something that made her blood run cold.  A broad fallen leaf beneath the tree, yellow as the autumn sun, bore a couple spots of fresh, wet crimson.  Scootaloo's wings beat in a frenzy, the filly sailing towards town, her throat and eyes burning.

Lyra stood and stretched, leaving her bench in the park.  Suspending her lyre in her magic, she levitated it into her case, simultaneously transferring the bits today's busking had brought her into a latching compartment within it.  Closing the lid and fastening the case, Lyra set her instrument atop her back and made her way along main street.

A puff of wind and a flash of pink at the end of the street brought a small smile to the unicorn's lips.

~I wonder what Pinkie's up to today.~

The wind and pink repeated, and after Lyra took another few steps, repeated again.

~What in Equestria...?~

By now she noticed several ponies loitering near the end of the street, the boundary of this side of town, watching whatever the notorious Pinkie was up to.  She joined them, her errand forgotten, enduring another dozen gusts of wind before reaching the border of the town.

She spotted BonBon in front of an obscuring stallion, and trotted up beside her.  “What's she doing?”

BonBon shook her head slowly.  “I think...I think she's running around the town.  Over and over.  She bought some coffee from Coarse Grind earlier, and a sack of my super-sugar jawbreakers.”  The confectioner screwed up her face in disgust.  “She emptied the sack into her mouth, then used the coffee to wash them down like pills!  She, um, started vibrating.”  BonBon gestured to the pink blur as it passed by again.  “Then, well, that.”

Lyra watched with the rest for a moment longer, counting twenty more revolutions.  “Has she slowed down at all?”

BonBon shook her head.  “I don't think so.  She actually seemed to get faster for a bit.  Huh.  I have an idea.”  She patted Lyra's shoulder, then took off towards home at a gallop.

Lyra counted nearly two-hundred revolutions before BonBon returned, three enormous sacks of sugar stacked on her back.  “Give me a hoof with these, Lyra.”

The mint-colored unicorn followed BonBon to the very edge of town, and discovered with a shock that Pinkie's revolutions had started to carve a furrow in the ground.  There was a half-foot drop-off from the street to the path the pink pony was following, now!

“Pinkie!”  BonBon shouted the next time the blur ran past.  She waited until she appeared again to continue.  “I want to.  Make some.  Cotton candy.  Can you.  Run faster?”

Lyra turned to stare at BonBon.  “Are you certifiable?  That's not going to work!”

“It will if you use your magic to keep the sugar suspended in the air.  No one's going to want dirty cotton candy, after all.”  BonBon smirked, before ripping the seam on the first sack of sugar.  Meanwhile, a soft whine rose from the trench outside the mouth of the street as Pinkie began to accelerate.  She passed their position once every three seconds, then every two seconds, then once a second.

Soon Pinkie was passing them twice a second, and Lyra felt cold all over.  “I feel like standing this close to energy like that ought to be dangerous.”  She helped BonBon dump the sugar though, and caught it in her magical field, holding it suspended in the air above the trench.  She struggled to keep Pinkie's passage through the cloud of sugar from dragging the grains with her, and heard BonBon squeal as the sweet cloud began to caramelize.

“She's running fast enough, producing enough friction, to melt sugar?  What else is she producing enough heat to affect?”  Lyra wondered aloud, watching the last of the sugar melt.  Ribbons of molten sweetness hung in the air.

“Okay Lyra, now, this is going to be tough.  Let the sugar follow Pinkie.  I'm hoping it will get caught up behind her, and you can nudge it each time she goes by to keep it from hitting the walls of the...moat?  Oh boy.”  Indeed, Pinkie's increased pace had accelerated the destruction of the earth beneath her hooves.  The furrow had become a broad ditch easily six feet deep.

Lyra let the sugar slip from her telekinetic grasp, and it fell in behind Pinkie like a sweet comet tail.  She had the barest split-second to nudge the sugar the next time Pinkie came around, and the next, but as they watched the sugar was beginning to stretch into soft cottony threads!

“What is going on here?!”  Mayor Mare's voice boomed out across the gathering of ponies, and Lyra missed the next nudge.  Pinkie braked with a screech that had everypony present stuffing their hooves into their ears, 150 pounds worth of cotton candy enveloping her in an instant.

Mayor Mare stalked to the edge of the moat and stared down at a massive pink-tinged blob with baby-blue eyes.  “Pinkie Pie!  You've caused grievous damage to public property!  We can't have a, a moat impeding passage to and from town!”

Pinkie's tongue appeared from within the cotton candy mass, and after a brief, astounding (if disturbing) scene, she was clean once again...as well as fit and trim.  “Okie-dokie-lokie!  Want me to fill it in?  With dirt?  Or water?  Or jello?  Or colorful rocks?  Or what about pillows!  Or I could just build a whole bunch of tiny bridges over it!”  Pinkie bounced fully ten feet up over the edge of the moat, over and over, while she spoke.

BonBon and a couple of spectating foals pouted at the loss of her sugar, but most were fixed on the mayor and Pinkie at this point.

“With dirt will be fine, Pinkie.”  Mayor Mare did hesitate at the mention of bridges, but chances were too good said-bridges would be a bit too whimsical to appeal to a majority of Ponyville.

Pinkie twirled in the air at the end of her latest bounce, then dashed off in mid-air, abandoning the rubber-neckers, candy-maker, and authority figures alike.  It wasn't even a minute later before a faint rumble made ears flick and perk.  Lyra stretched her neck out past the last building on the street, then quickly yanked it back.

“What'd you see?”  BonBon pressed her, eyes wide.

“Oh, just Pinkie, surfing a tidal wave of soil on a spade.”  Lyra coughed, and sat in the middle of the street.  “BonBon, our insurance is paid up, right?”

BonBon snorted, and tossed her mane.  “In this town?  Are you kidding?  They keep our policy in a wheelbarrow, both out of storage concerns and for easy access.  It's pricey, but you have to admit they're worth it.  They're not kidding, we're 'in safe hooves with Stall-State.'”

“Thank Celestia.”

Rarity slipped into her newest creation and pranced over to the nearest mirror, watching herself parade back and forth.  Rich red silk trimmed in black hugged curves here and there, and billowed mysteriously elsewhere, letting the viewer guess at the shape beneath the striking dress.  This was more of a donkey fashion, using such garish colors and that broad of a frill, but Rarity loved the flow and the breeziness of the design.

“Though, it certainly isn't appropriate for the season, is it?”  Pouting, she caught up the dress in her magic and levitated it onto a ponyquin.  “Something warmer, that accomplishes the same thing...”  She glanced around the room, and found herself drifting towards a few bolts of soft flannel.  Rarity cringed away from the stuff, but there was a bolt of blue that really wasn't all that...rough.  Normally, this material only went into work-shirts for the town's stallions.  It wasn't her forté, but she could provide superior quality and a custom fit, something the off-the-shelf goods at, say, Filthy's large store could not.  Bringing in those stallions for those shirts might bring them in again when they needed a suit later, or a gift for their special somepony.

She unrolled a length from the bolt, memories of the fading and softening process she'd subjected it to briefly surfacing in her mind.  Rarity clipped off enough material for a decent-length skirt, then eyeballed enough for a top.  The skirt practically assembled itself on a table behind her, sheers and sewing machine making short work of the simple task, while she squinted at the larger piece of material.  Different shapes floated before her eyes, superimposed on the deep blue flannel.  Sleeves shortened and lengthened, flared and shrank.  Buttons appeared and vanished like stones rising and disappearing in a stream.

Rarity finally laid the cloth upon a second work-table and pulled out a sheet of the translucent paper she used for her sewing patterns.  While she used to know her measurements by heart, she hesitated twice while sketching out the new pattern.

~I'll have the new numbers down soon enough.  I don't anticipate them changing much, and maintaining them will be rather fun.  Fluttershy and I can do a little indulging together,~ Rarity giggled, shaking her head the slightest bit.  A glimpse of herself in a nearby mirror brought a fresh smile to her face, eyes roaming the soft curves she'd been growing so attached to recently.

"Mmmm.  As much fun as it is to run my hooves over my own body now, I can only imagine how much fun it is for Applejack to play with Fluttershy's new, softer self."  She chuckled, drawing a forehoof along her breast and down along her underside, feeling the flesh beneath her warm white coat grow progressively softer towards her tummy.  "Hush you naughty thing.  One mustn't think of one's friends in such a light."

Opalescence strutted into the room and, despite her diminutive stature, still somehow managed to look down her nose at Rarity.

"Well, you know Opal, I'm no longer sure of that.  Applejack obviously broke that unspoken rule, and look how wonderfully that turned out!"  She winked at her cat, turning back to the mirror before she could catch Opal rolling her slitted eyes at the unicorn.  Rarity swung herself around to, for the fourth time that day, admire her ample rump.

"It's so easy to get caught up in my work darling, but I must confess I feel rather...what's a good word for this mood?  Vivacious!  Vivacious, since acquiring these lovely curves;  I'm, ah, suddenly quite interested in finding someone to share them with."  She let her eyes linger on the smooth lines of rounded flank and plump buttock a moment longer, then cleared her throat with a dainty "Ahem."

"But, back to work, just now."  Rarity recalled her thoughts on the new outfit.  Soon the design in her head migrated to the paper, and she began cutting out the pieces she would need.  A couple other bolts drifted down from a shelf to give up their own share of material.  A couple lengths of elastic and a hoof-ful of large buttons followed Rarity along with the stack of cloth as she made her way to the sewing machine.  She had just gotten it up to speed when someone rapped on the door.

“We're closed today, darling!”

~Ponies can read in this day and age, yes?~  Rarity let a huff escape her.

“Rarity, it's me!”  Spike's voice drifted through the door.  He was too short to peek in through many of the boutique's windows.

Rising from her work, the fashionista unlocked and opened the door with deft telekinesis.  “Spike!  Come in, my little gentledragon.  What brings you to the shop today?”

Spike shut the door behind him and waddled over to stand just before her hooves, gazing up at her with concern plain in his eyes.  “Are you...okay?  You haven't done anything drastic, have you?”

“Done anything?  Whatever do you mean?  Oh, you mean my weight?  I'm not even worried, darling!”  She laughed, giving her mane a loft with one hoof.  “I honestly don't mind the new look.  I'm designing a new line around, er, curvier figures.  I think I'll ask Mrs. Cake to model for me at some point, if I can pry her out of the Corner for a few hours.  At any rate, why do you ask, Spike?  Am I such a drama queen that you feared--”

Spike began frantically waving Rarity's words away.  “No, no!  Nothing like that!  It's just, uh, well, the other girls have...”  The little dragon rolled his eyes.  “Twilight is a bobblehead, Rainbow is in the hospital with exhaustion and a pierced wing, and Pinkie is...well, she's probably just asleep.  I know I'd be after digging a six-foot trench around the entire town and filling it back in.”

Rarity blinked slowly, then squinted.  She shook her head slightly side to side slowly, then faster, as if building momentum could help her catch up with current events.  “Pardon?”

Spike swiped a hand across his face from forehead to chin.  “Never mind; the point is, they haven't been using their best judgment while trying to lose their weight and I was worried you'd have gotten into a mess like they did.”  He sniffed once, and stepped in to hug one alabaster foreleg.  “M'so glad you're alright.”

Rarity nuzzled down along the top of Spike's head.  “There there, Spikey-Wikey.  I'm just fine, nothing to fret about.  The news on the rest sounds dreadful, though!  I've been busy producing designs, so I'm woefully out of the loop it seems.  I must go pay them a visit.”

Glancing around the shop, Rarity failed to spot anything that would solve any of her friends' current problems.  None of her hats were big enough to hide a head of bobblehead-proportions.  She had costume-wings but nothing that would help Rainbow fly again any sooner.  Pinkie...very rarely had any wants much less needs, beyond more sugar than was good for her.  Rarity grimaced.

~I'll think of something I can do to help.  But at the moment just visiting and letting them know they aren't alone is what's important.~  Levitating Spike onto her back, she opened the door and slipped outside into the brisk Autumn evening.

~Grr.  Really could have used that flannel outfit tonight.~