The Sorcerer's Apprentice
Part One: An Unfortunate Development
Author's Note
I am really tired and silly right now. I apologize in advance.
Part One: An Unfortunate Development
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.
"Rise," he commanded.
The mop rose.
The Sorcerer's Apprentice
Part Three: Lesson Learned?
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.
He came up, dripping, and glared at the pants.
Author's Note
This story is done, it was only ever a short one. I'm gonna go back and work on some of my Incompletes now.
