In Pursuit of Magic

by Firebrand

Rating: everyone
Tags: Adventure, Alternate Universe
Length: 3860

In which Twilight Sparkle travels the world in an attempt to document the different types of magic.

After meeting an unusual visitor, Twilight Sparkle becomes brutally aware of how little she really knows about magic. Driven by wanderlust, she leaves Ponyville under the pretense of completing a compendium of magics and arcanery found across the world.

This is a story in two parts: the first part being the story proper, the accounts of Twilight's journeys in pursuit of magic; the second part is a reproduction of the dissertation she writes along the way.

Published 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
Last updated 2015-04-17 12:22:47 UTC

Distant Lands

An infinite sandscape stretches before me.

I stand now on the edge of the world I have always known, on the border of an alien world. Behind me is a flat, grassy plain; mountains are visible in the distance. This scenery is familiar.

Ahead of me, something wholly foreign: dry, sandy ground extends for miles, almost entirely flat. In some places, the ground is hard and cracked; in other places, it is loose and fluid, forming small dunes which tower over the surrounding wasteland.

The line between biomes is not clean-cut. Over the last mile, the grass has become more and more scarce, and the soil dryer and dryer. At some point, the earth around me became entirely bereft of life.

The sun hangs heavily in the sky, beating down on me. I can hear wind, whistling peacefully across the barren land, almost as much as I can feel it as it blows dust into my eyes and mouth.

The first stop of who knows how many on this expedition.

The homeland of the Zebras: Zebrardhi.  As unpleasant as it is, heat and sand and wind notwithstanding, there is a strange, uncanny beauty here, a sort of disbelief that comes from seeing so much nothing in one place. It feels almost…

…magical.

The Magic in Sound, and a Thesis Proposal

"Twilight!" called a tomboyish voice, accompanied by a harsh crashing sound. "You have to come see this!"

I wearily looked up from the book I had been studying intently. "What is it, Rainbow Dash?"

The pegasus lept up from under the bookshelf she had overturned. "A magic show!"

I stared blankly at her. "I have studied magic for years. What about a magic show could possibly excite me?"

"It's just... it's special! You have to see it!"

Oh great. I thought, rolling my eyes. Trixie's back in town.

"Fine." I sighed.

Rainbow Dash ushered me out of the library, and out onto the street, where a small throng of ponies was gathering, congregating towards something in the town square.

Even over the drone of dozens of ponies conversing and clamoring, a sound rang out clearly: music. Singing. A crystalline voice, dictating a loose, haunting melody penetrated the din of the city.

Following Dash's lead, I lifted off and passed over the gathering crowd, landing on the edge of the town's center.

In the middle of the square stood a ragged, portable stage, similar to the one Trixie had used. Upon it, though, was not Trixie, but a rare sight: a gryphon, standing on its hind legs and singing, filling the air around us with a sonorous static. The small, understated black beak denoted the gryphon as female; her feathers were predominately white, with black and grey accents around her eyes and claws.

Her voice was pure and haunting, and pervaded the very air with its arrhythmic, enchanting descant.

On stage with the gryphon was a large pane of glass, which hovered about a foot above the ground. As the gryphon's song ebbed and flowed, colorful points of light danced around inside of the glass, forming complex shapes and patterns.

I could not help but stare, awed, as the geometrical figures grew and evolved.

Finally, after several minutes, the song came to an end: the gryphon struck a single, high note and held it for a solid minute. Her vibrato seemed to resonate with everything, to a degree. Even ponies wandering with disinterest past the square stopped and looked, captivated by the resplendent, piercing wail.

As the note ended, dropping by a major seventh, a change which had a noticeable physical reaction among the audience, the points of light grew brighter, becoming, briefly, white-hot coronæ suspended in glass. As these faded, they left pocks in the core of the glass pane, each one singed a different color, forming a spiraling rainbow effect, with the outer curves in vibrant purples and blues, transitioning, as it curled inwards, along the spectrum, terminating at its center in a deep red. The pane then lowered gently to the ground, caressed in its descent by a haze of chromatic light.

The gryphon fell down onto all fours, and bowed deeply to the silently-enthralled audience.The audience remained quiet for several minutes after this, unmoving; despite this, the gryphon betrayed no signs of worry, instead gazing calmly out among the throng, observing their drawn-out reactions with confidence.

Finally, I stomped one hoof, and the rest of the audience followed suit, creating a veritable stampede of applause, and making the gryphon smirk, then bow again. This applause drew on even longer than the silence preceding it.

The gryphon stepped off the stage and wandered behind it, and the audience hesitantly began to disperse, going on about their days.

I, however, driven by curiosity, was compelled to investigate. I followed the gryphon to the opposite side of the stage, where she had set up, in a small trailer, a temporary home.

"Hello," I said.

The gryphon, previously sifting through a hat full of change, looked up sourly. "What do you want?"

I gulped and grinned nervously. "My name is Twilight Sparkle. I am a student of magic, and I found your display highly enchanting. If you don't mind, I'd like to ask you a few questions."

The gryphon sighed roughly. "Like what?"

"Well, first off, what exactly were you doing? I mean, obviously you were singing, but—"

"Have you never seen a gryphon before?"

"Only a couple, I'm afraid, and neither of them could sing."

"Nonsense. All gryphons can sing."

"Oh..." I hung my head, slightly embarrassed. "So how were you doing that... thing to the glass?"

"I'll show you." said the gryphon, retreating back into her trailer. "I'm Lydian, by the way."

"Nice to meet you. I'm sorry if this is weird, it's just not often that I have an opportunity to learn about another species' magic, let alone see it firsthoof."

Inside the trailer, Lydian reached into a small refrigerator, retrieved a glass of water, and set it on the small table in the middle of the room. "Not a problem."

She stood on her hind legs once more, resting her hands on the edge of the table.

She opened her mouth and let out a resounding baritone hum, which bounced off the walls and ceiling and filled the small space with sublime vibrations.

The surface of the water in the glass rippled excitedly, and droplets began to spray into the air. One by one, these droplets began to hang above the glass, coalescing into larger drops; before long, the entire contents of the glass were suspended over it, a single immaculate sphere of water. Then, the gryphon’s tone shifted suddenly upwards, and the sphere rippled once, before falling to the table in the form of a perfectly polished ball of ice.

Lydian leaned back, her arms crossed and her face marked with satisfaction. I stared, slack-jawed, at the ice. I reached out to pick it up, but as soon as it was enveloped in my magic, its glass-like surface immediately became frosted and marred.

“How?” I wondered aloud.

Lydian’s grin grew wider. “I sang what I wanted to happen.

“See, everything is connected,” she explained. “Everything is in contact with everything else by the air. The only line drawn between them is what they’re made of, their resonance.”

She picked up the ball of ice and held it to the light. She hummed a quick, consonant tuplet, and the inside of the sphere rearranged itself; the light passing through it now cast a cool purple-blue gradient on the wall.

“It’s just a matter of resonating with things, finding the right pitch and volume, and then you can do whatever.” She repeated the low-pitched tone from before, and the sphere began to unravel, spiraling lazily through the air and into the cup, once again in liquid form.

“Wow.” I said. “Can you teach me?”

“No.”

“What? Why not?” I asked, suddenly offended.

“Ponies can’t do it. You’ve got a horn, instead.”

“Huh.” I hadn’t really considered that. “Either way,” I continued, taking a seat on the floor, “tell me more.”

I have spent my whole life studying unicorn and pony magic, with no end in sight. I knew other species had entirely different systems, but I had never before seen it, not up close.

As I left that trailer, my mind raced: do zebras have magic? Buffalo? Dragons? When I returned to the library, I greedily scoured the shelves for every book I could find on foreign arcanology, spellcraft, and so on; my search turned up a disappointing collection: a stack of only three books: Spellsingers, about gryphon magic; The Alchemists, a recounting of travels among the Zebra lands; and Qilin: Ponies of the Far Isles, which I honestly know nothing about.

If it were any other subject, I would have given up here, dejected. But I am a student of magic, personal protégé of Princess Celestia herself; I am the very Element of Magic. If there's anything left to learn about magic, then I am charged with discovering it, not just to sate my own curiosity, but for the betterment of all magic users; I have decided I will go to any length needed to learn all there is to learn. Like the great magical scholars of yore—Starswirl the Bearded, Maresius Hoofton, the Witch of the White; I have decided it is my time to shine, to make my mark on the annals of magical history.

Seldom is awareness of any particular school of magic wholly grasped by those not directly exposed to and trained under it; thus, the frameworks of magic, as they differ among species, is an elusive and slippery topic of research. Previous excursions seeking to ameliorate this (the most recent of which was more than 70 years ago), to compile a solitary volume of magic, were highly limited by a multitude of factors: contemporary political environment and interracial and -species tension, biased and partial research, and scope. However, I—without wanting to sound boastful—am confident in my own ability, as the Element of Magic, Princess of Friendship, and star student of Celestia's School of Magic, to travel the world and bear witness to everything magic has to offer, and, hopefully, create the be-all-end-all interspecies magical reference guide.

—Princess Twilight Sparkle

Introduction and Part I, Section I - Pony Magic

Magic can be broadly defined as the nonphysical interaction with the physical world, by arcane or esoteric means. More specifically, it can be defined as manipulation of the ether, a field which permeates all of  reality. It is generally described as an infinite sea of points, all interconnected, which can be magically altered or interacted with individually or en masse.

Among the other races of the world, various levels of magical attunement can be found. The races of the world can be divided into three broad categories: magical, pseudomagical, and non-magical. The first category describes races such as ponykind, who are directly imbued with magical energy.

"Pseudomagical" refers to races which, while not lacking in magical potency, lack the means to effect it. These races generally develop complex ritual systems in order to enact spells.

Non-magical races are those with very little or no magical capabilites.

Section One - Pony Magic

As previously mentioned, pony magic is a comparatively well-documented system. An interesting fact about ponykind is that, while all individuals are innately magical, the three broad categories presented before represent themselves again in a a slightly different way: unicorns are overtly magical; pegasi are pseudomagical, their magic manifesting subtly in context of flight and weather; and earth ponies, though imbued with potentially as much magic as most unicorns, have no immediate method of accessing it.

Ponies can cast a wide variety of spells, which are ranked based on complexity. The first, basic spells, are banal everyday manipulations, most notably levitation magic. Most unicorns and some nonicorns (see 1d) can perform these without second thought, and this is the limit of most unicorns’ abilities. Minor spells require greater concentration; these include basic transformation, teleportation, and so on. These can still be conceived of and executed in the mind, unlike major spells, which, in addition to the arcane anchoring afforded by the magus, also require additional paraphernalia, such as sigils and incantations in order to sufficiently channel ethereal energy. These include the more complex transformation, long-term illusions, and spells effecting one's luck or intelligence.

While the previous tiers are exclusive to unicorns, the highest, grand spells, are, to a degree, accessible by the other races. These spells are on a much larger scale, and require the involvement of multiple ponies to attain. While they must be initiated by a unicorn or alicorn, the other races harbor sufficient magical energy to contribute to the spell. These spells—things like advanced summoning rituals, mass teleportations, and large-scale earthmoving spells—require too much energy for a single pony alone. The casting must be bolstered with the energies of multiple other ponies working in tandem—depending on the spell, anywhere from two to more than a hundred.

In addition, there is also the subject of runic magic, which imbues everyday items with magical properties, and natural spells, which arise from ponykind's innate attunement with the natural world.

Of particular note when mentioning natural magic is the concept of harmony, or the interactions between the magical fields of two or more ponies who are, for lack of a better word, friends. When ponies spend time around one another and experience positive emotions, their magical fields grow compatible. This allows them to function, to a degree, as one, magically. This boosts the efficiency of their respective magics, so long as they retain proximity.

Section 1a - Unicorn Magic

Unicorns are arguably the most magically-attuned race of all. When one hears the word "magic," the first thought is generally of a unicorn, horn held high and aglow as she taps into the ether and weaves reality about her. Whole volumes could be (and have been) written about the numerous intricacies and fields of unicorn magic, so this will not be a complete description, but rather a laying out of grounds for later comparison.

Unicorn magic is owed entirely to their horns, or, more accurately, their arcana, although this term refers to not just the horn, but the underlying structure which affords ethereal interaction. This consists of three major parts: the arcanum minor, which is located directly at the base of the horn; the arcanum major, a modified portion of the frontal lobe which is linked into the ether; and the thaumaturgon, a wall of dense tissue which segregates the arcanum from the rest of the brain. The thaumaturgon is permeated with small interstices called arcanic nodes. These serve as gateways between the brain and the arcanum. When the message is sent by the brain, the arcanic nodes "open" the arcanum major, allowing its spongy tissue to flood with ethereal energy. This energy is then focused by way of the arcanum minor into the horn, or magus.

The magus is comprised of four parts: the core, or magus centralis, is an area of soft tissue which serves as a focal point for ethereal energy. The outer keratinous shell, the magus osseous, serves only to protect the core. The core has two areas of note: the magus cluster, which is the connection between the core and the arcanum minor. At the tip of the magus can be found what is called Hoofton's area, which channels direct spells—those expelled directly from the horn, such as battle magic.

Once energy is funneled in by the arcanum minor, it is transferred into the magus cluster, which focuses and refines it before it enters the magus centralis, from which it can manipulate the world around it.

Alicorns, the race of pony royalty, bear mention here. Externally resembling winged unicorns (a rare phenotype of pegasus-unicorn hybrids), alicorns are technically magically-created permutations of unicorns, and are not born alicorns. Thus, their magical abilities are similar to those of unicorns, but generally greatly magnified. Interestingly, the addition of wings does not connote flight magic. Flight, while second-nature to most pegasi (owing to their own magic—see 1b), it must be learned by alicorns. The only manifestation of magic which alicorns possess over unicorns is known as dark magic, which allows a single individual to perform major- or grand-scale magic, albeit at the cost of some of their magical aura. That is, performing dark magic weakens one's ability to perform regular magic, to the point that spells must be cast as dark spells, which in turn advances the decay to the point where one completely loses all magical potency.

Section 1b - Pegasus Magic

It is commonly believed, even among pegasi, that flight is achieved entirely using the wings. While this is not impossible, it is very difficult to take flight without the aid of flight magic. In addition to being born with an innate intuition for things like wind currents and weather behaviors, pegasi are also gifted with a passive form of magic, which has numerous effects copacetic with aerial life.

The bones in a pegasus' wings contain rudimentary arcanic nodes, which project a field of influence around the wing. This means that the wing affects the air around it not just physically, but also by magically altering air flow and density around the wing, allowing for almost unhindered flight. This is a very reactive alteration: a pegasus' wings while in a glide will be behaving much differently—generally diverting air away from the front of the wing, effectively "slicing" through the air—than those of one flapping its wings to hover in place, which creates a dense "cushion" of air under the wings, giving a very solid upwards push with each flap.

Section 1c - Earth PonyMagic

The least magical of the three primary races, earth pony magic generally manifests itself in subtle ways. earth pony's bodies are entirely permeated with ethereal focal points, not unlike tiny arcana. These are insufficient for casting spells, but do have some other effects. All earth ponies are extremely resilient compared to the other races. They are stronger, their wounds heal faster, and they have stamina and endurance which dwarf those of pegasi or unicorns.

Another hallmark of earth pony magic is their proficiency for agriculture. The explanation for this has long eluded scientists. The popular theory as of this writing is that a field tended by (and thus frequently exposed to) an earth pony is somehow charged with their magical field, allowing crops to more easily take root.

Section 1d - Crossbreeds, Hybrids, etc.

—Section 1d Subsection 1 — Hybrids among Ponykind (Pegasus, Earth Pony, and Unicorn)

The magical properties of the three races are fairly straightforward, but the dynamics of crossbreeds quickly muddles them. Racial traits exhibit incomplete dominance, meaning that the features are inherited and exhibited in conjunction, like a white flower pollinated by a red flower producing a plant bearing pink flowers.

The child of any two ponies of different races will generally exhibit a diluted mixture of its parent’s traits; phenotypes do not display any particular dominance; it is a coin toss, for instance, between whether the child of a pegasus and a unicorn will be born with wings, a horn, or both, and whether these appendages will be functional.

A crossbreed which exhibits earth pony traits will have an earth pony’s normally bolstered integrity, and, if its parent was a unicorn, a deeper connection with magic, on par with most unicorns’. Some unicorn-earth pony hybrids have even been found to have partially- or fully-developed arcana, albeit non-functioning for lack of a magus, much like so-called nonicorns (see 1d3). earth pony-presenting offspring with a pegasus parent do not exhibit any pegasus-like traits, though they often display born understandings of aerodynamics and other fields affecting flight.

A crossbreed with a horn will generally exhibit diminished magical prowess in comparison to a purebred unicorn. If one parent was an earth pony, then the child will inherit their resilience. If one parent was a pegasus, then their magic is subtly affected, making the motion of levitated objects more fluid. This is because the latent enchantment found in pegasi wings becomes a part of their arcanum, and thus affects any applicable spells cast. There is also a very small chance that a pegasus-unicorn hybrid will develop both wings and a horn, although these will often (but not always) be stunted and non-functioning. These hybrids are sometimes called “false alicorns" or "pegacorns".

Pegasus crossbreeds will generally exhibit a decreased flight prowess (owing to decreased or absent latent magic in their wings), though those with unicorn parents can ameliorate this by channeling their non-latent magic. If the other parent was an earth pony, then the child will have, again, enhanced stamina and resilience, albeit as a tradeoff for great difficulty flying, lacking any form of magical reinforcement. While it is not impossible for these ponies to fly, it is difficult to learn the proper discipline and technique.

The child of an alicorn will be either a unicorn or an alicorn, regardless of the race of the other parent.

—Section 1d Subsection 2 — Hybrids between Ponies and other Equids

The offspring of a pony and a zebra, even though there are many varieties, is referred to as a zebroid. Regardless of the parent pony’s race, zebroids will never be found with wings or a horn (the zebra gene “overwrites” these). They are generally non-magical, but often show penchants for alchemy similar to a zebra’s.

Mules and hinnies are the offspring of a pony and a donkey—a male pony and a female donkey produce a hinny, and a male donkey and female pony produce a mule. Like zebroids, these hybrids do not exhibit wings or horns. They have arcana structures similar to earth ponies, but these are often dormant, unless a more overtly magical pony enables them by way of proximity or a spell.

Ponies are incapable of breeding with the so-called “Lesser Equines” (see section 4).

—Section 1d Subsection 3 — Defects Effecting Magical Ability

A good friend of this author is what is known as a "nonicorn," a crude neologism for "non-unicorn." While this would technically include all other races—and is often falsely applied to arcanum-bearing crossbreeds lacking magi—the term is reserved for a fairly rare genetic condition in which a purebred unicorn's magus fails to fully develop in utero. The inner structure of the arcanum still forms, but the magus never breaks the skin. Being unicorns, these individuals are deeply in tune with magic, more so than any earth pony or pegasus, but have great difficulty casting even rudimentary spells. They are not universally magically inept; depending on the degree of arcanial development, they may or may not be able to function magically.

Diseases exist which affect arcane potential, such as fractatis, a weakening of the keratin layer of a magus, causing it to embrittle and possibly break if used, and Fleetfeather’s Disease, which causes the arcanic nodes in a pegasus’ wings to cease functioning.

A very, very small percentage (approximately one in 800,000) of ponies are born “barren,” lacking any form of innate magic.