Marvel Mares

by neorenamon

'Ugh,' she thought, 'Why did I decide to go cheap on winter clothing? I'm going to die in the Crystal Mountain cold... for nothing...'

The violet unicorn mare lay in the snow freezing to death. She no longer had the strength to move one leg. The clothing she bought just wasn't adequate to protect her from temperatures well below freezing. At least on the good side, the cold made her numb enough not to feel the other aches and pains she had.

And she had plenty of time to recall what got her to this dismal location in the first place... barrels of root beer.

...

She was trembling with delight as she read her scroll again for the umpteenth time.

Twilight Strange hereby receives her Doctorate of Magic Degree

by decree of the Canterlot Institute of Higher Magical Studies,

approved and endorsed by Princess Celestia

The diploma was placed back into her saddle bag. With that, she had the right to open a magic shop. She could study magic to her heart's content and find some way to make a living with her spells. The stars were the limit on what she could do with her powers. But most of all, her work had to be great. Great enough to catch the attention of Princess Celestia. Once a pony had her favor, there was nothing they couldn't get. No high society function she couldn't get into.

She was so wrapped up in her own thoughts that she was completely oblivious to the preparations for the Grand Galloping Gala going on all around her. Wagons loaded with all manner of food and drink were hauled by her as she walked up the street towards the Royal Canterlot Library. After all, what better place to begin her studies for the best place to set up her magical shop and the kind of magic that would best get the attention of Princess Celestia?

"I'm sure the Princess would be so impressed if I master the spell of teleportation," she mused aloud as she walked along, "That spell has so many practical purposes. And it's really flashy at the same time. Who wouldn't be impressed by a spell like that?"

"Uh..." grunted a large Earth pony stallion as he lead a team of six ponies hauling a huge wagon up the hill, "Why do they expect us to overload wagons like this just to save one trip?!"

She glanced up at the stallions struggling to pull the wagon loaded with barrels up the hill towards the Canterlot Palace. But only a quick glance. She was far to busy to worry about what they did for a living. The fact she was going the other way alone proved she didn't have the time to even think about helping them.

And since they were working stallions, they wouldn't have thought to ask some unicorn mare to help them out when they were just doing the jobs they were supposed to be doing anyways. So they didn't even look at her as she trotted by them in the opposite direction. She weaved behind the wagon to avoid another wagon coming up the hill as well.

'You'd think they make an allowance for traffic going down the hill,' she thought slightly annoyed.

Then something happened that she had never felt before. Somewhere in the distance, there was a large explosion. She looked up in time to see a rainbow ring as it expanded across the Canterlot skies. The tingle through her body told her it was some kind of powerful magic that she had never seen before.

She was so busy looking up that she didn't pay attention to the breaking sound of wood up the hill. By the time she looked towards the sounds, she saw a dozen large barrels bouncing down the road towards her. One barrel shattered in the street sending a wave of brown fizzy liquid at her. She slipped as she tried to get out of the way of the others, but it was too late...

...

The next thing she remembered, she woke up in the hospital. Her head, neck and chest were wrapped up in bandages and her front legs were set in casts. In fact, her entire upper body was hurting her something fierce. She could only see from her right eye as her left eye was completely covered over.

A nurse mare came by and looked at her charts. A small pink mare with a bright red mane and tail. She wore a white uniform covering the forward half of her body leaving her red cross cutie mark clearly visible on her flanks. It was the standard cutie mark of professional nurses after all.

"Welcome back," she said softly, "You've been unconscious for almost a full day."

She tried to talk, but couldn't open her mouth to say anything.

"Oh don't try to talk," she said, "Your jaw is broken on both sides. It's been wired shut for your own healing. As soon as the Doctor comes back, he'll use his magic to speak to you without having to use words. But in the meantime, I'm sure you'll be wanting a pain killing spell. Unless you shake your head, I'll assume you want it?"

She remained still so the nurse went ahead with casting the pain killing spell on her. It felt really good. Since she wasn't going any where or doing anything, the Nurse used a much stronger pain killing spell which left her feeling just a bit numb all over. Definitely not the kind of spell one would take when they were planning to operate heavy machinery.

"The Doctor will be along to see you shortly," she said as she moved on to the next patient's bed.

It surely didn't feel like a short time before the Doctor finally showed up at her bedside. He was a brilliant white unicorn stallion who was somewhat taller and leaner than normal. Like the nurse, he had a uniform that was as white as he was, but it was clearly the uniform of a Doctor instead of a nurse. He had the usual stethoscope about his neck and the small mirror headband around his head just under the base of his horn.

"Let me look at your chart before I say anything," he said as her chart floated before his eyes. "I see," he said as pages flipped. "Interesting," he said as more pages flipped. "Tragic," he added as he put the chart back.

Twilight made some sounds.

"Oh right," he said as he cast a spell on her.

"What's wrong?" she asked with her disembodied voice.

"Well," he began, "You were crushed under several barrels of root beer. Among other things, you suffered compound fractures of you front legs, shoulders, ribs, neck, jaw and skull. Your horn was crushed almost into powder from the force of the blow to your head. We had to perform radical spells on your brain just to keep you alive long enough to get you to the hospital."

"What does that mean?"

"Well..." he said suddenly awkward, "While we can rebuild you body..."

"Go on..."

He gulped hard before he continued, "We believe you'll never be able to perform magic spells again."

"NOOO!!!"

...

Days passed as her body was repaired. Since she was so focused on her career, she hardly had any friends to come by and see her. Even her parents only stopped by once to see how she was doing. She was so depressed that she really didn't want to see anypony anyways. It was only the painkilling spells that let the hospital staff perform the others reconstruction spells on her body in the first place. Even with the pain controlling spells, she still felt her body hurting almost everywhere.

But because of how highly she was regarded in the unicorn community, no expense was spared for her. By the time the reconstruction was finished, she was assured that she would look like the accident never even happened. In fact, she might even look better than she did before she suffered it. But no spell, drug or assurance could stop the emptiness she felt inside. The void in her soul she felt because she no longer had magic inside her.

Even though the Doctors were fully sure she would never do magic again, she would prove them all wrong even if it took her the rest of her natural life to do so. As the days passed the bandages came off. Then the splints were removed. But she still had one eye covered as repairing the pony eye was one of the most complicated restoration spells known. Even more complex than repairing the heart, but of course not as hard as repairing the brain.

After a week, she entered into physical therapy. While she could have gotten by with spells alone, therapy increased her speed of recovery from years down to a couple of months. Each day, she worked herself to exhaustion trying to recover and relearn how to move gracefully as quickly as she could. She was always a driven mare no matter what she was mastering.

Yet every time she looked into a mirror, the image of her rebuilt horn mocked her. It was a normal horn as far as it looked, but she hated it because it couldn't do the one thing she most wanted it to do: Channel her magical energies. At times, she just wanted to break it off again because of how it seemed to mock her inability to use magic again.

Then the day finally came when the eyepatch came off, and she could use both of her eyes once more. She was grateful for the fact she had binocular vision once more, and that she still had full color vision from both eyes without any noticeable side effects. Two perfectly good eyes to see how powerless and miserable she was...

But at least she was well enough and mobile enough to make trips to the Hospital's Library. Reading books and scrolls from their collection gave her something else to think about besides how miserable she felt.

Then she found a book that changed everything: Ancient Spells of the World. There was six volumes to the massive work. It supposedly cataloged all the most obscure spells known. She always felt that most of the spells were myths and fairy tales, but she decided it wouldn't hurt to read them. Starting with Volume One, she began skimming the pages as she used speed reading to look for medical spells. Her eyes almost popped out of her head when she found the spell she was looking for: Magical Restoration of Spell-Casting Abilities for Unicorns.

She stopped on the page to read it in detail. Her heart raced as she looked over each paragraph. She had to know who had the spell and where it was last known to be. Her hopes faded as she read that the only known caster of the spell was Starswirl the Ancient One, and he was last seen in a secret shrine lost somewhere in the depth of the Crystal Mountains buried in a state of eternal winter. A powerful unicorn hermit who was considered to be the most powerful spell caster in the known world. Even better than Celestia herself.

'I'll see this Ancient One if it's the last thing I do!'

...

Twilight awoke in a comfortable bed. She could feel heat radiating from one side of the room, and the crackling sounds assured her that it was a fire from some kind of fireplace.

"Well," she muttered to nopony in particular, "It's not nearly hot enough to be Tartarus, so I must not be dead..."

"You're right about that," said a nearby mare.

She raised her head and opened her eyes to see a mare standing by the fire. Her clothing was all dark green and she felt it was about two or three centuries out of style. She also wondered how she could get around with the large curved spikes from her shoulders or the flowing green cloak with the yellow lining to it.

"Did... you save me... from freezing to death?" she asked awkwardly.

She turned to look at her with her blue-green eyes as she replied, "No, I did not. The Ancient One bothered to save you."

"The Ancient One?!" asked Twilight, "That's the stallion I've come all this way to see!!"

"Well aren't you the lucky one," she replied sarcastically, "What do you want to see him about? All knowledge of magic? Eternal life? Limitless power?"

"No," she replied, "I just... just want to be able to use my magic again."

"Well I'm sure you can ask the Ancient One about that yourself when he comes by to see you."

"Thank you."

She raised an eyebrow as she replied, "Thank me? For what? I haven't done anything for you." Then she smirked as she walked out.

Then a small purple dragon came in after her bearing a tray with food and drink on it.

"Ah, the Master has asked me to tend to you," he said evenly, "I hope you're feeling better. Since I have no idea what you like, I've prepared several entrees and a few different things to drink."

"Thank you," she replied, "Who might you be?"

"Me?" he asked, "I'm Spike Wong, a humble dragon servant to the honorable Ancient One."

"Well I'm Doctor Twilight Strange," she replied, "Nice to meet you."

"We don't get much company up here," he said as he offered the tray to her, "Mostly ponies the master doesn't want to deal with."

"Really?" she asked, "He doesn't like ponies seeking knowledge?"

"Oh it would be great if they were just seeking knowledge," he replied, "but most seek limitless power to use for their own selfish goals."

"All I want is to use my magic again," she sighed as she picked up a plate with a dandelion sandwich on it. She set it aside on the stand next to the bed, and then she took a cup of dark tea and set it aside as well. "I think this should be enough," she said. She started eating, but noticed that Spike wasn't moving. "You don't need to watch me eat, do you?" she asked.

"It's my duty to take care of your needs as the Ancient One commands," he replied evenly.

"So when do you think the Ancient One can see me?" she asked somewhat nervously.

"I'll inform you as soon as he wants me to tell you."

She nodded. Then she paused before she asked, "Does he have a library?"

"Of course."

"Do you think he'd mind if I read some of his books later?" she asked nervously.

"I shall be sure to ask on your behalf," he replied.

"Thank you," she sighed, "I... really like books."

"If there's anything you need..."

"Tell me," she asked, "who was that mare who just left?"

"Her?" he asked, "She's the Ancient One's pupil: Baroness Sunset Mordo."

"Sounds like a really cheery mare," she muttered.

...

The day came when she was granted audience with Starswirl the Ancient One. Her heart pounded in her chest as Spike lead her to the Master's personal office. She noticed that the Baroness was standing in one corner of the room even as she approached. The whole room was almost bursting at the seems with all the things stuffed into it. She looked about at all the the shelves overflowing with books, scrolls, tomes, manuals, catalogs, librams and the like. And scattered about the room were all manner of trinkets ranging from huge wooden globes to bronze telescopes to brass reinforced wooden chests.

But then she saw the Ancient One himself. His beard alone was so mighty that she could see anything else but his face. She couldn't even tell if he was standing or sitting in the back of the room.

"Go on," said Spike.

So she nervously walked forward until she stood before him.

"Please," she begged, "I've come all this way..."

"I know why you're here," he announced, "and I cannot help you."

"WHAT?!" she yelled.

"You are only here for your own selfish ends," he continued, "and I do not help those who are selfish."

"THAT'S NOT FAIR!!"

"You have three days to recover," he announced, "and then I shall teleport you back home. Never try to come here again."

She turned around and fled the room leaving a stream of tears behind her. In the corner of her eye, she could see the sneer from the Baroness.