NaNoWriMo2015 Oneshot Colletction

“It’s about your friend, Miss Starlight Dancer,” the doctor told Neutral. Neutral was torn. On one hoof, he wanted nothing more than to find out what happened to Starlight, but on the other, he wasn’t sure he wasnnted to find out if something was wrong with his friend.

After a moment, though, he realized there really wasn’t a decision to be made. “Yes?” Neutral asked.

“She’ll be fine, but there were several traces of magics that we’re required to report to the Guard present on her. Do you know anything about what might have put her in this state?”

Neutral shook his head. “No,” he replied. “The magic was outside the scope of what I’ve seen before. I can’t say I’m completely surprised by that, though.”

“No?” the doctor asked, raising an eyebrow.

“We’re both doctorate holders in the fields of Arcana, and I hold no illusions about seeing everything. I have never seen anything like what she had cast, though with time my coworkers and I could probably figure it out.”

The doctor shook his head. “That won’t be necessary. We can help her without knowing what the spell was meant to do. It just would have been faster, but if you’ve never seen anything like it.” The doctor shrugged as Neutral gave an apologetic look.

“So, do you know what happened to her?” Neutral asked.

“Well, that’s where I’m no longer allowed to say anything but to next of kin,” the doctor said. “Are you?”

Neutral paused, debating the merits of it, but shook his head. The mental debate had only taken a few seconds, but Neutral wasn’t going to risk it coming back to bite him. That and… he wasn’t about to claim to be Starlight’s signifigant other, no matter how worried he was. That was… too much. He quickly shook his head again to banish the image. “No,” he said after a moment. “I’m her coworker.”

The doctor nodded. “Do you know of any way to contact her next of kin?”

“The university should.”  Neutral said. “We’ll contact her next of kin and see about getting them here.”

The doctor took a breath, before suddenly looking awkward. “And, maybe advise them to contact a lawyer,” he advised, looking suddenly very much out of his comfort zone. “The traces of magic we found, when I say forbidden, I mean, it’s the kind we don’t even have a name for, just a signature to watch for.”

Neutral frowned, unsettled a bit by that, but not really having anything to say to that. He knew Sttarlight was a little paranoid at times, as her fortress of a home did well to prove—the one time he’d seen it before knowing it was hers had given him the mental image of the magical equivalent of a star fort, armed to the teeth, and on twenty-four seven high alert—but he hadn’t thought, or hadn’t wanted to think, that Starlight would ever do something like going into forbidden magic. Forgotten, sure, legally grey, he could see that, but forbidden?

Neutral eventually just nodded to the doctor. “I’ll be sure to let them know,” he said as he turned to head back out to the waiting room. He paused, glancing back to the doctor. “When are your visiting hours?”

The doctor looked, once again, rather uncomfortable. “You’ll have to ask the guard,” he said awkwardly. “Once they get here, she’s going to be in their custody, even if she’s here.”

Neutral nodded, and then once more began the walk back out to the waiting room. What exactly could have happened? Neutral didn’t know of any forbidden arts that he couldn’t at least recognize the basic arrays of. Death spells, torture arrays, blood magic; it all had a core that he could read and decipher, at least in the most basic of ways, without much trouble. Whatever it was the Starlight had used, it had been so strange. So alien, that Neutral hadn’t known where to start. Not in the head of the moment.

Maybe now that Starlight was no longer hanging in the balance, he could figure out what exactly it was she was willing to risk herself for. What exactly the spell did. Lost in thought as he was, he almost ran over Flux when the little mare stepped in front of him. Neutral hadn’t even realized he’d made it back to the waiting room until that point.

“So?” Flux asked worriedly.

“She’ll be fine physically, but she was using forbidden magic of some kind, so the Guard is going to be involved. More than they probably already would have been,” Neutral explained with a note of sadness. If this really was this big, then this would probably cost Starlight her career.

Flux nodded. “I figured as much. I’ve never seen that array before, but something about it felt… off. If I could get another look at it I could tell you just what it was that felt so weird.”

“Hopefully none of the other teachers have taken it apart yet, then,” Neutral said softly, worry clear in his eyes.

“Or the guard. I think that would almost be worse. They might not take it down, but they don’t know Starlight’s casting style, so they might make things worse or hurt themselves,” Flux said, frowning, more worried about the ramifications that something like that would have on Starlight than the fate of an overconfident Guard mage.

“So who’s going to go stop them from doing something stupid?” Event had come over but hadn’t said anything, finding he had nothing—necessary—to say.

The stallions both looked to Flux, who sighed. “Yes, I’ll go make sure nothing bad happens. Neutral can wait here in case anything comes up about Starlight they can give to him. Event, you want to talk to the Doppler about Starlight’s next of kin?”

Event and Neutral both nodded, though Neutral looked like he’d rather be doing something. Unfortunately, they both knew Event was better suited to dealing with Doppler, and Flux was the one for talking to the guard. Which left him with the job that amounted to sitting around and worrying until somepony came back with news. Neutral only hoped it wasn’t worse news. “Meet back here when you guys are done?” Neutral asked, more for confirmation than anything.

“We’ll be back,” Flux assured Neutral. “Wish me luck.”

“Like you’ll need luck,” Event commented, rolling his eyes as he turned to head out. “It’s Neutral I gotta worry about.”  Flux sighed, muttering something under her breath as she followed after Event. Neutral watched the duo leave at a brisk trot, before he walked back over to one of the waiting room chairs and settled in, knowing that this was going to be a long, long wait. He only hoped that the wait ended on a good note, rather than the one the sinking feeling in his gut was telling him was going to happen. Optimism, like Starlight in Manic Scholar mode. Neutral shuddered. On second thought, maybe just normal optimistic hope… he thought.