NaNoWriMo2015 Oneshot Colletction

Consciousness stirred. That fundamental spark of awareness. Starlight groaned and attempted to beat that spark back into unconsciousness. Her head hurt like the worst hangover she’d ever had combined with the worst magic headache she’d ever had to create a lovely percussion of raw pain. It was almost enough to drown out the full body ache from overexertion of her mana muscles and feeling of the too tight restraints on her wings.

...wait a second, wings? Starlight’s eyes shot open, the surprise doing more than enough to punt aside whatever will she had to remain asleep. She looked around to find herself in a the high security lockdown area of Canterlot General Hospital. That did not bode well.

She tried to life her forelegs to rub her head, already feeling her headache worsening from the stress that was sure to come. The movement was quickly arrested. She turned and looked down to find that there was a set of padded restraints cuffing her forehooves to the bed. There was also a padded restraint preventing her new wings from opening or even moving. Wings she hadn’t had prior to the spell she’d used in attempt to heal her horn.  She went cross-eyed to look up, checking she still had her horn and sighed in relief when she found it there. She didn’t know what she’d do without the ability to do magic. It was what drove her, and what gave her life.

She frowned when she noted the limiter on her horn, wondering why she didn’t feel it. She didn’t feel any weaker than normal, and figured she could still do all her normal magic, so what was the point of it. Deciding to leave it for now and just ask the doctor what the meaning of this was whenever she walked in, she gave her room a more thorough look over. It was the standard hospital room for this particular area, with a single bed, a nightstand, a call button for a nurse, and lacking in any windows. The bed was standard hospital fare, and there was a door off to the side that presumably led to a bathroom.

That thought led to the next, rather obvious, question. How did she get to the washroom anyway? Deciding not to think on it since it wasn’t an urgent question at the moment, she frowned, looking for any way she might be able to at least escape her restraints. Even with a defective limiter, she still didn’t have the magical power to effectively jimmy the locks on any of her restraints open, and that was going to bother her. Though maybe she could just break one off with the right array and positive feedback power source. Sort of cascading array? A bunch of little impacts setting off a bunch more until the restraints broke?

She frowned a little more. No, she’d have to try her best to keep the things undamaged in case they were needed for somepony that actually required them to for the safety of the staff. And if they removed the limiter, she’d have to let them know it was defective, too. Though not before they removed it.

She blinked, and looked up as she heard a distinct buzz from her door. A second later it opened to reveal the odd, though not unexpected, combination of a kindly, nervous looking nurse, and a scowling orderly. The nurse paused in the door as she saw Starlight awake and watching her.

“Oh, hello, you’re awake! How are you feeling?” she asked, approaching carefully, pulling out a clipboard from beneath her wing.

“Like I was run over by the entire participation of the Canterlot Open Airathon,” Starlight answered honestly, eliciting a wince from the nurse. The open aerial marathon usually had a hundred or more pegasi participate each year, so, while it sounded like an exaggeration, it unfortunately was not.

“Do you want any painkillers?” the nurse asked.

“No,” Starlight immediately answered. “I don’t want anything that might affect my thinking in any way, and most certainly not painkillers.”

The nurse nodded, making a note on her clipboard. “Do you know why it is you’re here?”

“Apparently I either miscast or mistranslated a spell. Either that or it set off or revealed some of my legally grey wards,” Starlight answered without hesitation. Those were the only things she could really think of, though there might have been others. Other things, however, would have required an invasion of her privacy in such a way that if they were still used against her, then things would end very badly for them unless they were part of the Equestrian Special Intelligence Service.

“The spell you cast used Forbidden Magic-“

“You mean, that stuff nopony knows is Forbidden until you attempt to access or cast it?” Starlight cut in with a dark tone.

The orderly tensed and the nurse swallowed nervously. “The spell you cast used Forbidden Magic,” she restarted, causing Starlight’s eye to twitch. “You’re now under investigation for knowing use of Forbidden Magic, Illegal Casting, and some other offenses under the Acceptable Magic Usage Act and the Criminal Code of Equestria.”

Starlight nodded, a small smile coming onto her face. “Which gives me the right to a lawyer, speaking to a family, and, with Forbidden Magic Offenses, to be heard by the Princesses themselves,” Starlight said, thinking of the implications. Perhaps some of this could work in her favour.

The nurse glanced at the orderly. “Yes, that’s true,” he said in a deep voice. “Why are you smiling at that?”

“Because, everything can be excused with a halfway solid excuse if you see her. Just ask the Ponyville Police Guard,” she said with a smirk. “Want it, Need it spell, destruction of property, just about everything else under the sun.” She shrugged. “It’s a great thing.”

The orderly had gained a suddenly very angry look, while the nurse frowned, clearly unsure of what to say now. Starlight just continued to smirk. “Oh, and you don’t have to keep me restrained, I’m not going to leave here. It would be far worse for my case if I did, rather than just staying here.”

The orderly frowned and shook his head and the nurse looked apologetic. “Sorry, but those need to remain on,” she answered. “Hospital policy for the Confinement wards.”

Starlight nodded, understanding, but a little annoyed. It would be nice to be able to move around, or at least stretch a bit, rather than be confined to the stupid bed, but she wasn’t about to argue. Instead, she’d figure out how to break the damn things. Maybe via blinking out of them? That seemed like the best idea. While similar to teleportation, blinking had several more limitations, on top of having a far more complicated array. The good part about it, though, was the fact that it needed far less power to cast than standard teleportation. To the point that it was almost negligible.

She’d try it once the orderly and nurse left the room. Though, on that note… “What were you coming in here for in the first place?” Starlight asked curiously.

“To check your vitals and see if you’d woken yet,” the nurse answered. “And if you had, request that you remove the wards around your mind in preparation for a magistrate investigation.”

“No,” Starlight said flatly. “I don’t care what the regulations are, a mind ream is against every moral and ethical code there is. If you want to try it, you’re going to have to break in, and trust me, that’s not going to happen for anypony short of the princesses.”

“And you’re sure of that?” the orderly asked in his deep, level voice, while his scowl somehow got even angrier.

“I’m sure,” Starlight assured him. “I’ve got several dozen layers, years of experience, and some real effective memories to back it up. Unless somepony comes along who’s either a changeling with Infiltrator level training or alicorn levels of brute force, you are not going to enter my mind.”

“You know that will only make things worse for you.”

“Yes, I’m sure. My wards will remain up unless you can break them down,” Starlight answered him levelly. The orderly nodded. “Now, unless you have something else to say, please leave.” She didn’t say it like a question. Sure she was being a little short with them, but what they’d just asked her to do. They’d just asked her to allow herself to be violated in that way. It wasn’t going to happen.

The nurse hesitated for a moment, before she nodded, turning around and leaving the room, the orderly following behind.

Starlight sighed and leaned back against the bed. This was going to be a frustrating stay. She could already see it. At least she didn’t have to worry too much about what was going on anymore. Now all she had to do was figure out how her spell—meant to heal her alicorn—had done something as unexpected as turn her into an alicorn. Or, at the very least least, a winged unicorn.