§ Magicless §
▲By mr_minati▲
Life without magic was unbearable for the prodigious unicorn Starlight Glimmer now a student of friendship, a field that she had been struggling with since childhood and has been using magic to compensate for it. At one of the many chambers of Twilight’s castle, Starlight’s expertise could been seen as she was dusting, sweeping and organizing all at the same time while she was writing a letter without any sign of struggle.
A knock at the door paused her writing and halted her chores, she looked up and saw Spike waving his claw and entering the room. Her eyes traced him all the way down to his left claw where, he held some letters and a package. She recognize the package at first sight, but the letters were unexpected. Still she gleefully received them.
Spike handed her three items, the package was first: it was a hardcover book, a fiction, about the adventures of a changeling trying to find his lost sister and ending up discovering a great conspiracy on Equestria.
“Ooh,that’s a good one,” Spike commented. “I don’t usually read books, I’m more into comics, but that one caught my attention. He ends up finding his sister at the hooves of a wealthy pony in Canterlot and at the end it was all a show, the attacks weren’t real! They actually--”
Spike stopped as Starlight frowned and dropped the book on top of the table carelessly; Spike scratched the back of his head and apologized for the spoiler.
“Where did you even got it from?” Starlight asked. “I asked Twilight for it and she said that it’s not at the library, she doesn’t know about it either.”
“You didn’t ask me, then,” Spike said. “I have a copy in my room collecting dust.”
Starlight accepted her mistake of not asking him and pressed on with the second. This one was a letter with a ten thousand bit fine on it for the damages caused to the ponies from the town of -- and the letter got disintegrated with a glow of Starlight’s horn.
“What was that about?” Spike asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Oh… just a wrong letter, Spike, it wasn’t for me.”
“But you didn’t have to do that.”
“Whoops! Silly me, you’re right. I’m sorry, Spike,” Starlight replied with a fake laugh and smile.
Spike felt awkward and excuse himself from the room. Starlight thanked him for bringing the letters, and Spike gave a peace sign before leaving the room,Leaving her by herself. There was only one letter left. This one was what she was hoping for and filled her with excitement, it was a letter from Princess Luna. Starlight knows something might be happening since she wasn’t expecting any correspondence from her on this day. She unfolded it quickly and began reading it.
Dear Star,
I wanted to tell you once more, thank you for the last month’s meeting. It was truly awesome to finally meet and to know you better after these three months, and I want to have it again. This time I’m the one inviting you, I hope you’re not busy and manage to join me.
I have a surprise for you, my friend, and I’m sure you’re going to love it. Come down to Wisteria Forest on the west past of White Tail Woods. There’s something special in this place that I decided to share with you. I’ll be waiting for you.
Yours sincerely,
-P.L.
P.S. Don’t think I forgot about the pool challenge, you still owe me fifty bits!
For Starlight, it didn’t really matter how spontaneous this meetup was, she was still down for it, plus she couldn’t really let her new friend down, the Princess could be of great help to make that fine disappear.
· * * *
Starlight was standing outside of Twilight’s castle, carrying a saddlebag with essentials and eyeing the map to teleport directly. It took her half an hour to wash and brush her mane, looking nice and neat, and another half to find a map that showed the place where Luna was located. Even Twilight hadn’t heard of such place before, so she flipped through countless travel journals and maps she finally stumbled upon one that had. There weren’t any details about the place, though, it was if like somepony had just slapped the name on a generic green patch that every other map had left blank.
This only got her more curious. She vanished in a shower of sparks and reappeared in front of the woods. There was nothing special; it was kind of hard for her to tell if she was where she wanted to be. She expected to appear at least closer to the springs. Shrugging the thoughts away, she pressed into the woods to find the Princess.
Not a sound other than her own hoofsteps and the occasional rustle of the trees from the wind could be heard, not even the chirp of a bird or any kind of life in there. This started to make her feel a bit uneasy but, still being determined, she pressed forward.
There was nothing but a trail that she had been following for a little while now. She had been walking down and calling “Luna” out loud to see if there was any sign that she was taking the right path, but so far nothing was showing up, so she stopped her clueless trot.
“That’s it, I’m trying something else,” she said. She focused on a spell she had come up with, but it failed to activate.
She raised her eyebrow, “Okay, that’s weird…” Starlight gave another try, but her horn wasn’t responding. “Oh no”, she closed her eyes and gave all her focus but to no avail.
Panic was taking over Starlight, she started to sweat, her breathing was shallow. It seemed like she lost her magical abilities, the only thing she was really good at – Starlight was convinced on that fact. The connection to her magic source was lost, and she couldn’t understand why or how, it was completely unexplainable.
One thing was certainly clear after a few minutes of panicking and thinking about her new life as a disable unicorn, she needed to get out of here and get help immediatly. So she turned and galloped away, there was no time to waste. Without her magic; it was obvious it’d take longer now to travel.
She galloped as fast as her legs could take her on the uneven trail, running towards where she had come from, or so she thought. Starlight noticed that the trail was going uphill now. She halted before continuing on.
“This can’t be right,” Starlight said after realizing that she must’ve lost her sense of direction. So she turned back around. She was going downhill, galloping a bit faster than before.
Starlight was certain that a small town would be nearby, and she had to get there before sundown. She was about to make a turn, but she failed to see a rock, which made her trip and roll uncontrollably down the small hill. Behind her, there was a huge trail of cruched, dried leaves as she rolled over them and flew all around before crashing into a huge trunk at the bottom.
Dried leaves were falling all around her; some were even stuck on her messy mane. She slowly got up as her whole body was aching a little and turned to find all her stuff from her saddlebag scattered all over the small hill. She tried to pick up a couple of grain bars that was the closest to her with her magic but--
“Yeah, Of course!…” Starlight said annoyed while her horn didn’t respond.
She grabbed it with her hoof, but her ears perked up by the sound of multiple hollow thuds coming from the huge trunk behind her. She turned to find a giant black centipede crawling out of it and climbing to the top. It lifted its head and half of its body, making itself look bigger than before.
Starlight froze and her fur bristled, her heart rate rose and she couldn’t move a muscle until that horrible creature snapped his pincers twice and crawled down. Approaching in a zigzag motion that sent chills down her spine. She immediately threw the snacks at the creature, which started munching it and crushing it with its pincers, as she began climbing the hill, and screaming for help.
Unfortunately, Starlight didn’t manage to get too far on her escape as she felt the pincer grasping with great pressure on her rear leg. With a strong pull, it threw her back again to the bottom. She let out one final scream as the creature got closer and opened up its terrifying pincers to eat her. “What did I get myself into!?” Starlight thought as she closed her eyes and prepared herself for the worse.
Suddenly, the sound of metal cracking through hard chitin came out of nowhere followed by a loud yelp made by the centipede. She opened her eyes and found the upper half of the centipede falling to the side and the remaining half collapsed to the ground. Her jaw dropped when she saw it and what caused it.
Her friend, Princess Luna, appeared holding a sword on her mouth. Starlight noticed something different on her appearance also. The two parts of the centipede came back to life and fled the scene quickly, this made the Princess put away her sword on a scabbard that she had underneath her wing.
Princess Luna eyed her from top to bottom and extended a hoof, helping Starlight to stand up. Luna gave her a soft and apologetic smile as she knew all the trouble that Starlight went through.
“Luna, I was looking for you!” Starlight finally spoke eying her up and down as well. “You… look different…?”
Starlight realized that the Princess didn’t have that amazing and magical mane she had and now she has normal haired and light blue mane. Also, her fur changed, it looked pale in comparison when they last met. For Starlight, it was actually stunning.
“Yes, I don’t have my magical powers here,” Princess Luna replied. “It’s what happens to every creature that has magical abilities in this place. “
All the moments when her horn wasn’t working popped up in her mind and she even realize that her teleportation only brought her to the entrance of this forest. She was a little glad that it wasn’t an actual illness from her body but an influence from the environment.
“It’s only temporary, once you leave the forest, it returns,” Luna continued while looking around as she still doesn’t understand the cause of such behavior. Her ears fell down, “I’m sorry, I should’ve told you… I wanted to surprise you but it clearly didn’t work.” She hangs her head in shame, “I hope you can forgive me, Star.”
Starlight didn’t reply and this only made Luna upset until her friend embraced her. “No, need to apologize,” Starlight said to Luna as she released her from the hug. “You saved me from that monster and it was awesome. I should thank you,” Starlight said and smiled. This made Luna feel better and she nodded.
Both started climbing the hill as they chatted and collected all the stuff that got scattered, but eventually Starlight brought up a question that she almost forgot and they stopped at the top and on the previous trail.
“So Luna,” Starlight said ,rubbing her left hoof, “Do you think you can help me with a fine that I recently got? I needed it to be reduce at least.”
Luna gave a sorry look, “I would definitely like to make it disappear for you, but I’m afraid I can’t help you with that. I still can give you a good lawyer to help you with that matter, though.” Luna said, but she noticed that her friend was getting disappointed.
Luna rested her wing on Starlight’s back, “aww, cheer up Star. There’s something I want to show you that might make you feel better.” Luna said smiling. Star raised an eyebrow.
┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼┼Θ<
Luna brought her to a spring in the middle of the forest. Starlight looked around and thought that it was actually beautiful, especially with the water being sparkly a lot, but it didn’t impress her that much.
She turned to Luna, “It’s pretty nice, but is it me or is the water excessively sparkly?” She asked as she swirling her hoof on it.
“Yes, it is that way because it is enchanted.” Luna answered and Starlight was intrigued. “You can shape shift into almost anything when you get on it.”
“Really!?” Starlight said surprised.
Luna nodded, “I discovered this place long before I was exiled on the—“
Luna was cut-off as Starlight quickly jumped into a cannonball on it making a splash of sparkling water. Instead a pony emerging from the surface, it was instead a tall but slender pink dragon who started looking at her claws and wings with excitement. Luna chuckled a little, surprised that she decided to be a dragon, as she expected an alicorn.
The dragon stretched her wings and began flapping hard. Luna quickly raised her hoof, “Wait! Don’t go flying—“ Luna, again, couldn’t warn Starlight as she took off into the air. It was too late so Luna just watched the shining water flowing off from the dragon’s skin and soon making the dragon change back to Starlight. Luna cringed as her friend screamed and fell back into the spring. Starlight emerged from the surface spitting water and her mane covering her eyes.
“Its effects only last while the water is still on you, if you let it dry you’ll lose it.” Luna finally explained and suppressed a chuckle. Starlight gave a devilish smile as a tentacle came out of the water and pulled Luna into the water.
