On a Whim

Chapter IV

Down to business

“Is she off her plot?”

The Elements of Harmony sat in silence around Twilight’s Library. Applejack twisted and turned on a couch, unable to find a comfortable position. Pinkie Pie amused herself by spinning books on one hoof, at one point spinning one fast enough to get it airborne. She was dissuaded from doing so again when it flew out of a window, however. Rarity and Fluttershy silently sipped cups of tea while staring intently at Spike, who was sitting on a table in the center of the room with hands clasped across his lap. Waiting.

Applejack groaned and sat up on the couch. “This is ridiculous, why is it taking her so long to answer? Doesn’t Twi’ usually get an answer in a matter a’ minutes?”

“Relax dear, I’m sure she is just busy. She is royalty, after all,” Rarity answered coolly, taking another sip of tea.

“Ya sure it isn’t just stuck in Spike or somethin’?” Applejack pressed, eyeing the baby dragon accusingly.

Spike stood up on the table, waving his arms “Hey, don’t look at me. I get it when she sends it, it’s not like it sits in my stomach or any- URP” a tongue of green flame shot out of Spike’s mouth as he spoke, manifesting into a scroll in front of the group. Applejack dove for it as it fell, nearly ripping it open before it hit the ground. She landed heavily next to the table on her stomach, already reading the letter.

Pinkie Pie began to bounce excitedly “Oh! Oh! What’s it say? What’s it say? What’s it say? What’s it say?”

Applejack pushed her Stetson back on her head before reading the scroll aloud.

Dear friends of Twilight Sparkle-

Although I understand your worry, I feel that I must inform you that there is no reason to fear for your friend’s safety. I have it on good authority that she is being well taken care of and is in no danger whatsoever. If you wish to communicate with my student before she returns to her home in Ponyville, send me a letter. I will dispatch couriers to deliver it.

Thank you for your concern,

-Princess Celestia

Nopony said anything for a moment while they digested what they had just heard. Rarity picked up the letter and began to re-read it for herself. Pinkie pie scratched her chin thoughtfully, remaining strangely quiet. Applejack was the first to speak.

“Did the Princess of Equestria just snuff us?” The farmer asked bluntly.

“Applejack! You cannot assume that we are deliberately being left in the dark! I agree that this response is vague at best, but we cannot assume anything from it.” Rarity chastised, though she sounded like she was trying to convince herself more than anypony else. “Besides, it sounds as if the princess knows what Twilight is doing, perhaps it’s royal business.”

Applejack stood up on the couch “But we’re her friends, we deserve to know what’s going on. She also said that she isn’t in danger, and Ah’m willin’ to bet the farm she is. And the princess didn’t even mention Rainbow Dash! Maybe we should send another letter.”

“I doubt that would do much, darling…” Rarity said, taking another sip. She frowned after a moment, and set her cup down with a sigh.  “…But I suppose there isn’t much else we can do.”

Fluttershy whispered something inaudible, drawing everypony’s attention to her.

“What was that dear?” Rarity asked kindly.

Fluttershy repeated her mumble, sinking farther into her seat.

Applejack groaned “Fluttershy, you need to speak up, we can’t hear ya.”

“IsaidmaybeweshouldvisitCanterlontandtalktoCelestiaourselfs” Fluttershy blurted, a little too loudly. She glanced around the room, shaking slightly. “Or maybe we can just wait for her here…”

Rarity, Applejack and Pinkie pie looked at each other. “Waddya think?” Applejack asked.

“License plate game!” Pinkie Pie said cheerfully. Everyone turned and gave her confused looks. “What? We need a game to play for the road trip. It’s a long ride!”

<<<<<<<>>>>>>>

“…and then she just hopped in! Right in front of me, snuggling and everything! They aren’t even that good together. He’s too… I don’t know, they just don’t look good together. Ewww, what if they forget I’m there some night and start making out?!? Ack.” Rainbow Dash gagged.

Twilight rolled her eyes. She sat on the wheel deck of the Volans examining a map Sparky had given her with Rainbow hovering over her, rambling about what she had seen the previous night. Having slept through both breakfast and lunch, Dash was scarfing down a loaf of bread she found in the kitchen as a meal. “And she totally ignored me too, that’s the worse part. Jumped in like I wasn’t there.”

“You already said that Rainbow. And chew with your mouth closed, that’s disgusting.” Twilight said without looking up from her map.

Rainbow Dash swallowed the remaining loaf in one massive bite. “Sorry, I was hungry. URP Aww, that was a good one!” She said with a laugh. Twilight couldn’t help but giggle along with her friend.

“So what’s the big deal, do you like West or something?” Twilight asked curiously.

Rainbow Dash coughed in surprise, nearly choking on a piece of the loaf. “What? No! Why would you say that?”

“Because you flipped out when you saw him with another mare.” Twilight said simply. “I don’t know why else you’d get so worked up over it”

Rainbow shook her head vigorously. “Nah, West is to… I don’t know, stiff. I like cooler guys. I’m just peeved Misty did all that in front of me. I like her, she’s pretty cool.”

Twilight laughed at this, shaking her head in amusement. “That’s because she’s an adoring fan.” Pausing, Twilight looked up from her map in confusion. “Wait, stiff? What does that even mean?”

“Hey Sparkle, you ready to pull your weight?” The two stopped talking and peered over the edge of the wheel deck to see Misty standing below. “We can’t sail in a straight line forever; we need to know where we’re going.”

Rainbow Dash and Twilight looked at each other and shrugged. “Sure, now’s a good a time as any,” Twilight called over.

“Chart house on the second deck, first door on the left,” Misty grunted before making her way down the stairs. Rainbow took flight and glided down the stairs while Twilight rolled up the map she had and followed suit.

The chart house was a small, musky room with nautical and topographical maps lining the walls. Every available piece of floor space was occupied by wooden crates crammed with rolled up scrolls and brass navigation equipment. The only furniture in the room was a large wooden map table covered in nicks and scratches from years of use and abuse. In a dimly lit corner, Misty was leaning up against a dusty bookcase, watching Sparky and West as they hunched over the table mumbling amongst themselves. Sparky looked up and smiled at Twilight as she walked in, and Twilight couldn’t help but smile back as she approached the table to see the map.

West took a step back and addressed the new arrivals. “As I’m sure you’ve noticed, we don’t actually know where we’re going yet. Since we picked you up, we’ve just been gaining distance from any towns that might see us. We’d like to get a bearing, Twilight. That’s why you’re here.”

Rainbow stepped in front of Twilight before she could answer. “Why bother avoiding towns at all, are you hiding?”

“We’d just rather not draw any attention.” Misty answered quickly. She looked around the room before sinking back into the corner silently. West and Sparky exchanged a glance before turning back to Twilight.

“I’m afraid we aren’t exactly well versed in the field of magic Miss. Sparkle. You’ll have to tell us what you need to get us where we’re going” Sparky explained. “If we need to stop and retrieve something, best to know sooner than later.”

Twilight bit her lip for a moment in thought, remaining quiet. Looking around the room, her eyes settled on a small crate in the corner by Misty. Walking briskly over, the unicorn levitated the box in a faint lavender glow. The group watched her shuffle through it in anticipation. A smile crossed her face as she found what she was looking for. Stepping back, Twilight proudly displayed her find to the group.

“…It’s a compass” Misty deadpanned, looking at the small brass mechanism Twilight was levitating.

“It’s about to get us where we’re going” Twilight said cryptically. Turning around, she faced Sparky. “Would you mind if I scratched some runes somewhere on your ship? It’s a necessary step, I’m afraid”

Sparky shrugged. “Here’s as good a place as you’ll find. Wood floorboards are boring anyway, wouldn’t mind livening it up a bit.”

Twilight nodded before searching the room once again. This time, she found what she was looking for on Misty’s back. “Misty, can I use that knife on your sash for a second?”

Misty eyed the unicorn before reluctantly removing the long black blade from her belt.

Grabbing it with her magic, Twilight trotted back to the center of the room and began moving the books and maps that littered the floor into piles in the corners of the room. All eyes were locked on her as she worked, most out of curiosity, some with impatience, and one pair with suspicion. When Twilight deemed enough space had been cleared, she turned to West.

“May I see the tome you showed me yesterday? I need to see the homing rune pattern again.” West obliged, slipping the ancient book from his saddlebag for her to read. Flipping it open, Twilight found the page she had seen previously. “Let’s hope this part of the drawing is accurate. We’re in trouble otherwise.” Taking a few steps back, she began to copy the swirls at the base of the shape onto the wooden planks of the deck.

Misty and Rainbow promptly sat down, preparing for the long haul. Sparky and West, meanwhile, watched her work with interest, occasionally asking her questions as she carved.

“So how does this work, is the receiving end going to shoot a column of light into the sky, is this thing going to start flashing faster as we get closer, or what?” West asked.

“No, this rune is an enchantment channel. All it’s going to do is act as a code for the device I choose to home in on. Sort of like a street address, in that way. To keep things simple, for you guys at least, I’m going to enchant a compass for us to follow.”

Sparky’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “You can do that? That’s quite a lot simpler than I thought it would be. Follow the needle all the way in, is that it?”

Twilight nodded, not taking her eyes off the blade as she continued her meticulous drawing. “Simple as that. It’s a difficult thing to enchant, but I bet I can do it without much trouble.”

Sparky and West shared uneasy expressions. “You sure? Something simpler would work as well, as long as we get there in good time.” West volunteered.

“As long as I’m on board to refresh the spell occasionally, it won’t be a problem.” Twilight answered firmly, finally stepping away from her work. The floor was now an elaborate maze of small swirls that reached from wall to wall. Together, they formed a vague starburst shape, but it was hard to see from the cramped corridors of the room. “Finished,” she said with a sigh.

Everypony, save Misty, stepped forward to admire her work. After a minute of examination, West spoke up. “So what now?”

Twilight shrugged, scrutinizing the pattern below her hooves with a sculptures eye. “I enchant the compass with its new bearings, and we have a destination.”

“No, we have a direction” Misty corrected from her position away from the group.

Twilight smiled knowingly. “Not necessarily.” She retrieved the map she had been examining on the deck and laid it on the table, spreading it flat with her magic. “I was looking at this broad map of Equestria, and I circled all the locations that match the criteria that the runes need to be activated.” Pointing a hoof to the map, the other ponies in the room craned their necks to get a better look. This time, Misty was among them. “The terrain, elevation, and natural weather patterns limit the possible sites, and I could rule a few out on grounds of improbability.”

West looked up from the map and frowned at the unicron. “What do you mean by that?”

Twilight pointed to a few large red ‘X’s’ that were scattered across the parchment, mostly towards the center of the charted lands it displayed. “Some areas wouldn’t have held the ruins for so long without them being discovered. Canterlot, for example, meets the criteria perfectly. Surely by now somepony would have noticed 2,000 year old runes in the mountainside by now, though.”

“Who’s to say they aren’t underground?” West asked.

Twilight shook her head and returned to West’s tome. “The runes require sunlight to be activated, and the entirety of Canterlot’s mountain has been explored on the outside. That’s why I decided a compass was the best way to go, because we’d be able to see it when we reached it.”

West nodded approvingly, eyes scrutinizing the map before him. “Alright then, sounds good enough to me. When can you enchant the compass?”

Twilight smiled proudly. “Here and now, if you’d like.” West nodded his approval and motioned for her to start. Twilight pushed the table towards the far wall of the chart house to make more room before turning back to her audience. “Would you mind stepping back? It’s an incredibly delicate spell. More so than activating the runes we hope to find, actually.”

The ponies stepped back obediently as Twilight approached the center of the carving. Placing the rusty compass in a small circle in front of her, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. The first indication of any activity was a pinprick of light on the unicorn’s horn that slowly grew to the size of a candle. The runes beneath her feat began to smoke slightly as the wood deck started to heat up. Twilight kept her eyes closed, occasionally wincing from the delicate procedure. Her face scrunched in the effort as light began snaking its way down the grooves in the deck. Like tiny glowing streams, the magic flowed across the intricate design as Twilights horn glowed brighter. The observers were forced to shield their eyes eventually as the light became blinding. With a sound akin to a bucket of water being dropped, a single column of light shot out of the ground around the compass. A final ear splitting crack shook the room before all light vanished, returning the chart house to its gloomy atmosphere. West, Misty, and Rainbow all lowered their hooves to see the result.

The carvings in the floor had turned a deep shade of black, ash filling the grooves. Twilight still stood in the center of the rune looking a little dizzy, but otherwise un-exerted. She shook her head violently to clear it before joining the others in the doorway. Much to the confusion of everypony, the compass sat where it had been left, exactly how it had been left.

Sparky approached the small instrument and picked it up, eyeing it with confusion. “I suppose I don’t know what I was expecting, but it doesn’t look particularly… magical to me. Is that normal?”

Twilight walked up beside him and took it within the grasp of her magic. “It needs to be charged. I just told it the address, it doesn’t have any energy to change direction at the moment.” She placed the small brass piece on the table before stepping away. “Now’s when you’ll want to close your eyes.”

Without further elaboration, the unicorn closed her eyes in immense concentration, her eyes shut tight. Beads of sweat began to roll down her forehead almost instantly, and her hooves began digging into the deck. Twilights eyes twitched, whether it was in thought or pain, nopony knew. She grunted and groaned in exertion, occasionally recoiling as if she had been physically hit. The other ponies simply stared at her in confusion.

There was no brilliant light, no magic shimmer, no unnatural wind, and the only sound was that of Twilight’s almost erotic reactions. West and Misty exchanged glances, while Rainbow simply opted to facehoof for an extended period of time, slowly shaking her head. “Is she off her plot?” Sparky whispered to nopony in particular. With a tremendous gasp, the purple unicorn fell backwards, panting heavily. If the spectators weren't confused enough, Twilight proceeded to roll onto her stomach and cover her head, as if expecting the roof to collapse.

West raised an eyebrow and gave the unicorn with a worried look. “You ok there Twilight?”

Sparing a glance up, Twilight hissed at them. “What are you doing? Cover your eyes!” Before any of them could react to her warning, a terrific purple flash exploded outwards from the desk, dazing every pony left standing. Misty and Sparky fell over in surprise from the blast, while West and Rainbow staggered back, blinded by the intense display. The light was gone as soon as it came, leaving a pile of disoriented equines in its wake.

“I told you to cover your eyes.” Twilight said flatly from her position on the floor. Rainbow tried to shoot her a dirty look, but ended up staring angrily at a wall, unable to see her friend. West shook his head out and stood up, looking somewhat embarrassed. Sparky was already on his hoofs, standing by the chart table.

“That’s more like it!” He said excitedly. An unearthly lavender glow was reflecting off his face, casting a shimmering shadow on the ceiling. Curious, everypony else approached him, Rainbow bumping and stumbling into objects in the process. There were gasps at what they saw, much to Twilight's pleasure.

Where the rusty old compass had been previously, a shining navigational instrument now shone in all its glory. It’s perfectly polished brass surface glittered in ornately carved runes identical to the ones on the floor, small purple bolts tracing their way around the shapes in seemingly random directions with minds of their own. What had been a cracked glass surface had become shinning crystal, clearly showing a brightly glowing needle inside. The silver sliver of metal slowly changed direction, and began to glow an intense shade of purple as it found its new bearing.

Twilight approached the awed group of ponies with the map she had shown earlier and laid it flat on the floor. Checking the compass, she began to trace paths on the parchment with her hoof. She smiled as it came to a stop directly over a red circle. Turning to the group, Twilight lifted the map and held it behind her for all to see.

“Looks like we’re going to the Crystal Mountains.”

Ello Everypony, DaringDid here to thank you for making it through yet another chapter! This one was a blast for me to write as is next week's, so I hope you're enjoying. If you're not, tell me why in the comments below! At any rate, another chapter should be out next week, so I'll see you all then.