Twilight breathes in the fresh air. Accompanying it is a grand picture of Ponyville’s countryside, to the right the houses and buildings peppering the land with their accompanying white and brown with decorative hay on top, giving the houses a nice medieval feel to it. She often wondered how much the look of the town had changed over the years. It was nice, probably the one thing that she looked forward to when she first came to the town. Unconsciously, she looked at her to-do list.
Make to-do list
Gather all materials
Give materials to Spike
Last minute preparation for the practice test
Go to “the area”
Make sure that everypony is at the festival rehearsal
Watch everypony else
Perform spell
Happily, Twilight magically grabs her quill and marks off the next item on the to-do list. She smiles, everything's coming together, until she sees the last point.
“Go to the area, seriously?” Spike says looking over her shoulder. Shaking under the weight of the books that she asked him to bring.
“Yeah.” Twilight responds, enraptured by her thoughts.
“Eh, alright.” Spike says, a sweat drop creeping down his forehead. He looks at the area down below and notices Twilight standing still. “Could we get going?” No response. “Twilight, these books are kinda heavy!” Twilight sighs as she looks at the last point on her list. She has practiced for this spell for a month now. There is no mathematical or statistical way that she could possibly fail it. “Twilight! The ponies down there need help!”
“Where?!” She quickly rolls up her scroll and looks around.
Spike looks at her with the slyest smile he can make. “Gotcha.” Twilight sees Spike’s smirk and rolls her eyes. Giggling, she starts walking down towards the group.
“Uh, Twilight?” Spike says, hobbling down the hill, being careful not to slip.
“Yes Spike?”
“That’s the third time that you’ve spaced out this trip, is everything okay?”
“Don’t worry Spike, I was just running through the spell in my head, it has a lot of unknown factors and everything needs to be done just right or there could be a massive explosion from the added magical power that could wipe out all of Ponyville!” Twilight rambles, gasping for air from her run-on sentence, now shaking from the worry. Spike rolls his eyes.
“Twilight, you’ve defeated every villain in Equestria. You won’t mess up.” Spike reassures her. He’s had to tell her this almost every day coming up to this. It’s really gotten on his nerves. Twilight opens her mouth. “You also have planned for this and decided to have the festival away from Ponyville!” Spike retorted. Twilight closes her mouth slowly.
“You’re right Spike, I don’t know why I'm worrying so much. I need to stop thinking about this.” Spike nods his head and heads towards the rest of the ponies below in the practice stand. If only it were that easy, Twilight thinks to herself, she pictures the spell and it going wrong, the ponies that could be hurt and who knows what could happen with such a powerful Spell. She shudders at the thought.
“Twilight, don’t just stand there like a rotting apple! Come down and enjoy the practice festival, everypony’s waiting for ya!” Applejack hollers from the base of the hill. Twilight shakes her head out of her worry-induced trance and heads down. Even if she isn’t the most confident, she does have her friends. She clears her head and gallops to Applejack. “Looks pretty good, doesn’t it Twilight?” Applejack gestures to the festival grounds, the students moving throughout the grounds, all dressed up in their medieval costumes, a few being chased by Rarity with a measuring tape. Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash are on the other side of the ring, Fluttershy coaxing some birds to sing, and Rainbow Dash practicing ancient flying techniques with some of the other pegasi and creatures around in the sky. Pinkie bounces past Twilight and Applejack with an assortment of different instruments.
“Hi, Twilight! Bye, Twilight!” she hollers as she bounces past her.
“Wow, I'm impressed, Apple Jack, how’d you manage to get everypony in their places?” Applejack blushes, rubbing the back of her head.
“You have no idea.” she responds.
“You really don’t, Twilight!” Pinkie says behind her. Applejack as if struck by lightning, stands straight up. She puts on a threatening smile and looks at Pinkie Pie
“You’re right, Pinkie, but shouldn’t you—”
“First we politely asked the students to come with us but then they decided that they wanted to stay at the castle and we had to threaten them with cleaning duty then they said they would come but they just wouldn’t move, then Applejack started to lasso them until they started running and it was awesome ‘cause they were going so fast and Applejack was screaming like craz—” Applejack clops a hoof over Pinkie’s mouth, who continues to mumble, before looking at Twilight with the guiltiest look.
“Thank you, Pinkie, for uh, explaining to her, uh…” Applejack fiddles desperately with her thoughts, trying to change the topic. “Why don’t you start up your one mare band party?” Applejack removes her hoof from Pinkie’s face. Pinkie takes a deep breath bouncing up and down. “That is a great idea!” She bounces up with a smile. “Bye Applejack! Bye again, Twilight!”
Applejack chuckles, embarrassed, a small bead of sweat rolling down her cheek. “Anyways, how goes the spell, Twilight?” Twilight raises an eyebrow before sighing. She really didn’t want to talk about this right now, but if there is anyone that could help her it was Apple Jack.
“Great-ish, how are the students?” She found herself saying, she doesn’t need to bother Applejack with it. Being a farm pony isn’t easy.
Applejack concernedly raises an eyebrow.
“I know a worried apple when I see one. What’s wrong, Twi?”
“Nothing!” Twilight quickly answers. Applejack begins walking away, smirking. “It’s alright, Twi, we still have about 15 minutes before the rehearsal; maybe some apple pie will help loosen your mouth.”
“Oh, fine...” Twilight relents, trotting alongside Applejack. “This spell is something very old; I found it from a blind buy in the Antique store. From my research on it the spell is something that noble unicorn mares and stallions would use on the day of their coronation and other special events to share stories and legends of old with their fellow ponies.” Twilight explains as the two of them walk to the Apple family stand. The two mares sit down. As usual, the apple stand had a delicious aroma around it, something that would make anypony hungry just by smelling it. Twilight was no exception; she started to regret not eating lunch as her stomach rumbled and her mouth started to water. Apple Jack whistled and on cue, Apple Bloom comes out of a baking tent next to the stand barely balancing a plate with a steaming hot apple crisp on it before putting it in front of them. “Thanks, Apple Bloom.” Twilight says politely. Apple Bloom grins from ear to ear. “Hope you like it.” she says as she skips back inside the tent.
“Go on.” Applejack continued, taking a bite of the crisp.
“Right, the problem is that the spell put a huge amount of strain on the unicorns and could have terrible repercussions if the spell were failed, so the practice stopped long before even Celestia was born. I’m just afraid that this spell will be too much even for me, I’m afraid what could happen if I failed.”
Applejack chuckles a little. “I wanna say it, but I have a feeling that Spike has already told ya.”
“He has.”
“Why don’t you focus on the students for the next little bit? That will do more to lift your spirits than just not thinking about it.”
Twilight smiles at the thought, it is the reason why she came up with this festival in the first place. “You’re real smart, Applejack.”
“Wise, there is a difference.”
“Either way, thank you for the Apple Crisp, this is some of the best that I have ever had of yours.” Twilight takes a few bites, her taste buds agreeing with every word she said.
“Slow down, Gallus! Slow down!” a female voice cries. Both Applejack and Twilight look and see Silver Stream and Gallus flying above them, coming closer and closer while they both flap their wings furiously to avoid a crash. Apple Jack takes the plate of goods and runs towards the tent. She makes it to the door but, not in time for Gallus to crash down into her. Flinging the apple crisp into the air. Twilight uses her magic to catch the plate but can’t react fast enough to catch the Apple crisp as it lands on Silver Stream, who glides down to the ground. Gallus tries to get up before he trips on Applejack and tumbles to the ground while an Apple Crisp-covered Silver Stream licks a clawful of the crisp.
“Mmm, This is so good!” she squeals wiping off the Apple Crisp. Twilight smiles as she sees both of them completely decked out in the ceremonial armor of their lands, Twilight smiles to herself, she may have gone a little overboard with the research of the festival.
“What in the sweet name of Celestia are you two doing?” Applejack says looking each of them in the eyes.
Silver Stream raises her claw. “Ooh, I know the answer to this one, we were both flying and then Gallus started diving and then I tried to stop him but then he crashed right into you.”
“Uh, wrong.” Gallus says as he gets up and stabilizes himself on the wooden table. “I was going in for a dive Rainbow Dash asked me to do and I couldn’t pull up.”
“What is it, the armor too heavy for ya, sugarcube?” Applejack jokes, looking at Gallus, who avoids her gaze.
A confident smirk slides onto his face. “No, I can take it, it’s just that the armor is the wrong size--”
“Oh, that makes more sense.” Silver Stream gasps, looking at Gallus’s armor. “It’s the wrong size so it’s too heavy for you.”
Gallus’s head snaps back to Silver Stream. “I ALREADY TOLD YOU! IT’S NOT TOO HEAVY FOR ME!” He says walking over to the bench, taking off his armor in a huff. “What I don’t get is this festival.” he semi-complains, as Twilight looks at him intensely with worry and confusion. He smiles. “It’s fun and all, but…” Gallus gestures to the festival around him. “it's just full of old stuff. What can possibly be the point to all of it?” he exasperates.
Twilight glances at him and grins knowingly. “You’ll find out in just a second.”
Applejack breathes a sigh of relief. Twilight is back to her old self again, she hopes. That is one of her greatest strengths, always having a care for every single other pony. Probably why she’s a princess after all.
★・・・・・・★・・・・・・★・・・・・・★
“Wow, Pinkie Pie, it sounds amazing.” Spike smiles as he listens to Pinkie Pie start her one-mare-band performance. Spike finds his feet tapping the ground and then moving along with the happy, dinky sound of the drums and the tuba, then breaking into dancing with a smile on his face as he listens to her music. He has done everything, the books are in the right place, Twilight’s notes are laid out in chronological order, all she needs is her bibliography. He mentally shrugs; he can do that later. The real festival is a few days out, right now he can do some relaxing. He watches as Twilight, Applejack and a few of the students leave the Apple tent. He catches the wind change and a mouth-watering aroma fills his nostrils and his feet start to move instinctively towards the tent. To his side, Pinkie Pie bounces up and down, all of her instruments moving in perfect harmony with him. Spike bites his lip. “Hey Pinkie, I have some… important business to take care of, good luck with the playing!” Pinkie Pie jumps up and down in excitement.
“Ooh, I’m so glad you enjoy it.” She says bouncing off towards the rest of the festival. “Ancient Ponish songs are so fun to play!” Spike hears in the distance as he watches Pinkie Pie wander towards the rest of the tents. Now it is time for some very important business. He smiles to himself and rubs his claws together. He takes the opal that he’s been secretly carrying and licks his lips. He watches the bright colors dance up and down as he rolls it through his claw. There’s a reason why an opal is a delectable treat for any dragon. He imagines it sprinkled on top of some Apple signature Apple Pie, shuddering in excitement. As he enters the tent, he sees Apple Bloom with a batch of Apple crisps, laying it down with a group of Apple crisp plates.
“Hey Apple Bloom, mind if I take a plate of that?” Spike inquires, leaning on a wooden pole. Apple Bloom, who is giddily running back to the baking tent with a plate balanced on her head looks at him. “Absolutely! Cutie Mark Crusaders, let’s make some more!” Spike looks inside the tent and sees the Crusaders busily moving apples to and fro, mashing them and making each batch with brown sugar and cinnamon before sticking it in the oven. Spike practically drools just looking at it. Apple Bloom shoves a plate to him before running back into the tent. It looks even more delicious than he imagined. He crushes his opal and sprinkles it on top. He takes his spoon, scooping an extra helping of opal onto the crisp. He practically could taste the bite before it even touched his little, watering tongue.
“Spike!” he lowers his spoon and listens around for a second. He hears nothing. He shrugs. I must be hearing things. He raises his spoon again.
“Spike! I need you! Where are you?!” he hears and gazes sorrowfully at the delicious looking apple crisp. He nearly sheds a tear before hiding it on a barrel just behind a tent flap. “Farewell.” He whispers to himself as he looks towards the stage.
“What do you need Twilight?” Spike says as he sees Twilight looking around the stage. “I put the books right where you wanted them.”
“Thank you, Spike.” Twilight says as she wanders around the stage with the different materials that Spike meticulously put together. “Do you happen to know where Starswirl’s Almanac is? The festival is going to start in 3 minutes and I have to have it!”
“It isn’t just in the stack of books where it always is?” Spike questions.
Twilight stops dead in her tracks and turns to look at him. As always Twilight is over stressing. Only one more week of dealing with this before life returns to normal.
“You didn’t put it with my regular notes?!” Spike sighs before faceclawing.
“Sorry Twilight, we were in such a hurry to get here that I decided to put it in the next best place.”
Spike watches as she lifts all the books up with her magic and finds the exact book that she was looking for. Spike watches as her body stops quivering as she opens the book. Spike starts to tiptoe back off the stage. The apple crisp calling his name, and nothing will—
“Nuh-uh-uh, not so fast, Spike, you still have an important part to play in this.” Spike droops his ears and sludges over to the back stage. There’s always that one thing, there is alwaysthat one thing.
Calm down, Twilight, this is just a practice... she tells herself. I practiced, so I won’t make mistakes. I can’t make a mistake!
Twilight takes a deep breath as she places Starswirl’s Almanac on the stand. She opens the book and goes through the familiar pages, her heart racing with how close the play is. With each page she turned, she felt more and more confident. They turned until they reached page 22, halfway through chapter 1. There she reads it, “Magic is not power, nor should it be used as such. Magic is knowledge. Magic is harmony. Magic is everywhere. Embrace the magic. You are the magic.”
She re-reads the quote; it is something that she has always lived by. In fact, even the first time that she was at Ponyville, the elements of harmony showed her how magical everypony is. She remembers the exhilarating feeling and peace she feels when she used the Elements, with the energy equivalent to Celestia’s magic, three times over. She puts a smile on her face, she starts to welcome her racing heart, turning her negative energy positive. I can do this! she tells herself.
Pulling herself out of her thoughts, she sees a bored Spike fiddling with the stage equipment in the back. As he’s preparing, she silently complements the dragon. Even from the time that he could stand on his feet, he’s been a gigantic help for her. She makes a mental note to give him a verbal compliment when this is all over.
She flaps her wings and soars above the stage. Fresh, cold wind whips through her mane. She watches as Rainbow Dash takes her squad through some basic maneuvers, as the students work through problems. Rainbow Dash leads them as if she’s a commander. She floats over to where they’re all practicing drills.
“Smolder, higher! Gallus, you're lagging behind! You gotta keep up!” Rainbow Dash barked. Twilight watches as the students nod tiredly and fix their positions.
“Rainbow Dash!” Twilight calls out.
Rainbow Dash holds a hoof up and the rest of the students flap their wings furiously, slowing down right before they slide head long into Twilight. Each of the students gasping for air, Twilight even sees a few drift to the ground before pulling themselves up.
“Friendship School Squadron reporting for duty!” Rainbow Dash salutes. The rest of the students follow suit. She really went overboard. Twilight thinks to herself.
“Thank you, Rainbow Dash, could you bring these students to the stage and then round up the rest?” Rainbow Dash nods, turning back to the tired students.
“Alright sol—” Before Rainbow Dash gets out another word, the students plummet to the ground. Flabbergasted and embarrassed, she looks back to Twilight and nods again before flying off to the festival.
Twilight starts looking around the festival grounds and starts bringing students back to the stage, a few excited, most coming along only because they were forced to. She hoped that that would change by the end of the festival. There are just too many exciting facts to dislike history. After coming back to the stand, she takes her checklist and happily crosses off two points. Now, time for the rehearsal.
“Wow, Gallus! You flew really great up there!” Ocellus says clapping her hooves together. Gallus plops down to the ground, panting like a dog with sweat dripping from his head. A small hum of voices came from the students as they waited for the main event.
“I’m glad that you enjoyed it.” He said through deep breaths. “You also did really good in the play. You were playing Jewels Bit weren’t you?” Ocellus blushes. “Why that of all parts?”
“Don’t you know? Jewels Bit and Row Moat is a play that defined romance stories for all of Equestria!” Ocellus squealed. “I was delighted that Twilight asked me to play that part!”
“Makes sense.” Gallus looks up into the sky. Come on, brain, come up with at least one fact that’ll impress her. The gears in his brain turn until he thinks up the perfect comment.
“It was written by Shake Spear, right? Isn’t he the best playwright ever?” He looks over to Ocellus who has a confused look on her face. Dang it.
“Shake Spear?” Ocellus’s eyes pop open. “Do you mean Spear Shake?”
“Yeah.” Gallus laughs half-heartedly, embarrassed. “Dang, I always get the name mixed up every time. Guess I need to study more.” Come on, I can do this.
“Well,” Ocellus starts. “Think about it this way, he wasn’t a shaky spear. He was a Spear that shakes all of those who watch his plays.”
“That’s an interesting way to look at it, I always thought that the way to remember it is like making a milkshake made out of spears.”
“Ew, that’s gross.” Ocellus pushes Gallus a little. Gallus giggles. Back in business.
“It works, doesn’t it?”
“No.” Ocellus giggles back. “No, of course not.” Gallus smiles to himself. Score one for team Gallus.
Twilight taps on the microphone on the stage. The soft hum of voices comes to a quiet as Twilight stands on the stage.
“Alright,” Gallus whispers to Ocellus. “Let’s see the explanation that Twilight has for us about what this whole festival is about.”
Twilight stands there on the stage, a confident smile plastering her face.
“Good evening, everypony.” Twilight welcomes as the crowd before her quiets. “As I prepared for a class one day, I overheard many students talking about how they think that history is not important at all. They rolled their eyes and wondered how it could possibly relate to friendship. That is why I along with the other teachers decided to throw the first ever Old Ponish fair of Ponyville!” Twilight sees the teachers clap along with two students near the front of the stage. Nothing less than what she expected. “Before I get into it, I just wanted to share that there will be a competition between the students.” She sees the students look at her. She then brings over a trophy to the stage. “The student that participates the most in the festival and contributes the most to it will win this trophy and will become the Old Ponish champion of the school.”
Spike rolls his eyes, if he were in this competition, he would have won it already.
Twilight hears a hum of voices down in the crowd. She waits until the voices calm down. “I also want everypony to know why history is important to friendship. Unlike some of your classes which deal directly with giving you advice on friendship, history is more indirect. It is important because there are so many in the past that have learned the lessons that we need. A wise pony once said, “We must learn history so it never repeats.” As such, learning history helps us to see the past and to reflect and find what we can do for the future. So that—” She gulps. She doesn’t shake or panic, but the pit she’s been fighting all day returns to her ribcage. She looks back at Starlight on the backstage. She smiles and mouths, You can do it! She takes a deep breath. “So that is why I won’t give a regular speech, I want to take you all with me to Old Ponish Equestria with an ancient spell that Old Ponish Unicorns would perform.” The curious hum from before morphs into an excited buzz. Twilight gulps again, the pit in her stomach creeping into her throat.
She steps from the stand, of which Starlight uses her magic to take it to the side of the stage. She looks around and at the crowd, which looks at her excitedly in return. As she looks at the small crowd, she sees all the smiling and expecting faces of the ponies and creatures below her. She feels her heart pound. She puts on a fake smile and takes a deep breath. Why am I worried about this? she thinks to herself. Her heart beats faster. She reminds herself of all her preparation and the quote from her book. She sparks her horn.
“Wow!” Ocellus marvels as a giant ball of purple energy sprouts from Twilight’s horn. Gallus looks on in awe. He sees light and magic fizz into the ball of energy. He has no clue what any of it does, but the amount of energy that his principal must be using is amazing. He watches as the energy orb swells until a beam shoots out towards the crowd, just high enough to miss every creature’s head. Gallus turns his head and watches as the beam strikes a stone pillar. Cracks that look like runes form on the stone. Just when the pillar fills with as many runes as it possibly can, another beam makes contact with another stone. This happens until six stones are struck and are filled with magic runes. He feels the ground start to shake and cracks filled with white light appear beneath him. He looks to Twilight and the rest of the teachers. Their expressions weren’t much help, they looked in horror at a struggling Twilight with energy crackling out of her horn. Suddenly, the magic orb the size of a tent floated lazily into the middle of the crowd, every creature started to cover their heads and jump from the cracks in the ground.
“Ocellus, what kind of spell is this?” Gallus asks.
“I don’t know, but whatever it is, it is a very powerful, very ancient one.” Ocellus whispers, carefully ducking. As she says that, the magic orb grows the size of the crowd and plummets to the audience members until it envelops every creature there including Twilight. With a blink of light the orb disappears leaving the stage and rest of the festival empty.
Twilight opens her eyes. The sky had turned from the bright glow of the Equestrian sun to an orange and red hue. She sees a few columns and a rolling landscape that leads to the mountains in the distance. Mountains that reached higher than Canterlot. Every creature that she sees is safe, she relaxes. At least this part of the spell is easier than the first.
As for everypony else, they look at each other, still dazed from what just happened. They start to look around and they see pillars and buildings that looked like they belonged in Cloudsdale. Gallus feels like he just got swirled around in a very powerful storm. He looks over at Ocellus who is already drinking in the architecture. Gallus smiles and decides that he is going to the side of a nearby cliff. As he looks at the landscape, it is much different, unlike the regular Equestrian landscape which is very smooth, he saw weeds and other bristles shooting out all over the landscape. He looks down to the ground and sees a small red dot floating below the landscape.
“Hey every creature!” Gallus yells out catching the attention of the students. He motions for them all to see and he points to the dot. Every creature squints in confusion but Smolder looks there with curiosity.
“No way!”
“Twilight you sure that the students can handle this?” Fluttershy asks Twilight away from the students.
“Positive!” She replies with her eyes closed and her horn glowing bright. Fluttershy bites her lip.
“Um—"
“Let me rephrase that question for you, Twilight.” Rarity says as she walks in a zigzag. “Are you sure that you can handle this?” Twilight opens her eyes.
“Of course! I wouldn’t let these students down for the world. What’s bothering you about it?”
“Twilight!” Rainbow Dash interjects from behind. “You looked like you were struggling with the spell in the beginning. You really need to prac—”
They hear a scream in the background, and they see the students running to the pillars. Seconds later, a horned head about as large as one of the pillars and wings the size of skysails rise above a cliff. A red dragon looks greedily at the creatures down below.
“Twilight, answers now!” Applejack says to Twilight face to face. The dragon breathes in, the back of its throat turning a bright red. Although Twilight can’t just put up a barrier, she would have to break her spell to do that.
“Any minute now, Twilight!” Rainbow Dash shouts. This isn’t how this is supposed to go! Twilight thinks, there should be somepony that should come.
“Wait a few more seconds!” Twilight says. It should happen, she tells herself. The dragon is weird, but she knew that it would be okay.
Flames came out of the dragon’s mouth and shot towards the students. In a split second Ocellus turns into a giant insect with a thick Chitin shell and covers all of the students. Gallus looked up at the insect in awe. In that same split second, Twilight sees her worst fears come true. Measuring out her reaction she yanks every creature through a portal back to the festival. Every creature falls onto the lawn. Ocellus starts to fall before she turns back to her changeling form. Starlight looks from the stage to see a giant fireball trailing them out. Twilight sees the fireball and tries to fire out her magic but her horn fizzes until the magic stops. She watches helplessly as the fireball comes closer and closer to her and the students. Starlight jumps out and igniting her horn, she folds her classic crystal defense over every creature and bolstered by Rarity’s magic, the group watches as the fire envelops the grass and many parts of the festival. When the fire is gone, Starlight opens up her crystal defense.
“What happened Twilight?” she asks. Twilight fights the tears that start to come from her eyes.
“I messed up, that’s it.” Before Starlight is able to respond, Twilight starts to run away.
“Twilight wait!” She yells to no avail. She sits there as she runs off. Taking a deep breath, she goes around and makes sure that everypony is okay. While Applejack runs frantically to the Baking tent, relieved that it’s still standing.
As Twilight ran through Ponyville, tears streamed down her cheek. She failed, not only that, but somepony could have been hurt by her magic. When did she turn into the bad pony? These thoughts of doubt and shame run through her head. Several ponies wave to her but she can only run. She can’t face anypony right now.
Author's Note
Hey Everypony, here is the story I have been meaning to writ.
What will Twilight do? A random case of Twilighting?
Was it somepony that sabotaged her spell?
comment down below!
Yeah! that is right, what a great start! Hey N1ght_Strider, don't look at me that way. Anyway, make sure to leave a like, dislike or just some feedback, N1ght-Strider works his flank off on these and wants to know how he can improve, anything helps! Autumn Hill and N1ght_Strider out!
Dumbfounded, Starlight stands on the stage as Twilight runs away. This is bad, the performance is three days out and Starlight can't handle a twilighting episode and the students at the same time. Either way the damage has been done. She looks at the festival, still many of the tents on fire and others a smoky hole in the ground of what it used to be. She watches as the teachers try to handle the precarious situation. As they put out fires and did their best to calm down the students, most of them were dazed, confused and some still petrified with fear. Starlight sighed, this will all be handled sometime because it always is. Although in the meantime, she had to congratulate one student at least.
Ocellus cringed as the fire hit her back, she could feel the chitinous hide of her rock beetle form practically melting off the back of her back. She held her position, closing her eyes and gritting her teeth at the pain. 'Just a few more seconds' she tells herself. for what felt like a few hours she held out her form until she felt the flames subside. With the cool air starting to flow over her, she started to float to the ground, her eyes closing and her head drooping before she fell out of consciousness.
Starlight trotted over to the most involved group of students in the school. The ones that drank up the lessons of friendship like it was their favorite soda. Though there was something that was different about them this time. She peeked into the crowd of faces, gasping when she saw Ocellus laying on top of Yona's blanket, burns scorched on her entire back.
"Counselor Starlight," Yona started, adjusting herself to balance the scared changeling on her back. "Yona worried for changeling friend Ocellus. Burns bad."
"Don't worry Yona," Starlight says immediately as she levitates Ocellus with her magic, she knows this group as well as her cutie mark, she has it all on file and this always needs a large amount of positivity, in fact, that might be one of the reasons why this group always succeeded.
"But will she be okay?" Gallus asks pulling Starlight out of her trance, coming forward with a look of shame in his eyes.
"Of course, she will recover--" Starlight started with the most genuine smile she could muster.
"That's not the point!" Gallus yells out digging his talons on the ground. "She has been so excited for this festival and her part in the Rowboat and Jewels Bit play and now she is wounded. Is it possible for her to be a part of the play anymore?" Gallus says tears streaming down his eyes. Starlight opened her mouth, but couldn't find the words. In truth, she couldn't give an answer, healing magic is something that requires a huge amount of energy and those wounds couldn't heal properly on their own in three days. She looks at the students, their eyes looking into hers as if silently pleading that she could fix their friend. Her smile fades from face faster than a fizzled spell. The students dropped their heads in response.
As Starlight grappled with the question, a saving grace came from the one mouth that wasn't supposed to open.
"Hmm" Ocellus mumbled groggily as her eyes opened.
"Ocellus, you okay?" Sandbar asked.
"How do those burns feel? Are you able to walk?" Silver Stream piped in.
"That was really cool of you." smolder says shoving herself in.
"I didn't know that beetles were that strong!" Gallus swooped in from above.
"Everycreature! Give her some space!" Starlight says standing in the middle of the group as they crowded around a levitated Ocellus. "She has been through a lot, one of the best things that can happen right now is give her some space and rest." The students smiles turn into frowns and looked at the floor. Each one scratching at the ground. Starlight bites at her lips, why is it that what the students need to hear isn't the truth?
"Alright everypony, here is the deal." Starlight says, the students looking up at her expectantly. Why did I do that? She thinks to herself. "I know that she will be okay, I know a magic doctor that will be able to help her out before the festival on Thursday." Starlight says lying through her teeth. It is true that she could ask Zecora, but she is out of town at the moment, counting that option out. Although it seemed that the students bought it, she saw their faces light up faster than Twilight's spell. Smiling weakly she took a deep breath. Can't wait to find the imaginary magic doctor that can treat serious wounds in three days. She sarcastically thinks to herself. "Now everypony, please allow me to get Ocellus to the hospital for her to recover. The group walked away with smiles on their faces, she listened in for a second and overheard talk amongst themselves about how she was going to do it. She chuckled, if only she knew herself. Looking around she found the fires put out and only a small amount of smoke still billowing up. At very least the main structure was mostly unharmed from the fire. She looked around and she saw Spike running towards her. She bit her lip, she knew what the dragon was coming to her for and now she has to fix the pony's ego that was scorched from the fires.
"Joy" She whispers to herself, rolling her eyes as the dragon approaches her.
"Starlight! We have a pro--" Spike yells out while still a distance away.
"Is Twilight twilighting again?" Starlight asked as the dragon stopped in front of her and gasped for air.
"Yes, but--" spike continues
"She is feeling bad for herself because she was the pony that put everyone else in danger?" Starlight states.
The dragon opened his mouth, and raised a claw, but just like a balloon, he fizzled out.
"How did you know?" Spike asks curiosity. Starlight gives him a smile.
"Fair point." Spike answers. "Let's go before she is beyond the point of repair." Starlight smiles as she walks back to the castle of friendship after bringing Ocellus back to the resident hospital in the area. Life in Ponyville is crazy, yet somewhat predictable. Either way it brings a smile to her face.
★・・・・・・★・・・・・・★・・・・・・★
Gallus growls to himself as he paces the commons area of the school of Friendship's dorms. Each time looking at the different decorations on the walls. Each one brings a sickening feeling to his gut. How could he have allowed Ocellus to fall out of his arms? The moment playing back in his mind time and time again. Each time realizing that a different flick of his wing could have brought him to her. Yet each time, she was just out of his reach. He hangs his head as he looks at the cheesy drawing done by him and the rest of his group of friends. Smolder breathing fire down on everycreature while Yona, Sandbar and Silver Stream each grin as him and Ocellus in the corner arms over each other's shoulder. The picture brings a smile to his face before it quickly turns to a frown. How could he have allowed one of his closest friends to get burned that badly in the first place?
"Hey Gallus!" Sandbar says. Gallus shakes his head, seeing Sandbar in front of him with a sandwich in his hooves.
"What's going on?" Gallus smiles as he watches Sandbar take another bite of his sandwich.
"not much, just enjoying some dinner, speaking of which, the rest of the gang is getting some grub, would you like to come?" Sandbar says before sticking the last bite of his sandwich in his mouth.
"Thanks, but no thanks I got some serious pacing to do." Gallus says, his smile growing faker by the second. "I got some… uh…" Gallus looks around the room until his eyes catch a bunch of magical relics on the wall. "Studying! Yeah, I have been trying to figure out the different magical pony artifacts for a while now, I kinda want to see what they are." Gallus says, his smile about to break. Sandbar nonchalantly walks over to the relics on the wall.
"these ones?"
"Yep." Gallus says through gritted teeth.
"Oh," Sandbar says, examining the relics. "Aren't these the ones that we did a scavenger hunt when Starlight was in charge of the school?"
"Oh fine!" Gallus says rolling his eyes. "I can't get over the fact that Silver Stream is going to be on a hospital bed through the one festival that she has been looking forward to." He says rolling his eyes. Sandbar blinks. "Oh, would you like to come to dinner with us?"
"Yes!"
"Cool!" Sandbar smiles as he walks to the kitchen before turning around to Gallus. "It is a code red meeting, so I was--."
"Why didn't you say so when we started!" Gallus jumps flapping his wings like he does when he feels strongly about something.
Sandbar shrugs, "didn't cross my mind."
Gallus slaps his head with his claw. That's Sandbar for ya.
★・・・・・・★・・・・・・★・・・・・・★
"So… uh, what's the plan." Spike says looking over to Starlight. Starlight grabs the handle of the castle. "I thought you knew?" Starlight says looking at Spike.
"well.…uh… you see…" Spike says scratching the back of his neck. Starlight sighs before looking at the door. "Actually!" Spike says as she tugs at the door. "what if we give her just a small amount of motivation, tell her that she can. I am sure that will help her out!" Spike says enthusiastically.
"You're right Spike, go ahead." Starlight says levitating Spike over to the door, beads of sweat appear on Spike's face. "You have been living with Twilight since she was a filly and know more about dealing with Twilight than I do." Starlight says motioning to Spike.
"You’re the one that has the best track record of helping Twilight out!" Spike blurts out running behind Starlight and pushing her to the door.
Starlight turns away from the door and looks to Spike.
"Alright Spike, why are you afraid of Twilight? What's different then the last eleven thousand five hundred and sixty two times?" Pulling out her list of Twilight episodes.
"I have never seen Twilight like this before. I feel that if we enter there, there will be a problem too big that we can't solve?" Starlight snickers. "I'm being serious!"
"Sure Twilight, make sure to get a healthy dose of cataclysmic consequences if we fail." Starlight says full out laughing. Spike raises an eyebrow,
"Why do you say it like that?"
"Spike, we have seen almost everything that Twilight has gone through and she gets back up each time after what? Maybe three days." She says sighing happily. "Thanks Spike, you gave me what I needed to hear to get over what I was in." Starlight says moving towards the door.
"Sure… whatever you say Starlight." Spike says smiling weakly. Starlight opens the door and a pile of notes wash over the both of them. Starlight pops her head out of the crumpled papers.
"Starlight…" Spike says poking his head out of the papers. Spike says looking at an obviously annoyed Starlight. Starlight takes a deep breath.
"Take note Spike, we have officially unleashed the worst twilighting episode on date." Starlight says sarcastically, levitating notes out of her hair.
Author's Note
To all those that continue to read this story of mine, I give my sincere thanks, I went through a rough spot with everything that is going on in my life. I hope that this story brings a smile to your face, because it does for me.
"N1ght_Strider, your forgetting something!" Autumn Hill says in the background.
Oh yeah, Starlight and Spike open the door to the castle of friendship for quite a surprise what do you think they will find when they reach Twilight? Leave a comment below.
Also, if you haven't already, give this story a like. Nothing makes my day more than that.
