Chapter 1 A normal seeming Nightmare Night
Author's Note
My first story. At least here. And I don't have much experience writing stories in general.
I've deliberately used names. I say "Twilight" not "The purple Alicorn".
Yes the cover art is the same as my profile pic. I drew it myself.
This work hasn't been proofread. If you spot an error please leave a comment.
Chapter 1 A normal seeming Nightmare Night
Celestia had been planning fro Twilight to ascend for a while now, and was keeping a close eye on the situation all morning. Scrying spells were useful like that. Celestia had long ago developed her own personal variation of scrying spell that showed an image hovering in mid air, and visible only to her. As such Celestia didn't see a plate of cake sitting on the floor near the top of a set of stairs. SLICC. CATHUMP. ABUMP BUMP BUMP. The sound of Celestia falling down the stairs echoed loudly for several seconds. And then the shouting started. Guards rushing to and fro, surrounding Celestia in case this is part of an attack. One guard checking for a pulse, several running to a nearby hospital to summon a doctor. A maid steps out of the nearby loo to see what all the fuss is about. They look at the cake smeared stairs, down to where Celestia is lying surround by bits of broken plate. Ashen faced and trembling, the maid looks back to where they put the cake down just a minute ago.
Alicorns are extremely tough, there is no way that a fall down a flight of stairs can seriously injure them. However ponies tend to make a fuss. Celestia wanted to tell everyone that she had had half a mountain dropped on her in the battle with Drognar the terrible, and she had bucked and blasted trough 50 meters of solid rock to rejoin the fight. Now a dozen doctors were fussing around her, trying to test for every conceivable ailment and treat quite a few. Celestia didn't need any doctors right now, let alone a dozen, but personally treating a princess looks really good on a CV and is a great boast at parties. She'd tell them to all go away, just as soon as they stopped inspecting her teeth for chips, and shut up long enough to get a word in edgeways. Now one of them had snuck a horn brace on her while she was distracted trying to get them to stop examining between her hind legs in more detail. Her horn hadn't been so much as scratched when a 300 ton Great Wyrm Dragon had shattered several teeth on it. It certainly didn't need horn brace.
A good, high quality, well made horn brace is quite a sturdy thing. Celestia could easily overpower it of course, doing so would tale less than a percent of the magic she used each day to raise the sun. Well alright, the sun contains 1030 kg, and to raise it at the reasonably fast rate ponies expected the sun to rise at, she had to accelerate it to nearly half the speed of light with her telekinesis. The amount of energy needed to shatter a horn brace was utterly utterly minute. Shatter the brace and send pieces of horn restraint flying across the room fast enough to injure all the non-alicorns present.
Oh whatever. Luna could raise the moon and lower the sun. Surely Twilight couldn't cause much trouble on her first day with wings.
" ... from all of us together, there is magic without end" Twilight cast. A brilliant light shot from her horn onto herself, and she disappeared in a burst of light.
Twilight found herself surrounded by a strange white void. The pearlescent glow looking kind of, but not quite, like fairy lights in fog. Twilight started to think, tracing through the spell diagram in her mind to figure out where she was and how to leave. She needn't have bothered as 10 seconds later she found herself in a glowing ball of light drifting towards the ground in Ponyville town square. She had wings. When she had given Rarity wings for the visit to Cloudsdale, the spellbook had said that the wings were made out of dew because that would last longer than purely conjured wings. But these wings had taken a fair bit more magic than that spell, so they would probably last at least a couple of days.
She gave them an experimental flap, and was lifted a couple of hooves off the ground before landing on her plot with a bump. Ouch. Actually it didn't really hurt, that was slightly odd? Anyway, it was late. She better get to bed. It was going to be a busy day tomorrow.
Being a hirehorn was common among moderately skilled unicorns. The usual practice was to put a list of spells you could cast, and the price you charged, outside your door. It was a good way for unicorns to get some magic practice and make a bit of money on the side. When living in the castle, Celestia had encouraged Twilight to draw up a list of spells she could do, and post it outside her bedroom. Celestia said it was to get extra practice and help out, but most of the reason was to get that lavender muzzle out of a book and interacting with other ponies. And so Twilight got interrupted a couple of times a day, mostly by maids looking for cleaning or repair spells. And various paperwork related spells. Given her generous royal stipend, she didn't feel a need to charge for this. Oh she put prices on the list, exorbitant ones, but that was just for ponies like Blueblood.
So when Twilight had moved to Ponyville, she had put up a list of spells she knew, and not bothered to charge for any of them. Including some advanced manticore repelling spells around Zecora's hut, which was why Zecora was so keen to give her free potions. It was a good way to make friends with ponies in the community. Rarity had been the closest Ponyville had had to a hirehorn and she was actually quite relieved ponies were no longer interrupting her when she was making dresses.
Twilight woke up and saw a purple wing draped over her. She remembered that she had cast a spell that granted temporary wings the night before. Today was nightmare night and she had plenty of work to do preparing. Actually, here wings were still here, weren't they. So the spell had to last at least 8 hours. Probably longer. That spell might be good as part of a nightmare night costume. She chalked it up on the board in front of the library.
First order of the day, helping Applejack prepare the apple bobbing. GROWL. Ok, breakfast, then helping Applejack. Munching on a slice of toast, Twilight set off for Sweet apple acres.
"Nice wings Twi" commented AppleJack. "Sure, their from that spell last night, at a guess I'd say they will probably last a couple of days." Replied Twilight.
"Well ah was thinking ah dressing as a griffon fer Nightmare Night, but ma cardboard wings aren't very good. Ya couldn't cast that spell on me could ya?"
Twilight warned Applejack not to fly to any height she didn't want to fall from, and then cast the spell. With a flash, Applejack disappeared. About 10 seconds later, just long enough for Twilight to start panicking slightly, a glowing ball of orange light appeared and drifted to the ground. Applejack stood there sprouting wings and a horn.
"That's interesting, " Twilight noted, "You have a horn as well. The spell must force you to temporarily take the form of an Alicorn, similar to that spell that temporarily turns ponies into breezies. "
"You can't mention that spell" interjected Pinkie Pie, appearing from behind a nearby tree, "The author can't remember if that episode has happened yet".
"Stop breaking the 4th wall Pinkie" muttered Twilight. Pinkie vanished behind the tree again.
"Well what am I going to do with my new horn" grumbled Applejack. "Griffins don't have horns."
"Oh that's easy, just say your a horned griffin, or if no one gets the joke, just wear your hat." responded Twilight.
Twilight finished helping Applejack out, using her magic to clean out and fix a couple of old half barrels.
Twilight walked back into town with Applejack, Twilight levitating the barrels and Applejack pulling the cart that had apples for bobbing and all the stuff needed to make toffee apples.
There napping on a square above the town square was Rainbow dash. "Rainbow" Twilight shouted, "Can you come down here and shake a few clouds over these barrels?"
"Sure Twi" Rainbow yawned, "Hey AJ, where you get that cool horn?"
"Twi's got some fancy spell" Applejack replied.
"Me next, I want to go as Nightmare Moon!" exclaimed Rainbow.
Twilight cast the spell on Rainbow Dash. That was definitely easier than last time, she must be getting practised with this spell. The ball of crackling blue and rainbow coloured light drifted down to reveal Rainbow now had a horn. Rainbow felt his forehead with a hoof, checking that she did indeed have a horn. "This will last all night, right?" she
asked? "I think so" replied Twilight.
Twilight wandered back to the library. Already there were a couple of ponies standing looking at the board. "Hi Merry Flowers, Hi Sandy Shores, what are you two waiting for?" questioned Twilight.
"That wing spell, I want to dress as a wonderbolt for tonight." replied Merry.
"Same, except I want to dress as a bat pony" said Sandy Shores.
Twilight gave them the standard warning about not flying to any height you wouldn't want to fall from. She mentioned that the spell would give them a horn as well, updating the chalk board while she remembered. Then she cast the spell on both of them.
Over the next few hours, Twilight tried to get a bit of tidying done, and once again reshelve the library. But every time she was just getting started, another pony would knock on her door asking for wings and/or a horn. She didn't mind, she insisted to herself. She might not be getting any shelving done but she was helping lots of ponies with their nightmare night costume.
Pinkie Pie came in, looking for Twilight to cast that spell on her. Pinkies tail was flicking back and forth, her left ear was flipping up and down and her right eye was spinning round and round. Apparently a giant doozy was coming, but it was a good doozy. Whatever. Twilight had given up trying to understand Pinkie, and apparently this was a good thing, so why worry about it.
Nightmare night came and Twilight generally enjoyed herself. She'd gone bobbing for apples, got lost in a spooky maize maze and sampled a lot of different sweets. Her dragon costume had worked well enough, thrown together to make use of her new wings as it was.
Celestia smiled. She had finally been able to remove the horn brace. Sure, there were bits of horn brace embedded in the walls and ceiling, but that bathroom needed redecorating anyway. She had finally cast that scrying spell, and what did she see. Her favourite student, Twilight Sparkle. And whatsmore her student was showing all the wisdom and humility she could have hoped for. Turned into an immortal, neigh all powerful goddess just yesterday. And yet she showed no signs of lording it over other ponies. She wasn't demanding any pony bow down and worship her. She also wasn't panicking and wearing a trench in the library. She was just bobbing for apples with her friends. Almost like deep down she still thought of herself as a normal pony.
While it was somewhat dark, and the costumes hid a lot, she couldn't help noticing a lot of horns and wings in the background. She thought Ponyville was a mostly earthpony settlement. Twilight hadn't decided that earth ponies were unworthy of her presence, had she? No wait, that griffon was Applejack. Celestia knew Applejack was an earthpony. Applejack had done a really good job on her costume. Those wings looked very realistic.
