A chilly wind whisked through the Crystal Mountains of northern Equestria, brought down from the icy realm of the Crystal Empire just to the north and beyond the horizon. Thick dunes of snow looped through an endless cycle of buildup and collapse on whatever flat sections of ground could be found amongst the mountainous terrain. Flurries of ice and snow danced around within the mouths of the occasional caves
While the Crystal Empire was protected from the icy snowstorms that frequently spawned in the area, the same could not be said for the surrounding land. Without the ambient magic of the Crystal Heart, the forests and mountains south of the Empire were bathed in a blanket of eternal whiteness. The temperature rarely saw a day over the freezing point of water, and even a patch of small blue sky was a scarce sight to behold in this region of Equestria.
For obvious reasons, most ponies tended to stray away from the mountains, save for the occasional explorer or mountain climber. With the radiant beauty of the Crystal Empire to the north and the lush, expanse plains to the south, there was no reason anypony would want to suffer the harsh conditions of the barren mountains in order to establish some sort of permanent shelter. It was a bleak, desolate, dismal wasteland of rock and ice, and a horrible place to live.
On the other hoof, it was also an excellent place to stay hidden.
Deep within the mountain range, one particular cave stood out from the rest. While all other caves had their entrances covered with swirling patterns of ice and snow, this cave's entrance was unusually clean.
Any particles of snow entering the cave, upon crossing an invisible threshold at the mouth of the cave, instantly melted into water and slid down like drops of rain on a window. A small groove carved in the ground along this hidden barrier collected the water and led it towards the mouth of a wooden pipe. This pipe led past a shimmering illusion of rock concealing a long, carved out passage at the back of the cave. The pipe travelled deeper through the hidden corridor , which eventually opened up into a large room lit by the warm light from several glowing crystals of various colors, placed evenly around the walls.
The pipe eventually stopped over a large, hollow cylinder of wood in the corner of the room. A faint, green circle of glowing light hovered above the opening of the container, tilted at a slight angle. When the melted snow water poured onto the circle, any bits of rock caught in the stream would bounce off the circle and land off to the side. The remaining, filtered water flowed through the circle and trickled into the container, sending faint ripples across the surface of the already-stored water.
A small, clear cup roughly cut from crystal floated over to the trickling stream, surrounded in a pale, yellow glow. It hovered under the stream for long enough to fill halfway with clean water before slowly floating to the other side of the room. There, on a stool of stone and in front of a makeshift desk of the same material, sat a dark figure masked in the shadow of a large, equally dark cloak, their face obscured from the ambient glow of the. A horn protruded from the top of the hood, bathed in an aura of lime yellow light. The glow illuminated a pony's muzzle barely visible under the hood, casting the rest of his face in shadow.
The cup floated closer to the unicorn, who took a lazy sip before setting it back down on the desk. Numerous diagrams and notes littered the stone desk to the point where a quick glance could convince any unsuspecting pony that the desk was made of said pages. The figure's eyes traced back and forth between the papers, floating a quill in their magic as they made small adjustments to different pages. Some new notes written here, an entire section crossed out there, a few symbols added to an obscurely long equation. Occasionally, a faint mutter could be heard over the distant sound of howling wind. The figure shook their head and let out a tired sigh.
"No no no, that would never work..." The quill floated to the bottom of one particular page and crossed out a rather long equation. "The margin of error is just too high..."
A blank sheet of parchment floated out from a saddlebag next to the cloaked unicorn and rested at the center of the desk atop the many older pages of notes. The figure took a second to center it before floating the quill over to the top of the page and giving a long, bored exhale. "Alright, maybe if I offset the ambient loss by absorbing from the natural leylines, I could-"
A single, yellow spark flew from the figure's horn. The figure's eyes widened, and he let out a short gasp of shock and surprise.
"What?! That... that's impossible..."
The unicorn's horn released a bright burst of yellow light, and they disappeared from the cave. A moment later, they reappeared outside the mouth of the cave, their cloak flapping violently in the freezing wind. They looked up and glared at the stormy sky, but spotted nothing out of the ordinary. Their horn once lit up once more. Their surroundings suddenly appeared much more dull and muted, the sound of the northern wind distant and deafened. They turned their attention the sky again and, where once only dark gray clouds could be seen, a faint arc of rainbow fire traveled the sky from the south.
The figure's eyes widened in astonishment, then narrowed as they turned their attention down to the horizon, from where the fire seemed to come from.
"I was right... there does exist a perfect match... This... this changes everything." The figure's voice was barely above a whisper, and yet carried a tone of absolution and certainty.
Their gaze settled on the southward horizon and focused into a harsh glare. A determined fire burned fiercely in their eyes; the very snow around them would have melted under their glare if only its heat could be felt. Something deep within the unicorn's core began to wake, a power that had not needed to see the light of day for many, many moons.
In a burst of yellow light, the figure's saddlebag reappeared on their back. The unicorn's horn flashed once more, and the entrance to the cave that was once their residence collapsed in a shower of dust and snow. To any other pony, this loss of shelter would be a devastating blow, but the figure didn't even spare a second glance.
The figure glanced down just in time to spot a small, almost unnoticeable arc of red lightning dance from their foreleg to the snow. A slight grin spread across their muzzle as they turned around and began their walk southwards towards the source of the magical anomaly.
"I will not be stopped this time."
"Stop stop stop stop!"
Back in Ponyville's local School of Friendship, a panicked cyan pegasus whisked around her classroom in desperate circles, trying to avoid the floating pieces of confetti and streamers that filled the air. Her pleas were unfortunately drowned out by the cries of glee and laughter from young ponies of all colors and ages.
Just the previous day, Pinkie Pie had finally convinced Twilight to let her introduce tiny party cannons to her class to use in the next day's lesson about Laughter. The concept was that even the tiniest objects can bring a laugh or smile to another pony, which would then draw a parallel to how even the smallest action can help spread laughter to other ponies. When Pinkie proposed the idea during yesterday's school council meeting (a fancy term for when all six professors plus Spike and Starlight met up weekly to discuss anything related to the School ), Twilight thought it was a stroke of genius on Pinkie's part. The rest of the group, including Rainbow Dash, approved of the idea.
What they didn't account for were all her students using their newfound mini party cannons to constantly "spread laughter" during their other classes. Rainbow's last class for the afternoon just happened to be after Pinkie's last, meaning everyone had their own mini party cannon.
How Pinkie had enough of those for the entire school, nopony knew.
"Please, for the love of Celestia, wait until after class to use your party cannons! Pleeeaaaseeeeee!"
After roughly five minutes of pure pandemonium, the laughter had died down just enough for Rainbow's voice to cut through the noise and enter the ears of her distracted students. One by one, they put away their miniature instruments of chaos and gazed forward attentively to their professor with a bright grin, who glared back in mild annoyance.
"Right, now then!" Rainbow cleared her throat, silencing most of the whispers. Once she felt most eyes were on her, she put on a cheerful grin and turned back around to her students. "As you all know, Loyalty and Honesty are two separate Elements of Harmony and are equally important when making and growing your friendships! For today's class, we will be looking at a few times when you might feel like you're forced to choose one or the other, and how to handle these situations."
The faint sound of quills scratching on parchment quickly filled the classroom as the many students within began writing the subject of the day. Rainbow patiently listened in as she deftly twirled a piece of chalk between her right wing's outer feathers. It was a passive skill she had picked up during her time as a professor here as per Twilight's advice. Her friend had read somewhere that spinning an object between your wing feathers apparently "aids the exercise and gradual improvement of the dexterity of your primaries."
Whether or not it truly yielded such benefits for her, Rainbow could never tell, but it did help her pass the time a little faster.
A young, white-coated unicorn mare with a curled, lime-green mane seated near the back of the room raised her hoof. Rainbow waited a few more seconds for most of the other students to finish writing before gesturing to her with her outstretched wing. "Yes, Lily Breeze?"
Lily lowered her hoof. "Sorry, I'm a little confused. Since they are both important to friendship, when would I ever have to choose one or the other?"
Rainbow nodded. "That's right, Lily, they are both important to friendship! However..."
She spared a brief glance down at her desk where her lesson notes were laid out to figure out her next response. She and Applejack had spent the better part of yesterday's afternoon writing those notes together so they could share the same lesson between their classes. She shifted the chalk from her wing to her hoof and flew up a little to her chalkboard.
"Think about this for a second, imagine that your friend just bought a new dress and is showing it off to you." Rainbow drew a crudely-drawn depiction of two ponies facing each other, one of which donned an equally crude-looking dress. Several students began furiously trying to redraw the sketch in their notes.
"Now imagine the dress they bought is absolutely horrid! Awful! It looks like something out of a dumpster!"
An earth pony at the front began to raise his hoof. "Wait, why would anypony buy a dress that looks aw-"
Rainbow swiftly cut him off. "Nuh uh uh! This is just hypothetical, as Twilight would say. Don't worry about details and just focus on the important bits." The stallion lowered his hoof, and Rainbow smiled.
"Good! Back to this, imagine your friend is showing off to you their horrible-looking dress, and they are now asking you how it looks on them. How would you answer them?"
Several hooves rose from across the room. Rainbow made a show of scanning each one until pointing to one belonging to an earth pony filly seated at the front of the room. "Yes, Spruce Sage?"
The filly coughed slightly before speaking in an adorably high-pitched voice. "Well, Applejack said that it's important to be honest when a friend asks for advice. So, I would tell them that the I think the dress doesn't really look that good and maybe tell them why."
Rainbow went to respond, but the filly quickly added a final point. "Oh! I'd also, um, tell them that was just how I felt, and it'd be totally fine if they liked it anyways."
Rainbow smiled, recognizing that statement to be from Fluttershy's lessons on kindness just yesterday. "Awesome job, Spruce!" She turned to the rest of the class. "Everyone else who agrees, go ahead and raise a hoof!"
Every student in the room quickly raised a hoof, some giving a few murmurs of agreement. Her smile widened.
Hehe, excellent! Just like Applejack said, they all took the bait.
Rainbow subtly swiped a wing at her notes, shifting the page on top over to glance at the next page's contents to refresh her memory. This may have been the fifth time she taught this exact lesson today, but she could feel exhaustion starting to seep through and cloud her memory. Better safe than sorry.
Rainbow flew up to the chalk drawing of the dressed pony and drew some tears falling from the eyes. She added a frown to the face and turned back to the class. "Now then, class! Pretend you're in a slightly different scenario with your friend and their awful dress. Your friend had just had something really sad happen to them earlier that day. Maybe they were fired from their job, or maybe they lost a memora-... memor-... something that meant a lot to them. Whatever it was, it's put them in a really sad mood all day. Maybe they're still crying a little as they speak to you." She furthered her point by adding a small puddle of tears collecting under her chalk pony.
Rainbow shifted her chalk back to her wing and turned to face the class once more. "And now for the big question, how many of you would still say the same things about the dress?"
Almost half of the students put down their hooves, some slower than others. Some kept theirs up, while others wavered at a half-up, half-down position. Everyone's eyes flicked around and brows furrowed in in thought. Rainbow scanned the room for somepony who had dropped their hoof and called on a particular pegasus mare seated in the front-left on the room. "Rainy Skies? Why'd you lower your hoof?"
Rainy let out a quiet, surprised "eep!" before raising her voice to answer. "If... if my friend is really that sad, I don't think I'd want to call a dress they just bought ugly. M- maybe they bought it to cheer themselves up too?"
Rainbow added on to their response. "You feel loyal to your friend's feelings, right? That you should be there for them and do what you can to comfort them? Even if that means not being honest?"
Rainy nodded, prompting Rainbow to continue. She flew back to the top of the chalkboard and roughly drew out the silhouettes of an apple and a lightning bolt on opposite ends of the board. She passed the chalk back to her wing and began twirling between feathers again as she slowly paced the front of the room.
"Now we have a case where you might feel pressured to choose between loyalty and honesty towards your friend. If you were to be completely honest about the dress, you might tell them your feelings about it, and risk upsetting them even more. If you were to stay loyal to their feelings, you might want tell them the dress looks nice to try to make them feel better."
Rainy shyly nodded their head once more. "Y- yes, I would want to-"
"But isn't that more like kindness than loyalty?" A pegasus stallion from the other side of the room interrupted the timid mare.
Rainbow thought about it for a second. "Well yes, it couuuuuuld also be kindness, but that's not what I'm ge-"
"Wouldn't my friend feel hurt if they found out later on that I lied to them?" Another voice interrupted Rainbow. She opened her mouth to respond but was immediately cut off by several more voices.
"They'd probably be more hurt if you just insulted their dress while they're crying!"
"Couldn't you just not comment on the dress and say they look good? That way you're not really lying."
"But they asked how they look in the dress, so if you said that, isn't that technically a lie too?"
Rainbow's gaze frantically darted from the many speakers; she could feel her control over the conversation slowly slipping away. "Now now, one at a time please!" Her voice fell on deaf ears as several more students joined the fray, turning the original argument into an indecipherable commotion not so different than what she was dealing with at the start of the class.
"... -no, why should I have to comment about- ..."
"... -maybe if I just change the subject entirely, I wouldn't have to-..."
"... -was there anything due today I kind of forg-..."
Rainbow's original conversation with Rainy was far beyond the point of saving. If she were to close her eyes, it'd sound like she was back at another one of Ponyville's town hall meetings, except all the voices were significantly younger. She silently prayed that the walls were thick enough such that none of her friends' ongoing classes were being interrupted by the ruckus. "Please everyone, let's just calm down and-"
Somewhere amidst the chaos, one of the student's mini party cannons went off, littering the air once more with streamers and confetti. Rainbow's eye twitched.
HONNKKKKKKKK
Several students jumped as the sudden, loud noise cut straight through the hubbub of the classroom. Everyone fell silent and turned to face the source at the front of the room where Rainbow was hovering, an air horn held high above her head. Once she was sure she had most her students' attention back, she tucked the air horn back in its drawer under her desk. She inhaled deeply.
"Alright students, while I can appreciate a good debate between you all, we're not going to make any progress if we're just interrupting each other like this! Let's just take it nice and easy, and speak one at a time like friends, not a bunch of arguing ponies! And the cannons! Please, for Celestia's sake, wait until after you get out of my class to go crazy with them! As much as I love them, this is going to be the fifth class today that I have to clean up confetti off my floor! The weekend is just right around the corner, and if we all just behave and stay in control, maybe this class will go by much faster for you!"
Satisfied with her little speech, Rainbow turned back to her chalkboard and started to erase the pony drawings to make room for the next part of her lesson.
"D- did you see that?"
Rainbow blinked. "Did I see what?" She turned around to see the entire class staring at her wide-eyed, their surprised faces replaced with a frozen look of shock. She glanced around the room, trying to decipher a clue from their expressions. "Why are you all staring at me like that?"
A pegasus filly near the front of the room was the first to break the silence, pointing a hoof to the chalk held in Rainbow's outstretched wing. "D- did you see that?"
Rainbow shifted her gaze to her unfurled wing and the chalk. Her writing tool was still loosely gripped between her feathers and, other than being a little worn at the tip, did not appear unusual in the slightest. She turned back to the student with a confused frown. "You might have to be a little more speci-"
"A spark!" Lily Breeze spoke up from the back of the class. "There was like, this weird spark of lighting from your wing to your desk!"
Rainbow turned her attention down to her desk and narrowed her eyes. Any spark of electricity strong enough to cover the distance between where her wing had been and her desk should have left a visible scorch mark, albeit small. However, she couldn't spot any marks or other source of indication to validate the mare's claim.
"Ha ha!" Rainbow laughed awkwardly. "It must have just been some static electricity from flying around all those streamers and confetti earlier. Gotta be careful where you fly, you know!"
She finished off her point with a brief flap of her wings. Some students still stared at her in confusion, but most of them seemed somewhat satisfied with the explanation. She heard a few concerned murmurs exchanged between them however. She turned back to her chalkboard to continue writing the next part of her lesson, but subtly flicked an ear towards her students to catch bits and pieces of their whispers.
"...-never seen a static shock that big before."
"...-must've hurt hard, that thing was as long as my leg..."
"...-never seen blue lightning before-..."
Blue static lightning? Rainbow furrowed a brow in confusion. Static can't be blue? I don't think it should ever even have color! They must have seen some light bouncing off a blue streamer or something... right?
After finishing writing her lesson, she shook her head briefly to focus her thoughts back on the class. Just one more class and she could take her nice, long nap. She could practically hear her bed calling her name already.
"Anyways, now that we have a situation where you might feel forced between loyalty and honesty, we're going to look at ways to get through this scenario without having to lie while still remaining loyal to your friend's feelings. I want all of you to get into pairs and act out the following situation shown on my chalkboard for the next five minutes! Afterwards, each group will share their final answer with the rest of the class."
Rainbow watched as the students stared at her board to grasp the pictured events before scrambling to their hooves to find their partners. Soon, the classroom was once again filled with chatter, this time less chaotic as the students began exchanging words, trying to find ways to comfort their pretend-crying partner without explicitly lying about their Celestia-forbidden fashion choices. Convinced that the class could manage themselves for a few minutes, Rainbow tuned out the noise and turned her thoughts inward.
Lily's comment still hung in her mind. Normally she would readily dismiss a statement like that as a result of the overactive imagination of a tired student. After what happened last week however, she couldn't help but feel a slight pang of worry that the mare's observation held weight than she would have liked.
She could still remember her experiences during the experiment with Starlight and her speed spell from the previous week. The eerie silence surrounding her, the colors of the world muted and grayed, the familiar feel of wind stripped from her senses, the streaks of blue lightning arcing between her and the nearby clouds.
It had been far from a negative experience, but nevertheless she, Twilight, and Starlight agreed to avoid repeating the experiment in the future. Combining her innate pegasus magic with that of the Accelero spell was so unpredictable, not even those two magic powerhouses were able to record any useful information about it. The burst of pegasus magic released from her rainbooms was so powerful, even creatures beyond the borders of Equestria were able to faintly observe the three rings of expanding, rainbow fire.
Fortunately, their world was no stranger to weird, magical shenanigans, and most nations dismissed the sight as just another villain defeat at the hooves of friendship.
"Excuse me, Professor Dash? We're done with our exercise."
The voice of one of her students snapped her back to reality, and she looked up from her desk to see most of the class had quieted down and were patiently waiting for her for the next part of the lesson. Rainbow gave a brief smile and nod to her class before getting up from her chair to introduce the students to her next exercise. She would worry about the comment later; for now, her students came first.
Author's Note
Finally got to starting the sequel to Spells and Rainbows, the idea was tossed around in my head for a long time, as well as being delayed by college.
Next chapter is already in the outlining stage and should be out not too long!
"Thank you!"
"Thanks Professor Dash!"
"See you next week!"
One by one, Rainbow Dash's students shuffled out of the room, giving a brief farewell to their professor as they left. Rainbow sat at her desk and waved to each of them with a smile, her thoughts occupied by earlier events. She unfurled her left wing, the one she noted several of her students sneaking quick glances at throughout the remainder of her class time, and gave it a quick once over. All its primaries were present and undamaged, save for looking a little messy from a long day of teaching.
"Hey, is your wing okay?"
"Huh?" Rainbow snapped out of her contemplative stare and glanced around the room for the speaker, her eyes finally landing on the unicorn stallion standing to the left of her desk. She quickly folded her wing to her side and cleared her throat. "Uh yeah, of course! Why would it not be okay?"
The stallion gave her a concerned and curious look. "That shock looked real painful... I got shocked earlier this week by a cloud I summoned during my magic lessons." He gave a short chuckle. "Wasn't all that big, just the size of a few books, but it definitely left a mark on me." He lifted up his left hoof to show the a thin layer of bandages wrapped around it. Rainbow peered curiously at it, her mouth forming a slight "o".
"I don't know how you pegasi can manage handling those things all time; I swear up close, they're just floating disasters waiting to happen, static electricity and all!" He shrugged. "Maybe it's a special pegasus thing or something. I've always wondered what'd it be like to build stuff out of clouds haha. Anyways, I'll see you next week prof. Oh by the way, you dropped this earlier, here ya go." The stallion lit his horn and lifted a small piece of white chalk off the floor from under her desk. With careful precision, he placed it on her desk so it sat balanced on its unworn edge before turning to trot out her door.
With that, the last student of Rainbow's class left her classroom, more than happy to rest after a long day of classes. Rainbow could easily sympathize; her brain felt like it was melting after dealing with five classes today. Thankfully, she only taught one or two classes most days of the week. She silently cursed her past self for dumping so many classes on the last day of the week. Still, the stallion's words hung in the air.
Static electricity, huh? Humming quietly to herself, Rainbow packed her remaining objects into her saddlebag as she pondered what happened earlier.
Rainbow Dash was no stranger to static electricity. As a filly, she used to roll around the cloud carpet her parents set up in her room while wearing the most mischievous grin. Once satisfied, she would sneak up behind one of her parents and, with a nice, loud "gotcha!", poke their shoulders with a hoof, releasing all the stored up electricity in a single discharge. She would roll around on the floor cackling after seeing her unfortunate victim yelp and jump in shock (no pun intended). Even the smallest discharge was enough to surprise any unsuspecting pony.
With that thought in mind, it had to have been a considerably large discharge for a bolt to jump a full forelimb's length from her. Yet, she never felt a thing, let alone saw it. That stallion's bandaged foreleg certainly attested that she should have more than felt a shock like that. Normally, she'd be quick to dismiss the comments as part of the students' tired, overactive imaginations, but some remaining thoughts weighed on her mind.
When we did that experiment with the speed spell the other day, there was a lot of blue lighting... Rainbow raised a hoof to stare at it. She remembered, in perfect detail, the way those cyan arcs of electricity danced across her fur, jumping from her body to nearby clouds or other areas of herself.
Rainbow put a hoof to her chin in contemplative thought. Starlight looked her over after the incident and said she couldn't detect any trace of the speed spell in her body. There was something about dissipating and latent energy that Rainbow assumed meant the spell was just gone from her body. One comment stood out to her in her memory. Starlight said my aura looked more... excited? I mean, it's probably always excited, but what does it mean if it's more than usual? Rainbow's gaze slowly shifted towards the lone piece of chalk still sitting atop her desk, balanced perfectly. A devilish grin spreading across her muzzle.
"Static, you say..." Rainbow whispered to herself, mischievous thoughts flooding through her mind accompanied by the slightest spark of filly-hood imagination. Without a second thought, she raised herself on her hind legs and shot her right hoof towards the chalk, her face turned away and eyes squeezed shut in anticipation.
"Bam!"
"..."
She stood there, still as a statue, for what seemed like eternity before slowly prying her eyes open. Her hoof still pointed to the chalk, which continued to sit completely unharmed and undisturbed on her desk. Getting back down on all fours, she inched slowly towards to her desk and glared intensively at the small writing utensil. Eventually, her face got so close she could swear she felt the chalk bristle the fur of her muzzle. Her eyes darted across its surface, searching for any sign of damage, even the slightest mark or discoloration. Aside from its normal wear from use, she could spot not change. She could almost hear the chalk mocking her, taunting her for her seemingly childish behavior. What did you expect would happen? It would probably say. That you'd blow me away with some awesome strike of lighting?
Rainbow continued to stare intently into the chalk piece, moving her head back ever so slightly. She brought her right hoof up again and started jabbing at it expectantly, hoping to catch something, anything.
"Come on, stupid chalk, blow up or something."
Still as nothing continued to happen, her jabs slowly lost vigor, eventually degrading into small frequent pokes. Her glare shifting to a look of mild abjection. So many of her students saw something, and so soon after her incident, it couldn't just be a coincidence.
"Rainbow? What are you-"
"HUH?! What the-" Caught by surprise, Rainbow flailed and instinctively flapped her wings, hurling her straight up and into the ceiling. "OW!" She tumbled back towards the ground, but her descent was quickly halted as her body was suspended in the air, her entire view of the world taking on a familiar violet hue.
"Oh my gosh, Rainbow I'm so sorry! Are you alright?" The magic surrounding her vanished, and Rainbow adjusted her wings to gently float down the remaining twelve inches of fall with whatever dignity she had left. "I didn't think you'd jump that much!"
Rainbow groaned a little as she rubbed the base of her wings, which absorbed most of the impact. She turned her head to the door to see that her unexpected guest was none other than her friend, Twilight Sparkle, who stood in the doorway with the most sheepish grin imaginable. "I was, um, thinking very hard about something! Geez Twi, can't you knock?"
Twilight walked fully into the room and lightly closed the door with her magic. "Well, the door was open and," Twilight giggled. "I was wondering a little what it's like to be on the sending rather than receiving end of all those times you've barged into my office while I'm working. 'Can't you knock' sounds awfully familiar doesn't it?"
Rainbow opened her mouth to retort, but paused. "Alright fine, I guess I walked into that one. What's up?"
While the warm, welcoming smile on Twilight's muzzle continued to shine, the look in her eyes shifted from one of jest to a mix of curiousity and concern. It was the smallest change in her expression, small changes were something Rainbow's many years of attentive weather management and daring flights had trained her to notice.
"I did tell you I'd be checking up on you again after the week's end." Twilight's horn lit up with violet light and Rainbow felt the familiar sensation of her magic aura being examined from head to hoof. "We still don't fully understand what it is you experienced and if it has any long lasting effects."
Rainbow groaned in slight annoyance, letting out a brief shudder as Twilight's spell washed over her front hooves. "Come on, Twi, couldn't this at least wait for the actual end of the week? Like, you know, tomorrow? Besides, didn't Starlight already check over my aura after the whole thing?"
Twilight narrowed her gaze as she moved her scanning spell up to Rainbow's wings. "Yes she did, and she told me it looked fine. You know Starlight's definitions for what is fine and what is safe don't exactly line up all too well."
Rainbow rolled her eyes. "Yeah yeah, you don't need to remind me. I was there for some of those personally, remember?"
Silence filled the room, broken only by the faint sound of magic from Twilight's horn. Rainbow blinked. "Anyway, is something up? You've been staring at my wings for a while now. Last time you used this spell on me it was way faster than this."
Twilight stared even more intently as her spell remained focused on her wings, her nose scrunched in scrutiny. Rainbow could do nothing but awkwardly shuffle around on her hooves. She shot a quick glance at one of her wings, but found nothing obviously out of the ordinary as it glowed in the soft light of Twilight's magic.
"I'm... not sure. Your magic aura has calmed back down to what it was before the experiment, which is good and... pretty much what I was hoping to find..."
"I'm sensing a 'but' somewhere."
"But... there's something else here, something perfectly hidden. I don't know how to really explain it; I can feel something that wasn't there before, but I can't directly see it and I have no idea what it is."
Rainbow looked over at her wing again, this time a little worried. If Twilight of all ponies said she has no idea what something is, chances are it's serious. "Something... else? Am I in danger or something?"
Twilight gazed quietly at her wing for a few more seconds before finally dropping the spell, closing her eyes and letting out the breath she'd been holding in. Rainbow gave her wings a quick stretch before folding them back comfortably to her sides. "That's just it, while I don't see any danger here, I don't even really know what I'm looking to be able to make that judgement."
Twilight reached out with her magic and, to Rainbow's quiet dismay, plucked a couple of pencils out of her already packed bag and levitated then between them.
"Imagine a pony's magic aura as the choreography of a Wonderbolts' aerial show." She floated the pencils around herself and Rainbow in graceful symmetry, moving them up and down, into spirals and spins, perfectly mirroring the other's movements. "All of the twirls, the twists, the spins, it's a lot like a dance, albeit far more intense and dangerous. Likewise, much like a magic aura, no two Wonderbolts shows are ever the same."
Rainbow opened her mouth to object, but Twilight lifted a hoof to silence her. "Yes Rainbow, I'm aware many of their shows may follow the same planned choreography, but it never ends up the same. The thoughts, moods, experience of the fliers, the weather that day, all of this ensures no two shows turn out the same way. Sure, they might start out exactly the same for a few seconds, but once the fliers are in the air long enough, all the factors I mentioned will nudge them off course by even the smallest of measurable distances, no matter how quickly they adjust. It's the same way that identical twins are only instance when two ponies can have identical auras, but this lasts for just a few moments until the smallest difference in memories and experiences nudges their auras apart."
Twilight then hovered the pencils in such a way that one was perfect eclipsed by the other from Rainbow's point of view. "A common trick in Wonderbolts' shows is when one or more pegasi fly behind a lead pegasus from the perspective of the audience." Twilight proceeded to float the pencils into another bout of spins and tricks, but this time perfectly kept one pencil behind the other the whole time. "As the lead pegasus carries out moves, the other pegasi carefully execute the same moves at the same time behind each other, giving the illusion that there is only one pony. The only reason you can tell there are more is it'll sound like multiple ponies soaring around rather than just one. Sometimes, some shows would start out with this trick, and you wouldn't even know who else is flying with the lead pony until they separate and reveal themselves." With that, Twilight finally separated the two pencils as if they had encountered an invisible crossroads in the air, and they flew around Rainbow in a few graceful arcs before gently floating back into her bag.
With the makeshift air show done, Rainbow closed her bag and moved it behind her with a hind leg so no more of her pencils 'escaped'. "That was actually a really nice explanation and all, but what does this have to do with whatever the hay you saw in me?"
Twilight tilted her head and gazed upwards in thought. "Just like that trick I explained, there is something in your magic aura that dances and twists and jumps in perfect synchronization with it. I can't see it at all, and I would've missed it entirely if I didn't feel its presence."
"Woah woah woah! You think there's something else inside me?"
Twilight slumped down a little. "I... can't fully explain it in words, I just... felt it. It's like how I mentioned you can tell there's more than one pegasi flying even when you can't see them all because all together their flaps are louder than that of a single pony. The difference is so small, it's pretty much imperceptible if you don't know what you're listening for."
Twilight's gaze grew more serious. "Whatever is inside you is matching the chaotic turmoil of your magic aura so perfectly, it's completely masked behind it. There's no way for me to be able to tell what it is even with my magic until it separates or detaches itself from your pegasus magic. Or at least, until its behavior is no longer parroting your own aura and I'll be to see a glimpse of it."
Rainbow felt a little sweat starting to pool from her forehead. Twilight then gazed curiously at her, as if looking her over. "However... as far as I can tell, whatever this thing is doesn't have any effect on your aura or any other part of your body for that matter. It's like it's just, well, there. It doesnt seem to be doing anything ."
Rainbow raised an eyebrow. "Is thaaaat a good thing?"
Twilight looked down and sighed in defeat. "Yes and no. It's not doing anything bad or harmful, so that's obviously good. But I also have no way of knowing if it might do something horrible in the future." Twilight glanced back up and locked her eyes onto Rainbow's. "You need to tell me right now, have you noticed anything weird or unusual with your body, flight, or, well anything in general?"
Rainbow scratched the back of her head with a hoof. "Well I mean, not really anything big or scary if that's what you mean. I did get shocked by a nasty bit of static earlier but that's about it."
Twilight winced. "Ooh ouch, hate when that happens." She shuddered a little and stretched out one of her wings. "Especially when they hit a wing, those sting the most. But, did anything-"
Rainbow cut her off. "That's the thing! I got hit in the wing too, but it didn't hurt at all. I didn't even feel it!"
Twilight raised an eyebrow at that. "Oh? Not even the slightest pain?"
Rainbow shook her head. "Nothing at all, I didn't even notice it! I wouldn't have even known it happened if the students didn't act so shocked."
There was a brief, hanging silence in the air as Twilight put a hoof to her chin in thought. Rainbow shuffled her wings nervously, not sure what to make of it. "You think that thing inside me has something to do with that?"
"I can't say for certain Rainbow, not without either more context on that or more information on what's hiding in your aura."
Suddenly, Twilight's horn began stroking with a soft, lavender glow, accompanied by a gentle hum that pulsated with the light. Twilight's eyes widened. "Oh no no no no!" She scrambled to her hooves and made for the door in a mad dash.
Rainbow barely had time to jump out of her friend's way to avoid getting knocked over as she leveled a slightly irritated glare at her friend. "Hey what was that for?!"
Twilight paused briefly at the door and turned around. "I set a magical alarm of sorts to remind me that I'm supposed to be at an appointment with a few of my students' parents in a like a minute!" She spared a quick glance to the hallway outside before turning back to Rainbow. "If anything else changes, please come to me right away, alright?"
Rainbow opened her mouth to begin what would've been another half hour worth of questions but quickly shut it upon noticing the sheer panic in her friend's eyes. She knew better than to mess with Twilight's schedule. She gave a quick nod, and Twilight swiftly teleported away, presumably to wherever her meeting was, leaving Rainbow alone in her classroom.
After a few moments of silence, Rainbow tentatively unfurled her wings and gave a few good flaps to put herself in a brief hover before lowering herself back to the ground. My wings and my flying feel fine, no different than they usually do... She reached down to grasp her saddlebag in her teeth and, in one fluid motion, swung it over her head and onto her back.
Maybe Starlight might be able to find out more about this. It was her spell after all. Rainbow sped out into the hallways, once more swerving around alarmed students as she sought out the direction to a particular guidance counselor's office.
Author's Note
Sorry for the long wait! Writer's block combined with that I recently graduated college and have begun working full time have moved my priorities around, but I intend on putting writing back up as a hobby again!
