“This is not quite where I expected to end up…” looking around at the brightly colored interior of what must be a bakery. Eventually my eyes settle on the group of mares munching on cupcakes in front of me. Someone is missing, though. “Where’s Rarity?”

“She’s making all the alterations to their dresses at the moment. We saved some for her though.” Luna floats a little container with 2 cupcakes in it in front of me.

I look over at the element bearers, “How many changes did you guys even need? Our outfits were perfect, I can’t imagine she messed up on all of your dresses.”

“I mean mine was pretty cool, but it didn’t exactly scream “Rainbow Dash” ya know? I just asked for a few things to really make it my own.” Rainbow explains and everyone else nods and murmurs in agreement.

“Well hey it’s your dress, I guess as long as it’s what you want.”

“Oh yeah, especially since Hooty Tooty is coming to the show! He’s some important pony in the fashion industry in Canterlot. As soon as Rarity found out he was coming she got all frazzled and said she had to skip lunch.” Pinkie explains, as soon as she finishes speaking she opens her mouth wide and somehow all the cupcakes on the plate in front of her get sucked through the air and into her maw. I don’t know if I should be impressed or disturbed. Probably both.

Twilight quickly corrects Pinkie, “It’s Hoity Toity, Pinkie. The rest of her description was accurate though. This could be a big boost for Rarity’s career if he’s impressed by her outfits.”

Guess the stakes have gone up for her, then. “Speaking of, how much longer until we actually start the show?” I ask, still standing next to the booth they’re all eating at.

“It should only be three or so more hours, we should probably return to the boutique.” Luna says as she rises out of the booth. Everyone else rises as well and we head back out towards the shop. After a minute or so of walking I see Luna suddenly flick her eyes over to me before clicking her tongue in annoyance. “And what made you think that was a good idea?” Oh it would seem Celestia or Cadence has snitched on me. Snitches get stitches.

“Think what was a good idea?” I put both my hands behind my head and interlock my fingers as we continue to move through town.

Deception. (Disadvantage due to level 1 Exhaustion.)

20 and 16. 16 + 1 = 17.

“You know exactly what I’m talking about. I think it is commendable you wanted to help them even at risk to yourself, but there were volunteers en route. It was a completely unnecessary risk.” She’s right of course, but I had to help them.

“I couldn’t save Aurora, so I guess I just feel compelled to help them.” I see her eyes widen for a brief moment in realization.

“My knight and I need to make a slight detour, you all can continue without us.” Oh boy here we go. I shouldn’t have said anything. The girls look a bit confused but after saying they’ll see us later they walk off. Luna leads me a few feet away in a quieter area. “Be honest with me, Ignis. How often do thoughts about the former changeling queen enter your mind?”

“I’ve only been awake for what, 3 days? I’ve been much too busy to have distracting thoughts like that. Every now and then I try to replay that battle in my mind. What could I have done better? What if I had expended more resources to properly heal her? Why didn’t I use Shadow Blade, with its psychic damage it would’ve been more effective than just cracking her chitin. I just can’t help but feel that I could’ve done better. Don’t try and tell me that I can’t blame myself or that there’s nothing I could’ve done. I’m not being emotional when I say this, I regret the decisions I made in the moment and I know with 100% certainty that I could’ve saved her.” I vent out everything in a completely flat tone.

Luna just stares at me for a few seconds before sighing. “I just wanted to make sure this isn’t something eating away at you. If this isn’t coming from a place of trauma or from survivor’s guilt then all I can say is that you’ll have to live with that regret. Don’t make the same mistakes again. If you’re wrong though, and this becomes too heavy of a burden for you just remember that I’ll always be here for you. I’ve got my fair share of regrets as well…”

The silence lingers for a few seconds. “I appreciate it. We should probably catch up to the others now, yeah?”

“Hm, I was actually hoping you could demonstrate this scribing process you speak of. I’ve never actually taken a look at your spellbook before. Does it take very long to transcribe something from a scroll into the book?”

“Oh? It depends on the level, sorry complexity of the spell. Something like Alarm would take me 2 hours, but something like Counterspell would take me 6 hours. I think we should have just enough time.” We walk even further away from town and we both come to rest in the grass. Rummaging through my backpack I pull out all the spell scrolls and look through them.

Arcana. (Disadvantage)

5 and 12. 5 + 13 = 18.

Picking out the Alarm scroll I put the rest away. Reaching behind my back and under my cloak I unclasp the spellbook from the sleek mount that keeps it against my back. I spend a few minutes going over the scroll before I start pointing out details to Luna. “So this part in the center, this basically translates to the bare necessities of the spell. Bell, silver wire, message. I know that this is Alarm so the spell requires a bell and silver wire and you can designate a 20ft cube as your area and if anyone enters that area it’ll mentally ping you as long as you’re within 1 mile. I’m guessing the “message” part is referencing a lower tier spell Message that allows basic short distance telepathic communication. All of this gibberish and math around this center bit is the actual spell. Every wizard has their own unique way of writing down their spells, mostly to prevent spell theft.”

“Ah so if somepony stole your spellbook it would take a considerable amount of time to learn new spells from your work?” Luna inquires as she tilts her head in a few different directions to get a good look at the scroll.

“Exactly. Scrolls are a bit different though, they’re designed to be used by anyone with a secondary purpose of learning. They didn’t have to write these basic components in plain text, but since it’s a scroll they did. The challenging part will be decoding this wizards notation, I’m basically just going to sit here and slowly work through how I think the spell is cast. Then I’ll compare my plain text notation to the coded notation and see if it bears any similarities, if it does then I’ll transcribe it with my own notation. Trial and error until I’m confident I can understand this spell, then I just write it into the book.”

3rd Person POV

Luna is lounging in the grass with the side of her face resting against her forehoof. She’s watching the elf with a soft smile on her face as he rambles and talks to himself as he works through this spell, several parchments around him with different attempts at decoding. The scroll has lost some of its glow as he works his way through the spell. She is mildly interested in such a foreign concept of magic, but she’s mostly just quietly enjoying seeing this side of the elf for the first time. It’s clear that he’s passionate about his magic.

Finally after an hour and a half or so Ignis throws his arms up and shouts, “Yes! I knew it, god what idiot would describe that part in such a convoluted way. Luna, do you see it? The thin almost imperceptible line, that’s the marker for the area! This is gunna be so useful when we’re out camping.” Luna can’t help but giggle at the enthusiasm before telling him that she can see it.

The elf starts to pick up a few sheets of parchment as he turns the pages and tears off sections of other pages. Eventually he gets everything written cleanly onto a single sheet. He goes over it one more time to make sure it’s perfect and then pulls out the quill he retrieved from Luna’s room. Ignis very carefully notates everything into a single page of the spell book and then they both watch as the spell scrolls floats into the air and turns to ash that scatters in the wind.

“What was that about? Why did the scroll just destroy itself?” Luna looks concerned as she stares at the spot in the air where the scroll once was.

“As I got more confident about different sections of the spell I had to… what’s the right word here? I had to simulate partial casting of that section to compare to my own result which resulted in the scroll losing some of its power. By the time I finished with it the scroll was completely depowered.” He takes all the leftover notes and failed attempts and holds them in the air with his left hand. With his right hand he casts a firebolt at the stack and watches it scatter in the wind. “Alright let’s head back over to the boutique.” He stands up and offers his hand to assist Luna in rising up from the grass.

Ignis 1st Person POV

Holy fuck that was a pain in the ass. Glad I figured it out, but I am not looking forward to scribing these other scrolls. We head inside the boutique and Luna branches off from me to go to the dressing room and I head off towards the room where we were measured. As soon as I walk into the room I can feel every active neuron in my brain misfire. These outfits are horrendously tacky. Fluttershy has a nest ON HER HEAD?!

“Whatcha think, Ignis? Look at that girls, he’s speechless.” Applejack laughs and after a few more seconds of silence the laugh awkwardly dies down.

“I need a minute.” I announce and instantly about face to go find Rarity. I need to confirm that these outfits are as bad as I think they are. If they want to tank their friend's career so they can have the dress they want, that’s fine by me, but Luna is involved. I’m not letting her be associated with the train wreck that’s about to happen.

Opening the door into the dressing room, I spot Rarity. Her mane is disheveled and she looks like she’s going to drop dead any minute now. “Hey Rarity. All of their outfits are like really tacky now right? I wanted to ask to make sure cause I’m not familiar with pony stuff.” Glancing to the right I see Luna in her dress. “Damn. Perfect.”

Rarity sighs and hesitates to answer. “It is… unique. It might be to everypony’s tastes, but I’m sure an elite like Hoity Toity can recognize…. the individualism of each dress.”

“So it’s really bad?”

“.....I’m afraid so. It’s so dreadful, I wanted them to be happy with their outfits, but I know it’s going to ruin me.” She drops onto her haunches with a defeated look in her eyes.

“How long would it take you to undo all of the changes?”

“Removing things is typically faster than adding them, maybe an hour? We only have 30 minutes until show time, though. It’s too late, darling.”

“Nope, Luna take off the dress. When it’s time to start, go out there and stall. If he’s some canterlot fancy guy he’ll probably be thrilled to talk to you. Once we start you can come back in here and get dressed and we’ll go out last. In the meantime though, can you come with me to scold these children?” Rarity and Luna both widen their eyes a bit. I guess I did just bark orders at my goddess. “Please?” There we go, totally fixed it.

Rarity runs surprisingly fast and blocks me from leaving the room. “Scold?! They’ve done no wrong, they are the customer and they are entitled to any changes they want.”

“And they can have those changes. At the gala. Not at a fashion show with the future of your career on the line! Did they even pay for these?”

“....well no, but-”

“No buts! Let me out!” The unicorn side steps and I exit the room with Luna in tow.

“You know, not even my sister has ordered me around like that.” Luna quietly informs me during the short walk to the measuring room.

“Yeah, sorry. We’re just in a rush and it’s faster to just tell people to do things.”

“Don’t apologize, yet. I’m still trying to decide if I hated it or not.” I don’t know how to respond to that. Luckily we’re in the room.

I stop and look at the mares with the most neutral face I can muster. “So between the 6 of you, you all have something that you excel at right? Twilight is magic, Applejack is apples, etc etc.”

Twilight steps in, “Yes! Our skills and weaknesses are diversified so we can cover for each other in what we lack as individuals.”

“Right, and does one of you have a particular talent for fashion?”

“Yep, that’s Rarity!” Pinkie replies.

Applejack frowns and I think she’s starting to see what I’m getting at here. I don’t let her interrupt the flow I have going right now, though. “So how about all of you go take those dresses back in there and let the fashionista fix those outfits?”

“Now look here, ain’t nothin wrong with our dresses! This is what we all wanted.” Now AJ butts in.

“Twilight, if I told you there's a friendship lesson to be learned here, what do you think the issue is?” The group is silent for at least a minute until some of them start to look at the ground awkwardly, I think some of them are starting to figure it out.

Luna apparently decided to spell it out for them all, though. “What my knight is trying to get at here is that you all pressured your friend into choosing between her career and letting you all down. True to her element she made a choice that I don’t think many ponies in her situation would. Applejack is correct that you all are entitled to have your dresses look any way you want them to, but I implore you to perhaps discard these alterations for tonight. After tonight you can make all of the changes you want.”

“Oh! I get it! Because the stallion from Canterlot is going to be here! If we went out there like this he would probably spread all kinds of bad reviews to everyone up there- wait…. Oh no.” Pinkie bounces as she explains her thought process out loud only to deflate and fall onto her face as she realizes what the issue is here. “Are we bad ponies?”

“No you’re not bad ponies. It’s clear you all just didn’t realize the implications or the stakes of what is happening tonight. Please get those dresses back to Rarity, right now. She said it’ll take an hour to remove all the changes, so Luna and I will stall until everything is ready.” The group collectively runs down the hall and I just shake my head and look at Luna as we hear a loud collective apology from the group. “Where are we sleeping tonight? You said we’re taking the train again for the first leg of our journey but those don’t run this late.”

“Does this village not have an inn?”

“Not that I’ve seen, no.”

“Well, we can probably stay with my sister's student. Worst case scenario we can just camp on the outskirts of town, a vast majority of this trip is going to be spent sleeping outside.” She makes a valid point.

“True. Shall we go get this over with?”

Luna gives me a smirk that I’m not sure if I like. What’s she up to? “Nay, we still have a few minutes, and there’s one topic I’ve been meaning to bring up.” She ignites her horn and a newspaper appears in the air. I watch as it unfolds and quickly realize what’s happening here. “I thought you’d like to see that you and the pegasus made the front page. “Future Knight of Love in love with the Lunar Knight? The real reason this Lieutenant was fast track promoted to Knight exposed!” Granted this is a tabloid, but you made page 2 of Canterlot Daily. Thankfully that article is much less…. wrong.”

If I’m ever in a position to accidentally blow up the office of that newspaper, I’m going to do it. “They’re allowed to just print pure slander like this? This is ridiculous!”

“Trust me, Tia and Cadence have likely already taken care of the issue. The real reason I’m bringing this up is because I wanted to show you that you are in the public's eye now. I didn’t want you to be surprised if any of these strangers from Canterlot asked you about the date.”

“Just morbid curiosity, what was the front page for Canterlot Daily? You said we were page 2.”

“Oh that article features you as well, but only briefly. It’s about the hydra and the heroes that vanquished it. You’re mentioned as the leader of the squad with a passing comment about your unique magic.”

“Oh, duh. Yeah I guess that makes sense, my sense of time is so skewed it feels like that hydra fight was so long ago.” I crack my knuckles and activate the enchantment so that my armor is back to my standard night court uniform. “Alright, let’s get this over with.”

Author's Note

On track to wrap up the mini-arc next chapter. Only real change from canon this time around is that Rarity didn't have to suffer through the embarrassment of the first fashion show going horribly wrong.

Hopefully I did a decent enough job walking through the spell scroll transcribing process? I didn't want to just completely skim over it and time skip to being done, but I'm also terrified to go extremely in depth and potentially fuck myself over if I need the magic system to work a certain way later on.

Thanks for reading!