This Art Has Been In My Family For Generations

"Oh Rarity, look at this!"

Twilight pulled her head out of the shipping box with a book floating in her magic. Shining Armor had sent her a stipment of books the Canterlot Library was replacing with new editions, of which Twilight had asked if she could take them in for Golden Oak's shelves.

"This one says, 'Treatises of Unicornian Martial Arts, 450'," Twilight said. She flipped to the foreword. "Huh, there's a second version for bombardment spells, this one's for personal defense? To be honest I've focused more on transfiguration and conjuration during my studies, so I'm not as well versed in evocation as much as I like."

Rarity raised an eyebrow from her seat at the table. "You seemed to pick up my gem finding spell quickly enough."

"I mean, my speciality is Magic," Twilight said with a grin, flipping her mane. "I can pick up just about any spell if I put my mind to it. Artificing is my actual weakness." She flipped to the table of contents. "Wards, traps, reinforcement, oh! Bladecasting! I've heard about this before, but finding historical documents on sword forms is difficult, and blade construction is downright impossible."

Rarihy hummed as she lifted her sketch to the sky light. It depicted Twilight decked out in armor, the beginnings of a sword floating over head. She took a sip of tea. "It's been a while since I've heard of bladecasting too — ack."

Squee, boop, flutter

"You have!?" Twilight exclaimed, wings buzzing and her face taking up Rarity's entire field of view.

Rarity carefully pushed her marefriend's nose away from her face. "Is it too late to pretend you never heard that?" she asked.

Twilight nodded, eyes still glittering.

Rarity sighed. "Well I was initially going to keep this a surprise, but might as well do this now," she said eventually. She drained the rest of her tea. "Come on then, darling, we might as well take this back to my Boutique."

"I'm not sure how many families still keep up this practice," Rarity explained, "but many generations back on my father's side, we used to be Knights of a sort. I'll have to look into some family history for the exact name, but that isn't relevant for now. Eventually the knights were disbanded, our services no longer required, but we weren't restricted from keeping up our art.

"The casting of the Blade is a rather personal process, and so each former knight kept that knowledge with them as they went back to civilian life. I doubt they have all kept up the practice, but they may have kept diaries or journals at least. My family has continued to teach at least one of each generation to learn how to cast and fight with our Blades."

They were entering Carousel Boutique now, quiet with Sweetie Belle out with the Crusaders.

"Does your sister know too?" Twilight asked.

"When the dear gets more stable with her multiple element control," Rarity said. "It's partly how I got so precise with my sewing—"

"Sweetie Belle practices with needles?"

"Heavens, no," Rarity replied, grimacing. "What I meant is that the skill is transferable, I have her practice with the low grade gemstones from my digs. When I was younger i juggled my pencils. Keeping myself from constantly breaking the tips was enough of a motivation for me to keep away from practicing nor anything I didn't want poked, including myself."

The pair worked up the stairs into Rarity's bedroom. Rarity's horn glowed, pulling a long wooden case out. The latches flipped up, and the lid opened. “May I introduce you ... to Elusive.”

Twilight gasped in delight as Rarity floated the nearly translucent blade out. “Here, take it,” she said. Twilight’s fascination missed the slight quirk to Rarity’s lips.

Twilight’s horn flashed, then she wheezed in shock at the sudden resistance, nearly falling over. Her horn blazed, gaining a second layer as she barely managed to stop the pointed end from stabbing Rarity’s bed. She quickly sat down to cradle it with her forehooves instead. “What ... what was that?”

“It’s part of the process that attunes a Blade to its wielder,” Rarity explained. Her magic danced over Elusive and lifted it off Twilight’s hooves with barely an effort, orbiting above her head. “It makes the Blade react as if it’s a part of yourself, and makes it much harder for an opposing Bladecaster to disrupt your control. For most ponies, they wouldn’t be able to do more than wiggle it a little.”

With Rarity now controlling the blade, Twilight stood back up to peer at Elusive with a closer eye. “Say, isn’t there supposed to be more blade parts?” She glanced down to check the sword case, but there was nothing there.”

“They’re all here: watch this.” To Twilight’s delight, seams appeared out of nowhere along the blade, and broke apart into ten pieces, dancing over her back without a twitch from Rarity. “As you might assume, the more segments, the more difficult it is to control them without losing your ability to focus on the world around you. My limit is about fourteen, but I basically lose my ability to walk.” The blade reconstituted itself and hovered back to Rarity’s side. She plucked it out of the air with her hoof and peered through it to wink at Twilight. “I dropped down to ten for practicality reasons, I didn’t really have much reason to push to my limits. If I was, Celestia forbid, a bodyguard, I might try to get twelve at least.”

Twilight smiled and clapped her hooves. “That’s extremely impressive, Rarity. Thanks for showing this to me. Though, that reminds me, what were you going to surprise me with?”

Rarity blushed. “Ah, well. I was going to ask if you wanted to cast a Blade of your own?”

“Oh, you don’t have to do that for me,” Twilight said, cheeks pinking too as she looked away and rubbed her neck.

“But darling,” Rarity said, smiling, Elusive floating underneath Twilight’s chin and gently lifting her face up to look into her eyes, “for my sweetheart, anything.”

They stared at each other for a long moment, Twilight’s eyes glittering. Rarity’s face lit aflame, she dropped her blade and put her face inbetween her hooves. “I can’t believe I did that.”

Twilight blinked, snorted, then started to shake with laughter. She stepped over to her marefriend’s side and pulled her close, patting her back, giggling all the while.

Rarity blindly tossed Elusive back into its case, standing up and refusing to look in Twilight’s direction. “Oh my, look at the time! I hear Applejack has a very interesting family history to learn about!”

“Sure, Rarity.”