Of Wizards, Witches, and Unicorns
Twilight Sparkle sat by the window, the full moon and a single candle illuminating her night-time studies. She was reading up on some zebra herbalism that she had been discussing with Zecora earlier in the day, but the actual contents of the book was not as important as the act of studying in itself.
For while she loved her days in Ponyville and her lively friends, the quiet nights alone with her books were still an important part of her life. The cool breeze from the open window, the calm darkness engulfing all distractions, the complete quiet, safe for the rhythmical breathing of the baby dragon sleeping nearby. These were moments of...
... A loud crash from downstairs pulled the unicorn out of her thoughts. She quickly got up, but stopped and listened when she heard muffled voices.
"I told you it would work, Hermione," a young voice called out. Twilight tip-hoofed towards the staircase.
"And I keep telling you, Ronald Weasley, there is no way the chimney in the school library can be connected to the floo network," a second young voice answered, this one female.
"You can't argue with results," retorted the first voice.
"But it is impossible to use any form for teleportation within Ponyville grounds!" insisted the second voice, with a practised certainty.
"Well..." began a third voice, male and slightly hesitant, "wait, what did you say?"
"I said: 'You cannot use any means of teleportation within Hogwarts grounds!' Seriously, am I the only pony who ever bothered to read Ponyville: A History?” the female voice said with an indignant scoff.
"She did it again, Harry," said the first voice, sounding worried.
"Did what?" asked the girl, not happy to be cut off in her lecture.
"You said 'Ponyville' instead of 'Hogwarts,' Hermione," offered the third voice. "I'm starting to get nervous. Let me find my wand and get some light."
"No need for that," said Twilight, stepping down the stairs, her horn aglow, lighting up the library.
"Now, who are you, and what are you doing in my library?" the purple mare asked the three unicorns, who stood staring at her, mouths agape.
"Well?" Twilight asked after a pause, trying to sound more like a stern librarian than the curious magic student she really was. In her head she was already trying to puzzle together what she had overheard. Clearly they were talking about some sort of teleportation spell, but what was that about chimneys? Chimneys connected to a magic network... Fireplaces were strongly associated with the concept of a home, and a skilled magic user could draw power from conceptual aspects. That was why it was easier to enchant hooves to walk on clouds than to grow wings on a non-pegasus pony: Hooves were already connected to the concept of walking, so they needed only a bit of magical encouragement to enable them to walk on something unfamiliar. If one could create a magical network, weaving together the aspects of different homes, using the hearths as focal points... She realised that her mind was wandering, and summoned a mental image of Applejack telling her to get back to the here and now.
While she had zoned out, the three young ponies - not quite adults, but much older than Applejack's and Rarity’s sisters - had regained a bit of composure, but lost it again when they turned to each other. They gasped and stared, pulling up their front hooves to feel their faces. That made one of them, the filly, who had let go of the ground with both forelegs, fall over and hit the ground with her face. One of the colts exploded in laughter.
"That was brilliant, Hermione! You should have seen yourself. And you guys look hilarious! It's just like when Hermione polymorphed herself into that cat thing!" The tall colt had a yellow coat and a short ginger mane, and Twilight instantly knew that Pinkie Pie would like him. Even his cutie mark reminded her of her bouncy pink friend: three loops on poles. Twilight tried to figure out what they represented, but was distracted by the filly - Hermione, was it? - getting up and staring down the colt.
"That was not funny, Ron. Really, I sometimes wonder why I put up with you. You are just so immature!" The young mare had an orange coat and long, brown, bushy hair. Her cutie mark was an open book, and Twilight sympathised with her quietly. Celestia knows how many times she herself had wanted to yell at a certain pink earth pony for not taking things seriously enough. And a book as a cutie mark? That was so adorable Twilight could just squeal.
The third one, the quiet colt, had a light silvery coat, much akin to Rarity's, but that was where the similarities with the fashionista ended: His jet black mane and tail were impossibly unruly and his round, battered spectacles would make Twilight's elegant friend squirm. His cutie mark was a bright red bolt of lightning, much more ominous than Rainbow Dash's... Wait! That wasn’t a cutie mark! It was a scar, some kind of residue of powerful magic. It practically reeked of dark sorcery. Somepony else had made his or her mark on the poor colt, affecting his destiny. Twilight felt a pang of sorrow for the boy, now certain that she wanted to get along with the three nightly intruders.
“We’re very sorry, Miss... purple, talking unicorn,” the bespectacled colt ventured. “We didn’t mean to barge into your library in the middle of the night.”
“Twilight,” Twilight said.
“No,” interrupted the filly, “it really is rather dark, although the full moon does give some...”
Twilight snickered, empathising with the girl’s need for semantic accuracy. “That’s my name. Twilight Sparkle.”
The book-marked filly blushed. Hey, book mark? That was a good one. Twilight snickered again.
“Oh, I do apologise, Miss Sparkle, I did not intend to poke fun at your name.” The curly-head looked even more flustered than Fluttershy would have in the situation.
“It is quite all right,” Twilight said, any anger she could have still have held towards the trespassers now completely melted away.
“No, really,” the filly insisted, “When you are named Hermione, you understand how sensitive ponies... people... well, ponies in this case, I guess... are to their names.”
“It is quite all right, Hermione,” Twilight repeated. “Hermione...” she tasted the name, “That is a very beautiful name you have. It sounds classical; a name with music and history.”
“W-why, thank you, Miss. That is very kind of you to say. I never thought of it in that light.”
“And what about you colts?” Twilight asked, turning to the other two unicorns. All three of her guests – she could hardly think of them as intruders anymore: They were simply too flabbergasted and out of their element to be any kind of burglars – wore identical jumpers and ties. Some kind of uniform, she wondered?
The colt with the scar – what a strange scar; it almost felt... alive? – tried to collect himself and said: “My name is Harry Potter, Miss Sparkle, and this is my friend Ron Weasley.” He motioned to the giggly, ginger-maned colt with a hoof, almost losing balance.
“Yeah,” the yellow colt, Ron, offered, “As Harry said, we’re very sorry to disturb you. We should have been in a completely different library, the one at our school.”
That made a bit more sense to Twilight than three clumsy unicorns breaking into her library, though not much.
“Your school library? At this hour? I can appreciate the studiousness, but libraries normally have closing times...” Twilight had certainly been thrown out by impatient librarians enough times to know that for a fact.
“Well...” Ron began, “you see, Miss, we aren’t really allowed into the section where the book Hermione wanted is, so we... kinda tried to sneak in using the floo network. My brothers gave me some special floo powder they said would let us access unconnected fireplaces, and...”
“Wait!” Hermione interrupted sharply. “You say you got the powder from Fred and George? And you didn’t think to tell us? I admit that they are very good wizards, brilliant even, but have they ever given you anything magical that wasn’t some kind of practical joke? They own a joke shop, for Pete’s sake, and you trusted them to have invented some way to circumvent the spells on the most heavily magically protected building in the country?”
“Hey, if anypony... blimey, I’m doing it too... If anyone knows how to break a spell that keeps ponies... people... from snooping around, it’s Fred and George. Remember who gave us the Marauders’ Map?”
“True, they are very good troublemakers, Ron, but that hardly counts in their favour, does it now?”
“Will you two stop it?” Harry cut in between the two, something Twilight suspected he was quite used to. “There are more important things right now than Ron’s brothers. Like the fact that we are standing in the library of a purple, talking unicorn in the middle of the night, or perhaps the fact that we are horses!”
“Unicorns,” Hermione corrected, pointing to Harry’s horn, trying to keep steady on three hooves.
“We’re kinda short for unicorns,” ventured Ron. “Are we ponies? Can unicorns be ponies?”
“Well, I’ve been one all of my life, so I do believe we can,” Twilight broke in, thoroughly amused by the confused young ponies.
"But you are not used to being ponies?" The three not-ponies seemed to take the situation much, much better than she would have, had she suddenly found herself in, say, a griffin body.
“Not at all,” Harry answered. “We have been transfigured before, but this is different. What’s really weird is that it isn’t weird at all. It kind of feels right. I mean: Yes, it was a bit of a shock, but the more I think about it, the weirder it would be to not be ponies. Can you imagine being humans right now?” He asked his companions. They shook their heads, Hermione even looking disgusted by the thought.
“Humans, you say?” Twilight wondered aloud. “I don't think that I’ve ever heard of those before. What kind of...”
“Twilight?” a very young, very, very sleepy voice called out from the attic. “Is that you? What’s with all the noise?”
“Oh, Spike, did we wake you up? I’m so sorry!” Twilight called back. Then, as she heard the patter of tiny feet, she felt she had to warn the already shaken visitors: “Spike is my assistant. He is also a dragon, but don’t be afraid: He’s just a baby, and generally very well behaved.”
“A baby dragon?” The three cried in unison, exchanging glances.
“Yup, that’s me,” Spike said sleepily, toddling down the stairs. “Huh? Who are you guys? Twilight, why are there three strange ponies in our house in the middle of the night?”
The three strange ponies collectively let out a held breath.
“Phew, you scared us there, Miss Twilight,” Ron said, relieved. “When you said ‘baby dragon,’ we thought you meant a real baby dragon!”
“Hey! I am a real baby dragon!” Spike burst out angrily, sprouting a flicker of green flame to prove his point.
“Oh, sorry, mate. Didn’t mean any disrespect. Only, the last time we met a baby dragon, it was a menacing, biting, clawing beast our friend Hagrid tried to raise.”
“Raising dragons? That’s a pony after my head! Hey Twilight! Can I be a menacing, biting, clawing beast?”
“Well, he’s not exactly a pony,” Ron hesitated, “He’s the groundskeeper at Ponyville School of Friendship and magic... Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, damnit! What’s happening to us?”
“But he raises dragons?” Spike’s curiosity had completely overtaken his brief anger.
“Well, he tried, at least. He’s always more interested in animals than ponies... than people. It’s like he can communicate with them on a different level. He lives in a cottage near the edge of the Everfree... the Forbidden Forest, and mostly keeps to himself, but he’s really kind once you get to know him."
Twilight smirked. “His cutie mark wouldn’t happen to be three butterflies, would it?”
The three young unicorns stared at her blankly. “His whatie mark?” Ron asked.
“His cutie mark! The mark that appears on a pony’s flank when she finds her special talent!” Twilight turned around to show them hers. “Mine symbolises my love of magic.”
The trio looked at each other’s flanks, then their own. Ron burst out laughing.
“Of course you’d have a book on your arse, Hermione! Now both your ends can study at once!”
Hermione boiled and was about to retort, when Ron exclaimed: “Oh, and I’ve got Quidditch goal loops! I knew I was a good keeper, but this is awesome!”
“Yes, Ron, that’s very...” Hermione began, poisonously, then stopped dead when she saw the pained look on Harry’s face.
“Oh, Harry, I’m so sorry.”
“Figures,” Harry said, not trying to conceal the bitterness in his voice. “I’m transformed into a talking unicorn pony in a strange place where purple unicorns live in libraries and are assisted by baby dragons, and still I cannot get away from him. My special talent is... Not being killed? Hearing my mother’s cry as she dies to protect me?"
Twilight watched the three young ponies as they stood in silence, wanting to say something, but not knowing what. Should she tell him that his mark wasn’t a real cutie mark? Somehow the fact that it was a forced destiny, for all the promise of release it held, seemed to make the colt’s situation even more heartbreaking. How long had he lived with that? If he could talk so openly about it in front of a stranger, it must be long; even years, perhaps. Twilight winced at the thought of having a foreign destiny imposed upon you for so long when an even more awful thought occurred to her: There was no cutie mark beneath the scar! Now, she couldn’t be sure about these “humans,” but had he been a pony from start, his special talent would be visible under the magical intrusion. No amount of magic could affect a cutie mark, unless... Unless he had been affected before he found his special talent! The colt was nearly an adult. That would mean that his destiny had been overshadowed by this... abomination... for half his life, or possibly even more. Twilight almost let out a cry at the realisation. She forced herself not to ponder any more: It felt like she was trotting through the colt’s pain uninvited.
After a while, when the uncomfortable silence became unbearable, she offered up the only thing she could think of, as much to break the eerie atmosphere as anything else:
“Well, you came here looking for a book, didn’t you? It so happens that this library has lots of books! What were you looking for?”
Hermione looked at Twilight, thankful for the break from the bitter gloom. “What we’re looking for is rather specific, Miss Sparkle. You see, a friend of ours, a former teacher, actually, is... a werewolf. Once a month, he turns into a savage wolf, but there is a draught called Wolfsbane Potion that will allow him to keep his mind pony...”
“Human,” Ron interjected.
“...Another teacher brewed this potion for him while he was at our school, but he’s been without it since. I decided that I would learn to make the potion myself. It is a very complicated brew, but I do have a bit of a knack for them, so with enough practice, I should be able to master it.”
“A bit of a knack?” Ron rolled his eyes. “Hermione, you are the smartest unicorn... witch... in our generation! I bet the only reason Slughorn won’t let you near the potions part of the Restricted Section is that he’s afraid you’ll take over his job before we graduate!”
Hermione blushed even more than before, her orange face turning completely red. She tried very hard not to look at the colt beside her as she continued.
“So...” she fumbled, “As Ron... as Ron said, the book we need is in the Restricted Section of the school’s library, so we tried to sneak in to find the recipe for the Wolfsbane Potion. I don’t suppose your library would have something as rare as that, Miss Sparkle?” The filly’s expression was not particularly hopeful.
Twilight shook her head. “Unicorn magic relies on spells and enchantments. When it comes to potions, we have never been on the forefront.” The three ponies didn’t look too disappointed – they hadn’t expected anything else.
“But,” Twilight said with a sudden smile, remembering the conversation she had had earlier in the day “I do know somepony who is.”
The trio brightened up at her words. Even Harry seemed to shake the worst of his mood off.
“We can’t visit her at this hour, though. If you wish, you can stay here for the night.”
Hermione hesitated. “Thank you, Miss, but I’m not sure that we could...”
“Hogwash!” Ron broke her off. “Who is going to miss us a Saturday morning? Sleeping in is allowed in weekends, you know. You should try it sometime.”
“It’s settled, then. I’ll find some extra mattresses!” Twilight chimed, happy to be of some help, after all. These young strangers may be out of their place - perhaps even out of their world - but so much more reason to help them, she thought. She had a thousand questions about humans and their school of “witchcraft and wizardry,” but they could wait. However well the visitors had adapted to ponyfication, they were clearly in need of some rest.
At the prospect of sleep, Ron smiled even wider, and no sooner was the mattress laid out before the yellow colt crashed down upon it, fast asleep as Twilight had only ever seen Spike do. Harry bid them goodnight and soon followed after. Hermione, however, stood avidly awake and cautiously asked her host, “Excuse me, Miss Sparkle: Before we retire, may I ask you a single question about unicorn magic?”
Suddenly, a bright light hit Twilight’s eyes. She blinked for a few seconds, wondering what it could be. Then she realised that it was the sun, dawning upon Ponyville. That was odd. She looked at her conversation partner, as stunned as herself. Then her eyes wandered over the floor, cluttered with open books, charts, drawings and notes, past the coffee pot which had been emptied and refilled so many times, and then back to Hermione, noticing the black circles around her eyes. As she looked at the young mare – she couldn’t really think of a mind that could grasp Starswirl the Bearded’s Theorem de Arcadia as well as Fetlocke’s The Invisible Colour of the Slate in one setting as belonging to a filly – Hermione stared back, probably noticing the same signs in Twilight’s face and the studious pair broke into a giggling fit.
“I’m very sorry, Miss Sparkle,” Hermione said once she had regained her breath, “I didn’t intend to keep you up all night...”
“Call me Twilight, Hermione. I think we know each other well enough for that. And don’t fret: This is neither the first nor the last time I pull an all-nighter of studying. Only I usually do it alone, so your company was a welcome change, and you did come up with some excellent points. I had never thought about the connection between the leyline theory and fibboneighchichal nature of spiral runes, but it makes so much sense!”
“Thank you, Twilight,” Hermione beamed, “but it really is just analogue to a bit of magic theory from back home, so I shouldn’t take credit.”
“Nonsense,” Twilight smiled, “You obviously are a very bright young mare, and from what you’ve told me of humans, quite a talented... witch, was it? Now, would you like some pancakes? I guess we should make some for the sleepy-heads upstairs as well.”
“Oh, yes please,” Hermione answered, the eager look on her face mirroring Twilight’s hunger.
“And thank you for all your time. You really should teach magic theory, Twilight. You are more than on par with the teachers at our school.”
“Hoo.”
The young mare turned to their night-time assistant. “And thank you so very much for your help Owlowiscious! You are the cleverest owl I’ve ever met!”
“Hoo.”
“You!”
“Hoo.”
Twilight giggled. "Yes, thank you Owlowiscious. Here, have a snack before you go to sleep.” She poured some bird feed for the owl, who happily nibbled it down, and she then proceeded to mix some pancake batter.
“Hmm... Let me see,” she mumbled to herself, floating a pen over a parchment while cracking the eggs. “I need to get some more eggs from Fluttershy later, and I’m almost out of coffee as well. How can that be? I bought some not a week ago... I wonder if Applejack has finished the new batch of apple syrup?...” Her pen scribbled happily, writing a long step-by-step checklist of the day.
Magically juggling two pans on the stove, Twilight soon had the library filled with the sweet scent of pancakes, and Hermione had barely set the table before Ron and Harry entered, blissful smiles on their faces.
“Blimey, Miss Sparkle, this smells really good,” Ron said, mouth watering. He then took a better look at the two mares and eyed Hermione suspiciously.
“Wait... Don’t tell me you two have been up studying all night?” He spat out the word as if it was something gross and wriggly he’d found in a corner.
Twilight and Hermione shared a knowing glance. Some ponies just don’t get it.
The ponies were at their third pancake, sampling some tea Twilight had from Rarity’s last trip to Manehattan, when Spike wandered into the kitchen, still half asleep.
“Good morning, Spike,” the unicorns called.
“Hrmf,” the baby dragon replied, hardly noticing anything past the quartz he was pouring into a bowl. After some spoonfuls of his mineral-rich cereal and a cup of tea, he was getting more sociable, however, and started to join the conversation. Another cup of tea later and something dawned upon him, seeing Twilight and Hermione as for the first time.
“Wait... Don’t tell me you two have been up studying all night?” He facepalmed.
Ron and Harry burst into laughter, and the two mares groaned. Twilight magically ticked something off on her checklist. In a neat, even hoofwriting, below the line “Make breakfast” was “Spike getting snarky over my lack of sleep.” Twilight was a very well-organised pony.
“So, Miss Twilight, who is this pony you think can help us?” Harry asked.
Twilight pondered the question over her last pancake, the apple syrup dripping onto her plate. How much did she really know of her striped friend? Enough to call her a friend, sure, but even though she might be the one in Ponyville closest to Zecora, except perhaps Applebloom, the zebra was still much of a mystery to her. Why did she prefer her hut in the forest to the lively Ponyville? She was friendly enough when one could get her to talk, so it couldn’t be sheer reclusiveness. Also, she rarely spoke of her people, only their customs, though her accent clearly suggested that she had not lived in Equestria all of her life. Someday, Twilight would ask her of her past. Perhaps someday, she might even get an answer.
“Zecora is a herbalist from the zebra lands, who lives outside Ponyville,” Twilight decided to boil her answer down to. That, at least, she knew. “She is the most knowledgeable pony, or rather zebra, in her field, I’ve ever met. Not even my botany teachers at Canterlot Academy could hold a candle to her. If anypony in Equestria knows the recipe, you are looking for, it would be her.”
Hermione beamed. “She sounds like a mare to meet, if only to hear her talk of her trade,” she said, excitedly.
Ron rolled his eyes at Harry and whispered, loud enough for the two mares to hear, and that most likely on purpose, “I wonder if we can even drag Hermione back to Ponyv... Hogwarts... before she has learned everything about everything here. How is your Stupefying Charm?”
“...You know what?” Harry answered aloud in realisation. “I haven’t actually tried casting magic in pony form. How would that even work? I can just barely hold a cup with my hooves, so I think my wand skills are worse than back in our first day of school.”
He fumbled with his pockets, trying to grab his wand, when an ochre light engulfed it and floated it in front of him. As he looked across the table to the mares, Twilight grinned at Hermione, who held the wand in the magic of her horn, a smug look on her face. Even if some ponies just didn’t get it, reminding them of the advantages of all-night study sessions was a bookworm’s prerogative.
“Levi-oOo-sa,” the orange mare intoned with mock superiority, sharing some private joke with the colts, who laughed back.
“You don’t need that, Harry,” she lectured. “Unicorn magic uses the horn as a focus in much the same manner as a wizard wand. Just picture the incantation in your head. The hard part is actually to weave the magic without the somatic component to guide you.”
“The som-what?” Ron asked, eyeing his horn skeptically, getting cross-eyed in the process.
“The movements,” Hermione answered, irritably. “Honestly, Ron, try opening a book sometimes.”
“I tried that once. It nearly took my hoof... hand... off. Not Hagrid’s brightest idea.”
“The Monster Book of Monsters is a perfectly fine book, once you get around its... peculiarities.”
“Like its insatiable hunger for flesh, you mean?” Ron’s eyes narrowed.
Harry laughed and drummed his stomach. “Thank you for the breakfast, Miss Sparkle. These two are going to get at it for the next hour if we let them.”
While Harry and Ron did the dishes, managing not to break anything, Twilight packed her saddlebags for the trip to Zecora's hut: her task list, some books she had mentioned to the zebra the day before, and some apples in case they needed a snack. Hermione was busying about in the library, trying to bring order to the chaos they had created during their nightly study frenzy when the boys came out and Twilight said: "It's all right, Hermione, I'll pick it up later. Let's get you three to Zecora's place. Spike, can you handle the library while I'm gone?"
"Sure thing, Twilight! It's not like this place is ever overrun anyway," the baby dragon replied with a salute.
It was a bright and warm day. Rainbow Dash was sleeping in as usual, so some rogue clouds dotted the sky, but the sun came through in all its glory. As the group walked through the town, Twilight greeted several ponies, wondering how far she had come over the course of her year and a half in Ponyville. Had Canterlot Twilight happily called out to the ponies she met on her way, remembering their names and who they were? She knew she hadn't. While there were still a lot of ponies in Ponyville she didn't know - she wasn't Pinkie Pie, after all - Twilight still knew more ponies here than she had ever done in the capital, where she had lived the most of her life. Would Canterlot Twilight have opened her home to three nightly intruders, served them breakfast and helped them find what they were looking for? She hoped she would, but she felt a nagging doubt. Not for the first time, she felt remorse for the time she had wasted on insisting to be alone.
"Hello, Miss Mayor, nice speech last Saturday. Good morning, Big Mac, thank you again for your help with the firewood. Good morning to you too, Derpy, feeling better from that nasty cold? Do give Dinky my best. Oh! Hi Pinkie Pie!"
Twilight cantered as her field of view was filled with a lively bright pink mane bouncing atop an even pinker, radiant face.
"Hi Twilight," Pinkie started and let out a sudden gasp and jumped, freezing mid-air. "NEW PONIES!" she yelled, startling the three young unicorns. When she landed, the party pony put a foreleg over Twilight's shoulder and lowered her voice to a scheming whisper.
"Twilight, tell me," she asked, eyes wide and her muzzle close to the unicorn's ear. "Why are you walking around with new ponies in a direction that is clearly, and I mean quite clearly, not towards SUGARCUBE CORNER?!" The sudden change in volume left Twilight's ears ringing, as Pinkie Pie bounced towards the now positively frightened visitors.
"Welcome to Ponyville!" she exclaimed and disappeared behind a tree, only to come back seconds later with party hats and a small, blue cannon. Before the three could put up a hoof in protest, she firmly placed the small hats on their heads and fired the miniature cannon directly at them, covering them with confetti and streamers.
"Welcome welcome welcome to you and you and you!" She sang with a large smile, pointing in turn to each of the confetti piles that contained Harry, Ron and Hermione. Dancing, she continued:
"We are so very happy, so here is what we'll do:
We're gonna throw a party to celebrate you're here,
For parties are the best thing for ponies everywhere!
We're gonna bob for apples and pin the pony's tail,
We'll eat a lot of cupcakes and drink some ginger ale.
We are so very happy and hope that you will stay
Welcome welcome welcome to PONYVILLE TODAAAAAY!"
Pinkie threw herself into the air and fireworks exploded behind her, startling nopony except the three young unicorns. Passersby waved and grinned. The confetti piles shook themselves to reveal their stunned occupants. Harry was speechless and Hermione completely flabbergasted. Ron had recovered from the initial shock and was slowly starting to realise what was happening, though, and Twilight was not at all surprised to find that the yellow colt would be the first to take in her overtly enthusiastic friend.
"Don't worry," she told them, followed by a well-rehearsed "she's just being Pinkie Pie," as if that explained everything.
"I'm sorry, Pinkie," she told the pink tornado of unpredictability, "We don't have time for a party. My guests are here to meet Zecora and talk about potions."
"No... time for parties?" Pinkie looked crestfallen at the notion. She stared at the ground, poking in the dirt with her forehoof, her attitude completely turned around in the blink of an eye. Her tail and mane seemed to lose that extra impossible fluffiness and her eyes glinted wetly. Twilight immediately felt a pang of guilt. At times Pinkie Pie was just too easily hurt, she should know that by now. She cursed her insensitivity. While her social skills had improved greatly over her time in Ponyville, there was still one pony she never quite could figure out.
"Well, okay, Twilight. If you say so... I’ll just..." The mare walked away slowly, head down, dragging her hooves.
"Pinkie, wait!" Twilight yelled, but the devastated pink pony turned a corner, and when Twilight reached it, she was gone.
Twilight searched around for a bit, but could find neither hide nor hair of her friend. She returned to the trio, who had cleaned themselves of confetti and looked around anxiously, trying to shake off the enormity that was a first Pinkie Pie encounter.
"Poor Pinkie Pie," the purple unicorn despaired. "She may be the cheeriest of my friends, but sometimes I think that she's also the most vulnerable. She’ll turn around soon enough, though. I just wish..." She trailed off. No need to burden the three any more.
Well, if Pinkie Pie didn’t want to be found, Twilight wouldn’t be able to find her. She was the Ponyville Grand Champion of hide-and-seek, after all - quite a feat for somepony whose coat and mane stuck out everywhere save for a candy floss stall and normally had trouble standing still for more than two breaths.
“I’ll make it up to her later,” she promised, more to herself than to the young unicorns. “Let’s get you three to Zecora’s.”
They walked through Ponyville, Twilight feeling depressed and guilty while trying to not let it show. She had a feeling that she was failing at that, and that the questions her companions asked about the town were more for her sake than to satisfy their own curiosity. Some things did however seem to spark genuine interest, and when Harry saw the colourful contrail of Rainbow Dash’s morning routine, the colt stopped abruptly in his steps.
“What... Was that?” He gawked at the blue pony moving at breakneck speed, leaving behind her what seemed a solid rainbow. When she hit the first cloud, Twilight started counting.
“...eight one-thousand, nine one-thousand, ten one-thousand.” The last cloud disappeared in a puff.
“That,” she proudly told the colt, who had followed the sky-clearing with amazement, “was Rainbow Dash: Local weathermare, winner of the Best Young Flyer competition, the only living pegasus to have performed a Sonic Rainboom, and the most loyal friend you could ask for!”
“That was incredible!” the colt whispered, almost reverent.
“Keep watching, then,” Twilight said, at once wishing that Rainbow Dash could hear her spectator’s admiration and really happy that she didn’t have to listen to her friend recite it for the next week. “After her morning warm-up, she usually goes fast.”
Harry’s eyes were peeled to the pegasus as she burst into a climb, turned around mid-air, and went into a vertical dive so fast one could almost see the air splitting around her. She was heading right for the town square, not pulling up until her hooves almost touched the ground, and continued at the same unbelievable pace centimeters above the main street, whirling up dust, causing some ponies to jump and slaloming around others before taking to the sky again and quickly disappearing into the distance.
While Hermione stood suitably impressed at the blue daredevil’s feat, Ron and Harry were as turned to stone, straining their eyes at the contrail pointing to where the pegasus had left their sight.
Ron slowly found his words. “That was the most perfectly executed Wronsky Feint I’ve ever seen. This mare is brilliant, Harry!”
Harry could only nod, ever so slightly.
After the colts had shaken off their astonishment, and it was clear that Rainbow Dash would not return into their field of vision anytime soon, the four returned to their walk towards the Everfree Forest. Harry and Ron were asking Twilight endless questions about the weathermare that made Hermione eye Ron subtly with a certain pained look to her face. Jealousy? Twilight wondered. The colt was completely oblivious to her stare, but Twilight caught enough to wonder what the relationship between the two were, and if they were satisfied with that. There was some kind of tension between them, that much was clear.
As they passed Fluttershy’s cottage they heard a loud “WAAAAIT!” which caused the chickens in the kind pegasus’ pen to squawk and flutter. They turned around to see Pinkie Pie bouncing towards them, as beamingly ecstatic as when they first saw her. She was pulling a small cart bound to her tail, which bobbled after her, nearly toppling over from her uneven gait.
As she gained up on them, the earth-to-sky-to-earth-to-sky pony jubilantly exclaimed: “Since you were all being big serious seriously-pants, I decided that if the ponies can’t come to the party, the party must come to the ponies!” and pushed, or rather, punched, a button on her festively painted cart. The top of the cart exploded in confetti, streamers and balloons, but this time Ron, Harry, and Hermione were prepared enough not to be engulfed by the colourful flak.
The cart had unfolded into a table with a layered cake and a gramophone playing happy music, surrounded by a variety of toys and glasses with funnily-shaped colourful drinking straws. On one end of the cart was a cut-out of a pony lacking a tail and on the other was a cupboard, the contents of which Twilight could only guess at.
Pinkie rushed to the three young ponies, shaking their hooves vigorously in turns. “Hi, I’m Pinkie Pie!” she exclaimed.”We’re gonna have so much fun you won’t even realise the spooky, scary, creepy, unnatural Everfree Forest try to spook and scare and creep and... uhm, unnaturalise you!” She pulled them into a group hug, consisting of her hugging and them being the group.
“Pinkie, this is Hermione, Harry and Ron,” Twilight presented, delighted to see her friend back in a cheerful mood. The one-pony welcoming party looked the school ponies over, eyeing the ginger’s cutie mark.
“Hey, is that Quidditch goal loops?” she exclaimed excitedly.
“Yeah,” Ron said with pride, “Isn’t it brilliant? I mean... Wait. You know about Quidditch? How would a pony even hold on to a broomstick?” he added, squinting, as if trying to picture the situation.
“Of course I know Quidditch, silly! It’s a game, and I know all kinds of games! What if somepony wanted to play a game at a party, and I didn’t know the rules? Then they would be sad, and then I would be sad, and then I wouldn’t be able to bring smiles to ponies’ faces and then the party would be ruined!” She gasped at the thought.
“Besides,” she added, impossibly, “Fred and George talk about it all the time, so it’s hard not to catch up on it.”
Twilight looked at the three young unicorns, who had dropped their jaws in unison, staring at her friend in utter disbelief.
“Waitwaitwait,” Harry was the first to recover, “Fred and George Weasley? Do you know Ron’s brothers?”
“Oh, so you are that Ron! I should have known! So silly of me.” Pinkie giggled, and then her eyes became wide, as if realising something. She eyed Twilight, tapping her hoof to her chin, and then smiled back at Ron.
“So,” Ron ventured slowly, trying to digest the information, “You do know Fred and George? How is that even possible?”
“Of course I know them! I’m Pinkie Pie!” the pink improbability said proudly. “I use only the best quality practical jokes, and Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes carry the best of the best! Toffee?” she offered, pulling out a hoofful of brightly coloured candies.
“Eh, no thanks, Miss,” Ron replied with a squirm, recognising the wrappings. “I was my brother’s guinea pig for those.”
“You were a guinea pig? That’s fantastic! I wanted to be a guinea pig, but Twilight said: ‘No small rodents of any kind!’” Pinkie put a hoof in front of her forehead, imitating a horn and did a mockingly stern impression of her purple friend.
Hermione still stood staring, opening and closing her mouth without noticing it. Twilight smiled at her.
“Don’t worry, she’s just being Pinkie Pie,” she said for the second time that day.
The five ponies walked through the Everfree Forest, Pinkie Pie serving cake and jokes from her mobile party wagon, Ron and Harry laughing aloud, and Twilight and Hermione deep in discussion about Twilight’s failed attempts to set up a magical theory for her friend’s astounding abilities.
“Wait, that was the doozy? But that doesn’t make any sense. If you hadn’t believed that the hydra was the doozy, then you wouldn’t have believed in the Pinkie Sense, and then you believing in the Pinkie Sense couldn’t have been the doozy! So what made you believe in the Sense was actually not a manifestation at all...”
“I know,” Twilight replied, the scholar in her gearing up, “but at that point the empirical evidence had simply stacked too high for a good scientist to brush it off as coincidence. Even if I cannot formulate any theory explaining a phenomenon, it doesn’t mean that there isn’t a causality. One must always respect the collected data, and if the data collection is vast enough and nopony can find a flaw in the method, one must adhere to the hypothesis that makes the fewest assumptions.” She stopped for breath.
“Occam’s Razor,” nodded Hermione, seeming as frustrated as Twilight had been at the notion of established science being beaten by its own tools.
“I’d say ‘Trotham’s Shears,’ but I guess they are the same. Anyways, accepting the Pinkie Sense has done wonders for my first aid budget,” Twilight smiled.
A piece of cake hit her on the side of her head, blasting whipped cream and frosting over her face.
“Of course,” She added with a sneer, “You are never quite safe around Pinkie Pie.”
She turned scowlingly to the culprit, but Pinkie just laughed at her.
“That could grab your attention, huh Twilight? Stop being boring-heads, you two, and try my funnylicious caketapult!” She proudly pointed at some contraption, consisting of a ladle tied with rubber bands to a scaffolding of candy canes. She reloaded the thing and fired another piece of cake at Ron, who expertly caught it with his mouth, only smearing his muzzle slightly.
Pinkie and Harry cheered, and even Twilight had to admit it looked hilarious. Not wanting to spoil Pinkie’s mood again, she magically scooped the smatter from her face, about to toss it away, when she reconsidered. No reason to let the joker get away with it completely.
She silently floated the cake bits in position, then threw it in Pinkie’s face. With the earth pony temporarily blinded, Twilight then concentrated hard on a transformation spell, targeting a branch above the pink prankster. She strained her magic to turn the needles on the evergreen into whipped cream, which promptly lost its grip on the branch and fell onto Pinkies head, landing like a thick, white mask.
Pinkie blinked through the white greasiness, her eyes the only visible thing in the impromptu snow landscape that her face had become home to, then smiled widely, and with her impossibly long tongue cleaned it all off and stuck it into her mouth, smacking happily. After a short moment, however, her face contorted and she spat out the fake dairy.
“EW! SPRUCE!” she gagged, wiggling her tongue, trying to rid it of the sharp taste.
Twilight laughed at her succes. At least some of Pinkie’s behaviour was predictable.
The others joined the laugh; Pinkie as well, once she had cleaned her mouth with a glass of juice. “That was a great prank, Twilight! You should hang out with Rainbow Dash and me some time! I’ve got plans for that horn!” she waggled her eyebrow conspiratorially, and Twilight wondered if her plan had backfired.
...
Once they reached Zecora’s hut, Twilight knocked on the door. When the zebra opened, the scent of her home - a mixture of dried herbs, incense, and the sweet foreign pastries she baked - met the ponies.
“Twilight Sparkle, my dear friend! How soon it is we meet again.” the zebra intoned with a smile on her face. Twilight wondered how many ponies ever visited her remote hut in the scary forest.
“Good morning, Zecora. Meet Hermione, Ron and Harry. They have something they would like to discuss with you,” Twilight greeted the shaman. The young ponies bowed their heads in turn.
Zecora looked the visitors over. “You come from far away, I see,” she bid them inside. “What is it you would ask of me?” Her hut was as always dimly lit, the curtains blocking out the brightest of the morning sun. Some potion was brewing in the herbalist’s huge cauldron - or was it soup? Twilight never knew for certain with Zecora, and she had a feeling that the line between the two was more blurred for zebras than for ponies.
No longer able to be taken aback by the strange behaviour of anypony, Hermione smiled at the zebra.
“Thank you for having us, Miss Zecora. Twilight said you might have a potion recipe we are looking for to help a friend: a draught to calm a werewolf while in his transformed state. Where we come from, it is called ‘Wolfsbane’. Have you heard of such a brew?”
The zebra closed her eyes and relaxed her face - an expression Twilight knew meant that her wise friend was mentally paging through the enormous tome of knowledge in her head. She took a couple of deep breaths, and when she opened her eyes, she smiled back at Hermione.
“To keep the inner wolf at bay, a recipe I have this way,” she said, guiding the young mare past cauldrons, shelves filled with jars with coloured liquids, and neatly hung bunches of herbs, towards her bookshelves. There she pulled out a large book with one of her jewellery-encircled hooves and blew the dust off the cover before taking it in her mouth to transport it to a book stand.
Closely followed by the expectant unicorn, she flipped through the long-unused tome until she reached a page with instructions for a "Slumberwolf Elixir." She motioned to Hermione, and the young mare stood up to the tome and skimmed the recipe, which was several pages long.
Twilight watched as her fellow magic student went from eager to concentrated to confused to frustrated to stubborn to even more frustrated to finally painfully surrendering.
"I am very grateful for you showing me this, Miss Zecora," the saddened pony said, "but I'm afraid I'll never be able to brew this elixir." She flipped back and forth between some especially confusing passages. "I have never even heard about half the ingredients listed here, and the descriptions of the processes are completely foreign to me." She let out a sigh.
"But Hermione!" Ron put a hoof on the orange mare's shoulder. "You are brilliant! There isn't a spell or potion you haven't mastered once you set your mind to it. I have never seen you give up against a magical challenge before!" Ron sounded more worried about Hermione's self esteem than about the potion. "Cheer up, will you?"
Harry came over and echoed Ron's faith in their friend's abilities, but the mare shook her head.
"Thank you, guys, but this is about more than mere skill. It is like reading a book in a language that looks like yours, but just isn't. A lot of the sentences don't even make sense to me, much less work as instructions."
Hermione faced Twilight and Zecora, her eyes wet. "Again, thank you so much for your help, both of you, but I'm afraid it just wasn't meant to be."
Twilight looked at the devastated young mare, sympathising with her pain. Not being able to help a friend because your knowledge was limited.... It was a thing Twilight feared, and one of the reasons she spent so much time studying, preparing. She cursed herself for suggesting the visit to Zecora, though she knew that it was the best idea at the time. Still, she would rather have spared the pretty curly-haired unicorn the pain of feeling inadequate. She tried to find words, but none came to mind. As she looked at the zebra beside her for help, she noticed a smile on the hermit's muzzle.
"If zebra tongue is what you fear," Zecora said gently, "the remedy is very near."
Hermione fluttered her eyes, puzzled. Then listened to the zebra as she rhymed: "If you are skilled in alchemy, the rest you'll quickly learn... from me."
Twilight smiled warmly at Zecora as Hermione brightened up.
"Oh, thank you so much, Miss Zecora! I cannot express how much that means to me! But..." the clever young unicorn hesitated, "Helping me translate another language? That sounds like an awful lot of work for you, not to mention time-consuming. However much I would like to accept, we must be getting back to the school soon, or we'll be in trouble." She looked at her friends. "Especially Harry."
The striped shaman reassured Hermione: "It will not take me too much time to teach the rules of zebra rhyme. Come here, you three, to understand how zebras speak in foreign lands." She motioned the three towards a small blackboard, which currently held the words: "Remember when in Ponyville: Yeast, milk, some apples, ink for quill."
“Er, you don’t have to waste time on us,” Ron said, not looking especially keen on spending his forenoon studying the language of zebras from another world than his own. He backstepped, looking for an excuse. “I’m sure it will be much faster if Harry and I aren’t here to distract Hermione’s study...”
Twilight and Hermione shared a resigned look. It was clearly no coincidence that only one of the three had a book for a cutie mark.
“Oh, I know!" Pinkie Pie interjected. “If you two are going to get all brewy-brainy, then I should totally show the colts Sugarcube Corner! And the market place. And Sugarcube Corner! And the race tracks. And how about... Sugarcube Corner?! Now, that would be a blast!”
Harry and Ron looked pleadingly at Twilight, as if it was somehow her decision.
“Well, having a house full of guests won’t exactly do wonders to their concentration,” she admitted. “Zecora, can you handle this alone, or is there anything I can help with?”
“Thank you, but we will be fine. Go see what Pinkie has in mind,” the to-be linguistics teacher smiled. “Once we have this potion down, we’ll meet you for a lunch in town”
Ron exhaled in relief. Pinkie Pie bounced happily. “Yay! Lunch at Sugarcube Corner! Come on, you guys; you need to build up an appetite to get through even half the fine-crusted, vanilla-blessed, frosting-topped, tastebud-caressing, chocolaty taste explosions I’ll introduce you to! Mmm...” Her eyes became distant and moist, and from her open, blissfully smiling mouth a line of salvia began running down the side of her muzzle.
Before the candy floss coloured connoisseur of cakes started to puddle Zecora’s floor with her expectant drool, Twilight tactfully nudged her, and she snapped back.
“...And I have a perfect idea! I need two transfigured wizards and one purple unicorn with super-duper magic skills! Have you guys seen any?” She asked the three, scouting about in the hut, peeking under Zecora’s sofa pillows. Then she dashed over to Twilight and lifted her into the air, searching the ground beneath the unicorn.
“Okay, Pinkie,” Twilight laughed from the pink grip. “Let’s see what you have in mind.” With Pinkie, things either turned out hilarious or just plain strange, and Twilight was honestly out of ideas for how to entertain the colts. If the prospect of a zebra language study session didn’t entice them, most of Twilight’s ideas of a fun early saturday would probably fail as well.
They bid farewell to Zecora and Hermione, already engulfed in a huge botanical atlas (“This herb we call Forgotten Bliss - do you have a name for this?” - “Oh, this is valerian, Miss Zecora. It is known for its calming properties. Unless you are a cat, that is - it makes Crookshanks go absolutely crazy.”) and barely noticing the four’s departure.
The return trip through the Everfree Forest was uneventful and swift. Once Pinkie Pie had explained her plans, Ron and Harry sped up to an eager trot, which Twilight could barely follow, and when they cleared the forest, the party wagon dragging earth pony headed straight for the race tracks, where the more athletic ponies practiced gallop or acrobatics - or aerobatics in the case of the pegasi.
As they arrived, Rainbow Dash was showing off a complex flight routine through hoops to the applause of a small group of spectators, Scootaloo on the forefront as always. The orange filly never missed a chance to watch her idol, and while the attention did have a tendency to go to Rainbow’s head, the brash pegasus really needed the confirmation: Just as Pinkie Pie took rejection hard, Rainbow desperately needed to prove her worth to others in order to prove it to herself. That was what Twilight had come to believe, at least. The blue speedster was hardly one to pour out her feelings. We need a slumber party, Twilight thought.
"Hey, Rainbow Dash!" Pinkie yelled at the multichromatic mare, "Come down here for a sec!"
"Hi, Pinkie Pie! Hi, Twilight! Did you see me loop those hoops? I zigged the zigs and zagged the zags and whooshed just like this:" She arched her hoof through the air, making wind noises with her mouth.
"Yeah, that was rainbow-licious! Rainbow Dash: meet Harry and Ron. They're here to challenge you!" The earth pony gestured to the unicorns.
"To challenge me?" Rainbow Dash reiterated, eyeing the colts over appraisingly.
"To challenge her?" Harry and Ron repeated, looking at each other in panic. That hadn't been the plan.
"To challenge her?" An excited filly echoed from the crowd.
"Yeppo! Ron and Harry are experts at Quidditch, so we need Ponyville's best flyer to keep up with them!" Pinkie Pie announced.
Rainbow Dash's examining look became sceptical. "Quidditch? That weird pegasus game you told me about? Pinkie, that game doesn't even make sense! All those balls and hoops and strange rules. That's not a game anypony can play! And in case you haven't noticed, those two are unicorns, not pegasi. What would they know about flying?"
"You know what, guys?" Pinkie asked the two colts with a sly smile. "That sounded like Dashie just challenged you!”
Harry gulped and looked at the utility rack next to the racing tracks. Without much confidence, he whispered “Accio broomstick,” and pointed his horn towards his target, eyes closed in concentration.
At first, nothing happened, and Twilight wondered if Hermione had been the only one of the three skilled enough in magic to cast spells with her horn instead of those sticks... what had she called them? Then, slowly a bright blue magic started to radiate from the young unicorn’s horn and engulfed the broom at the rack, which started wobbling more and more forcibly, until it sped towards the colt, coming to a halt hovering beside him.
“Not a Firebolt,” Harry remarked, “But it’ll do.”
The colt then proceeded to... was he mounting the broom? He tried to sit on it, like Spike would on Twilight’s back for longer trips. Naturally, he quickly overbalanced and fell to the ground, much to the amusement of Ron and Rainbow Dash.
“You know?” The hovering mare said, “‘Sweeping through the air’ is just an expression. You kinda need wings to fly.” She waved one of her own demonstratively, doing a barrel roll.
Harry didn’t give up, though, and tried to climb onto the broom again, this time holding the stick in a tighter grip. Once he laid on the floating broomstick, all four legs wrapped tightly around the shaft, he started experimenting with his balance.
According to Hermione, humans were bipedal with fine manipulators on their forelimbs, much like Spike. While accustoming themselves to quadruped walking had come naturally to the three newly ponyfied visitors, riding a broomstick, which must be how the game was played in their home lands, seemed to be somewhat more of a challenge. Twilight was amazed that it was possible at all. It definitely did not look like a comfortable way to travel.
After falling off the broom a couple of times more - with decreasing frequency - Harry proved able to steer the thing like riding a very clumsy pegasus. Pinkie Pie and Ron cheered, and even Rainbow Dash looked somewhat impressed.
“Wow, you can actually use that thing to fly?” The pegasus admitted her surprise. “But it takes more than wobbling through the air to keep up with me!” She rushed through a lap on the tracks to underline her point, the rainbow following her almost completing a solid circle before starting to fade.
“So you wanna play, Dashie?” Pinkie Pie concluded more than asked.
“If you all say this game is possible, I, Rainbow Dash, will show you the coolest, awesomest, radicalest way to play it!” the Best Young Flyer stated confidently and struck a pose in the air.
“Supertacular! You gather two teams - we need fourteen players in total - while Ron and Harry get used to pony-brooming. Twilight! Now it's our turn.” Pinkie Pie bounced over to a large rock at the roadside, tipping it over to reveal a hidden stash. Twilight was not surprised when the self-appointed overseer of games produced four balls - to Pinkie’s logic, this certainly qualified as a “ball emergency.”
What did surprise her, however, was Pinkie’s request for her.
“You want me to use my magic to make them do WHAT?” she asked, certain she had misheard.
“Well, the Quaffle needs to fall slowly so the Chasers get a chance to catch it in the air and throw them through the loops unless the Keeper catches it, and the Bludgers should try to attack the players and knock them out of the air so they are real mean meanie-pants that the Beaters must knock away so they don’t hit their friends, but the most fun is the Golden Snitch which has teeny-tiny wings and flies real fast and hides away and then zooms around until the Seeker catches it and ends the game with a hundred and fifty points, but that doesn’t mean that they win, for each time the Quaffle is thrown through the other team’s loops your team gains ten points as well, so the seeker has to make sure that her team isn’t too far behind when she catches the Snitch, or she’ll make her team lose the game by winning!” Pinkie Pie answered in a run-on sentence.
Rainbow Dash had been right. This game didn’t make any sense. At least the enchantments were easy: A Featherfall and some Come-to-Life spells. She spend a bit of time casting the spells, and then quite some time trying to catch and gain control over the rogue Bludgers and Snitch, which had promptly run wild. Whenever she managed to grab all three of them with her magic, they would rebel and fly off in all directions, wreaking havoc among the crowd that had slowly gathered for the spectacle. At last she transformed a bush into an improvised cage, catching the balls one by one and securing them within. Then she turned her attention to Harry and Ron.
Ron had found another broom and joined Harry in familiarising himself with the ridiculous locomotion. The more they practiced, the more their training showed. Pinkie had not been wrong to call them “experts,” though the purple unicorn was at a loss as to how her friend had known that. Had Ron’s joke shop running brothers told her, or had she gained it from their talk on the way back from Zecora? Twilight had certainly lost the thread in the conversation about the game’s intricacies quickly enough that that might be the case. Anyways, the colts actually seemed to make the broom flying work, however impossible it had sounded. They were nowhere near Rainbow’s speed and agility, but they were starting to get on par with some of the curious pegasi, Rainbow Dash had drafted into the game. Scootaloo was following them closely, eyes wide with a strange sensation of... Awe? Hope? A thought struck Twilight: Had she ever seen the filly fly? She was no expert in pegasus pediatrics, but she was reasonably sure that Rainbow Dash’s orange fan should be old enough to fly, or at least glide. Yet she couldn’t recall ever seeing the filly use her wings for anything other than propel that scooter of hers at daredevil speeds through the Ponyville streets. Actually, she pondered, how much did she even know about the filly? She had seen her so often in the company of Applejack’s and Rarity’s sisters, or eagerly following Rainbow Dash around, but she didn’t even know who the filly’s parents were. She sighed. Perhaps she hadn’t quite developed her social awareness as much as she had thought.
She should check with Rainbow Dash if she knew anything. If the filly had some sort of flight difficulty, then a magical “crutch” of sorts might be of help to her, as the brooms were to the colts.
Meanwhile, Rainbow Dash had rounded up eleven pegasi willing to give the strange game a go, and Pinkie Pie was going over the rules.
”...And then there are about seven hundred other rules, but those are boring and mostly just different ways of saying: ‘Don’t be a mean spoilsport,’ so I’ll skip those. Let’s sort the teams!”
Twilight didn’t know the names of all the participants. That was Cloudchaser, Thunderlane, Cloud Kicker, and... Rainbowshine? Was that her name? And what was that giant, beefy stallion called? Snowflake? By Celestia, how did he get so big? Big Mac was a muscular pony, quite handsome, to be candid (though Twilight knew better than to tell Applejack that), but this guy was humongous! Since the two out-of-towners didn’t know the names of anypony besides Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie made some stickers with a number for each pony to put over his or her cutie mark, Rainbow of course snatching number one as soon as it had been written.
Ron and Harry offered their inputs on what strengths each position required, and when Rainbow Dash heard that the Seeker should be the fastest and most agile pony, she boasted that she was born fast and agile. Harry seemed to have both expected and feared that answer, not looking forward to compete with the Best Young Flyer.
To make the games fair, Ron and Harry went on separate teams as designated Captains, relying on their experience to more than make up for their winglessness. Rainbow Dash faced Harry off as Seeker, A gray mare wearing flight goggles hovered as Keeper before the goal loops opposite Ron, and Thunderlane, Snowflake and two other ponies each grabbed a club in his or her mouth. Twilight imagined being hit by a ball batted by the enormous white pegasus, and winced. While Harry had told her that "real" Bludger balls were much harder than the ones Pinkie had produced, Twilight thought those had been plentily hard enough, having suffered some hits from the wild things during her chase to round them up. What kind of deranged mind invented a game where assaulting, autonomous balls could seriously injure the players? And they played this at a school?
Once everypony was clear on the rules, Pinkie brought forth the balls. First she introduced the Golden Snitch, and Rainbow Dash looked the small winged sphere over skeptically.
"Pinkie, that looks just like a parasprite! It's not going to multiply and chew up Ponyville, is it?" she asked the pink referee. She is right, Twilight thought. She had been too busy trying to catch the thing, but once the blue pegasus had pointed it out, the similarities were stunning. That triggered a train of thoughts that made the game make a little more sense in her mind. She imagined it had started as some kind of hunt for the munching menaces. Then the Bludgers could have been some kind of extra nasty, big parasprites the humans would have to fight off, and the loops could have originally been insect nets? Yes, that must be it. If the game had started out as a matter of necessary pest control, it would explain the brutal nature of the rules. She started to actually look forward to the match, which she had originally only gone along with to oblige Pinkie Pie and the colts. Maybe the game would prove to be a learning experience for her.
"No, silly! Like I would even get near a parasprite without an accordion! Eww!" Pinkie Pie countered with a disgusted look on her face, then added: "You're kinda right, though: it does look like those gross gluttons. Maybe we should call it a 'Golden Parasprite' instead? That would make catching it feel so much more satisfying! Like you've just saved Ponyville from becoming Dinnerville! You are a genius, Dashie!"
That made Twilight more confident in her theory about the game. Pinkie Pie's intuition was uncanny at times, so if she would jump to the idea of a parasprite-hunting game like that, Twilight could take it as some sort of confirmation. Or perhaps she was reading too much into her enthusiastic friend's ramblings. She might just be being Pinkie Pie.
The Element of Laughter broke the unicorn's pondering short by letting loose the newly dubbed Golden Parasprite and kicking the Quaffle into the air with a loud: "PLAAAY BALL!"
The pegasi swooped through the air, nearly all going for the Quaffle at once. From their positions by the goal loops and high into the air, Ron and Harry yelled out, trying to coordinate their respective teams. Within seconds, most of the winged ponies were crowding the center of the playing field, trying to snatch the point-scoring ball from one another. Then the Bludgers came zooming into the spectacle and promptly knocked Cloud Kicker and Thunderlane out of the air. Harry and Ron quickly cried out to their respective teammates before they could rejoin the free-for-all the center area was quickly turning into.
"Number five! Keep those Bludgers from your teammates! Try to get them to hit the other team's Chasers!" Ron directed the mohawked stallion.
"Number six! Get out on the right flank and wait for a pass! You need to keep an overview, not just barge in!" was Harry's confident order to Cloud Kicker. From his vantage point, he was keeping track of both the Quaffle and the two Bludgers while simultaneously searching the skies for the Golden Parasprite and observing Rainbow Dash, probably looking for signs that his opponent had spotted the tiny prize. Rainbow Dash was, however, amidst the constant tackling and dodging centered on the Quaffle.
“Number two!” Harry yelled at Snowflake, who had just grabbed the Quaffle from a turquoise mare with green hair and the number seven covering her cutie mark. “Throw the Quaffle to number six and start clubbing those Bludgers!”
The huge pony exclaimed a loud “Yeah!” and tossed the ball at Cloud Kicker with enough force to make the mare veer several meters when she caught it. She quickly recovered and sped towards the three goal loops Ron was hovering in front of. Behind her, the group of pegasi dispersed, finally getting a sense of tactics, now that the melee for the Quaffle had ended. Some flew directly after Cloud Kicker, while others followed the directions Ron and Harry barked out rapidly. Twilight was amazed at the overview and organisational prowess the two displayed. She started to imagine herself in their situation, figuring out their tactics. This was surprisingly fun and challenging! It was like a game of chess where the pieces moved on their own accord when not being directed, and where Rarity's vicious cat was constantly trying to knock them to the ground.
As Cloud Kicker was nearing Ron’s goal loops, Twilight expected the broom-flying unicorn to hover in the middle of the loops to cover them all optimally. Instead, he distractedly swerved slightly towards the right, looking intensely at the approaching mare. She saw the opening and threw the ball towards the least protected loop, but as soon as it had left her hoof, Ron rushed towards her and braked mid-air, turning his broom around, using the bristle end to knock the Quaffle out of its course and towards a white mare with a blue mane and the number eleven on her flank.
The mare caught the Quaffle, as surprised at the sudden turn of events as Twilight, who mentally rearranged her chess board to fill in the new information. Feints like that opened up for a whole new level of play, as Twilight realised that the three goal loops were not just three opportunities for the Chaser, but for the Keeper as well.
Number eleven flew high to dodge an incoming Bludger, but that placed her in the path of a pretty grayish mare with a pink bow in her hair and the number eight on her flank, who Harry had directed there moments earlier. Eight tackled eleven and threw the Quaffle to the left flank, whereto Cloud Kicker had retreated. The Chaser flew towards the goals again, but this time, instead of trying for another score attempt, she passed the ball back to number eight, who turned in the air and bucked the ball towards the center loop with a sudden explosion of force that surprised Ron, and the Keeper only barely got in position to kick the Quaffle downwards.
As the ball went wildly down, the third Chaser on Harry’s team - an off-white stallion with curly brown hair, wearing sticker number ten - headed the Quaffle back up to Cloud Kicker, who bucked it forcibly towards the goal loops, where Ron was still not back in position.
Before it reached the scoring zone, however, something dropped out of the sky, colliding with the Quaffle, knocking it back towards the center of the playing field, and swooped back up, leaving a signature rainbow contrail.
“Nice save, number one!” Ron called out. “But you should focus on the Parasprite. Better to lose some points than having Harry catch it first!”
"Hey, no sweat! I can keep an eye on the sky while.... there it is!" Rainbow dashed towards the tree from where the Golden Parasprite had emerged.
Harry had seen it moments before the preoccupied pegasus, and was already in flight, but the mare was quicker, and soon the two were side by side, trying to obstruct each other's path. As the Parasprite arched to the right, Harry leaned to the side and pulled the broom, flying sideways in his turn, but Rainbow used her wings to bank and then pushed off in her new direction, cutting the turn much sharper as she closed in on her prize.
She hadn't anticipated the speed at which the Parasprite could change directions, however, and with her new flight path not quite stable yet, she passed beneath it, nearly colliding with a Bludger speeding her way. Harry wasn't far behind, but the winged orb was accelerating upwards and soon lost against the glare of the sun. Meanwhile, a loud cheer left the audience as Cloudchaser had put the Quaffle through one of the goal hoops of Harry's team, past the blue-greyish Keeper who had been too busy following the Seekers above.
As Carrot Top was setting the scoreboard to "10:0," Pinkie pulled Twilight aside, asking her to follow her away from the playing field. Twilight was quite starting to enjoy the game, but her normally bubbly friend had an insitent, grave look on her face. Twilight had never seen her so sombre, and offered no protest when "I need your help," was all the explanation given.
Pinkie's request had been complicated and exhausting, and had taken the better part of half an hour to complete. When the two ponies returned to watching the game, a large crowd had gathered on the spectators' rows, and Ron's team was ahead with a hundred points to Harry's team's thirty. As the game wore on, it was clear that the two teams were evenly matched, had it not been for Ron's skill and cunning as Keeper, and Rainbow Dash's astonishing speed that allowed her to interfere in the battle for the quaffle at critical times while not sacrificing too much of her Seeking time.
As the game neared the hour mark, around eleven o'clock, it was clear to Twilight why Harry wasn't trying to follow Rainbow's example. He is pacing himself, Twilight observed with appreciation. The blue mare was starting to get slower and more easily winded, and while she was still faster than Harry in their spurts towards the Golden Parasprite, he was gaining in on her, and she was catching glimpses of the snitch later and later when it appeared. It might only be a matter of fractions of seconds, but the opening the Parasprite left the Seekers was so slim that every fraction counted. Ron had tried to get his Seeker to concentrate on her task, but the mare's pride and delight in swooping in and foiling a goal attempt kept bringing her down into the game. She probably should have been a Chaser instead, was Twilight's assessment. Her winged friend wasn't built for waiting around.
At this point in the game, however, catching the Parasprite would not be enough for Harry's team to win. They were behind 210 to 60, mainly due to the enormous difference in Keeper quality, so even with the Parasprite in hoof, they would only come out in a draw.
Shortly after the white number eleven brought Ron's team to a score of 220, Harry saw something, and went into a sudden dive at full speed. Rainbow Dash followed closely behind, but as they neared the ground, Harry broke off into a sharp turn. A feint. Rainbow might be exhausted, but she was still a superior flier, and if Harry had hoped for her to crash into the ground, he would be sorely disappointed. Hadn't he seen her break off a dive this morning? The pegasus swirled around and - in an almost razor-sharp angle - triumphantly turned back to the sky, loosing little of her speed, and was high above the playing field, scouting for the Parasprite even before Harry had pulled upwards. Wait. Harry wasn't trying to get back up! He continued along the ground, towards the crowd, seemingly unable to make a steep climb, but then Twilight saw it: The Parasprite was hiding just below the the treetop of a large oak. A feint to cover an actual attempt at what he had feinted. The colt was good. Harry was nearing it from below, letting his broom go with his forehooves to reach out for the... OW!
Out of control, the broom crashed into the treetop with the noise of breaking branches. Hopefully just branches, Twilight winched. The crowd let out a gasp, and several pegasi flew to the tree as they heard Harry's triumphant "Ha! Got it!"
Rainbow Dash was first at the scene, giving the bruised, branch-entangled colt a hoof. He was holding the now timid Golden Parasprite proudly as he descended from the tree in Rainbow's forehoofs.
Once they landed, the blue pegasus faced the unicorn. "Wow. Twilight is never allowed to call me reckless again! That was radical! ...Are you okay?" she added, as an afterthought.
"Thank you," the colt answered, brushing some twigs out of his mane. "Actually, this has been one of the Quidditch games where I've suffered the least damage." Least? Twilight blinked. Her first assessment had been correct: this game was insane.
"Give it here, colt. You're okay in my book. Which is a totally awesome Daring Do book, not some boring egghead book!" She extended her forehoof and Harry bumped it.
"But why did you catch the Parasprite when your team was too much behind? Now we won! Not that I mind, of course - I knew it was going to be our victory - I mean, we've got me, after all." Rainbow bragged.
"Well, Miss Dash..." Harry started.
"Do I look like a 'Miss Dash' to you?" the pegasus interrupted. "Do you see any ribbons or hooficure here? Call me Rainbow, or Rainbow Dash if you insist." She struck a pose.
"Oh. Sorry Mi... Rainbow Dash," the colt blurted. "What I meant to say was that your team clearly had the upper hoof, so the best I could do was to cut our losses. If we have to lose, better to do it by ten points than by a hundred."
"So..." nearly yelled an orange filly, who had pushed her way through the crowd, bursting with excitement. "You're saying that Rainbow Dash was so super-spectacular that you had to lose to her? Because you knew that she would just totally wipe the floor with your broom?" Scootaloo's eyes glittered at the pegasus with the multicoloured hair, who smirked at the assessment.
"I guess you can put it like that," Harry admitted. "Though Ron gets some credits as well. Nice Keeping, Mister Weasley!" He called to his friend, who had joined the crowd at the ground.
"Well done not catching the Parasprite with your mouth this time, Mister Potter," Ron complimented back. "Even if you had to wrestle a tree for it."
The two teams and the spectators chatted lively for a time, and when Pinkie Pie declared "team odd numbers" victorious, everypony clopped at the ground in applause.
"Well, boys, did that work up an appetite?" She asked the colts once they and Twilight had regrouped.
"You can say that again! I'm starving!" Ron announced.
"Perfect! And it's almost time for lunch as well! Wanna join us, Dashie?" the pink mare asked the blue, who was hovering above them.
"Sugarcube Corner? I could use a bite. This game isn't a bad workout, you know?"
The ponies gave their teammates and opponents thanks for the game and bid them farewell to meet with the potion brewers in town. It was not quite noon yet, so they took a scenic route, talking about some of the memorable moments of the match.
They reached Sugarcube Corner a bit before midday, and looked around to see if Hermione and Zecora had showed up before them. They hadn't, so the group sat down at the tables outside the bakery for a glass of juice, Pinkie Pie ordering a large plate of different cakes and sweets as well.
"Pinkie!" Twilight reprimanded. "You'll spoil your appetite!"
The pink pony merely claimed in a feigned dignified voice that they were horse d'oeuvres, and proceeded to let an entire slice of cake disappear into her maw.
Ron joined her in the feast and Pinkie guided her fellow appreciator of the arts of candy through the plate.
“And this is our latest masterpiece,” she announced proudly, holding up something that looked liked a fried pancake topped with powdered sugar. “The chimicherrychanga! It is my very own recipe and guaranteed to make your tastebuds squeal in delight!”
Ron took a huge bite. “Thish ish really delishishioush!” he exclaimed, mouth full of the cherry-filled pastry.
Harry had a few sweets as well, though he approached the plate with greater moderation than the pink and the yellow pony. He heartily agreed that Sugarcube Corner was as appetising an establishment as Pinkie had promised. Ron could only nod his consent, too busy gorging on the cakes and candies.
Twilight wanted to ask the colts some questions on the finer points of the tactics they had used in the match, and all five ponies soon became engulfed in conversation about feints, covers, formations, and use of the three dimensions available.
After an especially intricate discussion on the adaptability of different formations in response to each other, Rainbow Dash looked at Twilight and said: "You know, Twilight, you could be pretty good at this. We should definitely try to field a team!" She considered the unicorn. "Just leave the actual playing to the rest of us. No offence, but I really can't see you riding a broomstick..."
Twilight agreed. While it could be fun to see some of her ideas put into play, she had no intention of making a foal of herself in sports, broomstick or not.
They had chatted for most of an hour when Zecora and Hermione showed up. Rainbow Dash's hunger had succumbed to the temptation of Pinkie's plate of sweets, and Twilight was starting to eye it as well.
"Sorry we are late, everypony," Hermione apologised. "But Miss Zecora had this really interesting collection of..."
"...stuff that will delay lunch even further if we talk about it!" Ron interrupted. Sweet Celestia! How could he still be hungry? He and Pinkie must have eaten through more calories than Twilight would on an ordinary week. Horse d'oeuvres indeed.
"Ron!" Hermione berated, then sighed. "When colts have hunger on their mind, for all things else they will be blind," she intoned with a rhythm much alike the one Zecora used.
The zebra beamed at her pupil. "Very good, Hermione. You've learned my lessons well, I see!"
“Thank you, Zecora, for today you’ve helped me more than I can say,” the young mare replied, once again trying to hit the notes correctly. To Twilight’s ears it was not a half bad attempt.
Zecora seemed pleased as well. She enjoys teaching, Twilight thought. Maybe she should talk to Cherilee. Getting the zebra to interact more with the Ponyville foals would be good for her, and would certainly help diffuse any fear the town residents might still have for the strange hermit. Once the zebra had come to Sugarcube Corner, the buzzing conversations around the tables of the café had died down a bit, and while the zebra didn't seem to notice, or chose to ignore it, it hurt Twilight on her behalf.
"So it went well?" Harry asked Hermione once Twiligt had introduced the young mare and Rainbow to each other and the newcomers had settled at the table.
"Very much so, Harry," Hermione answered, producing a stack of paper sheets, filled with neat, minuscule hoofwriting. "Not only did we translate the recipe, I believe we have found matching ingredients to substitute the ones we don't have at home, thanks to Miss Zecora's enormous knowledge." She sent her linguistics and potions teacher of the day a warm smile.
"You believe?" Ron asked suspiciously.
"Well, we really didn't have time to try them out, so Miss Zecora suggested a list of different alternatives I can try once we get back. If I use a wrong herb, the result will be rather obvious. Remind me to purchase a few extra-thick bottomed cauldrons next time we're in Hogsmeade. And some frog repellant," she added, matter-of-factly.
Happily, Twilight produced her to-do list and checked “Help the three ponies who teleported out of my chimney last night find a recipe for their wolf friend’s problem.” Then she floated a menu towards the new arrivals.
As Mr. Cake arrived with their orders, Twilight eagerly received her daisy sandwich. Like her, Zecora had ordered a side of hay, and Pinkie Pie watched the zebra intensely as she dug in, slightly disappointed at the completely normal way in which Zecora ate her dish.
"So," Hermione asked Harry and Ron between mouthfuls of leek pie. "What have you been up to?"
"These two just showed Ponyville the awesomeness of Quidditch!" Rainbow Dash declared. "From how Pinkie described it, it just sounded confusing, but the colts here made it alive!" She hoofed Harry and Ron on the shoulders.
"I should have known," Hermione said with a sigh, trying to sound lecturing, but her amusement shone through. "I leave you two for a couple of hours, and you have everypony flying around, bashing Bludgers at each other and yourselves. Do you have any hobbies besides trying to fall out of the sky in interesting new ways? Harry, you look like you caught the ground instead of the Snitch!" She poked at one of the colts bruises, making him squirm.
"A tree, actually," Ron grinned, not taking the berating one bit serious.
After the main course, Pinkie Pie ordered yet another enormity of Sugarcube's selection of specialities and sweets, and this time Twilight had no reservations against indulging.
As the pink pony guided them through the confectionary landscape, Twilight marveled at her culinary knowledge. Sure, she knew that Pinkie loved cakes, and her mouthwatering descriptions of them could make even professional confectioners lose their composure. However, the way she usually gobbled her food had misled the unicorn to believe that her friend might not be so keenly observant of the nuances of taste in the pastries that had the misfortune to cross her path, as was actually the case. This was the first time she was given a full gastronomic tour by the constantly surprising earth pony. As Pinkie Pie carefully picked each delicacy to compliment the preceding, she directed the guests' attention towards the smoky fullness of the dark chocolate engulfing the fruity truffle and how the acidity of the sandthorn berries accentuated the round, sweet taste of the vanilla pudding.
Before Twilight knew of it, her bulging stomach protested against having another bite, and she had to stop the tour before she exploded and then exploded again. The look on Hermione's and Zecora's faces told her that she was not the only one reaching her limit, but Rainbow Dash, Harry and especially Ron followed Pinkie through the tasty topography of treats.
When Pinkie finally felt confident that she had shown the visitors a - as she called it - representative selection of what the Sugarcube Corner had to offer, Twilight packed a bag for the faithful number one assistant back at the library, and floated out her purse.
"Wait a moment, Miss Twilight," Harry offered. "If my money are valid here, please allow me." Before Twilight had a chance to protest, he went to the Cakes' counter and produced some strange-looking bits, asking Mrs. Cake if she accepted them as payment. The mare looked them over, scooped up an amount and gave her thanks to the colt, who replied with a pleasantry.
When he came back, Twilight started to say that she should at least share the bill, as she and her friends had been the ones inviting, but the colt would hear none of it.
"You have all been so tremendously kind and helpful. This is the very least I can do in return," he said politely.
Ron shifted a bit, not looking comfortable with Harry paying either, but the light silver unicorn send him a glance as if this was a conversation they had had before. The group thanked the Cakes, bid them a good weekend, and then left for Twilight's home, Zecora and Pinkie Pie coming along to see the trio off.
Their way back led through the marketplace where the group met Applejack, busy at her stall. She had brought a new batch of apple syrup, and Twilight clearly hadn't been the only one running low on the cinnamon-infused sweetness. The unicorn made a quick detour to her friend's sales wagon, greeting the mare and securing herself a golden bottle. Another point on her list to check off.
At the Golden Oak library, Spike greeted them, informing Twilight in a bored voice that - as usual and sadly expected - nopony had been in need of a librarian that day. Sometimes the unicorn considered her job more an excuse for the Princess to send her student a stipend than an actual need for somepony to oversee the checking in and out of books. Did ponies even know the library was there? Not surprisingly, the bag from Sugarcube Corner did wonders to the dragon's mood, and he instantly stuck a clawful of bonbons in his mouth, crunching the sweets happily while Rainbow Dash regaled him with highlights from the Quidditch match - mostly the ones where she had performed some aereobatic feat.
"...But Dust Devil kicked it away, way out to the right. Only, that left the left goal loop completely free, and Medley was still out on the flank, so I went into a freefall, speeding towards the ground, and caught the Quaffle with my hind legs. Then I spread out my wings and did a half loop - like this - and used my momentum to hurl the ball towards Medley, who headed it into the goal before Dust Devil had even realised what was happening!"
Twilight laughed at the pegasus' enthusiasm and started a fire in the hearth. It was too hot to keep a fire going in the day, but the trio would need one for their departure. While Hermione had initially expressed some concern at using the floo powder from Ron's brothers to get back, the colt had argued with certainty that Fred and George may be pranksters, but they would never give them something that would get them stuck in another world without means to get back. Hermione had to agree with that, so while she was cautious, she had gone along with the idea.
"Hmm," Twilight considered, and turned away from the slowly building fire. "Hermione, do you think it is possible to connect this chimney to the network? I'd really like if you three came to visit again, and I am quite curious about your world. Perhaps you could show it to me one day?"
"Oh, that would be wonderful!" the young mare beamed. "Ron's father has a friend who works with the floo network. I'm sure he can arrange something. Right, Ron?" She looked hopefully to her friend.
"Well," the colt hesitated. "I'm sure he would, but is it even possible? I mean, we don't even know where we are, so how's he supposed to find the right chimney?"
The three young unicorns pondered the question, and slowly a light of inspiration spread across Ron's face.
"Unless..." He fumbled with his shirt pockets.
Harry, Hermione, and Twilight looked on with interest. "Unless what, Ron?" Harry asked curiously.
"Unless..." The colt produced a golden bit, akin to the ones Harry had used to pay Mrs Cake. "The coins you made for Dumbledore's Army have a magical connection to each other, right, Hermione? Do you think..."
The mare blinked in delight. "That's genius, Ron! If we leave a coin here, we should be able to track the magic sent from Harry's master coin! ...But... Why are you still carrying that around?" she asked quizzically.
The colt stared intensely at the ground and waved his forehoof around, mumbling something about "A fake Galleon in the pocket is better than no Galleons," but from the way the tip of his ears reddened, Twilight suspected there was another explanation. Incoherently, Ron excused himself to get a gulp of water, and as Hermione and Harry were talking about tracking spells, Twilight slipped into the kitchen.
Slightly teasing, she quietly asked the colt with his head under the faucet, "...Or because she made it?"
The effect was immediate. Ron jerked and froze, his face turning completely crimson and water splashing all over it from the running tap, soaking his coat and mane.
"Ga... I..." he stuttered as Twilight floated a towel towards him.
"Don't worry, I'll keep the coin safe until we meet again." She dropped the towel on the colt's head and returned to the library triumphantly. Would Canterlot Twilight have puzzled together that, however obvious those two were? She really had come a long way.
Hermione had enhanced the coin's magical reception, and Twilight placed it on the mantel shelf above the fireplace. The fire had started to gain strength, and once the hastily-dried Ron returned, the visitors gave their farewells. Twilight insisted that they came visiting again once they had figured out how to connect her chimney to the floo network, and the three heartily agreed.
Before they went into the chimney, however, Pinkie Pie pulled Ron close, whispering to him with an unusual seriousness: “Give this to Fred. Tell him to wear it always,” her eyes bulged in an attempt to stress the importance of her words as she passed Ron a ring, too small to fit on a unicorn horn, much less a hoof, “always!”
Then, reverting to form, she pulled everyone into a group hug, this time with Harry, Ron and Hermione actively participating.
Ron threw a hoofful of Weasley-grade floo powder into the fire, clearly stated "Gryffindor Common Room," and stepped into the now cool, green flames and disappeared. Harry echoed his example, and so did Hermione, after sending Twilight and Zecora a last, warm smile, which the mares returned.
Once the smoke had cleared from the magical teleportation, Twilight asked Pinkie Pie: “That was the most specific, convoluted series of enchantments, I’ve ever cast on an object. Will you tell me now what it was for? How did you even know about event-triggered portkey spells? The research document hasn’t even been published in Magical Equestrian yet!”
“Oh, I overheard you talking about it with Princess Luna when she visited last time, and I thought it would be a great idea for a joke!” Pinkie answered, snacking on some cake leftovers she had brought with her from Sugarcube Corner. “But then, last time I visited Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes, I had this horrible case of eye-flutter, then knee-wobble, then hoof-burn, then eye-flutter again, then small sneeze, then twitchy-tail, then GIANT GINORMOUS sneeze, and I just didn’t know what to do, until I met Ron here in Equestria today. Thank you so much, Twilight! Now everything will end in sunshine and rainbows.” Pinkie Pie hugged her friend, joyous tears streaming down her cheeks, mixing with the whipped cream around her muzzle.
Twilight Sparkle returned the hug, not understanding what had made her friend so relieved.
Well, Pinkie Pie will be Pinkie Pie.
Author's Note
MAJOR OVERHAUL: Due to absolutely mindblowing amount of great feedback, I recieved on this thing, I decided to improve upon it. It is still rather silly in the overall premise, but much better paced now. It even has something that almost resembles a plot.
A run-down of the feedback and my responses:
1) It's too rushed!
This has by far been the most common criticism, and the one I primarily set out to change. It is now more than twice the length of the original, and even though it still is rushed at times, I feel the flow is much better. A big thank-you to Thaylien for the suggestion to simply split the party while Hermione studied the recipe. That worked brilliantly.
2) The formatting hurts!
Hopefully no longer.
3) It's indulgent.
Yep, probably even more so now. The entire premise was indulgent, so that's hard to change. My next fic will be different.
4) Your ponies are British!
So they are. English is a foreign language to me, and I am not nearly good enough at it to try to feign accents. I was taught British English at school, so that's what I write. I'm sure there are a lot of americanisations, though. Sorry. This english language be hard problem, yes?
5) Some of the reactions are out of character, in order to futher the plot or a joke.
I've tried to flesh out the reasoning a bit more. Also, I haven't read a Harry Potter book since the release of Deathly Hallows (or seen the last three movies. Don't know why), so that may explain if the trio acts a bit weird. Please bear in mind that I never planned to write this, or a lot would have been different. I just started in one end and started typing.
6) There are simply not enough horrible puns or descriptions of food!
Fixed. Well, actually, nopony said that, ever, but fixed anyway. If there is one thing I remenber about Harry Potter it is DESCRIBE ALL THE FOOD!
Thank you all for the twilightlicious comments. I had not in a thousand years expected this spur-of-the-moment fic to recieve anything like it.
Especially thanks to DPV111 for pointing out spelling/language mistakes.
Also, for those of you wondering: The pegasus Quidditch teams.
--
Original notes:
I was having a flu and couldn't sleep, so as a means of "counting sheep," I started this story in a chat on the Danish brony community facebook page. It would never have been more than that first half-page or so if it hadn't been for the encouragement of SpikeIsBestDragon, who showed interest in my midnight ramblings. He was also kind enough to pre-read the thing for me. (EDIT: Twice!)
This is the first piece of prose I've written in ten years. Strange what ponies do to you.
