How Moonstruck Got Her Groove Back

Finite Sledgehammer

Disclaimer: Hasbro's toybox, I'm just playing in it.

---

Joseph took a few startled steps back as Moonstruck writhed on the ground, magical lightening arcing back and forth between she and the crystals. He had heard that some unicorns had some sort of strange powered up state, but he'd never expected erie white eyes and... this. He suspected this wasn't normal. He felt a disturbing pressure building up between his ears as Moonstruck lifted off the ground to hover in space, the lightening arcing further and further away from her. All around him, he could faintly hear the crystals squealing as if something was grinding against them. Then the crystal standing next to him cracked. Then another, and another, and... he decided that leaving would be a good idea. He turned tail and lunged into the gorge, diving as deep as he dared as crystals began exploding into thousands upon thousands of razor sharp shards. Luckily he was only hit by a few, for he was just clearing the blast radius as they went.

He waited for a few minutes, gliding along in the darkness, worry eating at his insides. The cavern had settled into a deep, profound silence, even the normally vocal gremlins had ceased their incessant chatter. They had likely fled when the crystals started exploding.

Deciding it had been long enough, he pulled up, rose out of the gorge, then swept around to see what, if anything, was left of the alicorn. He really should have tried going over the passes; usually this way was the most stable, but he hadn't counted on the gremlins being half starved, or the bridge being out. Or for her to do something really, incredibly stupid. He couldn't blame her for it - going back wasn't an option, and going around the gorge wasn't exactly a viable plan either with the gremlins hellbent on a nice pony meal.

A thick cloud of magical smoke still lingered over the area, forcing him to land a short distance away and investigate on foot. The crystals for a good five hundred yard radius had all shattered, and everything beyond that had cracks running through them. It was considerably dimmer here as a result. Thankfully, he could still see clearly enough to avoid anything dangerous. As he reached the epicenter, he noted that there was still a bit of stray magic arcing here and there, flashing bolts of miniature lightening that threw the area into moments of harsh light, before plunging it back into deep shadow. It was hard for his eyes to stay adjusted.

A breeze kicked up, blowing away the thicker smoke to reveal a bruised and battered alicorn lying in the center of a small, perfectly round crater. Joseph padded cautiously over to the crater, slid down to the center where the pony was sprawled, then gently nudged her with one hand. Aside from a small spark that arced between them, nothing happened.

"Mooney?" He asked, nudging her shoulder again. He leaned his head close to her chest, noting that she was breathing raggedly, but had a strong heartbeat. He took note of her injuries, a pang of guilt tugging at his gut; he really should have tried for the passes. They were difficult, but nothing like this.

He lifted his head again and looked around. They couldn't stay here, but he had no idea how long it'd be before she woke up - if she woke at all. Working his jaw around, he let out a sigh and worked a hand beneath her shoulder to test her weight. The pegasus - Sarah - hadn't weighed much. In addition to being underfed, he was pretty sure she'd had hollow bones, so she had been relatively easy to carry down off the mountain. Moonstruck wasn't a mountain pegasus, whom tended to be smaller than your standard pegasus, and she was larger still than her hornless brethren. She most certainly weighed more. A lot more. Too much to fly with. Which meant he could only carry her so far before the extra weight would prove disastrous.

Sighing, he carefully pulled her saddlebags off, placed them over his own shoulders, then stooped to scoop her up onto his back as well. Luckily, he knew of a place to camp before the landscape became too tedious.

---

Only the highest level unicorns could pick up on a sudden surge of magic, and the magical disturbance had to be relatively near by. Alicorns were better at detecting such things, and they could do so from quite a distance away if the surge was powerful enough to send ripples across the worlds magical field. Pinpointing the origin of the surge was more difficult, and could require hours of meditation to trace the power back to its source, provided the arcane ripples lingered long enough for such careful searching.

For Princess Luna, such lengthy searches were unnecessary. The Dreaming was in some ways a mirror of the waking world; but instead of being populated by living creatures, it was where those creatures thoughts, dreams, and emotions played out unhindered by physical and even magical limitations. It was a dimension unto itself, an unbridled, wild space of endless creation and possibility. Even a faint magical ripple in real time was like a beacon in the Dreaming. Instinct generally guided her to what nightmares she needed to soothe, or problems to be worked out within the infinite sandbox of Dreaming, but larger magical disturbances could offer glimpses of what was happening in real time. In this case, the ripple was more of a tsunami.

Luna startled awake, her sleep mask sliding off her face as she sat up in bed and stared wide eyed at nothing in particular as a scattered, fractured stream of raw power, images and emotions flashed across her minds eye, almost too quickly to comprehend. Her abilities allowed her to slow things down to more manageable speeds, but even then it was a confused, tangled mess and it was all centered around...

She shook her head, noted that the sun was still shining brightly at the edges of the heavy curtains drawn tight across her windows, then slid out of bed. She needed to speak with Celestia at once. Surely her sister had felt the disturbance, and likely so did every other alicorn in the world.

Luna trotted out of her room and down the private stairs that connected her chambers to her sisters, then opened the door to Celestias office without knocking. Celestia was seated at her desk, staring off to the north east, a cup of coffee levitating in front of her, tilted slightly as if she'd been about to take a drink. There was no spilled coffee anywhere, so the cup must not have been particularly full. She barely twitched an ear when Luna stepped into the room.

"What did... what did Princess Moonstruck just do?" Celestia murmured, not turning to look at her.

"I am not sure." Luna scowled, closing the door behind her."I... the images are very fractured."

She flicked her eyes back and forth as if she was reading something, but what had her attention was in her mind, not sitting in front of her. Massive crystals, a dense magical field, fear, pain, an immense amount of power - and what direction was the disturbance actually coming from? It seemed to be coming from multiple places at once, but at the same time it had a clear focal point. Princess Moonstruck had disappeared from the Dreaming the moment she had set hoof in the Broken Mountains; all of the echoes and confusion could very well be because of the distorted magic she was masked within. But her moment of distress were not the only ones that had broken through.

"I think... I think Moonstruck breached the shield around Roanamia."

"What?" Celestia breathed."The shield still stands? But we destroyed it – we had to have destroyed it! Nothing could withstand that much power!"

Luna looked up at her. Celestia had set her coffee down and was staring at her with wide, worried eyes.

"It stands. Even after Moonstruck got through it."

"H-how? How could it still – and how could she - ?" Celestia shook her head.

"I do not know." Luna scowled, reviewing the images again. "All I know is that for over a thousand years Roanamia has not existed in the Dreaming, but for a moment, it was there, clear as the winter moon."

"What did you see?"

"Suffering." Luna pressed her lips into a thin line. "So much suffering."

They were quiet for a time. She continued replaying the few images she had in her mind.

"Sarah was able to get through the shield. It stands to reason that Moonstruck could too. There may be gaps, or flaws that can be exploited or stumbled through."

She frowned. That didn't seem right. What little input she had from Moonstruck herself seemed to indicate that she wasn't trying to breach the shield, but do something else. Moonstruck shouldn't even know there was a shield there – Luna herself didn't know there was still a shield until moments ago. Sarah didn't seem to know there was a shield either, and Luna certainly hadn't noticed any sort of magical disturbance when the pegasus emerged on this side of the Broken Mountains.

"I think Moonstruck may have inadvertently damaged the shield somehow; disrupted it just enough to allow me to get a glimpse of Roanamia in the Dreaming."

Celestia leaned back on her floor cushion and scowled. "So, one can walk into Roanamia, but no dreams can enter or exit."

"So it would seem."

A whiff of green smoke arced into the room, then turned into a sealed scroll with a faint poof. Celestia unrolled it, giving it only a cursory glance.

"I fear it may be time to start rallying our forces."

"I suspect some of the forces will rally themselves." Luna smirked.

"If I don't respond promptly, she certainly will." Celestia smiled faintly, then frowned at the scroll. "What do I tell her?"

Luna bit her lip. There wasn't much to tell. And as it was, Twilight Sparkle was still a ways out from having any official duties as a princess. As a wielder of the Elements of Harmony she had a certain duty to protect Equestria, but without solid information, or even any idea when solid information might be delivered, there wasn't much she and her friends could do. Well, there was one thing.

"What does she know about shield spells?"

"Mm, good idea." Celestia nodded, then selected a fresh sheet of paper, and lifted a quill from its inkwell. Though the sisters were infinitely powerful, there were some aspects to magic they simply were not knowledgeable about. Shield magic was a vast, diverse field, and it was possible that Twilight Sparkle could find something that might shed light on whatever was currently keeping Roanamia isolated.

"It may be prudent to send her the latest updates from the team studying the distortion outside the Broken Mountains."

"Yes, now that we know there is a shield in there somewhere, it may untangle things, a little." Celestia agreed without looking up from what she was writing. "And I will send the same information to Shining Armor, since he is a shield expert."

Luna nodded absently and let her gaze drift to the nearest window, and the view beyond it. It would be a busy night for her, she sensed.

---

"Again."

"I can't!"

"You can. You just have to focus, Moonstruck."

"I am focusing!" Moonstruck huffed, turning around and glaring up at her mother, whom was pacing along the edge of the room. The grand audience chamber was empty, say for them. No lights were on, but sunlight filtered in from the high, stained glass windows, leaving the vast room in a patchwork of cool shadows and diffuse, multicolored light.

"I can't maintain any connection with my power, okay! And it takes me so long to even find it that I'm too tired to try to access it when I do!" She sighed, straightening up out of the crouch she'd slid in to while trying to plumb the depths of her magic.

Astromida paused and regarded her with a scowl that was somewhere between irate, and concerned.

"Moonstruck, you are an alicorn and a princess. It is imperative that you be able to access your full power - "

"You think I don't know that!?" Moonstruck snapped, whirling to face the tall, elegant mare. "Really? I know it better than anypony!"

Astromida tilted her muzzle downwards and pressed her lips into a thin line. "I know this has been difficult for you, but I assure you, that once you learn to silence your mind, you will be able to - "

"To what?" Moonstruck stamped a hoof. "What? I don't even have my cutie mark yet, so what are you expecting me to do? Huh?"

Her mother jerked her head back, then pulled her ears back slightly. "It's perfectly alright to be a late bloomer, and alicorns often get their cutie marks later than other ponies -"

Moonstruck let out a long, cold laugh. "Tell that to Starshine. Or Acorn, even though he doesn't have wings. I'm nearly an adult, Mom. I should have gotten my mark years ago, and you know it. I'm the oldest blank flank in the queendom."

Astromida closed her eyes and nodded slightly. "You should still be able to access your full powers though."

Moonstruck snorted and rolled her eyes. "It would have been better if Acorn was born an alicorn."

"What?" Astromida asked in a breathy whisper, taken aback.

"He's actually got ambition, and useful abilities," Moonstruck continued, looking down, the bitterness draining from her voice, leaving her sounding as hollow as she felt. "The only thing I'm good for is playing cards, and pulling pranks on everypony. Being an alicorn is overkill for that."

"Moonstruck..." Astromida murmured, lowering her head and lifting a foreleg slightly.

The main doors to the audience chamber burst open, and Captain Whirlwind ran in out of breath.

"Your Majesty! A dragon - a massive dragon - is attacking Whinnyford village! Sir Mighty Oak is already there!"

Moonstruck and Astromida looked over at the captain of the guard in unison. Astromida, then looked back at Moonstruck and scowled.

"Stay here and look after Acorn. Your father and I will deal with this."

"Want me to let Starshine know?" Moonstruck sighed. She never got to go to these sorts of things, although with her powers being locked away as they were, she wouldn't be much use.

"Yes, I may need her help." Astromida said slowly, then grimaced. "It will take her some time to fly to Whinnyford though."

Starshine was powerful, but she hadn't mastered long distance teleportation yet. Or teleportation in general, really. While Moonstruck was a competent teleporter, long distances still eluded her. However, she had helped her father set up an emergency nodestone network that allowed her to cheat a little.

"Right."

Astromida nodded then sprang into the air, fluttering up to the gallery above, and through an open door, likely taking a direct route to the northeast tower, where their magical communication devices and long distance teleportation nodes were set up. Moonstruck trotted in the opposite direction to track down Acorn, then give Starshine a call at school. Hopefully she was in her dorm room when Moonstruck called her.

She located Acorn, then high tailed it up to the northeast tower with her brother in tow. It was unlikely that the dragon would make it all the way to Trot City, but in case it did, even with her limited abilities she was her brothers – and the cities - best defense.

"Are they gonna be okay?" Acorn panted as they trotted up the stairs. Well, Moonstruck trotted, Acorn was too short to make it up the stairs quickly so he was perched on her back.

"Yeah, they'll be fine. Mom's probably already there, and Dad's pretty powerful as regular unicorns go. That dragon doesn't stand a chance!"

"I hope Starshine can make it there in time, so that Mom doesn't have to fight it alone." Acorn said solemnly.

"She won't be alone, she's got a whole army to help her out." Moonstruck shook her head. They were almost to the top.

"Yeah, but she doesn't like to put them in danger if she doesn't have to."

Moonstruck scowled. "Yeah, but it'll take a team to defeat the dragon."

Acorn didn't respond. He knew Mom as well as she did, and wasn't buying it. Astromida would most likely take on the dragon by herself. She was stubborn like that. They reached the top of the stairs. Moonstruck magicked the door open and trotted inside. The military ponies were communicating with the Winnyford team from their own offices, so the tower was empty.

Acorn hopped off her back and began fiddling with a series of gems embedded in a stone slab, while Moonstruck ambled over to one of a series of crystal balls. She powered up her magic, and touched the tip of her horn to the orb. After a few moments, an image of her elder sister appeared in the air above the orb.

"Moonstruck?"

"Hi. Yeah, there's a dragon attacking Winnyford village. Mom and Dad and the guard are over there dealing with it, but Mom wanted you to fly over just in case she needs some serious back up."

"I have class in a few minutes..." Starshine bit her lip and looked away from the orb in her dorm room for a few moments. "I suppose this is more important, my professor will understand. Okay, I'm leaving right now, please have Father tell Mother that I will be there as soon as I can."

"Will do." Moonstruck saluted as the projection faded away.

"Hi Dad!" Acorn chirped as a life sized projection of the gold and green unicorn appeared in the center of the room. Acorn was the spitting image of their father, though Mighty Oak's coloration was somewhat faded, and his mane was mostly gray and white, nowadays. He was still mighty however, easily one of the largest ponies Moonstruck had ever seen. Mother was taller than him by quite a bit, but she was lean and willowy; Mighty Oak was built like a tank.

"Hi Acorn. Um... why are you calling?" Mighty Oak said, half turning to look into the orb on his end of things.

"'Cause Mooney wasn't paying attention!" Acorn laughed.

"It's alright, I was gonna call you next." Moonstruck said, stepping into range of the communication orb. "Starshine says to tell Mom that she's on her way."

"Oh good." Mighty Oak nodded. "I will relay the message. Not that she'll get here in time for anything..."

"I know, right?" Moonstruck chuckled.

"Shush!" Mighty Oak hushed, trying and failing to hide a grin. He stepped out of orb range. Moonstruck ambled over to the control panel and began rearranging the crystals to pull up several other projections. In situations such as these, her father would send out small orbs and either leave them suspended in fixed positions, or enchant them to follow a particular pony to act as a recording device, a way to communicate quickly, and an emergency node stone in case a pony had to make a very hasty retreat, but didn't have a good place to teleport to in sight. They were voice activated so that earth and pegasus ponies could use them as well. To keep an eye on the action, all she had to do was access the command center in Winnyford, and make a copy of all of the displays.

The feeds flickered to life, showing various views of Winnyford, and the dragon as it wheeled overhead. It seemed the guard had already erected a shield to protect the town itself, but everything outside it was still vulnerable to attack. They spent the next ten minutes transfixed to the projections, watching in morbid fascination as the guard attempted to ward the dragon off, and Astromida tried to reason with it, in between having a firefight. Moonstruck wasn't sure why her mother was using a fire spell on a dragon, when an ice, or lightening spell would likely be more effective. She knew better than to mention as much though, Astromida often had her reasons for doing things the way she did, although it often took a while for them to become clear.

The longer she watched, the more she suspected that her mother actually had no idea what she was doing. Her father had some good ideas, but the dragon always seemed to be a few steps ahead. When Astromida finally switched to an ice spell, it only seemed to anger the dragon. Which was when everything turned sour.

"Mooney, are they gonna be okay?" Acorn asked as the dragon unleashed a powerful fireball on the shield protecting Winnyford. The shield held, but it was clear that the unicorns maintaining it wouldn't be able to keep it up much longer. Additionally, the fire had simply rolled off the shield and onto the surrounding countryside, setting it ablaze.

"I dunno..." She murmured, flicking her eyes between the projections. Her mother was never one for combat, and while her father was clever and resourceful, he wasn't much of a fighter either. Between the two of them they did alright, but this dragon seemed to be too much.

"... not if they keep this up - hey Dad!"

The projection of Mighty Oak turned to look at them. "You're still there?"

"Yeah, been watching the whole time. Look, the dragon won't be reasoned with, Mom needs to get serious with this thing."

He scowled at her. "She's been serious with it. We've been throwing everything we've got at it."

"Yeah, badly." Moonstruck snorted. "Have her lead it away from town, and confront it out over the mountains where she can really cut loose."

"No good, we can't support her if she strays too far away from the unicorns. The pegasus ponies can only do so much." He shook his head.

"I know, but if they keep fighting over town, they're just gonna end up destroying everything anyway!"

"I know - Moonstruck, you should take your brother somewhere else, he's too little for all of this."

"I am not!" Acorn piped.

"Shh. I know Mom can take this thing, but she's only gonna hold back if she has other ponies to worry about!" She nudged her brother aside.

"Mooney, your mother isn't a warrior, even if she cuts loose she may not be able to defeat the dragon by herself - which is why she needs to stay close to the guard until Starshine arrives." Mighty Oak sighed. "If you know of a way she can defeat the dragon without serious combat magic, speak up."

Moonstruck scowled and stared at the floor. She did know of a way, she'd come up with it once when she and her friends were playing a table top role playing game. The spells she'd had at her disposal in-game were limited and of the most basic variety, which had forced her to think outside the box. Now if only she could remember….

"Does Mom know how to do a sonic rainboom?"

"What? Of course not, that's just a myth!"

Moonstruck felt a strange thrill race down her spine. "No, I'm pretty sure it's possible - especially for an alicorn."

She vaguely recalled hearing about a filly who'd done it over in Cloudsdale fairly recently. A little filly at that, probably not much older than Acorn.

The dragon attacked the shield again, causing a series of glowing magenta cracks to appear overhead. They healed themselves over, but it was clear that it wouldn't survive another direct hit.

"Mooney, I've got to go!"

"Wait, Dad! Tell mom to -!"

"No time!"

"All she needs to do is -!"

Mighty Oak bolted out of range of the orb. Moonstruck growled and raced over to the control panel to see if she could contact her mother directly. No such luck, Astromida was likely moving too quickly for the orb to keep up effectively. She bit her lip and stared at the far corner of the room, where a circle of arcane runes etched in the floor glowed faintly.

"Acorn, I need you to stay here and try to get ahold of Dad again."

"Mooney?" He whimpered, pulling his ears back. "You're not gonna do something really dumb are you?"

"Yes, yes I am." Moonstruck said. She hit a gem on the control board which would summon someone up to the tower to look after Acorn, then bolted over to the circle. She scowled down at the runes, running over how to activate the spell in her head.

"Don't worry, I'm pretty sure it'll work."

"Pretty sure!?" Acorn yelped, dashing over to her but stopping short of the magic circle.

She rolled her eyes. "Look, either it'll work, or it won't. At this rate though, that dragon is gonna take out half of Trot before anypony can stop it." She cast the spell.

A split second later, she was standing in a nearly identical circle at the Winnyford garrison. She shook static out of her mane and feathers, then darted towards the nearest exit, the weird thrill that had coursed through her body earlier settling into her bones. It was driving her now, pushing her towards this idiotic plan. It was intoxicating, she never wanted the feeling to leave, even though she knew that if her plan didn't work, she'd be dead in an instant.

Once outside, she spared a single glance up to see how the shield looked, then galloped towards the edge of town, hoping that the unicorns were directing most of their energy straight up, which would allow her to push through the shield with little difficulty at the bottom edge. Around her, townsponies ran this way and that, trying to find the oldest, sturdiest buildings to take shelter in. She was surprised there were so many out still, shouldn't they have sought shelter long ago?

She slid around a corner to see the bottom edge of the shield glowing faintly a short distance away. She took wing in a series of bounding leaps, focused on the shield ahead, and cast a small shield spell of her own, and altered its shape into that of a triangle, to make an arrow out of the space around her. She struck the shield at top speed; it rippled, stretched, then let her through. Letting out a triumphant chortle, Moonstruck glanced up, then began teleporting in a reckless zigzag pattern to get above the dragon as quickly as possible.

Normally she wouldn't teleport while flying, as it took too much math to do it safely, but time was of the essence, and there was enough thick, billowing smoke in the air to use as a decent visual reference. When she reached three thousand feet, she leveled off and searched below her for her mother and the guard, spotting the latter quickly enough, as they were sticking close to town. Her mother was further out, leading the dragon away. She smirked, at least her father had relayed her message.

Astromida was having a difficult time keeping the dragons attention, it kept trying to curve back around towards town, which forced her to fly directly in its path at close range on several occasions in the scant few minutes Moonstruck had been watching, leaving herself vulnerable to snapping jaws, and flaming breath. Her mother really wasn't cut out for combat.

"MOONEY!? WHAT IN BLAZES ARE YOU DOING!?"

Moonstruck glanced at the small, floating orb that shouted in her fathers voice when it appeared abruptly next to her.

"Something really stupid."

"Get back down here right now, young lady!"

"I have an idea."

"I don't care! You're not ready for this!"

"Actually, this is quite simple. Acorn could do it if he had wings." Moonstruck snorted absently, speeding up as the dragon swerved away from town again. She had to time this just right to make sure it didn't fall on anything important; the further out of town it was, the better.

"Moonstruck, please!"

She ignored him, focusing on tracking the dragons movements. It was so big it would be hard to miss, but she knew she had to be as precise as possible - she was going to be traveling at an insane speed, one wrong move would send her in any number of directions she didn't want to go in. She gained altitude as she went, running some rough numbers through her head as she did so to determine how high off the ground the dragon was (seemed like about a thousand feet from here, but she could be wrong); how much space she'd need to reach her top diving speed, and at what point she should cast her spell. The speed of haste spells could be controlled, but she only knew the most basic variety, which meant she only had one setting at her disposal, so timing was of the essence. Her angle of attack was another issue; if she knew a more advanced haste spell she could come in at a shallower angle, and make adjustments as needed, but as it was, she'd have to be practically on top of the dragon to score a direct hit.

Moonstruck was almost in position, her mother was still leading the dragon more or less away from town, and the ground below was mostly rolling foothills and empty farmland. Content that collateral damage would be at a minimum, and that she was high enough that most small course adjustments the dragon made were easily accounted for in her dive, she pulled into a hover to make her final preparations. The orb her father was using to communicate zoomed up next to her.

"Moonstruck! I order you to return this instant!"

"No can do. Can you tell Mom to teleport to safety in about... oh... two minutes." She said absently, eyes locked on the dragon far below.

"What!? Moonstruck!"

"Trust me, this will work." She said. Her heart beat faster as she realized that she really believed it. The strange adrenaline rush that had been coursing through her body was at a fever pitch now, making her almost giddy. She grinned. This was by far the stupidest thing she'd ever done. Even dumber than the time she, Breezy, Patch and Windwake had dared each other to jump off of the highest tower into the deepest part of the castle duck pond (without the use of their wings, in she, Breezy, and Windwake's cases).

"Mooney!"

She shot a small spark at the orb, forcing it back a few feet, so that she could focus on the task at hoof.

"Mooney! Hey, wake up!"

Wake up? That wasn't right, her father never told her to wake up, he just kept trying to reason with her until she stooped into a dive, and was moving too fast for the orb to keep up.

"Mooney?"

She twitched, realizing that she wasn't in the airspace above Winnyford, and that she wasn't a filly anymore. Moonstruck grimaced and curled into a ball as pain oozed across her awareness. She ached everywhere, but her wings were especially bad.

"Five more minutes." She muttered.

"Oh good, I was worried you weren't gonna wake up, but then you started muttering in your sleep a while ago." The mysterious male voice said. He sounded nothing like her father, how could she have gotten the two confused?

Moonstruck groaned and cracked an eye open. Joseph stood in front of her, scaly brows furrowed. She opened her other eye, then blinked a few times. It was still dark, but there was a familiar light coming from somewhere nearby. She was wrapped up in her blanket on her bedroll against a jumble of rocks. As she stared at the dragon, the memory of how she got her cutie mark faded, and her latest stupid idea bubbled back to the surface. She grimaced.

"How long was I out?"

"'Bout a day and a half." Joseph said, moving a bowl of water closer to her.

She grunted and rolled onto her stomach before scooting forward to take a sip of water. Normally she would have levitated the bowl, but there was a faint, magical buzz in her head that she was disinclined to aggravate. The water immediately soothed many of her aches and pains, though her head and wings remained stubbornly sore.

"So, I managed to get you to within spitting distance of the exit, but the trail was too steep to climb with you on my back." Joseph said, gesturing with his snout to a point somewhere behind and above her.

Moonstruck blinked a few times and wiggled around to look where he was indicating. The light in the cave was coming from the sun, but the opening to the outside world was a fair distance away, up a steep, winding trail. She frowned, recalling that the bridge wasn't even the half way point through the mines.

"You carried me that far?"

"Er... yeah. Figured it wouldn't be a good idea to stick around for long." He shifted his weight and looked away, scratching the back of his head with one clawed hand. "The gremlins were pretty freaked out, but they can be very persistent."

She grunted, not sure how to respond. A simple thank you seemed inadequate. Lame, even. She said it anyway, but he shrugged it off. Moonstruck pulled herself into a sitting position, and rifled through her saddlebags for something to eat. They lingered for a while in the jumble of boulders, listening for the scrapes and scrabbles of an encroaching gremlin army, but the cavern remained quiet. Once she was done eating, and had taken proper inventory of her overall physical state, they set off again; Joseph fluttering ahead of her on the trail, showing her how to avoid all of the dangerous bits.

Every step she took sent pain shooting up her legs, and every time she had to open a wing for balance it felt like it was going to fall off. She was fairly certain neither of her wings were broken, but they somehow managed to feel worse than way back when she'd spent her first day in goodness knows how long flying; stiff, and sore with a deep ache that seemed to resonate along her bones and down her spine. Even her pectorals – the main muscles that powered her wings - were tender. She hoped that in an effort to magically extend her wingspan she hadn't somehow done permanent damage. She couldn't really figure out how she could have hurt herself, aside from her rough landing, but clearly something had gone wrong.

The climb was slow going, the sun had nearly set by the time she finally collapsed on the plush moss that grew at the cave entrance. It was only a short break, for like the entrance to the mines, the cave mouth was not free of danger, and they soon set off into the gathering twilight in search of a suitable place to camp. Thankfully, they located a sheltered spot beneath a rocky overhang to spend the night.

Moonstruck found the routine both tedious, and soothing. It was good to go through the motions of setting up her tent, and arranging her things, and the crackling fire that Joseph started (apparently his powers were back to normal), cast cheery light over their little nook. However, her body had had enough for the day, so every little motion caused considerable amount of pain, and even thinking about using magic caused her stomach to churn.

"So... what happened back there?" Joseph asked after a while.

Moonstruck opened her eyes and gazed across the fire at him. After being asleep for so long, she was having a hard time getting back to it, even though she was exhausted.

"It's hard to explain."

"I know unicorns have some kinda powered-up state..." Joseph said, shifting a little awkwardly.

"Yeah, that was it." Moonstruck grimaced. "I... that wasn't supposed to happen like that. I don't know what went wrong. The idea was to get across the gap, then power down but..."

"Right." Joseph grimaced as well. "After you passed out you blew up all of the crystals in the general vicinity."

"Really?" Moonstruck lifted her head a little.

"Yep. Pretty impressive. Crystals were cracked a good distance away too."

"That's actually really interesting." Moonstruck mused, gingerly scratching her chin with a forehoof. "The crystals are what are warping magic down there, they're absorbing any ambient magic, which is why my spells didn't work, and I guess why your fire breath fizzled out. Maybe I overloaded them."

"Really? That's what was going on?" The dragon tilted his head to the side.

"Yeah, when I powered up I was able to check out what the magic was doing and," she winced, "when I was out of control I could kind of see everything. Every last strand of magic."

"Wow."

"It's probably why my head hurts now." She closed her eyes and tried to remember what she'd seen in more detail. While it was happening, she had been able to recognize many of the runes flying around, but now it was all a blur. "I don't remember what spell was in action though, just that there was a blend of pony and dragon magic. Or at least, I think it was dragon magic."

She opened her eyes to stare curiously at Joseph. "Did you know your magical signature is different from the magic flying around in the mines?"

"No?" He furrowed his brow. "How did you know it was dragon magic if you've never sensed it before?"

"Oh, basically all spells consist of invisible runes, if a unicorn enters a particular meditative state, they can see those runes. It's part of how high level spells are learned. I'm actually not very good at it." Moonstruck said, resisting the urge to wave a hoof around, "so, when I was out of control, I was entering and exiting that state, which allowed me to see the magical make-up of the mines and everything in it - including you. Your runes were very similar to the non-pony magic that was being absorbed and channeled through the crystals."

"So it's reasonable to say that was dragon magic mixed in there, but not the same type of dragon that you are. Your runes are... well, it was like the glyphs were nearly identical, but yours were a different color."

"Oh. Weird."

"Not really. It actually matches up with the three tribes of ponies." Moonstruck shrugged, then regretted it as a twinge of pain shot up her neck from her shoulder blades - both sets. "Earth pony runes look slightly different from pegasus runes, which look slightly different from unicorn runes. It's all in how magic flows through the body. Earth and pegasus ponies both have inborn magical abilities, but cannot cast spells - which basically creates a closed loop of runes. Unicorn runes have an open ended pattern that can incorporate other spells into the mix. Basically the dragon magic in the spell was from an open ended rune pattern, not some sort of inborn ability."

Joseph blinked a few times. "So they were a different color, eh?"

Moonstruck chuckled, then winced as the laughter hurt her ribs, which made her laugh more. It was a vicious cycle, especially when Joseph started to laugh too. Their laughter eventually settled into a comfortable silence, wherein, Moonstruck felt she might finally be able to sleep. Just as she was about to say as much, Joseph said something surprising.

"I'm sorry, I never should have taken you down there."

"It's okay, you didn't know."

"No, no I really should have factored it in." He shook his head. "Everything's so mixed up out here, and I knew the gremlins could get aggressive, I really should have known better."

"Really, it's fine. This whole trip is risky." Moonstruck shook her head as much as she dared. "Besides, I probably should have warned you that I tend to do stupid things when backed into a corner. Really, this isn't the first time I've hurt myself doing something like that."

He looked unconvinced, but he nodded slightly.

"Well, I am going to try to get some sleep." Moonstruck grunted, rising shakily to her hooves, careful not to let her blanket slide off her back.

"G'night." He murmured.

"Night."