Healing magic: crazy cool.

In about a week I was up on my fe-ehrm… I mean… up on my hooves again, trotting around the hospital floor. My right front leg still wasn’t healthy enough to support its own weight, so I had to also drag around some sort of rolling cast whenever I wanted some exercise. But even that cast went away after another day or two, with help from regular doses of painkillers.

E’en so, I briskly trotted out of the hospital for the first time on a warm, bright Wednesday morning after signing some release forms and giving insurance information, something Celestia had oh-so-graciously lent me for the time being until I could find myself a stable job. Twilight had been out of the hospital for a few days before me, due to the fact that her own healing magics sped up the process. Since I never had any formal magic training lessons, I was reliant on the doctors to speed up my recovery, and when I reminded Twilight of my lack of magical ability she assured me that she would be a mentor, as well as giving me a place to stay until I-again-had enough money to buy my own house.

But now, walking out of the hospital and onto the streets of Ponyville, I had my first errand to run; head to the Golden Oaks Library and ask Twilight about my cutie mark. I had been interested in it ever since I saw that simple geometric pattern, and Celestia hadn’t given me any straight answers just like a generic Mary-Sue Princess, so I was willing to perform any sort of test Twilight needed just to learn more about my destiny.

It took a couple minutes for me to reach the library, part of me wanting to go slowly and savor the fact that none of the residents were chasing me with torches. A couple of the stall keepers in the market waved at me as I went by while most just seemed confused. One stall keeper, however, actually called my name.

“Heyo, Adrian! How are you doin’ today?” an orange pony called out from behind a stand of apples. I trotted over with a smile on my face.

“Pretty good, AJ. You?”

“Eh, sales could be better I guess,” she rolled her eyes. “You on your way to Twi’s?”

“Yep,” I nodded. “She wants to run tests on me-ugh-and I need to figure out what this means.” I gestured with my head to my cutie mark and Applejack nodded sagely.

“Ah, I see. Kind of like the opposite of crusadin’. You’re trying to find out what your cutie mark means.”

“I guess so,” I smiled. “How much are those apples today?”

“For a new friend? On the house.” My smile grew.

“Thanks AJ,” I said. My orange aura enveloped an apple and I raised it to my mouth, lightly biting down and breaking it in half.

“Don’t mention it, sugarcube. Anything to repay you for the way we treated you…” She was silenced by my hoof on her lips. I smiled lightly and spun the apple around in my magical aura.

“Applejack, don’t. It wasn’t either of our faults that my curse was present. I’m just glad you were able to help me all of those years, even while having to fight that dark magic.” I removed my hoof from her mouth and wrapped it around her neck, pulling her into a hug. “You’ve done more than enough for me over these years, and for that I have to thank you.” I pulled out of the embrace and smiled one more time before turning on my hoof and walking away towards the library.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Applejack’s blush deepen. She lightly pawed at the ground before turning around and shaking her head, ready to help her next customer.

I pushed open the door of the library and a small breeze followed me in to equalize the air pressure. I cleared my throat and let out a refreshing breath of air, glad to be out of the hot summer sun.

“Hello?”

No one answered me, which wasn’t very surprising. It was around breakfast time, and there was a chance that Twilight and Spike could be out. I never spent time with her unless she was analysing my curse, so I didn’t know her eating habits. Deciding to make the most out of my current situation - alone in a massive library with hundreds of books - I trotted over to a shelf and pulled out a book at random.

“Ah…” I gasped. Poetry. I never had the chance to read Equestrian poetry, so it was a whole new world to me. During my few years with the curse I had attempted to write my own poetry, influenced by the styles of both Frost and Dickenson, combining them to create something new and interesting, but not worth reading for the hundredth time like There is Another Sky.

I pulled over a chair in my orange aura and sat down, flipping through the pages at random. Eventually my eyes fell upon the inked pages, legibly scrawled out in a neat serif font similar to the ever-popular Book Antiqua back on Earth.

I lost myself in the works of Quick Quill and Featherlock, Silverhoof and Inkwell. The words flowed into my soul, relaxing as the calming words took effect. Halfway through a particularly moving poem by Featherlock something tapped my shoulder, causing me to break concentration. My gaze shifted from the off-white pages into the deep purple eyes of Twilight Sparkle.

“Uh… hello?” I said, giving her a half-smile. She smiled back and pulled away.

“Hey. Sorry for disturbing you, but I had called your name a couple times.” She gestured to the door which was currently being held open by none other than Twilight’s number one assistant, as Celestia had referred to him on multiple occasions. “I thought you would have heard the door. Spike, didn’t Rarity want you to come by later?” The little dragon’s eyes shot open and he muttered something about leaving before he bolted out of the door. I laughed slightly.

“No, I was reading.” Twilight leaned down to get a look at the book I had in my aura.

“The Quintessential Collection? Poetry?”

“Yeah,” I returned my gaze to the page. “Listen to this;

“Wow,” Twilight breathed, taking a seat across from me. I put the book down on the table and stretched my aching limbs. “I never took you for one with a taste of poetry.”

“Back home I loved poetry, and I wrote it just as much. Poetry was actually one of the ways I remained sane.”

“Did you read the books in the Royal Library?”

“No,” I admitted, “it wasn’t safe enough for me to go out there very often, and when I did I was always accompanied by Celestia. Only research, no fun. I had to write my own in the safety of my own house.”

“You wrote your own poetry?” Twilight asked, stunned. I nodded.

“Yeah. I was influenced a lot through some of my favorite poets from back home.” Twilight immediately shot from her seat and galloped to a nearby drawer, pulling it open with her lavender aura and retrieving a pad of paper and a pencil from inside, shutting it behind her as she ran back to her seat. I chuckled, already knowing what she was going to ask. “Sure, I’ll recite one.” I cleared my throat but Twilight cut me off.

“First things first, who wrote it and what is it called?”

“Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken.”

“Allright, continue.”

Twilight finished scribbling and looked up at me with awe.

“That… that was beautiful.” I laughed.

“Yeah, that’s one of the most famous poems from Earth. I know tons of those off the top of my head and I have them all transcribed at my house, but I think that’s for another time, no?”

“Oh, right.” Twilight set down her pad of paper and blushed, getting up from her seat again albeit slowly. She moved towards a bookshelf on the other side of the library, pulling down a hard-bound, thick brown book. Her lavender aura encased it and she moved back to the sitting area, placing the book in front of me but keeping it closed. Picking up the pad of paper, her gaze turned to my flanks where she studied my new cutie mark.

“Wow, don’t you think you should buy me a drink first?” I joked. She blushed and rolled her eyes, quickly making a rough sketch of my mark, the golden triangle inlaid with a silver circle. Opening the book and holding the crude sketch beside it, Twilight flipped from page to page in a section marked “elements,” comparing my mark to the diagramed and logged cutie marks of ponies long past, and prophesied ones for the future. After a few minutes of searching she found what she was looking for.

“Here we are… ‘The Guardian.’”

“Ooh, sounds interesting.” I shifted slightly so I could get a better look at the page. A clear, accurate representation of my cutie mark was presented back to me.

“The Guardian has been said to appear nearly 25 years after the birth of the final element. They will be the protector of the elements for as long as they live, and the elements will depend on the Guardian to keep them safe from all dangers, both physical and mental. The Guardian will have a high magical capability, but it will be nearly uncontrollable. Only after the rampant magic has been calmed the mark of the Guardian will appear.”

“Wait,” I interjected, scratching my neck. “I’m your bodyguard?”

“I guess,” Twilight said, nodding slowly. She turned the page to see a drawing of two daggers, encrusted with jewels of purple, cyan, and orange on one and white, yellow and pink on the other. “Hold on.

“It is necessary for the Guardian to wield the Elemental Daggers, for the powers of each element are contained inside the hilt. The powers can only be activated by the Guardian, however once the Guardian has appeared there are ways to activate the Elemental Daggers without the Guardian’s consent, however all known ways involve dark magic and are not suitable for everyday use. It is unknown how the different elemental abilities work, and only Ráhd knows what the colors of the jewels correspond to, however it has been hypothesised that the Elements match the colors found on the dagger. No correlation has been found, and this does not imply causation.”

“Huh.”

“Yeah. Oh, and Princess Celestia told me to give this to you.” A box levitated over to me in Twilight’s aura and I grabbed it with mine out of midair, our auras intermingling as the orange mixed with the purple for half a second. I could feel Twilight’s willpower against my own, pushing and molding itself against my waking consciousness. She gasped and pulled back, blushing.

“Something wrong?” I asked, worried.

“N-no… it’s just… that kind of thing isn’t… casual.”

“What do you… oh…” I blushed and looked away. “Sorry, I haven’t been well versed in Equestrian culture.”

“It’s… ah… okay. Heh, whatever. Open it!”

My magic grasped at the sides of the box, tearing off the tape and flipping open the cardboard. Inside was a package encased in what appeared to be bubble wrap, but acted much more fluidly. It was enchanted packing material. A letter was also placed on top of the package which I picked up and tore into, levitating out the scroll inside.

“Dear Adrian,” I read aloud, glancing over at Twilight who motioned for me to continue. “I am sending you this package because I trust you to watch over the contents.”

“That’s it?” Twilight asked, confused.

“I guess.” I opened the package and set it down on the table, moving apart the packing material covering the contents.

Inside were two gleaming, silver daggers encrusted with colored gems. The daggers themselves looked like two matching razorblades, their jagged edges tapering at the top and the bottom into more of a parallelogram shape than any conventional blade I’d ever seen before.

Perfect.

I looked at Twilight.

“Did you say something?” I asked.

“No… why?” I scratched my chin.

“Nevermind… thought I heard something. It’s nothing. So now what? Testing?”

“Oh! I love testing!”

“Oh… why did I suggest anything?”

The black dark energy mass moved about the crystal halls, its eyes hidden deep inside its own being. It was looking at an image through another pony’s mind, the certain pony it had brought to Equestria in the first place. The one who was going to bring it what it needed most, what it needed to be resurrected and whole again.

The daggers were in this pony's possession.

“Now, up against the tree.”

Needless to say, this didn’t seem like it was going to turn out to be a fun experience. Twilight paced in front of me, the two blades lying on the grass. The edges gleamed in the midday sun, casting light over the forest canopy.

We had left the library without running into many ponies on the way, but the ones who were out were more than happy to welcome the new Unicorn to town. Twilight had insisted on going all the way to the edge of the Everfree Forest.

“Why can’t you just teleport us?” I had asked, falling into stride behind her as we left the city limits. She sighed.

“My magic still hasn’t completely gotten back to me yet. Celestia also asked me to give you an accurate feeling of the city you’ve been living beside for years.” My mouth formed a small ‘o’ when I realized why she had been introducing me to each pony we passed.

“Oh… thank you.”

Twilight’s purple aura fell upon the lock of her saddlebags and she opened them, pulling out a notebook and quill. They floated onto the grass beside the blades as Twilight flipped the notebook open to a page without the marks of her careful scrawling.

“I know this may seem… strange to you. But trust me, prophecies are not something to be disregarded completely.”

“Do you have experience with them?”

“Something like that,” Twilight replied, scuffing a hoof into the long grass. “Once I ascended, Celestia took me into the restricted section of the Royal Archives. There were many books foretelling the birth of a fourth Alicorn Princess, and they all corresponded to the birthing of the living elements as well.”

A cool summer breeze blew through the trees around us, and I felt my mane brush across my neck.

“That still doesn’t explain why you need a bodyguard. I’ve seen you fight.” Twilight cringed, her eyes looking anywhere but at me. “I’m sorry,” I corrected myself quickly. “I didn’t mean it that wa—”

“No… it’s okay. But… the girls and I are Equestria’s trump card. Our word technically can overrule any government member other than the Princesses themselves.”

“I never knew that,” I replied.

“I can imagine there’s a bunch of the nuances of Equestrian politics you don’t know. I’d be glad to teach you a lot of what you need to know. It’s… the least I can do.”

I nodded in understanding. Twilight had been one of the most resistant ponies to the curse, but even she had her limits. I could empathise with her want to make up the last three years to me in some way. And, I must admit, I was quite lacking in terms of knowledge of social faux-pas, government, economic structure, or basically anything about Equestria other than basic history. I mentally punched myself, thinking of all the wasted opportunities I had to read up on it, instead going directly for the history and fiction sections at the library.

Once I shook my mental tangent out of my head and focused on Twilight, I could see her holding each dagger up to her face and making quick sketches on her notebook.

“This’ll just take a second…” she said, her nose scrunched. I smiled to myself. I honestly never noticed how cute she could be. “Done!” The blades floated over to me as her notebook and quill were placed down on the grass once again. Twilight’s magic dropped them in front of me and I snaked mine out just in time to catch them before they were embedded in the grass by gravity. As soon as my magic touched them the gems inserted into the blade gleamed white, shimmering slightly. Twilight’s magic was already at work scribbling down notes once again even as the glow faded on all but one of the gems.

“... what’s so special about the purple one?”

“According to what was hinted at in the book… that one corresponds to my element.”

I gave a few practice swings with the daggers, careful to not get them anywhere close to Twilight. The daggers, while still silver, left purple trails of light behind them when they were moved quickly. Although the trails of light were small, they were all but unnoticeable, reflecting off the smooth edges of the blades.

Looking back at Twilight, I noticed she had produced another book from her saddlebags, and I realized it was different than the one we had been poring over in the Library. A lavender bookmark protruded from the top of the tome and she quickly flipped to it with her magic, removing the bookmark.

“This is a catalog of the Royal Archives. As these are technically important to national security and all that, Princess Luna had them locked in the archives once she found them nearly twelve hundred years ago. Look,” she said, pointing at the page, “you can even see a photo record of her original notes.”

I laid the blades back on the grass and trotted beside Twilight, looking over her shoulder. Detailed drawings adorned the page with arrows pointing to specific parts of the sketches.

“It looks as though Luna spent a lot of time researching this artifact,” I said, lying down beside Twilight. She nodded, flipping the page to one almost completely filled with text.

“Here’s a record of extensive testing conducted by scientists at the Archives. Remember the black magic the previous book mentioned?” I nodded in confirmation. “The Archives has entire collections of books on how to replicate the same conditions with the same magical forces.”

“So…” I asked, hesitating for a moment, “the scientists know how to cast dark magic… with instructions directly from this book?”

“Yeah,” Twilight answered, still poring over the catalog in front of her. I could tell she was only half-listening, much more interested in what was actually on the page. “These books are kept under very tight security.”

“How do you have one?”

“Princess Celestia gave it to me after my ascension so that I could access the archives whenever I needed to.” Twilight flipped the book over to the cover while leaving the tip of her hoof between the pages, holding her place. She gestured to the cover. “This catalog was last updated last year. They magically copy the old pages and reprint them with newly discovered information. The new catalog won’t come out for another two years, sadly, but this is the most recent information we have on the items held in the archives.”

“And what if we need more recent information?” I asked, my eyes worriedly travelling to the daggers. “What if they do something we’re not expecting?”

Twilight caught my hint and looked skeptically at the blades lying in the grass.

“You think we should visit the archives?” I asked. “Just to be sure?” Twilight nodded slowly, placing a bookmark between the pages of the catalog and shutting it. Out of the corner of my eye I could see her aura surround the two blades and lift them back into the box they came from, shutting it tightly.

“You’re right, I can’t believe I didn’t think of that before…” Twilight trailed off, already turning around to head back to town, but stopping. “I might as well just teleport us back to the library now, right?” I nodded, smiling slightly.

“I think that would work,” I laughed, “yeah.” I walked up beside Twilight, who touched her hoof to my shoulder.

“Alright, here we go.”

With a blinding flash of light and a sudden bang, I found my hooves no longer standing on the soft grass of the Everfree boundary, rather the smooth, hard wooden boards of Twilight’s library. Stumbling around for a moment while I regained my balance, I rubbed my eyes with my right hoof, blinking to get the sting of the light out of my eyes.

“Damn, I’m never going to get used to that, am I?” I asked myself aloud. Twilight chuckled from somewhere beside me and I could hear the floorboards creak as she moved about.

“I’m going to have to teach you how to teleport now, aren’t I?” she laughed. I smiled.

Twilight and I had agreed that she wouldn’t teach me teleportation before the curse was lifted, mainly just because the shock of having something that looked like a monster appear right beside some unexpecting pony would be much too dangerous. I really only knew the basics of magic. I had mastered levitation and was able to keep more than ten small objects in the air at once and lift large, heavy objects—though of course not as many at once—, average illusion magic, and I’d been starting on abjuration the month before Twilight and I fought. Of course, I was still planning on learning more about abjuration—my fight with Twilight was more than enough reason to continue work on protective spells—but teleportation would be one of the most viable and useful schools of magic for me to work on in the future. Being able to teleport to faraway cities would be extremely helpful.

A schematic of two long, jagged pieces of silver metal floated in a cloud of black smoke above the long black marble countertop before condensing in on itself and dissipating ephemerally. Twelve crystal ponies sat around the uneven countertop, their faces hard to make out due to the general darkness of the atmosphere around them. The meeting hall was large, its vaulted ceiling home to a collage of bright lights, suspended in air like fireflies. They were the only light source in the entirety of the hall, casting dark shadows under the eyes of the ponies seated at the table. One of them scratched his chin nervously.

“Master… the target is in the good grades of four different Princesses now. Are you still suggesting we stay with our original plan?”

The cloud of smoke hanging over the room shot over to an empty space at the front of the table, materializing into two red and green eyes that glared across the room.

“Of course I am,” King Sombra spoke, glaring menacingly across the table at the pony sitting there. “Citrine, you were the one who drafted the plan. Are you suggesting we go against your ideas?”

“O-of course not, my lord,” Citrine spoke, shaking slightly. “I’m just saying… maybe we should rethink our strategy slightly?

“What do you suggest?” Sombra growled, narrowing his eyes and sweeping them across the table. Citrine gulped audibly and forced down his nervousness.

“At this m-moment in time, my lord… I’m not sure. I’ll need some extra time to work on it. At this point, however, I’d suggest continuing with our original plan until something changes. If anything, it will be small.”

King Sombra looked into Citrine’s eyes for a moment before flicking them away, materializing the schematics of the two pieces of jagged metal once again.

“The point still stands, he is a viable weapon for our cause…” Sombra drawled, redirecting the attention of the room back to himself. “With his abilities I have no doubt that we will succeed at this point.”

The temperature in the room dropped almost ten degrees once Sombra teleported away, leaving the ponies remaining in the room to shiver their way to the door and out into the crystal halls once again. Citrine walked faster than the rest, eager to get away from what had just happened, but before long he felt another pony sidle up to him, matching his pace.

“Citrine,” the pony started, “what happened back there?”

Citrine’s eyes shifted from the pony to the rest of the crowd, waiting until they had all passed by them before speaking again.

“I tripped up,” Citrine admitted, rubbing at his scalp with a hoof. “It won’t happen again.”

“Good to hear,” the pony replied, smiling and placing a hoof on Citrine’s shoulder. “We need to make sure Sombra has no inkling as to what either of us are doing behind the scenes.”

Citrine nodded in agreement. “I know,” he replied, brushing the other pony’s hoof off his shoulder, glaring. “I simply think we are in way over our heads on this.”

The other pony’s smile faltered for a moment before they turned away.

“Come on,” the pony spoke, gesturing with a white hoof. “We need to get back to planning for Sombra.”

“Planning?” Citrine said, laughing slightly despite the circumstances. “More like sabotaging.”

“You said it,” the pony replied, grinning. “We leave for Equestria in two days. Pack an extra bag. Once we warn the Princesses, Sombra will never know what hit him.”

Author's Notes:

Alright. This chapter isn't that bad. It's pretty bad, but it's not that bad. Okay. Now we're up to speed.