Archmage: Square One

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Chapter 7 – Walking

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Nopony learns as fast as one of Twilight’s students. Following her return from Trottingham and the rather concerning revelation of my mysterious destiny, I began advancing by leaps and bounds. I came to find that Twilight’s instruction had laid a very firm foundation for me to build upon. I knew the basics of every branch of magic; even Nature and love. Under her tutelage, I began to grow.

At a scary rate.

Six months later, I found myself on the castle grounds, with Twilight standing opposite me. A chill wind swept across the lawn, sending a shiver down my spine. The sky was overcast and grey. The weather team would probably be dropping snow on our heads in a few minutes. Not that Twilight cared, she was too busy strapping her wings against her body with several thick-looking belts.

“Remind me again why you’re doing that?” I asked, frowning a little. Twilight grinned up at me as she slid the tongue of the last belt through its loop, effectively locking her wings away.

“I honestly doubt there will come a day when you’re going to have to fight one of us, Star. SO I’m becoming a regular unicorn for the purpose of your test today.”

“Right.” I blushed a little at the thought of Twilight ‘becoming’ anything other than the tall, winged beauty I’d come to admire and care for over the past eight months or so. Still, there was another factor I was more worried about. “So… What about your magic?”

“Hmm?” Twilight cocked her head to the side a little. “What do you mean?”

“You’re… Well, with or without wings, you’re still the most powerful mage in existence. Even if I were a million years down the road in my development, I’d still be way under your power level…”

“You’re just going to have to find a way to overcome that, Star.” Twilight smiled once more before spreading her hooves a little. “I have faith in you. Are you ready?”

“No.” I groaned, but I spread my stance anyways.

“Begin.”

“Woah!” The first shot of energy streaked across the grass, burning foliage in its wake. I rolled to the side, wincing as the screaming bolt passed right between my hind legs, shearing more than a little hair off my tail. The second bolt was on its way before I had righted myself, and I watched it come with horror in my eyes.

“Help me!”

”I am here, child.”

*WHA-BAM!*

A dark bubble of energy erupted into existence, and the bolt impacted it with the force of the moon itself falling to Equestria. I felt the ground shake beneath my hooves as the night’s barrier deflected Twilight’s bolt. Another shock of energy shook me, but I was safe in here. The night kept me protected as I closed my eyes and focused my energy.

”Oh now that’s just mean.”

“Huh?” I glanced down as the tendrils of shadow energy began creeping up my hooves. “Thank you!”

The night was gone, and I stood before Twilight, my horn glowing brightly. The tendrils shrunk before the light, and I saw a look of admiration pass Twilight’s face…

Right before I blasted it. The long bolt of light streaked forth, screaming with intensity as it made for Twilight. I lost track of her behind the intense glare, and as my spell ran its course, nothing but a smoldering line of grass remained where Twilight once stood.

’You’re not gone… You either shielded yourself with a transparency arc, or…’

*Paff*

“Aha!” I wheeled about, grinning as I saw Twilight appear from thin air. With a cry of triumph, I charged her, my horn blazing as I shot several rapid-fire streaks of daylight straight at her. Twilight teleported away from the first two and deflected the third, but the fourth caught her full in the face. I grinned with giddy triumph as she stumbled about, delirious and dazed.

“RRAH!” Growling with emotion, I aimed the next spell at her hoof. Twilight stumbled and tripped as the radiant band of energy gripped her legs, spilling her on the ground. And she, quite literally, spilled. Like water. I watched in horror as her form melted and dripped until a thin puddle of purple-ish liquid covered the grass. Then, with a slight amount of primal survival instinct, I wheeled back to where I had last seen Twilight. She loomed up in my view, grinning deviously as her horn lit up brightly.

“Shit!” I rolled away as a pillar of purple energy slammed into the ground where I had just been a moment ago. Another followed me, taking a decent chunk of my mane and a small bit of my shoulder with it. I cried out as the intense pain lanced straight through my body and into my mind. I could feel the bones in my shoulder breaking, shifting against one another as I tried to limp away. To no avail, as I slumped onto the ground helplessly just a few feet away. Chest heaving, my eyes wide, I watched as Twilight advanced on me.

“Not bad for your first time.” She chuckled as her horn lit up once more. I flinched for a moment, half-expecting the finishing blow to slam into me any moment. Instead, a gentle caress wound around my shoulder, knitting the shattered bones together one-by-one. The pain faded away into memory as Twilight finished healing me. “You just need to remember transparency arcs.”

“I did,” I sighed as Twilight helped me up. I put my weight on my right foreleg tentatively, but found it to be strong and able. “Your clone just surprised me.”

“Water’s tricky like that.” Twilight nodded back to the purple puddle, which had faded in color until regular water sat on the lawn, glistening faintly in the dull light overhead. “Throw a little bit of changeling magic into the mix, and you’ve got a convincing clone.”

“You even made it act like you.” I tore my gaze away from the puddle to smile up at Twilight. “I’m impressed.”

“Well, not to boast or anything…” Twilight’s horn leapt to life once more as she pulled the buckles off of her wings, stretching them languorously.

“Still, you could just as easily have blasted me – and the whole palace – into oblivion. Instead you used the easiest way to achieve the best results with the least amount of energy.” I sighed and hung my head. “I always feel like I’m over-stretching myself.”

“Relax,” Twilight smiled as she laid a wing over my back. “We’ve only just taken our first step into combat. You’ll learn things like conservation and finesse in time.”

“Yeah.” I smiled up at her. “In time.”

“So,” Twilight ushered me back towards the castle, her magic already winding into the scorched and torn-up grass we’d left behind. I glanced back as the grass grew green and whole once more, and all evidence of our sparring session was erased. “How are things with you and Lotus?”

“Good,” I trailed off when I realized Twilight had healed my shoulder, but not my tail or mane. “Though she might just murder you.”

“If only I could fix it,” Twilight chuckled. “I can make new hair grow, but I can’t replace damaged hair.”

“Could you?” I asked. “I had planned on seeing her today anyways. She’ll jump at the chance to take a little more off the top.”

“Sure thing. Let’s get warmed up first, though. Growing hair with cold follicles makes it curly.”

“… That makes more sense than I’d care to think about.” I shook my head with a grin and followed Twilight into the castle proper. The guards hardly cast us a second glance as we walked, though I did take note that there were just as many today as there had been the past six months. Their presence had faded away to the realm of ordinary by now, but now and then I could be caught sneaking glances at the cuter ones.

Twilight led me straight to her and Luna’s quarters, a place I was happy to admit I’d grown more and more familiar with as the months went on. Twilight invited me over for dinner, lunch, or even a candlelit study session now and then. Luna chipped in quite often with some valuable lessons on shadow magic now and then, and I’d found that under her tutelage, I’d come to accept the night as a constant companion, one who was readily available to assist and always there. Always watching.

Masturbation had become a little bit more awkward in light of that fact, but still…

Twilight ushered me inside and made straight for the kitchen, and soon enough I could smell the delicious scent of hot cocoa. “You’re spoiling me,” I called to her with a slight grin. Twilight’s cocoa was bar-none the most amazing thing I’d ever tasted in my life. I swear, she put caramel in it or something. It was always so creamy and rich, and the perfect temperature for sipping. I strode to the fireplace and hastily sparked the tinder, smiling as the logs caught and a healthy blaze sprung up in the hearth. I began stomping the numbing coldness out of my legs as the fire began to grow warmer, and Twilight joined me with the cocoa.

“Cheers.”

“Bottom’s up.” I clinked our mugs together and took the first sip, moaning faintly. “A mare could get used to this…”

“How do you think I managed to keep Luna interested all these years?” Twilight and I laughed as we sat before the fire. As per usual, Twilight pulled a book out and began quizzing me. “Alright, what were we discussing yesterday?”

“Bi-fractured and compound nodes.” I answered off-hoofedly. Twilight nodded and flipped the book open to a random page, scanning the contents before seemingly settling on something.

“Alright, let’s see… Common misconceptions about bi-fractured nodes include…?”

“That they need two separate energies imbued to function. Bi-fractured nodes can be filled with two of the same energy, which usually has the effect of amplifying a spell’s effect, or in some cases doubling the product.” I sipped at my cocoa disinterestedly. Twilight was taking it easy.

“Difference between a bi-fractured and compound node?”

“Bi-fractured nodes are created when two arches overlap at the same point a node would be, resulting in two nodes at the same place. A compound node is a place where two intersecting spell-forms meet that have a same node. The difference being bi-fractured nodes exist in one spell-form, while compound nodes exist in multiple spells simultaneously.” She was REALLY going easy on me today.

“Can a bi-fractured node be a compound node?”

“No.”

“And who discovered that?”

“Ooh…” Curveball. I frowned as my brain began chugging. Twilight was also really good at throwing me for a loop with our quizzes. “Uum… Archmage Blue Moon?”

“And the name of the study…?”

“Oh come on.” I sighed, rubbing my temples. “By the heavens, I read it just three days ago… It was, uum… Oh… Shit.”

“Inverted and…”

“-Inverted and duplicate arches! Circa 2459!” I raised my hooves in triumph as the knowledge came to me in a flash. Twilight nodded warmly, her lips curled in an appreciative smile as she flipped the page.

“Alright, then. What about…”

“Woah!” I gasped as a tingling sensation overcame my scalp, making my whole head crawl with the sensation; not unlike millions of tiny spiders all over my head.

“You wanted me to grow your hair out, didn’t you?” Twilight chuckled as I looked up to her faintly-glowing horn. “Keep answering the questions; it’ll distract you from the feeling.”

“Right.” I shuddered a little as my scalp continued to tingle. Twilight kept me distracted while the magic worked its wonder, and by the time she had finished, my hair was probably twice as long as I had remembered. And that was a lot of hair. As I sat on the floor, it pooled around my hooves and hung all the way down my front. I could have – quite literally – wrapped myself in my mane and gone to a fancy ball. Granted, I’d probably have been removed, but we really didn’t have any need to wear clothes outside of important social interactions.

Point being I had a lot of hair.

Like, a lot of fucking hair.

So much hair.

“Twilight, how do you expect me to walk home with my mane like this?”

“You’re not walking home.” Twilight turned to her desk and began penning a letter. “You’re going to see Lotus.”

“What? I just saw Lotus two days ago… And besides, do you really want me to go see the one mare who would legitimately hate you for what you did to my mane?”

“I really do. Besides,” Twilight pulled a drawer open and withdrew a small sack of bits, dumping a fair bit of them into a large envelope she had nearby. She then tucked the letter into it and sent the thing through the window with a glimmer of magic. “This one’s on me, considering I’m the one who did that to your mane.”

“Twilight, you didn’t have to…” I blushed deeply, raising a hoof to discourage her. “I mean, I can always just braid it tighter… Maybe wear it around my neck like some of those Manehattan models have been doing…”

“Trust me, Star. Just go see Lotus and then go home. It’s going to be a chilly night, and I don’t want you getting caught out there. Now go.” She shooed me towards the door. As soon as I stood, though, I caught the edge of my extended mane, wrenching my head to the side and sending me off-balance. I sprawled onto my face, and through the curtain of hair, I could see Twilight fighting laughter.

In the end, we both lost.

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“Star! What in the name of all things beneath the sky did you do to your mane?!” Lotus was livid, as I expected her to be. I walked into her spa and was almost immediately beset by a full contingent of spa technicians. Lotus was among them, running her hooves through my mane with scrutiny.

She let out a mighty gasp, enough to hurt my ears, in fact. I winced as she came across the damaged portions of my tail and mane, her eyes tearing up like it was some great tragedy.

Than again, Lotus’ devotion to my mane and tail was monumental (and borderline insane) so I could understand her rage. I was shuttled into the salon with haste, thrust into the shower, and surrounded by Lotus and two of her employees. Thus began the most intense and uncomfortable shower of my life, where I was scrubbed, shampooed, conditioned, and scrubbed again for good measure before they restarted the process. Nevertheless, when I was pulled out of the shower and blast-dried by a spell Lotus happened to know, my mane was probably in the best shape I’d ever seen it; ratty burn strands and all.

I really didn’t have much say in the matter. For as many times as Lotus cried ‘WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR MANE?!’ I never really got the chance to answer that question. Instead, I sat in silence as the damaged starnds were cut out, and my whole mane was given a fresh cut. Lotus alternated between grumbling over what a travesty the damage to my hair was and asking me what happened. Which I still couldn’t answer.

Nevertheless, two hours and two ends of my body later, Lotus had finished repairing and styling. I had always enjoyed my hair in a simple braid, but Lotus seemed to take it a step further than what I was used to. There was something about the way she cut my mane that made braiding it not only easy, but stylish as well. The extra growth Twilight had given me was just long enough that I could still keep my style, and the damage done had been snipped off the end.

“Honestly,” Lotus stood behind me, fretting over the way my braid fell down my neck. “What DID happen to your mane?”

“Oh, Twilight and I have… Well, we’ve started sparring.”

“You mean she’s teaching you combat magic?” Lotus pulled back a bit, looking shocked. “That’s… Good, I suppose, but awfully risky. Aren’t you afraid she’s going to hurt you?”

“She already did,” I rolled my shoulder, sighing a little. “She broke my shoulder, and a good part of my leg too.”

“Star!” Lotus’s hooves shot to her mouth. “Did it hurt?”

“Of course it did.” I shuddered at the memory of that pain, and how it had so suddenly and viciously taken hold of my mind. “I was out after that. Twilight healed me, of course, and I’m fine… But holy stars, that hurt.”

“You might not be cut out for combat…” Lotus mused, moving on to my tail now.

“That’s the thing, though…” I sighed wistfully, closing my eyes and looking up to the ceiling. “I loved it.”

“You’re joking.”

“No, really!” I looked back at Lotus with a stupid grin on my face. I’d been holding it in since the end of the fight, but I couldn’t any longer. “I was so COOL! You should have seen me, I was rolling out of the way of her spells, and I could think so fast. Oh Lotus you should have seen it, you’d have thought I had her dead to rights! I blasted her with a beam spell and I heard her teleport behind me, so I just charged right at her, and WHAM!” I stomped a hoof, my giddiness peaking. “I hit her right in the face!”

“You… Struck the princess… In the face…” Lotus looked pale (an accomplishment for we light-coated ponies.)

“No, it wasn’t actually her… She’d made a clone of herself using changeling magic and a big blob of water. Ingenious, really… Gosh, I love learning things like that. I want to try it!”

“Sounds like you actually enjoyed yourself…” Lotus chuckled, shaking her head. I knew her to be a very non-confrontational pony at heart, so hearing about fights and such dangerous activities as casting spells at another pony specifically designed to do harm was not only different, but uncomfortable for her. I blushed and quieted down, shuffling my hooves out of embarrassment.

“Yeah… Yeah I kinda did…”

“Well anyways,” Lotus stepped back with a smile. “You look divine, Star. You really ought to consider yourself lucky. Such a beautiful mane and tail…” She ran a hoof through both of them one more time, and my blush intensified.

“Thanks, Lotus. It means a lot that I have somepony so invested in… Well, me.”

“Are you implying you aren’t invested in yourself?” Lotus quipped, nudging me playfully. I gave her a nervous chuckle and awkwardly rubbed my leg with the opposite hoof.

“No, I am… But, you know… I’m invested in my education. It’s nice to have somepony that cares about how I look, not just how I study.”

“Star,” Lotus’ voice turned surprisingly soft as she laid a hoof on my back. “You’re a beautiful mare. I’m sure you’ll find somepony soon.”

“PFFT WHAT?!” I could have died. “Where did that come from?!”

“Mare’s intuition,” Lotus winked at me as she sat back. “It’s been on your mind, has it not?”

“Well, now that you mention it…” I pulled my braid between my hooves, stroking it slowly. “I have missed the presence of someone else, yeah…”

“Told you.” Lotus chuckled and fell back into silence, gesturing for me to continue.

“Well, you know, I have my parents, who are invested in my education… Twilight and Luna, who are invested in my education… Me, who’s… Heck, I’m married to my education.” I closed my eyes and sighed once more. “I just… don’t have anyone who’s invested in me. You know… As a mare.”

“I think…” Lotus stood and smiled at me, laying a hoof on my back once more. “I may have a solution to your problem.”

“Really?” I perked up a little. Lotus, as often as I had visited her, had never really struck me as the sort of pony who’d go so far to do a thing like that. I’m not sure if it was because she was married or because every time I visited it was always straight to business with my hair, but she never struck me as a matchmaker. At least, not outwardly. That is, if she were making a match for me at all. She might just be-

“You see, Breeze and I have a mutual friend who helps out cleaning at the spa now and then,”

Yup. She’s a matchmaker.

“And I think you two might get along. She’s a little shy and kind of awkward, but once you get her to open up, she’s just a whole bundle of wonder. Are you free later on this week?”

“Yeah, actually.” I ran over my schedule in my head. The past six months had been a blitz of learning and reading; I was surprised to find myself in the dead of winter with very little recollection of how I got there, save a whole slew of new spells and enchantments. One of which came in handy on the cold nights. I was excited to give it another whirl when I got home that evening; especially since I’d have to take a long shower with my new haircut.

“Brilliant!” Lotus drew me out of my reverie with a warm hug. “Just come here Friday night. We’ll introduce you to our friend and you two can get to know one another!”

“It’s a date.” I chuckled as Lotus pulled back. “I’ll be excited to meet Fair Breeze as well. She sounds like a nice mare.”

“Once you get to know her,” Lotus rolled a hoof. “She tends to be a little… Aah… Brash.”

“Well that’s fine.” I mulled the thought over in my head. “I think I could use a little volatility in my life.”

“As long as none of that ‘volatility’ ruins your mane. Honestly!” Lotus brushed her hooves across my bangs, fretting even more. “Combat magic! Really?!”

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The short trot home was bracing and had me shivering by the time I arrived. I stepped through the door remembering how much I loathed the cold Trottingham winters, which could quite literally freeze a pony if they stayed out too long. Compared to those, Canterlot’s winters were a cool breeze on an autumn evening. Which I was very thankful for.

Nevertheless, I felt light as a feather. Lugging my extended and damaged mane from the castle to the spa had made me realize how much of a hindrance my hair really was, but coming home after the spa was a liberating experience. The wind played across my scalp when it gusted heavily enough, and I could feel the ends of the long strands against the lower parts of my neck. My braid was frayed and useless as I made for the bathroom, which was perfectly fine because I needed to take a nice, long shower to remove the stray strands that weren’t caught by Lotus’ masterful manestyling technique.

Not to undermine Lotus and her skill, but nopony knew my mane quite like me. As my horn cranked the water on hot, I began running my hooves through my braid, starting from the bottom and working my way up. The tie came loose, and I sighed with relief as the pressure on my scalp was released at long last. Steam billowed into the bathroom, tantalizing me with the promise of a hot embrace as soon as I stepped into the tiled embrace of my comfy little haven.

And oh how divine it felt. The chill of winter fled as soon as I slid under the stream, closing my eyes like a mare experiencing her first orgasm in a month. It felt divine, that wonderful mixture of pain and warmth that inundated me. I felt my head spin a little as I leaned against the cool shower wall, following the sensation of water running over my coat from the back of my neck to my hooves.

My hair unwound slowly, matted down with water until it hung to about the start of my legs. Even that was unnaturally short for me, but the change felt nice. I felt tighter. Faster.

Sexier.

Given the ridiculous amount of shampoo and conditioner Lotus had used, I didn’t feel the need to do anything but sit there and soak up the heat. Well, that and brush my mane. I levitated the brush from my sink and into the shower, running it through my mane one long, slow stroke at a time. It felt good to sit there and just pay attention to the smaller details, using my sense of touch and my magic to run the brush through every last inch of my mane.

Soon enough, my haunches ached for the tender kiss of heat, so I turned about to pay my back end some much-needed love. The brush found its way to my tail, which grew equally wet as the shower worked its own magic. The slow, smooth pulls along my tail were every bit as nice as my mane. For me, I always loved paying more attention to my mane than my tail. I mean, come on, in pony culture, it might as well have been an ankle-length skirt. I saw a lot of high-class ponies on the streets with tail styles far more liberal and revealing than mine.

But sitting there, pulling on it, feeling the muscles at the dock of my tail contract and flex each time I pulled the brush up close to it…

Yup. Nothing in the world could have stopped me.

“Aahn…” The first tentative touch the handle of the brush made against my swollen clitoris was like a tidal wave of pleasure rolling through my veins. I sighed happily, gingerly rubbing the rounded end of the brush’s handle up and down my lips to accumulate a different sort of wetness than the shower’s water. Other than a few brief dalliances in bed, I hadn’t really done anything to assuage the ever-present blaze in my gut. To have even a short while to devote to masturbation for the sake of masturbation had me as giddy as a school filly on prom night.

I’m paraphrasing; I never went to prom.

Shut up. I can dream, alright?

And my dreams just then consisted of somepony else inside that shower with me, taking ahold of that brush and doing some downright devious things to me. My magic would have to do for that, but I knew a spell that was just up to the task.

“Thank you ‘Studies in Animation’ by Archmage Kindle…” I moaned, formulating the arches and nodes in my mind. As soon as I cast the spell, my magic slipped out of my control a little, taking hold of the brush. I had given it a set of parameters, and now my magic took over to fulfill those parameters. I groaned as the brush pressed a little more firmly against my entrance, peeling my lips aside smoothly. I leaned against the shower once more, closing my eyes and turning my face up to the ceiling.

“There we go…” I groaned as the brush’s handle finally took over, sliding between my parted lips and gliding into me with an almost shocking amount of ease. Then again, this was my go-to handle for stress relief, so one could say I was ‘accustomed’ to it. Not that that was a bad thing, just that I might have to stop spending my money on dirty magazines and actually save up for a new player in my bedroom.

I’d seen several of the newer vibrators on my last trip to my favorite sex shop, ones that were permanently enchanted with the animation spell I was using now. A unicorn could alter the parameters themselves, or regular ponies could stick to one of three settings. They were unique little contraptions that moved and acted all on their own. The store owner had raved for all of the thirty seconds I was in the store about how amazing they were and how I should buy one.

As the brush handle slid inside of me, picking up in pace, I began to seriously consider stretching my funds for a new purchase. Or maybe I could just wait a few more weeks for the next batch of bits from the castle.

As the brush handle angled inside of me, I tensed up, drawing a hissing breath through my teeth even as my core muscles flexed around the adventurous intruder.

“Yeah, I can wait… You never know what you can do with magic these days.” The handle began gliding into me at an angle that pressed against my g-spot with every smooth, even thrust. I knew it was my g-spot because my brain decided to take a leave of absence every time it slid in. One moment I’m thinking about pleasurable pony vibrators, and the next I’m reduced to a drooling, panting slob of a pony. My thighs twitched and I heard my own moans echoing off the tile walls to come back to me. I thanked small miracles that my tiny home sat relatively alone near the edge of the city, backed up to the mountain on one side and a café’ on the other, which wouldn’t even open until six in the morning.

My moans became a little more daring in light of the fact there was nopony within hearing distance. Each new exhalation brought an ever-louder cry from my throat, drowning out the ever-present hiss of water on hide and tile. I felt my tongue loll out of my mouth, dripping saliva onto the swirling puddle of water and arousal sliding down the drain.

It happened in a flash. My whole body seemed to tense up as the brush slid in deeper than ever, passing over my g-spot and laying the base of its shaft on the hard bump inside me. I flexed nice and hard, bending the handle even more until it felt like my hindquarters would explode. The waves of bliss rolled through me, robbing all sense of decency for a few wonderful, transcendental moments.

And then it was gone. I was left weak-legged with a hairbrush inside my marehood, and the musky scent of cum in the air. With a sigh, I dispelled the animation and pulled my hairbrush out of me. After rinsing off and spending a little more time under the slightly-cooler stream of water, I cranked the shower off and stepped out.

’Animation spells are nice and all,’ I thought to myself as the towel wrapped itself around my form. ’But why waste the effort when I could have somepony else do it for me? … Yeah right, not in a million years…’ I stepped into my room, shuffling the towel through my mane as I glanced at my calendar. I paused, my hair hanging half around my eyes as I rested my gaze on Friday.

“Then again, maybe I don’t have to wait a million years.”