The castle was in an uproar. When word arrived of the assassination attempt, Shining Armor had been ready to tear somepony's head off. He'd ridden the two guards who had been present up and down a rail over how they'd been so sloppy as to let down their guard, and had promptly demanded double the number of guards for every member of his family. The new Captains of the Royal, City and Imperial guard had immediately granted his request, too intimidated to do otherwise. He'd spent the remainder of the day fuming impotently at his circumstances.

Princess Cadence had been distraught. She had seen to her in-laws, sent her own physicians to make sure that Twilight was unhurt after her collapse and that the rest of them, Roller and Bright Eyes included, were unharmed. She'd even gone so far as to take them in as guests, till the circumstances surrounding the assassin were sorted out.

The Guard had been as discreet as possible, but they had thoroughly turned the pony assassin's life upside down and inside out, looking for clues or connections to a larger conspiracy. To their chagrin and their own growing sense of irony, what they discovered was that their incompetent assassin was a conspiracy theorist. His name was Glowing Ember, he was a single pony who worked as a street sweeper for the city, he had no family, no friends or associates, and had a history of psychological problems dating back to the fall of Sombra that was as thick as a Manehattan phonebook.  His apartment was a mess of abandoned takeout boxes, wallpapered with newspaper articles and strung with colored string running from wall-tack to wall-tack in a massive web showing nonsense connections between everything from the Equestrian Princesses to the price of cabbages in the gryphon kingdom. Glowing Ember had subsequently been pulled out of his cell, given medical treatment for the head to toe coat of live daisies he'd sprouted overnight, and remanded to custody of the Pokey Oaks psychiatric care center.(1)

Consequently leaving Shining Armor aware of the increased danger to his family, even at the very time he had been pushed into enforced idleness by Crystal Empire law.

The very next day Twilight, despite his complaints, had returned to work. She had insisted that the work had to continue, and unless Cadence and Shining were willing to sequester the entire blinking project team then there was no point in hiding away just one.

For some reason Night Light and Velvet had accompanied her as well; they said something about business to discuss with Certain Someponies, and had left it at that. Cadence had been forced to return to court to keep up appearances-- and to tend to the panicked queries by her infant court and probing inquiries by the press.

Leaving him, at the moment, a shut-in husband, he reflected grumpily. He had been clipped from the chain of command, he had no orders to give nor orders to follow. And circumstances were that he couldn't be a help to anypony.

Not anypony, he eventually reflected guiltily. There was one other pony in his family still here.

Nyx's little friend had been sent home, to cries of relief from his parents. Spike, though guilt had gnawed him, had gone with Twilight in the end (which made Shining feel marginally better; only a fool would discount the little dragonling as a protector, once his dander was up.) Nyx, however, was still here at the castle.

She had been something like second or third in importance in the delusional pony's obsessive conspiracy map.

Shining grimaced. He felt like a tool; he'd been puttering around the royal digs sulking because he wasn't in the middle of the action while a little filly was getting over the trauma of nearly being-- well, buried in shaving foam, but still.

When she'd gotten back to the palace her little legs had been shaking--

Time to get off my plot, he decided. He got up and went looking for the filly. She wasn't in Twilight's room; the last time he'd looked she'd been napping there. I hope she isn't in the kitchen again, he thought in mild amusement. Or the laundry room. Another event like that and she'll need therapy...

He started to go find Waldorf Salad or one of the other staff and ask them, but paused. He'd heard something. He listened for a moment to the quiet. Faintly, he heard a thump, like a book falling to the floor, followed by a muffled exclamation of frustration. The library of course. Twilight's daughter; he should have looked there first.

The library door was ajar. On an impulse he crept to the door and peeked in. Nyx was sitting in the middle of the floor, facing a large book lying on the carpet. She was glaring at it like it was her mortal enemy. As he watched, her horn lit up with an indigo aura. The same aura surrounded the book lying on the floor. Slowly, slowly the book rose up on one side. Nyx strained, her face scrunching up. The book flipped, rose up on one end, lifted up on one corner...

The filly held it there, straining for all she was worth, her eyes scrunched shut with the effort. The book didn't rise another inch. It stayed balanced on its corner like it was glued to the floor by it. A five count, a ten count, and she finally relented. The aura disappeared and she let out her breath in an enormous puff. The book flopped down, immobile once again.

She sat and looked at it for a second. Then her face darkened like a thundercloud. She got to her hooves. "Stupid stinking plothead BOOK!" she yelled. She gritted her teeth and gave the book a vicious kick right in the spine. It slid maybe five feet and flopped to the floor again, implacable as ever.

After the thunder, came the rain. Nyx's face scrunched up again, and tears filled her eyes. She started sobbing, her head hanging low. She stamped on the floor with her forehooves in an epic display of frustration. "Stupid book," she snuffled, wiping her nose on her cannon. "Stupid magic."

Shining rapped gently on the door. "Hey," he said.

Nyx started. "Uncle Shining!" she hastily tried to clean herself up, looking guiltily from the door to the kicked book lying on the floor. Shining decided to let the book go unmentioned. He came into the room and whisked a kerchief from his pocket to the filly's face, mopping her tears and wiping her face.

He pinched her nose gently in the kerchief. "Okay, blow." She gave a mournful honk. Shining wiped her nose and put the kerchief away. "Better?"

She scowled at the pocket holding the vanished handkerchief. "I can't even do that," she muttered.

Shining lay down on the floor next to her. "Problem, Nyxy Stix?" he said.

"You saw," Nyx said, accusing. "My magic is... doo doo." She waved her hoof at the book. "I can't even levitate a little book like that. I'm useless."

Shining regarded the book. Living with Twily had certainly given her a different perspective on what a 'little' book was; she was trying to levitate a Hoofster's Unabridged Dictionary. "Well, you're little, yet," he said consolingly. "Your magic's just growing in..."

"But I wasn't like this before!" Nyx burst out. She stood up. "Even before they turned me into Nightmare Moon, I was-- strong! I beat a whole team of colts at tug of war! I turned a pony into a tree and back again! I could DO stuff!" Her chin started to crumple. "And when I was Nightmare Moon-- and I know I'm bad for wanting it again, but I was so strong-- I beat up a manticore and a giant scorpion and a bunch of giant wolves and even a hydra! I saved ponies, I protected them! And now I'm so weak I can't even defend myself!

"And some horrible pony tries to blow us up, and I can't do anything except bite him on the leg..."

Shining reached out and pulled her into a hug. She buried his face against his neck. It was another painful epiphany; she and he were going through the same thing. Feeling helpless. To be that powerful, and then to wake up the next morning that weak, just when ponies needed you the most--  it had to hurt like hell.

He thought back to the first time he'd felt that helpless: Back when he'd been little older than Nyx was, and the bullies looked as tall as mountains, and his own magic had been struggling to come in. Maybe he couldn't help himself right now, but at least he could help her. "Hey you," he said softly.

"What?" Nyx snuffled.

"Quit wipin' boogers on my nice clean shirt." In spite of herself Nyx giggled. The kerchief made a repeat appearance, wiping her face clean. "Better?"

"I guess," Nyx said weakly.

"Come on into the kitchen," he said, getting up. "I got something I wanna show you."

"When I was your age," Shining said, moving around the kitchen, pulling an odd selection of things down from the shelves, "My magic was just... feh. Just wasn't happening. I was having all sorts of trouble doing the spells my teachers told me to do, I couldn't levitate anything, couldn't do transformations or shields or-- well, anything." He started setting things out on the countertop. "Well, there was this old codger of a unicorn who lived in our neighborhood, Crusty, his name was. Used to be a pie salesman. Grizzled old fella with a mashed up face and stubble all over his chin, always wore a squashed looking hat and a turtleneck sweater. One day he caught me moping over the magic practice exercises I was supposed to be doing. Something with pebbles, I think.

"Anyway, he asks me what the problem is, and I tell him that my magic is so lousy that I can't even do my magic school lessons with it. And you know what he says to me?"

Nyx sat forward on her stool, intrigued. "What?"

"He says, "Ya silly thing. Magic ain't for doin' homework. It's for doin' stuff ya need to do."

Nyx's brow furrowed. "Didn't you need to do your homework too?"

Shining Armor chuckled. "Well yes, but that wasn't his point. His point was that it wasn't about doing lessons or exercises. It was about getting things done that were useful."

"But what if your magic isn't strong enough to do useful stuff?" Nyx pouted.

"I asked that too. The next thing he said is that was "It ain't watcha got, it's watcha do wid it." "  He squinted one eye and puffed out one cheek as he said it. The imitation made Nyx giggle. "See, it isn't about being strong, it's about doing a LOT, with just a LITTLE. And you can do a whole lot of useful stuff with just a little bit of magic if you're smart." He set a pitcher of water on the counter, and set an empty cup next to it. "Now suppose I wanted to fill this cup full of water. How would I do it?"

"You pick up the pitcher with your magic and pour," Nyx said matter-of-factly.

"Well suppose I couldn't pick up the pitcher?" he said. Nyx frowned, stumped. Shining grinned. "Well, for starters I could do this--" and he picked up the cup and dipped it into the open pitcher, filling it.

Nyx facehoofed. "Oh, doi."

Shining Armor laughed. He emptied the cup and set it back down. "Okay, now what if you can't lift the pitcher OR the cup?"

Nyx thought it over. Then an idea lit up her face. Her horn glowed. Slowly, a dollop of water formed on the top of the pitcher, broke free, and floated over and down to the cup. There was a tiny 'splish' and the cup was nearly half full. "Very good!" Shining enthused. "Now try doing a steady stream..."

Nyx concentrated again. This time the water formed a pencil thin stream that arced out of the pitcher and into the cup. It was even easier than the dollop of water had been. To her surprise, once the water arced all the way down it was even easier, like the water was doing most of the work itself. "Oh, I get it-- a siphon!" she said suddenly.

"Exactly," Shining said.(2) "A lot of times, once you get something going, you can keep it going with just a little push here and there." He moved over to some paper napkins. "Now that's just the first thing he showed me. I'm gonna show you all the little tricks he taught me.

       "Okay, suppose you need something to burn? Being able to shoot fire from your horn is cool. But sometimes you just need a tiny flame to start...."

He went from there, showing her dozens of little tricks, tiny spells that her little bit of magic could do easily. A match lighting trick, a trick that would make a bowl of a spoon rust through, a trick for folding paper, one for knotting and unknotting string and (if you pushed hard) rope, one for cutting things, one for making them stick together, how to shoot a spark that would give a little shock-- like shuffling your hooves across a rug, only a little bit stronger, a spell to make water freeze, or ice melt, or (more useful) heat up your soup or cool it down if it was too hot, a trick that jiggled locks and other simple mechanical things till they opened or unlocked or turned on, a spell that made anything taste like soap (she was SO using that on Diamond Tiara when she got back home), one that would make a spot on the floor slippery.. they all only did a tiny little bit, or were slow, but they were all nifty. "And the stronger you get, faster they'll work and the more you'll be able to do with them," he told her.

The ones that interested her the most, of course, were the ones that were really useful in a fight. She was a foal, but she wasn't foalish; she didn't imagine for a minute that every conflict could be resolved by trying to make friends. Nearly getting eaten by a hydra was enough to learn that. "A good solid horn-zap, especially in the right place, can save your plot in a fight," he said. He jabbed his horn into a pillow he'd thrown on the floor, giving it a jolt. "In fact, even a weak blow or punch-- or kinetic jab-- in the right place can drop a pony right where they stand. For instance here--" he tapped the inside of Nyx's knee; to her surprise her leg seemed to fold of its own accord. "hit someone like that, even with a tiny little magic push, and they'll drop to the ground."

"Weird," Nyx said, flexing her leg.

"Okay, now let's try some cooler magic stuff," Shining said. He went around the kitchen, filling up the sinks, then filling up several pitchers and buckets.  "Pick up a ball of water from the sink. As big as you can make it." Nyx complied; after a few fumbles and spills, and most of it sloughing away, a rippling ball of water about the size of an orange rose from the sinks Shining Armor had plugged and filled. "That's an exercise you can do," Shining Armor noted. "Making globes of water over and over again. It helps you build up your 'magic muscle.' Okay, now throw it at me."

Nyx looked at him uncertainly. "Really?"

Shining nodded. "It's why we're in the kitchen. Tile finish and drains in the floors. Go ahead. Fire away."

Nyx complied. It never reached its intended target, splattering and spilling down a shimmering circular forcefield. "That's how you practice your shields," he said. "Pelting each other's forcefields with water is safe, easy to clean up, and it builds up your skill with shielding and with launching attacks. Here, now you try blocking me." He hefted a small ball of water, about the size of a grape. Nyx concentrated, building up the spell Shining armor had showed her. A pale, shimmering indigo wall, about the size of a kite shield, appeared between her and Shining. It wouldn't stop a real attack; anything much more than a softly lobbed baseball would punch through. But it would stop a few ounces of water, easy.

"Okay, I--" the grape sized dollop of water hit her between the eyes. She spluttered and shook the water out of her face. "What--" another blop of water drenched her. "Hey, I wasn't ready!" she scowled.

"Right, sorry," Shining said. "I'll give you a second to warm up."

Nyx scrunched her face up for a second, her horn glowing. "All right, I think I'm..." Splish. Water dripped from her mane. "Hey!"

"Oh come on," Shining teased, lowering his own shield. "Now would a bad guy stand there and let you warm up? Now, what you need to do is---"

Splursh. The glob of water hit him square in the face. He shook his drenched mane out of his face. Nyx stood there with an innocent look on her face, and another, slightly larger dollop of water,  hovering at the ready.

He smirked. "Oh, so it's going to be like--" Splosh. The second, unseen water ball hit him from behind. He stood there, dripping.

She stood there, smirking... her water globe still ready, shield still up.

The tableau froze just for a moment. "Oh, it is on now--" Shining said, grabbing another watery projectile.

"Eeeek!" Nyx squealed, tossing her waterball and running for it.

"Gotcha!"

"Missed me, ha--" BOOSH "Awgh!"

Splat!

"Yeek! Oh, you chilled that one, you little stinker!"

The water war raged back and forth across the kitchen. Splashing, shouting and hoots of laughter filled the air as anything moving and nearly everything not was spattered with flying tapwater. And, to Shining's unspoken satisfaction, he noted that as the fight raged on and Nyx let go of her anxiety she began levitating larger waterballs, and more of them at a time. In a few minutes she had half a dozen grape to orange-sized watery globes orbiting around her.  Her shield was pretty good too, and getting stronger as she relaxed and went with the flow; catching most-- but not quite all-- of the liquid flung her way.

Her aim might have improved too if they both hadn't been laughing so hard.

All good things must come to an end, or at least a transition. Neither of them had any warning when Cadence came walking in. It was too late; they had both unleashed a volley from opposite sides of the kitchen.

"Shining? Nyx? I came down from court for lunch and---"

Splosh. Splash. Spat. Blorsh. Boosh. Splush.

Everyone froze in various states of shock.  The two miscreants stared slackjawed as the Princess of the Crystal Empire, Alicorn of Love, great grandniece of the Diarchy of Moon and Sun, Princess Mi Amore Cadenza stood there, drenched from head to toe and dripping on her kitchen floor.

There was no hesitation. Hooves pointed.

"He did it!"

"She started it!"

"SHI-NING!" Cadence yelled through the drenched curtain of her mane.

Shining was a wise stallion.(3) "Retreat!" The two of them bolted.

"Come back here, you--"