Butterfly in the Sky, I Can Go Twice As High

[elementofloyalty]

Characters: Rainbow Dash, Ed Elric, and Twilight Sparkle
Location: Twilight's room to start
Rating: PG (Ed is kinda foul-mouthed)
Open/Closed/Finished: Closed
Summary: Rainbow and Ed have a deal. Ed, if you will forgive the term, is ponying up his part first.



Knock knock knock. There's a Rainbow at Twilight's door.

"Twilight! Hey Twilight! I need your magical expertise!"

The pegasus pony practically radiated delight. She'd been looking forward to this for some time, now, and finally having the chance to put it into motion meant she was just plain thrilled.

Comments

[rewritethis]

"...but, you know, lately it's been kind of hard to keep track of - hrk."

Make no mistake, Dash - revenge is going to be sweet.

He made a spirited (and quite literal) attempt to shake her off. "Two hours, yeah, I heard her. And back here, right? I'll see you then."

Sure, his ingenious plan would fall to pieces if she took it upon herself to babysit follow him around the entire time, but what were the chances of that? He wouldn't spend a whole two hours with himself, given any other option.

[elementofloyalty]

Yes she would. As he headed off she flew right alongside him, rambling on about flying techniques, awesome things he needed to see from up high, the Wonderbolts, and occasionally Daring Do.

[marearcana]

Meanwhile, Twilight needed to check out a few books. She'd need more detailed knowledge of the human anatomy in order to properly realign the mana construction frame, and so forth, not to mention there had to be a way to get it to pass through clothes.

Once she'd gotten back to her room, it was time to tweak the formula.

One hour and fifty minutes later, it was ready.

[rewritethis]

One hour and fifty-seven minutes later, three guesses who had completely failed to get Rainbow Dash off his back, and the first two don't count.

With a hand over his ear in an attempt to block the relentless stream of Wonderbolts-related trivia - had she stopped yet? Hell if he knew! That would've meant paying attention! - he grouched his way down the corridor and didn't so much knock as hammer at Twilight's door.

[elementofloyalty]

"-and that's why Soarin' won the race by about twenty seconds," she concluded triumphantly as they came up. "Hey Twilight! You ready?"

[marearcana]

"Yes, I am. It would be better to find someplace more secluded to actually do it, though." After all, there was a statistically significant chance of them being seen in the corridors.

[rewritethis]

"Why? Someone in there already?" He craned over, obviously trying to get a better look at the room behind Twilight. But then his face fell even further, and he stopped. "Oh, don't tell me. You're gonna need the space." Which would, of course, make the whole thing much easier for just anyone to stumble across... That was how these things seemed to work for him, wasn't it?

[elementofloyalty]

"Quit worrying and let's do it!" Rainbow said, spinning a circle around the two of them impatiently. "Where do we need to go and why aren't we going there right now?"

[marearcana]

"I did get a roommate not too long ago, but she's out right now. The problem with doing it here would be getting you out of Garden without being seen."

[rewritethis]

"That'd help," he said dryly, turning to stride back out of the corridor for the second time today - although his air of resignation this time suggested that escape wasn't the first thing on his mind any more. At least, not for now. "Let's just get this over with. Look for a field outside or something so the monsters can gawk.

"...Unless you got any better ideas." The clear implication in his tone of voice: no, they probably didn't.

[elementofloyalty]

Rainbow, meanwhile, turned a twist in midair out in excitement. "All right! Let's go introduce the sky to an alchemist!"

[marearcana]

Eventually, the three had found a suitable secluded spot for spellcasting - a clearing out in some rather conveniently nearby grove.

"This should do pretty nicely," she said, having observed the area.

[rewritethis]

Sure, this place seemed sufficiently out of the way for their purposes. Ed still looked like he would have preferred it to be used for anything other than magic, though. And they were close enough to Garden that he wasn't entirely sure someone with good eyesight wouldn't be able to recognise him... the day was getting on, that was true, but the sky wasn't yet any colour he'd blend into particularly well.

But hey, he could always hope the actual magic part of this took long enough to improve his chances. And then maybe he could pretend to fall asleep or something, so they wouldn't expect him to do anything.

He gave the clearing another once-over, and, finding no sign of any potential distraction Twilight could have missed, flopped down next to the closest tree with a disgruntled sigh. "So what happens now?"

[elementofloyalty]

Rainbow opened her mouth and lifted a hoof to respond -- then stopped. "I don't know," she said, looking at Twilight. "I never actually saw you cast this spell."

[marearcana]

She remembered that day, and she remembered the shriek Rarity had let out as the spell was finishing...

"It sounded a little uncomfortable when I did it for Rarity, so I'll need to ask you to try not to squirm too hard. Are you ready?"

[rewritethis]

"Pain as well?" He laughed. It didn't sound like there was much humour in it. "You guys just keep making this sound better, don't you?"

But pain would be fine, he thought - especially compared to his discomfort with having any magic done to him in the first place. He was practically an expert. Two of his limbs were pretty much a testament to that.

Guessing that if Twilight was asking now then she was probably ready to cast the stupid thing right away, he began to get to his feet again. "Yeah, okay. Ready as I'll ever -" But he paused halfway through straightening up. "Wait. Where are these gonna attach, exactly? It's just..." Did Twilight know about his situation? He glanced at Rainbow. She knew, so maybe she'd mentioned it... Though, unless she had, he wasn't planning to elaborate. "If it's onto the skeleton, you might have a problem."

No, for once, he wasn't deliberately stalling. If someone were to try this kind of thing on an animal using alchemy, a question like that would be a fairly big deal. ...Not that this crap was like alchemy in any way, but he had to be sure.

[elementofloyalty]

"They aren't pegasus wings," she said, spreading her own by way of example. "No bones or muscles or anything. So that shouldn't be a problem."

She hadn't known about the potential for pain, and briefly felt guilty -- but then again, Ed was openly masochistic anyway, right? (He hung out with her after all.) She wasn't gonna say a thing about that.

[rewritethis]

That's not the kind of question he'd be comfortable with anyone asking, never mind a pony...

"Well, okay." He yawned. His lack of enthusiasm was almost impressive in its totality. "Enough with the suspense. Just do it."

[marearcana]

"All right then," she said, shifting into a more grounded position.

Twilight gathered her focus and energy into a bluish-white curtain which began to extend from her horn and around Ed's feet, slowly spiraling upwards. Not only can he see it clearly, he can also feel it, and while not painful, it's rather constricting.

[elementofloyalty]

She lifted a hoof to her eyes to shield them from the glare, but no WAY was she looking away. She wanted to see this!

[rewritethis]

The odd tightening sensation - initially only in one leg, but then spreading to the other as the light curtain climbed past his knee - was distracting enough to make him look down, and not a particularly enjoyable feeling. He remained silent, though.

This couldn't be the pain she'd mentioned, could it? This was nothing. Which meant he should probably have been mentally bracing himself for whatever came next, and part of him was, but it was a little difficult to keep the rest of his mind from wandering when faced with something he didn't understand. For a start, why the feet? What did they have to do with anything? Never mind that a detached part of him was still trying to remember the structure of gossamer, which he hadn't had a chance to look up...

[marearcana]

The wrapping continues to rise, and soon enough the binding is up to his neck.

It doesn't show signs of stopping, either.

[elementofloyalty]

This wasn't going to change Ed's opinion about magic at all, was it.

Lucky for Rainbow he was so stubborn that he had to go through with this because he agreed to it. She watched curiously, waiting for the wings to pop up.

[rewritethis]

Hey, this was no time to start assuming things about anyone's stubbornness! ...Although in this particular case, yes, stubbornness was at least half the reason he still hadn't tried to step away. The rest, well - would anything ugly happen if he did squirm too much? That was the sort of open question he'd rather investigate from a distance.

He was getting more uncomfortable by the second, though. No two ways around that. No matter how incorporeal it looked, the binding felt enough like a normal (and, under the right circumstances, perfectly lethal) rope to make him apprehensive. And at this point, he couldn't really get a clear look at what it was doing...

"Cute light show," he said, through gritted teeth. "Is it for anything, or do you just like watching me stand around?"

[marearcana]

And then in not a lot of time at all, perhaps as a response to that last bit, it quickly wraps around his head and starts squeezing very hard.

After a few seconds of that, it bursts away, revealing a pair of translucent red butterfly wings with splotches of a few other colors attached to the back of Ed's jacket. He can't feel them, other than in the place on his back where they otherwise would have been, but with a little thought he can control them fairly easily.

"All done. It usually does take a while, to answer your question."