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

[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."

[rewritethis]

No sooner does the sensation tighten enough to finally elicit a grunt from him than it evaporates, leaving him - well, disoriented might be too gentle a description. Having his sense of proprioreception thrown completely off balance isn't a situation he often needs to put words to. Sure, he used to have four limbs, but...

He rubs his eyes, mentally shaking off the vestiges of the pain, then gingerly cranes his neck to look over his shoulder. Or, more accurately, just between his shoulders.

"Insect wings...?" There's probably a short joke in there somewhere, but for once he's too distracted to latch onto it.

Experimentally, he essays a little wave of one of them. It glitters slightly as it moves.

To be honest, he's not sure what he was expecting. All either of the ponies had said - implied, really - was that they'd look dumb. And they do, it's true - but after all this trepidation, seeing the real thing feels almost anticlimactic. Hell, he even likes red.

Still, the shape could stand to be cooler. Happily, Twilight already helpfully told him what they were made out of. He looks down at his hands, furrows his brow briefly in concentration, starts to bring his palms together -

- and notices his feet are several inches off the ground.

"What the -" He tries to twist round again, only to belatedly realise he has no idea how to manoeuvre when more or less suspended in mid-air. "What the hell?! I didn't do that!"

[elementofloyalty]

Rainbow had promised not to laugh, and she wasn't -- not even with delight, as she shot up into the air with him. "It's that EASY, Ed! When did I ever make flying look hard?"

She spun around him, not thinking that he could probably use with fewer distractions than more. "You actually made 'em look pretty cool, Twilight." For butterfly wings. "Was that on purpose or did it just happen?"

[marearcana]

"I think it just... happened. The book I originally got it from didn't go into very much detail about how the spell generates their appearance."

That might be something for her to look into later, if she ever got around to it. She doubted she'd have the need to use this again, but that didn't mean she wasn't going to keep it.

[rewritethis]

From Ed's direction came the sound of the hand clap he'd attempted just a few seconds ago, followed by... no glowing or crackling, but there was a surprised yelp as he reached too far over his shoulder and inadvertently rolled backwards in mid-air.

(Would that have counted as human transmutation if he'd been a bit more coordinated? Maybe that was why they were more difficult to catch than they looked...)

He steadied himself with a couple of slow wingbeats, then immediately wondered how he'd known to do that. Oh, this was stupid. Rarely in his life had he ever wished he was any closer to the ground.

Frustrated, but still a little too dizzy to try again right away, he sighed and let his limbs dangle uselessly beneath him. "Great," he said. "What else didn't it go into detail about? Anything like 'how the hell to get down'?"

[elementofloyalty]

She swooped up to Ed's side, patting his shoulder comfortingly. "They're just like any other limb, Ed, you don't 'think' about it -- you just do it, and they respond. You should have all the instincts built into you from the spell. Here, follow me!"

Down Dash dropped to the floor again.

[rewritethis]

Well, clearly someone's never had to deal with automail rehabilitation.

Gingerly, trying not to overthink it (both because of Rainbow's suggestion and because seriously, how the hell had he been talked into this?), he lowered himself until his boots were planted on solid ground again. It didn't reassure him nearly as much as he'd been hoping - sure, his feet were in the grass instead of hanging just above it, but that jarring feeling of weightlessness hadn't changed in the slightest.

He resolved to put a brave face on it, though. Or rather a scowl, which for him amounted to almost the same thing.

"Okay. Point taken. You can make a person fly. Do we really have to go through all of the rest?"

[elementofloyalty]

"Yes. Come on."

She grabbed him by the shoulders to drag him off -- and up. "Come ON, don't be a stick-on-the-ground! You haven't lived till you've soared a thousand feet above the ground, the wind in your mane, watching the clouds flash past!"

She paused her half-berating, half-encouragement to grin over his shoulder at Twilight. Rainbow knew she was going to pay for this when Ed's turn to cash in on the deal came around, but right now she was all single-minded enthusiasm. "Thanks again, Twilight! I'll let you know how he likes it!"

[rewritethis]

"I don't have a -"

He cut off suddenly as she whisked him into the air. It took him a moment to regain his composure, but once he had, he wasted no time in trying to push her legs away. "Dash, get off!"

Not that it was a powerful shove, especially by his normal standards. Part of him still wasn't convinced that he wouldn't just plummet the moment she let go.