No Pedigree Save Chaos Chapter 2 [R/MLP]

[LawOhki]

Ranma saw the familiar sliding wood doors of a traditional japanese styled home she was well acquainted with and didn’t even stop to think before racing over to throw them open. Collapsing to the floor in relief, “I’m back,” she exclaimed happily to the assembled group who looked to be sitting down for a meal at the square table.

“I don’t know how it happened--,” she sighed in relief choosing not to question her good fortune. Her father Genma and mother Nodoka were seated next to each other. Akane, her fiance was next to her two older sisters Nabiki and Kasumi while the trios father Soun sat off by himself. “It’s only been a few weeks, did you miss me?”

“Who invited the horse?” Nabiki asked shattering Ranma’s euphoria.

“I’m not a horse,” she corrected, looking down to find that she still possessed the body of a pony. “Well I’m a pony but it’s me, Ranma!”

“It’s cute how it looks like its trying to talk,” Kasumi sweetly remarked.

“Why aren’t you listening? I am talking,” she would have stomped her front hooves in frustration but her ears caught the tail end of a whinny, and that stopped her cold. “But I can talk,” she tried again but it was only a long neigh. ‘Why is this happening? Have I been talking like this the whole time without realizing?’

“Don’t worry, I’ll take you someplace where you’ll fit right in,” Akane soothingly as she appeared at Ranma’s side, gently stroking a hand along her neck and through her mane.

Before she could plead with Akane, something was slipped over her head, a single band wrapped around her muzzle linked to another ring that went up around her jaw and behind her ears. “What’d you put on me?” she tried to back away but her head jerked painfully as Akane held tight a rope leading to a ring by her muzzle.

“Akane, get this off me now!” she demanded, raising a front leg to try and push it off but it wouldn’t budge. Akane made no move to listen to her so she tried her next option and closed her eyes to try and get it off with her magic.

Another quick painful jerk broke her concentration and when she opened her eyes she found that she was no longer at the Tendo home but the pig farm of Akari Unyru. That is if the giant form of her prized sumo pig Katsunishiki being ridden by Akari herself was any indication.

“Look what showed up at our house,” Akane declared happily and thoughtlessly jerked the rope holding her head again causing a sharp spike of pain in her neck. “Right away I thought she’d be perfect as a gift for your and Ryoga’s kids.”

“I’m sure they’ll love having a pony,” Akari gushed, sliding down Katsunishiki’s flank to land on the ground.

“I’m not some kids plaything!” Ranma jerked and pulled straining to pull herself free, creating deep ruts in the dirt but Akane held the rope easily and paid no attention to her efforts.

“And if the kids don’t want a pony, we could always sell her to that nice Kuno Tatewaki boy, I hear he was looking for a new broodmare,” Akane added, oblivious to Ranma’s increasing panic.

Ranma screamed and felt a sharp jolt before she fell out of bed tangled up in her blanket.

zx

Luna spread her wings and launched herself off of her balcony into the brisk night air. Giving a few hard flaps, she glided lazily around the tower dedicated to her. She had barely raised the moon an hour before and already the castle grounds were silent and empty. Like most nights she welcomed the quiet solitude, often feeling overloaded by all the activity of the day. And like most nights she found the way everypony shunned the wonders of her night en masse upsetting. But if she had patience then eventually they would see the beauty in the darkness.

But now was not the time to focus on the negatives, finding the right window, she hovered outside long enough to telekinetically open the glass window before she went through. Inside was the barren room Ranma had been given upon her arrival. It wasn’t a room fit for an alicorn but it was one of the better guest quarters that they had available, and they weren’t yet convinced Ranma would be around long enough to justify a proper room.

Closing the window, she silently made her way over to Ranma’s bed and sat down next to it. The red equine was sleeping turned away from the window, legs occasionally twitching underneath the covers. Being able to sense when ponies were dreaming was an ability she had slowly grown into since gaining her cutie mark. And judging by how strongly she could feel the reddish alicorn’s mental state recoiling, it must be a nasty nightmare.

It stood to reason that if she was capable of sensing the state of a ponies dream, then she may grow to be capable of influencing them. The temptation to experiment on a perfect subject was strong but she knew Ranma was having regular nightmares, and she felt too protective of the displaced creature to use her in that way.

“Ranma, wake up,” she whispered, prodding at the girl with a hoof to wake her up.

Her touch, along with her desire to know what was troubling Ranma, zapped her with a shock of static that made her recoil her hoof. A shiver passed over her whole body like a wave and she had to shake herself out to get her fur to stop standing on end. “Woah,” she gasped and wavered side to side feeling dizzy.

She had seen Ranma’s nightmare, just a flash of an image, blurred like she was looking at it from underwater. There had been a room with several indistinct human figures lacking details, the only one who did was a human mare with a short mane of dark blue hair who was directly next to Ranma’s point of view. Luna thought it was a she who was tugging on a rope tied to Ranma’s muzzle.

Luna didn’t know the full context of the scene only that Ranma was terrified and the humans were the cause of it.

She reached out to more forcefully wake Ranma from her nightmare, wondering if her touch would cause another vision. Ranma screamed, and the next thing Luna knew she was being knocked to the floor flat on her back by a blanket wrapped pony.

“Um-- are you up?” she hesitantly asked the moment she came to her senses, unable to remember the last time any pony or beast had been able to overpower her.

The little alicorn began speaking rapidly in her language, kicking and struggling to get out of the fabric wrapped around her. Luna heard the sound of fabric tearing instantly as Ranma’s monstrous strength ripped it apart. Having never been in such a situation, she panicked herself, wrapping her forelegs around Ranma, and trying to make soothing noises as best she could.

“It was just a nightmare,” she gently whispered, struggling to actually hold onto the smaller alicorn whose bucking was becoming too much.

Ranma’s wild blue eyes finally focused and her heavy breathing slowed to a normal pace. With one last long breath the red alicorn relaxed fully. “Luna?” Ranma asked in a small voice, continuing on in words Luna could no longer understand. But her body language said a lot, sinking into herself and trying to hide within the remains of the blanket.

“It’s alright,” she shifted to get out from underneath Ranma. The other alicorn was hopelessly entangled in her blanket, her limbs sticking through multiple layers. So Luna did the only reasonable thing and magically cut out the material from Ranma’s neck down past each leg to free her. “Blankets can be replaced,” she joked more for herself, seeing that Ranma was not wearing the pendant so she couldn’t cast the spell to communicate properly.

‘I didn’t think she ever removed it,’ Luna raised an eyebrow and stood up to look for the necklace, needing to know more about Ranma’s nightmare. Finding it on the small table against the wall, she levitated it over intending to place it back around Ranma’s neck but finding the little alicorn moving her head out of the way. “We need to talk,” she augmented her voice briefly with magic to speak with authority, drawing Ranma’s attention long enough to slip the necklace on her.

She was in the process of casting the spell but Ranma was trying to use her hooves to push the amulet off. A ponies front legs were quite dexterous but Ranma didn’t seem to be thinking clearly, and was merely trying to push upward making the movement awkward and ineffective.

“Calm down, I just want to talk about the nightmare you were having,”

“And I don’t!” Ranma growled, horn beginning to glow a blindingly bright white. “Who asked you to butt into my dream? I took this off for a reason.”

“Ranma, calm down,” she pleaded, looking away and shielded her eyes with a wing from the overpowering light.

“Wha-- what’s going on?” Ranma’s anger vanished into fear as her aura continued to expand, pushing Luna with enough force to slide her along the floor. “I can’t stop it!”

“It’s like a foals magic surging! You have to relax!” she called out, buffeted by a wall of mana that threw the few pieces of furniture in the room crashing against the walls. Luna took one step forward, then another, surrounding herself in a protective bubble as she slowly trudged her way towards Ranma.

Foals having a magic surge were ultimately a nuisance, too weak to cause any real harm. Ranma however was on the cusp of being an adult mare, transformed magicless biped or no, she was now cleary an alicorn beginning to grow into her powers. An errant thought was all it would take to cause devastation. “Keep your mind clear don’t think about anything happening!”

Suddenly the light and unrestrained release of mana stopped, causing Luna to slam forward on her muzzle. She allowed her barrier to dispel and ignored the small amount of pain in her nose to quickly look up to Ranma who stood frozen, head turned downwards where he necklace was glowing white.

“I thought about taking it off,” Ranma admitted with a nervous grimace.

The magically enchanted item dissolved like it was a cloud being dissipated.

“Oh no,” Luna gasped. Her horn flared, teleporting Ranma to her side, leaving the uncontrolled magic remained in place midair where it had been hanging around the red alicorns neck.

It was all she could do before all that built up power, released from the item holding its structure, was released.

Zx

Celestia’s eyes snapped open, her ears pinning back in vain to muffle the explosion that shook the castle around her. Up and out of her bed, she dropped down to the balcony a floor below, and slid to a stop outside at the railing. She immediately spotted the two story tall gaping hole in the guest tower, the top floor and roof beginning to topple inwards.

Taking to the sky, she cleared the distance with a single powerful flap of her wings to come to a stop beneath the falling tower. Her horn glowed and a yellow aura sprung up around the structure as it picked up speed. Struggling against the massive weight, she grunted as it forced her down towards the castle below. Wings flapping and horn glowing brighter, she struggled to arrest the momentum. She was nearly driven to the roof below before she slowed the towers fall to a crawl.

Sparing a glance below, she grimaced at the dozen ponies who had gathered to see what the commotion was, inconveniently putting themselves right where she needed to divert the tower remains. ‘Hopefully there’s no pony in this part of the tower,’ she fretted, and began to loosen her hold to divert part of her attention to the ponies below.

There was no room for error, the ponies below weren’t moving away fast enough, and she would not be able to hold the heavy load much longer. Altering her hold, she began to direct the falling portion of the tower towards the open courtyard putting the ponies below in great danger. Her eyes began glowing white, the nearest side of the courtyard rose up with a yellow wave traveling away from the impact zone, sweeping any pony in it’s path safely away, and holding them in a protective aura at the far end. Only then did she fully release the tower to crash into the open space, the roof breaking free to crush the outer wall.

Letting all her magic fade away, Celestia closed her eyes, and released a ragged breath. “That was quite draining,” she sighed, looking down briefly to see that the ponies below were already checking the wreckage, so she turned her attention upwards.

“Steward, are you alright?” a guard pegasus rose up to hover next to her.

“Not yet,” she answered worriedly, shooting upwards with a flap of her wings. “Where is Ranma? How did this explosion happen?” she asked, landing on a portion of stone that still appeared stable. Ranma should be incapable of such a spell so who could have?

“There was a bright light from the window and then it exploded,” another guard pegasus answered, the pair floating just in front of her. “I saw your sister enter through the window shortly before,” he added quickly.

“We must find them. Moon Shower, lock down the grounds, we can’t rule out this being an attack of some sort,” she commanded.

“Yes, Steward,” Moon Shower nodded, diving over the edge of the ruined tower.

“(guard 2), come with me,” Celestia launched herself back into the air to see if she could spot her sister and Ranma. ‘Is it possible that one of the nobles attempted to assassinate Ranma?’ she considered in horror. They had always been leery of her power over the sun and ultimately the power she held over them. Was the appearance of a third alicorn too much in their eyes? Did they fear an attempt to take over Equestria? Even after all they had done to remain neutral?

‘I can dwell on that later, for now I need to find my sister.’

zx

Deleted section cause I decided to heck up the castle.

Ranma “Luna-- am I making pony noises right now?”
Luna “Technically all thy noises are-- pony-- noises.”
Ranma blushing “Specifically like-- ya know-- a-- *whinny*”
Luna “thy made such a noise right now but no, not normally.”

[Crescent Pulsar S]

I can't proof read the whole thing, but this part stood out to me and I figured I could bring it up.

The red equine was sleeping turned away from the window, legs occasionally twitching underneath the covers.

The "sleeping turned" part reads weird to me, because I'd expected a period or comma after "sleeping", so I wanted to suggest removing "sleeping", either entirely or moving it to the end of the sentence. Entirely because the prior scene already lets us know that Ranma is asleep, and later in the same paragraph Luna's perspective lets us know that Ranma is dreaming/having a nightmare, which indirectly confirms that Ranma is still asleep. If it's important to reinforce that Ranma is asleep at the start of the paragraph, I'd suggest something like:

The red equine was turned away from the window, legs occasionally twitching underneath the covers as she slept.

[Spica75]

The "sleeping turned" part reads weird to me, because I'd expected a period or comma after "sleeping"

The wording and grammatics are correct.

Yes, I read it oddly first as well, but that's flawed expectation, not a flaw of the text.
You CAN add a comma, but that changes how it reads and to some extent also the meaning.

The wording as is, has a good flow, so I think it is better unchanged. It specifically tells HOW she is sleeping, which your version does not.

[LawOhki]

How about

The red equine was facing away from the window asleep, her legs twitching enough to be visible underneath her blanket.

--------

“Ouch,” Ranma moaned, limbs twitching erratically as she hung upside down in a tree. One wing hopelessly tangled in thin branches while a thicker branch was shoving leaves right in her face.

Her body was one big dull ache from the explosion which was probably the reason why she was buried in a tree. Well it was the only explanation she had for how she ended up in a tree, so she had to go with it. There was a pony talking up to her from below but she wished he would shut up. Every word made her ears twitch uncontrollably, like she was hearing two languages spoken simultaneously while being unable to understand either.

“I’m-- fine,” she groggily tried to respond. “Gimme five minutes.”

She had enough experience with concussions to know that the constant buzzing of her thoughts wasn’t one. Unless ponies had different symptoms. Maybe she really should find out more about pony biology cause feeling like a ball of electricity was bouncing around her brain and screwing up her ability to move was not pleasant.

Zx

Celestia strode with purpose into the room chosen to treat any injuries. She had just finished getting a report from all the guards pertaining to the possibility of an intruder but nothing had been found. Stopping just in the doorway, she gave a reassuring smile to an earth pony in the process of leaving, she didn’t immediately recognize him but his head had been bandaged from being struck by a piece of stone. Luna was awake and laying on a mat next to a comatose Ranma. Both were covered in bruises and cuts that had already been cleaned and bandaged.

Her breath caught seeing her sister in such a state but she fought down the urge to run over and comfort her. Luna’s lack of greeting and evasive look was all the confirmation she needed to know that her younger sister had been doing something she shouldn’t have been doing. “Bounding Brook, are there any other injuries that need tending?” she asked the (not sure on title).

“No, Steward. Your quick action limited it to only five injuries, all but your sister and ward were minor.” Bounding Brook answered.

“Thank you, I’ll need some time alone with my fellow alicorns, please.”

“As you wish,” Bounding gave a deferential nod of her head before leaving the room.

A spark of magic traveled up the length of her horn as she secured the room for privacy. Even with an open door nopony could enter or hear the conversation she was about to have. “Luna, what happened?” she asked after taking a deep breath.

“Cellie, please don’t be mad.”

“Do I sound mad, Luna?” she snapped a little too quickly and her younger sister winced. “I just wish to know why you are making a habit of waking Ranma up in the middle of the night.”

Luna glanced at the sleeping form next to her worriedly before answering, “I was going to see if she was still awake, not to wake her. But I could tell she was having a nightmare so I decided to rouse her.”

“No doubt to take her halfway to the Crystal Mountains.”

“That is not true, it would have been to a magical pool within Everfree itself,” Luna blurted out before realizing how bad it sounded.

“Luna-- Sister, she has a family to return to, and soon. It’s wrong for you to try and distract her with pretty things hoping she will stay.”

“Only I?” Luna paused to rise into a sitting position. “Was I supposed to remain ignorant of you providing her with flight lessons from Captain Lockheed?”

Celestia recoiled slightly at the accusation, not having expected her sister to defend her actions with an attack on her own. “She was trying to learn on her own, the Captain wished to help so she didn’t hurt herself.”

“And your personal lessons so that she might use the magic of her horn?”

“I have only given her what she has asked for.”

“What if she is not able to ask? Am I to sit idly by while my friend suffers?”

“Friend? Suffers? What are you talking about? How could Ranma be suffering while safely asleep in her bed?” She asked incredulously.

“She cannot have a good nights rest because she has a nightmare nearly every night. tonight I was able to see a glimpse of it, and she’s terrified of the humans she would return to.”

“That’s ridiculous they’re her family, her people, what could she have to fear?” she had meant to sound more convinced but then she remembered the way Ranma had described her father. How the red alicorn had spent so much time composing the best way to gently frame events.

Shaking her head she wanted to get away from the uncomfortable line of thought, “We can discuss whether or not Ranma belongs here with us now or not later, it’s not relevant to why part of our home is now in ruins?”

“Ranma had a powerful magic surge.”

“She is no foal, why would she have any sort of uncontrolled outburst?” she scoffed at the idea, writing it off as absurd but almost immediately realized an issue. Ranma’s professed that her mind had not been affected by her transformation. However the body she now wore was still a barely two week old alicorn. Would it really be so unbelievable for there to be growing pains? “But accepting that, it doesn’t explain the explosion.”

Luna gestured to amulet draped around her neck. “Ranma gathered far too much mana and with an errant thought destroyed the necklace already containing the communication spell.”

“Raw mana with nothing to contain or direct it,” she summarized and Luna nodded. “So now there really is no choice, she must be trained,” Celestia sighed, knowing that if it happened once that it would happen again.

“I’m sorry, Cellie. I felt like I had to try and protect my friend, and it turned out so wrong.”

“I know,” she let the tension in her body drop as she collapsed next to her sister. “I was so worried something had happened to you, both of you,” she admitted tiredly, allowing her exhaustion to finally affect her.

“I was worried too, I’ve never been blown up before,” Luna joked in her usual deadpan tone and painfully lying back down against her. “I did not enjoy the experience.”

[LawOhki]

Later the next day

Ranma didn’t immediately move as she woke up laying on some sort of mat with a pillow underneath her head. The static headache from the last time she was awake was mostly gone but she could still feel a faint tingle. Which was nothing compared painful throbbing she felt from her horn.

Delicately raising her head while ignoring the way the scent of dried blood made her nose scrunch up in disgust, Ranma dimly remembered being brought to this room after being pulled out of that tree. Luna was on a mat next to her, exactly where she had seen her the night before. Seeing the dark blue pony immediately set her mind at ease. Both of them were covered in similar amounts of bandages.

She wasn’t feeling very good to start, and her mood darkened further seeing the only other occupant to the room was a unicorn stallion she knew all too well. He was laying near the doorway reading a book, with a quill writing to a scroll to the side. Luna chose that moment to take a deep breath in her sleep and Ranma saw that the unicorn’s ears turn before he glanced up.

The castle doctor smiled brightly, saying something in Ponish that was probably supposed to sound reassuring, and rose up to his hooves.

Ranma winced as the buzzing static headache returned in full force, her ears pinning back, and muscles twitching painfully like a muscle cramp. “Ah! What is this?” she hissed, hearing him speaking to someone outside the room. Burying her head underneath the pillow she had slept on, she tried to block it all out.

Without being able to hear the words clearly, the buzzing subsided into a light tingle again, allowing her to think. ‘I think I broke myself and Celestia is probably going to kick me out,’ she let out a haggard breath, her chest seizing up at the thought.

Slamming her right hoof into the floor, she cursed her luck. The explosion was an accident and she was about to get blamed for it. ‘Are they even going to let me use the mirror? It’s not my fault!’ she hit the floor again, hearing it crack from the force.

“I didn’t mean to do it,” she whispered to herself. An image of Luna’s face frozen in fear, that brief instant when the light from Ranma’s horn had moved to the necklace.

How many ponies were crushed underneath tons of stone? She may have been disorientated, but when she had been carried back, she had seen the missing tower. There were dozens of ponies who lived beneath her, whole families, and all of them would have been asleep when it fell. Why would they let her go home now? Luna may be alive and well but she would certainly be seen as a murderer.

Shifting to be able to push the pillow down around her head with both front legs, she wanted to block out this world, maybe if she could deny it enough she would awake back on Earth. Back where she was a human, with hands instead of hooves, no wings to fly with, and no magical horn to kill with an errant thought.

She remained hiding under the pillow for what felt like a long time until a hoof softly nudged her shoulders. Ranma chose not to respond except to tuck her hind legs up underneath her, unable to completely bury the instincts telling her to run from such a huge problem she could never hope to fix.

Another nudge and this time the hoof stayed in place with applying gentle pressure.

Reluctantly she pushed the pillow off her head and sat up facing away from Celestia. A golden shoed hoof stretched out to hold up one of the necklaces in front of her and she nodded. Yellow magic surrounded it before it was lifted up and placed around her neck. Celestia didn’t speak the incantation as she always did but Ranma could feel it as the buzzing exploded in her head. She almost collapsed but the sharp spike of pain passed just as quickly as it appeared and it even took the tingling with it.

Taking a deep breath, she squared her shoulders briefly before turning to face Celestia expecting to see all manner of incriminations, disgust at what she had done, so she was not prepared to be gathered up into a hug.

“You gave us a scare, how are you feeling?” Celestia asked full of concern, releasing her to sit back while Ranma remained stunned.

“I-- uh-- I’m,” she stammered in a daze. Why wasn’t Celestia angry? She seemed to care so much about all the ponies in the castle, why wasn’t she distraught over their deaths?

“Luna told me you had your first uncontrolled surge of magic last night. We should have realized it might happen. Unfortunately there was a sort of comedy of errors that led to quite a bit of property damage. But what’s done is done,” Celestia laughed softly to herself.

“Just tell me how many I killed,” Ranma blurted out in disgust with herself, ears drooping as she stared at the floor watching tears start to stain her muzzle. “How many?”

“Kill? Nopony died, Ranma. Is that why you were so upset?” Celestia gathered her up in a hug again. “Oh my little pony, you and Luna were the only ones seriously hurt by the explosion, and then I caught the remains of the tower before it could hurt anypony else.”

Relief washed over her and she relaxed against the white alicorn, traitorous equine body desiring the comfort. She had gotten herself all worked up over nothing. Everything was as alright as it possibly could be in this colorful barnyard animal world.

Ranma stiffened when Celestia continued talking, noticing immediately how she was no longer understandable and had slipped into Ponish. “What did you say?” she asked in confusion, the spell had worked perfectly up until this point.

Celestia released her to look down into her eyes, “I was just saying how you seemed to have gained some curious mana mingling with your own aura that I was going to investigate,” the white alicorn started before her speech suddenly shifted back to Ponish.

“Something seems wrong,” she gulped.

------------

Not super happy with this section, doesn't feel like I got Ranma's panic enough across worrying if she had become a mass pony killer.

[LawOhki]

Gliding down to a parapet, Ranma flapped quickly to stop her momentum before landing lightly next to a pair of pegasi. They were trying to push the last remaining stone block down to a group of earth ponies. But the two stallions were not having much luck to buck a square block of stone bigger than both of them. It was locked in place at an odd angle and they just didn’t have enough power to budge it. The two noticed her after finishing their latest attempt without having any more success.

“Let me help,” she said, hoping that she was using the right Ponish phrase. She had heard it used by others working to clean up the rubble and hoped that it meant that and she didn’t sound like a moron.

Without waiting for a response, she shouldered the nearest one to get enough space to put her own muscle behind it. Giving them an expectant look when they both hesitated, the pair nervously laughed before enthusiastically joining her in pushing. This time the block gave way to fall flat next to the parapet, so they repositioned to gently push it over the edge where it fell to the dirt with a heavy thump.

The pegasi thanked her and bowed before setting off to help others. Ranma didn’t immediately go anywhere, looking over the side to where the earth ponies were already inspecting the block to decide how it would be reused.

After the eventful talk with Celestia, she had thrown herself into helping fix the mess she had caused to distract herself but found that her help wasn’t exactly needed. Plans had been made while she had been out and groups organized to execute them. Being that this seemed to be the most exciting event to happen at the castle in a long time, there were a lot of volunteers eager to get involved.

Which meant they didn’t need her getting in the way as they ground to a halt attempting to explain to her what needed to be done.

Her stomach protested the lack of attention she had shown it today with a loud growl. “Alright I’ll get some food,” she shook her head and took off to visit the kitchen.

Normally the kitchen was empty of ponies at this late time of day but as she peaked her head around the corner she confirmed what her ears had been telling her. The kitchen was filled with more cooks than usual and by the looks of it were preparing a lot more food than usual. Celestia must have thought it would be a nice thank you to prepare a feast rewarding all the ponies for dealing with the extra work Ranma had accidentally created.

She had barely taken two steps through the doorway to see if she could scrounge up a meal without getting in the way when Mint Drop, a shorter plump earth mare wearing a chefs hat stopped her. The golden coated pony with pale green mane shooed her back out and gestured encouragingly towards the table Ranma usually sat at with the alicorn sisters.

“Thanks, Mint Drop,” she nodded, giving the mare a big smile before trotting off to her usual seat.

Mint Drop was a great cook and had caught her raiding the kitchen several times. The reward was usually a swat to her hindquarters with a wooden spoon and then a much better prepared meal than she could make herself. Reaching her normal table, she settled in to wait as patiently as she could with her softly rounded stomach making occasional rumbling noises.

‘I wish there was a tv or a radio or something to read,’ she sighed, having literally nothing to do to kill the time. There weren’t any other ponies in the big empty hall save some cooks who who pass through without stopping. ‘Too bad Celestia isn’t hear so at least I’d have someone to talk to.’

Ranma stopped that thought immediately and tried to smack her forehead into the table but instead bounced her horn painfully off the surface. “Ouch!” she hissed and rubbed near the base with a hoof. ‘Shouldn’t have done that.’

Grumbling, she crossed her front legs on the table, and rested her head on them to stare out at the empty hall. ‘I’ll never get to talk to anyone here again,’ she blew out a long breath through her nose.

She had broken a magical enchantment and that seemed to have consequences that weren’t expected. Some of the last words she had understood the white alicorn saying were speculations that fragments of it were lingering and feeding off her aura. Past that she didn’t know what Celestia had said or how that explains why further applications of the spell lasted less and less time.

By the time Celestia stopped attempting to fix it, she had not looked or sounded hopeful.

But what did it matter? So what if she couldn’t understand anyone anymore? Not like that was any different from when she had shown up, that had been daunting but she would adapt and survive. Just like how she did when spending a year in China not knowing the language, even if her father had ruined the last weeks of it with his stupidity. She could get along here just fine now, just needed to wait a little longer, and then she’d be able to go home.

Mint Drop interrupted her, the earth pony using a wheeled cart to carry a tray filled with food and utensils to the table.

“Thank you,” Ranma said gratefully, having lost track of time as her thoughts had all started to spiral together into a mass of confusing emotions.

The cook used her hoof to push the tray onto the table and then gave her a big smile and reassuring pat on the back. She then said something in Ponish that Ranma got the impression from how she said it might mean everyone feels better after a good meal. Or that’s what she hoped it meant so she just returned the ponies smile.

Mint Drop waited with an expectant look, clearly wanting to see her try some of the food before she would leave. She guessed that because it was the same look that her fiance Akane would give after making some inedible toxic dish because she had no clue how to follow simple directions. Being that Mint Drop’s food was some of the best she had here, Ranma was eager to dig in.

As always utensils were left out for her if she wanted to use them. Having been excited about her progress with telekinesis the day before and wanting to show off, she quickly used it to grasp the fork. It leapt obediently off the table with much greater ease than she had the day before to hover over the salad portion. Her mouth went dry and she quickly set it back down before making a show of rubbing near her horn again as though it was bothering her. Mint Drop seemed to buy it so she just used her mouth to eat some of the food. Satisfied, the mare went to return helping the other cooks in the kitchen.

Ranma ate enthusiastically until Mint Drop was out of sight and then she slowed to a halt to stare at the fork. Going back to eating the food slowly, her eyes occasionally looking up to the empty hall.