Clockwise

We'll see how long it lasts! (; Unrelated to all the things, I noticed among our racers we have exactly one Apple member for each type of pony, so I ended up doodling them all together for funsies. That really is a far-reaching family!

If there was one thing that pleased Clockwise more than anything else, it was the fact that his hooves were now on solid ground, and reasonably guaranteed to stay in conditions so favorable for the rest of the race. For a pony who spent much of his dear time in Canterlot, with its tall towers and sweeping view of the rolling land stretching away so far below the mountainside, he was not especially fond of heights (his own considerable one aside), and there had been a quite few during this race. The flight over the ravine had, fortunately, gone without any unfortunate occurrences. Better yet, he seemed to have obtained a small collection of acquaintances, whose presence he gradually became accustomed to. Kindly ponies, all of them, with good, strong hearts and fine intentions, all things that the older pony could both spot and appreciate with utmost sincerity. Even so, Clockwise was content to simply enjoy their company and the fact that they did not seem to mind his, listening quietly to their conversations and their comments over the rumbling hooves, and making no contribution but his constant little jingle, a soft reminder that he was still there. Like some of them, the thin unicorn had slowed to a trot, only engaging in the gallop for short stints to coax the last of the leaves from the trembling trees that had only nearly been cleared by the others before him. The quiet companionship had done much to ease his frustration with the race and its slew of mishaps, encouraging him to remember what the purpose of it was in the first place. Clockwise's ears perked and swiveled at the sound of Sugar Apple's shout, and as his eyes turned to follow, he caught sight of a not-so-new pony coming into the pack from the woods. How curious! What had she been doing out here so early? Perhaps he might have learned, if he had thought to ask.

Clockwise was glad to relinquish his materials to the actually qualified medic pony, as the results he would have ended up with were somewhat dubious, at best, never mind the extent of his good intentions. He was a professor, after all, and that doctorate isn't quite the same. All that mattered there, anyway, was that Rising Star and Sugar Apple were alright, and the plucky pegasus, at least, did seem to have come out of her mishap with her spirit in tact, even if her wing had seen some damage. That damage would heal, and the purple mare would have an excellent story to tell in future times. Mister Earth Writer would, too, of course. The unicorn's eyes wandered back towards the precarious pathway, and he had been contemplating it with a frown when Sugar Apple addressed him. It took him a few moments to ascertain the fact that she had offered an apology, and to that he found surprise. He began to stutter something at her--'It is no matter', he had wanted to say--but he didn't manage much of it. In an apology of his own, he silenced himself to save the embarrassment and instead gave her a gentle, sheepish smile. At that point, Clockwise would have liked to leave, perhaps, as being around so many ponies in a situation like this and after such a long day was doing a bit of a number on his mental state, but he simply couldn't bring himself to. He didn't think to wonder why. Thus, at Earth Writer's command, he followed along with the rest of them, though perhaps not as easily. He didn't manage much more than a trot, himself, and even then the gait was lazy and labored, for every hooffall resulted in an aching shot through his knees, mocked by the dainty jingle of his bell. The lagging wizard pony rather quickly fell to the back of the pack, where he was content to stay, especially after getting a glimpse of that dreadful bridge. As if the one at the brook hadn't been bad enough. Mister Clockwise had had quite enough of bridges for today, thank you, especially those of the variety that didn't lend themselves terribly well to confidence. He expressed his apprehensive displeasure with a chuff and a swish of his tail, which had dried into a frizzy red mess and attracted all sorts of debris, like burs, pebbles and small animals. The presence of at least one of those things was, admittedly, debatable.

Oh, man, maybe I was too optimistic! I keep missing out on the huge chunks of the roleplay when I'm in class. I can just feel those penalty points racking up like nobody's business.

Clockwise took a bit of time (three minutes and thirty nine seconds, exactly) to backtrack far enough to be of any use to the rescue operation, but by then was able to lend his own magic to the efforts of the others in moving the rocks. Already quite exhausted from his previous adventures, the unicorn hadn't been quite as effective at the job as he may have liked, but some help was surely better than none. By the time Sugar Apple had been lifted through the air and placed onto the path, Clockwise had quietly settled himself into a lay to rest his aching legs, his sides heaving gently from the effort that had gone into his magic. He didn't say anything, of course--speaking, for him, was often more trouble than it was worth, and the others seemed to have the situation and all necessary, related talking quite under control! His expression said far more than his stammers could have, anyway, and in a much shorter period of time; relief was clear on his face, but it was still mingled with some anticipation. They still had another pony to rescue, after all, though the able pegasus would likely have that well in hoof--Hoss Skybright, rescuepony extraordinaire! As he watched the group speak and congratulate each other--offering an appreciative nod to Earth Writer when his own meager contributions were acknowledged--a thought seemed to suddenly occur to him, and the pony interrupted his rest to climb shakily back to his hooves, frowning in concern. "Ex--e-excuse me," he uttered at last. His horn sputtered into a glow, and he stepped towards the injured pegasus. "I-I do apologize, I'm--not, er... n-not..." 'A healer', he had meant to say, but the words wouldn't come. He felt himself grow anxious in the midst of his stall before he finally managed, "--I-I mean, I--w-we can make you a... something of a-a splint. With, er, these." The blanket he had been given at the brook floated off of his back, now mostly dry, and he turned his head to locate a suitable stick, long and straight. He had to briefly drop the blanket to muster the strength to float it over to the motley group, but eventually both of the items were hovering in front of them. "If I-I may, miss... oh, dear--Miss Sugar Apple, was it?"

Magic is a pretty complicated thing, and there's lots of ways to spin it. I do think the willpower of a unicorn is able to affect their magic, but not necessarily what the spell actually does. A strong-willed unicorn may be able to draw on magical power even in situations where other unicorns may have already given up or been pushed far past their breaking point, and may be able to coax more intense effects out of their spells, but spells themselves have been shown over and over again as things that need to be learned and practiced. A lot of magic, when you think about it, is the simple mimicking of things that can already happen naturally, though often pushed to an extreme--moving things, changing things, and so forth. For a spell to work, I suspect that a unicorn must familiarize themselves intensely with how these things might normally occur, and then substitute magic for the forces involved. Since, say, moving an object is relatively simple and primarily requires energy, it is a common and easy spell. Something like turning one thing into another thing, however, is more complicated, because based on how different the two objects are, the magic has to do more work to make one like the other on a fundamental level, and must supply the energies necessary to make the change happen. All of this stuff has probably been condensed into some kind of magic-math--or runes and sigils, if you prefer!--that explain the mechanics in common terms, and these are what must be studied and memorized. They're likely also incomprehensible to someone who doesn't know how to read that kind of thing (like calculus ), unless the spell is one that is simple enough to be described in usual English (or whatever ponies speak) instruction. How good you are at reading and understanding this, though, has no bearing on your natural magical talent, and a very learned unicorn may yet struggle with powerful spells simply because of a deficiency of magic, even if they understand how the thing works. Twilight is such a powerful spellcaster because she's both very smart and very naturally skilled. It could be that a unicorn's natural magical 'stores', so to speak, can be expanded with practice, but given the nature of the show and the world, I suspect that other things play a role, too, such as the character's virtues. Friendship is magic, after all! The introduction of 'dark magic' also seems to suggest that usual magic is inherently good, and so probably tied to positive attributes. I will note, of course, that this is entirely theory, but I like to consider it a relatively sound one.

The tattered echoes of more voices began to sound towards Clockwise, though he couldn't pinpoint the direction. The thickening fog dampened his senses. He whipped his head this way and that, his slow, frightened hooffalls growing less measured and more jumpy. What was that? Where was it coming from? No, wait--there was urgency in those strange cries, though the wind had distorted them. The unicorn carefully approached the edge of the twisting, treacherous path, willing himself not to startle into a fall should anything unexpected occur, and surveyed the ledges that curled and swerved downwards. There, again! He heard words, that time, tossed carelessly on a breeze: "[colour=#800080]...ANYPONY HELP ME! AH’M TRAP[/colour][colour=#800080]PE[/colour][colour=#800080]D DOWN HYAR![/colour]" ".[colour=#0000ff]..the cliff wall![/colour][colour=#0000ff] Hurry! Anypony out there!?[/colour]" Those were ponies, and they had met trouble more substantial than the flitting shadows and sudden cracks that had been providing fodder for paranoia to Clockwise's mind. He couldn't stand idly by! What if he was the only one that had heard them? Suddenly panicking for entirely different reasons, the stallion hopped back and forth on his forehooves in worry before gathering his addled senses and weakly trotting back in the direction he had come from. The harsh angles of the path where it grew steep had left a dull, throbbing ache in his knees and sore hooves, and going downwards made him feel it more acutely, reducing him quickly to more of a hobble. Blurry colours suddenly grew visible through the thinning grey veil, and they didn't belong to trees. Even with his glasses, though, Clockwise's vision was not the best, and he couldn't decipher their circumstances. He could make out only that there were four of them, two on the far side of the winding path, and two that seemed to be below. "He--h-hello?!" the unicorn whinnied breathlessly across the gap. The echo mocked his stutter. "Hello? C-can you--can you h-hear me?! I-I'm--I'm coming!"

I'm so glad that the Rearing Ravine was this week and not finals week! The push to RP more must mean that there will be an exponential increase in shenanigans. I anticipate copious amounts of excellence, possibly with lots of NOOOOO moments.

Clockwise, unfortunately, was one pony that had entered the Running on a whim, and the treachery of the Rearing Ravine was all but unknown to him until he realized that the path was rising and losing its width. Had he taken a wrong turn? Surely the race didn't go through here? Though he hardly took notice of it (and would have been most surprised, if he had), Clockwise was somewhere at the front of the stream of racers, and so had very little to go off of, and nopony close enough to follow in the absent-minded way he employed in hallways and on streets. Slowing substantially in acknowledgement of the uncertain possibility of having to turn around, the stallion chuffed quietly with a flick of his matted tail. His ears twisted towards every subtle sound that was there to hear, funneling noises that caused him to jump, which they did only because they were noises at all. It was lonely here, soft and silent but for the whistle of breezes through the leaves. In nervousness, his eyed roved the frightfully sheer rock faces that tumbled down from the edges of the meandering path like hard, cracked curtains, and then anxiously combed the trees to shed the gathering shapes from the shadows. Wait a minute--leaves? Of course! There were, indeed, still leaves on these branches, and surely they had to be knocked off as certainly as those on the oaks and elms in the gentler folds of the Heartland's rolling hills. Perhaps the race went through here after all. Well, there was a conclusion to the question at hoof, but it wasn't a very encouraging one. It was fortune and blessing that he had gotten so far and overcame so many odds; how long would this unusual bout of luck last? Perhaps only a trot... besides, there would surely be some excellent views. Encouraged by this meager thought, the unicorn started again with some trepidation, only to stop dead once more with his ears perked straight up at the sound of an echo carried towards him on a breeze. It sounded much like a voice. In that moment, every old fairy tale flooded immediately to Clockwise's mind, and he reared briefly before dashing forward onto the narrow path in a spray of pebbles, clattering down the steep ribs of the rock with a sound like chattering teeth, as though the removal of the cloak of leaves had given the earth a shiver.

"Oh, I-I-I beg your pardon! Ter--er--t-t-terribly, uh, terribly sorry!" the tall unicorn sputtered at Sugar Apple as he hastily backed away following the minor collision, straightening his glasses on his nose with a small spot of magic. Filled with the urge to bolt off again, perhaps to avoid his embarrassment, Clockwise nonetheless stayed painfully still and allowed Earth Writer to introduce him to the purple pegasus, a little too rattled--and Clockwise was very easily made so--by the minor mishap to do anything of the sort for himself. He didn't say a single word the whole way through, only standing and smiling awkwardly, carefully avoiding eye contact. What silly foalishness, especially from a stallion his age! The reporter pony could make of that what he wished; the eccentric unicorn didn't exactly have the sort of logic that was simple to follow. When Sugar Apple took off again, Clockwise hopped his front hooves briefly as though startled by a realization and called after her, "Er, uh--g-good--good luck!" Perhaps he'd better get going, too. "I, ah... w-well, er, I-I suppose I will, uh, s-see you at the linish fine--f-fin--finish line, sir--sirs," he said to Earth Writer, correcting the last word to include Greenshot. He dipped his head to them briefly, mysteriously wobbly-kneed, and then abruptly shot off down the path again with more little jingles.

[colour=#8B4513]"Oy, glad to see you're doing alright after that little spill, Mr...?[/colour][colour=#282828]" [/colour] "Oh!" The sudden voice surprised Clockwise into performing a small, startled jump between the measured steps of his trot, though the sound of the other unicorn's hooves ought to have prepared him for the possibility. His ears quickly went from flattened to perked, and he turned his head to look at the other pony with something bordering on astonishment, as though amazed to have been asked his name. "I, er--uh--C-Clockwise, sir, I-I think," he supplied, leaving off his credentials... a good move, perhaps, though the dusky stallion would be too absent-minded to note it as such, and certainly hadn't made the omission consciously. "Uh, I mean, I'm--I-I'm quite sure!" To Earth Writer's second inquiry, the lanky stallion's expression became a baffled one. "Oh," he said again, "Well, well... w-with all due respect, why sh-should you ever want to, er, do such a thing? I-I mean, um, do... do ponies... like to read about--a-about other ponies falling into... i-into rivers?" The question was clearly a genuine, honest one, if quite naïve. To be expected, maybe! If Clockwise's unusual manner was anything to go by, perhaps the lines along which he thought were a tad eccentric, too. Regardless, it would appear that the awkward, stuttering unicorn wasn't terribly good at doing two things at the same time, or, at least, not these particular two things, these being talking and running--two activities that he didn't do very often, and hardly ever together. So engrossed was he in the impromptu conversation that he quite forgot to pay attention to what was in front of his nose rather than in front of his mind, and a rather key bit of awareness grew a tad tardy as a result. WHUMP. Fortunately for Sugar Apple, Clockwise was hardly what one could call substantial, even by the relatively low standards of unicorns. Unfortunately for her, whatever she was trying to steal a peek at probably would have run off at the clumsy pony's less-than-graceful arrival.

Hmm, those are some very good points! Naturally, no complicated structure would manifest itself in the guild's early days simply because it would be unnecessary from the perspective of the few starting characters, I'm sure. However, if the guild does become popular, some variety of order would be nice to have to encourage some kind of overarching dynamic between a large cast, and considering it OOC in advance isn't necessarily a bad thing. It could simply be too early to tell, of course, but I do enjoy speculation. I am quite fond of the potential that would arrive from the group being tight-knit and every member being reasonably unique, perhaps each being a go-to pony for a specific thing. I'm not sure how well that would work if the guild were to get very large, but I am probably getting ahead of myself. Regardless, it's up to the characters in the end, and I don't think there's any way to tell what they'll do!

Despite his rather unpleasant adventure at the Brook and the little scare he'd had on his way away from it, Clockwise's spirit began to recover as his steady trot finally brought him out of the storm. Still wet but not as much as he might have been if it weren't for his waterproofed blanket, he paused to shake himself, nearly losing his sopping hat with the vigor of the action. Though far from dry, his tangled, curly red mane and tail had already begun to frizz. Unbeknownst to Clockwise, his startled gallop had driven him up the ranks considerably, and so he found himself almost alone. Breathing a little harder than he might have liked, the lanky pony took a few extra moments to gingerly relax his aching knees and rest a muddy hind hoof; he even shut his eyes, enjoying the gentle warmth of the sunbeams in the wake of the cold brook and cruel rain. However, they soon opened again in surprise at the feeling of subtle contact. The stallion's limp ears slowly perked, just as his brows lifted, and he blinked cross-eyed at the pale butterfly that had landed on his nose. A butterfly, indeed? Awareness began to trickle in, and Clockwise turned his attention to what lay behind the delicate little thing that had mistaken him for a flower. And, why, it was beautiful! The storm that grumbled in the distance behind him, the terror of the rushing brook and even the nasty griffon were all but forgotten as Clockwise surveyed the inviting clearing that sprawled ahead, verdant and lush despite the season. It reminded him fondly of dear, green Fet Loch, from the brilliant sky to the trail that ran through it. As though sensing a rising desire, or perhaps having finally ascertained that the purple unicorn wasn't just a really big flower after all, the butterfly flitted away, and Clockwise picked up his trot again with fresh, sprightly vigor. The earth here was much more forgiving to an old stallion's hooves, soft and hollow-sounding rather than slick, mucky and treacherous. The trot quickly graduated into a canter, and the unkempt professor even emitted a short, shrill little whinny of a laugh as the bell on his hat began to ring again with each coltish step. This was what he had come to Ponyville for!

Bellosh raises some excellent points. I definitely agree that we should refrain from trying to divide the guild up based on any kind offensive magic, and certainly not into schools that are so strictly focused on restrictive spell definitions. That kind of division revolves more around theory than practicality, which would be a great idea for a group of ponies who were strict scholars, but not so much if the organization is intended to be a little less rigid. For what it's worth, I personally think the guild would function at its best if it was treated like an actual guild--a group of individuals with similar skills who've come together to support each other, organize and cultivate their trade (through finding and training apprentices, etc.) and, most importantly, provide services to ponies who would want them, as mentioned above. I earnestly think that a Council would be the best for handling something like that, since magic is an incredibly broad field that undoubtedly covers a formidable spectrum of vastly different specializations. A Guild Master would be ideal to keep things ordered overall, but each field would probably still need an experienced director to ensure that everything works smoothly at a finer level. That said, it might yet be best to leave the departments pretty open-ended until we work out what would be in demand and what ponies we have who can fulfill that demand! I do really like the ideas of healing, enchantment and 'scholar' (there's probably a better name for that, haha) branches, but there's definitely room for more, like one featuring magical artifacts, or one focused around the magic associated with the seasons, plants, animals and so forth. Earth ponies and pegasi were canonically mentioned to have magic of their own, and if we are to include them, I think it's only fair to have a branch of the guild dedicated entirely to their magical talents, as well! (They'd be in other branches, too, of course.) Whew, that was a lot of blathering. This is really exciting, though. I can't wait to see something like this become reality! If we do go with the branches idea, Clockwise would be excellent at handling copious amounts of spellbooks. Alternately, if we have some really obscure branch that focuses on abstract magical theory, he'd be right at home there, too. :B

That is an awesome insignia! It does a fantastic job of conveying a sense of arcane mystery without being complicated. I love it.