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SONG OF IMMORTALS
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Shift's POV
Sunlight filtered into Twilight's bedroom, hitting my eyes with a blast of warmth and brightness. Curse you, Celestia, and your damned sun. I rolled over to avoid the intrusive light, only to find myself facing Twilight's purple eyes. We always had this kind of synchronization of our biological clocks, waking at almost the same time every morning.
"Hmm… waking to myself. That's a new one, Shift," she said groggily. I looked down to see that I was indeed Twilight, lavender body and all. I gave Twilight's signature nervous chuckle and changed back into my unicorn disguise.
"Hehe… awkward…"
"Uh huh," Twi said. Suddenly, I sensed pain and Twilight held a hoof to her horn. "Ugh… Shift, you didn't give me horn in your sleep, did you?"
I raised an eyebrow at her. "Since when did I start giving you horn?" She gave me a questioning look. I sighed as I realized she didn't recall he stargazing spell from last night. "Twi, don't you remember stargazing last night?"
"Of course I re-…" she said with a smile, then trailed off, blushing. "Oh… huh."
"So, what did we learn today?" I chided her, earning me a scowl and a cuff on the nose. "Ow… Twi, that hurt more than usual."
She ignored me, deep in thought. It was then that my Changeling tongue kicked in out of it's morning trance. Twilight, aside from her love that began feeding me, she gave off that stumped sense. Along with it, her face screwed into an adorable frown, akin to a filly that can't remember the name of a certain kind of flower.
"I don't get it! The stargazing spell I created was designed to only to clarify the stars in a given area…" she trailed off, muttering something about magical theory and energy transference.
"Maybe you just brightened the stars, instead of making them appear brighter. So in that sense, it would explain why you fainted."
She shook her head. "No, that would be impossible. The only ponies powerful enough to do that are Princess Celestia and Princess Luna!" I didn't tell her that it was probably from her lack of control over shadow magic, as this would distress her more. Besides, she's so cute when she's frustrated.
"Well, magical theory aside, I'm gonna fix breakfast, and you should go fix the bed-mane," I said, sliding out of bed and pointing to her rat's nest on her head. She chuckled nervously and waved me off.
In the kitchen, Spike was already removing ingredients from the cupboards to prepare breakfast. I stopped him as he was about to begin cooking, giving the dragon a wordless look. Spike took the hint, wandering off with a smile. Returning the smile, I turned to the stove. Then I remembered something. I couldn't bucking cook for the life of me. I turned back to see Spike standing there, a smug grin on his face and a spatula in his hand. Casually, he waved me off into the other room.
Me and Spike's relationship had drastically improved since I came along. Instead of seeing me as a threat to his job, the baby dragon looks up to me like a brother. In turn, Spike is like the little brother I never had, even though I have a younger sister back on Earth. As such, we became partners-in-crime, often pranking Twilight and other Element Bearers (aside from Rarity) using my ability as a Changeling and Spike's instant correspondence fire-breath. At this point, we were in a prank war with Rainbow Dash, Pinkie, and the occasional appearance of Rain.
My reminiscing was interrupted by the sudden sensation of absolute fear, originating from upstairs. Twilight! Seeing my face, Spike drew a confused look, but bolted out of my way as I made a beeline for the bathroom. "Twi? Are you alright?"
There was a scrambling noise from behind the door. The flow of shower water could be heard. "No! I mean… I'm fine! Just… don't come in!" came the panicked reply.
"I sense fear, Twi! What the buck is going on?" When there was no answer, I growled at the sound of running water. "I'm coming in, Twilight!"
"No! I'm, uh… taking a shower!"
"Twilight, we've done a shared shower before, so I'm not afraid of that," I said, even though I was blushing at the thought of Twi's wet body, her soaked mane dripping water trails down her chest… No! For Celestia's sake, I'm almost as bad as Skyblaze.
"Please! Don't come in!" There was a desperation in her voice that scared me. When Twilight has a breakdown, it's at least laughable. But this was more than a stroke of insanity. This was a definite fear of something that would either put her in imprisonment, banishment, or imprisonment in the place she was banished to.
Spike appeared at the top of the stairs, looking on in perplexity. "Hey, Spike?" I turned to address him. "If Twilight does something she may regret, try to stay out of her way." I shoved the door open.
The frame was grabbed by a lavender aura. I tried to overpower her, but as powerful as I may be, strength doesn't beat experience. We were at a stalemate, her knowledge over my potential. Yet, as significant as potential may be, the door slammed on my face, earning me a hurt nose, loss of disguise, and a restrained chuckle from Spike.
Growling in frustration, I set my hoof and charged my crooked horn again with a green glow. Something caught my eye, stopping me cold. It fluttered in the slight breeze running through the library, caught in the door hinges. I leaned close and plucked it from its perch. As it floated to the ground, Spike and I stared at it in shocked wonder.
Laying of the wooden floor of the library, stirring slightly, was a small, lavender primary flight feather.
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?????'s POV
I woke to the sound of running water. At first, I thought I had imagined the whole thing. That I was back at the foot of the cliff laying in blood, the stream running near me. But I felt no wetness on my head, no splitting headache. When I thought about the headache, it suddenly hit me with a vengeance.
"Erg…" I groaned, holding my head with my right hoof, as I found my left forearm restricted by some kind of wrapping. I heard the sound of hoofsteps and opened my eyes. I was in a small one-room cottage, laying on what seemed like the only available bed in the structure. In the kitchen portion of the abode, Summer Blossom was smiling at me while stirring a pot of tea.
"Morning, sleepyhead!" she said cheerily. "…well, actually, it's almost noon, come to think of it."
"Heh, yeah. I'd ask for breakfast, but I think it's a little late for that," I said, chuckling slightly. "…and having lunch just after waking seems weird."
There was a moment of silence, then we came up with the solution. "Brunch!" we exclaimed at the same time, causing us both to laugh. So in result, Summer took a few eggs out of a cupboard and cracked them into a pan.
I tried to get up, but found I was hindered by my injured left foreleg, bound in the sling. "Oh, try not to move," Summer said, worrying over my injury. "Your leg will need to be motionless for a day or two, and you're still probably weak from the blood loss yesterday."
"Mm-hmm…" I replied ambiguously, but not with any lack in good nature. "Those eggs smell like the best thing ever."
"Well, even considering you couldn't remember a better smell, thank you for the compliment."
I frowned at the mention of my lost memory. If only to give a name to myself for Summer, I wish I had it back. "Yeah… but it smells good either way."
She frowned at my downcast face. "Hey, cheer up! At least you still have life, right?"
How did she do that? "I guess I am lucky to be alive after an avalanche," I said, the smile returning to my face. "I'm also lucky you found me."
Summer gave me a grin. Then the teapot began to whistle, bidding her rush to take it off the stove and pour it into two teacups. "Sugar?"
"Um…" I tried to recall the taste of tea, but couldn't make heads or tails of it. So I settled with the 'buck it' approach. "Might as well. Everything is kinda new to me."
"Sugar it is then!" said the pearl mare, gripping the spoon in her mouth and scooping two lumps of sugar into the cups. Stirring the tea in either teacup, she set the spoon down and brought the tray over to the bedside table. I noticed that the cups had a long handle with a furrowed indent, so an earth pony or pegasus could pick it up with their teeth and have the liquid pour down the furrow.
Summer watched me examine the cups and giggled. "I take it you've never seen these before?" I gave her a 'really?' look. "Oh, right." Just then the timer on the oven dinged, Summer rushing over to fetch the eggs before our meal met a fiery demise.
Curious, I took the handle of the teacup in my mouth and tipped my head back slightly, letting the steaming liquid flow down the furrow and into my mouth. Besides the initial burn that nearly made me drop the cup itself, the taste was actually rather good. Unfortunately, because of a certain head injury, I had nothing to use as a comparison. It could be the best thing I ever tasted and I wouldn't know it. "That's pretty good," I said simply.
"You like it?" Summer said while loading scrambled eggs onto two plates. "It's my own brew. Just some herbs I have growing in the garden." She moved the plates over to the table, setting my own in front of me so I could reach it with my mouth.
Evidently, there was no special way of eating eggs. Summer, tossing table manners to the wind, began chowing down, putting her nose to the plate and grazing. She made rather embarrassing noises, a practice I would think transcends table etiquette. When at last she looked up from her meal, she saw me staring at her with a nervous grin.
"Oh, um…" she said, blushing heavily. "I… usually don't have guests… sorry."
We stared at each other for a moment. Then I burst out in laughter at her unfortunate naïveté. Her blush increased as she giggled along. Ah well, do as they do, I suppose. Comically, I shoved my face into my own plate, noisily slurping up the eggs, putting Summer's display to shame. I was soon joined by the mare, the sounds of our less-than-polite eating reverberating through the small log cottage.
Once our eggs were demolished, we finished off our tea by slurping loudly. After clanging the cups down on the table with a clatter, we looked up at each other. Summer's face was coated in egg and tea, a result of our sloppy eating. I could only imagine what mine looked like.
Laughter once again filled the room at sight of one another's food faces. Still teary-eyed with mirth, Summer got up and wet a rag. She's took the rag in her hooves and washed, cleaning her visage of the gore that was her meal. I chuckled and held out my hoof for the rag.
But she had other plans. Smiling maliciously, the mare tossed the rag onto my face and proceeded to rub down my face. When she was finished, I expected to be greeted by a smiling face.
Summer looked at me with a frown, taking me by surprise. "You know…" she said. "I really need to give you a name."
I raised an eyebrow. "Say what now?"
"Well, I can't keep calling you by 'you'." I almost pointed out that she didn't do that much anyway, but I let her continue. "Let's see… you're cutie mark is a shield- an aegis, to be precise -so I think Aegis is fitting."
The name stirred around in my head. Anything is better than nothing, I suppose. "I guess you can call me Aegis, then," I replied with a smile. "Wait… come closer." Summer gave a look, but complied, putting her face next to mine. "You have something right…" I reached up and licked a bit of egg off her chin. "…there."
She gave a start and blushed, her tail suddenly shooting out. "Well… aren't you playful," she chided. "I'm gonna remember that when I take you through physical therapy."
Uh-oh.