//------------------------------//
// One if By Land: Part 14 
// Story: Spike of All Trades 
// by Ariamaki 
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Spike's vision snapped back into place... No, that wasn't quite right. This wasn't his vision, and it arguably wasn't even vision at all. Visuals snapped into place, but they were of nothing real. At the very least they were of nothing tangible: It was like an entire world composed of the same floating un-light as his menus. But rather than the simple windows and panes full of data, this was something much more complicated.

Instead of a dry and precise web on a menu screen, Spike was looking directly at the connections between everything and everypony in the room. Right in 'front' of him was, well, himself! A vaguely Spike-shaped blob of magic bound to itself with tightly regimented lines that almost resembled millions of bits of miniscule writing. On one side of the table was an endlessly coiled series of springs and lights that just had to be Pinkie, on the other sat a clean and smoothly-flowing arrangement of glyphs and formulae in Twilight's chair.

Where Celestia resided was only an enormous gulf in his current perception: Dark space without any hint of the menu light or even the objects or environments within a foot of it. No 'direct observation', just like it said. Probably for the best: He'd looked straight at bright lights before, and didn't want to imagine what that would feel like for his... brain? Soul? Magic? Whatever he was using right now.

While it was interesting to see how they were each bound together into these metaphorical (or maybe less metaphorical than he assumed, but that was a HUGE can of worms) appearances? Spike was much more concerned by the dozens of lines that stretched between them: Connection given form for his mind's eye. Threads and lines and waves flowed between each of their places, even going into and out of the void that hid Celestia from his view. 

Some threads were small while others were positively gigantic, seeming like they might be even bigger than the ponies themselves. As if they were merely scaled down for his sake... Smaller bonds went out from the ponies to the room, to nearby objects... None of the bonds he could see left the room, but he had to imagine that was also for his sake. His own safety even: Trying to perceive every bond Celestia had to her ponies and random things across the world must be just as dangerous as staring right at the actual sun.

He started to mentally unwind and unravel the bonds in his mind, assigning them meanings. It might have been possible to define them directly with his system using Indra's Net in its normal fashion, but he went for the manual route for two reasons. First off, he wasn’t exactly sure how his system would react to using the same skill twice at once for two different reasons. Second? Puzzling it out like this would probably have its own benefits in the long term. If all else failed it'd make for good Intelligence and Wisdom training!

Everything below a certain size he discarded automatically: The scale probably implied the intensity and importance of the relationship, and even if that was a bad assumption he could come back to those later. Same with threads that were strangely tangled or dove back in on themselves: Probably too complex for him to figure out immediately, doubly so given that he had no baseline to work with.

The first one was the easiest: A striped pipeline binding all four of them in mutual pairs, in the exact colors of Twilight's mane and tail. If that didn't represent Friendship he had no clue what else could! Same for the sizzling hot-pink (almost liquidous) line between himself and Pinkie, and its partner for Twilight and Celestia: Love, more specifically romantic affection, interpreted by his subconscious to resemble the magic that Cadance and Shining used at their wedding.

Following that train of thought (assuming each line drew its style from his own associations) helped clarify several others. One of the minor lines between Twilight and Celestia was the curly puff-pink of Pinkie's mane, and must have represented the joke they shared right as he was using this skill. A series of pointed and serrated arrow-like lines scattered across Pinkie's plate of snacks (thanks again Eidetic Memory, this would have been a chore to keep track of otherwise) showed the battle lines of her imaginary warfare.

Despite technically all being in his field of 'view' at once, he still had to focus on areas and specific lines to make any sense of it. If he just sat back and marinated in it, the experience was closer to a form of meditation than any information-gathering. Heh, meditation... Actually, he'd have to try that later. Maybe it could become its own skill, an 'outervision' to match his Omphaloskepsis?

Without being able to actually move, he could still focus his concentration enough to 'pluck' at certain strings, getting a feeling for how they resonated and bonded. This helped clear up some details and even revealed hidden aspects of certain strands. Touching the string of love between Twilight and Celestia sent it vibrating... Which in turn revealed dozens of smaller strings nested within, a rainbow of nuance to their affections. By comparison, the same type of bond between himself and Pinkie Pie was more one-note but had a sense of shifting growth and change in it: Their own romance was fresh and new, so things would develop over time.

The bonds that took him the longest to figure out were some that didn't involve Pinkie at all. One was a set of brassy back-and-forth threads between himself, Twilight and Celestia. He eventually figured that must have been their nameless, wordless 'not-quite-there-yet-more-than-family' quality... Which left another set bonding the three of them, a pair of very emphatically directional arrows. One led from Celestia to Spike, and a second identical arrow went from Twilight to Spike.

The color was eventually what gave that one away: A near-primary blue tinged with a layer of faint steely silver, the same as his own MP bar after he acquired the Dragon's Horn. That was the tie of their magic... Twilight had used a huge amount of magic from the surge when she got her Cutie Mark in order to hatch him. Maybe Princess Celestia had also contributed her own magic to his egg at some point? He'd ask about that later... Now that he’d worked out the critical ties between them, there was one obvious target left to see.

Spike turned to look between Celestia and the mirror.

This time the emotions were so intense and fierce that he went to shield his lack of eyes with his lack of moveable arms. Just looking at these bonds gave him more information than touching every other tie in the room. There was a veritable pipe of pulsing red hatred, a long snake of oily black sorrow, multiple interwoven ropes of green-tinged-brown regret bound to righteous indignation. He understood every one of them with no context or even association, simply because they were that potent and ingrained. One of the few positive ties was a golden thread of hope. Just big enough to be seen, and yet it radiated so strongly that it stuck out all the more because of it. 

There was even another blue and silver arrow coming off of the mirror at an odd angle, so far off course that it probably didn't reach Celestia... at all... Spike followed its path with a sense of reluctance, trepidation, and just... resignation. He 'looked' down to his (lack of) body and sighed.

The arrow reached him.

Just like the paths of pure magic that bound him to Celestia and Twilight, there was a third one coming from the mirror. And while all of Celestia's bonds to the object were literally to the object, anchored on the frame or the plinth? This arrow seemed like it was coming through the mirror, from behind it or inside of the glass. 

A year ago, six months ago, a week ago, earlier today he might have broken out of his current revery and asked the Princess what the heck was going on. But he wanted to take Luna's lesson about secrets to heart, so he just... kept that little tidbit to himself. It probably wouldn't hurt to do some of his own research before asking anypony about whatever that might mean.

With that in mind he leaned back, took a deep lack-of-breath (hopefully his body was taking care of that for him) and just... soaked in the sights. If he wanted to get a benefit from this state of mind and strange perception, there was no time like the present. All the other questions could wait.