//------------------------------// // Intro // Story: Heart of stone // by Ferrus Caballio //------------------------------// Twilight looked through the book excitedly, it was concerning an area of magic apparently not visited in many years; the creation of magically animated constructs. ‘‘There are many different types of construct.’’ Twilight spoke aloud as she read, not because it was necessary but because it helped her to remember things ‘‘Rock, metal, fire to name but a few, each has its own method of providing itself with energy, rock constructs require the intake of minerals from almost anywhere, metal constructs require vast amounts of electricity and fire constructs require burnable substances such as wood.’’ ‘‘Without command a construct will remain stationary except to seek out a new energy source as required.’’ ‘’It should be noted that unless a construct is bound to a particular unicorn it will follow almost any command given to it barring that which would cause its own destruction, binding can be achieved by taking a small amount of matter from a unicorn’s horn and mixing it with the construct’s being, this can only be done after the construct has been created.’’ She closed the book before speaking excitedly ‘Imagine what a help something like that would be, I mean, Spike helps me as much as he can, but sometimes he does struggle with the heavy lifting, and maybe one could help AJ with her applebucking! The possibilities are almost endless!’ At this point a voice drifted down from upstairs. ‘‘Twilight, are you speaking to yourself again?’’ ‘‘No Spike, well, maybe a little, but it’s nothing to worry about.’’ ‘‘It is when it keeps me awake at night; get some sleep, Twilight.’’ ‘‘Oh, alright.’’ She made her way upstairs though there was no way she was going to drop this. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ‘‘Ah’m not so sure that this would be such a good idea, sugarcube.’’ Twilight snorted in exasperation ‘‘Why not? You’ve got to admit it could be useful.’’ ‘‘Maybe it could, but it still don’t seem right to create sumthin’ just to do work for us.’’ ‘‘But we build carts and carriages all the time just to do work for us, this is no different to that.’’ ‘‘I don’t know, if it’s something that needs to feed itself, it just makes it seem like it would actually be a living thing.’’ Twilight stared at Fluttershy in disbelief. ‘‘It doesn’t eat, it just takes in fuel like we use to power trains.’’ ‘‘But darling, I can’t help but notice that all the things you’ve mentioned work with at least some input from ponies for instance, I use a sewing machine to make my work easier but without me it’d be pretty useless.’’ ‘‘I agree with Rarity, you can’t claim the awesomeness for yourself if somepony else did all the work.’’ Rainbow Dash puffed her chest out with faux-pride ‘‘Besides, like some lump of rock could keep up with me in the air.’’ ‘‘Well they wouldn’t necessarily be made out of stone, Dash, you could even make one out of clouds, you know.’’ Pinkie Pie squealed ‘‘Ooh! Could you make one out of balloons? Like a giant balloon animal?’’ ‘‘Well, maybe, Pinkie, but it wouldn’t exactly be resilient, now would it?’’ ‘‘The thing is, Twilight, Ah know you’re powerful curious about these constructs, but I don’t think anypony would be willing to use one, it just doesn’t sit well with how we do things here.’’ ‘‘But-’’ Twilight sighed deeply ‘‘Yeah, I suppose you’re right.’’ Rarity was the first to notice the oncoming signs of depression coming from the studious unicorn ‘‘That doesn’t mean you can’t study it dear, Princess Celestia may have asked you to study friendship, but we all know how much you like to study magic as well, you should feel free to continue looking into it but, don’t get your hopes up that it might revolutionise the way everypony works.’’ Twilight perked up almost immediately ‘‘You’re right, I can still research it, I could even put it into practice maybe!’’ Rainbow Dash had found the book ‘‘Where did you get this thing anyway, this thing looks even older than that egghead stuff you normally read.’’ ‘‘I found it in the storage downstairs.’’ ‘‘What? You have more books downstairs?’’ ‘‘Yes, what’s up here is only about half the collection, I’ve read everything up here so I decided to move onto the books in the basement and found this, and maybe got a little overexcited about the possibilities.’’ ‘‘Well, no worries, sugarcube, just be careful fooling about with magic like that.’’ ‘‘It’s hardly fooling about, Applejack. I will be pursuing this with my standard scientific approach.’’ ‘‘Still.’’ Applejack gave her a worried glance as she and the others left the library. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hours into the next day and Twilight was still searching around the canyon for a suitable mass of rock to use, by this time she was exhausted and almost sick of the idea of continuing, it was only her determination to see her project through to the end that kept her going. As the sun was setting the air became horribly muggy in the sheltered canyon, the mud Twilight was caked in becoming even more uncomfortable. A dreadful stink rose from the puddles of water and the light reflecting off them reduced visibility. The canyon was denied even a lick of wind by the high walls. It was just as Twilight resolved to go home for the day that she noticed an area where the rock wall of the canyon had splintered, excitement lent her energy, this was exactly what she had been looking for. A short search revealed a large mass of basalt with seams of grey rock within it. Twilight swarmed over it, eagerness clearly evident. ‘‘Hmm, Obsidian, means that the mountain above is more than likely a sleeping volcano, when it came out it must have picked up other types of rock as it cooled before it settled.’’ She summoned a tape measure seemingly out of nowhere before starting to measure the rock. ‘‘As it stands, the rock is the same height as me, but a good deal wider.’’ She laughed slightly ‘‘Thankfully.’’ ‘‘This means that when fully formed, the construct would be…’’ A roll of parchment and a quill appeared and Twilight began scribbling furiously muttering to herself ‘‘Apparent density…rough volume…along with reforming. It would be about half again my height! Perfect! Not so big as to be unwieldy but also able to bear large loads.’’ She let out a little squeal of delight as the parchment and quill disappeared, only to land on the head of a certain unsuspecting draconic assistant. ‘‘Now, all I need is to bring it back with me. No way am I going to repeat that debacle with Tom.’’ Somewhere in Ponyville, Rarity’s head snapped up from her work ‘‘We swore we’d never speak of that again!’’ Unaware of this, Twilight bound the rock to her with magic to prevent any mishap such as when she teleported with Spike, she’d rather not find out whether she could burn rock if it could be helped. When Twilight appeared back in the libraries’ basement it was lucky for Spike that she made him jump as this allowed him to avoid the mass of rock. ‘‘T-Twilight! What’s going on?’’ ‘‘Oh, hello there Spike, what are you doing down here?’’ ‘‘I was just doing some dusting.’’ ‘‘Oh, alright then, I’m just going to be doing some work.’’ The spell itself was almost misleadingly simple, all she had to do was provide the magical energy while the transmutation circle as the book put it directed the form it would take, apparently the circle would act as the guide but it would be Twilight’s mind that decided the exact specifics. Excited to start she had sent Spike out of the library for and got down to work immediately even though it was nearly dark by this point. She fed her magic into the markings on the floor slowly at first, carefully, until the markings started to glow and then her excitement got the better of her again and she pushed harder until she had to close her eyes to avoid the glaring light, and then, just as soon as it started, it was over. Before her stood what appeared to be a larger than life statue, the body was the pure black of the obsidian while the mane and tail were varying shades of grey, she tentatively approached. The black ‘coat’ of the female earth pony statue was perfectly smooth and very shiny, the mane and tail were rougher, as if imitating hair, the statue appeared to have its eyes closed. ‘‘Interesting, the construct is neither a pegasus or a unicorn, obviously it would be too heavy to fly,’’ She hadn’t seen in any of her readings an instance where a construct could use magic, though some more complex ones did use a horn as its focal point. Shrugging it off she continued her study, commenting on the nature of the ‘hair’. ‘‘I didn’t expect the different types of rock to separate like that, but it is convenient, this’ll strengthen the obsidian itself by not having impurities within it.’’ True to Twilight’s earlier prediction the construct was half again her height, making it hard to see its’ eyes though she thought they must be closed from the glimpse she could get. Finally having sated her curiosity she took a step back and rested her horn against its chest, taking a deep breath before sending a magical ‘jolt’ throughout the rock. As she looked at it again there was no indication that anything was different until its eyes slowly creaked open, revealing an icey-blue glow.