Misty glared with a soft groaning noise, her horn glimmering fitfully as she rocked in place.
Amber watched with slow nods. "Almost, almost." She gave a single clop of her hooves. "I know this isn't the most fun part, but I needed to get the runes down before I could do too much else."
Misty flexed her magic. "I feel it. I want to do it." She perked up, eyes wide. "I can do this, I know it!" She leapt at the sphere of energy she had made with her efforts with a snarl, her magic crashing into it with a splash of sparks and ribbons that danced around the room with the release of that magic. "Thank you, again. I feel like I'm putting a hoof forward. What'd I miss?"
Amber sat back, raising her horn up as she started through the letters with slow precision, showing each rune clearly before Misty's fascinated eyes. "Good practice for me too, if we're being honest." She hung on the last one, forming it into scintillating light a moment before it all faded away. "See what you missed?"
"Yeah." Misty perked when she realized what she was missing. "Oops, no 'z'." She hunched herself down, covering her mouth with a nervous giggle. "Guess that's why it's still falling apart." She got right back to work, forming the missing rune, then restarting from the top through the alphabet in concentrated glows. "How did unicorns forget this?! It was a huge part of, uh, unicorn'ing, right?"
"Excellent question." Comforting was there, with no warning or sound, just there as if she had been there from the start. "I'm fairly sure it has to do with unicorns having no magic for over a generation, giving them plenty of time to forget how to use those horns of there's." She reached up to feel along her larger yak horn. "Glad to see it coming back. You two are so diligent."
Amber lit up with a blush. "Aw, shucks. It's easy when you have such a great teacher. I know the language now, I just need to do it. Easier said than done." She directed her horn at Misty. With a twinkle, a doorknob appeared before Misty's surprised face and fell to the ground.
Misty blinked, reaching with unsure hooves. "Where did you pull this from?"
Amber flashed a wicked smile. "That's the best part, I didn't. I just made that. It came from nothing but magic itself." She looked quite proud as she closed her eyes. "My first not-starter spell. Um, though it's not specific to doorknobs. I should learn more variants." She looked at her hooves. "And keep it to nonliving things. I'm still not good enough to do living creatures safely."
Comforting reached down to pick up the doorknob and drop it in her pocket. "Good idea. Living creatures and critters opens up whole new libraries of ethical red tape. If you make a bird, are you responsible for that bird now? Is it like adopting the bird? What if the bird gets hurt, or just flies away? What if you summon the wrong kind of bird? Do you take care of your mistake or toss it out and try again?" She counted on her fingers as she went, resulting in having too many fingers briefly as she went. "You're better off avoiding that for now."
"Yeah, I think I'd like to figure out the doorknob trick a little more." Misty stood up. "It's such a simple thing, but it's something I can do."
Amber threw an arm over Misty. "You're getting ahead of yourself. Step 1, get the runes." Her horn glowed with a few of them. "Step 2, Comforting will ask you a question."
"I will?" She perked. "Right, I will." She zipped over to Misty, curling around her with her long form. "There are different kinds of magic, and I'll show you a simple one of a kind you like. Amber's a conjurer, but you don't have to be. You could be something else entirely. Let's wait until you have those letters first though." She squeezed Misty from all around, looped on the unicorn in a warm embrace. "It will be fun. You're already such an eager student."
Misty leaned into that squeeze, seeming to get some comfort out of the attention. "I want to do better, do more with my life than the nothing I had with Opaline."
Comforting nibbled on Misty's ear. "I am so very happy to hear that." She nuzzled into the twitchy little thing. "Which is why I'll get out of the way. Call when it's my turn!" She evaporated into a field of bubbles, popping rapidly.
Amber threw a hoof against the board with the runes on it. "From the top!"
Misty chirped and moved to join in that task. "Aye-aye, boss."
They practiced the runes and then practiced more with Comforting once she reappeared. When she finally stopped, Amber let out a soft groan. "I need a break, but I want to keep working too. I'm burning with the desire to do more, learn more." She danced fitfully in place. "But balance. It's time to take a break, yes." She moved for the door, waving Misty along. "Want to join me?"
Misty trotted along happily. "Yeah. Are we going to be librarians, oh! Or get a snack? All that work made me hungry."
Amber paused with a hum. "Good idea, actually. To food!"
The two cut through the library, waving to other librarians. Amber collected a few other orders on the way, promising to bring them back some food for later breaks.
Amber and Misty walked down the street. They were going to get food together. With the growing friendship between them, that was a step forward. While Amber wanted to walk with Misty's shoulder bumping into her own, she didn't want to spook Misty by going too quickly. "It's so nice, having a proper magic buddy."
Misty smiled at that. "It really is. Um, but right now, it feels more like you're my magic teacher."
Amber waved that away, stepping up onto a sidewalk. "That's just for now. You'll catch up with me and start your own journey. I can't wait for that." She held open the door with her magic to let Misty step inside. "We're gonna be a force to be reckoned with."
"Reckon that," challenged an aged stallion from the counter of the café. "I'll reckon you two some goodies."
Amber and Misty both jumped at being talked to outside each other. Misty recovered first. "Oh, um, hi? Goodies?"
"You two." He waved a hoof at Amber and Misty. "I can feel it, and I trust those feelings. Two good unicorns. Good. Good. We've been missing some really good ones."
Amber lifted her brows at the stallion. "I've never been called a good unicorn before." She rubbed the side of her head. "Maybe 'good pony' at best." She giggled at her own joke.
The stallion fixed her with a glare. "I know a good one when I see one." He got a little smile. "Why don't you show me your sparkle?"
Misty inclined her head. "I didn't know a sparkle was something you could 'show'."
Amber nodded firmly. "Yeah. Sparkles are just what a pony are. You can already see that." She trotted up to that counter. "Sorry to bother, but we do have some orders." She handed over a slip of paper.
He grabbed the note from Amber's grip, tapping it lightly against the countertop as he considered the two mares. "Well, let's see who has placed orders." His eyes wandered down the slip. "More than you two, obviously." With a glowing horn of his own, he doodled out a few new bits of paper and hung them up in front of the kitchen. "There we are, they're on the case. Now, about that sparkle."
Amber considered that. "Sparkles."
"Sorry, yes, sparkles." He chuckled and leaned over the counter, ignoring the cash register. "Show me yours, and I'll show you mine."
Misty burst into giggles as her horn glowed softly. "Like this?"
"Close." The old stallion tapped his hooves. "But I feel there's more. Go on."
Amber lifted an ear. "Alright." She played a few runes across her horn, fast and loose just to show them off. "Like that?" To most ponies, her horn just glowed.
The stallion saw things differently with widening eyes. "I was right. That's the sparkle I was talking about. I haven't seen that, in, um."
"Orders up!" came a sudden cry from the back.
Forgetting what he was talking about, the stallion gathered Amber's orders and placed them with his magic down on the counter between them. "Enjoy."
"Thank you?" Misty stared at the stallion. "It was nice meeting you, but uh, we have to go." She collected a few bags in her arms, leaning down to put her shoulder under them to get them all.
Amber also loaded herself up, but kept her eye on the stallion. "I'm glad you liked our sparkles."
"Sparkles?" He looked a bit blank a moment before it came to him. "Sparkles! Yes. Not seen anything like it for moons. Good unicorns, you two take care of yourself now, okay?"
They made their exit, transferring their bags to their magic to hold them in the air between themselves. Misty glanced back at the place curiously. "He knows about magic?"
Amber fidgeted even as she walked. "I don't think he does. I think it's a bit sadder than that."
Misty flipped an ear back. "Sadder? What happened?"
Amber glanced about to be sure nopony else was listening. "Comforts said it'd been over a generation since unicorns had magic. Maybe he was just old enough to have seen a little, or even just had it described to him. He doesn't know what he's seeing, just that he remembers it." She frowned slightly. "And that's so sad to me."
Misty opened her mouth and closed it. "Wow, that's... sad. But it's good now. Right?"
"I'd like to think so." Amber perked an ear at Misty. "We're doing our part. If we can show we're doing it right, then we can start showing other unicorns. We'll get our magic back."
They met, hoof to hoof, in a nice firm clop. With shared smiles, they dashed back to the library with their goodies.
"You like them," came in an email on Comforting's phone from Together. "It's okay. I already said I wouldn't be bothered. You are a living creature. You desire the physical contact of other living creatures. That is normal, and not something I can provide, as a tree."
Comforting swiped away tears. "You are the most wonderful person."
"I am a tree," corrected Together patiently. "Not a person."
Comforting wiped her tears. "You're a living being." She rolled over onto her back, holding her phone above her in both hands. "With feelings, who I love so dang much."
"I love you too, but I am a tree. My love is a sedate thing. It takes decades to ripen for me, as I am a tree." She giggled, sounding like wind through the branches of a forest. "Unlike you, I don't have to have it all right away."
Comforting sat up, looking around sharply, but there was no tree there, just her imagination? She continued tapping at her phone. "We've been together for a long time now, you. Don't act like we just met. Living ponies are all younger than our relationship. Oh! Like the benches?"
"It is nice to have ponies spending more time beside me, where I can see, listen, and watch over them. Thank you." A smile emoji followed afterwards. "Now, back to what we were talking about."
"I am in a healthy relationship," insisted Comforting. She twisted this way and that as if someone could overhear her. "I'm just friends with these cute ponies." She huffed gently. "One of whom is clearly hoping I'll give more than that."
"Do you want to give them that? If you do not, drive them away. I know you can. They would be powerless to stop you."
Comforting wailed into a laugh. "I will not blast Toots into next week, that'd be awful. He's just a guy that asked a girl he thought was neat out on a date. No crime there." She scratched gently at her cheek. "I'm just feeling things."
"Have you considered being a tree? Our roots could intertwine. We could patiently watch centuries pass."
Comforting blinked at those words on her phone. "Together..."
"I know that's not what you want, but it doesn't hurt to suggest. You are an animal, my dear Comforting. So do your animal things. I will wait patiently. Trees are good at that."