//------------------------------// // Magic // Story: Fireflying // by Meziph //------------------------------//         The moment those words left her mout, Firefly knew she had given the rest of her day to a certain purple unicorn.She had just shown something ponies apparently forgot, and now the overeager to learn Twilight Sparkle was going to, no doubt, question her till her ears fell.         The parchment and quill floating to her side wasn’t really unexpected.         “Alright, I have a question.” for all of their surprise though, It was Rainbow Dash who was the first to ask.She took  a deep breath, and then spoke, “Alright, we know how you’re going to help the changelings, but you still didn’t tell us why.”         “Good question,” she leaned backwards, the kettle, floating in her aura dipped down to full her cup once more, eliciting an eye twitch from Twilight. “The reason I’m helping them… well, I quite like helping those who do stupid things, I’m going to be completely honest, it feels quite nice when they look at you with that face that just screams ‘how did I not see that’.And well, they did lose their Queen, and I’ve had a good relationship with them for some time now, even if they didn’t know about it.”         “The reason I’m helping them is because I can. Really simple.”         The cyan mare nodded, and took a sip of her drink, making the best face to not show that she didn’t like it.Twilight took no chances, and asked before anyone else could. “Alright, you just told us that you can use magic without a horn, How? and what do you mean by saying that ‘magic is just magic’?”         She nodded, and placed her right hoof on top of the table, the aura intensified, and all of the nine cups began levitating together with the two kettles. “This is almost the limit of my unboosted telekinesis.Horns are good for casting because their spiral design naturally lets Willed magic flow in a rhythm, hooves are second best as they are large enough and smooth.Feather’s are the worst conductors, you need a specific Foci to Will magic outwards, the most complex and smooth one is, the best it is to cast with.”         She then dipped her hoof into the tea, and drew two circles in the table,one large and one small and linking them with four lines, placing the same hoof inside the smaller one, her aura flared brighter, and the circles soon started glowing the same way.A red tinted white aura involved Rainbow dash, who started to float, “This is a Array Circle, used to direct energy into a change matrix, who converts it into magic and then pushes it into the Foci, ancient Horn Battle Rings were made using complex Array Circles, making levitating a entire castle or moving the Sun doable with a good enough energy saturated environment.With enough of these you can make artifacts, such as the Elements,” She grinned, watching as everyone’s but Twilight’s face grew more and more confused, “I wasn’t there, of course, but I heard that the Cynogriffins were quite ingenuous with these things, they created a brand of Magic called alchemy, of which I’m still trying to learn.”         She plopped Rainbow down on her pillow, “This the the how, and the why is simple.Magic is energy given form, Will is the key to most Magic, and some types you need Understanding to use, like alchemy, and then there’s Want with chaos and greed magic, but I’m straying and your ink is running low.”         The sound of parchment being ripped drew everyone’s attention to Twilight, who was looking at the gash at the end of her pony sized report.She smiled sheepishly, and coughed before talking again, “Eh, I kinda of went into auto-pilot there, and… could you repeat that?”         Four groans and a chuckle were her answer, “Well, I think Miss Sparkle is going to hog me for the rest of the day.In any way, I’ll be here tomorrow as well… since the gem I gave the Princesses can only by used by me, so… If you don’t want to hear a long explanation about magic you can leave.”         Five hooves shuffled slowly outwards, casting glances at Firefly and Twilight, small See ya’s and Stay safes were spoken, and the two of them remained inside the room.         “Well,” Firefly started, “I thought Fluttershy would want to stay, well, not that It matters now.So, what do you want to learn right now?”         “Everything.” =======         Twilight let out a small sigh of happiness as she finished writing another roll of parchment.The day was nearing it’s end already, and since then she had not stopped writing.To her, Firefly seemed to posses an uncanny amount of knowledge about eberything related to magic.         It was quite the surprise to hear that the unassuming ‘moth’pony had lived for so long that she had lost count of the years, her answer of “I was here before Discord even appeared.” when she was asked how old she was only increased Twilight’s questions.How had she lived for so long? How had she attained so much knowledge? Were Giraffes really the creators of the Telekinesis spell?         That was another thing that bothered Twilight to no end.She thought she knew a lot about magic, in the end she did, Equestrian magic.There were so many different types of magic, so many different races around the world, ones that she hadn’t even heard existed, like the Polar Griffins and the Sand Dragons.Why Equestria’s Schools and Universities didn’t teach about these subjects?         “Because they don’t know about their existence.”         “What? are you mind reading too!?”         “Don’t need to mind read when you’re speaking what you’re writing.” Firefly laughed, making Twilight blush with embarrassment, “For how long has Equestria been really, and I mean really interested in figuring out how magic works? since Starswirl and Clover.Those two appeared a thousand and so years ago, Equestria as we know has existed as long as Three thousand years, the only reason I know so much is because I kinda of travelled around the word when I came to be.” Twilight nodded, and reminded her of keeping her mouth shut while writing.That was another story worthy of it’s own, Firefly apparently was in a stasis spell of sort when she ‘Woke Up’, and her first family was a group of Zebras out in the eastern Savannah.She had spoken only a little about her… first millennia of life, only enough to know she didn’t remember anything about her own kind, and that she didn’t know how to use magic then. “It must have been though, living without knowing your father and mother no?” Twilight took a small sip of her tea as she watched Firefly’s face. “I had a mother and a father Twi, they were Zebras, they teached me what I needed to learn, and the first time I ever did anything with magic was making a tree grow out of a potion I made with my mother overlooking me.It didn’t matter to me that I was strange in body, I had their acceptance in soul, and that was all that mattered to me.” She looked at the page she was currently finishing, her theories about how to use Earth pony magic with either wings or horns were taking shape.Unsurprisingly enough, it seemed that ancient ponies liked to answer with questions and riddles instead of straight out giving her the knowledge. “Come on! why don’t you just tell me how you do it?” “Because it’s quite funny seeing actual steam coming out of your ears.” “ARGH! It would help so much to know how to use the other’s tribes magic, it could help us understand a lot of things too!” “Yes it could, it also could make it so that the Dark Ages happen all over again.Those times were quite terrible thank you very much.If you really want to learn how to use… I don’t know, earth pony magic as an example.Ask your friend Applejack what she thinks when she is casting it.She will probably say nothing, but then try to make her focus on it, who knows? maybe you will learn how to Will another magic aspect into your own and emulate it?” It made some sense though, if what she kept talking about Willing things and the such, all those abstract concepts made Twilight’s head hurt a little, she was used to formulaic spell casting, something Firefly kept saying that it was ‘a necessary evil for these times’, whatever that meant.It didn’t mean though, that she wasn’t willing to experiment, and these new ideas could revolutionize the field of magic. “Not revolutionize, more like bring back lost knowledge.That’s what happens when you burn The Library you know.” Twilight looked to her, one eyebrow raised, “Wait, you mean all of this is already known?” “Has already been discovered, I’m no inventor.All of this is knowledge that’s inside this thick skull here,” she poked her head with her right hoof, “the reason I remember is because I… enhanced so to speak, my memory.Other cultures were quite linked back then, and I’m quite sure Celestia is going seek you after we finish, probably to tell you to not publish anything you learn over this conversation.” “What!?” “She most certainly doesn’t want a reprise of the Dark Ages, I’m most certain that that is the reason she keeps a tight leash on magical research.You have things like Magic Microwaves and a Prototype Car-Cider machine thing, but Unicorns don’t know how to plant trees, Pegasi can’t teleport and Earth Ponies don’t make it rain when they want.Keeping everything interlocked means harmony, what do you think happens when someone knows how to do everything?” Discord. Twilight looked at her stack of papers with a different look, “Do you think we should stop then?” “Probably yeah.If she gives you the ‘go ahead’ you can come and look after me to keep this conversation going.” “Thanks.” “Heh, it was no problem.”