An Assistant

by samstermlp

Chapter Three

Musica rubbed her eyes. Discord had taken them to a room filled with stacks of paper. He had plopped a stack in front of her and told her to note anything related to Chrysalis. After of three hours of going through the pages as quickly and efficiently as she could, she had only gone through about half the papers and she had very few notes to show for it. She sighed quietly and glanced over at Discord. He’d gone through at least five stacks already and had page after page of notes. She narrowed her eyes. If he can do it, so can I! She threw herself back into the work. After a while though, she sat back again. How does he do it? she wondered. Maybe I could try scanning the stack with magic. She frowned. Sometimes my magic gets out of control, but maybe this time...

Discord had gone through these stacks so many times that it took him no time at all to find all the mentions of Chrysalis in each stack. He had no hopes that he’d find anything new. He glanced over at the filly. Three hours, and she’d only done half a stack with barely a page of notes. He mentally sighed. He refocused on his work. He soon became aware of a spell being cast nearby. He looked around and saw that Musica was using magic to scan her stack and take the notes. It worked for about three seconds before things started to go downhill. The spell, originally cast only on the stack in front of the filly, began to spread to the surrounding stacks. It grew and grew, so much that Musica’s notebook filled up and the notes started to write themselves over the words on the stacks. It would have kept going had Discord not stopped the spell. With a snap of his fingers, the spell disappeared, as well as the notes that had appeared overtop the words on the stacks. Discord turned slowly to Musica with one eyebrow raised. She stared at the floor. “I’m sorry.” A long moment passed.

“Follow me.”

Discord lead Musica out of the castle to a large field. He turned around and said, “Using your magic, pick up that boulder and hold it in the air.” She looked at the boulder he indicated and took a deep breath. The boulder was encased with dark pink magic and rose into the air. She grinned at Discord. He nodded, expressionless, and pointed at a tiny pebble. “Pick that up with magic and move it in a fancy design.” She started to concentrate again, but Discord interrupted. “Put the boulder down first.” She did so and then focused on the pebble again. It rose into the air with no problem. She started to move it around in the air, but after a few seconds, every pebble in the field rose into the air and started hurtling around. Discord ended the spell as he had before. “It’s as I thought. Spells that require great power are easy enough for you, but you don’t have enough concentration to do the more complicated spells without them exploding outward.” Musica looked at her hooves in surprise. She hadn’t realized it before, but what he was saying was true. Discord gave a heavy sigh. Musica looked up at him questioningly. “Looks like we have some training ahead of us.” Musica blinked.

“You mean you’re going to teach me how to use my magic?!” she cried.

“Unfortunately, it seems I must.” he said.

“Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!” She ran around in excitement. Discord rolled his eyes and groaned, but he couldn’t help feeling amused.

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Musica fell into her bed, exhausted. Discord had made her do many spells that required a lot of concentration so he would know where she was. The power part was easy enough, but the concentration she needed eluded her. Discord had been strict, but not at all mean. When he had dismissed her for the day, she could have sworn he had been less gloomy than he’d been earlier. She walked over to her small dresser and picked up her locket. It was one of the few things she had that was from before she had moved here. Inside was her one clue to who her parents were, a single strand of hair that had been wrapped around her hoof when she was found. She often wondered if her parents were still alive, what they looked like, what they did. As she drifted off to sleep, she held the locket close to her heart.