//------------------------------// // Chapter 3 // Story: The Tale of Horologium // by H0rologium //------------------------------// Whoever this poor pony was, I knew I had to go and find them. I ran back inside, grabbed my raincoat, and headed out of the door. It wasn't all that hard for me to find the pony. He had a bright yellow coat with a white mane, that couldn't stand out more. The unconscious body was lying right beyond the edge of my garden, in a patch of thorns. I carefully lifted the pony out of the thorns and carried him back to the house. I put him on my bed, and I spent the rest of the night applying salve to his cuts and bruises, and repairing his broken ankle. Eventually, I fell asleep in my chair, and didn't awake until late morning. By the time I had awoken, the rain had stopped, and I was feeling refreshed. I had a strong feeling I was forgetting something, until I remembered the stallion from last night. I went to my room and slowly opened the door so as not to wake him. He was sitting upright on the side of the bed, examining his broken ankle. He jumped up with a start when he saw me in the doorway, but his visage returned to a calm, authoritive state. I remember trying to talk to him, I hadn't really talked to anypony in a long time, and my voice cracked a couple of times. I managed a timid hello, and he nodded in return. "You were uh, out near my garden last night and well, basically, you broke your ankle tripping into a thorn bush." I had an awkward smile plastered on my face, I hope he wouldn't take that wrong. "A thorn bush huh?" His voice was rough but had a unique pitch to it. "Yeah, a thorn bush." Why was I nodding? This wasn't seeming to go very well. I struggled to think of something to say but he beat me to it. "Do you perhaps have any sort of food for breakfast?" His voice snapped me back to reality. Now that he mentioned it, I looked into the kitchen to see what I could possibly throw together. It was about time for me to head back into town, but I did have some zucchini bread I had just finished baking two days ago. As I brought the bread over to the table, I heard the unsteady clop of the stallion's hooves as he wobbled into the kitchen. I realized my mistake as he voiced his sentence, I had forgotten to wear my coat. "I'm not right to ask this, but why don't you have a cutie mark?" I winced, and turned to face him. "That's not important. I think you forgot to tell me your name." I could tell that he was still interested, but it would be impolite to ask again, wouldn't it? Either way he shifted his hooves a bit and replied; "My name is Star Shine." I handed him a couple of slices of my zucchini bread, and we both sat and ate. Star continued to ask me questions. "Does anyone live near here?" "Why do you live all the way out here?" "What do you do out here?" "Whats YOUR name?" "Do you have any skill in magic?" I held up a hoof to silence him, and after an awkward moment while I tried to swallow what was left in my mouth, I replied. "My name is Horologium. I live out here for, uh, personal reasons. Nobody as far as I can tell lives along this path. And most of what I do is study magic." All of a sudden, there was a floating notebook, and Star Shine was writing all of it down. "Do you have a last name?" "No." "Could you tell me why?" "I'd rather not." He was so intent on writing everything I said down, that he didn't notice the glass of water I had set before him. He knocked it over, and even though I had expected it, I jumped in surprise. I hit my head on the ceiling as well. I remember the complete disorientation I felt as I looked down and saw that I was well above the floor. The jump from the spilling water caused me to instinctively levitate off of the ground and into the roof. The look on Star Shine's face was priceless, it had been a very long time since someone smiled at me, and it drove the throbbing pain from my head away. All of a sudden, my magic had cut out, and I fell onto the floor. Star said, "Well, you certainly are learned for a non-student, that's the quickest levitation I've seen in a while. Say, why don't you come with me, Ce-uh-I could use someone like you. Would you like to go to magic school?" His last sentence hit me like a train. "You are pulling my leg. Even if you were from magic school, I would still have to pass an acceptance test." He pulled out a scroll from somewhere, replacing the notepad. "Lady, you just passed! All you need to do is sign here." His floating quill indicated a small line at the bottom of the scroll. It was just too good to be true. There was no way that this could have been happening. But, there had been the royal seal, placed to the left of the signature line. I remember that even with the seal, I still had my doubts. "Whats the catch?" "There is no catch." That was the second lie he had told me. I'll explain what the catch was, but first I have to tell you about my time at magic school. It was definitely "magical".