Twilight moved a book in front of me. A large symbol depicting a wisp of a sparkly magic aura was taking up most of the cover’s surface, while under the image the title was printed in extremely tiny print, to the point that I had to squint to read it.
‘Magic: The Concept of Spells for Beginners’.Huh, this seems a little big for a beginner’s book.
It was indeed large. Judging by the thickness, it was easily five hundred pages. So, unless the text inside was abnormally big with many pictures; this was going to take a while.
“This is the first book I read about magic, back when I was a filly.” Twilight informed as she sat down beside me. “I thought it appropriate to begin our lessons with it. Please turn to chapter one, so we can begin.”
I couldn’t help but have a small panic attack. She’s so close that she’s rubbing against me. Calm down. Calm down. This isn’t anything special. She just wants to share the book with me. That’s all. Think about what Shining Armor told you… Is that lavender I smell? God! I can actually smell her!
Needless to say; I was a little distracted.
Trying to focus on something, other than the beautiful mare sitting closely beside me, I called upon my magic and flipped the tome’s cover open. My eyes widened in surprise when the magic in my horn wouldn’t fade away. Instead, it increased. Everything in the room faded away as unfamiliar thoughts and ideas flowed into my mind. Faintly, I could hear pages fluttering wildly, and a worried voice in a panic.
I wasn’t afraid. In fact, this almost felt familiar. It was different from the times that Luna had hit me with her teaching spell. Back then, it felt like the information was being forced into my head. Now however, it was more like I was absorbing it, taking it in at my own pace. Each page delivering its own bit of knowledge. Not all of it was sticking, but I was learning much faster than I would have been just by reading it normally.
Once the last page turned, my magic dropped the book that was floating in the air. It hit the ground with a thud, and the covers slapped closed. I was breathing heavily, like I had just run a marathon. Blinking my eyes to try to clear my vision, I barely noticed that Twilight was staring at me with her mouth hung open.
“What the hay was that?” she asked.
“I was… hoping… you could tell me.” I answered between gasps.
“I’ve never seen a spell like that before. What did it do?”
“I think… I just… read the book.”
Twilight’s eyes grew in excitement and wonder. “That’s amazing! I didn’t know magic like that existed. Did you cast that spell by instinct? Could you teach it to me?”
I don’t think so. It was more like my magic had a mind of its own, and wouldn’t stop until it was done.
I was having difficulty breathing, so I only shook my head in the negative.
Twilight was a bit crestfallen, but brought her hoof to her chin and thought for a moment. She eyed me up and down, studying me with an intellectual eye.
“Do you think you could do it again?” she asked.
Composing myself as best I could, I said, “I can try.”
She brought another book from the pile. “This was going to be the next book once you finished that one.” A tome, that was actually bigger than the first, settled in front of us.
‘Magic and You: A Beginners Guide to Understanding Spell Casting’. Okay, pretty straight forward. I can do this.
Steeling myself, I let the magic flow into my horn and did what I did with the first book. I opened the tome. Again, instead of my magic fading away when I wanted it to, it intensified. My eyes glazed over, and I was slightly aware that I was mumbling incoherently with the thoughts that were rising into my mind. After a short while, the book fell from my grasp and I slumped over in exhaustion.
Twilight saw that this took a greater toll on me than the last time, and the worry was evident in her voice. “Oh my gosh! Are you all right?” She placed her hoof on my shoulder to try to comfort me.
I couldn’t enjoy the contact, or even respond to her. I was gasping for air, and I found that my muscles wouldn’t respond to my will. All I could do was focus on what I had just ‘read’ from that book.
'There are many different types of spells that exist today each with varying degrees of difficulty. Although there are new spells being developed and refined every day, all of them fall under three major groups.
'The most common of these are interaction spells. Every unicorn uses, at least, one of these spells in their day to day lives. They consist of spells that can directly influence the world around the caster. For example, levitation spells.
'Transformation spells do just that. They change one thing into something else. Few ponies are capable of this kind of magic, as it takes a lot of detailed knowledge on both the object and what it is going to be turned into. Not to mention, the amount of focus and power needed to make the transformation permanent.
'Finally, there are Enchantment spells. This is where a spell is placed on an item to be activated at a later time by some kind of trigger. These spells are even more difficult to cast as it requires two spells to be cast at the same time. The first being the enchanting spell, and the second is the spell that is being enchanted to the item.
'It is recommended that enchantments not be cast on living creatures, as the effects have varying degrees of failure. The only ponies to display the ability to cast such spells successfully, have been Princess Celestia and her sister, Princess Luna.'
Enchantment on a living pony… Princess Luna… Luna! My eyes widened as I connected the dots. Abruptly I stood up, completely forgetting my fatigue, and surprising Twilight in the process.
“God damn it Luna!” I shout out to the heavens. “I told you I wanted to do this on my own!”
If you can hear my thoughts from this distance, Luna, I’ll get you for this. Mark my words. I don’t know when, and I don’t know how, but I’ll get you.
“What does Luna have to do with this?” Twilight asked curiously.
The exhaustion overtook me, and before I could lose my balance, I plopped down onto the wooden floor with a grunt. I took a moment to catch my breath, and then sighed greatly before giving my answer.
“Apparently, our Lunar Princess doesn’t think that simply studying is good enough. She had to enchant me, so whenever I pick up a book, I’m forced to magically absorb its contents. Whether I want to or not.”
“Is the process really that bad?”
“Well… no. I guess not. Just exhausting. It’s not that I get tired from it, though; it’s that she put this kind of enchantment on me in the first place. I wanted to learn magic on my own, not by someone else’s means.”
Twilight looked at me with confusion and contemplation for a moment, before speaking, “What do you mean?”
“Luna wanted to teach me everything she knew about magic by forcing it into my mind with a spell.”
The excitement in Twilights eyes got me to smile. “The princesses can do that!? That’s amazing!” she cheered. “What I wouldn’t give to know all that they do about magic. Why wouldn’t you want that?”
“Because, it would take away my sense of accomplishment.” Twilight’s expression told me how confused she was. I sighed again as I continued, “I believe great knowledge should take time to learn, not have everything shoved in your head, all at once. How does the saying go? It’s not the destination, but the path traveled that’s important; or something like that.”
Our eyes met and my mouth decided to talk for my heart at that moment. “If I took Luna’s spell, I wouldn’t be here, right now… with you.”
I couldn’t stop the words from coming out of my mouth. They were from the heart, which are the hardest words to keep quiet. I stiffened, fearing Twilights reaction. I’m laying it on too thick! Back off! Back off!
Twilight blushed and tried to hide it by turning her head to the side, and looking away from me. “That was very poetic. I don’t think I’ve heard of that saying before. Where is it from?”
My features relaxed, and I gave an internal sigh of relief. Crisis averted. She liked it. She really is adorable when she blushes like that.
I shrugged. “I don’t really know, to be honest. I remember hearing it a lot when I was a kid.”
The purple mare looked at me in confusion once again. “That’s the second time you’ve said something odd. Earlier you said someone instead of somepony, and just now, you referred to your younger years as being a kid, when the proper term would have been foal, or maybe colt.”
Crap! Of course she would notice that. I need to be more careful with what I say around her. How do I explain this? Come on, think!
Before I could come up with a suitable excuse, Twilight gave me something to grasp onto. “I guess working at the palace; you come across a lot of cultures. Huh?”
“Uh… Yeah. I’ve kind of picked up a lot of their terms, and use them every so often. I don’t even realize that I’m doing it anymore.”
“I can understand. While I was growing up, I spent most of my time in the castle too. There was this one time, when the ambassador of the griffin kingdom and his escorts came for an audience with the princess. They stayed for an entire month. By the end of it, I was having trouble saying somepony instead of someone.”
I gave a half hearted chuckle. “Yeah… it’s a lot like that. I’m sure it’ll fade after a while, right?”
Twilight smiled and nodded in the affirmative. “Now that that’s answered, let’s get back to your lessons.”
“I guess I could read another book, but you’ll have to turn the pages for me. I don’t want to absorb anything else.”
“Actually no, that was the last book I had listed for you to read for today. We are way ahead of schedule, thanks to your ability to take in a book’s information like that.
“Speaking of,” Twilight continued. “I would like to urge you to reconsider using it for learning purposes. It has sped up my time efficiency by eight hundred percent! Not only are you finishing books much faster than you normally would, but it’s also exercising your magical powers to the point of exhaustion. This one spell is simultaneously increasing your knowledge and magical strength in one fell swoop!”
“I told you, I want to learn magic at my own pace.”
Twilight frowned, “But… what if this is your pace?” she asked.
I shook my head side to side. I don’t want to learn everything in a weekend. That’s not enough time to spend with Twilight.
The purple mare began to think of something. “All right, how about a compromise. You continue to use that spell to read, and I won’t change my schedule to accommodate for it. That way, we could finish the lessons a little early, every day, so we have more free time to ourselves afterwards. How does that sound?”
I had to think about it for a moment. I think I could do that. I wouldn’t go through the whole library in a day, and after each lesson I could spend time with Twilight outside of the classroom. Seems like a win-win to me.
“That sounds fine. So what’s next?"
“I wanted to discuss what you learned. Given your ability to absorb knowledge, this should be an interesting discussion.”
“Okay... Where do you want to start?”
“Let’s start with what was in ‘The Concept of Spells for Beginners’. What is magic?” she asked.
“It is the energies of life around a unicorn, given form, and purpose, by the unicorn's mental will.” I answer somewhat robotically.
“Good, that’s almost word for word from the book. How about a difficult one? What are the three major groups that magic fall under?”
That caused me to raise one of my eyebrows at the purple mare. “That wasn’t in the first book. It was in the other one.”
“Interesting, full knowledge of what was absorbed and when.” Twilight murmured under her breath. “Can you still answer the question for me?”
“Suuuuuure… it’s Interaction, Transformation, and Enchantment. Are... Are you trying to study me?” I asked.
Twilight looked a little ashamed. “I’m sorry, It’s just that it’s such an interesting spell. I want to learn all that I can about it, and so far you’re the only source of reference available to me. Wou… Would you mind indulging me for a moment?”
“Sure, just name it.” I shrug.
“Would you mind following me down to the basement? I would like to do a more in depth study.”
She’s going to hook me up to that computer of hers, isn’t she. Hopefully my brainwaves are the same as a pony’s.
Twilight got up from her resting place next to me and moved for a door to the right of the stairs. I already missed the warmth of her coat against mine. Reluctantly, I rose from my position and followed her down to the basement. I was still a little tired from my reading exertions, but was otherwise fine.
Descending into the dark depths of the local library, I admired all the equipment scattered around the walls.
Wow. This is some set up she has here. I don’t even know what half this stuff is. That is a big tank of… something, bubbling in there. Plenty of dials and pressure gauges. Kind of steam punk, if you ask me.
Twilight was rummaging around behind the computer she used to analyze Pinkie’s pinkie sense.
Moving closer to the Tank of boiling…whatever, I ask the question that was on my mind. “What is all of this?”
The purple mare looks up to me, then at what I was referring to, and then continued with what she was doing. “That’s the water boiler.” she answered, completely uninterested in it.
“Oh.” Not as exciting as I thought. “So, what do you want me…”
Before I could finish my question, Twilight put a helmet on me, with a hole in the top for my horn to fit into. She then hooked a couple of wires to said helmet.
“This machine will measure your magic and mental activity.” she explained as she moved about the room.
Flipping a switch on the side of her computer, the machine buzzed to life. Puffs of steam were being spat out of a whistle on the side of the computer, paper was pumped out of a slot, with some diagrams drawn on it, and all the lights would flicker on and off in a pattern.
“Okay.” Twilight levitated a random book off of a shelf and moved it in front of me. “Just read this book like you did the other two, so I can get some scientific information.”
“Do I have to?” I groaned.
“What can I give you that’ll get you to cooperate?” she asked.
I thought for a moment. “Nothing that I can think of…” I answered. Well… I’d like a kiss, but I doubt you’d be willing to give me that right now. “…How about, you’ll just owe me one? Okay?”
Twilight nodded her head in agreement. “One favor it is then.”
Satisfied, I used my magic, and opened the book in front of me. I waited for my magic to take over at any moment… nothing happened.
“What the Hell?” I asked myself.
I closed and reopened the book again, then looked at the book floating in front of my vision to read the title to myself, ‘Daring Doo: and the Escape from Talon Peak.’
“What happened? What went wrong?” asked the confused mare across from me.
“I…I don’t know.” I answered.
“Gah! Every time I hook somepony up to this darn machine, it doesn’t work! I don’t even know why I try anymore!”
“Here let me try another book.” I offer, as I grab a random book off the same shelf as the other one, and opened it in front of me. Again, nothing happened.
‘Daring Doo: and the Jade Dragon,’ I read from the cover page.
So… what? I can’t absorb Daring Doo books? Does it only work twice a day? This is bringing up more questions than it answers.
“This is so frustrating!” Twilight groaned, voicing my own thoughts out loud. “This is the pinkie sense fiasco, all over again. I swear, if your stomach starts to growl I’ll…”
As if on cue, my belly gave a small rumble. Twilight’s eye twitched a little.
I could feel my cheeks redden with a blush. “Heh, heh. Sorry about that. I haven’t eaten at all today.”
“You know what? Fine! This form of scientific study is clearly flawed, anyway.”
I gave her a shrug and removed the helmet from my head. “You’re just as confused as I am. I don’t get why it didn’t work. In all honesty, it should have worked.”
“It’s just my luck. That’s what it is. There’s always something keeping me from learning something profound and truly interesting.” Twilight was pouting to herself.
“Hey, hay, none of that now. Come on. Let’s go up stairs and have dinner, then we can get to the bottom of whatever this is. Okay?”
The mare let out her frustrations, with a big sigh. “Alright. I’ll be able to think more clearly with a full stomach, anyway.” she said mournfully, looking down to the floor.
I didn’t like the frown on Twilight’s face one bit. I placed my hoof under her chin and made her look up at me. “Come on, give me a smile. A mare, as pretty as you, shouldn’t frown.”
Twilight blushed, but gave me a small smile, despite herself.
I smiled at my achievement. “Good! Now, come on. I’m starving!” I turned and proceeded upstairs, Twilight following me at a distance, deep in thought. I made it all the way to the door to the next level, before Twilight said anything.
“Do you really think I’m pretty?” she asked.
I gripped the door in my magic and began to open it. “Well, of course I do. You’re very…”
My thoughts were interrupted by many voices shouting at the same time, “SURPRISE!!!!!!!”