Applejack’s barn was full of patched up holes and empty of a lot of furniture from the Everfree’s incursion, but with everyone filling the place up with chatter, and with the feeling of a warm meal and the crackling fire of the hearth washing over them, the place was undeniably cozy.
Thoughts swirled about in Twilight’s head as she took a swig of her cider. It was surprisingly good for being made from crops that had been maintained by only one pony for weeks. Still, despite the lively company, she couldn’t stop thinking about the earth pony Talents. It was an entire unexplored branch of magic. And she would be the first to study it, if they got out of this whole ‘adventure’ thing alive.
But these Talents went a long way to helping solve that. Professor Radiance’s anti-magic Talent had completely annihilated every speck of magic from the area around him. Destroying the Everfree Domain might be as simple as having him use his ability next to the Domain’s crystal. Not that she was banking on it, of course. Never rely on an untested theory. Still, their magic could be amazingly helpful. She quickly pulled out her list, then made it swerve to the side as Gilda sloppily raised her mug to her beak and liquid sloshed through the air. The griffon had relaxed a lot once Applejack had brought the food out, claiming the long table and cider reminded her of the griffon mead halls back home. Twilight had jotted that down. Not much was known about the griffon lands.
She ran through the list again. She didn’t think she had them wrong, but it never hurt to check.
Let’s see. The first Talent was the ability to resist magic. Two and three were the abilities to control the speeds of their minds and bodies. That explained what Pinkie Pie had done earlier; she’d slowed her body down in the air. Though her eyes had seemed to move at a much faster pace compared the rest of her body. If they could control the speed of individual parts of their bodies...and she was getting distracted again. Four: amplify their natural strength and resilience. Earth ponies were already strong compared to the other two races. Next she had down that they could extend their consciousnesses to other living things, control the growth of plants (another obvious one), and create and maintain pocket dimensions. And then there were apparently another two Talents, and no one knew what they were because they’d been taught only to the elite earth ponies before the War of the Races. She couldn’t verify any of this information, and Pinkie Pie and Radiance absolutely refused to be tested unless it was absolutely necessary. Radiance had already agreed to let Twilight test his magic resistance, but they were extremely closed-lipped about any specifics of what their magic could do. To a mare whose calling was a magic researcher, this was an unbelievably frustrating state of affairs.
“Twilight, dear, this is no time to be worrying. We are celebrating. It may be a little...unorthodox for your tastes, but you really should try to have a good time.” Rarity smiled at her from across the table.
If even Rarity was saying that she should join in, who was Twilight to argue?
“Alright Rarity,” Twilight said, carefully tucking the book back into her saddlebags. They might be on a schedule, but right now the schedule said it was time to relax. Twilight was notoriously bad at any sort of relaxing that didn’t involve a book, but maybe being among friends would make it more bearable.
“Rise and shine!”
Twilight groaned. She’d had too much cider last night.
“Up you get.”
Something nudged Twilight in the side. “Mzzzz.”
“Gilda, help me get these lazy lumps up, would you?” Applejack said.
“Fine,” Gilda said, sounding annoyed. Twilight could almost hear her rolling her eyes.
Then she froze. Something sharp was prickling her side.
“You feel that?” Gilda whispered.
“Yes,” Twilight said back, trying to move as little as possible as she did so.
“If you’re not up in ten seconds, you’re going to regret it.”
The feeling slowly subsided. Twilight shivered and jumped to her feet, glaring at the griffon. “What was that?” she demanded.
“That was me waking you up.” Gilda chuckled. “Always works.”
“But,” Twilight began, then stopped. A second later she tried again. “You just don’t...that...you can’t do that!”
“Just did. Won’t work with Rainbow, though. We used to do that sort of thing with each other all the time. She’s gotten lazy,” she said, poking Rainbow Dash in the side where she was sleeping on a pile of hay. The pegasus just rolled over.
Gilda bent down. “See this bucket of water, Rainbow?”
There was no bucket.
“It’s really cold.”
What was she trying to do? Pegasi didn’t get cold. It was a basic part of their…magic. Oh.
Rainbow Dash jumped up. “I will throw you into the Everfree."
“They’re up,” Gilda called.
“Gilda, how could you do something like that? It’s not right!” Twilight said.
“I’m a griffon,” Gilda said as if that explained everything.
Rainbow Dash seemed to have settled down. “Yeah, that’s how she is. Don’t worry about it, she’s really just a big softie. She’d never actually do anything like that. If she did I’d tie her wings together and drop her from Cloudsdale.”
“That’s not—Gah! You just don’t do stuff like that!” Twilight stomped at the floor.
“What did you just call me?” Gilda said, slowly and deliberately. She took a step toward Rainbow Dash.
“You’ll get used to it. Honestly, I’ve been wondering why she’s been this nice so far.”
“Nice?” Twilight said.
“What did you call me, Dash?”
“I would run,” Rainbow Dash said conversationally. Then she followed her own advice and darted out of the barn.
“Dash, you come back here,” Gilda screeched, flying after the pegasus.
Twilight shook her head. She needed to run those tests.
“As powerful as the Everfree? That seems a bit...absurd,” Twilight said.
“Yes, well, it’s true. The Everfree’s magic masked it, but now my runes are picking it up. It’s a bit confusing, actually. The number of sources is shifting constantly between one and six,” Rarity said, looking at her metal circle.
Twilight couldn’t read the thing herself, but Radiance was looking at it with a puzzled frown.
“That is what it looks like,” he said.
“Great. So now we have to prepare for not just one, but two potential Everfrees.”
The one piece of good news was that Pinkie Pie had popped out of nowhere when Twilight was preparing her magic tests and had reminded everyone that she had worked on a rock farm. So if the unicorns could generate enough magic and disperse it into the atmosphere, they could both recharge the earth ponies’ magic and Pinkie Pie could fill up a crystal to the brim with magic, creating a magical artifact that Twilight could test on. It wouldn’t be a Domain, but they would be similar enough that the addition of the object to her tests would be invaluable. She just had to get Rarity to agree to donate one of her gems. Shouldn’t be that hard.