//------------------------------// // Chapter 3 - "Do you want me to spoon feed you?" // Story: Momodora: Equestrian Adventure // by Whiskas //------------------------------// Chapter 3 - " Do you want me to spoon feed you?" "So what you're basically saying is... you have reincarnated?" Honey Bee asked, not looking away from her notepad and pencil suspended in her yellow aura. Once the storytelling started, she became oddly serious, though it was understandable. All three of them were sitting in the living room of the married pair's home. Said pair occupied the couch, while Kaho sat on the armchair across the wooden table, located in between them. "Kind of? I'm still myself and remember everything but I have a different body that I'm still not quite used to. Speaking of which... could you teach me how to do magic with the horn thingy? I don't have hands anymore, would rather not rely on magical items and I'd rather not use my hooves until I get the balance down perfectly." Kaho said, trying to ignore the feeling of being some sort of test subject. Honey Bee was making her kinda uncomfortable with noting down everything she said. Or at least she thought the other mare did so, she didn't exactly see what was being noted down. "Of course! I planned to do that anyway when you explained your situation. Ponies would inevitably ask questions about a unicorn that can't even use telekinesis. We'll start immediately after we eat dinner. And about that... Bold dear could you warm up the tomato soup?" Honey Bee asked, still not looking up from her notepad and frowning slightly before using the eraser on the pencil to scrub something out. "Right away! Rice or macaroni?" Bold asked, getting up and walking towards what Kaho assumed to be the kitchen. "Macaroni!" Both mares answered at the same time. "Dinner in five minutes!" Was their only response. "So how long do you think it took you to reincarnate?" Honey Bee questioned Kaho. "What do you mean? I thought reincarnation was instant." Came the confused response. Honey Bee actually looked up from her notepad while touching the eraser end to her chin, giving the impression of looking thoughtful. "Not quite. The majority of known species on Equis don't believe in reincarnation. The species with the biggest amount of believers are minotaurs and gryphons. They believe that reincarnation doesn't happen instantly. Rather after death they are judged by their respective gods to be either sent to heaven or hell. If they happen to be thrown into hell their souls are tormented to atone for their sins. After that they reincarnate to have an another chance at getting into heaven." Her host explained, before looking back at her notepad again. "Oh, that makes a lot of sense I suppose. I'm not sure then. I don't think we have the same calenders but just in case... what's your calender based around?" Kaho asked, becoming thoughtful herself. "It's nine hundred ninety nine after Discord. Does that tell you anything?" "Not at all. To be honest I have no doubt that our calenders are different. My home is somewhere in the areas you haven't even explored, so the important events that your calender is built around, we probably don't even know about." Kaho shrugged finished with a shrug. "True, true. Changing the topic... what gods do you believe in? I'm curious." The short mare asked, the notepad being lifted into the air again, after she put it down a few seconds earlier. "Well in Lun everyone believes in three Gods. As the high priestess I'm no different. The names of our Gods are Chiemi, Milori and Luna." "Interesting... three gods,-" Honey Bee muttered to herself before asking in louder tone. "-What are their domains?" "Chiemi is the Goddess of healing and healers, faith and spirit. Milori is the Goddess of protection, travel and everyone traveling, trading as well as nature. She's the one that granted Lun the Sacred Tree. Luna is the Goddess of the moon, stars, night, dreams and nightmares. She disappeared around thousand years ago, but we still believe in her, and that she will come back." Kaho finished explaining, satisfied to be able to talk about a topic she knows the most about. Honey Bee didn't notice said satisfaction as she was busy furiously scribbling on the notepad. "Why do you keep believing in Luna when she abandoned you? Just to clarify." "She did NOT abandon us!" Kaho snapped, causing the other mare to shrink slightly into the couch in reaction. Kaho took three very deep calming breaths before continuing. "Sorry... it's just that, many people ask that question but they don't understand, the relationship that we have with our Gods." "And what is that relationship?" Honey Bee asked cautiously, keeping her eyes on the priestess. "It's simple but at the same time not. The Gods defend our village, keep us healthy, grant bountiful harvest, keep the monsters away and back when Luna was more... active, villagers were protected from nightmares as well. But in return we have to give them our faith so they have the power to give us those things. The weaker our faith, the more we suffer and hurt. Our Gods aren't malicious - We are the only ones that believe in them, so only we can give them the strength to help us. If we stopped believing in them they would lose power quickly, and in turn the blessings they give us would be gone. Besides, we have proof that Luna is still around, even if she is not doing as much as she used to. Every other decade, a child reports seeing a tall, beautiful, winged woman banishing their nightmares before quickly leaving after making sure they're okay." Kaho finished, looking away from her host towards the window. The sun was as high in the sky as it could be and was beginning to slowly descend towards horizon. She began to reminiscence her own meeting with one of the Gods. It was a life changing experience for her younger self, driving her into becoming a priestess. She still remembered the meeting perfectly as she recalled it as often as she could and it was her most treasured memory. A cough brought her back into reality. She glanced back to see Honey Bee pointing to the bowl and spoon that were laying on the table in front of her. Bold was sitting next to Honey and already eating his own portion, hoof somehow holding the spoon. Kaho lifted her hooves awkwardly and stared at them before looking Honey in the eyes with a pitiful look. "What's wrong Kaho? You didn't protest against the tomato soup." "I... don't know how to hold the spoon with my hooves." The priestess admitted, blushing real hard. "Ah..." There was a moment of silence at the table. All three of them looked unsure about what to say, before Honey's face twisted in a malevolent grin. Bold moved a bit further from his wife, an uneasy look on his face. Honey then spoke very slowly and clearly, never losing her grin, with a tone that could scare even the ones that fear nothing. "Do you want me to spoon feed you?" The reaction was immediate. Bold stared incredulously before exploding in laughter. Kaho began sputtering, the blush on her face achieving the color of an actual tomato. Her cheeks were so hot you could probably boil eggs on them. "W-wh-wh-what? N-no!" She managed to choke out, causing Honey's grin to widen to a nearly impossible size. "But we wouldn't want you to starve now, would we? Besides... I'd consider it practice for when we have children in the future!" The last part was directed to Bold, whose laughter got caught in his throat before he outright fainted on the spot. Kaho tried to escape but it was already too late. A spoon loaded with tomato soup forced it's way into her mouth. It flipped upside down, dumping it's contents onto her tongue, granting her enough clarity to think "Delicious!", before the spoon flied out of her mouth. She turned to look at the smaller mare and froze at the sight. Honey Bee was standing on the table with both the bowl and the spoon in her yellow aura. Her grin didn't grow bigger in the time Kaho wasn't looking, instead it now looked downright sadistic. "Here comes the traaaaaaaain!" She sang, forcing more soup into her mouth. Kaho teared up and closed her eyes. The following ten minutes were the longest ones in her life. "Since you got turned into a unicorn instead of being born as one, we need to start with the most basic of basics." Honey Bee began her lecture. They now were sitting on the couch together, alone in the house because Bold left to buy groceries. "First, close your eyes and concentrate on your horn. You said you possess magical items so you should be able to identify how magic feels. Find that feeling in your body and try to focus on it." She said, before nodding to Kaho to start trying. The high priestess was silent. Her eyes were closed and the only sound that reached her ears was her own breathing. Soon even that stopped as she dropped into a sort of a trance. She knew how to meditate - most priestess's knew how to do it. Occasional quiet contemplation of oneself was encouraged, as it helped to ease the stress day to day life would bring. This time however was different. Kaho was focusing not on sorting through her emotions but on a feeble feeling originating in her body, a bit above and away from her forehead. The magic in her horn was weak - nothing like what she felt using her own magical items or even fighting humans or monsters that knew how to do it. But that was to be expected. After all she didn't exactly have the time to practice it back in her youth. Religious rituals, occasional celebrations in the village, monsters that didn't know better even standard day to day life, it all occupied time. Learning magic took time and while she could have made time in her schedule for it, she simply didn't believe it was worth dedicating all her free time for. Magic was spectacular, she didn't deny that. But the time it took to get to a level of being capable of thoughtlessly tossing huge spells around in mere seconds was simply too long. "I found it." She muttered. "Good. Now try to touch it. Not physically of course, do it with your thoughts." "How do I do that?" "Focus on the magic once again. Then try to form that hand you spoke of mentally and grasp the magic delicately and whatever you do do not try to squish it. That would result in your horn exploding." Honey explained. Kaho shivered, but obeyed the shorter mare. She imagined her right hand forming within her chest and reaching out for her horn. The magic within her horn actually moved away from the nonexistent hand, causing her to frown but she didn't stop moving her hand towards it. She finally managed to grasp it, at the tip of her horn as it couldn't run farther away. The moment she made contact, it's resistance stopped completely and it wrapped itself around the "hand". "I've touched it and it wrapped itself around my hand." She declared quietly, surprise in her voice. "Good, good. Everything is going perfectly. Now you can stop imaging the hand and open your eyes now." Honey Bee announced, satisfied. Kaho did so opening her eyes and glanced at her magic teacher. Honey was levitating the pencil she used before, and placed it on the table in front of them. "Now that you've reached out for your magic and it obeys you, try to lift the pencil from the table. It should be easy, simply focus on it and use the magic to lift it." Honey explained. Kaho nodded and focused on the pencil. It didn't move at first but after a while her horn lit up while a light bronze aura began to very slowly envelop it. She patiently waited until it was fully covered in her aura then attempted to lift it, only for the aura to fizzle out of existence in response. She looked at Honey. "It's okay Kaho dear, you don't have to get it on your first try. Just keep up at it and eventually you'll do it." The host encouraged. It took several failed attempts and her head was slowly starting to hurt but she finally managed it. The pencil was floating in her aura and she started moving it around slowly, for the fear of dropping it yet another time. When that didn't happen after a few seconds, she sped up the pencil and the aura flickered but did not disappear. She gave a triumphant smile and looked back to her teacher to see the mare grinning back at her. "Great work! Now with some practice you should be able to hold heavier objects. Keep practicing telekinesis and remember that magic is like a muscle. The more you use it, the stronger it gets. In time you will probably have enough of it to cast actual spells, like a fireball for an example. Now any other questions?" "Could I ever be capable of doing a transformation like you?" Kaho asked a bit awkwardly. "Maybe. My transformation spell is definitely hard for someone not specializing in transformations, and I myself am only capable of casting it because of my cutie mark. Someone powerful like Celestia's apprentice could manage it easily but that mare is like a forest fire compared to an average unicorn's spark." Honey Bee muttered something under her breath that Kaho didn't quite hear. "Ah, alright." She said in a dejected tone. "Why are you so disappointed? Don't tell me you already have the ambition to become a powerful mage?" Honey mused while giving her a curious look. "No, no it's nothing like that!" Kaho assured her. "But I've also been meaning to ask... what's a cutie mark?" The other mare stared at the priestess before sighing. "This is going to be a long day isn't it? First I become a magic teacher, now I have to teach biology, follow that up with history and Celestia knows what else. Alright, make yourself comfortable because this lesson suddenly became a lot longer..."