Chapter Eight
As the two of them walked out of the optometrist's office, Twilight began to point out more of the town to the wolf beside her while he did his best to adapt to wearing his new glasses.
Twilight felt herself becoming more at ease at his presence and mannerisms when all of a sudden she heard a soft gasp from up ahead. Turning her head down the street, she saw Fluttershy staring at them, her eyes wide and clearly fixed on Swift-Pad.
Twilight was worried that her easily frightened friend would be scared, when a moment later there was a sudden blur and she found herself flipping head-over-tail as Fluttershy rushed past her.
“Ohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh,” she exclaimed repeatedly. “You’re so… fluffy!”
Swift-Pad gave her a bemused look. “So I am,” he noted. “And you would be…”
“Oh, I’m Fluttershy,” she introduced herself. “It’s so nice to meet you, Mr. Wolf.”
Swift-Pad gave her another of his practiced looks. “It is nice to meet you too, Miss Fluttershy.” He bowed. “I am Swift-Pad of the High-Leap Pack, ambassador of the Packlands, here to discuss trade ratification with Their Graces.”
“O-oh!” Fluttershy bowed back. “It is an honor to meet you, Ambassador Swift-Pad. And my apologies for my earlier behavior, I hadn’t realized you were from the civilized packs when I first saw you.”
“All is forgiven, Miss Fluttershy.” Swift-Pad told her. “Those of my pack and our other non-wild kinfolk are considerably less common in these lands than our non-civilized cousins, so I can understand the error. It is hardly the first time such a mistake has been made today, even.”
Fluttershy gave him a smile back and then did something odd. She began to make growling sounds which caused Swift-Pad to pull back in open surprise before he started to make similar sounds towards her.
Further back, Twilight blinked as she got to her hooves, but made no move towards the pair. She could tell that Fluttershy knew what she was doing, and while she was curious as to what they were saying, she had no intention of interrupting them and inadvertently causing offense again.
Finally, the two had finished speaking, and Swift-Pad bowed to Fluttershy with the wolf walking back to her and Fluttershy confidently walking away. Twilight turned her head and said, “I didn't know Fluttershy knew your language.”
“I was just as surprised,” Swift-Pad admitted with an easy-going smile on his face. “I have only encountered a pawfull of ponies who could do so in my time. However, it would seem your friend is one of those few who was aware of my people’s ways of life. Impressively so, I might add.”
“You learn something everyday,” Twilight said with a smile of her own.
“And a day when you learn something new is a day well used,” Swift-Pad added in, his tail wagging quickly. He then turned his head to the side and gestured with his paw. “Care to lead on? I still would like to see this town, Lady Sparkle.”
“Right, “ Twilight said, pointing off to the side. “There’s the Quills and Sofas shop, run by Davenport...”
It was much later in the day when the two of them finally arrived at the Golden Oak Library, with Twilight feeling she had a much better understanding of what was expected of her in the future. Swift-Pad had proven a skillful teacher so far; he had been showing her how important body language was as well as how impactful a few words could be when used right, especially as some of the ponies in the town had seemed nervous at his presence at first. But the wolf had kept his entire appearance looking completely harmless and offering praise and compliments to ease their worries. He had also kept silent a few times and stood behind Twilight, subtly nudging her to speak in his place and after a few false starts, she had put his examples on saying the right things to good use, and when Swift-Pad’s reflection was visible on the nearby windows during these moments, she had seen him nod his head in approval.
It was also very reassuring to know that she could actually do this whole princess aspect, even if it was on a much smaller scale than what Princess Celestia did, which made Twilight slightly less worried about the future.
Pausing before the door, Twilight lit her horn and pulled it open, calling inside. “Spike, would you like to come and visit our guest, Swift-Pad of the Packlands?”
There was barely any pause before Spike hurried into the room, a smile on his face. “Hi Twilight, hi mister Swift-Pad - wow, you really are a wolf. Cool!”
Swift-Pad chuckled, leaning low to look Spike in the eye and said, “I see that you are a dragon of excellent taste, young one.”
Twilight couldn’t help herself from snorting and rolling her eyes, amused at this little self-prompting but she could tell it was part of who Swift-Pad really was, not just the public persona he normally put on.
Spike grinned at the praise before stepping back from the door, with an arm outstretched to let Swift-Pad walk in. “Welcome to the Golden Oak Library, mister Swift-Pad; supper is almost ready.”
“Thank you, little one,” Swift-Pad said, tipping his head again before turning to face Twilight who quickly caught on and directed Swift-Pad to his guest room while showing him around the library, with Swift-Pad asking a few questions and looking at a few titles with some interest. A little while later, once he had placed his bags into the guest room, he rejoined her in the main room, this time carrying a small satchel with him and clearing a space in the middle of the floor.
Twilight frowned, wondering what he was doing until she saw that the bundle held some specialized looking tools. Swift-Pad flashed her a lopsided grin and told her, “I felt that you would like to have some experience with runecrafting with somewolf that has been trained before I am gone.”
Twilight jostled in surprise before she smiled and said, “That would be wonderful; thank you, Swift-Pad.” Twilight reached into her pack for the book he had given her this afternoon and opened it to the front page.
“Now,” Swift-Pad told her as he brought out a small batch of stones. “The first thing to remember is that runecrafting is both an art and a discipline akin to meditation, and needs a balance of concentration and thought to achieve the results. I have seen others who rushed themselves in their carving while channeling the magic, and the results were… at best, nothing happened. At worst, they were explosive, to say the least.”
Twilight nodded. “Unicorn magic is similar; if you don’t know what kind of spell you’re aiming for, either you’ll get nothing, or you’ll wind up with an uncontrolled magical surge that could result in almost anything happening. And some are worse than others.” Her ears flattened a bit. “I had one when I was a little filly and was so badly startled that I couldn’t control my magic. Luckily, Princess Celestia was nearby and saw the flare, and was able to reverse all the effects afterward… I’m just glad nopony was hurt by it.”
“It sounds to me like that was a case of something beyond your control triggering an accident rather than the result of recklessness,” Swift-Pad replied. “As such, it was not truly your fault, and so is not to be condemned.”
“That is very kind of you to say, but that sudden loss of control still scared me, especially what happened to my parents during the surge…” Twilight sighed. “For a long time after that day, I had nightmares about what might’ve happened if it hadn’t been reversible, or if somepony else had been hurt for real because of me. I spent so much time learning more focus and control after that to keep my power in check to make sure those nightmares would never become reality...”
Swift-Pad laid a paw on her shoulder. “This still bothers you to this day, doesn’t it,” he said with concern in his voice.
Twilight nodded.
Swift-Pad smiled at her. “It is good that you understand the consequences of losing control, but you need to remember, you cannot let fear rule your life. If you do, you will not think clearly. But this does not mean you should not be wise and cautious.” He looked distant for a moment, then turned back to her. “A teacher of mine once had similar advice. He told me that he tried to always act out of love, not of fear. And that it was a good piece of advice, because every time he forgot it, he managed to get himself into trouble.” He managed to look amused, though still serious at the same time.
Twilight gave a light giggle, then smiled at him. “Thank you, Swift-Pad. I needed that.”
“It was my pleasure,” he said, giving her a short bow. “Now as to the first lesson,” he said as he lifted up a blank stone. “You remember the rune I told you about before?”
“The one that allows you to control lightning?” Twilight asked.
“Yes,” he said as he leaned over, flipped a few pages and tapped a drawing on her book that looked like a spiral with two lines jolting out of the end of the tail. “This is the symbol you will be drawing, that will cause you to be able to control lightning,” he then pulled out a blank piece of paper and drew the image in a matter of seconds. “You will want to be careful, and not to add anything else,” he said as he added in a small third line. “Or…”
“I will shock myself and cause a loud alarm?” Twilight asked with a raised eyebrow, and could already tell how young wolves would make that mistake as it was very minor.
“Exactly,” he said as he turned back to the first page and showed her an image of a straight line that had a semicircle at the top. “This will cause a small light to appear. And this is what we normally start with.”
“I can see why; there is very little complexity to it,” Twilight said, looking at the image and memorizing it. She then turned her head to see Swift-Pad hold his tools in his paw and begin to carve into the stone with practiced ease, his body glowing a light green before the magic flowed into the stone.
He then turned to face Twilight and placed the tool in her hoof and a stone in her other hoof. “Your turn,” he told her and leaned back.
“But how am I to infuse it with magic?” she asked him
“Concentrate on the stone, gather your magic from within and push it into the stone while you are carving it,” he told her in a soothing tone.
‘What if I make a mistake?”
“Then you make a mistake,” he said with a grin sliding onto his face.
Twilight frowned at him but did as he’d said, holding the stone in her hoof and the tool in the other one. She was aware she could use her magic to make it easier but it simply didn’t feel right to do so.
Holding the stone as steady as she could, she started to replicate the simple rune as best she could although she wasn't sure that she was getting the scale correct. She also had to focus on channelling just enough of her magic into the stone without going too deep, a task that was proving trickier as the stone seemed to be drinking in her power faster than what she was prepared for.
Closing off the strand of magic, she looked at the stone in her hoof, comparing it to the one in Swift-Pad's paw. She opened her mouth to ask how she would activate when he simply said, “Concentrate on it and if you got the rune correct, it will work.” Holding up the stone in his paw, it gave off a faint green glow before a clear light appeared over Swift-Pad’s head.
Twilight turned back to her own stone and focused on it, feeling the power she had placed inside it. She saw her stone glow purple for a moment before a jolt of electricity ran through her coat. Jumping in surprise, she turned at the laughter coming from Swift-Pad’s mouth.
“If you were a student of a runemaster, you would have been given your own book and set of lines to copy over and over again,” he told her as he leaned in closer and tapped the stone in her hoof. “You did not complete the curve here; you see?” Twilight frowned, leaning in, but she could not see what he was talking about. Swift-Pad then reached to the side and pulled out his other pair of glasses. “Here, put these on.”
Twilight did as he instructed, the lenses automatically fixing themselves to fit her eye prescription, and stared at the stone. Swift-Pad then tapped a few of the extra lenses down over the front of the glasses. Blinking as her eyes readjusted, Twilight could see a fragment of unchipped stone, a hairbreadth’s distance from the two points.
“That’s it?” she asked in surprise. “That little bit?”
“The smallest act can set off a chain reaction that topples an entire mountain,” Swift-Pad replied. “Or in this case, the slightest error can result in failure. But sometimes, you learn more from failure than from success. And in this case, you have learned to be more careful with your work.”
Twilight nodded. “I understand,” she said carefully. “And… I guess it’s a good thing you told me this now and not when I was still a unicorn, because I probably would have reacted so poorly that it would have ruined relations between our lands for decades.”
Swift-Pad looked at her curiously. “What do you mean?”
“Back when the Crystal Empire first returned, I… I had to help save it,” she said. “Part of it involved getting through one of King Sombra’s traps. He’d made it so anyone who went through a certain door had to face up to their worst fear. I overcame mine… I was afraid of failure, and of disappointing Princess Celestia. And even before that, there was an incident where I thought I was failing her and wound up panicking so badly over what would happen that it… well, it didn’t go well. But with the help of my friends, and of Spike, I made it past both incidents. And I realized that I didn’t have to be afraid of failing.” She quirked her head. “Or at least, to not let that fear control me.”
“Then you have gained much wisdom,” Swift-Pad told her. “It sounds to me like you have already learned from that first perceived failure, and from facing your fear of it later on.”
Twilight smiled at him gratefully.
Then she handed the carving tool back to him, wincing. “Ow…”
“Splinter in your frog?” Swift-Pad asked.
“Yes, actually,” Twilight told him, turning her hoof up to study it carefully, and then lit up her horn to grasp the splinter and pull it out, setting it aside on the table.
Swift-Pad nodded as she did this. “I have that problem too occasionally, with my paws,” he told her, wiggling his paw. “Most of us do it if we aren’t careful.”
Twilight pressed her hoof against the floor, and was relieved when she felt no pain this time. “I can understand,” she said. “Splinters in the undersides of our hooves aren’t something that happens that often with us, but it’s known enough that I’ve learned how to handle it if it does.”
She then stared at his paw, and her eyes lit up. With an excited look on her face, Twilight drew herself together with her horn glowing. She seemed about to cast a spell when she caught herself. “Excuse me a moment, Swift-Pad, I will be right back.” With that Twilight had teleported away, leaving Swift-Pad and Spike staring at each other in confusion.
Spike let out a sigh, shaking his head. “I don’t know what she’s doing and I’ve learned not to ask anymore.”
“That seems… prudent, considering what we have heard about Ponyville.” Swift-Pad gazed down at the young dragon, and looked like he was about to say something more, when there was suddenly a loud pop and Twilight was back in the room.
“So-Pardon me for that,” Twilight said, a hoof scraping against the floor. “I needed to take care of something.” She flashed Spike a smile. “How soon is it until supper is ready?”
“It’s ready now Twilight,” Spike said, waving them to the kitchen, “I made a mixed salad with fish.”
Twilight blinked in surprise that Spike had made fish, but she kept her mouth shut as Swift-Pad seemed to believe that this was planned as he said, “That sounds wonderful and if you will excuse me for a minute or two, I will be joining you back down here as soon as possible.” Swift-Pad eye’s had darted to the window, the night sky already beginning to show.
“Why, where are you going?” Twilight asked.
“As to what we were talking about before, this is something important to my faith,” he said as he began to climb her stairs. “If you wish, you may join me.”
Twilight did not need more than that to follow him up to her balcony wthi Swift-Pad leaping through her tree's branches to the very summit of her library. When she reached the spot, she saw Swift-Pad standing still for a moment, staring at the moon before he threw his head back in a howl.
It was a loud, powerful noise that startled her, by how much depth he put into it, the sense of longing he put into it. He then threw his head back again for another howl and Twilight thought she could hear an echo, or a reply, to it. Then, as Swift-Pad dug his claws into the tree branch and let out an even louder and more resounding howl, Twilight felt a bit odd, as if she was suddenly trespassing into something private and she should look away.
WIth a thud, Swift-Pad landed down next to her with a soft smile on her face and tilted his head down at her. “Thank you,” he said honestly.
“It is no problem, Swift-Pad,” she told him. She waited a few seconds before she asked the obvious. “What did those mean or is that one of those improper questions?”
“Those howls are our way to pay respect to the moon,” Swift-Pad replied. “The first is to welcome the moon as it rises into the night sky, while the second is to call out to our packs and those not of our packs to share the new night, and the last one is to share our love and devotion to her Grand Grace, Luna.”
Twilight licked her lips, uncertain in how she should respond to that but the answer came to her just as quickly. She had asked a question and she had got an answer; that was the best she could do. “Thank you for sharing this with me, Swift-Pad.”
“It was my pleasure, Twilight,” Swift-Pad said. “Shall we go eat?”
Twilight nodded, and the two headed down.