Brain chemistry was still chemistry. Variables could be calculated, materials could be measured to precise proportions, and any individual with enough know-how could take the materials they wanted and, if they were suitable, construct a desired reaction.
This included transmutation, for the record. Converting one thing to another was easy, or certain things to certain other things. As long as you knew what you were doing, it was safe. And for a unicorn, who could use magic to speed up the process, such a thing was easy.
Luster Dawn wiped the corner of her eye with the back of her hoof and went over her notes again. Unless she was mistaken, everything would add up perfectly. The desired reaction would occur and the desired change would follow.
And maybe she wouldn’t be such a terrible friend anymore.
Luster Dawn shook her head. Her horn glowed, and a piece of violet chalk lifted itself off of her desk and began marking precise angles at precise distances into the floor. The lines practically filled themselves in afterward, forming a mathematically perfect hexagon in the middle of the floor.
Hopefully, Ganymede wouldn’t mind that she was scrawling all over the floor. Luster hadn’t exactly asked her whether or not it was okay to make a mess of their dorm room, but with luck she wouldn’t be back for long enough that Luster would be able to clean everything up anyway. And even if she came back from the Critter Care club early, then hopefully she’d be able to understand Luster just long enough for everything to work.
The Hexagon was perfect. The glyphs came next. Luster’s horn glowed a little brighter, and she squinted as the chalk began to scrawl even more precise lines at exacting angles into the floor. She paused, once, to grab at the notes on her desk and look everything over another time.
Just as planned. She had committed everything to memory perfectly. At the very least, she could memorize this much.
The lines came faster and faster as Luster pieced together all the steps that the magic would take as it seeped into her skull. It was a precise set of operations, nothing more. Nothing scarier. Input went in, output came out. Clean, precise, efficient in the way that it nudged the chemistry in a better direction. Not scary at all.
It wasn’t.
This was okay.
Luster Dawn gulped. “Are we still going to be okay?”
“Are we - are we going to be okay?” Ganymede sputtered. “What about - what about any of this seems okay to you? Do I look okay?”
“You look mad.” Luster Dawn winced as she rubbed the back of her head. “It was an accident, Gany. You know I didn’t mean-”
“No. No, it doesn’t matter what you mean or didn’t mean.” Ganymede stormed over to Luster and poked her in the chest with an excessively forceful talon. “Today was supposed to be a nice day where I showed my parents what I’d learned at the academy, and you ruined it.”
Luster blanched, and a lock of mane fell in front of her face. “I was only trying to help.”
“What, by pointing out everything that I was going to point out? By showing my parents all the little secrets of the academy before I got the chance to? I’m not sure if you’re just that dumb or if you were trying to make yourself be the complete center of attention, again. But you know what? It worked!” Ganymede cackled. “Brilliant work, Luster Dawn! I can really see why you were Princess Twilight’s favorite student now!”
Luster wanted to believe her work was absolutely brilliant. At the very least, she’d seen demonstrations from leading experts in the thaumaturgical community, and believed that she’d properly put them to shame, both in terms of sheer complexity and in scope.
She’d learned a lot under Princess Twilight. Learned a lot about magic, anyway - friendship was obviously something she needed to work on, regardless of her grades. But magic was easy. Magic was intuitive. And outdoing some of the most powerful magicians in Equestria should be no sweat.
So why was she sweating? This wasn’t particularly difficult work she was doing.
The glyphs were done. The shapes were perfect. The first half of the execution was, for all intents and purposes, complete - now it was time for the messier half. Luster flipped through her notes one more time, eyed the staggering variety of tiny bottles on her table and sighed in relief. Even given that it was the messier half, everything seemed as clean and in order as it could possibly be, just the way she needed it.
All she needed to do was start the mixing. Crisply setting the chalk aside, Luster lifted two bottles into the air, unscrewed their caps and poured the contents of one into the other.
One preserved zap apple flower petal into a small flask of charcoal dust and water. Done.
One teaspoon of powdered butterfly wings into a vial full of pulverized lotus seed. Done.
One drop of condensed lightning, dribbled over a chip of a bronze aegis. Done.
As Luster mixed and poured, she idly wondered what Princess Twilight would think of this. She’d be proud, probably. Maybe she’d even want to join her, Maybe she’d even want to learn from her, instead.
“Don’t be sarcastic. Leave Princess Twilight out of this.” Luster glared at Ganymede. “Nothing about this is her fault.”
“Of course it isn’t. It’s yours. Making my parents think that I hadn’t learned anything after all the months I’ve been here because you kept beating me to the punch? Your fault. Having my club entirely overlooked because you were too busy telling them about the history of the castle? Your fault. That wonderful song and dance number you shared about friendship when I wanted to talk to my parents privately? Worked like a charm at distracting them, Luster! Bravo! Yay! Fantastic!”
Luster had assumed she was the expert on all kinds of clapping, including sarcastic clapping. However, she had overlooked exactly how sarcastic clapping could be, and Ganymede seemed more than happy to demonstrate.
“I’m...I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…” Luster stuttered. “Look, can I make it up to you? Please?”
“So it can be about you again, won’t it? You, asking for an apology. Me, saying that things are okay between us after the thing you did. You, looking like the genius who figured everything out once again.”
“Please.” Luster scrabbled at her face, trying to tug the lock of mane away from her eyes. “Please, Gany, I just want things to be okay.”
“Then maybe you could learn something for a change, okay? Instead of being the pony who feels compelled to tell everycreature else what to do.”
Ganymede’s tail lashed as she turned around.
“Learn how to read a room, Luster. Learn how social cues work, so the next time I try and motion to you to stop doing something, you stop doing it. And maybe, just maybe, learn to make things not about you for a change.”
Without even noticing how Luster’s lip trembled or how her breathing shook, Ganymede stormed out of the dorm room and slammed the door shut.
It had taken Luster over a week to prepare everything. Maybe that wouldn’t have been much time at all for most other ponies, but Luster wasn’t most other ponies. She knew exactly what to ask for, and where, and how. She knew what she needed to check in with Principal Starlight to make sure that it was okay to bring into the school, what she could bring in without asking, and what she needed to smuggle into the building entirely. It was a lot of work, but some things were worth it.
Not being a terrible friend anymore was worth it.
There - all the bottles were mixed. Some fizzled away happily while others sat, colors oozing together like neon syrup.
Luster’s horn stopped glowing for a second as she gathered the bottles up with her hooves and sat down in the center of the hexagon. Hooves shaking, she held six necks of six bottles full of six different reagents up to her lips as her horn glowed bright, then brighter, then brighter still.
The doorknob to Luster’s dorm room rattled, then the door swung inside. “Luster? Hey, I wanted to apologize about-”
Ganymede stood in the doorway, frozen, staring at Luster with a small bouquet of flowers in one claw. Luster stared back, not setting her vials down, horn glowing almost as bright as a Buckball stadium spotlight.
“Luster?” Ganymede took another step inward. “What are you doing?”
“Learning how to read a room, and how to make social cues work. Chemically. This should fix all those bad parts about me for good.”
“No.” Ganymede’s wings ruffled. “No, Luster, I don’t want this-”
“It’s okay. Don’t worry, Gany. I’m just making sure that I won’t be a terrible friend anymore.”
As her horn’s glow reached its peak, Luster drank the contents of all six bottles at once and readjusted her brain chemistry.