//------------------------------// // Chapter 35: Overthinking // Story: Pandemic: Starting Over // by Halira //------------------------------// I spent some time looking over the saddlebags. They were of Equestrian manufacture, which meant they could be enchanted. Most things from Earth likewise could not hold an enchantment. Everything from Equestria, or at least, most items from Equestria, had inherent magic all their own that objects from Earth lacked. There were methods of making enchantable objects on Earth. Still, the process was a complex one. It only worked with specific materials—primarily gems and crystals, and was beyond my meager magical strength to do even if I had the right materials.  However, a spell was a spell and could always be examined and learned from. There were at least three different enchantments on these saddlebags, and I was not familiar with the spells. I assumed the one concentrated on the clasp was the one keying it to my magic. Another may have been a security measure if someone tried to rip the bags open—something to make the bags and their contents instantly combust, at least based on my best guess after seeing the runes involved. I had no idea what the third was doing, nor was I certain there were no further enchantments that were evading my probing skills. These spells could be taken apart and neutralized, but it would take a very skilled mage to do it. I was a very competent mage but didn't want to attempt it, nor did I have any reason to. I also wasn't sure if I could reapply the spells if I neutralized them, and there was a possibility that the unknown third spell may have been a countermeasure against someone attempting to neutralize them. I knew I would cast something like that in this situation.  The spell work on the bags presented me with a puzzle, and I was fond of trying to figure out puzzles. I also happened to be highly interested in the workings of any new spell I came across. It was an old habit, but I could stay my curiosity for the time being. I eventually settled on making sure I could indeed open the clasp and making sure the spell tying it to my magic was still in place after closing it again. The contents were a few bound notebooks, and I didn't bother looking them over yet. There would be time later for that after I had decided on a secure place in the house where I could work undisturbed.  From what I could tell, the colts never really engaged much in fighting in Street Fighter. They spent the majority of their time merely seeing how the characters reacted to various button presses. Their random button mashing had allowed them to learn the characters did unique things with the right combination of inputs, but being young foals, they were not very good at figuring out exactly how they performed these particular moves. This made me consider encouraging them to play more. There was value in learning how different actions put together could produce a result other than the sum of those pieces. Special moves in video games were like spellcasting in that way and could be a valuable tool to acclimate them to this concept. I had become a skilled mage not by being powerful or naturally gifted, but by learning how to make more from small parts. The two colts, for the moment, had moved on to playing with their action figures and were occupied with that. Unfortunately, Qīng Yǔ had come down with a bad case of restlessness and was now no longer satisfied to simply sit on her perch on the couch and was on the move about the room.  I watched as the filly first tried to interest herself with the racing game—Mario Kart Arcade GP DX. Qīng Yǔ was able to climb into the seat and propped herself up on the steering wheel to get a good look at the screen. She was unable to start the game, and would have been incapable of operating the pedals even if she managed to start it somehow. Still, the images on the screen held her interest for a short time—about three minutes, an eternity for a foal her age.  Having gotten bored with that machine, she left the seat and went to examine the other device. This second one proved to be too much of a challenge for her. Her uncles were small as well, but they were bigger than her, and while they were capable of scaling the chair they had propped against the machine, Qīng Yǔ was too young to make the jump.  After her second failed attempt, the small blue filly began to whimper. I laid my ears back in expectation, and a moment later, Qīng Yǔ lifted her head high and proceeded to loudly express her feelings about the injustice of being less than half a foot high in a world built for taller ponies and hairless two-legged apes.  "MAMA!" "I think Qīng Yǔ is upset," Líng said with a wince.  Ya think? I left the couch and hurried over to the tiny pegasus. I tried levitating her on the chair, but that did nothing to appease her. She just continued to cry and scream. She walked right off the edge of the chair and fell in a heap on the ground before I even knew what was happening. This made her scream even more. Why would she even do that?  Okay, next plan. I got her back on her hooves and brushed her black mane out of her eyes. There wasn't any change in her disposition. She was still angry, still crying, and had probably forgotten why she had started crying to begin with. At this point, she was crying because that was the mode she was stuck in. I just had to figure out how to get her into a different mode.  "Amazing gra—" "MAMA!" Everyone is a critic. Note to self, Qīng Yǔ was not a music lover.  I checked my phone. Lântiān still had forty-three minutes. A flick of my horn's magic, and I was checking the GPS. She was a few miles outside the city limits. She'd been in the same several mile radius the last few times I'd checked. Sapphire was probably running her through some sort of drill. I'd hoped she was on her way back, but no such luck. I would have to figure out how to deal with her daughter on my own.  "MAMA!" I winced at her latest ear-piercing scream. At least we didn't have close neighbors who could hear it. I grit my teeth as I resisted the urge the shout at her to be quiet.  Deep breath, calm. I had to keep my temper under control. No yelling. This was a foal. I couldn't scream at her. She wasn't an adult, she couldn't be reasoned with, and I would only do harm intimidating her into silence.  Using one leg, I pulled her close to me. This didn't calm her, but it didn't get any more distressed. I sat down and let her cry her self silly into my fur.  "Please stop crying, please," I begged. She kept on crying.  I grit my teeth. "I don't know how to deal with a crying foal that won't stop." Qīng Yǔ kept crying.  "You have to be getting tired. Won't you shut up?" I asked, temper heating again.  Qīng Yǔ kept crying.  I forced my temper down. "Phobia never cried like this." Qīng Yǔ kept crying. The colts retreated to the far end of the room, opposite us, to get away from the sound. I couldn't blame them. I sighed. At least she wasn't as loud, with her cries being muffled by my fur. Phobia had never cried like this when she was a child. Thinking back, she had been an unusually quiet kid, who had been very reserved with showing their emotions. Not much had changed in that regard over the years.  Actually, there had been times Phobia had cried. They had been few, but they did happen. My ears sagged when I thought of them.  "I have my own daughter," I informed the crying foal beside me. Qīng Yǔ didn't seem to be listening and wouldn't understand me if she were, but I continued. "Looking back, she only cried when I messed up with her—when I forced her to hide or deny her true nature. I wasn't a very good mother, I guess. She'll tell me I was when I ask, but she denies the truth. Isn't it sad the only times she cried were because of me?" Qīng Yǔ continued her crying, unabated.  "It's lucky I have your mom to help me. She might be too young to be a mother, but she has a better track record than I have. My experience doesn't amount to much, other than showing how bad I'm at being a mother." Still more crying. At this point, the filly had likely given herself a migraine from all the crying. I couldn't give her any medication for that since everything I had available was too strong for foals. That was something else to add to the shopping list, and something I should have thought of when I was at Walmart.  "What do you want?" I asked. "You have to want something. Are you hungry?" She didn't answer. She didn't let up in her crying either. I didn't have any food handy anyway. I should probably order some take out soon. We'd all missed lunch and would be needing dinner in a few hours.  I started trying to think about her unique needs and tried to think of her not as just a foal, but as Qīng Yǔ. At such a young age, it was hard to say what comprised her personality and wants. They were likely much more straightforward than her uncles', but that didn't mean they didn't exist. Phobia had some at a young age.  Start working through the problem. It's just a puzzle, like any other. You can figure out puzzles. Fill in the missing pieces. I instructed myself in my head.  Right. I'd established that she was a young foal. What else was she? Well, the next part was she was a filly, not a colt—or at least she was biologically a filly, and I had no reason to doubt her gender matched her biology. What did that add to the equation? Not much; there didn't seem to be any special needs or wants she would have based on her sex or gender at her age. Still, it was something to check off.  What was next? She was a filly missing her mother. That was understandable, but not something I could resolve at the moment. Her mother would return in less than an hour, but there was nothing I could do to make that happen now. Well… I could call Lântiān and ask her to return early, but I had promised her two hours, and she needed to fly to stay healthy. Calling Lântiān was out of the question.  Continuing with my assessment, I added that she was a pegasus. This one I frowned over. There could be a lot bundled into what it meant to be a pegasus. What were the specific needs and wants of pegasi compared to unicorns or other tribes?  I thought about my ex-husband, Tom, and how he interacted with his pegasus stepdaughter. Jackie adored Tom and had from day one. She seldom cried, and when she did, Tom always knew how to soothe her—even though he was a unicorn, like me. What kinds of things did Tom do? To be a unicorn was to want to impact and control the world around you. Not necessarily to lead or govern—though it could go that way, but there was an inborn desire to use our magic to manipulate objects around us. With unicorns such as myself, it led to wanting to reshape reality around me to fit my desires. That was the dark side of being a unicorn. One that I was trying to move away from, but it was important to remember that unicorns on some level all desired the ability to control.  Pegasi were not unicorns. Their existence was not defined by their ability to use their horns to shape magic spells that could alter the world around them. No, a pegasus was born with wings. They did desire to impact the weather, but the thing they valued most was their mobility—their freedom. While a unicorn sought control, a pegasus would seek freedom. I was told that the unicorn and pegasi tribes in particular had been the most heated of rivalries back before the founding of Equestria. This opposing set of needs would be a good explanation of why. One wished to control, while the other wanted nothing other than freedom. Sure, there were individuals that bucked this trend, but as a cultural mindset the two tribes were diametrically opposed in their mindsets, and rivalry between the two seemed inevitable.  With that in mind, I thought about what had set off the crying. Qīng Yǔ wanted to get somewhere, and she couldn't. It didn't matter that I helped her up there later. She had been blocked earlier by her small size and inability to jump high or fly. Fly.  Sometimes it was easy to overlook the obvious answer, and sometimes I could be such an idiot. I released the filly from my physical grasp and placed her into my magical one. It was a gentle grip, but secure. I only wrapped my magic around the central part of her body, leaving her head, tail, legs, and most importantly, wings free to move as she wishe them. The filly wasn't heavy, the saddlebags I had been examining weighed more than her, and it was no problem at all lifting her. There was no fear of dropping her. This was simple levitation, and even a weakling like me could keep such a small weight floating for a long period—perhaps an hour or more, before tiring. She didn't notice it at first, and kept crying, but then I lifted her into the air and she went silent after a brief gasp. When she was about seven feet in the air I stopped, and let her take stock of her position. Qīng Yǔ looked around herself and realized she was in the air. Instinctively, she started flapping her wings. I smiled, and began moving her forward. The filly squealed with glee, convinced that she was flying on her own. Around the room, she flew, unaware that it was me giving her flight.  Sometimes, doing the right thing meant not overthinking things.