//------------------------------//
// Making a Wish 
// Story: Equestria: A Flux Tale 
// by Star Sage 
//------------------------------//

You look at her for a moment, like she's crazy, but she just pleasantly smiles at you, and you decide to humor her, turning to stare up into the night sky. It was full of nice, clear stars, twinkling in the darkness, little soft points of light. Really, it was quite lovely, and you stared at them for a few moments, before turning toward the princess again.

"Does it matter which star I wish on?" you ask her, and she shakes her head.

"No, though that star there seems to be a favorite of most ponies," she says, and points her hoof towards a rather bright one to the west of the castle. Shrugging, you figure you might as well get it over with, and thinking for a moment, you finally come up with a wish, and make it, turning back to find the Princess blushing a bit.

"Oh my! I'm not even sure a pony can do that with her tongue," she says, and suddenly you start blushing.

"You heard my wish?" you ask, trying to cover your face to hide the red in your cheeks.

"I'm sorry, I had assumed you would wish for something simple or maybe a return to your home but....do you really think I'm cute?" she asked, and you turn away, this time going almost completely red in the face. This was certainly turning into an evening. 

"Um...well...um...yeah. I think you're cute," you admit.

"That's so sweet. I think you're cute myself. Though I'm sorry to say, I doubt Tia would ever go for that idea," she tells you with a chuckle, and you have to laugh yourself. It was a really stupid idea after all.

"Still, I truly am sorry. I hadn't really considered the other things you might wish for. Especially something like that. Do you even think our species are compatible in that way?" she asks you, and you blush again, but try to stay facing her.

"I don't know, but it would be interesting to find out. Um, what I mean to say is....can we change the subject?" you ask, and after chuckling a bit more, she nods.

"Can you hear every wish made upon a star?" you ask, genuinely curious at this power. It was the first hint you'd really gotten other than the feeling of being around them that the Alicorn sisters really were goddesses.

"Yes. The night is my domain, after all. I've heard all the wishes ponies, and others, make upon the stars I put into the sky. Some are lovely dreams, like your own. Others are foul things that should never be thought, though I do try to stay away from the wishes of friends, and I promise to do the same to yours from now on," she says, and you try to take comfort in that, though knowing what you asked for the first time, she already knows waaaay too much about your wishes.

"I was curious to see if I could hear your wishes. Dreams as well, are part of my domain, but though I did not mean to intrude, you are a fascinating creature, and I tried to peek in on yours. Your dreams, however, elude me. In them, I see only blackness, so I wanted to know if you were not part of this world at all," she admitted, and you actually feel rather flattered at her admission. She didn't have to tell you anything like that, after all, but she seemed to trust you already a great deal.

"Heh, you see nothing because I don't dream, Luna. I...drift, in a void. It's not fun, and for the longest time, I fought it, after my dreams, those which I can remember, gave way to the darkness. There were nights when I didn't drift off to sleep, but merely stayed awake until exhaustion caused me to pass out. I stopped that after a few years, since I just couldn't take it anymore, and now, I just accept the void," you tell her, and she seems to be listening to you intently, the look on her face one of pity.

"Oh, it's not that bad really. Dreams aren't everything, after all. Just things some ponies see when they go to sleep. I quite like the void myself. It's a quiet place, a place where nothing can hurt me," you add quickly.

"But nothing can help you either. Dreams are something special, like wishes made to a star. When I was....away, they were my only escape. It was only from flitting in and out of the dreams of the ponies down here that I didn't go mad during my time away. To not dream sounds like a horrible curse to me. Worse than being torn from my world to another," says the Moon Princess, and now it's your turn to chuckle a bit.

"Maybe, but I don't think there's any help for it, do you?" you ask her, and she taps her hoof on her chin again, before shaking her head.

"I don't honestly know, but I do want to help you try to dream again. Perhaps, together we can break this 'void' and allow you the freedom of them. For now though, I think I should allow you to sleep. In another few hours the sun will rise," she says, and suddenly you remember that's a joke from an internet series back home. You burst out laughing, but then stifle it, nodding at Luna.

"I suppose I should get to bed, I'm starting to see far too many things as funny. Still, this really helped, no matter that this last part was embarrassing as all heck. Thank you," you say, and you hug her again, getting one in return. Stepping back, you then watch as she launches herself off your balcony, and then, with a flash, resumes her former size, turning to you one last time, before continuing on to her own room. Watching her go, it feels a little less bright where you are, and you make your way back into your room, undressing, and tossing you clothes off, before remembering they were a gift from Rarity, and gently folding them, putting them in a chair, and then going to the bed. Covering yourself up, you snuggle into the fluffy mattress, and soon fall back into the void, which seems a bit brighter tonight than usual.

Sooner than you would like the void shakes a little, and for an instant, it clears around you a bit, and you realize that morning has come, probably a few hours ago given the way the sun is streaming into your window. At the same time, a light tapping noise invades your room, and you bolt upright when you turn towards it, and see a giant eye in the window of the door leading to your balcony.

"Um, excuse me, but I think the others would like you to wake up now," comes a rather sweet voice, and you notice pink hair to one side of the eye. Tossing the covers aside, you wave to Fluttershy floating just off the balcony, and are now glad you'd been wearing underwear when you slept, rather than going in the nude.

"I'm up, my good pegasus. You can tell the others I'll be down in a moment!" you shout through the door, and she backs off, favoring you with a smile, before descending. Quickly, you find the clothing of yesterday, but before slipping it on, you decide to check the closest near the bed, and find it stuffed full of the clothing Rarity had made for you. Going through it, you find several copies of your old clothing, the jersey you'd worn the day before yesterday, and that suit she'd made you at first, among a dozen other outfits. Feeling a bit less casual, you select a pair of khaki pants, which are a bit snug, but still freer than the dress pants, and a blue and white vertically striped polo shirt with a button up collar. Buttoning all but the top up, you make your way to the balcony, and fling the doors open, stepping into the morning light.

"Heh, another lovely day. I could actually start getting used to getting up before noon if the sunrises are all this lovely," you say to yourself, looking towards the eastern horizon, where the sun is already a few inches above the mountains, and continuing its climb.

"Why thank you, I do try my best," came a voice, and you start, turning to find Celestia, scaled down to your size, standing just off from the door, probably having been waiting for you. Recovering quickly, you consider bowing as you had before, but figure that this is more casual visit than royal, and decide just to incline your head towards her.

"You do great work," you compliment, looking again towards the horizon, "So, is this just you visiting a foreign dignitary, or did you talk to Luna last night and want to smite me?"

"Heh, I did talk to my sister, and though she tried to hide it, I can guess the wish was something she wasn't comfortable with. Mind, it wasn't the first time. When she found out what it was her friend Hoyden was asking for, she was all flustered for the whole day after. It was adorable. However, I will say, I doubt somepony would appreciate you having those kind of thoughts about others," she said, and an image of a gray mare flashed into your mind, before you banished it. Last night's wish was something born of boredom, and you knew nothing could ever come of such thoughts.

"Um, yes, I see your point. Anyhow, I assume the Professor has some tests all planned out, right?" you ask, and she gives you a sly little smirk, before nodding, pointing down with a hoof towards where a group of ponies had gathered below.

"I believe he does, though I doubt they will be as...exciting as yesterday's. Luna had to send her Shadowbolts back to the coast, so I don't think you'll be encountering them again for a while. I even sent Snowbolt to assist them, since he's a pretty strong flier in his own right, and has been stationed out there for months. I gave Soarin and Spitfire the day off, however, and I think they're planning on a trip into town, so you might encounter them," she tells you, and you look towards the squat barracks where you'd been taken by the Bolts yesterday. Place had been full of various squads going about their business, so there was probably no lack of them now. Still, it wouldn't be the same if you only knew two ponies there, and you decided to avoid it until the Razgriz returned. You still wanted to fly against Blaze again sometime.

"What about yourself? Will you be joining us?" you ask her, and Celestia shakes her head.

"No, I have my own duties to attend. Night Court is still new enough that the petitioners for it are rare. My own Sun Court has far more ponies waiting to be heard. I just wanted to come by this morning to wish you a good day. I think my sister is planning on joining you sometime later, when she awakens from her late night," she told you, and with that, leapt from the balcony, vanishing in a flash of light. This time she really vanishes too, rather than doing that growing back in midflight thing that you actually found kind of cool. Still, you have other business to take care of, and look down again to see everypony gathered around below your balcony. They seem to be talking among themselves, still waiting for you, but patiently rather than fidgeting and wanting you to hurry.

This left you with a dilemma of sorts, as you now had two options. Go down the stairs, or just leap off the balcony and make an entrance of yourself. The former was more your style back home, not one to stand out from the crowd, but the latter was quickly becoming a choice here in your new home. Both had their appeal, but after a moment's consideration, you decide to do the obvious thing.

You have super powers, and what's the use of having them if you don't flaunt them a bit. With that thought in mind, you run towards the edge of the balcony and do a spectacular dive off it, flying downward, and smiling as the ponies all turn to you, and you fall fast, until a few feet, from their perspective, above the ground, you suddenly spin around in the air, and start pointing feet first towards it, and then slowing just a bit, before finally coming to rest level with the rest of them, smiling broadly. This display elicits many reactions, from face hoofing, courtesy of Twilight and Octavia, to Vinyl, Rainbow, and Pinkie smiling broadly, obviously wanting you to do it again, and the Professor writing something in that book of math things he had on him.

"Thank you fillies and gentlecolts, I'll be here all week," you say with a bow.

"And beyond that I hope. You're providing some excellent data samples for me. I would hate to lose such a goldmine," said the Professor, as his math book shrank and resumed its original place in his saddle bags.

"Well...probably. So, what do you have planned anyway? Yesterday was all about seeing this city and all its wonders, and then smashing up a bar, so I assume today we're going to start on real work?" you ask, and DawnChaser nods, motioning towards Deasly, who then pulls a list out of his own saddlebags, and begins to read it.

"Since our friend won't be arriving from Hayvard until later this afternoon the Professor and I were thinking of a few tests we could do by the lab without any help. Just a few simple spells and things, to see what limits your power has. Then after that, lunch, and finally meet him at the train depot, hopefully with the Vault in tow," he adds the last like he's not positive of it, though from the sound of it, the Vault is likely the money that he's supposed to be bringing.

"Well then, shall we?" he asked, and the group was soon trotting towards the lab, with you riding on Octavia and talking with her and Deasly. You learned that the one coming was a male pony, younger than the Professor, of course, and a little bit younger than Deasly himself. Interestingly enough, you learned he was an earth pony too, which you question, since it seemed that you remember them commenting before that higher learning institutes like Hayvard were almost exclusive to unicorns. This calls forth a lecture from Deasly that turns you and Octavia aside to chat instead with Fluttershy, who had all kinds of questions about the Night Court, and even laughed a little at your descriptions of the others after the bar fight, as a bit of magical healing had fixed them all up, for the most part.

Soon enough, your small group was at the lab again, looking just as rickety as the day before. Deasly and DawnChaswer didn't bother going inside though, and instead led the group around the side, to a yard you hadn't entered yesterday. It was....unkept to say the least. The place was a mess of various broken bits of machinery, from stuff out of a mad scientist's layer, to just things like light bulbs and various bits of things you would have called robots, if you didn't think that was impossible in this universe. They didn't stop at that though, and instead walked through the junk field, towards a small boulder set in the center of it.

"Alright, test one, I want to see if you have magikinesis. So, first step, see if you can life this stone," said the Professor, pulling out a few tools, obviously to measure whatever you did. You look towards the unicorns you know, wondering if they could lift the boulder, which makes you realize that, while you describe it as a boulder, to them it's just a rock, about one foot wide. To somepony who lifted an ursa minor, this would be nothing, and to Rarity, who probably moved heavier dressing equipment it would even be a snap. Heck, Vinyl probably lifted heavier things with her magic. To you though, it looked like quite the load, but you decided to go along with it, floating off Octavia's back, and landing amid the grass near it.

"Okay, just go slow, focus on the rock. Reach out with you magic, try to feel it with the part of yourself that focuses your power," he instructed, probably giving you advice even a young unicorn didn't need. Still, since you'd never tried moving things with your mind...well seriously tried it anyway, it felt like good advice, and you stood down on the dirt, staring at it.

"Focus....focus...." you say to yourself quietly, holding out your hands, and trying to extend the sense you got around magic, while focusing a little of your tiny sun towards the rock. Slowly, you felt the sun get smaller a bit, and when you looked at your hands, they were glowing, same a unicorn's horn would when they used their magic to move things. It didn't seem to be doing anything to the rock though, and so you closed your eyes, focusing as hard as you can, willing the rock to move, begging it to do so, and doing everything short of praying to Celestia, before you opened your eyes to find  the rock just sitting there, despite your efforts. 

"Well, that's disheartening," you say, gasping for breath.

"Don't be disappointed, I got a lot of good readings from that. Your local magic field spiked near the end there into the upper Theta band. Not even unicorns go up that high that often, so it shows you were focusing a lot of energy, just none of it was working how you wanted it to," advised DawnChaser, as he added more notes to books around him, making you want to slap him, mostly for showing off the same trick. You then remember yesterday, where you did something only the Princess can do, and feel better. Maybe you just have no talent for this type of magic.

"Perhaps it's something to do with the absorption rate, Professor. You said, when you studied him on the Applefarm, that the field of it seems to extend a bit past his body, which was why growing him failed, since that one tugs at the dimensions around him, but why my shrink spell worked," offered Deasly, and DawnChaser nodded at that, looking at the rock again.

"Hmm, that has possibilities. Alright, new test. This time, go up to the rock, and imagine it floating over your head as you lay your hand on it," he advises, and you float over to the rock. Placing your hand on it, you focus again, and this time your hand glows easily, as you feel the magic inside you shift. It seems that doing a trick once makes it easier, and soon you find the rock covered in the multicolored magic field you created, and you lift it over your head easily, the thing just suspending itself over you. Laughing, you try to push it upward, and feel it rise. However, the instant your hand stops touching it, the field around it vanishes, and the rock falls towards you, preparing to crush you, which destroys your focus so you can't even catch it. 

"Woah, that was close, little guy, you were almost a smudge," says Vinyl, her blue sparkles surrounding the rock before it can fall back and smash you into the ground, reminding you, for the first time in a while, that you are still rather small compared to the world around you.

"Um, yeah, thanks Vinyl," you say, floating up off the ground, as she tosses the rock away easily.

"No prob, though maybe you can think of a less dangerous test now, Prof dude?" she asks, turning to DawnChaser, who doesn't even seem to be paying attention, as he observes the recording instruments, and is writing things in five different journals floating around his head. Less than a minute passes before he abruptly stops that, and several of the books vanish back into his saddle bags, and he gets close to you with what looks like a ruler.

"Hmm, incredible. You absorb magic at a much greater rate than I believed. That's why your power failed the first test. You have to actively be touching what it is you're affecting," he says.

"Then how did I fire those missiles yesterday?" you ask, curious now, as you hadn't been before.

"Oh, that's easy, I discussed it with Princess Celestia in a letter on the train ride here. It seems that when you fired those weapons, you kept a small connection of magic opened to them, through the smoke trails they left behind. The colored stuff inside the weapons is a different story, and seemed to be more conversion than raw magical creation, likely from local air or something. An impressive feat to be sure, considering how many of those things you made at once to end the fight, and probably what exhausted your magical reserves," he explained, and then offered a book with more formulas, as well as some drawing to explain what he'd been saying.

"That makes sense, I guess...what about the bullets...er stun spells I was firing out of the gun?" you ask, and this seems to give him pause, as if he hadn't considered it before, and then scribbles something furiously on the next page, while muttering under his breath about something. When he turns away, you figure he'll be busy for a while, and turn towards Deasly, who just shakes his head and rolls his eyes with a smile.

"Heh, not often somepony asks a question he can't answer. Still, since he's not going to be paying attention for a while, what do you want to do for the next test?" asks the unicorn, and you look around. Nothing seems to be leaping out at you as fun. Heck, you knew all of two spells at this point, one to make you fly, and one to cure hangovers, so it might be nice if he taught you some spells. Then you see a few bottles laying around, and think it might be interesting to see if you can do something with them using magic.