“Watashinochichi wa kyabetsu kara no gasu o motte imasu." Twilight spoke aloud, reading from the large scroll that floated in her magic.
Off to the side, Forestsong turned the page on one of Pearl’s manga before replying. “Hmmm. Just give him a bicarbonate and to stay off his hooves for a while.”
Twilight groaned. “What did I say?”
“That your father has gas from eating too much cabbage,” he replied with a chuckle.
Twilight blinked. “Oh. Then it has to be Watashi no gasu no ōi chichi wa ninshin shite imasu?” She smiled hopefully.
“Now I’m really sorry to hear that,” Forestsong replied, fighting back a grin. He was positive that Cloudsdale could now hear Twilight’s groan of frustration.
“What now?” She grumbled.
“Well, your father with the gas? Is now pregnant,” he replied, chuckling and looking up at her with a wide grin.
Twilight pounded her head on the table with an annoyed sigh. “Sci Twi made this look so easy when she had to learn another language. What am I missing?!”
This had been going on for several days now, and she didn’t feel as if she had made any progress. Sometimes it felt like she was taking a step backward. Twilight also made a note to never, ever, let her dad hear about this. She would never hear the end of it he did. Never. Her parents always took the chance to make a joke at her expense.
Forestsong chuckled as he turned back to his manga. “I never thought Pearl would be reading something like Naruto. I must thank her for pointing this out.”
Twilight smiled. “Oh yes. She’s read quite a bit of that series. Both it and its sequels. Gundam will always be her favorite kind of manga. But this comes a close second.”
She paused as she remembered a certain plot point of the manga. “Pearl wasn’t sure how you would react to. Well…”
He smiled, knowing what she was talking about. “The Nine-Tailed Fox?” Twilight nodded. “It’s semi-accurate if that is what you mean. Though it is cool all the same.”
“How accurate?” Twilight asked before she could stop herself.
“About ninety percent.” Forestsong closed the manga and laid it down atop the others. “But that was a long time ago. If we were about now. These would be marked ancient history. We would have probably kept to our forests. Not bothering others lest they bother us.” Closing his eyes he let out a soft growl of remembrance. “Well back to the issue at hand. You have all that you need. You're not missing anything Twilight. You’re just not seeing the harmony in the words you're using.”
Getting up he stretched. “You're tackling things like a Pony. Try seeing the world through the eyes of a fox.” As he fell silent, Kohaku walked to the door.
“Was your father just as cryptic as you are?”
“No, he was a lot worse.” With that Forestsong left the room as Pearl entered.
Pearl watched the semi-see-through fox leave before turning to Twilight. “How are the lessons going?”
Twilight sighed. “Slowly. I should see the world through the eyes of a fox, is what he said. I still know the spell that turned me and the girls into breezies. But it can’t be that simple. Nothing like this ever is that simple.”
“Yeah, and I’m not sure how you’d look as a fox. I mean he’s the only reference you have.” Pearl brushed her wing against Twilight’s cheek as she moved up to the window. Already she saw Forestsong amidst the castle gardens. Folding her front legs on the sil she just watched him. “Say Twilight, come here for a moment.”
“What’s up? Is there trouble outside?” Twilight chuckled as she stood next to Pearl. Outside she saw Forestsong softly caressing various flowers. His mouth moved constantly. “He’s talking to plants again.”
“Yeah, not too surprising if you think about it. He is the spirit of a forest.” Twilight nodded along with Pearl. “He told me one night that even before he ascended he could hear plants and trees.”
“What are you digging at sweetie?” Twilight half tilted her head.
“Well, I guess it just shows he could have been a spirit of nature long before he ascended. Like his sister is like the storm. They have that kind of connection they see through nature’s eyes.”
Twilight blinked as she watched Forestsong. “It can’t be that simple, can it?” Leaning in, she practically pushed her head out the window.
“Twilight?”
“He doesn’t have to see through nature’s eyes, he is nature. Talking to it comes naturally because it talks back to him. I’m trying to learn this language by memorizing, not unlike how you would with a spell. I’m acting when I should be interacting.” Slapping her forehead with her hoof. “No wonder Sci-Twi learned it so quickly, she had someone to talk to who knew the language. If I want to learn this language I need to talk to him in that language. Not just memorize words and speak phrases. How could I have been such a silly filly.”
Smirking, Pearl leaned in and kissed Twilight’s cheek. “You just got hung up on how vast this is. You turned a river into an ocean.”
“How did you get so smart, love?”
“Dunno, maybe you were just that good of a teacher.” Pearl chuckled. “Now get back over there, you have homework to do.”
Twilight giggled, before returning to her scroll, while Pearl remained at the window, unable to turn away from what she was watching.
Pearl had to admit, as she watered the Front Garden, there was something relaxing about taking care of plants like this. It beat out homework for sure.
She had never been much of a gardener before. Her ficus had been the most she had ever been comfortable with. But that might change in the future, and Pearl made a note to talk to the Flower Trio about it when she got a chance.
“Keep this up, and you’ll be a pro in no time,” Forestsong said as he dropped in front of her, his tails holding onto a window sill above them.
Pearl’s eyes twitched. “Can’t you do this like most creatures? You’re going to give me a heart attack one of these days.”
He only smiled wider. “But where’s the fun in that? Plus you’re so much fun to tease.”
“You’re a nine-tailed pain in the ass, you know that?” She grumbled as she set the watering can down.
Forestsong nodded happily. “Oh yes. My sisters told me that all the time. Hourly some days. Rosie was rather fond of it.”
Pearl rolled her eyes. Go figure he could find someone who actually liked it. “Is she still alive? I mean, it was so long ago, and…”
He nodded. “She is, like myself, she is a spirit now. Her river runs right through my forest. It’s not the same as it was when we were mortal, and there is something to be said about two souls holding each other. I think you two would get along great.”
Pearl sighed. “Maybe. But I’m not going to walk an entire river just to try and meet her. Especially in the Everfree. Unless she can come out here. Ponyville wouldn’t like it though. Ponies still panic at the stupidest things.”
“Even with the School of Friendship?”
“Even with the School. Some ponies just can’t get with the times,” Pearl sighed. “Give it a few more decades, and either they’ll have learned to deal with it. Or killed themselves from stress. That one seems more likely.”
“Well, you don’t need to worry. She’s bound to her river like I am to my forest. And even though she can look fearsome, she’s as soft as a powder puff and twice as gentle.” Forestsong looked out toward the Everfree and sighed. “Her voice could call the meekest finch from the nest and into her open claw. It’s what first attracted me to her.”
Pearl watched as his look became more and more wistful.
“Before her, I never cared much about any kind of dragon. Given what Tiamat was doing. But after a hundred-year courtship. Rosie became my mate.”
Pearl’s mouth dropped. “A hundred years… I don’t know if I could wait that long. And I have that kind of time.”
Forestsong looked over at Pearl and smirked a little before nodding. “A hundred years isn’t long to us. That’s considered a whirlwind courtship. Mother and Father’s courtship lasted a thousand years.”
Pearl’s brain crashed to a halt. A thousand-year courtship… She couldn’t even imagine that. She’d heard of couples taking their time. But not like this.
Without noticing Pearl he started to caress a white rose. “Rosie and I shared seven hundred years happy years together prior to our ascension. We spent about two thousand years apart between it. But once our spirits touched again. These last twenty thousand years just flew by.”
Pearl could only wish she and Twilight could last that long. Maybe it was still early, but a part of her knew what she wanted to do with the alicorn. Damn anypony who said otherwise.
“If you want my advice about it. Don’t think too much about the future or what others might think of you both. Live your life with her in the now. The two of you have centuries to look forward to. I can’t promise you they’ll all be good, but you’ll face them together.” Leaning back, Forestsong pressed his shoulders against the wall of the castle and closed his eyes.
Pearl sighed. And now she was getting romance advice. Because of course, she was. But she would take it from one who knew what he was talking about over most others. “Any regrets?”
Taking a deep breath, Forestsong looked up and watched the clouds. “Only one, and it’s the one thing Tiamat robbed us of. I’ll never forgive her for that, or the foolish fox who destroyed everything for our kind here. By robbing the Dragon Queen of her clutch.”
Pearl’s blood ran cold. “No. Please. Someone, anyone, cannot have been that stupid. Please tell me that this is your idea of a really, really, bad joke?”
Forestsong only looked deeply into Pearl’s eyes. His amber orbs shimmered but held no deceit of any kind.
Pearl’s ears fell as did her heart. “Then by the Armor of Eternity, you’re lucky she gave your family anything. Even if they had nothing to do with it.
“It wasn’t luck, it was mother. Tiamat long held my mother in high regard. Father would have fought to the death to keep our clan and family safe. But Mother knew that wouldn’t solve anything.” Forestsong’s own ears fell slightly. “It had only been two years since I was born. And she asked the Dragon Queen for some leniency for their past dealings.”
With a soft chuckle, Forestsong pulled one knee up to his chest and wrapped his forelegs about it. “I’m not sure if it was the threat of war with my father, the respect she had for mother. Or it could have been the fact I was wrestling with her tail. She had to have been annoyed because she sent this wave of fear across the room. Father and Mother shivered. Her mates coward. And I sneezed. About ten seconds later I went back to chewing and fighting with her tail.”
Pearl couldn’t help but snicker at the thought. She had been in Tiamat’s Dragon Fear aura before. It was a feeling she would never forget. But nothing like this. “Did she ever get the fox who did it?”
Forestsong shook his head. “She never had the opportunity. The clan heads came together and apprehended him. Even I don’t know what happened, but from what I gathered. It was far worse than anything Tiamat would have done, even worse than what I did to Discord. Every time I asked father about it, he got this haunted look and changed the subject.”
Pearl shivered. She couldn’t imagine anything worse than what Discord got. But a part of her was glad justice, of a kind, had been done.
Forestsong, though, gave her a cold look. “Do you understand what you say when you swear like that?”
Pearl shrugged. “What? You want me to swear on the Slayer of Eternities? Cause I can. They’ve been around longer than I’ve been alive.”
She didn’t miss his growl, and it told her all she needed to know. “I get the feeling you know more about it than we ever will.”
He nodded. “It is a part of my kind’s past. A past that was ancient history even when I was born.”
Pearl winced. A part of her was unsurprised by this bit of news. “Then make sure you remember that as much as Twilight values you, she values pony lives far more. Maybe it’s time your family was reminded of that and that being spirits doesn’t put them above this.”
Her ears wilted as Forestsong shrunk back. She hated to say it like that. But she could only take his attitude so much. “Look. I’m sorry about what you and Summer Rose never had. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. Not even my worst enemy.”
She turned away to hide her own sorrow. “But your attitude and how you view other species? Makes me think your kind deserved to lose the war. Maybe it is how you were raised and how your family was raised.”
Pearl didn’t finish her thought, but Forestsong knew what she would have said, as she stalked off.