“I would like to demonstrate something that I think might be helpful,” I said. I said it with a lot more confidence than I actually felt. “Can we go outside and head over to the orchard? It’s one of those things that I think would be easier to show than to explain.”
I turned to leave the room. Applejack and Rarity looked at each other, then they both shrugged and followed along.
I would have to demonstrate something to the two of them that really stood out. It would have to be something that they couldn’t explain away, so I needed to do something that produced a real, tangible effect. Illusions were right out, as was anything minor like telekinesis, card tricks, or some minor divination, thaumaturgy, or evocation. Most evocation was probably off the list as well, since the real flashy stuff wasn’t something that I could necessarily reproduce consistently. The spectacular acts of tossing around a lightning bolt or conjuring up a miniature tornado could just be explained away as a freak coincidence unless I did it repeatedly, and I didn’t have the energy, efficiency, or the requisite control to do that and have it remain safe (for any bystanders or for myself). Whatever bit of magic I would be demonstrating to convince them would preferably be more fantastical than the average stuff they were used to from unicorns, earth ponies, or pegasi. That limited my options significantly.
Luckily, we were on a farm. I had spent several years of my apprenticeship on a farm, and my mentor had insisted that I help out with the farm work one way or another. I hated physical labor, so that meant that to fill my daily chores quota over the course of those years, I had to get creative.
I left the way we came in — it wouldn’t do for me to try to go out the back and look all silly, that wouldn’t be very impressive and wizard-like — nodding to Big Mac as we passed him on the way out. I strode down the length of the old wooden porch and went down the side stairs.
The farm itself was split into a few large areas, with a series of fields and barns dotting one side of the main household, and a massive apple orchard flanking the house on the opposite side. The trees in the orchard were arranged in long rows, only broken up by a small pond that cut into the northernmost rows. Bushels of apples were stockpiled here and there.
I was walking towards the pond.
“Ya mind fillin’ us in?” Applejack piped up. She still sounded slightly ornery, and her accent got a tad thicker as her mood worsened. “What exactly are we doin’ out here?”
Rarity sniffed. “Quite.”
“Simple,” I said. “I’m going to cast a big magic spell and do something straight out of a foal’s bedtime story. After that, I’m going to explain to you that I’m a wizard, and that one of the ponies we are dealing with is a bloodsucking vampony, and that there’s probably a warlock — dark magic user — up to no good in town as well. I will try to fix the issue with the food so long as I can get your assistance with that, and hopefully figure this whole steaming pile of confusing fudge out.”
I noticed that Rarity and Applejack had stopped, so I looked back with a raised eyebrow.
“Coming?” I asked. Silence.
“Hah,” Applejack said. Her tone was dry as straw. “That’s a laugh. If yer gonna’ pull my legs any more than you can git.”
Rarity was giving me an odd look. “A magic spell, you say?”
“Ayup,” I said, echoing Big Mac’s matter of fact tone. I looked at the other ponies expectantly. “Are you coming, or not?”
“Listen here — “
“Applejack,” Rarity said. She said it.. not sharply per se, but she said it in a way that commanded attention. Applejack paused before she could really put any steam into her tirade — which I’m sure would aptly describe what she was about to say — and shot Rarity an impatient look.
But she didn’t say anything.
Rarity and Applejack locked eyes. “Maybe we should give the mare the benefit of the doubt.”
Applejack continued to not say anything. She broke eye contact a few moments later and shrugged.
“Eh, fine by me,” Applejack said. She was clearly still displeased, but seemed to reign her emotions in a bit. “I can spare a few minutes for politeness’s sake, I s’pose.”
We continued walking down towards the pond. I stopped a few yards short of the pond edge.
“Teleo,” I muttered. I ripped a ripe looking green apple from a nearby tree and floated it over. I turned to Applejack with the green apple in hoof. “Can you carve out a good piece of ground to plant one of these? It doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to have a decent amount of nutrients and moisture. Maybe by the pond over there?”
I received some questioning looks in return — Applejack’s was particularly sour — but Applejack seemed to go along with it without any verbal objections. Rarity seemed to be convinced that I wasn’t completely wasting their time, so that was a plus. I guess it helped that I was pretty confident that I could actually do the thing I was about to try.
It was important to follow up on your own hype.
“I don’t really see where this is going,” Applejack said, “but sure thing.”
Applejack tore open a small hole in the earth with a few powerful and well-placed kicks. I handed her the apple, and she placed it gingerly down in the divot before shuffling a few hooffuls worth of dirt on top of it and packing it down gingerly with some well placed stomps.
I inspected the mound of freshly upturned soil. The dirt looked pretty moist, so I was probably good to go.
“Out of curiosity,” I said, “How long does it take for one of these to grow into a full tree?”
Applejack bobbed her head in thought. “Depends on what you mean by that, but ‘bout seven to ten years from the seed, if the tree manages to grow without issue.” She shook her head. “Usually we grow the saplings separate with some supports and plant them down in the orchard when they’re partly grown. Takes a long while and we get around to expandin’ every year or so. What you askin’ for?”
Well, I want to prime you with that question so you really think about how impressive the thing I’m about to do is.
“Oh, just curious,” I said. “Now, stand back a bit and watch.”
The two of them looked at me like I was completely out of my mind.
“Hortus,“ I muttered. “hortus, horti equestris.”
I gathered power to my horn and channeled it, continuing the repetitive chant in a low monotone. This spell was just a high powered version of the gardening spell I’d invented years ago. Theoretically speaking, there was no reason it wouldn’t work to produce an apple tree. I just had to be more careful.
Plants weren’t really the most well understood things on the planet. They were just one of the more understood things. I had no idea what sort of strange biological processes were going on in them constantly, beyond the basics that you could check if you spent several days in your master’s library researching all manner of things.
I stumbled on a few interesting studies. One in particular was done by a pony a few centuries ago, where he set out to discover how his plants grew. He grew the plants in isolation on his workbench, and measured the mass of the soil carefully after they were fully grown. He discovered that the mass of the soil changed very little from beginning to end, so he hypothesized that the ferns mostly got their substance from the water that he added in. Some time later, another botanist did a different series of experiments (the same idea actually, except measuring the water poured in and the starting and ending masses of both the soil and the tree) and discovered something that this couldn’t be the whole picture: plants must be getting some of their mass from something else while they’re growing.
The conclusion of all this was that they had to be getting something out of the air, as well.
“Hortus, hortus, horti equestris.”
I kept up the chant. A small seedling began to sprout quickly in the dirt, as I worked. I could feel the little thing pushing roots down through the soil, snaking through the ground and soaking up water and nutrients. I progressed to the second stage of the chant.
“Hortus, ventus, horti equestris.”
A draft picked up through the clearing and whisps of wind whirled around the little sapling as my spell slowly did its worth. Exhaustion hit me like a runaway train car, but I ignored it. Moving around large volumes of air was difficult, even if I was doing it very carefully and slowly. But I needed to keep a fresh supply of air present for the plant to leech whatever it needed from it. Ditto for lending the young apple sapling energy to execute the metabolic whatsits that it needed to do to kick its growth into high gear.
“What in tarnation?” Applejack said, breathlessly.
Even so, I had to stop once it grew a few feet further and a couple more leafy branches. A whole adult tree would take a bit more time than I felt like, and a great deal more energy than I could provide without some serious ritual preparation.
For now, at least. I’d been told my general skills would improve over time.
Rarity and Applejack were staring at me, slackjawed and wide-eyed.
See, growing a plant from seed to sapling in a matter of minutes isn’t something that any earth pony could do, nor any old unicorn, or any old pegasus, or any normal creature as far as the general public were concerned. At the end of the day, it took honest to goodness magic to do something like that.
It took a wizard.
I gave the two of them my best cocky grin. I was mostly posturing for the sake of it at this point. I was absolutely, positively spent. I needed to sleep.
I wobbled slightly and blinked a couple times.
“Yeah,” I whispered. “I’m going to get around to explaining the rest soon. Talk more after my nap.”
“A nap? What the sam hill— “
My body hit the grass with a soft thud. There was a lot of shouting, but I couldn’t parse any of the words. I think I felt somepony try to physically check over me as I drifted off into blissful unconsciousness.