The bookstore of Sire's Hollow was old, but Daddy said it was also a labor of love, just like the rest of Sire's Hollow. Like most small towns, there was only one really big bookstore for the whole village. At least she thought it was big, on account of the sheer amount of books it had. Daddy always said that these books were important due to the history each one contained.
Starlight Glimmer would rather read books about magic. Not that there was anything wrong with history! But most of it was so boooooooooooooring. Some moments were cool, like when ancient mages made up cool new spells that changed how ponies studied magic forever! Learning about those mages were her favorite history lessons, because those mages knew a lot about magic, and she learned what they knew about magic too!
“Okay sugarplum! Let’s stay close to Daddy this time, all right?” Sigh.
“Okay Daddy, I won’t wonder off. Again.”
As usual, she trotted inside the old bookstore store alongside her Daddy. As usual, they were off to the antiquities section. As usual, it was big and dark and all the way on the opposite end of the store.
“Now, as you already know, our town’s founders were simple farmers who left in search of a new location to move to and settle down in, because blah blah blah…” she already knew why, they were struggling to grow crops in their lands so they needed new land to farm and they ate rocks for some reason. It was interesting to hear, the first time, but after a few dozen repeats, it had gotten easier and easier to just tune out Daddy’s words.
That’s when she suddenly overheard…laughter? Sure enough, she turned to her right, and found a couple of foals that looked her age, hidden behind a barrel. Why did a bookstore have barrels again?
She could see that both foals there had Unicorn horns, just like she did. In Sire’s Hollow, you either had a horn or didn’t. Pegasi didn’t normally live out here, not when both Las Pegasus and Cloudsdale were just a couple hours away by flight.
"Aw yeah, we're going to learn so many cool spells in here Sunny!” Huh, the green one sounded like a filly. “Too bad the library had to close because of Mister Baker's weird rock bread." Rock bread?!
"Anon, the Limestone Loaf was created by our town’s founders in 779 A.C!” The orange one-Sunny, apparently-sounded like a colt. “They mined ancient grains and minerals from the nearby Smokey Mountains while the town's first crops grew!” Hopping hayseed, why was anypony eating rocks?
"Still weird.” THANK YOU! “My teeth still hurt from trying to eat it." WHY!
"Yeah, it tasted kinda weird.” Not the colt, too! “Hey! Since your teeth hurt so badly, I guess it’s safer to just call off the magic duel until they stop hurting?” Wait, what? A magic duel? Ponies stopped doing those forever ago!
“My teeth! Good idea Sunny!"
“Phew.” Sunny wiped some sweat off his forehead. He seemed really nervous for some reason.
“We should learn spells dentists use to fix my teeth!” The filly-Anon, apparently-on the other hoof, seemed to be kind of crazy. But learning a spell that fixed your teeth could be useful, the dentist was scary…
"Anon no, we might cause something else to grow big by accident!" A spell that grows things big? And they had done it before?
"Come on Sunny, who else is going to know?"
She would. And even if they were being weird and kinda naughty about it, these foals were doing magic! She wanted to learn to finally do magic, too!
Starlight took a quick look back at her Daddy. He was on top of a ladder in the private reading section, levitating a bunch of books around him. That would take him a while…
Alrighty then! Starlight used her super sneakiness to sneak out of the antiquities section and towards the barrel. This was going to be amazing! She was going to learn some new spells! Maybe those two would want to be her friend? Maybe not, because by the time Starlight got to the barrel, the two foals were already gone! Had she gone to the wrong barrel?
“One copy of Dancing Crane’s History of Heartsongs. That’ll be twenty bits, please.” It’s over! Her new magic lessons! Her new friends! She was going to be stuck eating rocks forever!
“Are you really going to charge two little foals so much?” Wait, that sounded like the filly!
Running to the front counter, she saw them! Both foals were buying a book, but they weren’t doing a very good job of it if the filly had to give the shopkeeper, Miss Paper Trail, puppy eyes.
One of the only Pegasi in Sire’s Hollow, Paper Trail was the elderly owner of The Story’s Journey. While her head was pointed towards Anon, Starlight swore she saw the shopkeeper wink right at her instead. “All prices and sales are final miss.”
“Come on Anon, we don’t have enough bits. Let’s just go grab another book.”
The green filly flopped to the floor. “It’s only five bits! Our duel was going to be legendary! They’d write stories and songs about it!” Wait, she had five bits! Daddy gave have her a big allowance for books! This was perfect!
“Excuse me, Miss Trail!” Everypony turned to her. Looking at her. Seeing that she’d screw up again-
No, no, no, not now, she was so close! She turned to the shopkeeper, levitating over her bits. “I uh, would like to pay the five bits. Ma’am. Please.”
This time, Paper Trail didn’t so much as blink. “Friends of yours, Starlight?”
“U-uh…” Say yes, say yes!
“Totally.” One blink later, and Starlight Glimmer could see that the filly had already trotted next to her. “I’m Anonymous, and that’s Sunburst.” The colt had walked over to her, staring at her.
“Hi, Starlight, right? Do you come here often? Do you like books too?” Oh snap, he was talking to her!
“Uhhhhhhh…” Say something, anything!
Thankfully, Miss Trail answered for her. “Miss Starlight here is a regular who enjoys our fine books about mages and sorcerers throughout history. The same kinds of books you two were asking about earlier.”
Both Sunburst and Anonymous started hopping around, excited smiles on their faces.
"Really?" Sunburst asked. "What did you think about Jux Position's Theory of Spatial Awareness? When he first proposed the theory in 257 B.C, they laughed him out of the Academy of the Mystic Arts-"
"Have you ever heard of the Elements of Harmony?" Anonymous interrupted. "Which one do you think is the coolest? I think that-"
"-so he journeyed north into what we now call Rainbow Falls-"
"-since the sixth one's a mystery, it's gotta be-"
"-and became the first to discover it's unusual properties-"
"-something that ties the other five together, something that's like all of them-"
"-the water and light naturally produced liquid rainbows-"
"-at once, but what kind of Element can be Honesty, Kindness, Generosity-"
"-and thought that magic could be sent through light like that too, so using his theory-"
"-Laughter, and Loyalty at the same-"
"-he proved that ponies could move like a rainbow's light in no-"
"-TIME!"
"GYAH!" Starlight leaped at the unexpected duet the two foals had shouted at her. What the heck had they even been saying?
Paper Trail walked over to Starlight, chuckling, an action that got everypony's attention. "Alright little jays, settle down now, settle down."
Anonymous blinked. "Little jays?"
That had gotten an extra chuckle out of Miss Trail. "Just an old Pegasus saying. You two are as energetic as they are! I think you two should ease up on the questions with young Starlight. She's a bit new to them, but is more than willing and able to answer them, with time."
The duo nodded. "Yes, Miss Trail."
Sunburst was the one who apologized first. "Sorry Starlight, we got a bit too excited about magic."
Surprisingly, she could only giggle at what had happened. "It's okay. I get excited about magic, too."
Anonymous apologized next. "Sorry Starlight. Wanna be friends?"
Starlight smiled. She'd like that very much.
Starlight opened her eyes. Confused, she took a moment to blink before looking around. She was not in the town bookstore, but laying in the bed of her room. There was moonlight that had been reaching her through the window curtains, as her namesake performed itself to brighten up the dark sky. That's when she recalled what day it really was. The day she had been dreaming about had happened just a couple of years ago, but somehow felt both like it either happened yesterday, or an entire lifetime ago.
She had been dreaming about the day she first met her best, and only friends. Yesterday was the day both of those friends left her behind forever. To Canterlot.
It only made sense. After all, Sunburst was an absolute genius who could knew just about any kind of spell or theory anypony could think of. He was always eager to share that knowledge, going out of his way to teach her just about anything as soon as he read about it. Hayseed, he always went out of his way to be kind to her in general. Whenever she was feeling impatient, Sunburst was there to walk with her through whatever situation they'd gotten into. He had the patience of a saint, and the virtues of one too.
Then there was Anonymous. She always had that wild look in her eyes that said she wouldn't be stopped. Whereas Sunburst had been cautious and careful, Anonymous threw herself to the wind, always encouraging her to 'feel the magic of their friendship', though she never really explained what that meant. She always turned to those silly old stories about 'the Elements of Harmony' and encouraged them all to follow those stories as the example of what kind of magic they should practice. Whereas she herself already knew too much about history, Anonymous was eager to study old legends and myths long thought to be lost to time, and try to bring them to life with her magical talents.
Unlike Starlight, Anonymous had already had her cutie mark. That should have been her first warning that Anonymous was outside of her league.
Anonymous never really gave a clear answer on how she'd gotten her cutie mark, or even what it meant. The answer she did give Starlight was always the same: that she simply already had it for as long as she could remember. Sunburst said it wasn't uncommon for some ponies to not really understand what their own cutie mark meant, but for once, one of Sunburst's explanations didn't really make any sense to her. Then again, if it did, she wouldn't be a blank flank, would she?
A cutie mark was meant to show who was just some uncertain little kid, whereas adults all had their cutie marks and lived their lives according to what those marks meant. A young pony receiving their mark was considered 'mature' and 'responsible.' Please. Anonymous had been anything but. Maybe she was supposed to be like that? She did like solving mysteries, so it made sense that she'd get something like that for a cutie mark. With somepony as smart as Sunburst around, there wasn't anything those two couldn't do together.
There wasn't anything Starlight could do for them. They didn't need her. No wonder they ran off to Canterlot without her...
Starlight Glimmer went laid her head back down onto her bed, her eyes too wet to look at stars glimmering outside.
Surprisingly, sleeping as a quadruped didn't feel wrong. All I needed was a bed to lay on my sides, and let myself conk out. Not much different from how I normally slept to begin with. Maybe I was just too tired to protest, considering I was half-asleep on the late train back to Sire's Hollow. Papa Nito actually had to carry me out of the train, and I didn't protest this choice. Hey, it's been an eventful day, and I needed to play along with my new life for now. No need to act out of the ordinary when I was going to be moving out in a few days.
Anyhow, that somehow brought me to the early morning hours, just as the twilight sky took a bow and introduced the sunrise for it to take stage. A bit earlier than expected given how deeply I thought I slept, but at this point my mind was going crazy with thoughts about the past, present, and future all over again. Shaking my head, I reluctantly attempted pulled myself out of bed. More importantly, I attempted to pull the comfy bed sheet off of the bed with me, keeping it wrapped around me as I plopped out of the bed.
THUNK
Fuck this body, fuck this body, fuck this body. I was starting to get really, really pissed about suddenly living the whole 'Human in Equestria' shtick.
Discord, you will regret this. Or whatever other magical bullshit is running the show here.
I sighed. Learn how to do magic bullshit first, then go around swearing vengeance upon unknown godlike entities. At least I was a Unicorn instead of the other tribes. I could probably try to push the boundaries of weather magic if I came to Equestria as a Pegasus, but I could do that as a Unicorn anyways. If I were born as an Earth Pony, then I'd just have to get really, really fit. Aside from those, I had no idea what the heck my game plan was going to be if I dropped in as one of the various other magical creatures or critters of this world, or even as my original human self.
Well, best not to dwell on that too hard. Or perhaps I should be? Now there's an idea there...
Picking myself up, I levitated the Nightmare Night themed bed sheets off of the floor. Anonfilly had a rocking man cave going on here, as far as little girl rooms went anyways. Lucky bastard had a big soft bed just for her, probably somewhere between twin-sized and queen-sized if I had to guess. Papa Nito must have wanted a bed that would still fit comfortably as his little filly grew into an older mare.
Oh fuck, I was going to be a fucking mare. Take a shot every time I say the word fuck. I'll get you started. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.
Putting aside my procrastination driven thought process regarding the future with my patented 'Don't' approach, I walked on over to the window. I shoved aside light blue curtains, looking eerily similar to the color of a Windigo of all things, to look at the early morning hours outside. Like the sunset, the sunrise was happening noticeably faster than the one on Earth. A quick glance back inside towards the room’s clock (themed after, of all things, a four-leaf clover) showed that it was barely six in the morning. Looks like I had a couple hours to kill and hide the bodies of before breakfast.
Closing the curtains, I looked over at the filly’s desk. More importantly, I looked over at the huge bookshelf next to it. Guess growing up with a couple of fellow eggheads would do that to you. I pulled out a familiar sounding book titled Legends of Old Equestria. Flipping through the book, I eventually found the story I was looking for: The Legend of Mistmane, conveniently bookmarked so that I wouldn’t have to flip through it like I already did. Whoops.
For my own sake, I reread the story for a quick refresher. Much like the show, the story was about the wise sorceress Mistmane confronting her friend-turned-dictator Sable Spirit, with an important moral about how true beauty is within, and how you shouldn't enslave your friends and family or else you'll look really, really old.
Honestly, who cares what the moral of the story was? The important bit here was that in the story, Sable Spirit attacked Mistmane with some kind of energy dragon, and Misty responded in kind. Both the show and the story said that Mistmane’s dragon fought off against Sable’s in a rather one sided fight. The story claimed that Misty was calm and in full control of her actions in the battle, whereas Sable was frustratingly forcing her magic to bend to her will in retaliation.
Interestingly, what the story didn’t describe was just how those dragons came to be. In the show Sable got mad, and her dragon reflected that as she pulled a Starlight and did magic out of nothing but sheer, unadulterated rage. Again, Mistmane was calm, and she used that calm, not to create a dragon out of her own magic, but to summon one from underneath her. When the two dragons clashed, Sable’s burned with fire, whereas Misty’s splashed with some kind of...energy water?
The show ended the battle by having the water dragon going into a potted plant to enhance and weaponize the plant into magical vines, but the story simply says the dragon subdued Sable so that Misty can trap her with vines. Assuming the show was accurate, the story claimed it was all multiple separate spells instead of a versatile singular spell. Interesting choice of detail to leave out of your ancient legends. It was inevitable, really, since as history marched on, you’d lose all sorts of facts to the sands of time. The crappy current state of Mistmane’s abandoned village was proof of that. So much for Sable promising a fair rule. Was this simply a facet of magic gone missing since the Pillars went into limbo, or did someone want that little nugget of magic trivia off of the history books? After all, Sable only took over after Mistmane ran off to go study at some important magical academy. That academy’s knowledge had to have been preserved somewhere by someone.
Probably somewhere restricted most ponies wouldn’t really have any access to. Or even just forget existed.
Keeping in mind a couple of locations to go pretend are unrestricted for later, I pulled out some notes Anonfilly had stuffed into the book. Apparently, she was having trouble trying to visualize the dragon so she could make the form for the dragon. Good for her, but using magic to throw around energy beings willy-nilly would take more effort and power than most little fillies could throw around at the moment. But if I pulled a Mistmane and used energy from nature instead of my own...
I was going to need some spells for calling upon the plant’s life energy, not its water. Unfortunately, I’m pretty sure playing around with that sort of thing was frowned upon in most modern-era circles. Just one more reason someone would have intentionally expunged that information from the history books, I suppose.
I’d have to run around experimenting with plants and various nature-themed spells. Sunburst would probably know about that already, we could collaborate once we started going to CSGU. In the meantime, I might as well see Anonfilly’s methods for myself.
Equestria as we know it was shaped by magic, and all magic was an extension of one’s self. Telekinesis was the most literal way for unicorns to express that. According to Sunburst, that’s why it's the one spell all Unicorns are capable of, no matter their actual magical capabilities. It was ingrained in the instincts of all Unicorns to use your magic, use your very being as a magical creature, to simply reach out and pull. If I could somehow take the spell's aura blob and form it into different shapes, that aura grip should give me a solid base to mold into my giant magic dragon rather than just conjuring it out of nothing. Probably, maybe. As far as I'm aware that should all be the same principal. Too bad I couldn't remember jackshit concerning the principles of magic at this point.
Wait, if donkeys were as self-aware as ponies in Equestria, would words like jackshit and jackass basically be this world's n-word? Oh whatever, I'll just Green Lantern this jackshit and power on through like a jackass. I've got the color down already, at least. I took a spare quill out of my desk by levitated it in front of me. I stared at the green aura that was now around the quill. It was vaguely shaped like the quill itself, being noticeably blobby around the feathery part of the feather, but significantly thinner around the pointy end.
Vane and hollow shaft, respectfully, supplied a memory of Sunburst reciting his many fun facts. Thanks Sunny, I'll help you with your 'can't do magic' complex later, promise. Got a lot to juggle on this plate as is.
So from this feather, I could see that the levitation aura automatically wraps itself as tightly as it could to grip the object in question. Made sense, since you needed to handle that shaft with a nice, firm grip. Though there's nothing 'hollow' about it when you get it in there nice and tight-
I'm just fucking with you, please don't do that with a feather.
Like I was saying, the aura changed with the object, so it had to be flexible to change. Yet you needed a firm grip for the spell to work without dropping the object in question, and that probably made it easier to visualize and focus somehow. My best bet was to start small and expand the tiny end of the aura to be the same size as the big end so that the whole thing stood long and erect-
Look, you try waking up without a case of morning wood, alright? This shit just slips out when your too tired to have a filter.
Okay Anon, focus. I just need to...loose my grip? That probably sounded reasonable. Focusing the aura, I tried to force just that area to expand. Just even out the spread of the aura, like a when spreading jam on toast with a knife. I should ask Papa Nito for a PB&J for breakfast...
Ok aura, focus. Focus. You are a part of me, so expand, damn it. I stood there for a few minutes, sweating like Rainbow Dash after a good flight session. No matter how hard I focused, the damn feather aura wouldn't change.
You can blow up the nation's capitol by accident, but can't grab a feather the way you want to? Focus!
Sure enough, I started to notice the aura shake. Hell yeah, shake your tail baby! Come on aura, expand! Expand! Willing the damn thing to shake more, I got my wish.
Too bad things already had a habit of going south whenever my wishes get granted.
The aura immediately expanded, rapidly. It grew way past the size of the feather it held, smacking me in the face faster than my face smacked the floor.
"FU-MFF!"
Ugh. Fuck this, I should just run over to Starlight's and end as much of this shit show as I can now. Flailing around to pick myself up, I tripped over my own not-feet and fell to the ground again. Wonderful. Second time was the charm, so I stood up and ran on over to the kitchen to steal some random fruit for my breakfast. I could share some with Starlight, right? She'd appreciate that.
I shoulder tackled myself out the door, and jumbled down the stairs to once again fall over myself, this time onto the cruel harsh mistress known only as the outside world. The sunlight burned my skin away as I hissed at Celestia herself! Er, fur. Hair. Coat. Whatever. Point is, I finally got a good, in-person look at Sire's Hollow. Not something I saw on a T.V. screen, not something I vaguely recalled from my weird new memories. It was real.
So why was it so damn nostalgic. The bight yellow-green grass crushed softly beneath my hooves, as Equestira's morning air felt fresher than anything I ever felt-
Three little unicorns were running throughout town, without a care in the world. Though you wouldn't know it from what they were screaming.
"Look out, it's a giant dragon!" Yelled the orange one.
"I'm going to eat your gems! Bleh!" Yelled the green one.
"What is with you and eating rocks!" Yelled the purple one.
-I tripped a-fucking-gain. Oh great, I thought. They're happening again. These memories want to exist, they should've brought me to Equestria in the damn womb.
Powering through the absurdity of it all, I walked down the street, singular. The familiar yellow brick houses stood tall with their red brick roofs-
The unfamiliar looking houses were absolutely covered in a mess of cobwebs and goofy looking plastic spiders. Not that three little ponies noticed, mind you.
"Nightmare Night, what a fright!" Sang an orange pony in a wizard's cloak and hat, stroking his fake beard.
"Give me something good to bite!" Sang a purple pony with a kite on her head, eager to run around, as though flying in the wind.
"No worthy offerings means that it'll always be night!" Sang a green pony in some kind of royal armor, her fake wings comically large and bat-like.
-I crashed into the walls of one of these homes. Haven't I smacked my face around enough today? These new memories were hitting me harder than ever!
Rubbing my head, I peeled myself away from the random house. Damn thing should move out of the way! Sure enough, in my haste shake off the injury and yet another memory, I found myself in the town square. A quaint rural square with a humble farmer's market-
Three little ponies trotted through the market, bits jingling in their manes.
"That might be true, but Hibiscus flowers are sweeter than any other," Said the orange-Sunburst.
"I've always preferred Sunflowers, anyways," Said the purple-Starlight.
”If you don’t like the crispiness of a good daffodil, sure,” said the green-
Me.
I slumped against the fountain, closing my eyes, my head aching like crazy.
In-n-out, Anon. Take a deep breath. Breathe in, and then breathe out.
Okay. I’m okay. It’s going to all be okay. Okay?
I looked back at the road. I actually passed by Starlight’s house at this point…
I sighed. Maybe I can make it if I keep my eyes closed.