Chapter 5
A Life to Share
The room Lemon had gotten them was far from modest, even if the establishment itself might fit that label. It was quite spacious and had three beds as well as plenty of space to move about. In one of the corners there was a sizeable table with four chairs surrounding it, three of which were occupied.
"Right, now spill."
Apparently Minuette had no patience for beating around the bush when it came to her job, Twilight reasoned.
Lemon shrugged. "Alright, alright," she let out a sigh before her smile faded, replace by a flat look. "The anomaly is much larger than we were expecting, it contains itself with no breeches."
"How large are we talking here?" Minuette asked.
Lemon's mouth scrunched. "Something like... seven to eight kilometres across, but it's a dome so the total area is much larger."
"...That is a lot bigger than most of these."
Lemon nodded.
"But," Minuette continued. "It shouldn't change our strategy, right?"
Lemon paused before eventually shaking her head. "No, it shouldn't. But there are other complications."
Twilight just tilted her head slightly, without additional context she wasn't sure if there was anything worthwhile she could chip in with.
"And those are?" Minuette asked.
Lemon sighed. "For one," she picked up a map from her bag and unrolled on the table. "The entire place is mostly forests with heavy underbrush. Ponies rarely go here and I'm unsure what the situation is with the local fauna. So finding the source once we get inside," Lemon tapped a hoof inside the large red circle she had drawn onto the map. "Will be quite tricky, since getting around will be hard."
Minuette waved her hoof. "We've done worse, plus we have a magus that can just blast away the underbrush if needed."
Twilight frowned. "I'm not sure how feasible that is, blasting away living plants with direct force will tire anyone out quickly."
Minuette sighed. "We'll figure something out, if we want to be certain we can bring gardening tools or whatever."
"Right," Lemon nodded. "That's not the part that has me the most worried though."
"Oh?" Twilight chimed in.
"Local reports suggests that a couple might have decided to go camping in the area. So we might need to provide aid to civilians too."
"Ugh, great," Minuette grumbled.
"If they are campers then they should be able to manage for a while, right? I mean, the two of you seemed certain that this wouldn't take too long."
Lemon and Minuette glanced at each other before turning their gaze to Twilight.
"What?"
"It's a bit more complicated than that..." Lemon started.
"Time does not move naturally inside things like this," Minuette continued. "This means that we might have to make it a priority to find these ponies first, before they end up walking into an early grave."
"That's..."
"This is especially complicated because the zone is so large, and we can't afford to split up. It might not be feasible to find them," Lemon frowned. "Celestia is not gonna be happy with this if they end up dead."
"It's not much we can do about it now, other than to go in as prepared as possible," Minuette shrugged.
Twilight shot Minuette a glare, she might be correct but these were lives they were talking about.
Lemon nodded. "Except that's not even the biggest issue."
Minuette frowned. "There's more?"
"The entire structure of this is unlike anything I have seen before. It has the signs of... well offender number one if you're catching my drift."
"Of course it does," Minuette grumbled, Twilight wasn't sure if her expression could be more sour.
"But even beyond that, there is something off about the entire thing, but I can't figure out what... I'd need to study it on the inside to be certain why it's so different from previous ones."
Minuette slumped against the table while Lemon turned her gaze down to stare at the map.
"So... You research this stuff then?" Twilight asked.
Twilight might be more for active duty than sitting around writing research papers on magic, but that did not mean she hadn't written a few back before she took her current position.
Lemon's ears perked. "Well, only some times. My special talent is time anomalies, so I'm really good at finding them, it's almost like a seventh sense. Of course, I'm also good at figuring out what they are and how they tick," she snickered. "But normally all that just comes to me, Minuette is the expert at actually resolving issues."
"Are you gonna share all our organisation's secrets while you're at it?" Minuette grumbled from her position against table.
"Eh, only some," Lemon waved dismissively.
Twilight licked her lips. "Admittedly all of this feels a bit out of my expertises. Before today I thought advanced temporal magic was mostly just a myth or a thing that masters of the craft like Star Swirl dabbled into."
"I wouldn't worry about it too much, you're mostly here in case we need extra firepower," Lemon shrugged.
"I'm not sure how much confidence that fills me with..."
"Anyway, that's about everything. We'll head off in the morning and hopefully resolve things quickly," Lemon flashed her a smile.
Twilight nodded, there were many questions that were floating about in her head but she was unsure if she would even get a direct answer to any of them. Sure, Lemon had seemed forthcoming, but the Temporal Investigation Association clearly had its secrets.
"Now, more importantly," Lemon smirked and turned to her coworker. "Will you join me for a dance downstairs Minuette?"
Minuette just groaned.
Twilight kicked as hard as she could with her hind hooves, striking solid against the tree trunk. Her reward was two apples falling down on the ground besides the tree. She suppressed a groan and sighed, she was no earth pony, that was for sure. If it was one thing she had picked up during her time inside the anomaly then it was just how much the other two tribes contributed to Equestria; it was a humbling experience.
Twilight had never really been a tribist like some of the other snobby unicorns in Canterlot were, but that didn't mean she hadn't picked up some bad assumptions over her years of growing up and living there. If she was a pegasus she could have skipped out on so many trips retrieving water from the river, and if she had the endurance and green hoof of an earth pony then all the farming would come easier. But no, both her and Raven were unicorns, generalised magic was useful, but Twilight had never learned any spells related to agriculture; and Raven certainly didn't seem to have a special talent for it.
She glanced over to the young mare pulling up carrots just a few paces over. Most ponies her age would have long since found their talent. Of course, most ponies her age also didn't skip several years of their foalhood nor had to spend their life stuck in a miniature bubble world with only one other pony for company.
Twilight sighed and reared up for another solid kick, this time she managed to get three apples to fall off from the branches. She knew earth ponies swore by this method, but she half considered just picking the apples with her magic instead. Of course, one of the reasons for this method was that only ripe fruit would fall, and Twilight wasn't entirely certain which ones she could pluck otherwise.
She heard snickering and hoof steps coming closer. "Not having much luck?"
Twilight turn her head towards Raven and sighed. "Not really, I'm not sure how the earth ponies manage."
"I'd like to meet one some day..." Raven shook her head. "I thought you'd gotten pretty good at it since we've had the peaches for a while now," she gestured with her hoof at the three peach trees on the other side of the garden.
"Somehow that was easier than this, I couldn't tell you why."
Raven grabbed an apple in her magic hold and floated it to herself, taking a bite. Her eyes widened. "Wow, these are good. I wasn't sure if they would be worth it considering how long it took."
Twilight shook her head. "These are much smaller and likely less tasty than most cultivated apples. But it's the best we could manage with just the two of us."
Twilight floated up one from the ground herself, taking a large bite.
It was the best tasting apple she had ever had.
Raven parted her overgrown mane with her magic and glared at the scroll on the table, eventually letting out a groan.
"Do I have to do this?"
Twilight rolled her eyes and sipped on her tea. "Yes dear. I'm not sure why you're grumbling so much over this, you have done mathematics for years."
"But that was easy, and this is hard," Raven whined.
Twilight could only snicker. She had tried keeping up with education for Raven, but a big issue was that she wasn't equipped to teach most subjects. As such the education she provided had leaned heavily into mathematics, writing, and magic. Even so, the young mare was likely behind others of her perceived age; Twilight had needed her help with the farming as soon as she was old enough to do so.
Things were more stable now, so she could dedicate more time towards teaching her. She had definitively taken after Twilight in some regards, vastly preferring writing to mathematics. Twilight glanced over to the corner shelf where they stored stories, Twilight wasn't the only one adding to it anymore. Granted, Raven's stories were not really that complex nor would they win any awards, but it did mean they had more things to cycle through for Twilight to read aloud. She giggled, Raven had never really grown out of hearing her tell stories, and in some ways she found that really endearing.
"It's not funny."
Twilight just giggled even more as she saw Raven's expression. "It absolutely is, especially when you're pouting."
Raven parted her mane with her magic again. "I'm not pouting," the definitively pouting mare exclaimed.
"Oh? Should I go grab the mirror?" Twilight held her hoof in front of her mouth, suppressing even more laughter.
Raven rested her head on the table and grumbled.
Twilight placed her metal mug on the table and got up, crossing their living space in just a few short steps. Things had improved a bit since she met Wing Spark, and while Twilight didn't exactly trust the mare, the gifts had been nice. The enchanted stones--while rudimentary--provided some much needed utility. All of them drew magic from the air on their own and produced various effects, even if they were a bit limited.
One was enchanted to collect latent magic till it was full, after that one could activate it and it would provide intense heat for a few minutes. It was great for cooking and helped the two of them avoid burning so much wood, which also reduced how many times they'd need to take trips collecting firewood. More useful than that though was the gem that continuously kept itself and the air around it cold. It had massively upgraded their icebox, and no longer did rely on the simple trinket she had gotten from the TIA.
The last two were less useful, one of them simply produced the same type of light spell that any unicorn above the age of ten would know. The last one was hollow and collected up moisture in the air, effectively functioning as a small source of water. The issue was that it simply wasn't a fast enough process to be very useful; they still had to make quite a few trips to the river.
Twilight came to a stop in front of the chest of drawers, it had been a new addition that she finished just a year ago. While she had no notions towards them getting any clothes, there were plenty of other items that could use a more organised home. She opened the first drawer and picked out one of the brushes she had made out of wood, before making her way back towards the table. Twilight couldn't help smiling at Raven having picked up the math problem again with renewed vigour. While the young mare might not see much benefit in it, she was stubborn enough to see a task through.
Twilight settled down behind Raven and carefully put the brush against her dark brown--and very messy--mane. Something which immediately resulted in a yelp from the mare.
"You don't have to do that," came the timid voice of Raven.
"Oh? So you'll do it yourself?"
Twilight could only chuckle as silence was her answer, she began brushing and immediately hit a snag; which resulted in a cry of pain.
"I don't know how you can stand doing it every day, it hurts so much."
Twilight shook her head, despite knowing that Raven couldn't see her. "It only hurts because you never do it dear," she continued brushing.
Raven just grumbled something under her breath in reply.
"You know, I have said it before: I can just cut your hair short, then you don't need to worry about it."
"No!" Raven exclaimed, turning slightly so she could see Twilight.
Twilight shrugged lightly. "Keeping a long mane does involve a lot of work; I'm not entirely sure why you insist on keeping it so long if you don't want to take care of it."
"I..." Raven turned back, facing forwards. "I have always had it long, and I like that?"
Twilight lot out a small sigh. "Well it's your choice. I do wish you at least picked a more practical mane style than just an unkempt mess, however."
It had been a nice day, Twilight thought to herself.