So, there are some experiences I wish I could tell people without looking like a crazy person. I am only writing this now, because… It’s been about four weeks since I could write in a journal or diary of some sort. The problem that I am currently experiencing is… I’m a horse. I’m a horse, or rather, a pony. I don’t know why, I don’t know how, but I am a horse-pony thing. I sorta… woke up in a crater one day, injured and aching all over, and woke up again in a hospital room. From there, I was met with another horse… wearing a nurse hat.
I’ll do my best to write out how that interaction went.
“What the fuck!” I yelled.
“He’s awake!” The nurse pony gasped.
“You can fucking talk!?” I yelled again, before rolling out of my bed and scampering away from the thing in front of me.
“Of course I can talk-”
I didn’t care, I managed to work out how to move my legs. There were four of those now, I just noticed, and broke off into a gallop towards the door. You see, in my state of panic, I forgot that I had no arms, or hands, to open the door with. So I ran face first into the door and got knocked out again.
So that was my first interaction with one of the many ‘people’ in this world. You see, unlike Earth, I am on a planet called Equus which has the same geography of Earth, just everything is named differently and the sea levels are different, so places like Florida are just gone. There’s also less ice in the world, so Greenland was melted into three different islands. It was kinda neat, seeing the world in this way.
The poles were still frozen, so there was still ice, and Antarctica was still the frozen hell hole that it is on Earth.
So, I’m living on an alien planet, which is really just Earth in another universe apparently. Humans don’t exist, so ponies, logically, took over the world instead, becoming sentient, sapient, and built civilization. The country they built up was named Equestria, and was roughly where the U.S.A was on Equus, but only took up the eastern and midwest part of the country. The western were labeled the Badlands, and it was basically uninhabitable. It was just a giant desert. Up north of Equestria was Griffonia, because Griffins are a thing on Equus.
Cuba was the land of the Minotaurs, dunno the name for it, as they don’t really have one.
Speaking of Equestria, after I managed to thoroughly scare the shit out of my nurse, and knock myself out, I later learnt that I was being kept inside of a castle’s infirmary, because a pony showing up in a crater, in the middle of town where a strong residue of magic was a thing, would concern the rulers of Equestria. Where was I found? Ponyville. Apparently a magical mishap happened, and I became a unicorn.
Anyways, I learnt that Equestria was ruled by a single pony, her name was Celestia. She stopped by to check in on me after I woke up again after I knocked myself out.
Here’s how that went.
“Uh…” This pony was tall. Like really tall. She wore a golden crown on her head, had a sun tattoo’d into her butt, and was incredibly tall. At first I thought the door frame was a little too tall given how none of the ponies here were even half the size of said door frame, that was until I saw the door crack open and see a very tall, winged unicorn walk into the room. Even I could tell that by pony standards, she was beautiful. She kept her wings folded, likely in an attempt to seem less intimidating, and she walked to the front of my door, and sat like a cat.
“Hello, my little pony,” she greeted
“Hi…”
“I can tell that… you have a special case.”
“Yeah, I was just told by my poor nurse, tell her I’m sorry for scaring her by the way, that I’m in a hospital that’s built into your castle. I’m assuming I’m in this hospital for a reason.”
“Well, you were injured, and the crater that I had found you in is rather… interesting. If you have a name, do speak up… just know that we may have to change your name should you want to fit into pony society a bit better.” I raised an eyebrow. “I know you are not of this world. The crater you were in… had no magic in it whatsoever. The soil, that is usually full of magic, was gone. The burns in the crater, every single millimeter of the crater had no magic in it. You yourself do not radiate magic like most do, and you’re a unicorn!”
“Huh… Say, what’s with the tattoo on your butt?”
“...That’s my cutie mark. Everypony has one.”
“What’s that?”
“...We are going to have much to discuss.”
“Okay. Do you have a name?”
“I’m Princess Celestia.”
“...Can I call you Sun Butt? That’s easier to remember.”
Celestia surprisingly giggled at that. “If you call me that, I suppose it would be better than the usual ‘your highness’ or ‘your majesty’ or the quivering ‘Princess!’. Though I would prefer that you call me by name once you get more acclimated with it in the future.”
“Will do, Sun Butt. you’re… surprisingly chill for somepony that’s supposedly the leader of a, apparently, powerful country.”
“And you are surprisingly ‘chill’ for somepony that just hopped dimensions.”
“Oh, I’m getting over the shock of the fact that I’m no longer a human being. I’ve worked out the initial fear after I ran face first into a door.” I leaned rolled onto my stomach and sat up. I looked at my own butt to look at my cutie mark. It was a bunch of ones and zeros… given that I was trying to code a game before I ended up in Equestria, I can’t complain. That was the one thing I was good at back on Earth. “Huh…”
That is an idea for a name at least; it’s what I went by on the forums for the fan game I was co-coding, so I would respond to it just fine.
“You can call me Source Code,” I sat up. “I feel like I should try to bow, but I think I’ll fall on my face if I try it. I’m barely able to sit up,” I gestured to myself.
“Think nothing of it… However, there are some things I would like to discuss with you. Would you like to join me for a walk? It would help you a bit with a change of scenery, and you can get to practicing in your new body.”
“Sure thing, Sunbutt.”
“Splendid! Come, I have a personal drawing room that we can go to.” I nodded and hopped off the bed… only to nearly fall on my face. When the ground never came up and gave my huge nose a kiss, I realized I was floating. I was set up on my hooves as Sunbutt. Her horn was lit, and I was surrounded with a golden… aura that felt pleasantly warm. Just like a fire in the fireplace; pleasantly warm but not smoldering hot. “Perhaps you shouldn’t be jumping off of beds; it won’t do you much good.”
“Yeah, I suppose it wouldn’t. I prefer not breaking my face; I’m sure you wouldn’t want to break your face either. Nobody wants to break their face.”
“That does sound rather unpleasant,” she said with a chuckle. I quickly fell in line at her heels, my head came right up to her rear. I was wobbly, I was barely able to walk, but I was walking. And it felt like we had been walking for hours while we made our way through the castle, up several stairs, and around dozens of corners. During that time, it was full of lighthearted conversation. I had to explain to Celestia what my hobby, and my job was.
“So what do you like to do in your free time, Source?”
“I work in a crummy fast food place. It kinda sucked, but it paid bills.”
“I see. Was that your special talent?” I tilted my head. “Your special talent, it’s in relation to your cutie mark.”
“Oh heck no! I hated that job. My boss was a dick, my coworkers were lazy sacks of shit, and the customers were awful. In my free time, I, and a few buddies of mine would… try to code a game. Think of making lines of ones and zeros, commands and whatnot all to make things on a screen happen… Like say ‘make model X run cycle underscore one until X meets destination A’. It’s something I liked to think I was quite good at, and even took schooling for it.”
“I see, that sounds like magic. Typically one would use their horn to ‘write’ out, or ‘perform’, the right ‘runes’, and then something happens. You had something similar?”
“...No. I never heard of magic until now.” Or believed in it.
“Oh. What’s magic like, if I may ask.” Celestia summoned a book… from somewhere with a golden flash of magic.
“Look at this,” she turned to a page, and revealed… what looked like an alphabet of some sort. Each symbol didn’t look like a symbol from any language I’ve seen before. However, under each symbol was a letter from the English language. Twenty six characters, twenty six runes. “You make each rune with your horn, which you will learn how to do in time, and what you write out is what happens. For instance, I will spell out ‘light’.” Celestia did just that, and her horn turned into a flashlight of sorts. “For more complex spells, you make sentences for what you want to happen. For instance, if I wanted to make a fireball, I would write out fireball. The more complex spells take more time to perform due to this… And good horn dexterity so you don’t hurt yourself.
“There are ways around this, as I’ve seen, but this is the most widespread system for unicorns. Technically every unicorn is capable of three different systems of magic, but the ‘rune system’ is the easiest to learn, even if it is more taxing and slower than the other system. Levitation,” she floated the book away from me. It was in a golden aura that was also surrounding her horn.
“That looks like telekinesis.”
“That is basically because it is,” Celestia agreed. “Back on topic, levitation uses the second system of magic where you impose your will onto an object. This school is mostly illegal, as it is a gateway to mind control spells, but simple stuff like levitation is perfectly legal; most unicorns cannot live without it, after all.” She kept the book rune levitating after that explanation.
I read over the alphabet six or seven times… I want to learn this. This just sounds like coding.
“Another branch of is very similar to the first, as it uses runes, but are quite unknown as to which rune means what. It’s still somewhat manageable to learn, but I only know a few hundred ponies that could use this system effectively, and exceed it. I have been alive for thousands of years, Source. There is a fourth ‘system’ of magic, called… Dark Magic, which is completely off limits, though not illegal. It is very addictive and corrupts the user’s mind and soul. It’s more of a ‘use at your own risk’ system. And if anypony gets… too advanced and is too corrupted by this system, I end up putting them down.”
“Damn… I might try my hand in each of these systems. Mostly the first and third one. Those seem like something that I could be decent at…” I looked up and down Celestia… she looked jittery.
“What’s wrong with you?” I asked. She looked a bit less composed than usual… I think. I did just meet her, after all.
“My apologies, Source. I have… found great enjoyment in teaching. It’s one of the few things I find great satisfaction in, even after all my time being alive.”
“And you’ve been around since… forever, basically.”
“I have.”
“...Jesus christ, I cannot imagine how much shit you’ve seen. I… I feel sorry for ya. If I’ve seen half the stuff you’ve been through, I think I would probably go insane. So seeing you being… nice. I gotta give ya props for your resilience, Sunbutt.” Celestia gave me a warm smile as we approached her drawing room.
We made ourselves comfy on the couch. For some bizarre reason, Celestia insisted that I lay against the side of her stomach. “So, Source, I must ask, since you brought it up. What are humans?”
“Oh, that’s what I was before I came to Equestria. I was… an almost completely hairless, ape. I walked on two feet and covered most of my body with clothes. I’ll be honest, humans eat just about anything. Meat included. We weren’t… exactly dangerous for the most part. If you gave us the time to think, humans could, and would find a way to eventually blow up an entire country though.”
“So you’re dangerous?”
“I’m… not. You could probably break my neck right now; I can feel how much muscle you’ve got under that coat of yours; you’re a fucking brick. A very nice, plush brick, but a brick. Clob me over the head with a hoof, and my head’s coming off,” I hummed. “Anyone can be dangerous anyways. To what capacity is what you should be worried about. And their willingness to be dangerous. For instance, a guy with a sword is dangerous, but a sword can really only be used to stab somebody. That’s assuming the guy with a sword wants to hurt anyone.”
“That is a good point. Are you willing to hurt anyone?”
“No. I don’t like the idea of hurting people. I can barely even tolerate the thought of it; I like to think that I’m a relatively peaceful guy. I would much, much rather spend a night coding with my buddies, having a beer, or just relaxing on the couch to some good music than hurt somebody.”
“Then I see no problem in you living amongst my ponies, Source Code. I figured you wouldn’t want to, hurt anypony that is, given your… demeanor.”
“Hey, you’re being relatively friendly to the weird alien that you found in a hole in the ground. I might as well return it.”
“I see,” Celestia hummed. “I have two offers for you, however.”
“Hmm?”
“I would like to teach you how to use magic.”
“Why?”
“I love teaching, and it would help you out. I saw how you hungrily stared at those runes…” I flinched. “I have a sharp eye, my little pony. Worry not, you’re just curious and have a hunger for knowledge.”
“Well, if I’m gonna learn from anyone, I might as well learn from the immortal princess that’s been around long enough to learn how to be good with magic. Though there’s a second reason.” Celestia raised an eyebrow. “I can pick up on details too, Sunny. It comes with game testing.” Celestia giggled. “That’s kinda cute, you gotta stop before I get heartburn.
“You… think my giggling is cute?” Celestia asked.
“Yeah. Why?”
“It’s just been forever since anypony considered any one thing about me ‘cute’...” Celestia giggled again, she is getting very close to giving me heartburn. “Well, it would also help my personal student out as well. With somepony to work alongside with, I am willing to bet that she can… come out of her shell a bit more. She’s not the most friendly or outgoing of ponies.”
“Mmm… Alrighty. Teach me how to use these runes after you can get me to get this,” I tapped my horn. “To work, then I will try my damn best to catch up.”
“Wonderful! I will be giving you a weekly stipend, but I do expect you to find work so it will not be much, just enough for rent and food. Worry not, however, since you are my student, that will be covered. Your classes will be early in the morning, and they will be pretty frequent for the time being; I cannot teach you magic if you never figure out how to use it, can you?”
“Good point. I look forward to the lessons with you, Princess Sun Butt.”
So that was nearly four weeks ago. At first, mine and Celestia’s other pupil were kept separate. This was because of how far ahead her other student was. Meanwhile, Celestia had to help me catch up on geography, history. She was more than thrilled that I was proficient in reading and English, or Equish as ponies call the King’s Language. It took me about three weeks to get caught up, learn how to produce runes, and use Levitation, and then start learning on the third system, which was actually a mixture of runes and the second magical system, that levitation used, that Celly had described to me.
Oh yeah, I’ve been keeping a rather casual relationship with my teacher, since she expressed how nice it was to have somebody that talked to her like a normal pony, so I almost entirely refrain from calling her ‘Princess’ and usually refer to her by name, or by nickname. I still don’t fully know why Celestia wanted me to be her student, despite her reasons given, beyond just being a friend for her other student. Or because she just really wanted to teach an alien how to utilize magic. I have my guesses, but I won’t say anything. Besides, after our usual lessons, we sit down, have tea, and talk about how I’m adjusting to living as a horse in another land.
For instance, Sunny told me that the term ‘horse’ is a bit racist. Mustang is rather rude to say to stallions. Tarpan was a big, big no no. Like you shouldn’t say that ever. I never even knew that Tarpan was a word until that moment, but I at least know when I’m saying something bad. She also told me the basics of mares trying to flirt, no, none have tried. I’ve been told that I’m pretty average looking by Sunshine. Meanwhile, she told me none of the ‘signs’ that a stallion is flirting, so I have no clue if I’m flirting with anyone.
So then I just don’t talk to anyone out of fear.
When she told me these things, I could see the shit eating grin tugging at the corners of her mouth… She is lucky that she’s somewhat adorable when she laughs, or thinks something is funny, or I would be a lot more mad about that. It was great that her laugh was contagious, because I did love joking around a lot, and Celestia seemed all too happy to have a distraction from everyday life.
No matter how terrible my jokes are, or how we both know that my jokes suck.
And since teaching me and checking in on Twilight, the other student took so long, she took a whole day out of her schedule for teaching us separately, and teaching her normal students.
Since that couldn’t work forever, and so she could spend more time with her regular students, mine and Twilight’s tutorage hours were being combined into one.
Twilight probably would’ve needed less help than I would anyways.
Oh yeah, I’ve been working out how to make a new system of magic to try and make casting easier and more efficient(basically a modified Rune System). However, I still barely have a grasp of most rune-based spells, a horrible grasp on the second system, or the ‘physical spells’, or the ‘hybrid’ system.
Those were the names for each system that I gave them. Celestia loved them so much that she tried to make them official.
Rune-Based, due to it being the most popular and relying heavily on runes. Want fire? Spell it out with the Runes provided.
‘Physical’ since most spells are actively channeled into an object or place by the user, in my mind at least. change the temperature of a room? Gotta channel magic into the particles.
And Hybrid since it was a mixture of the two. Want to teleport? Well, you gotta wanna be somewhere, and then you gotta be able to have the capacity to get to that place, and then you gotta write out ‘teleport’ with the Runes from the first system of magic.
There was a miscellaneous category for spells tied to cutie marks. For instance, Sun Butt can raise the sun, but nopony else can. Not without catching fire at least. Some can find gems, specifically because of their talent, so that would fall under that category as well.
My own, would be trying to simplify and minimize how many runes you need. Then say, I wanna teleport? Well, I won’t need to focus too much on the runes, I just have to worry about the power needed to teleport… In theory. I can’t test it yet, since I still don’t have a lot of juice, or all the components(such as a better Rune System to work with). This is clearly an unofficial, incomplete system that I’m still trying to make the fundamentals of in my free time.
Twilight was proficient in all three of these categories and had the magic capacity to boot.
I walked up to Celestia’s private magic study, which was basically a small gym with magic proof walls. There was a little lounge off to the side where we did a majority of the ‘paper’ stuff such as reading. The rest of the room was meant for testing spells until I got the hang of it. Then doing it again until I got quicker and quicker at magic. I took a deep breath and smiled.
Celestia was a good teacher, and generally fun to hangout with, so I was happy to see my new, and currently, only friend on Equus.
I knocked on the door, before letting myself in. Celestia and a lavender unicorn, with a violet mane, that had a pink streak going through it, were loafing on cushions in the lounge section of the section of the ‘magic gym’ as I called the room. There was another, official, name for it, but magic gym made more sense to me. Celestia looked up from her book and smiled. “Good evening, Source, it is good to see you this morning.”
“Howdy Sun Butt,” that was her favorite nickname. “How’s the assoholic nobleponies this week?”
“WHAT!?” The unicorn, who I’m assuming is Twilight, yelled.
“Huh?” I tilted my head.
“First, you’re late! Then you call the Princess that?! And you’re using profanities while doing so!” She yells at me.
“...Celestia’s been super lax with me, she knows that it takes me a bit to get here, since I live in an apartment closer to the outskirts of Canterlot. Also… Sunny never gets mad at me when I call her that.”
“I do quite like the all nicknames you give me, Source; it feels nice to be treated like a normal mare every once in a while. Even if some of the nicknames I’ve received are a bit rude. Such as ‘Sun Butt’.” Celestia said from behind a tea cup she raised to her mouth.
“You said that was your favorite nickname!”
“It is,” Celestia giggled. “I’m just happy that you still call me that.”
“Well, it’s a good nickname!”
“That it is… Twilight, this is Source Code, my newest pupil. Source Code, this is my prized pupil, Twilight Sparkle.”
“Ah, I’m not number one? We’ve only known each other for a few weeks… and I’m only second best?” We both giggled before I trotted up, did my usual greeting routine of nuzzling her, rubbing up against her, and laying down beside her. I leaned back into the side of her stomach and let a small, contented smile form on my face as Celestia nuzzled the spot between my ears, and
“Well… unfortunately, yes. You are second best.”
“Ah damn. And here I was hoping to show you my notes! I just simplified the Light spell!” I reached into a saddlebag and pulled out my notebook.
“Oh?” Twilight and Celestia said at the same time, eyebrows raised. I flipped open the notebook and showed off runes. I performed them, and boom, my horn’s lit up. You see, a lot of words, such as bright, light, right all had that IGHT. Or a better example: lightING, lightnING, or attackING all had ING. Since Rune Based magic’s runes translated perfectly into the English alphabet, I figured there must be an easier way of producing the three/four letter groupings of runes easier.
And there was.
Celestia looked over my notes, before performing the runes, and then getting light as well. “Huh…”
“I made new runes. Well, a new rune,” I explained. “Runes essentially work via a muscle our horns are attached to, yeah? Simple, tiny little movements. I figured, ‘hey a lot of these spells end in certain spellings’, so I spent the last week coming up with a quicker way of reproducing ALL, IRE, IGHT, and ING. Turns out, there’s a tiny little ‘noise’ made when working the horn muscle. So, I got all horny,” Celestia giggled at that horrible pun. “And made the rune for ‘ight’. It was mostly a matter of combining the movements, or sounds, into one simple movement of the horn muscle. So then I just had to do ‘L’ and then the special rune. I’m still working out the other runes.
“Then, while using synonyms, I can make a spell easier to cast with runes.” I did ‘A’ and ‘L’ and ‘IGHT’. My horn lit on fire, before it quickly died out before I could catch on fire. “Boom, fire spell in three runes. Ohoho! This is just like coding and I fucking love it!” I clapped my hooves with glee as Twilight started looking over my notes before quickly doing what I just did. She hummed and her eyes widened.
“That… is actually rather brilliant,” Celestia planted a kiss between my ears. “That is absolutely brilliant!”
“I only got ‘IGHT’ right now though. Also, because I suck at existing, me doing that ‘IGHT’ rune too much actually gives me a headache. Then again, I get those from just writing with a pen for too long, so that’s not surprising. It probably wasn’t a challenge for you, and it won’t be if you do it too many times.”
“Source, this is still revolutionary.”
“Oh yeah!” I got up and ran towards the ‘gym’ part of the room. I did ‘L’ ‘IGHT’, ‘W’, ‘E’ and ‘IGHT’ and jumped way higher than usual, before touching the ground, landing on my face. “Ow…” I still don’t know how to stick landings with all four of my hooves. Also, I am horribly unathletic. Twilight and Celestia just sat there. They both looked impressed, and a second away from laughing from my faceplant. Luckily, my version of the ‘weightless’ spell made me actually lighter so the landing didn’t hurt as much. It still wasn’t fun, landing on my nose and all. I got up and started rubbing my head, not because my nose hurt, but because I did my custom rune too many times in a row.
Yes, it only took two times in a row to give me a hornache.
Headache inside the head, and a headache on the horn… I want to get kicked in the balls. At least that’ll hurt less after a few minutes. This headache and hornache could last an hour at a minimum. Getting kicked in the balls would also at least be a good distraction for having the Big Bertha of headaches.
We spent the next few hours studying and I learnt something pretty important. Rune Based magic is the easiest type of magic to learn, but probably the weakest. You can use it to make fire, but you can’t use it to suddenly travel back in time, since that was a spell apparently. As you would have to force your will, with ‘Physical’ magic, which would then combine into the Hybrid form of magic… You need really strong magic to do that. Shield spells were surprisingly easy, but making stronger shields took more effort and broke onto the Hybrid system.
I hummed and smiled. “Hey,” I pointed at the shield spell. “There’s an issue with how most shield spells are casted,” I pointed out. “No matter how strong, there’s a way to break them. Celery, can you cast a shield for me, please?” Celestia did as I asked. Probably because I said ‘please’ something she, jokingly, harped on me never saying please when I asked her to do something… God damn ponies.
“So I can just…” I used runes to spell out ‘ shield breaker’ and tapped it with my hoof. It broke.
“You do know that in order to break a stronger shield, you would need more force, right?” Celestia asked.
“But… cast a larger one.” Celestia raised an eyebrow. “Fine… please?” Twilight almost seemed shocked at how I was requesting the Princess to do stuff for me. Celestia nodded, before casting a larger spell. “A concentrated pierce,” I did just that, and shuttered at the hornache that it caused. “Suddenly the shield is easy to shatter,” I then dragged my hoof down the shield and it broke. “That doesn’t hurt too much, does it?” I asked.
“Just a little. Worry not, if it takes a lot for me to develop a hornache,” Celestia said.
“I feel bad now, Sunny.” I nuzzled her.
“Stay focused, Source. What is the flaw with shields?”
“No matter how strong the spell, once you puncture a shield, it is very easy to shatter.”
“I’m aware.”
“But what if you used that offensively. Say somebody gets their hoof through a shield, but then you recast it, and then shut it on their hoof?”
“That… would probably cut somepony’s hoof off.” Celestia hummed. “I never thought to try it, since breaking anypony’s shield can either hurt, or incapacitate a weaker unicorn.”
“Cool! Let’s try it-“
“NO!” Both Twilight and Celestia shouted.
“You are not mutilating yourself for the sake of testing a spell!”
I casted a Rune Based pain numbing spell, before jabbing it with a pen. Since I’m not particularly strong, the feather goes through. I then re-cast the shield spell and sliced the feather in half. “Huh. That would work as a really nice apple slicing spell.” I look at the other two. “What? I never intended to cut my hoof off. Mostly.”
Celestia snorted “I saw you considering it, colt.”
“I could find a way to heal it back together!”
“Not if you die from bucking losing all your blood after cutting your hoof off!” She yelled. Twilight gasped. “Stallions… I swear.” She nuzzled me. “You are lucky that you’re a good friend, or I would lock you in a dungeon just to keep you from hurting yourself. First, you decided to do the rune alphabet until you got a horn ache, and then you kept going until you passed out! You bucking idiot! That could’ve killed you!”
“Maybe I want to die.”
“…What?”
“Nothing.”
“…Did?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Do you want to die?!” Celestia yelled.
Twilight just sat, slack jawed at what was transpiring before her. Never before had she heard her teacher, Princess Celestia swear before! Like it was… Almost horrifying. Princess Celestia never raised her voice, or yelled. Yet here she was, yelling at a stallion that just admitted to being somewhat suicidal. About how she'd miss him, or how others might as well.
Source Code just sat there, ears pinned against his head, looking guilty as she gave him many, many reasons to keep him from killing himself.
Source, this stallion’s strange. With how Celestia keeps doting him, it was almost like she was trying to court him. Source, being a typical stallion, is completely oblivious to the fact-Twilight’s eye twitched. Princess Celestia… trying to court somepony? That was completely unheard of! The stallion was happily sitting down, and eating lunch, something that he had packed while reading a book. Twilight decided that, in the coming weeks, she would watch her mentor and her peer a lot closer.
She did study up on the subject once; somepony had to help her brother score a date with… somepony. No, Twilight never learnt who her brother was trying to date.
“Why did you bring your own lunch? Princess Celestia is more than willing to provide one for you.”
“I dunno. I didn’t wanna bother anyone over lunch.” Source said, a mouthful of food made Twilight cringe slightly. “Besides, the castle’s kitchen is really good. I’d rather not spoil myself and ruin a good meal at any random restaurant I go to in the future.”
“Oh…” Twilight nods.
“Source, don’t speak with your mouth open. You could choke.”
“Yes Mom,” the stallion rolled his eyes, before putting his book down. He had long since dropped his magic book for a Daring Do book during the break. “Ma-Darn. This book is a bit underwhelming.”
The lavender unicorn raised her eyebrow at the blue stallion. That was odd… most ponies absolutely loved Daring Do, herself included, and it was widely considered to be a timeless classic. Princess Celestia looked at her new student’s shoulder, and read what page he was on. The stallion closed the book and shrugged. “I’ll be returning this book next week anyways,” he set the light novel down before picking up his ‘basic rune’ book. That got Twilight to raise other eyebrow.
“Why do you not like Daring Do? Even I consider it to be a pleasant read.”
“It’s… kinda flat. I’m a wee bit of a nerd,” the Princess snorted at that. “There were… some authors where I’m from, where they’d make pretty mediocre stuff. I believe you know, since I told ya about it. Illumination…” Celestia nodded, as if she knew what her student was talking about. “Anyways, this reminds me of something that that writer would make. It’s… alright, but it’s not Star Wars.”
“I remember you gushing over that book a week ago.”
“...Yeah… It, and its two sequels, were so good. It’s a timeless classic where I’m from. I can never read it again, but I can still vividly remember every bit.” Source laid his head on his hooves, looking noticeably sadder than he had moments ago. Celestia quickly levitated the stallion over to her, and draped a wing over him. “La Vie Continue,” he leaned into the Princess’s nuzzle. “Thanks, Celly. You’re probably why I’m still sane,” he whispered. Source’s horn lit and he brought his rune book back over to him.
“Do you wish to speak later in private?”
“...I do, but I also don’t. I’ll just drown myself in this,” the blue stallion gestured to the rune book. “It’s… something I can focus on rather than focusing on what I lost.”
“We will discuss this when you are ready; I do not wish to force you into talking if you do not want to.”
“I’ll take you up on that someday, Tia.”
Several hours had passed. Source Code had gone home, leaving Twilight and Princess Celestia alone in a sitting room. As tradition, the two were snuggled up on a cushion. The unicorn had decided to ask Celestia about her newest, private pupil. “So, Princess,” Twilight started. “While I’m not one to question your better judgment, why did you take Source Code in as a student?” She asked. “I mean… He did make a new rune, which in itself is impressive, but in terms of application… he’s not very good. I mean… Doing his own rune twice and he develops a horn ache! Even a foal has better endurance than he does!”
“I brought him in as my student for two reasons, Twilight. For starters, he is not from Equestria, which gives him… another point of view on spell casting. I only took him as a student for four, almost five weeks ago. He barely knew runes, but thanks to his background, figured them out pretty quickly, I’m assuming. Then he figures out how to make casting some ‘Rune Based’, a name he had come up with, spells a little bit easier and a little bit quicker. That alone is worth nurturing; the new Rune alone is revolutionary as you’ve said.
“Another reason is… I can tell that he has potential. Truly, I do. By no means is he a magical powerhouse, nor will he ever with raw strength, but he is very creative as you’ve noticed. I, for one, wouldn’t have thought to use a weight shifting spell to jump higher, or use synonyms to perform the same Rune Spell. Nopony would want to do ‘alight’ over fire, but thanks to the Rune he made, he did, and made a Fire Rune Spell one Rune shorter. For my guards, a single Rune can make all the difference.”
“He is focusing on Rune Based magic… you do understand that…”
“It’s a really easy system of magic, I know. Though I believe Source Code sees it in a different way than we do. I bet that he is trying to come up with a new Rune as we speak to make it even easier.”
I sat down on my couch, staring at my newest foe. I was trying to use Rune Based magic to do something nobody could back on Earth without spending two hundred dollars on a piece of equipment… I wanted to make the perfect toast using a fire spell. I glared down at the slice of bread before me, I glared at it with intent to kill it with fire. I lit my horn and a fireball slowly came to be. It floated in the air, and I grabbed the slice of bread and floated it up to the fireball.
After one side was perfectly golden, I did the other… and then the slice of bread caught fire and became a pile of ashes on my table. I stared at my failure for a few minutes before I brought both my forehooves to the sides of my head. I slowly lowered them towards the bread, and raised them again in a slow, controlled motion. I sat there, continuing to stare at the bread for what felt like another five hours.
My face hit the table as I started groaning… I just wasted half a fucking loaf of bread, and haven’t gotten a perfect slice of toast yet! There’s no toasters in Equestria, so this is important to me! There’s no way there’s an appliance store that has toasters… I tried again before my head hit the table again as a result of my failure. To make matters worse, I did go to an appliance store and found a toaster for ten bits. You can imagine how my night went. I went home with my newly acquired toaster, and simply stared at it…
Before I decided once again to try and make the perfect piece of toast without using a toaster. I just want to experience perfect toast, and I will do it with magic!
...
God, I am going to need a job… Here’s hoping I don’t work in fast food again, if it even exists in Equestria.