I felt my pillow moving up and down in a slow, rhythmic motion. It felt… nice. It feels strangely warm as well. You know, if I had a pillow like this, pleasantly warm, but not too hot, not too soft, not too firm, I would probably have slept better all the time. I started trying to grab said pillow when it started slipping out from under me. “No…” I groaned as the pillow fully escaped my feeble attempts at trying to keep it under my head. This resulted in a ‘floomp’ as my head hit the mattress below. My eyes shot open to… I’m in Celestia’s room. All I remember from last night is going mini-golf…
Did I fall asleep on Celly while we were just chilling on a bench? Probably.
Celestia herself was standing on the balcony, wings fully spread, looking like she didn’t just get up. Her horn was glowing a beautiful, gold as the Moon went down and the Sun came up shortly afterwards… I think My brain is becoming more of a pony’s brain than I realized. The way her body started glittering as sunlight started reflecting off her perfect, flawless white coat… Her wings, thanks to how reflective feathers already are, on top of the color of them… Celestia was literally glowing in her own sunlight. It was… breathtaking to say the least. Her mane and tail flowed ever more radiantly and started sparkling even just a little bit as sunlight shined through them.
How the fuck did I manage to make her fall in love with me again?
My marefriend slowly turned around, catching my probably ‘borked brain’ look. She giggled as she walked… I hate my new body; my brain may not know what makes a pony attractive, but apparently my body did. Because Celestia, like the god damn troll she is, started walking with a lot more sway in her hips. What do my eyes do, on their own? Follow them like a cat does while it’s playing with string, or a mouse. I hate my body’s hormones. They’re almost controlling my brain… Oh god, do ponies have stronger primal instincts than humans? Because I swear, I did not find Celestia that pretty until just now.
“I take it that you enjoyed the view?” Sun Butt asked as she laid down next to me… when did she get there? She draped a wing over me and pulled me closer. “Don’t worry if you did; you weren’t the first to wake up, after successfully ‘scoring’ me, and being mesmerized by watching me raise the Sun. However, you are the first pony with the mind of something that isn’t a pony to do so. I thought you said your human brain wouldn’t find me physically attractive.”
“I… I don’t know,” I felt my ears droop. “It could be hormones; those can severely affect how something on Earth acts. Some animals kill each other just because they saw a pretty female of their species and they wanted to mate,” I laid my head down. “Humans weren’t like that at all though… for the most part. I mean, we still got possessive if we saw somebody we thought was pretty and was actually dating them. I don’t know of anyone that let their hormones get so bad that they killed somebody over them, but I could be wrong…” I looked Celestia in the eyes. “Is it normal for a stallion to… lose themselves while staring at a pretty lady?”
“It is, yes.”
“Okay, I guess that’s not too different from human teens, I guess. A teenage male could probably stare at a pretty girl and lose themselves for hours… I think. That’s what all those horrible school-life movies did at least, so I could be wrong… If those are accurate somehow, then I guess I am permanently as horny as a human teenage male.”
“That is a possibility, or perhaps you’re becoming more accustomed to pony life?”
“I might… Though I’m struggling to keep moving forward sometimes. Whenever I’m with you, I can sometimes forget that I’ve left my home behind, against my will, and ended up here. I’mma be real, sometimes I do wonder if I should just die,” I lifted my head slightly and nipped Celestia. “However… Now that I have somebody to live for, I might have a new reason to keep marching forward.”
“You’ll…”
“I’ll try to force down any thoughts I have about ending myself… for now. I ain’t gonna leave you alone-”
“Okay, that was almost perfect,” Celestia glared at me. “Ain’t isn’t a word, you little idiot.”
“Hey now, slang and the English Language are two sides of the same coin!”
“And slang isn’t a language, now is it?”
“...No ma’am.”
“So what were you going to say?”
“I’m not gonna leave you alone, Celly.” I say almost sadly.
“Perfect!” Celestia started grooming me, which made me entirely forget that Celestia actually just stopped me, broke into teacher mode, and tried to give me a lesson on Equish, and why slang is a sin. God I love this woman.
“A little to the left?” I asked. I cooed when Celestia did get a little to the left and get that itch that’s been killing me since five minutes ago.
About a week had passed and I was sitting in the magical tutorage room, since I don’t think I’ll be hearing back from any employers any time soon, staring down at something. After I had managed to run a diagnostic spell on Spike’s dragon fire. I had already gone and borrowed Spike for the day from Twilight, who was actually treating me nicer by the way, and I think I had written out how his dragonfire works. Right now, I was staring down at my notebook and trying to work out how to write it down into Runes.
I’ve been trying to figure this all day for the last few days.
“I don’t know why you’re so focused on trying to figure this out, dude,” Spike said, hopping up on the cushion beside me. He actually cuddled up next to me to read what I was trying to write. I was able to work out the first set of Runes in DragonFire.
“Spike, because of this,” I gestured towards the spell I was trying to work out. “Ponies that have access to a unicorn will be able to send messages to run another in seconds while the pony they’re sending to is on the other side of the country. Imagine being able to talk to Twilight while she’s all the way in Manehattan while you’re sitting here in Canterlot. And Twilight can respond. On top of that, I could use this,” I pointed at a gem on the table. “And make it so as long as it’s charged, you can send messages… or say a magical box of matches that does the same thing. The only two creatures in Equestria that can send messages instantly are you, and Celestia. Twilight can only do the same because she’s basically your older sister.”
“That’s true, but won’t I be pointless if you figure this out?”
“No Spike, you’re basically Celestia’s kid, and you’re literally Twilight’s adopted little brother. If nothing else, your ability to find the right book is very important to Twilight, and she’ll keep you around to send messages even if she could probably do the same if I figured this spell out…” I chuckled. “I may use this as a way to make bits, honestly. Sell a match box, that when you strike a match on it, it makes DragonFire. Keep the spell secret, make some bits, boom.”
“That… does sound like it would make a lot of bits.”
“It would, and I’d probably give you some royalties given that you’re helping me with this simply by doing it over, and over, and over so I can run a diagnostic on it.”
“Hey, it’s no problem dude-”
“You’re technically working with me on cracking the code here, my little dude, I’m going to at least compensate you. Even if you don’t want bits from this, say the word, and I’ll buy you every single copy of Power Ponies that I can. Or if you find a limited edition of any comic you want, just ask and I’ll slide you the bits if this idea takes off.”
“Honestly bro,” Spike chuckled. “Uh… I would feel weird taking even that from you. Look, you’re the one doing all the hard work in decoding what’s in DragonFire, but I’m just sitting here and occasionally shooting fire whenever you need it.”
I got the first sentence of Runes! “Oh fuck yeah, hold on…” I ran the spell and green fire ticked… though it only shot out green fire. I raised an eyebrow. “Damn,” I thought of Celestia and ran it by again, but this time used it on a note that basically said ‘see you at ten tonight…’. Yeah, Celestia may be wearing the pants in our relationship, but I’ll be damned if I don’t treat her to something I cook up myself… After I raid the royal kitchens first. It disappeared. Soon, Spike burped up her reply. I immediately ran a diagnostic spell and then quickly wrote down everything I got from it in English.
“Huh…” I paused. “That is way simpler to do than I thought it would’ve been…” I paused as I read over the notes. I sent another letter and told Celestia what to do. Soon, I burped, my horn lit up on its own, and then a scroll fell from above my head. I opened it up… “Dude,” I stared at the note Celestia had just sent me; I haven’t even opened it yet. “I just cracked it.”
“You did,” Spike and I slowly looked at each other before brofisting. “You did it dude! That’s pretty awesome!’
“It is! Holy shit! I didn’t expect to do that so soon!” I laughed and clapped my hooves. “Oh my god! I have to figure out how to make it so a match box can do this! And maybe remove the belching part… or leave it. Ponies don’t really care about the belching part anyways, so I’m assuming that part won’t be a deal breaker compared to being able to talk to their Mom from halfway across the country.” I got up and started shaking before I accidentally slammed my hooves on the table, which while I’m not very strong, I am still a horse. Horses are still strong even if they’re not ‘super’ strong. I don’t wanna break the table and all.
I started hopping up and down as I started laughing. “Oh, I am so gonna convert that to my own Rune system so that I can make casting it easier! Hoho, that is going to take all month, but it is so, so it's gonna be worth it!” I laughed as I hugged my lovely, borrowed, dragon assistant. “Thanks man! Oh my fucking god this is so cool!” I casted the letters that Celestia sent. One was the ‘why am I doing this’ from my second letter. The other was Celestia saying all of the funky stuff she would do to me, if I wanted her to do that funky stuff to me, and other fun stuff that made me blush. Oh yeah, I am going to make a vegetarian lasagna for Celestia after reading that.
“C’mon man, let’s go raid a market stall for some snacks and just relax somewhere; I say we both deserve it after all the work we put in over the last few days.”
“You bet… Will I need to bring my own bits? I know-”
I burped up another letter.
Source Code, what the buck did you do? Why did Spike send me a letter that you wrote twice?”
I sent another letter telling her what I just did, and I burped up another one, resulting in a hornache… Okay yeah, I can’t do that very often. This spell apparently is not for constant writing back ponies, like texting was on Earth, but it’s still more practical than just waiting a week for a letter. Or hours if you have a pegasus rush across the country with an urgent letter.
I just found out how to use DragonFire without the dragon. Me and Spike are going to go grab a drink, well, I am gonna get a beer. Spike’s probably gonna get apple juice. See you at dinner.
Moments later, a bit pouch, full of bits, and a letter from Celestia saying she is jittering and on the verge of dancing in the middle of an important meeting over my accomplishment soon followed. Get yourself and Spike something nice to drink. Give Spike some nice apple juice, do not give him any alcohol, or you’ll sleep on the couch tonight, and then I’ll tell Twilight why her little brother is having a hangover the next morning. Like I was gonna give a kid some booze, c’mon Celestia!
“We got the okay, and I got some bits. Let’s go man.”
We went ended up going to a Hayburgers Al’Round, which was basically McDondalds with less suicidal employees. The burgers were made out of hay, and still tasted pretty good. The fries… were made of hay. The drinks… were made of drinks. I was actually surprised to see soft drinks; this is the first time I’ve stepped into a Hayburger, and honestly it was quite nice. We ended up buying a lot of food, and just having a gander at everything since Spike never had Hayburger himself beyond the AlNugget, or the hay version of a McNugget. We sat down at our table and took a nice, long, deep breath.
“Thank god nobody remembered who the hell I am,” I said with a sigh of relief.
“Why’s that dude? Wouldn’t being famous be fun?”
“No. Notta. I am awful at being in large groups of ponies. I am just terrible at handling social situations that involve more than one other person. I’m a simple stallion, Spike, I like my time alone. Sometimes I prefer it. I was with T a week ago, sitting in a cafe somewhere. Celestia was planting kisses, nuzzling me, and overall just being ‘friendly’ in my mind. I didn’t know she was trying to court me and stuff… Uh, there were so many reporters and ponies staring at me that I couldn’t think. I could only think of trying to get out of that situation… I immediately went to Celestia for protection and she immediately took me into a dark, quiet alley to try and calm me down. I don’t think I could handle actually being famous and getting anywhere near as much attention as Celestia does.”
“And then you go and start dating her anyways?”
“...Yeah. I can handle dating Celestia, I just hope she either doesn’t make our relationship public, or does a really good job at keeping me away from the crowds. With how I’ll eventually either be helping her with paperwork and court, or just standing by her during events, I know I’ll have to face the crowds eventually. However… I don't think I would be able to right here and now. I just wanna live my life out and try to enjoy the second chance I was given in life.”
“That’s fair dude,” he looked over the table covered in food. “Why did we order all of this food again? We can’t possibly eat all of it in one sitting.”
“We can eat what we can now and eat the rest of it throughout the week. It’s fast food; it’s meant to be tasty after all. It’ll be hard to find something here that neither of us will like.”
“Good point. I can use some of this to feed Twilight; she sometimes forgets to go get herself some food while she’s studying.”
“I can see that happening,” I grabbed a random Hayburger, the Hay Mac, as it’s called. “For now, let’s just go out in this blaze of glory, eh dude?”
So, you may be wondering how I managed to figure out DragonFire’s message sending capabilities. You see, it was pretty simple; it was just Fire, a teleport spell, and then a rebuilding spell all rolled into some green fire. So, I used my custom IRE Rune to make Fire easier to cast, and proceeded to spend the next few days figuring out the teleport spell, and then the rebuild spell. After some painful hornaches, and hours of labor, I had DragonFire figured out. What I didn’t tell Spike was, due to how I had to use my own Runes, my hotspotched, shortened equations(I’ll get into magical equations later), it was actually the first spell of the magical system I’m developing.
It’s based entirely on the fact that I have horrible raw magical strength. I think I’ll tell Celestia about my magical system at our dinner.
A couple of hours later, I gave Spike the remainder of our hundred bit order, since I only had one sandwich and a thing of hay fries. It was alright, honestly. It wasn’t great, but my idea of how a burger should feel in the mouth, and my own personal preference towards chicken before I became a pony might have affected how much I enjoyed Hayburger. On top of that, hay fries are a sin, and I do not care, I am making vegetarian lasagna and fries the proper way; the human way some may call. Some humans may use sweet potatoes in their fries, which is also a sin, but people with souls and morals usually use potatoes when making fries.
Spike actually really liked a lot of the things on the menu, especially Twilight’s apparent go to, the quarter pounder with extra cheese.
Since I had a few hours to spare before I had to start getting dinner prepared for Celestia, I walked into the royal kitchens where I came face to face with the head chef of the royal kitchen staff, Chef Beet. “You want to interrupt my cooking so that you can make a meal for Princess Celestia?” She asked. She was a light brown, earth pony mare. She adorned a typical, white, mushroom shaped chef hat, and wore a white, button up chef jacket. Since ponies absolutely hate pants, the typical black pants were completely missing from her outfit.
“Well, I just started dating her. I figured it would do well if I were to take the lead in our relationship and choose our first date. I wanted to make her dinner; a lasagna if you will. It’s a family recipe that my Dad used to make all the time. If you give me my own space, and don’t mind me using some of your own ingredients, then I’ll stay out of your way when it comes to making everypony else their meals; I get that you got a whole bunch of snobs to cook for, after all.”
“Oh, so you’re that stallion that everypony is saying is sleeping with the Princess. I take it that those rumors are true?”
“...We haven’t had sex yet, no. But we are dating now, and Celestia insisted that all my stuff from my old hotel gets moved into her private chambers… So about me making me and Celestia our first ‘proper’ dinner together? I haven’t been able to have one with her since my sleep schedule is so different from hers.”
“I’ll letcha do it; you’re basically our boss now if you’re dating the Princess; you’re basically a consort now, after all. I do have a request for you, though.”
‘What is it?”
“Let me watch you prepare the lasagna. It’s something I’ve never heard of, and frankly, I want to see how it’s made.”
“Sure thing. Got any leftover noodle batter you don’t need, chef? It uses a type of noodle, but I don’t know if you have it if you asked to watch me make lasagna.”
“Of course! Anything else you’ll need, and we’ll provide it!”
Upon being given my requested ingredients, I set my eyes on the prize, and was even given my requested pot of oil and a few potatoes. My smile grew when the unused noodle batter was given to me; I didn’t even need to actually make the noodles… Score! Chef Beet watched me over the next hour and a half, watching me make tomato sauce, the mixture of veggies I was making, and even noting how I started working on the fries. I barely knew what I was doing with those, but after a few moments of half-guessing, my lasagna was in the oven and almost done cooking, and I was frying my potatoes a second time like some fast food places back home do.
By no means was this meal healthy, as it was literally some deep fried potatoes that could possibly pass as fries, and a lasagna that had a good amount of cheese on it. Chef took notes every step of the way and I swear the mare was glowing at the idea of easily improving my ‘fry’ recipe and my potatoes. I slowly lifted a potato to my mouth, after getting all the oil off, and sticking it in my mouth… Oh it’s so much better than I would’ve expected. And I have about ten minutes to get to the private dining hall myself and Celly are sharing for our date! I told Chef Beef how important this was, and he sent some servants to go get the dining room set up for me…
If I wasn’t dating Celly, I would marry Chef Beet. “Oh…” I had just filled Chef Beet on who I was, and where I’m from. “So I’m…” She stared at the recipes I had written down for her. “Holding recipes from another world?” She asked.
“Eeyup. Pretty cool, eh?”
“Cool? This is amazing, Source! If you were not already accounted for, I would marry you just to see if you had any more human recipes on you!”
“Uh… nope. I only know these two recipes because of my Dad, and I could barely make the fries properly even if they’re still pretty good. I wasn’t a chef at home, I was more of a ‘stick something frozen in a metal box that heats stuff up for you’ guy. As in I didn’t cook, I bought pre-made, frozen meals that can be heated up in an oven, or in the metal box I described. I spent so much time working, or working on a personal project, that I never really had the time to properly learn how to cook anything other than the one thing my Dad knew how to cook… And I might’ve botched it due to me having to sub in a different ingredient from the main ingredient… It still smells good at least. That’s a good sign when cooking, right?”
“It is, and the presentation isn’t too bad either. It’s not perfect, but it looks like a classic, home-made meal if I ever saw one.” Beet nodded in approval. “Perhaps we can spend some time going over foods from your world, and I’ll see if I can recreate them?”
“That could be fun. No weird ideas though; Celestia jokes about putting a collar on me to let other mares know I’m hers.” Chef Beet started snickering…
I really should’ve thought about how I am basically a Princess’s property because I decided to be her boyfriend.
Celestia entered the dining room a few minutes after I had everything set up. I had a dish dome over my lasagna, which Beet had ever so gently(she hit me over the head with a soup ladle) was called a plate dome. There were two white, decorative porcelain plates that had Celestia’s cutie marks on them, with a cup holding fries that I had hit with a warming spell, something I had learnt specifically for this occasion. Two wine glasses, that looked like they were made for human hands for some reason, sat beside the plates on the right-hoof side of the plates, away from the edges of the corner of course.
Suspended in her magic was… some blueberry rum, the same kind you could find in any old winery for about thirty bits. I was expecting a more expensive wine to be used, but then again, I wasn’t expecting wine, or rum, at all. I had already poured water from the pitcher next to the covered lasagna. “I… Did you have somepony from the kitchens specifically to make these dishes?” Celestia asked, walking over and examining a fry in her magic. “It appears whoever you asked decided to get a bit experimental with some potatoes…”
“I made the food myself, Celly.” I lifted the cover for the lasagna and set it off to the side. On the food cart Beet was nice enough to let me borrow. “I made some things that I’d typically like to have on my first date, ever. I hate hay fries though, so I made potato fries, and made a dish from home, lasagna, or rather a vegetarian version to meet the fact that you probably don’t want to eat a sentient cow.”
“That… would not be something on my bucket list, if I could kick the bucket to begin with. It smells rather nice, if I must say so.”
“Try one of the fries; you’ll be addicted to them,” I suggested as I grabbed a knife with my magic and portioned out a fourth of the lasagna for her, and another fourth for myself. Celestia did as I suggested, before her eyes widened.
“Oh my Sun…” she whispered.
“What?” I smirked.
“That is addictive!” Celestia popped another one in her mouth. “It’s got a snap to it, and the inside is so creamy.” That’s what she said. Literally. She watched as I dipped a fry in the lasagna’s sauce and popped it in my mouth… Oh yeah, I definitely didn’t fuck up the sauce… That’s great! I would’ve made enough to give us four portions per pony, but Beet wanted half the lasagna after having a taste of it. Mostly for her staff to have a try as well. Celestia hummed, before doing just as I had, mimicking my fry in the lasagna move, and her eyes widened even more.
“So, how is it?”
“I didn’t know you could cook!”
“I know a whole two dishes!” I said, lifting my fork to the air before stabbing my lasagna with it. Celestia watched as I cut out a piece, and followed in my example. I think she was just trying to figure out how to eat this stuff, since she probably hasn’t seen lasagna before if her royal chef hasn’t. “Seriously though, I’m not much of a cook. I can make this, and my half-assed version of french fries, but that’s about it. I could probably make a mean mac and cheese with a few pointers, but that’s not saying much. It’s hard to make horrible mac and cheese, but it is hard to make a good mac and cheese.”
“Well, this is genuinely quite lovely,” Celestia teleported two more wine glasses, they had the same, simple design of the two already on the table. She poured some of the rum into each before setting one on my side of the table. Oh, that smells just like candy. “Considering you don’t consider yourself a chef, of course. I’m sure as we speak, Chef Beet has found a way to improve upon this.”
“And that’s basically her job; find the best way to make a certain dish, in her opinion, and then make it for you and the rest of the politicians living in the castle. My job is to study up on magic and work out new Runes. Why did you bring rum to our date, if you don’t mind me asking.”
“Well, you made a giant leap in discovering secrets in magic earlier, did you not?”
“The DragonFire thing?”
“Indeed. Nopony could decipher how to get it to work, likely due to us not being able to safely run a diagnostic spell on dragonfire until the day that Spike hatched, and even then, nopony really tried to figure out how dragonfire could be used to send letters. Even I would struggle with trying to decipher whatever magic is in dragonfire, and you worked it into a Rune based spell?”
“Yeah. I had to slave away at it for days, having Spike on standby so I could refresh my memory of what’s in it. I’d say it’s probably the first spell in my magical system.”
“Oh?” Celestia asked as she sipped from her cup. “Making new systems of magic, are we?”
“It’s like a weird hybridized version of the Hybrid Spell system, and Rune system. With how you not only need Runes specific to this system, and magical equations, and then the magical skill to force the available materials around you to do what you want it to, the Hybrid system’s really hard to do. My own system aims to simplify the Rune part, and once I learn how to simplify the magical equations of the Hybrid system, simpler equations, I’ll be able to make my own system of magic. One where you can do two thirds of casting a spell pretty quickly, and take up less magic in doing so, leaving more magic to pour into the spell.
“Aside from the Dragonfire spell, I took the shield spell and started working it into this version of my Hybrid Magic, which I’m going to call the Python System for reasons I’ll explain later. I’m trying to see if I can’t shorten Shield into a singular Rune, and see how much further I can get into the strength of a shield if I can shorten Shield into one Rune. But anyways,” I performed dragonfire on a napkin, which ended up gently floating down onto Celestia’s face. “I want to popularize Python once it’s done. It’ll take a lifetime, but I wanna lay down the framework for it first.”
“That… is amazing!” Celestia clapped her hooves. “To think that five weeks ago, you couldn’t even use your horn! Now you’re trying to make an entirely new branch of magic?”
“Think of it as an offshoot of the Hybrid System; it’s just an easier version to use after all. By the way, before, how DragonFire uses Python as the base, if I use it in an offensive way…” I hummed. “Even with my fairly average power, I could probably melt somebody’s skin,” I grabbed a fry, encased it in a shield, before summoning DragonFire without any of its message sending aspects. In seconds, the fry burnt away. “I probably should probably mention that the oil used to cook that was roughly one seventy six degrees.”
“...That is incredible. You’re making a new magical system because you want magically less capable ponies to be able to learn and execute this system?”
“...Yeah. It’s in order to make up for my own inability to get any stronger with magic. I’ve noticed that, due to the nature of this, spells are easier to cast, but will obviously lack in stability and strength compared to the more established systems of magic. However, Python is meant to help bridge that gap of strength a little more so that say… a Shield can actually block off a Concussive Strike from you or Twilight a little better than a Rune based, or just a Hybrid based version of Shield. With less strain at least.”
“Python… why that name, if you do not mind me asking?”
“It’s the name of a coding language back home. It’s what I was most proficient in, even if I normally coded in Javascript.”
“I see… So DragonFire is the first spell in this new system?”
“Yeah. What’s great about my new system is that I can take parts out immediately, such as the message sending bit, by simply removing the Rebuild equations from casting it.” I pulled out a new notebook, and opened it to the first page where I had the original twenty six Runes, plus three Runes that I made. I even wrote down the equations for Python’s versions Teleport and Rebuild, since they were a part of DragonFire. I gave it over to Celestia to read it over, and before long, quickly casted her own version of DragonFire on my notebook, which landed on my head.
“That… was very easy to cast. Incredibly so… I believe I can help make Teleport and Rebuild simpler to cast as well to make DragonFire even less taxing. Since Teleport and Rebuild are already rather complex spells, and then you’re also technically casting a Fire Spell to go along with it… Aside from trying to figure out Python in the first few minutes, your notes are flawless by the way; very easy to read and understand… Python really does help make spell casting quicker for stronger mages, and easier to cast for weaker mages.”
“That’s the goal of it.”
“You’re doing a good job-” I suddenly flashed up beside her. “You can teleport now…”
“Indeed I can. Python makes that so much easier, even if I still get a headache from it… Ow.” I groaned. “When will I get better magic endurance?”
“By practicing. I would recommend doing the alphabet constantly for a few hours a day.”
“I think I’ll do that then.” We both soon focused on our meals. Celestia was in the middle of telling me a really funny story involving a petitioner in her day court, who was actually just a little colt who really wanted help with his math homework. It went from funny to sounding borderline adorable; the colt actually cuddled up with Celestia while she walked him through his multiplication equations and helped proofread an essay he had for school.
I got to tell her some human exploits, such as us dying to vending machines more often than we die to bears, and we had a good time, honestly. I got to tell plenty of jokes, so I could hear that wonderful, almost addictive laugh plenty of times that night. Before long, our meals were finished, and our plates and silverware was picked up by some maids, and we ended up heading to bed together for the first time, on time, as a couple. We didn’t do any of the things Celestia said she would do(she understands that I’m not quite ready for that, on top of me wanting to wait for us to get married before we ‘sleep’).
It was a fun night.
The next day during a magical, Celestia Magic Tutoring Tuesday on a Saturday, I was experimenting with Runes again; I wanted to get Shield into one Rune. It wasn’t easy, especially since after Celestia went to sleep, I woke up in a cold sweat, and proceeded to come here and immediately started working on trying to shorten Shield. Luckily I and E were very similar to each other due to them being vowels. SH was pretty easy to turn into one Rune, and I managed to tack L onto IE. So now I had a three Rune shield spell. I casted it and put way more strength into it just as Twilight and Celestia walked into the room, right on schedule. I felt like shit. Doing all this experimentation to make new Runes was hard.
My magical butt tattoo might make it a lot quicker for me to do this, and decode spells, but that doesn’t mean I’m good at making new Runes any easier.
“Hey guys!” I yawned and dropped the shield.
“Why are you here so early? You must have gotten here long before I raised the Sun. I figured you would’ve loved to watch that. Again.”
“I would’ve. But remember what I said at dinner last night?”
“You’re trying to shorten Shield?” Twilight asked, now looking genuinely curious at what I’m doing.
“Yeah, so far I’ve got it down to three Runes, which is as far as I could get over the last six hours of me working on this.”
“...How much sleep did you get, dear?” Celestia asked, gently strolling over to me and started grooming my mane. Oh, that feels really good.
“I think I got about two hours of sleep or something. When I got here it was one in the morning.”
“...You’ve been here for ten hours, my love,” Celestia sighed. “You are an idiot, you know that?”
“On the brightside, my theory of Python works… with less magic going into summoning a shield and running a calculation… I think I have a stronger shield spell than I once had. Twilight, wanna test it? Just blast the shield at full power?”
“You do know if I even crack it, it’ll probably knock you out with how little sleep you’ve had?”
“Mmm… yeah. I could use the extra sleep anyways. If I’m still standing, I can probably just sleep against Celestia while she tutors you, Twilight.”
“Okay…” I walked into the gym part of our studying room and I summoned a shield that fully surrounded me and widened my stance. “Hit me!” My voice reverberated off the inside of a shield… Oh. I have an idea that could be lethal with this discovery. Twilight shared a glance with my girlfriend before launching a standard, concussive blast. Usually, Twilight could probably blast right through with one of those at half of her full strength(I’ve done some testing with her in this same room under the careful eye of Celly). My shield withstood the hit. I ran a diagnostic spell and noted that it wasn’t even at half of the full power Twilight could throw into it. I lowered my shield and glared at the lavender unicorn.
“Hey now, throw half of your strength into it. I want to test if a Python Shield works the way it should!” I brought my light blue shield up and let Twilight do just that. I grunted under the pressure… but the shield was actually holding. It cracked only slightly towards where Twilight’s spell had actually struck my shield. I was still conscious though! I chuckled and stumbled as my shield fell. Ow, even a slight crack, even a crack in a unicorn’s shield is enough to induce another hornache… Ow. Mmm, I desire to be groomed by my girlfriend to help quail my aching horn. “That… Actually worked,” I said as I made my way over to Celestia’s cushion and flopped onto it. I was then promptly pulled up so I could rest my head on Celly’s shoulder.
“That was reckless, Source. You could’ve been put into a coma for days if your shield actually broke…”
“But Python actually works!” I drunkenly slurred. “Twilight woulda plowed through a regular Rune spell and the ass of whoever was on the other side of that Rune spell.”
“That spell was almost as good as one of my brother’s weaker shields,” Twilight noted. “For how little strength you actually have… that’s impressive, Source. You keep calling it ‘Python Shield’ though. Why is that?”
“I’m developing Python, a custom-made magical system for me. If the kingdom gets in trouble, or Celestia needs help to defend it, I wanna be able to contribute in the protection of her specifically. I can’t do that with Runes, or my mediocre prowess in the Physical and Hybrid systems. Python is based on the basics of Rune based magic, but then uses simplified equations to try and get similar results to a Hybrid spell. It won’t be perfect, but it makes up for it by being way easier to cast; easier casting means you can pour more power into it. Meaning if I have to help Celestia kick some asshole’s ass, I can at least dump enough power into a concussive strike and give her the edge she needs.”
“I doubt there will ever come a time when you will need to step in, Source. Equestria has been in a time of peace for the last thousand years. On top of that, I am quite powerful with magic, if you somehow haven’t noticed. If it comes down to it, I will be standing over you and protecting you. I think you’d have a panic attack the moment you realize something horrible is happening.”
“And if I realize what’s happening is going to endanger you, I’m going to try and protect you no matter how much stronger you are than I am with magic. I’m not the strongest guy in the world, I’ll admit that, but I’ll be damned if I let my girl face any big bad guys on her own…” I groaned. “Fuck this hornache dude.” I groaned again before laying my head back down on her shoulder. “But Celestia, I just want to be able to at least help keep you safe. You think it would suck if I got hurt, now imagine how much it would suck for me to see you get hurt?”
“I know…” Celestia paused.
Twilight watched as Princess Celestia and her coltfriend talked about defending each other. It was rare to find a stallion with such a desire to protect his marefriend. Despite usually being bigger, there were simply fewer stallions, so it was usually the mare defending their stallion, or mares depending on if they’re a part of a herd. There was a certain edge in Source’s voice that was giving him an edge in his little argument with Celestia. “All I want to do is protect you, Celly. I love you, and you’re all that I have. Just let me fight beside you if it comes down to it, alright? If things head south, I don’t give two damn, I’m grabbing both of us and we’re retreating.”
“But my ponies…”
“Retreating, not fleeing. You retreat if you want to regain your footing, you flee if you’ve completely given up on fighting, Celestia…” The stallion let out a jaw splitting yawn. “Just because I suck at dealing with crowds doesn't mean I'll sit down and let you get hurt…”
Now Princess Celestia was blushing. Usually she was the dominant pony in her relationships, especially with how old and powerful she was compared to her many, many partners. Now, she was possibly the weakest of her unicorn partners, ordering her around. Granted, what he lacked in strength, he apparently made up for in ingenuity; the fact that he was able to rewrite Shield into his own system magic, which would allow him much more leeway in a fight, on top of dragonfire being apparently as deadly as it was, Source could very easily find a way to stand as her equal through forcefully optimizing magic to match his own strength. And then he started talking to her with a resolve she has never seen on the stallion…
“I must admit,” Celestia giggled as her stallion finally gave into his sleep deprivation and had finally fallen asleep. “Seeing my coltfriend so dead set on defending me on the off chance that something horrible happens to Equestria… Was rather attractive.”
“Princess, your coltfriend’s kind of scary when he gets angry,” Twilight admitted. “I feel as if he were angrier when I hit his Python Shield… It would withstand a full powered concussive spell from me.”
The Princess nodded. “I did feel his ambient magic spiking as he got progressively angrier over the thought of me getting hurt… it was exhilarating to feel it.” As she said that, she shifted slightly, and Source immediately rolled over and started pawing her until he found her shoulder again, before he rolled over and snuggled into it again. “I am going to scold him for being up so early, however. He cannot properly defend his princess if he doesn’t get the rest he needs; his endurance with spell casting won’t improve either if he keeps waking up at one in the morning at the latest.”
“Ma,” Source whispered in his sleep. “Errr.”
“I'm going to ask him to teach me this… Would it count as a system of magic, Princess?”
“Source is more inclined to believe it’s an offshoot of the Hybrid or Rune system, Twilight. However, by definition, it is a new system; new Runes, new equations, entirely different processes of casting a spell? However this… Python seems to not require a strong application of Physical Magic in order to work with the Hybrid Spell. Source teleported, a rather short distance that resulted in hornache, but he teleported with almost exclusively Runes and a couple of equations.”
“...Does this have to do with his background in any way?”
“Him breaking down DragonFire and turning it into a tangible spell does. I’ve a feeling that he could probably figure out how to raise and set the Sun if he ran a diagnostic spell on me, and had the strength to do so. However, if he were to try, it would probably still fry his brain as it would require a lot of magic, more than he could muster without permanently hurting himself.”
“Huh… Think I could still get him to teach me Python once he’s done with it?”
“Perhaps you should work better on getting on his good side; I know that you two don’t get along. Perhaps you two can become friends?”
“I’ll try, Princess.” Twilight opened up Source’s journal and began reading it, only to grunt in frustration; the first page is literally just regular, everyday Runes! They weren’t even similar to ones used in Hybrid Magic! She immediately closed the book. “I’ll have to just ask him to walk me through this later. Maybe it’ll be a good chance for us to become friends… So how is planning for this year’s Summer Sun Celebration going, Princess?” Twilight asked.
“Well, I was hoping to take Source to Ponyville, since that is where I’ll be holding the celebration this year.”