//------------------------------//
// 31 - Foaling Around 
// Story: Amber Starts, Comforting Endings 
// by David Silver 
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At the entrance of Maretime Bay stood a shimmering portal made of moonlight. It stretched high above the filly, obscuring the stars in the night sky behind it. Glimmering around its edges were arcs of dancing rainbow sparks. The filly gaped at the entrance, staring beyond at the unseen lands on the other side. She'd never been outside her small town before; the world was waiting for her out there somewhere! How could any filly resist such an enchanting sight?

She galloped forward and leaped right through it.

She was noticed as missing almost immediately, and ponies wandered the city, looking for the lost filly. Hitch himself was combing through the forest for hours, desperately searching for clues of her whereabouts until he finally returned to the city empty-hooved and crestfallen. The next day, the filly still hadn't returned home; there were search parties sent out and a city-wide manhunt as everypony began to panic and fear the worst.

Sunny sat down in front of the exceptionally tall librarian. "Comforting."

"That's me." She made a flicking gesture, returning a book to its proper place as she turned to face Sunny. "How can I help?"

"You know everything that goes on around here, and out there too." Sunny puffed out her chest proudly. "And I know how much you like helping ponies." She sat up straight and folded her hooves in front of her. "Tell me honestly, where did that filly go?"

Comforting sagged a little, watching Sunny. "That's not a fair question to ask." She considered how to phrase that. "You're a smart little alicorn, let me put it out bluntly. If I tell you, I train you to always come to me when something bad happens. If I don't tell you, now that you've just gone and asked, I look like a real jerk. I don't want to be a jerk. I want her to be safe. I want you to not be super stressed out."

"Please?" Sunny shifted uncomfortably. "I can handle it."

Comforting whipped out a chair with a cushion and pillow to lean into for her guest. "Sit." She drew herself up as much as she could with a big sigh, looming over Sunny. "I am trying to help ponies, but I have to do it over the long term." She held up two fingers. "One filly, no matter how adorable, doesn't mean I can just break that. I made promises." She scrunched her snout in a pout. "Being a chaos spirit is about little pieces of good that add up, and all of them hurt to some degree or another." She watched Sunny carefully.

Sunny swayed a little left and right, considering it. "Alright. So, okay. First, I won't call you any names, even if you don't tell me. You have your reasons, I get that. We'll still be friends, just don't lie to me, alright?" Comforting nodded gently. "Good, okay. So, can you give us a hint? Point us in at least the right direction? We'll look on our own!"

"I can do that." Comforting lashed her tail. "But I want you to come back here and have tea with me later. That's my condition." She flashed a finger towards Sunny. "No trouble, just tea." She flashed a smile. "Bring your favorite book."

"Deal." Sunny extended a hoof, shaking gently against Comforting's hand. "So what's your hint?"

"Where does any child go?" Comforting spread her arms wide as if expecting an answer. "I mean, specifically this filly, but anypony lost?"

"The woods?"

Comforting barked out a little laugh. "You may not be wrong." She put her hands together, forming a window in the air that showed great trees, far larger than any that'd be around Maretime Bay. "But I can't suggest you look locally."

Sunny drew a sharp breath. "I see. I see! Yes. Thank you." She pounced forward, hugging Comforting tightly a moment. "How in Equestria she got there is beyond me, but it doesn't matter, just that we find her before she gets hurt and bring her home." She raced from the library leaving a trail of dust behind.

Comforting casually vacuumed that up with a chuckle. "I miss going on some adventures of my own. Dad managed. I should take after him a little and put myself in there a few times." She curled a few fingers to her chin. "That could be fun." But not for that instant. No, she was a librarian, and she made sure the books got where they were supposed to be. That was enough chaos for now.





"Thanks again for showing me this." Misty nosed through her spellbook with a joyful smile on her face.

"It's nothing," Amber replied as she nudged her own book on magical theory around. "Comforting helped. She's my spellbook, giving new ones when she thinks I'm ready."

Misty inclined her head. "My book is like that too." She hugged her spellbook close. "It reveals when I'm ready, I think. I can't just, um, read it all at once, even if I wanted to."

Amber stood tall and proud, twirling her pen in a circle as she turned her gaze to the far wall of their classroom where the blackboard still had the two spells written on it. "Well, how about we show Comforting?"

Misty perked at that. "What are we showing her?" She tried to keep from bouncing with anticipation, but her hooves slipped and she landed back on her barrel with a small squeak of surprise.

Amber smirked at her fumble and slipped around Misty to head over to the blackboard where she started sketching up a new spell to demonstrate. "Ta da!"

Misty blinked at the odd new spell, so short, but entirely new. "What does it do?"

"I have no idea!" Amber waved at it. "But that's half the point. Let's make a new spell. We know how the runes work, we know how to cas spells. Making up something new shouldn't be impossible." She gave Misty an encouraging grin. "But I'll go first, just so you can see how it's done."

Misty blinked even as Amber started doodling. "How can you show me something you don't even know?" She trotted up to the board, horn glowing as she tried the tiny spell Amber had jotted down. A horn sounded from nowhere, a flat single note that faded as soon as she stopped concentrating on it.

Amber whirled on Misty. "How'd you do that?!" She pushed Misty aside gently and rushed back to the board, adding runes onto the previous spell as she went through it. "Wow! You just changed my idea by accident!"

Misty stepped back, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. "I just tried the spell you made." She played it again to confirm, that horn sounding from nowhere in the same flat tone. "At least it does something." She smiled with a giggle. "You made your first spell."

Amber sank to her haunches. "I made my first spell. Wow." She turned to Misty. "We made our first spell! Together!" She put up her hooves and the two met with clops. "It's not a big spell, or very flexible, but, um, it's still a spell!" She played it herself, producing exactly the same horn sound. "The future of magic is happening right here, right now." She mimed playing some music and then turned her tail around and wiggled it with an impish smirk on her face as Misty broke into laughter at the silly antics.

Misty took a moment to note down the horn spell in her book with a pleased hum. "First spell I actually added to the book instead of learning from it. That feels good."

Amber smiled back at Misty's delight as she wiped the board clean for more work. "But we've barely scratched the surface." She set about redrawing her first spell as she spoke. "That horn is nice, but we need to be able to do more than one note forever." She added a single new rune to it. "But what about this?"

Misty stood behind Amber, examining her writing as it appeared on the board. "A symbol of silence?" She tried it out and produced a buzzing sort of sound like an electronic motor starting and then shutting off abruptly. She stuck out her tongue and tried it again, with conviction, getting a rapid series of starts and stops. "I don't think that works."

Amber curled a hoof to her chin. "This explains why the spells we learned were so complicated. That's what let them react to what we wanted in the moment." She rubbed away the silence rune and tried a different combination. "It must have taken unicorns years to make a proper spell."

"So if we wanted to make it react to sounds like this one..." Misty tapped on her phone as she played a video of some ponies singing a song for her to play at random notes. "We'd need a way bigger spell!" She sagged a little. "I'm not sure if I'm up for that or not."

Amber blinked at the video with surprise as it played out, every note clearly separated from the next. "It seems so straight forward, but it isn't." She gazed at her simple spell, that one horn note, and sighed. "We'll be here forever if we want this to play real music."

Misty bobbed her head slowly in agreement. "But it's fun." She peeked up at Amber. "It feels like you get more from it than just learning a spell?"

"I do." Amber quirked a smile. "I'm getting a grasp of how each letter works, and with each other. We're getting better." She head-butted Misty gently. "We're becoming better wizards!"

Misty hummed in agreement as she pushed back against Amber. "This has been amazing!" She kicked up her hooves with glee as she gave Amber a big hug. "Thank you!"

The two seemed to glow with mutual satisfaction even as Amber waved to the door. "But, for now, we should get back to work. We can keep playing with horns later."

Misty swallowed a giggle at that even as they headed off to continue working in the library, as if they weren't also the realm's most powerful wizards simply by being the only ones.





Comforting curled around Toots, squeezing him with her long form even as she pet over his pudgy body. "You are a cute little pony. My little pony." She kept nibbling at his shoulder, not enough to hurt, just to tease with soft nips. "But you can't keep trying to hug me all day, especially since you aren't here to work. Shame on you."

Toots sighed as he tried to hide in Comforting's surprisingly soft embrace, resting in her grip like a cozy chair that hugged back. "It's been hard lately. Ponies are too focused on other things." He wriggled an arm free from her hold, just to go for one of those hugs she had just warned him about. "Things are changing."

Comforting gently uncoiled from him. "Change can be hard." She smirked a little. "But you are dating a chaos spirit. You knew change was involved, or you weren't looking." She gave him a small pat on the back before rising up, floating off with her usual grin. "I have news though."

"News?" Toots rose to follow Comforting around the area they were in, curious and hopeful. "Is it good news?"

"Maybe?" Comforting giggled gently at that question as she guided him back to her place. "It might be good news, or bad news, or mixed news."

Comforting landed in front of Toots, nose to nose with him. "I've been thinking, about how I work, inside and out. I think I need family. I have a boyfriend, who I adore, but I think I want more, greedy little thing I am." She hiss clicked through her teeth with a hum. "Yeah, I want to try being a mom. Are you up for helping with that?"