//------------------------------// // Chapter 25 - The Star of Rodney // Story: Shackles and Friendship // by Zaibatsu //------------------------------// Shackles and Friendship Chapter 25 - The Star of Rodney Edited by Noxxels (a bit) AN: Noxxels and I got swamped with work and life so we couldn’t put much time into editing this chap properly. Sorry if the quality is a bit subpar. "Rise and shine Rodney!" "Ngh!" I gritted my teeth as I rolled over to the side. "Not so loud Rarity." My hangover intensified with her voice, her usual beautiful and elegant voice now sounded like breaking glass, crying babies and nails on a chalkboard altogether. "Uuhh, can we open late today? It's not like-AH!" I yelped and flinched in pain as Rarity used her magic to spread open one of the curtains in the shop letting the cursed sunshine in. The glare of the light made me shield my eyes with both hands as my headache punched directly at my brain with a bronze fist. "And miss such a wonderful day like this? I think not!" For a moment there I could have sworn she was talking louder and in a higher pitch than before. Before I could ponder any further I noticed another nearby curtain was glowing with Rarity's spell. "Wait Rarity don't-AH!" I flinched again as another curtain spread wide, bathing the store with more light. Much to my dismay and further pain, I accidentally lost balance and fell off the couch hitting the floor hard. "I'm sorry, what was that dear?" She asked innocently, horn glowing as her spell continued to jump from one curtain to another. "Please Rarity I-AH! Mercy, please mer-ARGH!" My pleas fell on deaf ears as Rarity kept trotting around the store opening ever curtain along the way. By the time the last curtain opened I was curled up on the floor next to the couch, cradling my head with both arms trying desperately to block out the light. "Breakfast will be done soon. If you wish to partake with me then I suggest you quickly wash yourself. You smell horrid." She kept talking in a cheery mood as if completely obvious to my suffering. I continued to lay there on the floor in my miserable state, listening to Rarity's hoof steps as they drifted off towards the kitchen.With my head on the verge of exploding I slowly got on my feet and made my way up the stairs while the jingling of my chains further prodded my headache. 'What I would give for an aspirin right about now.' [Half an hour later, in the kitchen....] Breakfast, which was a simple serving of boiled eggs and salad with light dressings, was strangely....tense for some odd reason. Though Rarity kept a cheery smile there was something off about it all. Considering how drunk I was last night the odds of me being the cause was extremely high. A part of me knew I should probably just back off and pretend nothing happened, then again considering that she's a pony I would REALLY like to know if anything and what happened. "So Rarity, about last night," I began nervously. "Did...did I do anything?" Rarity eyed me from across the table suspiciously. "You’re asking as if you don’t remember." She kept staring at me trying to judge my reaction probably thinking I was faking it or something, not a good sign. "That’s cause I don’t, at least not all of it," I replied while fiddling with my salad. "I know I got back late, which by the way I'd like to apologize for. And I remember wanting to do...I don’t know, something, but it's all a blur after I left the bar. Can't quite remember how I ended up sleeping on your couch either." "Hmm..." hummed Rarity as she continued to ponder my words. Again, not a good sign. "Rarity if I insulted you, or heaven forbid hurt you in anyway, then I'm sorry. I'll admit I underestimated the drinks they served, but that's still not an excuse to get as drunk as I did. So again, I'm sorry for what I did. Whatever it was." Much to my surprise and fear, tears began to form around the corner of Rarity’s eyes. "I'm sorry Rodney, but what you did....I-I don't think...." Her voice was unsteady and it looked like she was about to break down right there in front of me. 'Oh.......shit.' "Rarity I-I swear I didn't mean to! Believe me if there was anything that I could do to-AH dammit I walked straight into that one didn’t I?" I rubbed my face in frustration surprised and disappointed at myself for falling to such a simple ploy. With smug, satisfied smile, she wiped the tears from her eyes with a hoof. "Yes I believe you did, though it's 'trotted straight into'. As to what you will be doing for me, I think I will keep an open mind for now." "Within reason I hope," I replied irritably. "You truly do not remember?" "Like I said, bits and pieces but nothing coherent. In all seriousness though, I didn't do anything to hurt you did I?" I asked in a serious tone. "Don't worry Rodney, it was mostly just....frustrating. But let's not dwell on it further shall we. Now stop playing with your food and clean the dishes for me while I pick up Sweetie Belle from the farm." "Sure thing Rares." "And do try to be on time for your session with Twilight today. It's not proper to keep a lady waiting." "Oh right, thanks for the reminder." Rarity picked up her empty plate and placed it inside the sink with a spell before leaving the kitchen and heading out the front door while I stayed in the kitchen with my breakfast. "Wait a minute, you never said what I-" before I could finish I heard the front door close, "-did....damn." I let out a frustrated breath before before getting back to my breakfast with my brain still throbbing in pain. I took a few more mouthfuls of green before picking up my plate and dumping the remainder into the bin. I knew I should probably eat something after getting as wasted as I did but I just didn't have any appetite at the moment, plus the lack of meat didn't help either. 'Might as well head on early, at least I’ll get a few questions answered.' 'Ask her if she can get Luna of our ass.' 'Doubt it, from the sound of that letter she’s pretty dead set on torturing me. Besides right now I'm hoping more for an aspirin of some kind.' After cleaning up the kitchen table and washing the dishes I headed out the door. Despite the abundant rays of sunlight it was still quite early in the morning, something I was thankful for since there were only a handful of ponies trotting around town at this time. Thanks to my headaches I wasn’t in any mood to socialize with anyone that I don’t even know. With a sigh I began to make my way to the meeting point. For obvious safety reasons Twilight and I agreed to meet by the lakeside outside of town when out session deals in more practical training and research. In most cases Twilight would just drop by the store for the theoretical side of research and to make sure I kept up with my studies in magical theory. The constant pestering and late night reading reminded me a lot of my earlier days of academia which helped me get past the more frustrating nights of study. I was tempted on multiple occasion to throw Twilight’s Fundamental Application of Advance Magical Equations out the window, or straight at her face. The entire book, one thousand six hundred and seventy two pages in all, was basically a giant ‘fuck you’ to the laws of nature and everything I knew about physics. Although I had to admit that it offered several interesting ideas I’d like to test out, whether or not I should share these ideas with Twilight however is still to be determined. Something tells me these ponies don’t have the same level of appreciation humans do in making shit blow up. It didn’t take long before I reached the edge of Ponyville now that I’ve memorized a good portion of the town to memory and it took even less time to reach the lake after. To my surprise I spotted Twilight sitting under a tree comfortably reading a book with several others stacked next to her. Another curious sight was seeing Spike relaxing next to the purple unicorn snacking on a giant chunk of emerald, or what’s left of it, along with several other gemstones inside a small picnic basket nreaby. "Rodney!" Spike shouted as soon as he saw me. "Sup Spike. What are you doing here?" "He's been wanting to come with me for our sessions for some time now," answered Twilight as she placed the book she was reading atop the stack next to her. "So who's watching the library?" "Owlowiscious is, the feathers on his wing have grown back so he should do fine." "He can operate a library?" "Not entirely, he's smart enough to know where all the books are so he can give anypony the book they need. As for keeping the log, I wrote a note asking everypony that borrows a book to write their name and such." 'I guess that'll work considering crime hardly exist here.' "So what got you so interested Spike?" "You guys have been seeing each other out here for a while now," replied the dragon. "I just wanted to know what you guys were doing out here all alone." "Spike!" shouted Twilight as her face flushed bright red. "What?" he asked innocently. My mood might be a bit sour at the moment with the headache but even that wouldn't deter me from such a perfect setup. "Well, looks like the jig is up Twilight," I said with fake resignation. Twilight’s flustered face now gazed up at me in confusion, "What are you-" "Please Twilight, let's not pretend any longer," I cut in with some drama. "All those amazing moments we spent together exploring forbidden-" "WHAT!?" shrieked Twilight in both complete embarrassment and anger. "Twilight what is he talking about?" asked Spike with a raised brow. "Nothing!" "Oh Twilight you wound me," I continued in a wounded tone. "After all the time we spent in each other's embrace." "Rodney!" shouted Twilight as her horn glowed brightly. 'You might have gone a bit overboard there.' Before I could say anything to calm the unicorn down something wet and heavy fell on my head just as a large shadow fell over me. I tilted my head straight back to gaze up at the sky, but instead of seeing the bright blue sky all I saw was large blob of brown mud floating just a few feet above me. Ever so slowly I tilted my head back down to look at Twilight who was now smiling devilishly as she narrowed her eyes with malicious intent. "Got anything else to say?" she asked in a smug victorious tone. "Uhh...." "That's what I thought." SPLAT! [Sometime later.....] I shook my head about wildly like a dog spraying the water out of my hair as I made my way out of the shallow waters. It was easy enough to get rid of the gunk off me since it mostly just drifted off in the water, though it took a great deal of effort to clean my clothes. It didn’t take long for me to give up seeing as it would take some detergent or even magic to clean it completely. 'Rarity's gonna give me another earful for this.' Luckily the fresh cold water helped dampen the headache a bit which improved my mood a bit. In any case I wasn’t going to hold any grudge at Twilight for what she did, after all it was mostly my fault for teasing her. It was also impossible not to smile while hearing Spike’s wild childlike laughter, eventually both Twilight and I started to chuckle along with him. "Learned your lesson?" asked Twilight with a little bit of smugness in her voice. "For now," I answered teasingly which caused Twilight to roll her eyes in irritation. "Such a foal," she mumbled under her breath. "Are you two always like this?" Spike asked as his laughing fit finally died out. "Yes," I answered casually as I continued to approach them. I saw Twilight roll her eyes a second time, which caused me to chuckle in humor. "So any news from Celestia?" "Finally decided to stop playing around have you?" I gave her a shrug and let her have the last word in. "Yes, she did. In summary, she has no problem with you being in public and all. However..." "However?" "She wants to keep the nature of your abilities a secret, or at the very least a low profile until she deems it safe to reveal it." "Because otherwise some ponies might panic knowing there's someone out there like me?" Seeing as magic was a natural part of these ponies, hell for every living thing in this world, it made sense how someone like me would impose a primal-like fear on them. "Precisely. She believes that if ponies knew too soon it will hurt your chances of being accepted by the everypony." "Sound advice. Luckily, the ponies that do know are ones I trust, though I'll have to make sure Rarity doesn't gossip about it. Funny how she never brought it up, I'm assuming you told her after the whole disaster with her boutique?" "Not....everything in detail, but yes, she knows. Though you shouldn't worry about her spreading it around, she might like to gossip but never anything that might hurt anypony." "Uhm....Twilight, what are you two talking about?" Spike's nervous voice reminded both Twilight and I of the little dragon's presence. It's always just been Twilight and I during our sessions and we'd completely forgotten about him. "Oh, uh...I....we were...that's-," Twilight kept stuttering on as she tried desperately to find an alternate explanation, other than me stealing magic away. "You know how my magic appears like blue fire, right?" I answered for her without missing a beat. "Yeah that was pretty cool." "And do you remember how the town went crazy when they thought Carousel Boutique was burning?" "Everypony knows about that." I stared at him for a second as he connected the two pieces together. "Ooooohh." "That's why I need to be careful about where I use my magic. Until everyone knows about it, of course." There were some holes in my reasoning but it was solid enough to be believable for the young dragon. I noticed Twilight mouthing the words good job at me. "Now then, about your body," continued Twilight. "I didn't realize you were interested in me that way Twily, see something you like?" I teased with a mischievous smile while cocking my brows up and down seductively. With a smile her horn glowed brightly once again causing me to tense up just as I heard something break the surface of the lake behind me. It didn't take a genius to figure out what she was lifting out of the water. "Alright, alright!" I shouted while waving my hands about. "No more, I promise." "Good.” I could hear something heavy hit the water as she terminated her spell. "So about your unique stamina and magic differentiation." "You mean how my stamina and magic are two completely different things?" I asked for simplification sake. "Yes, that. Now it's only a theory, but since this world is rich with magic while yours is completely devoid of it, I suspect somewhere along the line we evolved differently. Somehow, your kind adapted to a world without magic while on the other hoof we ponies have adapted to one brimming with magic, thus our bodies and organs evolved to work with it. Unicorns with our horns, pegasi with their wings and even though earth ponies lack anything similar, their entire body reacts to magic." "That makes sense I suppose, but then how come I'm able to react to magic so fluently just like you? Granted, I still had to learn from scratch but still, by your theory I should be completely incapable of interacting with magic." "Yes I'm aware there are inconsistencies in this theory but it's all I can come up within a day. And don't get me started with your magical properties, I still don't have the slightest clue why yours react so violently in its neutral state. Or why it manifests as blue fire for that matter!" Without realizing it Twilight had started ranting out her frustration. "Exactly how many hours of sleep have you lost researching?" "Too much," answered Spike with some irritation and worry in his voice. "Spike!" "Now listen here Twilight, I'm glad you're investing so much time for me but not when it starts to affect your health," I voiced my concern with a bit of scolding. "Besides, not knowing why and how things work doesn't mean I can't use it. I was just curious is all." "Wait, so you don't really care if-" "Nope," I replied casually. "Like I said, just curious. Knowing the inner workings of my magic doesn't really change anything, now does it? I can still live, eat, sleep, do my job at Rarity’s, and I'm still stranded in this world with no chance of getting back home." Although I threw that out casually the air around us suddenly became tense. What surprised me most was how it caused a sudden pang of heartache in me. I might have accepted that I won’t ever get back home, but if this feeling of loss and heaviness was any indication I suppose I wasn’t truly at peace with it yet. "I'm so sorry-" Twilight started but I raised a hand to stop her. "No, Twilight, it's ok. Well no, not really. In fact it sucks. But none of it is your fault so please, don't start getting all gloomy on my behalf." Twilight started smiling a bit but it was easy to tell she still felt bad for my predicament, it’s probably best to change the topic. "Spike, you're in charge of keeping an eye on her got it? You tell me if she’s not taking care of herself." "Yes sir!" replied the dragon as he gave me a salute. "And exactly what will you do if I don’t?" "We both know the main reason you’re so enthusiastic is because it’s all so fun for you. The challenge of exploring new fields of research and the need to know the unknown, admit it Twily you’re an egghead." I smiled with my arms crossed over my chest, "I’ll just stop cooperating in your research and suspend our sessions." "You wouldn’t dare!" "Try me." Her eyes bored straight into my own as we stared at each other for a few seconds. "Fine," she said irritably. "Can we move on? Let’s see if you’ve made any progress on Infusion." "Sure." I walked a few steps away to grab a small pebble from the ground before rejoining Twilight and Spike. I sat in front of them, legs crossed, as I held the pebble in my right hand inside a fist as I began to concentrate and inject the pebble with magic. My first hurdle was figuring how to fine tune the flow of my magic, much like I would use Constant Siphon on someone but in reverse. The trick was to inject as much magic as it could hold because the moment I stop the magic will start to disperse, the less attuned the object was to magic the quicker it would escape. It was like trying to trap water inside a balloon with holes. Unfortunately I can't just pour in magic recklessly either, too much and it'll break with a loud pop like a firecracker, much to Rarity's great displeasure during the nights I practiced. That is, however, until I realized I could use my 'Sight' for better timing. Imagine pouring water into a cup and finding the exact moment to stop right before it started to overflow and that was basically it. Instead of gauging how much magic I was using I just had to watch out for any flames escaping, there was a very small window after that point before the rocks I practiced on would break. I've only had limited success so far, but at least it was now a question of training rather than experimentation. "So what do you think?" I stretched my arm out towards Twilight and opened my fist to show her the pebble. "You seem confident," she commented. Her horn glowed as she applied a modified light enchantment on the rock. Twilight made this simple enchantment specifically to measure roughly how much progress I’ve made. Unlike a normal light enchantment which acts like a light bulb and emits a constant level of brightness, this one instantly consumes all the magic in a single bright flash of light: the more magic, the brighter the flash. For a brief moment the pebble glowed a darker shade of purple much like Twilight's horn, before the enchantment took full effect and created a flash of light with roughly the same intensity as a camera. The flash of light caused my head to throb again in pain as my headache started to grow making me groan slightly in pain. "Well certainly an improvement from last week, last time it...Rodney are you ok?" asked Twilight once she noticed I was massaging the side of my forehead with my other hand. "Just a headache from....just a headache." I decided it wasn't worth potentially getting yelled at for being drunk. "You wouldn't happen to have any medicine to alleviate pain would you?" I asked hopefully. "I actually do but...." "There's still me not being a pony to worry about, yeah I figured as much." I let out a sigh of frustration. "Looks like I'll just have to deal with it." "Why don't we stop here and reschedule for next week?" "Nah I'm good," I assured her. "Let's move on. What's next?" "Well if you're sure. Spike, could you give us one of your gems please?" "Do I have to?" "Come now don't be greedy. You remember what happened last time don't you?" "Right," he answered in resignation. The baby dragon shoved his arm into the picnic basket and procured a large sapphire in his claws. "Straight to top Twily?" I asked slightly surprised. "I thought we were going at it step by step." "There's no need to, if you're able to inject that much magic into a rock like that you can manage most other materials," she reasoned. "Gemstones have the highest attunement to magic thus they’re the easiest material to infuse." "So what's the point?" I asked as Spike handed me the apple sized sapphire . "For research of course," she answered happily. "This way I actually have a supply of your magic to work with." "Pffft!" "What?" "It just sounded like....nevermind. It’s just a human thing," I said with a smile as I held down the urge to laugh. "So how much-pfft, of my magic do you want?" Twilight was starting to stare at me suspiciously as bits of laughter escaped my lips. "As much as you can give me." "Bwahahahaaaa!" I tilted over to the side from my sitting position in a sudden hysterical laugh. "WHAT!?" asked Twilight clearly realizing I was laughing at her expense. "It's no-hehe, nothing to worry-hehehahaHAHAHA!" I tried to settle down but Twilight's irritated look made me lose it again. "What's so funny?" asked the confused dragon. "I don't care anymore," replied Twilight with a sigh. "Ok....ok, it's passing," I said between panted breath as I returned to a sitting position. "Phew, right. Let's get this over with before you say anything else." With a big smile on my face I began injecting the sapphire with magic. My humored demeanor soon turned to curiosity once I realized how the process was remarkably easy compared to the rocks I've been practicing on. Unlike those, which felt like they were fighting back, the sapphire acted like it wanted to absorb my magic like a sponge. I slowly began to increase the flow of magic with less finesse and the sapphire kept eating it up no problem, it almost felt like the sapphire was draining me. It didn't take long before I had used up my entire supply of magic. "Oh man, exactly how much magic can this thing take?" I asked astounded staring at the sapphire in my right hand. "A battery gem that size could easily power one of my lab equipment for a week even if I use it non-stop," answered Twilight with a smile. "And how long till the magic starts to disperse?" "Never," replied Twilight casually. "Are you serious!?" "Well to be more precise nopony knows exactly when. Gemstones and certain rare metals are the few materials in the world that can naturally retain magic for an incredibly long period of time. There have been discoveries of arcane gems within lush forests dating back thousands of years, which means that at some point that forest was once a barren landscape." I could tell Twilight was about to go into lecture mode and from Spike's groan, so did he. Luckily I was able to cut in just in time. "But exactly how much magic can it take?" I asked again. "Nopony knows that one either, we can guess based on data but so far nopony has ever discovered a fully charged arcane gem before. And since nopony has ever been able to replicate an arcane gem before it's impossible to know for certain." "So wait, not even Rarity's fire ruby was fully charged? That's insane!!" After experiencing first hand how much magic that thing had I was having trouble believing it. "But what kept you from replicating arcane gems? It's not like you lack magic." "It's because at a certain point the gem would, for reasons yet undiscovered, refuse to take any more. The difference between a battery and an arcane gem is simply how much magic they have, the light you see inside arcane gems are just heavily condense magic. That limit is what prevents us from replicating arcane gems ourselves." "Twilight, is it ok if you use that spell on me?" Twilight looked at me not quite sure what I meant, only until I shot a glance at Spike did she manage to understand my cryptic question. "Oh, right. But what for?" she asked as her horn glowed. "I just want to see for myself how much this sapphire can take," I explained. "Fair enough, it’ll give me more to work with." "Pfft!" "What is so funny!?" "Sorry, last one I promise." She shook her head in irritation before her horn started to glow. I wasn't sure what spell she was using on me but it didn't really matter since the point was just to have me drain it through my skin. My left hand, which was concealed away from Spike, glowed a dark shade of purple as Twilight cast her spell on it. Instantly I could 'feel' the flow of Twilight's magic as I siphoned it through my skin which I immediately started injecting into the sapphire. [Ten minutes later....] "Is it still working?" "Yup," I answered. [Fourteen minutes later....] "Rodney is it-" "Still going Twilight." "Well, as interesting as this is," said Spike sarcastically. "I think I’ll head on back to the library, I need to check if Owlowiscious is doing his job right." "I better not find a missing tub of ice cream when I get home," warned Twilight like a mother to her child. "Yeah yeah," replied Spike offhandedly. "It was nice seeing you Spike." He gave me a casual wave before picking up the picnic basket and walked off towards Ponyville. [Half an hour later....] "Rodney are you-" "Yes Twilight I'm sure, I'm still injecting." "Infusing," Twilight corrected. "You are infusing the gem right?" "Whatever, 'injecting' makes more sense to me. And yes I am, otherwise my head would've exploded by now with all the magic you gave me." "This doesn't make sense, we should have reached the limit a while ago," said Twilight with a bit of strain in her voice. "You doing alright there Twily?" I asked as I took my gaze away from the gem. Twilight had taken a sitting position with her head laying low as she continue to channel more magic into me. "We can stop whenever you want." "Don't worry, I've still got plenty of.....," Twilight's voice drifted off while her pupils started to expand. The glow from her horn disappeared as she stared at my hand with her mouth still hanging open. Following her gaze I focused my attention back to the sapphire which have suddenly taken a brighter hue of blue than before. For a moment I thought it had just caught the rays of the sun, it took a second before I remembered we were sitting under the shade of a tree. I had to squint and bring the sapphire right up to my nose to see but without a doubt there was something inside that was giving off light. "Let me see that!" shouted Twilight as she suddenly leaped on top of me and wrapped her hooves around my right arm. I grunted in slight pain as I fell back only to groan again when the chains on my left hand fell on my face. Twilight started twisting and moving my hand around in order to get a better view, she even twisted her head to the side to bring the gem closer to her eye. "This shouldn't be possible! Ok what did you do!? " she asked without even turning her gaze away from the gem. "First off, could you please get off me?" Since she was using her front hooves to hold my arm in place it forced her to sit on top of hip. "Not sure if you’ve noticed but somebody can REALLY get the wrong idea if they see us right now." With her face completely beet red she let go of my arm and almost jumped away in her haste to get off me. "Sorry," she said in an embarrassed tone as i got back to my sitting position. "As to your question, it's magic the hell should I know," I replied in a teasing tone. I could tell Twilight was about to start ranting or something but I stopped her before she could even get a word out. "You know what's even more interesting? I didn’t feel any resistance at all which means that we can still pump in more magic." Twilight's pupil widened as my words sunk in. "What do you say Twily? Think you got enough in you to charge this thing?" I asked as I lifted the gem right in front of her muzzle teasingly. [Three hours later.....] "So how does it feel Twilight?" I asked while running my left hand over her neck. "Knowing that you've not only created the first ever artificial arcane gem, but the first pony to see a fully charged one." Although she was smiling brightly all I got in return were more panted breaths as she lay sideways on the ground with her head resting atop my leg. "Although I think we might have gotten a bit overboard." I turned my gaze back at the sapphire in my hand, or tried to anyways until I was forced to turn away from the intense light with tears in my eyes and spots in my vision. Unlike Rarity's fire ruby which glowed and shined much like a small candle or lantern, what I held in my hand looked more like a light bulb from an industry level spotlight. I wasn't sure if it was because of my magic or it simply being a sapphire that caused the light to shine a brilliant shade of blue, the imperfections of the gem created even more variation of color creating something similar to a light show around us. Despite the sun hanging above us, anyone could easily see the bright blue star I held in my hand from miles away. "I...I can't wait...to show the Princess," answered Twilight between large heavy panting. Over the hours Twilight and I have been sitting comfortably under a tree, yet for her it looked more like she had just ran through the New York marathon. "We...need to name it." "How's about the Star of Rodney?" With what little energy remaining Twilight nudged her head towards me causing her horn to poke me in the stomach. "I'm just teasing Twily, honestly it's up to you. After all you did all the work, I was just a relay for your magic." "I guess I can think of something later...la..." slowly her eyelids closed and soon enough her breathing became the rhythmic sound of sleep as she succumbed to exhaustion. 'You know what’s frightening about all this?' 'You mean the insane amount of magic she just used to charge the gem all on her own? Yeah I realize that.' 'Sleeping on our lap might just be the single most powerful being in this world. Excluding Celestia and Luna.' Looking back at the bright light of the gem I activated my ‘Sense’ which caused me to flinch as I felt the searing ‘heat’ the gem was radiating next to me, it felt like I was holding a ball of magma. 'So much in something so small.' The thought of absorbing that much magic caused me to shiver in fear. 'That much magic could easily fry my brain and turn me into a vegetable.' Fearing to attract unwanted attention I quickly began digging a small hole next to me and buried the gem in it which instantly returned the scenery around us back to normal. Confident that the gem was safe and concealed I began rubbing Twilight's neck as I leaned back against the tree and closed my eyes. I may not be as exhausted as Twilight but the mental strain had started to pile up sometime after the first hour. Right now my head was throbbing in pain as my headache reached an all time high. 'Hopefully this headache will be gone by time I wake up.' AN: Sorry the editing took so long but it was a hectic week, I personally had finals to worry about and Noxxels was just being a dick. Kidding, he got swamped with work too. Aside for the usual pleading for comments and criticism I really got nothing else to say. Grrrrrrr! And birthday parties are not stupid. There I said it, now could you please take Derpy back? Okie dokie loki! Thank you I appre-WAIT UNTIE ME FIRST!!