“Concentration is the key to making it work. Most magic requires concentration to function. Therefore, it is essential to concentrate on the spells you want to use whenever you use them.”
“I understand, Twilight. This is just a little harder than what I was doing earlier.”
“If you’re talking, then you’re not concentrating.”
I focused harder and harder, and finally I got the desired outcome. I changed the twigs, leaves, and rocks on Spike into a full gentleman’s look.
“Nice going, Seth!” said Spike.
It was another step in the right direction for me learning how to use magic.
Basically, after Twilight Sparkle had asked me about that invisibility spell, I had told her how I had done it. Rather, I told her how I pretty much lucked into it. It got her to wondering how it was possible for me to just generate a random spell without even trying. I went into how it was just a natural feeling for me since I was usually invisible to most people with almost no effort. It was sort of like my special talent.
That whole lack of effort business got her into how concentration was the key to magic. Not all magic, mind you, but almost every spell required it. Of course, she told me how she was going to teach me how to properly use magic right as we opened the door to the library. It was quite the nice setup for the books still lying around on the floor. After the nice punch line and some good laughter, Twilight, Spike, Applejack, and I went to helping put all the books back on the shelves in some brand new order that I’m pretty sure she just made up on the spot.
After that was finished, Applejack excused herself saying she had to get back to work on the farm. I had wondered what it was she had meant to do here today seeing as how I don’t remember her even talking to Twilight. Then again, I didn’t really remember most of the trip to the town hall, so she may have talked to her during that time. Oh well, this place isn’t static. Things are going to happen in the world around me even if I’m not there to see it or hear it.
Upon Applejack’s departure, my stomach once again made its presence known. This time, however, Twilight teleported herself away and then returned a few minutes later with some cookies and water. It wasn’t exactly something that was diabetes friendly, but then again I’m not a very well controlled diabetic. After all, I drink Pepsi every day. I then face-palmed internally. That’s why I had that headache. I hadn’t had any Pepsi in what I was sure was twenty four hours at least. It was a caffeine headache. Not some convoluted magical headache, just a regular self-induced one. Though, it did seem to go away fairly quickly. At least that's how it seemed to be to me anyway.
While I was eating the cookies she had given me, Twilight began talking to me about magic. Of course, it sounded more like she was giving a dissertation on the subject. Basically, the way she explained it to me was that magic was inherent in all things in this world. It was a type of potential energy found inside one’s self and, to a lesser extent, in all objects. However, most living beings simply did not have access to it. If you did, about half the time those who managed to use it found that it was inconsistent or incredibly weak. The other half of it was pretty much mostly unicorns or some other form of creature that stumbled upon it yet had enough talent to make it work properly. In other words, it was pretty much just unicorns or alicorns with the ability to use it properly.
That said even unicorns were broken into subsets. There were those who only learned spells that were attuned to their special talents. These unicorns didn’t learn anything else other than spells that would help them with their talents and didn’t bother with anything else minus basic levitation. About nine out of every ten unicorns were like that.
The other subset was unicorns like her who were more specialized in magic in general. These unicorns trained their magic more consistently and thus were more powerful and could use many different types of spells. Even though they were less common, they still had schools specially tailored to them in order to help them practice their magic.
When I asked about that, she told me about her test with hatching Spike’s egg. Interestingly enough, when she described it to me, it sounded like they were actually giving her a specifically harder test than what they usually give. Apparently, the usual test involved a display of the various spells one could use and if it was determined that they had not only a variety of spells, but a certain level of aptitude of those spells, then they would be accepted. Her test was to hatch an egg. A dragon egg. As far as I could tell from her, no pony had ever done it before and they were asking her to do it right on the spot. I couldn’t tell if they were being snobs or if it was all part of a grand cosmic design to make her noticed by Celestia to bring on the forthcoming events. I had honestly taken out my coin and flipped it on the spot. It came up in favor of the latter.
Hanging over all unicorns, were the alicorns. Alicorns had superior magic to all unicorns. Basically, alicorns had dominion over a specific force of nature which was their special talent. Celestia was the power of the sun, Luna was the power of the moon, and Cadence was the power of love. I asked about why there were so few alicorns, but she had no answer. That was too bad. I would’ve loved to blow that secret all over the internet if I ever got back home.
With the history of magic in pony culture out of the way, and I might add it took way too long to hear all of that, interesting, but long, she began to tell me how to use magic. The whole concept was to envision, concentrate, and create with some knowledge about fundamental laws of nature to take into account for stronger or more intricate spells. Again, the talk was interesting, but long. At least this one had more practical application to it.
At that point, she wanted to have me demonstrate the invisibility spell. I did, and after a few more demonstrations she managed to copy the spell herself. With that spell now learned, she was about to continue on with her lecture. However, I made a comment on how she ought to expand on that spell to make others invisible. It was too bad that I couldn’t tell her about other moments I knew of because I was feigning ignorance. I would have told her how it would be a good idea to try and expand her spells to be useful in many different situations. She could be masterful with spells if she just put in some effort refining those spells.
I was really getting aggravated about how I couldn’t tell her that I knew her. It would make telling things to her so much easier. I was honestly surprised I hadn’t blown anything yet. I wasn’t one to let secrets out, but it’s hard when you want to tell someone something, but you can’t because you’ll come off looking like a crazy stalker.
After letting her think about that for a while, I decided to interrupt her again to move things along with me. She wanted to start off with levitation, but I commented that I had already figured that one out. I was a bit surprised she had forgotten about that. Then, I looked at my watch and noted that she had been talking for almost three hours. As interesting as this was, I needed to move on to something interesting.
She then decided to try out magical transformation. The first thing that popped into my head was Twilight transforming into some magical girl from Japan. Then, I realized that I was going to do the magic and unfortunately had a vision of me transforming that I was sure would haunt my dreams for the next week or so.
Thankfully, Twilight went on to describe what she wanted to transform that helped me get those thoughts out of my head. Basically, Spike was told to go out and get some leaves, a rock, and a branch and I was to turn them into formal wear. I remembered her trying out that trick in the beginning of that one episode where Pinkie’s ‘Pinkie Sense’ was introduced. It took me about ten minutes to get it to work.
“Lookin’ sharp there Spike!”
“You know it!” he replied.
“Ha ha very funny you two,” Twilight interjected, “but now that you’ve finished with that, it’s time to hit the hay. We’ve all had quite the day.”
I let the transformation drop and, of course, the top hat magically transformed back into a rock about a foot above his head and crashed down like, well, like a rock.
“Why does that keep happening to me?”
“You two have done this one before I take it,” I said as Twilight chuckled a little.
“Yeah," Spike said with some exasperation. "Twilight was trying it out once and we got interrupted by Pinkie Pie and the rock smashed me in the head. Then, we tried it out again a week later and when she was done the rock landed on my head again.”
“So, when you knew that happened before, why did you do it again?”
Spike looked like he was going to reply, but suddenly looked around like he hadn’t even thought about it. Finally, he sighed and spoke up.
“Never mind. Forget it.”
“I can do that. Now, go ahead and listen to Twilight and head off to bed.”
Reluctantly, Spike made his way up the stairs amidst some grumbling.
“You need to get some sleep too, Seth. You haven’t had a good night’s sleep since you’ve arrived here.”
“Yeah, between Rainbow Dash knocking me out, and Pinkie Pie nearly giving me a heart attack with her cannon, subsequently causing me to faint, I’m pretty sure I would be completely sleep deprived by now.”
We both chuckled at that, but it got me to thinking.
“You know, Pinkie never did throw me that party. Is that something I should be expecting soon?”
“Probably. Pinkie loves her parties.”
It made me wonder if there would be a pink pony in my face when I woke up. It also made me think of someone I didn’t see today.
“Fluttershy never did come by to visit me today, did she?”
“Oh, well she was probably busy helping out all of her little animal friends today and was so busy that she couldn’t come to see you,” she stated a bit weakly.
“More likely, she didn’t come because she was too worried about seeing me on her own. I have that problem too.”
“You do kind of remind me of Fluttershy at times. Other times, you remind me more of Rainbow Dash. Like when you fired that large beam of magic. When you were thinking of how cool that was, it reminded me of her when she was showing off something to us.”
“Game recognize game I suppose.”
“What does that mean?”
“It’s just a saying I heard once that I just finally got to use. I’ve never really had any game until I came here. Things just seem to be working out that way. It doesn’t really matter that much, though. Anyway, shouldn’t you be following your own advice and trying to get some sleep as well?”
“You’re right. Good night, Seth.”
“Good night, Twilight.”
As she walked up to her room, I went over to the couch and lied down with my hands behind my head. The couch itself was too small for me. With my head at one end, my feet were actually still on the floor. It wasn’t very comfortable for me. Obviously, this was made with ponies in mind, but I couldn’t help thinking that maybe this was a chair. I had remembered Rarity doing her fake woe-is-me rants and pulling a lounging chair from out of nowhere for her to lie on. That’s probably not what it’s called, but I didn’t care what it really was called. She was able to lie down on that without a problem. Also, the bed in Fluttershy’s house was big enough that I didn’t even have my feet hanging off the end. Therefore, this was most likely a chair and not a couch.
That made realize something else as well. I was thinking about the difference between a chair and a couch from Equestria for five minutes. What. The. Hell? Am I really stuck thinking about stupid things like this?
I breathed slowly for a few minutes to calm myself down. It didn’t really matter. This is what life is. Every moment isn’t going to be some adventure where I jump through hoops and learn a new lesson about friendship. Things were obviously going to get boring at times. I wish I had my phone to look at my pictures or my DS to play some games. Of course, if I relied on those too much here, then the batteries would die and then I’d be in the same predicament.
Perhaps I should use this time to look at my predicament. I got sent here with nothing but my pants and a shiny coin. I wound up transported to the Everfree Forest. I was lucky not to run into any dangerous animals. I made my way out and had a shocked senseless moment with Rainbow Dash.
Then, after waking up, I made my way to Fluttershy’s place. I got a little food and some water. I got knocked out by Rainbow Dash.
I awoke in Fluttershy’s bed. I went downstairs and met most of the main characters. I got an apology from Rainbow Dash. I got questioned by Twilight Sparkle. I nearly got every one of us zapped by malfunctioning magic. I got questioned some more. I walked to Ponyville. I spent the night getting questioned again by Twilight Sparkle. I went to Sugarcube Corner. I nearly got ‘partied’ in the face by Pinkie Pie. I used magic for the first time by levitating Pinkie Pie and her stuff. I then passed out from using magic.
I honestly expected Rainbow Dash to come flying through the window and then making me use my magic to stop her from running into me. Although, she did say that she had something to do today. I suppose that would make sense that she didn’t show up today.
Focus…
After my mess with Pinkie, I awoke in Twilight’s place. I went into the hills to practice with magic. I fired a magical version of a Kamehameha wave. I had to get past my freaking out to give a public apology to the citizens of Ponyville for making them panic. I sort of forced my way into being Twilight’s student. I hope she isn’t mad about that, by the way. I helped clean up the mess I made of the library. I learned about magic for hours. I practiced magic for about ten minutes. And finally, I watched as everyone went to bed and then I followed suit.
“Man, have I had one hell of a few days here.”
“Indeed you have, Seth.”
I jumped off the couch in surprise and landed on my back. I whipped around and got to one knee to see who it was. It didn’t take long.
“I’m sorry that I startled you. I didn’t mean to do so. Allow me to introduce myself.”
“My name is Princess Celestia.”