It was noon by the time Twilight rolled out of bed and onto the floor. She whimpered softly as the cold floor replaced the warmth of her blankets. Still not fully awake, her hind leg jutted out in a sort of spasm. Her leg made contact with edge of the bed frame and sent a shot of pain through her body. Twilight's eyes exploded open, her breathing intensified. She lied on the floor, crippled with fear of a pain she didn’t understand. Slowly, her breathing tapered and slowed to its normal pass. Twilight sleepily lifted her head from the floor and rested it on the bed.
“About time you woke up.” The sound of Spike’s voice made Twilight jump. She buried her face into the soft covers of her bed. The stress from the previous day now bore a greater weight on her mind, and her emotions. She couldn’t stop the warm stream of tears that rolled down her face. So, she welcomed them. “The stallion that brought you home said it would wear off by morning.”
Twilight wiped the tears from her eyes and faced Spike.
“What would wear off?” Twilight asked in the calmest voice she could muster.
“He said the tea would help you sleep.” Twilight giggled. Like she needed something to help her sleep. She was almost dead from what Star Swirl did to her.
“Can you help me up Spike?” Spike walked over to Twilight’s side and helped her gain her balance. They proceed to walk down the flights of stairs all the way to the kitchen on the ground floor.
Twilight managed to force some food into her mouth and eat it. To say her experience with Star Swirl left her whole body weak would be an understatement. It wouldn’t cover the burning of her muscles, or the stiffness in her joints. Twilight ultimately decided that turning toast into a liquid wouldn’t help her growling stomach. So she cleared her plate, pushed back her chair, and tried walking under her own power. She felt like she was doing mostly well; until she looked down to see that Spike had been helping her since she stood up.
“I think it would be better if you avoided the stairs for a while.” Spike offered. The idea of less work perked Twilight’s ears and she hummed her approval. Spike helped Twilight lean against a wall as he prepared a bed.
Twilight was in the process of laying her head on her pillow, when the door opened and Star Swirl walked through.
“Good, you are awake.” Twilight glared at Star Swirl. She was not sure if she should hate him, fear him, or thank him. She compromised with keeping her mouth shut. “Twilight, would you like to continue today with your studies?”
“Why, so you can finish me off?” Twilight’s sullen mood almost shocked Star Swirl, but he was expecting as much. He replied with a smile.
“Your spells don’t allow for sudden change. You use a kind of spell work known as channeling. It can be useful in some situations, but mostly you want to use different wording for your spells.” An awkward silence followed his words. Only the sound of Star Swirl shifting his weight penetrated the silence. He didn’t wait long before he reached into his cloak and removed a clear blue stone. Twilight watched the stone intensely as he moved it from his pocket to a place just over Twilight’s flank. She was about to yell at him, but something within the stone left her without words. A soft green light emanating from the core of the stone, but that was not all. The light seemed to dance off the facets of the gem, even though the gem was being held perfectly still. The whole scene reminded Twilight of a memory from her childhood. A time when Shining Armor held a snowflake still, using magic. It was the first time Twilight felt a desire to learn magic. Through the fade of a memory, Twilight sorely watched as Star Swirl placed the crystal on her side. Her eyes widened as she watched the light dance down the sides of the crystal and into her body. The pain in her side dissipated as the magic flowed through her body. Her muscles started to relax and the tiredness from before eased.
Before Twilight was able to utter her reply, Star Swirl answered.
“I transferred the energy that was held in the crystal into your body. It’s a very specialized form of restoration, as it only works on magical wounds.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t.” Star Swirl pocketed the crystal and took a step back. “Would you like to continue, now?” Twilight blushed and nodded her approval. Star Swirl brushed his cloak and cleared his throat.
“Yesterday you learned that you want your spells to be as simple as possible.”
“But what if I want to do something complex?” Star Swirl raised a hoof.
“Twilight, has Princess Celestia ever taught you why we use words when we perform magic?” Twilight was discouraged, Princess Celestia never taught her why. Although what discouraged her more, was that she never wondered why. “I see by your silence that would be a no. Well, Twilight, to understand spells then you first need to understand the core of spell work. The wording. Twilight, what are words?” Twilight simply glared at Star Swirl for asking her such a stupid question, but after thinking about it, she found herself stumped. Her eyes flickered back and forth as she thought.
“What is a rose, but a name we give a flower? Words are what we use to shape thought, to convey ideas, to perform spells. Although most ponies wouldn’t know that words aren’t necessary to make a spell. Have you ever performed a love spell? You only need to feel the emotions you have then release the energy needed for a spell, and it works! That is why controlling your emotions is critical to spell work. Celestia was teaching you long spells because a long spell makes it impossible for your thoughts or emotions to interfere. Yet, the spell will not stop drawing energy until it has performed exactly what you told it to do. You experienced that first hand yesterday.” Twilight looked away as her face glowed red. “With simple spells you can rely on both thought and words. Remember the spell I taught you. Rock rise. With this spell, you can simply raise the rock, or you can extend the spell to raise fifty others just by thought. In addition, you can go the other way. If you described the rock in more detail then no matter what you thought about, only rocks with those characteristics could be affected.” Twilight was confused. What Star Swirl said simply made sense. It felt like he was building off her existing ideas, instead of creating new ones.
“Ok, I am ready to continue.” Star Swirl smiled and sat next to Twilight.
“I only have a few more things to teach you before we move on to the next subject. The main reason you get tired when you perform some of your spells is cause you rush the spell. When you perform a spell and you don’t get tired, that is because all the energy required to perform the spell came from your horn. Eh, the Intelligence in your horn. Intelligence produces energy, which is used to power spells, but it can only produce this energy at a certain rate. Let us say you want to change metal into gold. A complex spell to say the least. Now when you first start this spell you will not notice any change in the metal. If you wait for a few minutes then you will see some change. Wait even longer and the entirety of the metal will become gold and you wouldn’t be tired. The length of time it takes a spell to complete the task is solely dependent on your level of patience. You can move a mountain using only the energy from your horn. However, it will take a very long time, if you wanted it to move faster, then your spell would have to find more energy in order to do that. That is when the spell draws energy from you; sense you are the closest source.”
“So I get tired because I word my spells wrong and I am impatient?”
“In a sense.”
“So how am I supposed to perform complex spells without getting tired or waiting till I die of old age?”
“That is part of our next lesson. If you want we can start now or we can wait till tomorrow.”
“Lets wait, I need sometime to understand all of this.”
“As you wish.” Star Swirl stood and walked to the front door. “Oh, Twilight. I want you to have this.” He placed the blue gem on a table by the door. “It’s for the next lesson.” Star Swirl proceeded to bow and then walked out the door.