Wearing Midnight

by Owlor


Water is Alive

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This was the environment that surrounded Trixie while she parked in one of the glades of the Everfree: Trees older than most villages covered in dead wines. Ground covered with moss, save for the few precious spaces where the undergrowth could gather enough sunlight. And every now and then, a mushroom poked its head up, hinting at the massive complex of mycelia underneath.

There was a certain savage beauty in the merciless competition that went on, even among the plants. This habitat had rejected ponies a long time ago, and by the looks of it, it was much better off for it.

It's not fair, Trixie wrote in an unusually low-key entry right next to a crude sketch of what looked like a torture device with a arrow pointing to a saw-blade with the comment “PREPARED BLADE.”

I've spent my entire life mastering magic, but this place doesn't seem to use it. Would any of my tricks even work out here, or would they fail out of spite? There was something slightly bitter about this notion, and it was a feeling that followed her trough her daily routines.

First order of business: find water. It's amazing how dry the world can seem when you're thirsty. After a while, even lush grasslands start to look like deserts. This was even more problematic than usual because the water in the Everfree forest wasn't like the water elsewhere in Equestria

“There's... stuff in the water,” Trixie noted, and indeed, it had a rather worrying green tint. She scooped up a bucketful of it anyway, and studied it closely. Was there a spell she could use to make the drink more palatable?

“Well, it was possible that the tint was caused by particles in the water, and if it was solid matter, Trixie could probably control it by levitation...” She held the bucket close to her forehead and let a soft blue glow dance across the surface. She could sense the contours of the particles, but not control them.

“Why doesn't this work? the only thing this spell can't at least nudge is...” She dropped the bucket while the implications of this sank in. “Living material!” The green thing in the water was alive! For some value of alive anyway...

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