The next day again saw me at Golden Oaks library for another lesson on magic. Twilight had had Spike send me a note last night outlining her brief introductory course. Well, when I say brief and introductory, I mean it came with four textbooks and homework assignments. Normally, this would have driven me up the wall, but, an opportunity to study canon Equestrian magical theory and some history was too good to pass up. Besides, back in university, when I needed to, I could knuckle down and work hard.
Today’s lesson was mainly theoretical, examining more complex magical theory. While I had a relatively good standing in terms of actual power, though I couldn’t hold a candle to Twilight; it was not refined, leaving me unable to perform more complex spells. By mid-morning, I was struggling on a tricky transformation spell. The intention was to turn an apple into an orange. While this sounded simple and on paper seemed simple, it required a great deal of effort and concentration.
Unfortunately for us, our lesson was occasionally interrupted by library patrons, as well as continued visits from Pinkie demanding feedback on her party. As a result, I managed to roast two apples, turn two more into random objects, and one I inadvertently turned into a hand grenade. I quickly undid that last transformation and avoided Twilight’s questions about it. As we continued, Twilight saw I was getting more and more frustrated.
“Hey Blade Star, why don’t we break for a while, let you get yourself together?” she suggested. “Maybe we can head out to Whitetail Woods to get some training in for the race next week.”
“Sure, why not,” I replied. “This is just driving me insane anyway. A good run will clear my head.” I was certain that before long I would snap at Twilight, not the best thing to do to an alicorn princess.
So we halted the magic lesson for the moment and headed out toward what would soon constitute the race course. Whitetail Woods was a beautiful spot, particularly this time of year. All the leaves were wondrous colours of gold, reds and browns. I could see why Princess Celestia enjoyed autumn or fall as the Equestrians called it, a consequence perhaps of their American/Canadian roots in my old universe.
The route was a fairly simple one, some portions of it of course, I recognised from Season One. A large section of the wood was dedicated to collecting tree sap. I hesitantly looked about for the Crusaders, well aware of the effect of combining tree sap and those fillies. Twilight and me laughed fondly about the antics Applejack and Rainbow Dash had gotten up to during the race, we couldn’t help but laugh at the mental image of poor Rainbow being pursued by a swarm of angry bees.
Twilight seemed more relaxed about me bringing up various memories from before my arrival. When we had first got here, she would become uncomfortable if I even mentioned in passing, a memory gained by my watching of MLP. Now though she seemed much more at ease. I voiced my interest.
“You don’t seem as skittish about me talking about stuff I remember from the show, Twilight. How come?” She paused to think for a moment before responding.
“I suppose it’s because I’ve gotten to know you more this past week. We’ve swapped a fair few stories, so I guess, it’s just not as weird anymore. After all, aren’t friends supposed to know stuff about each other?” Ah, the magic of friendship, such a wonderful thing!
“As long as you’re sure, Twilight. I don’t want to make you feel uncomfortable, and I understand if the whole idea of the show freaks you out a bit,” I answered.
“It doesn’t freak me out at all,” she replied. “Okay, at first it was a bit creepy, but you explained it to us. And, you said yourself it helped create a more peaceful philosophy amongst the people who watched it. What was it ‘Love and Tolerate’?” I smiled, she was right. When we’d first got here, my knowledge was a bit perplexing. Now though, I’d been around Ponyville for over a week, enough time to get to know ponies. Maybe it was just that that made it seem more normal.
As I thought, Twilight peeled off from the track to rest for a moment. She motioned for me to join her. As I sat down, she revealed to me the ulterior reason she had for us coming out here.
“Well, we won’t be disturbed here, so we can get in a bit of magical training, don’t you think?” I nodded. “We’ll try a few more transformation spells, and then head back to the library for lunch.”
So for the next half hour, in the calmness of Whitetail Woods, I honed my magic skills a little more. Without the distraction of the town, I was able to get a few spells down. Most of the exercises required me to alter the leaves in some way, either changing their colour, their shape or combine that with a levitation spell to create images with the leaves. It was a strange combination of science and art. Twilight was especially proud of one piece that showed her and the Mane Six defeating Nightmare Moon and saving Princess Luna.
When Twilight had put me through every exercise she could think of, we headed back through the woods. This time though, it quickly became a race and we began to gallop through the trees at breakneck speeds. This, and the race next week, was probably as close as I would get to being in a cavalry charge, and I was certainly seeing it from a unique perspective. We shot out of the woods and followed the path back to the library.
Being a gentlecolt, I insisted on taking Twilight out for lunch in town. We went to a favourite café of hers. It was a nice little place, somewhat like a café I had frequented back on Earth when I was in university. The food was simple, but really tasty, I still have yet to find a better daisy sandwich anywhere in Equestria.
With lunch over, we both returned to the library. When we got there though, we found Spike was sitting outside waiting for us. The look on his face, whilst not outright panic, was still pretty concerned. We both paused and looked at each other, both wondering what he was doing outside. We quickly increased our speed to a trot to reach him more quickly. When we reached him he said one thing.
“I swear I had nothing to do with this.” He indicated the library interior.
Looking inside we were confronted with an, unusual sight. Dozens of books were now flying around the library, their covers flapping like wings. The noise was extremely loud, not just from all the flapping, but also from the strange cries that came from the books themselves. Poor Twilight simply froze in shock, while I facehoofed.
“Argh! There’s only one being on this planet that can be responsible for this!” I complained in annoyance.
“You rang?” Discord replied, sitting comfortably in the centre of the library, one of the avian books perched on his shoulder.
“Discord!” said Twilight. “What the Hay are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be in Canterlot helping the princesses?”
“Oh it’s alright, little princess. I’m on a break.” Discord proclaimed happily. “That and I had to see the newest addition to your group again.” He looked at me, grinning like the maniac he was.
“Discord, you are going to put my books back the way you found them, and then you’re going straight back to Canterlot.” In response, Discord turned himself into a childlike form and pouted.
“Oh but Twilight!” he complained. “I’m so bored! Celestia doesn’t let me mess with any of the nobleponies; I don’t get to cause any chaos anymore.”
“You’re causing chaos now, Discord,” I said “Me and Twilight were just about to get back to magic practice when you turned up.” This caused Discord to raise an eyebrow and return to his usual form.
“Oh, so the human’s learning magic is he, how odd. And from Twilight as well. Have you got your eye on somepony, Princess?” This caused both Twilight and myself to turn beet red, which in turn, set Discord laughing like a hyena. Luckily, at that point he decided he caused enough chaos and disappeared in a flash.
When we both recovered from our embarrassment, Twilight positively fumed. First, the pair of us, with Spike’s, and a while later my parents’ help, had to catch all the books and turn them back into actual non-flying books. While this was frustrating, it did give me a chance to learn how to reverse the effects of minor chaos magic. After that, Twilight had Spike send a letter off to Princess Celestia all but demanding Discord’s head. Only then could we get back to work. The whole debacle cost us a good three hours, but we still got a fair amount of studying done. Twilight told me that she wanted me to try teleportation tomorrow, a skill not usable by every unicorn.
With class dismissed for the day, I again returned to Sweet Apple Acres. On the way I bumped into Fluttershy. She was still looking after Lizzie while my parents finalised the purchase of the house they had selected. I hadn’t seen it yet, but Mum had told me about it while Twilight was writing her letter. It was a nice little place, in town and quite close to the Schoolhouse. Three bedrooms, a spacious living room as well as a dining room/kitchen combo and two bathrooms. All in all it sounded like a nice place, and they were getting it for a good price too.
Lizzie was still staying with Fluttershy and continued to help her look after all the animals. After getting over the shock of the stampede, the rest of the census had gone off without a hitch and the creatures had gone on their merry way. I asked her if she was coming to watch the Running of the Leaves next week.
“Oh yes, I always go to see all the other ponies race. I’m also in charge of making sure all the animals are away from the racecourse so they don’t get hurt,” she said.
“Are you rooting for anypony this year then?” I asked.
“Oh, I’m going to be cheering for Rainbow Dash again. I’ve been practicing ever so hard. Watch.” With that she inhaled deeply, reared up on her hind legs, before falling forward and proclaiming, in her typical voice, ‘yay’. I swear to Celestia, right then I was overcome by cuteness, adorableness and everything else the fandom attributes to Fluttershy. She did though become concerned by the slightly goofy look on my face caused by the sheer amount of ‘d’awww’.
With that, I headed back to the farm. It was sort of strange to come on to Sweet Apple Acres and find all of the apples gone from the trees. They were all being stored in the barns for now, though starting next week, along with selling the freshly made cider, which was gone by nine anyway, Applejack would be selling bushels of apples in the market. I wondered if she’d take Apple Bloom with her this time. From what I had seen, that filly had all but invented pressure selling in Equestria. There were still other crops too; you couldn’t run a farm on just apples. The farm also sported corn, carrots, potatoes and a variety of other crops as well.
At day’s end I headed off to bed. Ideally tomorrow, I’d get in a proper training session with AJ and RD, learn from the best and all that. While I was certain I had no chance of winning against either of those two, I did want to finish in a respectable position. However, that night I wasn’t in for a typical night’s sleep.