"Mark, time to wake up!"
My eyes flew open as a voice boomed in the room, jarring me wake. I sat up from my bed and found Twilight & Spike by the door, waiting for me to respond. Twilight had a big goofy grin on her face, eager to start her day. Spike, however, looked a little less happy to start the day, but he kept himself busy with a scroll and quill in his claws.
"What time is it?" i grumbled as I rubbed the gunk out of my eyes, taking a look out the window. Outside I saw it was still early, the sun had barely begun to rise as the sky was still colored a night shade. "It's not even sun up yet!" I complained as I laid back down in the bed.
"Come on, Mark. Get up. The early bird gets the worm!" Twilight whined as she watched me try to go back to sleep.
"Just give me another hour." I mumbled as I already sunk back in a comfy position.
"Uhh-Unh, no can do buddy!" Twilight said as she used her magic to lift the covers off my bed, forcing me to sit back up to look at her. "We have a lot to do today, and I want to make sure we cover everything we can on the schedule today. And the first order of business is for you to get out of bed!"
"Fine. Fine! I'm up, I'm up. Okay?!" I complained as I hopped off the bed, giving a long, stiff yawn. "Happy now?"
"Yes." twilight answered with a nod, clearly ignoring my objection on the matter. "Now go take a shower, then meet us in the kitchen for some breakfast. Then we can get started for the day."
I watched as Twilight trotted out of the door, humming happily as she did. I just shook my head at the sight, completely taken back by her pep. She reminded me of a eager schoolgirl, the one that woke up early and was ready to start the day. I remembered when I was a kid, getting up in the morning for school. It always took me an hour, a hot shower, two cups of coffee, and the local weather channel to wake me up all the way. Not Twilight apparently! As I made my way to the door, I saw Spike standing by the doorframe, a smirk clear on his face.
"I told you so." He said matter of factly.
"Just show me where the bathroom is!" I snapped.
A nice, hot shower was just what I needed to make me feel like a zillion bucks--- or bits, as it were. All the worries, all the troubles in my mind, washed away as the warm water poured over my body. It took me awhile to figure out how to work the shower head, things were different yet similar to things back on earth. But after a few trails and errors, I was able to take a shower without water spaying everywhere in the room. Don't ask. After I was done, I hopped out of the shower, dried off with a nearby towel, as well as make sure the room wasn't completely wet, and left the bathroom to make my way to the kitchen.
As I made my way down the halls, I couldn't help but marvel at how fantastic the place looked. What could I say, I'm just a simple poor boy at heart. And the fact that I was now staying inside a crystal castle, that happened to be coming out of a tree, was bllowing my mind. Wait a minute, where is kitchen again? It took me a few minutes and a few wrong turns down a few hallways, but I soon found my way to the kitchen. Inside, I found Twilight and Spike sitting at a table, waiting for me. Twilight was eatting a slice of toast along with a glass of orange juice, while Spike was chomping away at a bowl of cereal. There was nothing wrong with what they was having, it was a quick small meal to start the day. But THAT was the problem! We were in a castle, that had a kitchen so big that could feed over fifty people!
"What are you guys eatting?" I asked, shocked by such a simple breakfast.
"Breakfast." Twilight simply stated.
"Want some?" Spike asked as he pointed his spoon toward the cereal box on the table.
"You call this breakfast?"
"What do you mean?" Twilight asked, giving me an enquisitive look.
"I mean that you have a huge kitchen, packed to the gills with anything you want to eat..." I waved my hoof around, pointing at the cupboards and pantries to make my point. "And here you guys are eatting a tiny breakfast! What's up with that?!"
Twilight and Spike gave each other a quick look, before returning their attention back to me. "Well, the truth of the matter is..." Twilight began, giving me a small shrug of her shoulders. "We have almost a dozen cooks in this castle that could fix us a big meal anytime we wanted. But we choose to fix our own meals, instead of being pampered."
"Maybe so..." I held up a hoof while I shook my head. "But you shouldn't have to settle for such a small breakfast when you could fix something better." I finished, before making my way to the cupboards and rummaging through it for some pots and pans.
"What are you doing?" Twilight asked, giving me a puzzeled look.
I just turned my head before giving her a smirk. "Fixing us a proper breakfast!"
"That was delicious!" Spike exclaimed as he patted his full belly.
"I must admit, this was a great meal. Thank you, Mark." Twilight said as she wiped her mouth with a napkin.
True to my word, I had a fixed them a 'proper' breakfast. It was a little hard at first, what with hooves and all, but once I had things going, it proved to be no challenge at all. I was able to fix a batch of fried taters, scrambled eggs (Funny how the ponies won't eat meat, but eat unborn chicken eggs), and some biscuits. It took about half an hour to fix, and I dirtied quite a few pots and pans, but it was worth it. The pleased look that Twilight and Spike gave me a gave me a much needed boost of confidence, which made my heart fill with pride. Seriously, I always thought my food tasted like shit, but they actually liked it. Who knew.
"Thanks. I didn't think my cooking skills were ever really that good." I stated honestly, rubbing the back of my head with a hoof.
"Are you kidding me? It was one of the best breakfasts I ever had!" Spike proclaimed, earning a stern look from Twilight. "Uhh.... besides YOURS of course. He he...." He corrected, giving her a sheepish smile.
"Anyway..." Twilight began, looking at me. "Now that breakfast is finished, we can finally get started for the day." She stood up from the chair before taking our empty plates with her magic, and placing them into the sink. "Our first order of business it to run some tests, to try to figure out the type of magic you possess. Then, if we can, we'll teach you to control that magic. That way, you'll be ready for whoever it is that's after you."
"You really think I can learn magic?" I asked Twilight.
"We're going to try." She said with a smile. "Now let's go."
"Wait, what about the dirty dishes?"
"Don't worry about that. The maids will take care of that." Twilight waved a hoof dismissively.
"Heh. I guess it gives them something to do, right?" I asked as I rolled my eyes.
"Exactly." She said with smirk.
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"You don't have any magic."
I blinked. "Errr.... sorry, wasn't listening. Did you just say I don't have any magic?"
"Pay attention. The charts and readings say that no type of magic is inside you."
"Then what did I defeat that golem with? My farts?" I asked sarcastically.
"No, not remotely like that." Twilight stated, a look of disgust on her face at my question. "Just that whatever magic you used to defeat it isn't there anymore."
"Are the readings off?"
"No, I don't think so. I checked the readings multiple times, and they're not wrong. I even used my magic to check your body for any magical energy, but I could hardly find anything worth mentioning. A small trace of magic is inside every living thing, but unicorns are able to use it with there horns."
"And alicorns." I added.
"Yes. Especially alicorns." She said soberly. "From what I can tell from my scans, your aura of magic is quite a bit stronger then any earth pony's, but still nowhere near the level of an unicorn."
"So what does that a mean?"
"It means that whatever magic you used is now dormant inside you, barely able to be read by any scanners or detection spells." Twilight concluded.
We had been inside what Twilight called her 'laboratory', a room filled to the brim machines and do-dads, for well over two hours. Technology in Equestria flew completely over my head. It made no sense! They had stoves, fridges, washers and dryers, lightbulbs....but not T.V's, microwaves, phones, computers or any other form of house hold entertainment. And their mode of transportation was even crazier! They had trains, air balloons, ships, scooters, carriages.... but not cars, subways, blimps, planes or bikes. Their choice for weapons were even more backwords. They wore armor and used weapons like spears, tridents and double bladed staffs, which they used in their mouths or used magic to carry them. It was like they were stuck between the medevil times and the late 1800's.
And how everything worked was beyond my intelligence. they used magic to run just about ever machine they had. 'How does the fridge work?', magic. 'How does the stove work?', magic. 'How does the lights in the house work?', magic. Magic was starting to seem like the ponies answer for everything. It was so weird, they had technology, but used magic to power and run them. If only earth could use magic as well, then they wouldn't need to worry about high gas prices and low fossil fuels. I thought to myself.
"So now what do we do?" I asked, giving up my trail of thought on Equestria tech.
"Well, not much we can do for now." Twilight said, as she took the stack of chart papers in her magical grip, and placed them on top of a nearby table. "We'll have to do some more test later, but for now, the only thing we can is wait. Maybe your magic is still waiting to be unlocked, and will develop over time."
"Then I guess the magic lesson is cancelled, then?"
"Not necessarily." She shook her head with a smile. "Just because you can't use magic right now, doesn't mean you can't learn it. While you wait to unlock your magical abilities, you can study about magic and it's properties. That why when you can use magic, you'll know how to control it a little better." She then turned and began to make way to the door. "Come on, let's go."
"Where are we going?"
"The library!"
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After Twilight studied on me like a guinea pig, we made our way to the library. Color me a geek, but I wanted to see the sort of books Twilight had lying around. And if she had any history books, I wanted to learn as much as I could about Equestria's past. How the kingdom was formed, how ponies came to be the dominant species in the land. Who their enemies where, and what type of wars they fought. Everything! Back home, I was always a history buff, watching every documentary and WW2 special they aired on History channel. And now that I was in a brand spanking new world, I wanted to cram all the info I could into my noggin.
Surprise, surprise, the library was right out of a nineteenth century catalog. Huge walls, lush wine-colored carpet which I sunk up to my ankles, mahogany furniture, and shelves of books. As far as the eye can see. The desk was big enough for three people to work at comfortably without them ever brushing elbows. Ridiculous! Spike told me that Twilight was a bookworm earlier, but I didn't think she was THIS bad!
On the wall behind the desk was a framed photo. It was big and well framed, full of color and life. It was of Twilight and the other girls standing in the center of Ponyville. They were all smiling and looked happy as they all huddled together for the shot. They sure look so happy. I thought. This must have been taken when Twilight first moved to Ponyville. She doesn't have her wings yet. I wonder if she thought she'd ever become as important as she is now when they took this little snapshot?
It was the only photo in the room.
While Twilight left me alone in room to study, going off to handle her royal duties, I started looking through the books. The entire encyclopedia collection, no surprise there. Books of poems, which WAS a surprise. I hadn't pegged Twilight as a girl who ate up that poem mush. On the other hoof, she was a female. That doesn't mean that every girl loved poetry, but for a loser like me, it was a better foot in the door. Not that I was thinking of wooing Twilight or anything. Anyway....
One entire wall was filled with educational books, or how to do it yourself books. I didn't bother to look at any of them, seeing how most of the titles seemed silly or I already knew about the subject. Who needs a book to learn about slumber parties?! I looked at another shelf. There were some science book of every type, from bio-chemistry to environmental. Atlases. 'The Geography of the World' in thirty-two volumes.....
And what do we have here? The middle shelf had it's own unique genre: Creatures of Equestria; History of Equestria; Facts about Changelings; Harmony and Chaos; Fall of the Crystal Empire; Myths and Legends of Bat Ponies. "Bingo!" I said as pulled a few of the books off the shelf and ran to the desk to place them down. Getting comfy in the chair, I grabbed the book on the top, figuring I'd work my way from top to bottom, and flipped the book open. Time to learn what I can about this place.
I slammed the book shut, my head was throbbing. I was able to skim throught some of the books, reading what I could while trying not to read every book from cover to cover. I was tired, but I had learned quite a bit about several things in Equestria. Celestia and Luna rise to power happened over a thousand years ago, when they used the Elements of Harmony to stop Discord's reign of terror. Sealing him in stone. Then they defeated Lord Sombra to stop his enslaving of the crystal ponies of the Crystal Empire. Phew... say that three times fast! Anyway, They stopped him, but at the cost of the Crystal Empire disappearing until now. And then there was the event of Nightmare Moon, when Celestia had to banish her sister to moon inorder to stop her from throwing Equestria in enternal Darkness. That must have been so hard for her to do that. I hope they've made up since then.
Then there was the book about changelings. A bug-type pony that could shapeshift into anyone, using stealth to capture their pray and feed of their love. While that thought seemed a little silly, the fact was they left their victims as an empty husk, which they used to make them willing slaves, and that they could even turn those victims into changelings if giving enough time. They reminded me of a combo between the xenomorphs and vampires. They coccoon their victims in green slime, keeping them weak, while they feed off of, or even mated with their victims. The thought of that made my skin crawl.
I was just starting on the book about 'bat ponies', when I decided to take a much needed break. As I rested my eyes and gave my brain a rest, I saw Spike enter the room.
"Hey Spike." I said to him smile.
"Whoa..." He looked at me in surprise, seeing the books next to me on the desk. "You've been here reading the whole time? You're almost as big of a bookworm as Twilight."
"Huh? What do you mean?" I asked curiously. "How long HAVE I been in here?"
"Just about four hours." He replied.
"Four hours?!" I asked stunned by how long it truely had been. "Time sure does fly!" I chuckled.
"I don't how you guys can stand reading books without pictures for so long." Spike said as he shook his head. "Give me a comic book any day!"
"I hear you. Comics are so much cooler. The action, the art, and the story.... if done right. What's not to love?"
"Wait.... You read comics?" He asked totally stunned as he looked up at me.
"Of course! Back home, I was a big time comic nerd." I stated. Recalling my huge stack of Spider-man, The Avengers, Superman and Batman collections.
"Do you want to see some of my comics?" He asked eagerly, his eyes almost seemed to sparkle.
"Sure." I said with a smile. "Lead the way."
And with that, I spend about the rest of the day hanging out with Spike.