The Season of Bloom
Day 5
Year 4 B.E
The days I taught Memory Sparks the necessities of life passed by. She was slowly getting a feel for proper etiquette in society, which surprises me. A grown pony would have a considerable amount of time to learn something new, as their minds aren't as apt as a foal's. See, the mind of a foal are like sponges. They absorb in all their information and they retain all that information, even if it's pushed back in their mind. But Memory was taking in all this information. I was giving her a feast of knowledge.
The warm weather was soon to come upon us. The ponies were opening up their stalls to sell their sweet flowers and fruits that will grow in time. Foals were out playing their little games and sport. I've let my student play with the foals, as many of them recognize her from previous encounters, from what I suspect. The way she interacted with them, using the skills I taught her...the children loved her all the more when she spoke about me. They constantly teased her that she had a special somepony. I giggled a bit, but as I write this, I can't help but let loose a tear.
But one of the things that irked me about her was her open-mindedness and the questions she asked. I mean, I understand that it is amazing to expand your mind, but she asks questions like why we communicate the way we do or the origins of the etiquette that I present her. I wish I knew, but these were things that were present in our past. If recorded history were to begin a bit further in our history as ponykind, we would know a great deal of many subjects. Gah, I'm digressing.
Another thing at the time was her belief in the doctrines that the ponies in white spoke about. These ponies would talk about Faust, a pony in the sky having the fur of the sleekest marble and a flowing mane of deep rubies, that created our fair land, the sun and moon, and the far beyond. She had the wings of the pegasi, horn of a unicorn, and endurance of an earth pony. She created two daughters, named Day-Herald and Night-Dreamer as they were called in this religion, to take on the task of moving the two celestial bodies of the sky. There is more lore into the religion, but you could already guess the rest.
As I cook breakfast on this day, Memory awakes from her slumber, beaming with full joy. Bouncing off of the newly bought bed, she stretched and zipped toward me. She was clearly ecstatic.
"Luna visited me in my sleep!" She barked happily in my ear. I almost fumbled with a carton of orange juice before I placed it back right-side up.
"Who now?" I breathed a breath of relief as I calmly poured orange juice in two glasses.
"Night-Dreamer! Her real name is Luna and she visited me when I was having a nightmare." She looked abashed and away. This nightmare seemed to have bothered her, but this...Luna...has soothed her. "I know you don't like my religion, but..." Her hooves used her mane as a away to assuage herself. "...she's always been there for me."
At the time, I didn't believe in such thing. How could I? They used stories and fabrications in order to explain the natural order of things instead of admit that they lack the knowledge of their surroundings and pursue the means of how it works. I smiled nonetheless and hugged her. "Memory, if it's something that helps you, then I don't mind." I soothed her with kind words. But what I said next, I should've kept my mouth shut. "Just don't push it upon me." I said with a stern look. She looked up and me and pouted a little.
"But she is real!" She whined. "One day, I'll show you and everypony else!"
"I will believe it when the evidence is provided. Now, let's go to the facility." I calmly murmured, not wanting to elevate her contrition. She slowly nodded, having a small stream streaming down her face. I gulped and sighed. "Hey, maybe she'll visit me along with her sister."
"Celestia doesn't come into dreams. She controls the Sun and leads while Luna controls the Moon and helps keep nightmares away." She looked up at me.
Rolling my eyes, I hoofed over her orange juice to her and took a swig of my glass. The tangy taste of the juice hitting my tongue. I liked it, somewhat. It was simply a means for me to wake up or quench my thirst when I ran out of apple cider.
My mind went off to dwell on Memory recalling her dream and statements. The names of Celestia and Luna, much to my chagrin, sounds a lot better than Day-Herald and Night-Dreamer. Those phony names sounded like they were made up on the spot. Whatever her mind was doing, it was working and making sure Memory Sparks stayed true.
"We'll grab a bite to eat. Prepare for the day. Bring your bag and make sure the jewels and crystals are in there." I commanded with purpose and intellect. She nodded and rushed to the bathroom. As she zoomed around the complex of my home to gather herself, I tied my cape in a knot around my neck slowly, making sure it was correctly at length. Once I was done, Memory stood by the door. Grinning, my bag found its place on my back, signalling that we were ready to go.
Walking out of the apartment, we quickly grabbed some blueberry sandwiches and a small block of cheese for when we get hungry before lunch. We walked into the 3rd Quarter of the Empire, seeing the birds flutter by towards a small puddle of water. A large portion of this quarter was dedicated to preserve the natural forest that used to be here, but not having the harsh winter colors. The evergreen leaves with a serrated pattern made some ponies steer clear of this part of the forest, believing something deadly awaited in there. Umbra and I examined the area and found nothing, but kept the fact secret.
"Alright. I'm going to teach you about the gem and jewelry of the empire. As you no doubt know, our crystal shards are set up in different colors to differentiate between what's more valuable. Can you take out the shards please?" I asked, placing a picnic mat against the dewy grass. Ceremoniously, she dumped all the contents of the back out onto the mat. "Or...take the rest of the jewels out. That's marvelous, too."
"I'm sorry." she squeaked bashfully.
"It's not a problem." Putting my hoof forward, I swipe away the rest of the gems, leaving these shards shaped in a small elongated rectangular prism. They were dense and difficult to break, not even a hammer could break it. They were enchanted to be that way, so merchants wouldn't be fooled by counterfeit clones.
"I always wonder why they make money like this..." Memory muttered. I chuckled at the sentiment.
"It's a complex reason. The currency back in the day was just trading something more or equal in value to get what you want. It started to become a worthless way of trading until they found that this area was full of jewels and crystals. To diminish the value of these items, our ancestors used them as homes, tools, etc.. One day, a pegasus, with his hammer and chisel, created a few crystals in these shapes." I held up the crystal shards. "...and used them to trade. Then, he worked with a unicorn to enchant them to make it official; creating a banking system. I won't get into it, but that's the start. One of the greatest history of this empire, though. So!" I took each colored one and sorted them out.
"Which one is which? There were days where I'd get some back when I give one red. Some days, they reject the money." She sniffed at them to take in its scent.
"The green ones is just 1 C.S., meaning one crystal shard." My hooves started to point to each colored shards. "This blue one equals to 5 C.S. and yellow ones are 10 C.S." I pointed to the red one. "Can you guess how much this is?"
"Umm, 20?" She spoke with a hunch.
"Correct! You're getting a hang of this. Maybe one day, you'll be as smart as me." I beamed at my compliments to her. I pointed to the purple shards. "And this?"
"30?"
"Nope. Sorry, it's 50." I chuckled. She fumed a little from that.
"That doesn't make any sense! Why would they skip 30 and 40 all the way to 50?!" She was a little irritated, but kept her cool. One thing I had to learn was to keep my patience, lest I incur her fury. I didn't want to repeat the first day of my teaching her.
"To keep it simple. Don't want too much of everything. They're simple numbers that can go up to 10...or 100. With the number one, you need ten of the green shards in order to have their value equal to the yellow shards. With the blue, just two. You'll get the hang of it later on as the years pass."
"Okay...it hurts my head to learn all of this. This is a lot of stuff to learn. I bet it's easier to just live calm and happy...like you do." Memory grumbled annoyingly. I raised my eyebrows at her. I understood her contempt, but she didn't know a lot about me, besides that I was a unicorn that had magic and was nice enough to give her a home.
"Well, I can't complain about my life. I teach ponies of all ages and live comfortably. But recent days like when you attacked me are ones I like the most." She looked up at me in disbelief.
"Why? I knew you were a crazy pony, but why would you like that?"
"It breaks the cycle." I beamed, the wound becoming less apparent as I inspected it with my hooves. "I eat, go to teach, converse with Umbra, eat, sleep, and repeat. It gets dull. So when something breaks that cycle, I treasure those moments. Think of it as a wheel. A perfect circle that keeps going and going until a rock bumps it, making it topple." I blushed a bit and stuttered for a moment. "That sounds more of a downfall than my own process of life. I doubt anything like that could happen."
"So...you're saying that..." She started to blush a lot. "...you like me?"
"I just met you a week ago! Feelings of love don't happen that quickly!" I managed to stammer. "You are my student, and as such, I'm dedicated to help you off your hooves. How did you interpret my metaphor as such?!"
"You said you treasure moments that break your wheel." I stared at her before giggling at the statement. It was humorous to hear her speak. She tries to copy the things I say without knowing the meaning of the words or the sentence. "What's so funny? Did I say it wrong?" She mumbled loudly, shying away slightly.
"No! No...well, yes, but you're still learning." Putting away the crystal shards back in her bag, I stopped to see the glimmering jewel in her bag. It was in the same shape as the Crystal Heart, but gleamed in an aura of rainbow instead of shining white like the aforementioned gem. Fixated, I brought it out of her bag and placed it on the picnic mat. Her eyes widened, but she restrained herself from taking it.
"Memory Sparks, please tell me how you obtained this jewel. It looks as if some pony tried to create the Crystal Heart." I inquired. She smiled and held it.
"Luna told me to bring it to you, saying you can learn about it!" There she goes about Luna. But what sent chills down my spine was the fact that Luna, the pony that I believed was in her head, told Memory to give it to me in hopes I learn about it.
"Well, tomorrow, we can go to the facility and you can look through the learning books while I research this. It is amazing. I never seen the Crystal Heart shaped in such way. What do you say?" I asked, continuing to inspect the Rainbow Heart, as I called it. She beamed and nodded, getting up to stretch. "Then it's settled. Let's pack up and eat. Tomorrow, we go."