“Colgate,” Lily directed at me, “are you ok? You haven’t even touched your tea since we sat down, and you’ve had the same look on your face since I got here.”
Indeed I hadn’t touched my tea or looked away from the corner of the table I had my eyes fixated on. I had invited Lily over for a morning session of tea, because we always met for tea on Saturdays. I wanted to tell her about those things I saw in the frozen world last night, but I had never told anypony about it before. It had always been my personal hideaway that could only be accessed by me. Now, though, there was something else there. There was something there I know wanted nothing more than to hurt me.
The creature reminded me of the ones that used to plague my dreams after my parents disappeared. I would always be standing on a patch of dirt in the middle of nowhere with a lantern sitting next to me. Blackness would be spread out around me, so thick that I couldn’t see anything through it. For a few moments, I would stand there, not daring to stray out from the light.
But then the eyes would start appearing. The blood-red eyes would pop up one by one until they formed a sea surrounding me. There were too many to keep track of, and when I looked away from one, it would advance. Before they would get close enough, the lantern next to me would go out. The eyes stayed, though, as if they were glowing. Silently they would approach me until I could feet their hot breath on my fur. Then they would leap forward and…
“Colgate!” Lily nearly screamed at me, marking me jerk backwards out of the trance I was in. I nearly fell over in my chair, only just catching myself with my magic before I toppled over. “Colgate, what’s up? You’re never this quiet when we’re together for tea.
“Sorry Lily,” I apologized, shaking my head to clear my mind. “I’m just out of it today. I…had a bad dream last night.” I instantly regretted that, as it came off sounding really childish.
“No offense Colgate,” she said, trying and failing to hold in a laugh, “but a bad dream?”
“At least I wasn’t freaking out about bunnies invading town screaming, ‘The horror!’” I mocked her as she instantly stopped laughing.
“You wouldn’t get that Colgate,” she said, blushing slightly. “Rabbits are terrible for a gardener like me. Those pests get into your garden and eat up your flowers and produce…”
I couldn’t help but let out a smile when she trailed off. I took a sip of my tea, and nearly spit it out when I realized that I had let it sit too long. It was lukewarm now and tasted horrible. I must have forgotten to ask Pinkie to add in my sugar. “I think I ordered the wrong tea,” I told Lily, setting the cup back down with my horn. “This tastes more bitter than I would have liked.”
“Colgate,” Lily started with a smile, “I can always tell when you’re trying to hide something. What’s on your mind?”
I never could evade that girl when it came to hiding a secret. She always called me out when I tried to change the subject or avoided a question. I knew it was pointless trying to keep her from figuring out what I was hiding from her, but I didn’t know how to tell her about my secret power. “If you must know, I’ve been hiding something from you for a while now.”
“Whoa, Colgate,” she jokingly started. “I don’t need to know about some poor stallion that you gave a botched dental job to or anything like that.”
“You and I both know that my dental skill are the best in Ponyville, just like your lilies and other flowers are the best,” I felt the need to say, even though I knew she wasn’t being serious. “And I want to tell you that I’m not joking around about this. This is serious.”
“Well then tell me, Mrs. Serious,” Lily said, with a fake expression of surprise on her face. “I don’t want to make you hold onto this secret any longer.”
“I can stop time,” I blatantly stated.
For a few seconds, Lily stood there with an open jaw, staring straight at me. Suddenly she burst out laughing and fell over backward in her chair. “That classic Colgate,” she managed to say in between laughs and gasps of air. “You thought I’d fall for that. You can stop time. Of course you can stop time.”
“I’m not kidding around with you, Lily,” I said, a little angry that she didn’t believe me. “I can really stop time. I’ve done it before!”
“Then why haven’t I noticed?” she said, still laughing, but fighting to control it.
“Because when I freeze time, everything freezes, including you. You wouldn’t notice unless you saw me disappear in front of you.”
“Colgate,” Lily started, getting back into her chair while giggling still, “I’m sorry, but I’ve been with Twilight, and she told me that time spells are nearly impossible to conjure. She only knows of a few, herself, and no time-stopping ones are on that list.”
“That’s because no one else knows about this spell but me, Lily,” I said, staring directly into her eyes, willing them to believe me. "My grandfather invented the spell himself!"
“I’m not convinced, Colgate,” she responded with a straight face, not joking with me anymore. “Twilight is the element of Magic herself, and I don’t think there’s a spell she doesn’t know. You and I both saw what she was capable of when that Ursa Minor came into town.”
“Then it looks like I’m going to have to show you, Lily,” I said grabbing her hoof with mine. “This may feel weird at first, but whatever you do don’t let go of me.”
“Wait, Colgate, what do you mean ‘show me,’ and why can’t I let go?” Lily asked, a her eyes darting from her hoof to my face.
Ignoring her questions, I closed my eyes and concentrated on a clock like my father had taught me when I was a filly. I imagined the hands of the clock ticking forward at a regular pace, and then concentrated on making them slow down. I heard Lily screaming for me in the background as time must be slowing down in front of her eyes. I ignored the pleas and concentrated on slowing the clock even further and further until the hands stopped ticking completely.
Opening my eyes to Lily’s shocked face, I told her, “Welcome to the frozen world.”