//------------------------------// // Chapter 8 // Story: The Failed Spell // by silverspawn //------------------------------// They were almost there. Twilight felt this, and the feeling strengthened with every step they took. The crow she had linked herself to was yet to move from where it had landed, and whatever it was sitting on was drawing close. Soon, they'd come across what would be the first change of sight since the spell. It could be a sign of the world, an abandoned building perhaps, or maybe even a change of landscape... Maybe the border was near, and maybe, just maybe, they'd end up making it without it even being close. Maybe... “We're almost there.” Rarity nodded, and Twilight found her gaze fixated on the fashionista long after the gesture was given. Her fur was tousled and dirty at parts, her mane hung down from both sides of her head, loose and unkempt and messy. Her eyes carried the unmistakable signs of strain and the loss of sleep, and the outlines of her face seemed rougher than normal. And there, on a chain around her neck, hung a pendant in the form of a diamond. Twilight had not spent a single thought on it for the past days. It had not interfered with any magic she had cast, nor had she even sensed its presence. And yet, somehow, it still seemed important to her, like a missing part of the puzzle... She loosened her gaze, casting it back ahead. Whatever they'd find, they'd find it soon... very soon... ... now. Twilight felt her heartbeat accelerating, and there, straight ahead, was a shape gradually loosening itself from the surrounding blackness. It was a tree. A tree not quite like any one she had seen before, but undoubtedly a tree. It’s trunk was thick, a circumference of several feet, its branches long but sparse. There were no leaves, not a single speck of green, but there were fruits, little, misshapen, brown things. And crows. It looked as though every bird that had sought them out the day before was now here. They were sitting on the branches, on the ground beside the tree, or flying circles above its trunk. The sight filled Twilight with a strange and unexpected sense of joy, and she realized that she had wanted to see them again. But it was a feeling vastly overshadowed by a crushing wave of disappointment. She had hoped that whatever they'd find would be a sign of the world, a connection. But this, this tree, strange and alien and mysterious, was merely another oddity that she could not explain. About to say something, she turned her head towards her friend, but when she saw the tears in Rarity’s eyes, she swallowed it. For once, it looked as though she had better control over her emotions than the fashionista did. She suppressed a sigh, gazing back towards the tree. Was this the answer? Was there an ecological system outside the world, and was rain all this tree needed to grow? And were the crows capable of living off its fruits? But then Rarity made a sound, a strange mixture between a sob and a laugh, and Twilight realized that she had misinterpreted her tears entirely. They did not derive from disappointment, but from joy. “I’m... sorry,” she murmured. “It is just that we have not seen anything... anything since the spell. It was so harrowing to see the same landscape again, every hour of every day. Although...” She gave a weak smile. “I suppose this tree is not what we have hoped for, is it?” Twilight swallowed. “No.” “But it is a source of food.” “Mh.” Twilight gave the fruits a leery glance. They did not look edible, and just as she had said, crows were omnivores. The fact that they were seemingly capable of digesting them did not mean that Rarity and her would be able to do the same. And, of course, it should be impossible for the birds to survive on just the fruits of a single tree. “Darling?” “I’m...” Twilight hesitated. “I’m not sure plucking them is a good idea.” Rarity raised an eyebrow. “Well... for one, this does not explain what the crows live from. This tree is not enough for over a dozen birds.” “I suppose so, but there are a number of explanations for that.” Rarity stepped closer towards the tree, and Twilight was quick to follow so as to keep her from stepping out of the range of the dome. “Maybe there are more trees like this nearby, or maybe the swarm migrates from one to the next across large distances over the course of a year. Or, maybe they need so little that this is sufficient.” “Alright. But... do you see any of the crows actually eating them?” Rarity cast a look upwards. For a good thirty seconds, both of them watched the swarm, but no crow made any attempts to pluck or bite into one of the fruits. “Well, if you are afraid that they’re poisonous, you could still pluck one of them. Maybe having a closer look at it will be helpful.” Instead of following the suggestion, Twilight merely bit her lip. It could be her paranoia, but Rarity herself had suggested it, and this... “What if the tree doesn’t like that?” A part of her had expected to get a derisive response, but instead, Rarity took several seconds to think about the question before she nodded. “A good thing you brought it up, I must say. I surely would have been too eager to reach the food to bother. But then, what do you suggest?” “I don’t know.” Twilight took one more step towards Rarity, closing her eyes in thought. What could they do? There were no spells to detect consciousness, no spells to look inside someone’s mind. Magic was a tool to manipulate space and matter, not life. Her magic would not help her to find out if the tree was some sort of conscious being, nor would it tell her anything useful about the crows. But if the tree was conscious, then maybe... “Can you hear me?” It were words spoken out loud and clear, but she got no reaction. The crows’ behavior did not change, and the tree stood still, unbothered. Then, upon a few more moments of contemplation, Rarity gave her a poke at her shoulder, but when Twilight followed the gesture, there was nothing unusual to be seen. “What happened?” “One of the crows flew up to a fruit and took a bite,” Rarity said. “But the fruit is still there.” She gently tugged at it, much too feebly to remove it from its branch, but enough to have the light gray glow signal to Twilight which one she meant. “Okay then.” After a moment of hesitation, Twilight grabbed the fruit in her telekinesis, but instead of plucking it, she sliced through its center, cleanly cutting it in half. It was easy; whatever the fruit was made of, it was soft. Her breath held, she anxiously watched the tree and the crows, but once again, there was no reaction. Unlike the day before, the crows did not even seem to acknowledge their presence. Twilight summoned the slice she had cut off for Rarity and her see. It was brown, not unlike the ground below them, its only pattern being a few dots of slightly darker color. Bringing it close to her muzzle, Twilight sniffed at it, but if there was a smell, then she was incapable of noticing it. “I smell nothing,” she said, offering it to Rarity. Rarity took her turn, then shook her head. “Neither do I. Do you know of any spells useful to see whether or not this is edible?” “No. None.” “Well then.” The fruit still in her telekinesis, Rarity gradually moved it closer. Twilight couldn’t help noticing that it was jittering a bit in her grasp. “The odds of us surviving because of this beat those of dying to something poisonous. We... do not have much of a choice, I'd say.” “Wait.” Her instincts had moved faster than her thoughts, and she needed a few moments to realize why she was protesting. “I’ll do it. If only one of us makes it home, it will be you. It is that or none of us. I could not live on if you die.” Rarity closed her eyes, and Twilight was almost sure that she would protest, but she didn’t. “As you wish.” “Okay.” Twilight could feel the blood rushing into her head as she moved the fruit closer to her muzzle, and she could hear the sound of her own heartbeat when she opened her mouth to take a tiny bite. “What does it taste like?” Twilight did not chew on her bite, it was too small, but she moved it around in her mouth before, eventually, she swallowed. It had a strangely uniform substance, there was no shell, no core, just an unknown lump. “Doesn’t taste like anything.” “How do you feel?” Twilight tried to listen inside herself. “I feel nothing.” And so it was. There was no nausea, no repulsion, but neither could she feel the liquidation of hunger, or, more likely, its sudden growth. It was not kindled by the long-awaited arrival of food, nor otherwise affected. Maybe their bodies were incapable of digesting the fruits, but the more likely explanation was that they were too strange, too disgusting, for her to get hungry at a taste. “I don’t think eating them will be harmful, so...” She reached out with her telekinesis, took hold of five more fruits... and plucked them whole, one at a time. Something inside her, she realized, had expected there to be a reaction this time. But nothing. “Uhm... maybe we should wait a few more minutes, to see if I’ll feel something bad? I’m pretty sure there are things which only affect you a while after you ate them.” But Rarity shook her head. “I know a bit about this, and the delay can be any amount of time. We do not have time, Twilight. We need to take the risk.” Twilight paused, shivering. Her muscles tensed up, and involuntarily, a drop of her saliva fell onto the ground. She knew Rarity was right, but when she took the first of many bites, all she could think, all she wished, all she prayed for, was that doing so would not seal her downfall. From the moment of the spell, failure had either been inevitable or possible. In case of the former, all of their actions had been bound to futility from the start, their death sealed right then and there. But if there had once been a way, then this might be the mistake that would lose them their chance, shut the door towards hope once and for all. Or, it might be a necessary gambit, one more in a string of choices that, when taken the right path every time, would eventually lead them home.