Chapter three:
About Hooves and Hay
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So, the magic of a unicorn is conducted through it´s horn. The magic of a pegasus is conducted into it´s wings and fur. So far, so logical. But where, I asked myself, was the target of an earthpony´s magic? It was to profound for me to even think that it was simply guided into it´s muscles.
So again I went on to wander through the kingdom, this time to it´s far borders.
There were no earthpony-cities, right? There were the cities of the pegasi, huge formations of clouds, floating over their lands and build with magnificent, old structures shaped like marble columns from older times.
There were the fortifications of the unicorns, always combining the palatially of the interior with thick walls of stone to protect their wealth.
And there were villages like the one where I grew up, under the regency of a certain king or queen but mostly independent and inhibited by a mixture of all three kinds, while the percentage amount still depended on where the village was. Everblue Lake, for example, was inhibited by 60% unicorns and around 30% earthponys who did the field work. The rest were either pegasi or travelers who did come and go so fast that you could not really count them.
But earthponys did not have big cities to compare, only farms or granges. Wide areas, easily miles over miles of acres and in the center of them the farm houses from the family that owned and cultivated all the land, right?
That was how I had imagined it. And, as often happens in my younger days, I had no idea.
New Peach Acres was not a city. It was the earthpony-equivalent of a metropolis.
While in comparison with my quiet village with three hundred inhabitants Santa Pegasi with over five thousand people overturned me, New Peach Acres with close to two thousand had not to fear any comparisons.
The whole city was not build in an urban, but more in an rustic country-style. And to inhibit two thousand ponies in single-family housing, the city had spread over an area of more square-miles than my eyes could count. And a few minutes outside of the city, the orchards began. All kinds of fruits covered a distance comparable to Canterlot-Cloudsdale with shimmering colors of red, orange, yellow, green and much more like a rainbow.
There were multiple schools (so much to the uneducated earthponys my father all the time told about..), bars and restaurants, a city hall, at station of the city guards (very nice stallions, who were even willingly to show me a bit around), a hospital, five doctors (we were happy to at least having one back in our village) and a public transportation system (which I, one eye always on my small budget, prudently was not going to use) and the best of all: hotels au pony.
There were, if I did notice it correctly, no other unicorns in the entire town, so I had no hard time finding board and lodging in exchange for my help with... basically everything hooves where not designed for. Like repairing sewer pipes, for example.
It was a simple time of work and reflection for me, and beside a small wage I worked close together with them and thereby quickly gained insights in the magic of our third kind.
As it turned out, their accursed magic was guided directly into their muscles.
Same like Clouddancer´s magic was guided from her subconscious into her wings, conducted from an invisible source into her anatomy, an earthpony´s magic went, where ever it came from, right into his muscles every time it was needed.
But that did by far not explain why earthponys had such a strong bound with nature, why they were so great with animals or why they did not shatter all bones in their hind legs when they were bucking against the peach trees like an elemental force.
There was one pony I remember the best.. Suncrest. Blue mane, orange coat, a few years older than me and of a size that he could easily match a full-grown alicorn. (And no, I don´t remember what I compared him to first, because I did not know any alicorns at that time.)
He was not only a champion in peach-bucking. He was the most gentle giant I had ever met. After working together on the fields for a while, I told him about the reason for my journey and he generously offered to house me and and to let me study him at his work. He himself got curious about his own magic, although he most times accepted that it simply was the way it was.
I soon found out that Suncrest was a stallion of many trades. If he was not busy with harvesting peaches (what was, after all, just possible during the season), he did, together with a small group of other ponys, care for a bunch of critters.
“With the building of this city,” he explained to me, “many animals lost their homes. I found it only right to give them a new one.”
I could not believe what I saw: He used his garden not only to house at minimum more than a hundred animals, he as well planted the food for them, explaining that he could simply not afford to buy the amount of food they ate.
And while I had my difficulties finding out what this special bond between animal and pony was, from the first day on living with him I did no longer question it´s existence. Suncrest spoke the language of the animals, and one may claim that I got senile in my... advanced age, but when ever Suncrest asked an animal to do or not do something, they understood him. And in return, when they talked to him, he could understand them as well.
This was a kind of magic that I, even until now, do not claim to fully understand. So I will follow Master Glimmer and write down several of my experiences where I could study it, maybe some smart earthpony reading this will fully understand it and in a book of him/herself will bring light to this phenomenon:
One day, one of Suncrest´s hedgehogs almost got into an accident with a buckboard. After nearly dying of a heart attack (Suncrest, nota bene, not the hedgehog), he told the critter that he had to be careful when leaving the garden. And the hedgehog nodded. And he was not only moving his head up and down, he was looking with a sense of guilt that much reminded me of myself when my father read me the riot act after that tree-incident. And from that day on, said hedgehog never again tried to cross any road alone.
At an other occasion, he had to repair a wheel of his cart and I was not around to lift it (we had many long evenings full of work to do and I therefore mostly was a bit longer asleep than the usual, used-to-it workpony). When I came down the stairway to the living room, I saw a bear, standing there and lifting the cart for him.
He really asked a bear from around the city if he could lend him a paw. And so we had a bear, nearly triple my size or double the size of Suncrest, standing there and lifting the vehicle up so Suncrest could reach the axis and fix it. And said bear did not even try to... well, have a second breakfast with some of the bunnies running around inside the home, if you understand. He was just standing at the spot, peaceful and tranquil.
And the third event I want to tell about happened just at the peak of winter. While another year had passed, this one felt even colder than the one up in Santa Pegasi. And while pegasi may be immune to the cold, earthponys like the cold as little as I do. And Suncrest´s neighbour did in his defense against the cold miscalculate the amount of logs in his fireplace. Sufficient enough to set his whole house on fire.
Suncrest and I went down to the close river that evening to check if the ducks were all right and fed well. And on our way back, we could see the flames from far. Asking him to wait for me was pointless. He had a better stamina than me and the much more urgent desire to return as fast as possible. When I finally cached up, I saw him prop up this neighbour´s house with all his force to prevent it from falling onto the garden. Suncrest´s garden, where all the critter´s lived. The houses in the city were build completely out of wood and therefore the support beams tend to break quickly if set on fire. The house already had a significant slant.
I helped with my magic as well as I could, but in the end it was Suncrest´s deed that prevented much worse. At first, he did support the house with the force of a titan. So intense and concentrated on holding his position that I could feel the magic pouring out of the ground and into his body. And then he simply shouted “Wake up and get out!” towards his garden. And the animals followed the command. They did not simply get out of their holes because they recognized his voice. They came out like they know word by word what he told, and even like they could hear the panic in his voice.
Only after every critter was save he allowed the house to break off, falling on what was easily one fourth of his garden and covering the rest of it with sparks and glimming fragments, but it was after all winter and most of his garden was covered with a gentle layer of snow, so nothing else was set on fire.
And while the voluntary fire brigade of the city extinguished the ruins, Suncrest could only rest after he counted his animals twice and ensuring that not a single one of them was hurt.
And while he did so, I followed the returning magic out of his body and in the earth. And then I understood what made us capable of using this natural source of magic: It was our own, pure will.
Like it had been my will ten years ago to tear this tree out of the ground, like it had been my will not to let go this group of unicorns fall into the gorge, it had been Suncrest´s will not to yield until the last one of his animals were save.
And then, as to close this dramatic story with another act of kindness and generosity, the now homeless neighbor was temporarily taken in by Suncrest and its "roommates".
The rest of the winter we three lived together calm and peaceful and Suncrest and I helped the neighbour (he of course had a name, I just sadly forgot about it) to rebuild his house.
These days of warm and open hearts will forever stay in my mind and I often wished to continue my studies of earthpony magic, even if they would have been without any results and just an excuse to simply return to my friends and live with them trough another cold winter in front of a warm fireplace.