//------------------------------// // Chapter 7 // Story: Dreamstrider // by OkemosBrony //------------------------------// It’s still snowing heavily outside, so I have to brush all the snow off me once I walk into school. But it’s the last day before break, so I’m excited! Today’s just going to be presentations of our projects, so it’s not like we really have much to do. It’ll be a fun way to wrap up before we all go back home for a while. I walk into the classroom and sit down next to Dusty, who’s adjusting a few settings on our siphon. “It all ready?” “Yeah,” he says, taking his hooves off it. “You bring the plant?” Nodding, I reach into my bags and pull out the yellow, withered plant I hopelessly tried to grow in my room. I’ve never been good with plants. “You sure it’ll work?” “It’ll work,” he says confidently. “I made sure it worked.” “When do you want to go? I say we should go first.” “Let’s go a little later,” he mumbles. “We should go first, just to get it out of the way. Everypony will just be too worried about their own presentation to pay attention to ours.” “Okay,” he agrees. Glacial and Arcane Force walk in and sit down at his desk, then she looks at me. “So what did you guys do?” “We made a siphon,” I say proudly, pointing to it. “What are you going to use it for?” she asks, staring it. “You’ll just have to see,” I slyly smile, trying to hide the plant from view. “What did you guys do?” “You’ll also have to see,” she replies in the same tone of voice. Miss Sparks walks into the room and looks around, then sits down at her desk. “Alright, as you all know, today will be a shorter day due to our presentations. I will be grading you as you present, and after everypony has gone, I will hand you your rubric back. Who wishes to go first?” I quickly raise my hoof, the only one in the class to do so. “Alright Aurora, you and Dusty may go first. Everypony, please give them your undivided attention.” I pick up the plant, and Dusty takes the siphon up with us. There’s a single desk to the side, which I pull over and place the plant on. We both look at each other, and when he doesn’t say anything, I take over and point at the pieces on the desk. “Okay, so for our project, we made a magical siphon. It, uhh,” I point at the pieces on the front. “This part here captures magic from around us and stores it in the charge pack, then it acts kind of like a battery for magical energy.” Dusty grabs the siphon and wedges it in the dirt. “A few of the components we put in there alter the magic to become earth magic, mostly the lithium we used for the charge pack casing and the tin for the cathodes. The way the magic moves through those metals makes it act like the magic of the earth.” He presses a few buttons, and the siphon loses the glow of magic it had. After a few seconds, the plant turns from yellow and brown to bright green and perks up going from wilted to perfectly alive. There are a lot of shocked reactions from the class, which just makes me smile a little bit. It is pretty cool. “Impressive,” Miss Sparks says, taking a few notes down on our sheet. “What parts did each of you work on?” “I did a lot of the wiring,” I admit. “Not much else.” “If you’ll just pass those to me, I can double-check the siphon and finish grading.” She points to a open spot on her desk. “Who wants to go next?” Some other ponies raise their hooves, and they start walking up while we place the siphon and plant on her desk. We quickly walk back to Dusty’s desk and sit down, and Glacial and Arcane Force look back to us. “That was really cool!” Glacial whispers. “Maybe we should have gone first. Going to be hard to go after that.” I smile, then turn to Dusty. “How do you think it went?” “Think it went well,” he replies with a small smile. It’s nice to get it just done and out of the way. Now I can just sit back and watch everypony else present. Miss Sparks starts leafing through the rubrics on her desk, then pulls out the one blank one. “Glacial and Arcane Force, it’s only you two that need to go now.” They look at each other and nervously laugh, then walk up to the front of the class. Arcane Force drags a small humidifier behind them but doesn’t plug it in, just places the cord near the outlet. “So, my talent is healing magic,” Arcane Force says as Glacial pulls a small pin out of her mane. “And mine’s ice magic!” Glacial exclaims. “Today, we’re going to be showing how many different things go into the profile of ambient magic, such as humidity.” She points to the humidifier. “So we’re going to be using this.” She looks at Arcane Force, who nods back at her. She then pricks herself with the pin, causing a tiny bit of blood to come out. Her wound starts glowing the same color as his magic, and the blood quickly retreats into her body. There’s some excitement from the class, but she turns to our group and powers up her own horn and makes the small cup of water on her desk glow the same color. She winces a little, but nothing really happens. “So that’s what happens with low humidity,” Arcane Force says, plugging the humidifier in. After waiting a little bit, Glacial pricks herself again. Arcane Force tries to do the same thing as before, but her blood just sits there on her fur. She wipes the blood off with a tiny piece of tissue, then powers her horn up and looks back to the glass, which almost instantly freezes and causes some ponies to start applauding. “Humidity is just one of many things that affect the ambient magic around us,” Glacial starts explaining. “And the magic around us can change how effective our spells are. In low humidity, ice magic isn’t very effective because it’s a moisture and water based type of magic, so it can’t move very well or manifest itself.” “And healing magic gets bogged down by the water in the air, which is why I couldn’t heal her with the higher humidity,” Arcane Force smiles. “Very good, both of you,” Miss Sparks says, writing a few things down on their rubric. “Okay, you two can come pick up your grade.” They walk over to her desk and look at the sheet of paper, then hoofbump each other when they see it. They must’ve done well. One by one, the groups are called over and see their scores, and their reactions range from excited to looking kind of disappointed. “Just you two left,” she says once everypony else has left. Nervously, we both walk up to her desk and look down at the score: 100%. “Good job, you two,” she says while Dusty and I smile at each other. “Very creative, and very good craftsmanship on the siphon itself. One of the better projects I’ve seen. Have a happy Hearth’s Warming.” I grab the paper and walk back with Dusty to our desks and start packing up. “It was a lot of fun working with you,” I say honestly as I place the sheet in my bags. “You too,” he says quietly. He puts his bags on his back and waits for me, and then we start walking outside together. When we get out of the school, he looks up at the sky. “The snow’s all really pretty.” “Yeah,” I smile, looking up at it as well. “So when do you leave?” “In a few hours.” He turns to look at me. “How about you?” “Tomorrow.” I look at him. “Princess Luna and I are going to be doing a little more work before I leave.” His smile grows a little bigger, and we just stand there in silence. “Hey, um, uh…” “Yeah?” “Can I...can I kiss you?” I just look at him with wide eyes for a few moments. Did I hear him right? “Can I?” he asks again, this time much weaker. “Yeah,” I blush, taking a few steps closer to him. He smiles a tiny bit and closes the distance between us, then closes his eyes and leans his head in close. His lips touch mine, and I try to return the kiss as best I can. Am I supposed to close my eyes? I think I am, it feels kind of weird to have them open. It does get better when I close them. Although it only lasts for a few seconds, it really sends a rush of excitement through my body. He pulls away, so I do the same and open my eyes. He’s weakly smiling at me, and I smile back and try not to giggle. Not because anything’s funny, but because...I don’t know, really. “I, uh…have to go pack,” he says while blushing and stumbling over his words. “Have a good break,” I say back to him. Really, Aurora? That’s the best you can think of? It was already really weird anyways, then I probably went and made it weirder. “You too,” he says quietly before quickly turning and speeding towards his building. I just stand there for a moment, probably with some stupidly dopey smile on my face. I try to bring myself down as I turn back towards the castle and start walking. I don’t even really know what it is about him. Yeah I guess he’s cute, but not super cute. He is nice, though. And pretty smart; he really knew what he was doing when we were making the siphon. Before I know it, I’m at the castle. The guards just move their spears from the gate, letting me in. It’s nice that they finally recognize me. I’m starting to recognize them a little too, even though they all kind of look alike. The one on the right is a brown unicorn with a really unique chin, one that’s longer on one side than the other. The other unicorn is white, and I haven’t quite gotten him down yet. He’s one of probably three or four, though, I just don’t know exactly which one. “Aurora!” I hear Princess Luna call from above. I crane my next upwards and see her and Princess Celestia flying in place, and it looks like they were talking to each other. Princess Luna flies down next to me, and Princess Celestia just flies back to the castle. “What were you talking to her about?” I ask as I watch her fly away. “She was just discussing this year’s Hearth’s Warming festivities with me,” she says with a wave of her hoof. “She has taken a recent love to it, something acquired while I was on the moon. Perhaps our feud led her to discover a holiday preaching warmth and friendship.” She laughs a little. “I on the other hoof have always adored Hearth’s Warming. It is interesting to see some of the traditions that have been adopted in my absence.” “What’s your favorite thing about it since coming back?” I ask excitedly. I really like Hearth’s Warming too, so it’s fun to talk about. “The sweets.” I can almost see the drool coming out of her mouth. “Sugar was rare when I was banished, so sweets were not as common. Candy canes, fudge, cookies, gingerbread, gumdrops…” She licks her lips. “My sister and I always would bake cookies on Hearth’s Warming Eve and serve them the next day to the ponies of Canterlot. They enjoyed it because they could not acquire sweets normally, and we enjoyed it because of the joy it brought everypony.” She looks down at me. “What about you? What is a favored tradition of yours?” “Decorations,” I say, not able to hold back a smile. “My mom always has a ton of decorations, especially for our tree. We always joke that the house gets smaller once she’s done because all the decorations take up so much space. She’s probably put them all up, so I don’t have to get pulled into all of that.” “Well, you will be able to go to your smaller house soon,” she jokes. “I feel we should try and get you to Dreamstride again tonight, and then tomorrow, you may go home.” Her face suddenly becomes more serious. “And please, do not attempt Dreamstriding while you are gone; you are untrained, and you could put yourself and your family in great danger if you do something incorrectly.” My heart almost ties itself in a knot. “Is Dreamstriding really that dangerous?” “It is...a tool,” she says, clearly searching for the right words. “Imagine a knife. If you are not careful with it or do not know how to use it, you can inflict great harm upon yourself or another. But if you are disciplined and skilled, you can use it for cooking a variety of foods. Dreamstriding is similar to the knife in that it is not inherently dangerous, but it can be if used without care or skill.” “I see,” I say, lowering my head a little. When am I ever going to be able to Dreamstride? I haven’t been able to yet, and now I’ll be gone for almost a month without being able to. “I do plan to keep you busy over your break,” she laughs lightly. “Just not with Dreamstriding. There are still plenty of magical training exercises which will help you, and I do plan to send you with a beginner’s tea manual and tea set so you can get accustomed to preparing blends for various tasks.” “We already own a tea set.” “This one’s yours,” she winks. “Consider it my Hearth’s Warming present to you. Tell your sisters you were given a gift by a Princess; I’m sure they would be jealous.” We both laugh a little. She’s right. That would totally drive them crazy. I start wondering what it’s going to be like back home. I’ve never been away from everypony for so long, will they have changed? Mom always says that everything’s pretty much the same in her letters, but I wonder how true that is. Maybe she’s trying out some new cuisine this time, or Dew Drop’s going through another poetry phase. I’ll admit mom was good with the Saddle Arabian food, but all her changeling food tasted like really sour yogurt. And not the good kind of sour.