“Whoo-hoo! My first time camping! I’m so ready to start a huge bonfire pit and barbeque vegetable kibbles and tell fire stories and be all scared!”
Tree and Safe Trek chuckled as they set up the Ponyvillians’ tent. Nova was running around the area in no discernable pattern as she shouted.
“Now, Grape, stay calm and don’t get too far ahead of yourself,” Tree advised as he drove a stake into the ground, “we have to get setup and… there are just so many things you have to learn about camping talk,” he chuckled again.
“Well, I think the corners are in. You can finish this while I occupy her, right?” Safe Trek asked.
“Yeah, sure… go, have her run and collect sticks or something,” he said as he began to walk around the tent and survey it, “should be a few more minutes on this.”
“Heh, okay, Grape, c’mere. Let’s find some sticks.”
“‘Kay. What if you were, like, stuck in the forest and were alone for a whole week and there wasn’t any sticks for fire and you had to burn your staffy thing?” Nova asked as she took the lead into the woods and leaving Tree in the clearing to finish the tent.
“Well, if it came to that I can cast a warming spell or cooling spell. Not only that, most guards are trained in what’s safe to eat in certain areas. I’ve trained in this area most, so this’ where I spend my time doing extra duty.”
“Hehehe, you said doody.”
“Heh, not that kind. Royal guards don’t do that, little lady,” she said with a straight face. “‘Duty’ means work that has to be done; like you and farming.”
“Oh, I get it. So, there’s two kinds’a duty. Work and toilet, gotcha,” Nova finished as she pounced ahead and bit into a large tree root and began tugging at it.
“Hey, uh,” Safe Trek started then halted, her ears twitched, “get back!” She shouted brandishing her staff and jumping to the right of Nova and taking a stance.
A low growl shook the filly to her core as a pair or rose red eyes narrowed at her specifically.
A whiff and whack of the staff sent the filly screaming to the rear legs of Safe Trek. The predator snarled in a low warbling sound before hacking and turning away. The sound of its paws scampering away left the mare standing resolute in her position and the filly, trembling behind her.
“...Are you okay, Nova?”
“I-I’m sorry… I peed a little,” she whimpered with a pouty lip.
With a snicker the mare sheathed her staff and tugged her leg free from the filly’s grip before she turned around.
“Nova,” she said softly as she lowered herself to eye level, “I won’t tell anypony. Just, understand that it isn’t your fault,” she said as Nova sniffled, “and you did just what you needed to… just, don’t grab my legs next time, okay?”
With a slow nod and final sniffle, Nova looked around.
“Can I hold your staff?”
“Heh, uh, sure,” Safe Trek said as she grabbed the staff from the sheath and moved it to Nova. “I, noticed you don’t have much of a horn, yet. Do you know how to grasp it?”
“Uhm,” Nova said as she narrowed her eyes to the staff and then at the mares horn, “I can figure it out pretty quick.”
With a sudden tug the staff spun in a wide arc and whacked Safe Trek across the top of her helmet with a thunk.
Nova dropped the staff and covered her muzzle with her hoof. “Ohmygosh! I’m so sorry, are you okay?”
The mare winced and adjusted her helmet. “Yeah, I’m fine. How’d you do that? I didn’t see you grab it.”
“I’unno. I just, grabbed it with my magic and it spinned. Are you sure you’re okay?”
“No, what I’m saying is that your horn didn’t glow.”
“Huh?”
“Okay,” Safe Trek sighed and took several paces back, “pick it up and hold it level.”
Nova squinted her eyes and her tongue protruded from the size of her muzzle. The staff lifted from the ground and began to hover, spinning on all axis slowly.
“L-like that?”
“...”
“Miss Trek?”
“Uh, yeah, um, well… the staff, imagine it as a part of you, like one of your legs. You want to keep it by you, since you’re starting.”
Nova moved it by her left foreleg and it stood straight on end.
“Yeah! Like that. Now, imagine it like a saddlebag and have it reach to it from your side with the same leg.”
“Ah, I get it,” she said as she staff hovered slowly to the length of her.
“Very impressive for one your age. So, I’m going to take it and show you what, if you practice, can someday be done. Lots of practice… don’t rush it.”
Taking the staff back into her magic she looked it over and shrugged. She took several steps away and scanned the area before she nodded. She spun the staff and began a series of thrusts and swings, jabs and slashes, finally ending with a flourish and a helicopter spin before catching it in her foreleg.
She reared up and swung it around her body several times in expert combat fashion using her forelegs and horn to make it coast an inch from her coat before stabbing it into the ground and leaning against it, still on her rear legs.
“WOW! That was, like, the coolest thing I’ve ever seen in real life!”
“Heh,” she smirked and landed to all fours, tugging the staff from the ground and holding it out. “C’mon, give it a swing, this time don’t hit my helmet, ‘kay?”
“Oh boy, Oh boy, Oh boy!”
With a yank from the mares magical grip the staff whipped to the side of Nova, stopping an inch away. She raised it over her head and swung it like a polearm twice cutting through the air with a reverberating hum.
It stopped in place, mid motion. “Uh, Miss Trek, are you okay?”
Safe Trek was looking, slack jawed, at the filly. “Y-you’re not using magic t-to do that,” she stammered before she took a calming breath. “I can’t sense any magic flowing through you right now, how?” She asked softly.
“Uh, I’unno,” Nova said softly as she poked her hoof into the ground, “I’m not ‘upposed ta talk about it.”
“Nova, you have to tell me… I-I’ve never even heard of what you can do… can you do anything else?”
“Um, I don’t think so. C-can i just go back to moving the staff, please?”
“...Yes, just, keep at it,” Safe Trek said as she relaxed, “I didn’t mean to pressure you to answer. I’m here to keep you safe, not make you uncomfortable. I apologize.”
“Meh, ain’t a biggie.”
With that Nova began swinging the staff around with impressive speed and control.