Sumac had no idea what to do with his afternoon, but he knew he had to find something before somepony made the decision for him. He was free to do almost anything, but there was so much to that it was overwhelming. There were trades to learn, crafts, practical skills, help with homework, and so much of it was appealing.
He glanced over at Pebble, who had Silver Lining clinging to her. The cub was calming down a bit, but still held on to Pebble with a stubborn, tenacious grip. He blinked. So many rooms, so many promising activities, so many interesting things. Just so long as he didn’t run into Olive.
He realised, with some sadness, that Pebble and Silver Lining were leaving him. He watched as Pebble headed off to the area for homework help, dragging Silver Lining behind her, no doubt to help others with their homework. Reaching up and rubbing his ear, Sumac realised that Pebble would make for a good, or even great teacher someday. How Twilight had known about Pebble’s talent was a mystery to Sumac.
“Overwhelmed?”
Ears drooping, Sumac turned his head and gave the pony addressing him a guilty glance. He didn’t know this pony. She had thick, heavy looking glasses and she had… well, she had eyebrows. But not just any eyebrows, she had an eyebrow. Sumac nodded.
“You’ve never been part of a traditional academic setting. Trixie taught you as you went from place to place. You picked up folklore, local histories, and had a tour of some of Equestria’s most interesting and remote libraries. You’ve been to both coasts, to the north and to the south, and you’ve picked up the sort of education that more ponies should have.”
Tilting his head, Sumac looked up at the teacher speaking to him. He didn’t know her, but she seemed to know him. She was wearing a frumpy looking sweater that was covered in chalk dust and lint. She seemed kind, but also a little distracted.
“Confirmed genius, with both a naturalistic and existential intelligence.”
“I don’t understand what that means,” Sumac said to the strange pony.
“There are arguably nine types of intelligence, at least that is the accepted number, with naturalistic and existential being two accepted types. Others include spatial, interpersonal, kinesthetic, intra-personal, logical-mathematical, linguistic, and musical.”
“You never told me your name,” Sumac said, trying to be as respectful as possible as he did so. “I don’t understand what naturalistic or existential intelligence means.”
“Naturalistic intelligence is an understanding of nature, such as plants, animals and a sensitivity to the world around you. Being in tune to the weather, the conditions, and the terrain around you. It makes you a seasoned traveller.” There was a pause, a sniffle, and then, “Also, my name is Moondancer. Yours is Sumac Apple.”
“And exist—existent—”
“Existential?” Moondancer said to Sumac.
“Yeah.”
“That’s deep thinking. It is the ability for critical reasoning as well as dealing with abstracts. The really brainy stuff that stumps most ponies. Why are we here, what is our purpose, if I do this, what will happen, what is the point of life, all those questions that have plagued us since the beginning.” Moondancer sat down, reached out with her foreleg, and pulled Sumac closer. She draped her foreleg over his withers, took a deep breath, and smiled.
Sumac could smell coffee, chalk dust, and the scent of old wool. He felt like sneezing. “What is critical reasoning?”
“Critical reasoning is the intellectual discipline of picking apart concepts, applying what you know, analysing what is present, synthesising what is available, evaluating your observations, and then relying upon your experiences, reflections, your reasoning, and then trying to make sense of everything as a whole once you reconstruct it.”
“Okay.” Sumac blinked. He understood nothing of what had been said. He felt a little sheepish—for somepony who was supposed to be smart, he didn’t have a clue about anything that Moondancer had just said. He did know that he liked to go off somewhere quiet and have a good think, except when he was upset, and then his brain would turn against him and he couldn’t stop thinking, even when he wanted to. Getting hit in the head with a shovel would probably make more sense than everything that Moondancer had just said.
“You have above average magical abilities as well,” Moondancer continued, “and with your intelligence, while you might not be the most powerful wizard, there is no doubt that you’ll probably have an understanding of magic one day that most ponies would die for.”
“Because of how I brain is how I made my hypothesis?” Sumac asked.
Moondancer giggle-snorted, her whole body shook with laughter. “Yeah kid, you have a special type of braining that is going to give you understanding into things… amazing understandings.” Moondancer paused to compose herself, snorted a few more times, and gave Sumac a squeeze. “Sometimes, Sumac, it is more important to understand how and why magic works, or how a spell operates, than being able to cast the spell. Being able to use magic and being able to understand magic is two very different things.”
Yawning, Boomer woke up, blinked a few times, and then looked up at Moondancer. She tilted her head to one side, then the other, belched out some smoke, curled up around Sumac’s horn, and went back to sleep.
“Can I make a recommendation?” Moondancer asked.
“Sure,” Sumac said.
“Take some archery courses,” Moondancer said.
“Why would I want to do that?” Sumac asked. He shook his head. “Archery and sports is super boring. I’d rather be reading. I like reading.”
“Ah, I can see why you might think that, but you would be wrong.” Moondancer gave Sumac another affectionate squeeze. “Archery will give you understanding. You’ll be able to study cause and effect. With your naturalistic intelligence, you’ll observe things like the wind and the effect it will have upon your arrows. You’ll gain understanding into movement, why things happen the way they do. You’ll gain an appreciation for motion, for subtlety. How tiny motions with your magic can drastically alter how an arrow flies. You’ll be able to observe how and why an arrow does what it does, and make minute changes with each pull of the bow. Learning archery will flex your brain muscles and teach you magical discipline.”
“Really?” Sumac looked up at Moondancer with wide eyes, and looked a bit like an owl with his round glasses. “Why not just learn magic?”
“Because any unicorn can cast the basic spells, but very few unicorns have an understanding of them, how they work, why they do what they do, and how to utilise them in new and creative ways,” Moondancer replied.
“So learning archery will really teach me more about magic?” Sumac blinked, trying to understand what was being said.
“More than that,” Moondancer replied, “learning archery will teach you how to use your mind and your specific types of intelligence. Trust me, once you start doing it, a whole bunch of stuff will become clear.”
“Okay, I’ll take your word for it.” Sumac felt Moondancer’s foreleg slip over his withers and she stood up. He looked up at her, watching, studying her face, and he saw her smile down at him. He decided that he liked Moondancer, frumpy sweaters and all.
“Come on, let’s go. Let’s get you signed up for afternoon archery courses, Sumac Apple.”
The afternoon sun was bright and the grass was still a bit squishy from the thunderstorm earlier. In the field behind Twilight’s castle, an archer’s green had been set up. Bales of hay had bullseyes on them. There were a few students out here, but not many. Most of the foals attending Twilight’s school were a bit like Sumac, thinking archery and sports were boring.
“My name is Mister Tweed and I will be your instructor,” a kind looking unicorn stallion said to Sumac. He turned sideways and pointed to his cutie mark, which was a drawn bow with a glowing arrow. “As you can see, I have the proper qualifications. I’ve trained champions for the Equestria Games!”
As Sumac stood staring, Moondancer departed, leaving him alone, and she went off to look after other students who had not yet found their way.
“We were just discussing some basic safety,” Mister Tweed said to Sumac. “Now, sit down and pay attention, we don’t want anypony getting shot by a stray arrow.” Mister Tweed smiled and gestured at the bows. “How many of you have ever used one of these before?”
Sumac lost track of time and was unaware that most of the afternoon had passed, or that it was almost time to go home. He hadn’t hit anything yet, all of his arrows had gone astray, none of them even reached the hay bale yet, but he kept trying. He was enjoying himself a great deal, and his intense focus on his task allowed him to clear his mind. Intense concentration gave him focus.
“Find the center,” Mister Tweed said to his students. “If your telekinetic grasp is even an inch too high or an inch too low, the bow will not fire properly. So find your center. Balance the bow. Learn to hold it steady. Learn to keep a firm grasp on the bow as you draw back the bow string so the bow doesn’t wobble. If the bow wobbles, even just a little, your arrow will not fly true.”
Taking his teacher’s advice, Sumac closed his eyes and held his bow in the middle. Instead of having it straight up and down, he turned it sideways and held it. When he opened his eyes, he saw that his bow was leaning over to the left. He adjusted his magical grip and then the bow leaned over to the right. He kept moving the telekinetic bubble that he held the bow with until the bow leveled out, balanced on a telekinetic bubble the size of an apple.
He had found the center and had done it on his own. He had figured it out. He kept the bow sideways, lifted an arrow, nocked it, and drew back the bow string. The bow wobbled a bit and Sumac stuck his tongue out as he concentrated, trying to steady it. When the bow was still, he sighted it, and then let go, hoping for the best.
He hit the hay bale in the top right corner. He bounced in place, a celebratory pronk, he was happy, ecstatic, it was the first time an arrow had flown far enough to even reach the hay bales. So now, he had distance, he just needed to work on his aim.
“Very good, Mister Apple,” Mister Tweed said.
Holding his bow before him, Sumac took a moment to think about everything he had learned up to this point. He found the bow’s center, he focused upon the balance, and when he nocked an arrow, he fought to keep everything steady as he drew it back. His telekinesis needed more practice, he realised. The fault wasn’t in the bow or the arrow, but in himself. He held the bow up before his eyes, at eye level, straining to level it out, and he tugged back on the bow string even harder. There was a tremble in the bow and Sumac held his breath as he struggled to make his telekinesis compensate.
He let fly and the arrow went streaking for the target. For a moment, he was certain that he was going to hit the hay bale again, but he was wrong. The arrow soared over the hay bales and kept going. Sumac heard a whistle from behind him.
“Impressive distance,” Mister Tweed said to Sumac. “Most impressive. Your aim however, is lacking, Mister Apple.” The teacher let out a good natured chuckle.
Sumac had angled the bow up too high. He knew that after he spent a moment analysing what had gone wrong. He had it at the same angle he had before with his previous arrow, and it had arced through the air and hit the hay bale, but this arrow had more force behind it because he had pulled back on the string a bit more. He thought about what Moondancer had said about cause and effect.
“Time to wrap everything up,” Mister Tweed announced. “We meet three times a week. I will make archers out of you if it kills me or leaves me looking like a porcupine, I swear it. I see some real potential here with you lot. Nice work.”
Beaming, unable to contain his happiness, Sumac Apple knew he had found a subject meant just for him. He flexed his bow a bit, watched as the other students fired off their arrows, and made a mental note to go and thank Moondancer. How she had known about him liking archery, he had no idea, but he was thankful that she had made him try it. Afternoon archery was going to be the best class ever.