I hesitantly stood up from where I had fallen on my rear, and approached the hole again under Moonshine's watchful gaze. As I looked down into it, I could see the new blob of hard resin resting in the water below, steam wafting up around it.
"Just focus on what you want it to do," Moonshine repeated herself. "When you think you got it, gently push that image over to the resin. Think of it as if you're whispering your magic to it. You only need to give it a light push for it to start to move."
I gave her a slow nod and started picturing the resin spinning clockwise like it had while Moonshine had been controlling it. In my mind it was spinning fairly slowly, slower even than those spinning cursors on the computer when you have to wait for something to load.
I was overly cautious thanks to the shock of the explosion, even knowing that Moonshine had a shield in place, or would have if I messed up.
"Are you picturing it spinning?" Moonshine wondered, and I gave her a quick nod. "Good, now push that image out as gently as possible until it connects with the resin below."
I held my breath as I moved the picture in my mind out to the blob of resin in the hole in front of me, and watched it in my mind's eye as it was spinning over it.
Nothing happened.
I resumed breathing as the thing at least had not exploded in my face, and continued to picture the resin spinning. I continued to picture the resin spinning through my mind's eye as an overlay of sorts on the real thing.
Nothing continued to happen.
"Go on," Moonshine prompted softly.
"I'm trying," I offered back as a frown settled on my face. "I'm seeing it spinning in my mind."
"No, you need to push it out of your mind and at the resin," Moonshine suggested.
"That's what I'm doing!" I threw back, frowning more heavily as I kept my focus on the resin in the hole.
Nothing happened! Nothing!
"How are you doing it?" Moonshine asked. "Tell me what you're doing."
I continued to see the overlay of the resin spin right over the actual resin, with the actual, real, resin doing absolutely nothing in defiance of my attempts to manipulate it.
"Okay, so I imagined the resin spinning slowly in my head," I started, and heard an agreeing hum from the other Changeling.
"So I then pushed that image out of my head and to the resin in the hole," I continued, to another hum.
"And now it's sort of spinning on top of the resin like it's projected onto it, but the resin is doing nothing!" I finished in dismay!
"What? No, that's not right," Moonshine exclaimed. "Did you push it out through your horn?"
"I... what?" I stumbled, trying my hardest not to look up since I'd seen what errant magic had done to the former resin block, and I didn't want to accidentally explode my teacher.
"Did I forget to mention that?" Moonshine wondered in mild embarrassment. "Okay, so you push the picture through your horn and then to the resin."
I closed my eyes and let myself fall back until I sat on the ground, pushing the image of spinning green blobs out of my mind before I dared open my eyes again.
Moonshine was looking at me with a bit of a hesitant smile on her face. "Yeah, if you just put the image out there, nothing will happen."
"I figured," I muttered flatly.
"Our horn works as a catalyst to get the magic out there, just like with the Ponies," Moonshine explained, reaching up with her right hoof to tap hers gently. "We don't use it when putting up our guises since we keep that magic on the inside, but when you want to control something outside of your body, you're going to have to use it as intended."
"So I just push the image up into it, then?" I suggested, to which Moonshine looked difficult.
"Sorry, it's my first rotation to this class, and I had not expected this kind of a question," she sighed. "I've been using magic for so many years now that it just comes natural to me."
"So what do I do?" I asked.
"You hang on a moment," Moonshine suggested, then ran off to a nearby pair of other Changelings and struck up a conversation with them.
I sat watching them until I spotted a different Changeling come out of the darkness from where Moonshine and I had come. I tilted my head at them, but then a second Changeling appeared and pushed the other back into the shadows again while shaking her head at them.
I idly wondered who the pair had been; Blaze was brazen enough, but so was Oval. I chuckled softly to myself as I looked back to where Moonshine was, and saw she was on her way back already.
"Okay, so," Moonshine started as she got near enough for me to hear her at normal volume, "what you do is this; you picture the image, you push that image into your horn, and then you activate your horn while continuing to push the image out into the world."
"Activate my horn?" I wondered, and Moonshine gave a nod at that.
"Yeah, I sort of do that automatically, so I forgot how to do it consciously, but I asked around a moment," she explained her quick trip. "You need to feel the energy in your body fill up your horn. Like, now what did she say... Like ants running up your horn from the base to the tip of it."
I shivered at the thought of ants running over any part of my body, let alone my horn, but that thought alone made my horn fizz with green sparkles of energy!
"Holy crap!" I exclaimed, louder than I probably should have, and set my wide-open eyes on a grinning Moonshine.
"There you go. Now, remember that feeling, cause you're going to need to apply it to the resin," she offered up, motioning back to the hole with her left hoof.
I went cross-eyed, in so far as my full blue insect-like eyes could, as I tried to look up to the tip of my horn, then imagined ants running up over it again. It fizzed again, stronger than before, but then I felt a hoof poke me in the shoulder.
"Hey, Hatchling," Moonshine called me to attention, frowning at me while standing almost nose-to-nose with me. "Focus your magic, or it's going to blow something up that's not shielded by me."
I winced at the thought. "Yes ma'am," I stated, following Moonshine back to the hole again.
"The resin is down there," Moonshine pointed out again, and I looked down the hole once more. "Now you know how to activate your magic, make it spin."
I was far too eager, now knowing I was actually capable of doing magic, and thought of the spinning resin image, pushed it to my horn, sent the ants running out over my horn, and pushed the image out into the world about in the same second.
The resin in the hole disintegrated before my eyes, and a cloud of green steam rose up as all the water in the hole evaporated...
Moonshine let out a deep sigh. "What did I say about being gentle?"
I looked up sheepishly. "Sorry, sister."
Moonshine levitated a new batch of water over, spat another resin block into the hole, and motioned to it again. "You're not the only one blowing things up. Controlling the amount of magic you use is one of the more difficult aspects of it."
I took a deep breath, exhaled, and then set myself back to the task of spinning the resin again.
Image, horn, ants, sending the image out into the world, and... poof. Another resin block gone.
Moonshine shook her head at me and prepared the hole anew. "Softly, gently, carefully... please."
I tried again; image in my head. Push the image into my horn. Let the ants crawl up over my horn. Send the image out to the resin in the hole like the faintest whisper on the softest breeze in the... It exploded again.
"Goddamnit!" I cried out, while Moonshine cleaned out the hole again.
"If we're going to be here all day, I'm going to have to charge you for my time," Moonshine joked flatly.