//------------------------------//
// 23 
// Story: Pearl's Travels 1: Hollow Shades 
// by Makitk 
//------------------------------//

After a lot of disintegrated blobs and rising steam, I sat down on my rear and wiped the sweat off my brow.

Moonshine had got used to prepping the hole in the ground for a fresh attempt, and just looked thoughtful while she absentmindedly floated new water into it and spat the resin into it from out of the corner of her mouth.

"I don't know what I'm doing wrong here," I sighed. "I mean, I'm trying my best to give that image the softest push imaginable. It floats down to the resin as slow as I can make it go. I even changed the spin rate until it was barely noticeable! What am I doing wrong?"

Moonshine shook her head while in deep thought. "I'm not sure. I'm trying to think of something that could help you, but I'm really not up to the task of teaching basic magic. Now, if you asked me how to transmutate one object into another, that's a different story. I actually know a pony spell for that."

"How fast are you charging your magic?" a familiar voice asked from behind me, and I turned my head to see two Changelings there, one slightly shorter than the other.

"Breeze?" I asked, and the larger one flashed green until an Earthpony stallion stood in her place, one eye more oval than round. "And Burst, of course."

"I asked; how fast are you charging your magic?" Breeze repeated, moving up to my left side and sitting down as well.

"Er, I dunno; I'm making ants run up my horn to activate the magic, right?" I suggested.

"Ants?!?" Oval laughed out loud. "I thought you were good at magic, Moonshine?"

"That Hatchling there said it felt that way," Moonshine pointed out, motioning to the pair of Changelings she'd been talking to earlier.

Breeze raised an eyebrow at Moonshine, but then put her attention to me. "If the idea was to describe a tickling sensation, then yes. Charging your horn does feel a little ticklish."

"I noticed," I remarked. "I just keep exploding those resin blocks."

"Yes, that's because you're most likely overcharging your magic," Breeze explained, while Oval flopped down flat on my right side.

"Ah, that was one option I hadn't considered yet," Moonshine suggested.

"I've been counting your attempts; you're up to your fourty-seventh now," Breeze stated. "This is ridiculous, Moonshine. You should have figured out what the problem was by now."

Moonshine frowned at the suggestion of incompetence on her part.

"She's probably overthinking it," Oval offered up. "Just like little sister here. Looking past the actual problem at things which are entirely unrelated."

"Tell me what you've been doing so far, will you?" Breeze asked of me, and I pointed my right hoof to the hole.

"Okay, so I've been imagining this resin ball spin around in my mind's eye," I started. "Then I push that image of the spinning resin into my horn."

"Good steps so far," Breeze agreed.

"How far up your horn?" Oval wondered, but Breeze glared at her. "Well, it doesn't matter, I guess..."

Breeze made a motion with her right hoof to prompt me to continue.

"Okay, so once that image is up where I think my horn is at, I make ants go up my horn because I was told to do that," I sighed. "Which I guess is wrong, considering what you just said."

"And what do you do after?" Breeze prompted.

"Then I send that image out of my horn as slowly as possible to overlay with the actual resin so it starts to spin," I continued, "and then it explodes instead."

"Yeah, you're overcharging your horn. Lay down," Breeze demanded, and I flopped down following Oval's example.

Breeze moved a little until she could put her right hoof up over my head. Looking in Moonshine's direction, she tapped me lightly on the top of my head.

"This is where your brain is," Breeze stated, "or in your case a random collection of information from both your old life and your new."

Moonshine raised an eyebrow, but I just went "Ahuh?"

Breeze's hoof slowly slid to the base of my horn. "This is where your magic comes from, but it can't go anywhere but into our bodies from there."

"Which is how we put up guises, right?" I suggested.

"Yeah," Oval agreed from my right side.

Breeze's hoof slid up an inch over my curved horn. "Your horn tapers from here to a point further up. If you send a lot of magic into the base, it will squeeze out of the top at greater speeds than you may want."

I shivered a bit at the feeling of Breeze's hoof moving over my horn. "A-ah?"

Breeze either didn't notice the shivering, or didn't care; her hoof sliding further up. "You can build up a great amount of energy in your horn before releasing it, which is great in case you want to explode something."

"Or someone," Moonshine noted.

"I'd rather try to avoid that," Oval sighed.

"Amen," I offered into the conversation.

Breeze finally tapped the tip of my horn once she reached it with her hoof. "And this is the tip; where you expel your magic from. Do you have a good feeling of how large your horn is now?"

I looked up at her as best I could. "Er, yeah... just about the same size as yours, right?"

"I didn't mean what it looks like to you, but what it feels like. Did you feel how big it is?" she pushed.

I gave a slow nod. "Yeah, it's more sensitive than I thought. I felt your hoof as it stroked up over it."

"You will always feel it being larger than it physically is," Breeze explained. "If you run your tongue over your fangs, they feel like grand protrusions, while they're actually a lot smaller. Which is fine for fangs, but a problem with magical horns."

"Because you accidentally load more magic into them than you intend to?" I realized.

"Exactly," Breeze returned with a smile. "Just a small bit of magic is enough for what Moonshine is trying to teach you. Don't make ants run up your horn. Think of a bead of sweat instead. A single, small bead of sweat. Just lightly tickling your horn as it runs past the base of it."

I couldn't help but envision it as Breeze spoke, and I felt the tickle on my horn again. A small green light flickered at the tip of my horn as I did, and I went cross-eyed again trying to look at it.

"That there is all the magic you need," Breeze chuckled. "Not even enough to read by, but enough to make a floating blob of resin turn."

Moonshine sat looking mildly offended, but I pushed up carefully, trying to maintain the tickling feeling in my horn, and approached the hole again.

Just a single drop of sweat, leaking past the base of my horn. That's all Breeze claimed was needed.

I looked down at the resin drifting in the water below, and imagined it turning again.

I pushed that image from my mind's eye over into my horn, let the imaginary drop of sweat run past its base, and then sent the image out into the world, to hit the resin where it lay.

For a brief moment the resin laid as still as before, but then it slowly but surely started to rotate clockwise until it went as fast as my mental image had!

A shiver ran through me as I realized I had actually performed real magic - beyond that of taking on a different guise - and had affected something tangible in this cartoon world... and the resulting magical charge made quick work of the resin blob.

I sheepishly looked up at Moonshine, who smirked at me. "Okay, that's a good start. We can go from here," she turned her attention on Breeze, "without further help."

Breeze lay down with a soft yawn, portently ignoring Moonshine and her words, and Oval seemed to have fallen asleep where she lay.

Moonshine let out an angry snort, but then went on her way to prepare the hole again for my next attempt.