Luna tapped her hoof on the table, watching me hold a ruby out to her. She seemed impressed by me, a smile on her face. She took the gemstone and held it up to the candle near us, inspecting the dull glow that was now in the center of the jewel. The mouse on the table nibbled a seed while I sat in suspense, wondering what I had just done. The alicorn nodded, setting the gem back down. I tried my best to think of her action as a compliment. However, it only made me more nervous. She took one of the pieces of paper that littered the table and marked a check on it, the last of a very long list. We had been going all day, non-stop drilling and pushing myself for better results. A normal pony would have taken weeks to do as much training as we had done in two days. My nearly limitless endurance with spellcasting let me cram in enough practice to make a typical unicorn collapse from exhaustion several time over.
“This is a beautiful specimen… you bound it perfectly to the gem.” The princess said proudly. “We would ask you to do it again, but I only brought a few mice, and we have other things I wanted to use them for.”
I smiled at her praise, mentally exhausted by all of the studying and practice I had just done. I could recite almost all of what she had just lectured me by heart at that point, from the basics of magic through advanced binding spells. I couldn't help but wonder if this insane study method was how Twilight managed to know so much by heart. The emphasis on memorization was mind-numbing, but after so many hundreds of times it was just burnt into my head. It was a horribly dull way to learn anything, but the effictiveness of Luna's teaching method couldn't really be doubted. I couldn't imagine the way she taught working for anything else besides maybe math. It shined because there was really no other way to perform the kind of magic we were dealing with. Memorization of how it worked was all I could do if I wanted to get used to the method.
“So, do you suppose you're ready to move onto the next part?” Luna asked, seeming very serious.
“I guess so… I got it perfect the first time.” I said, shrugging.
“Yes, but it is much different, doing it with Apple Bloom. You already know how to craft the most difficult part of the Eternity Tome, which is the binding and cover. That is where her soul will be bound, in that fragment of her body, whatever it is made of from her. That's her decision. However, next will be the pages. The pages need to be subjected to a very specific treatment before they are ready to be used in the binding ritual.”
I nodded, figuring if it was easier than this I didn't mind. “Okay, what is it? I think I'm ready.”
“First, the pages must each be pressed and devoid of any imperfections, or the spell will not work for the pages that have a blemish or aren't perfectly flat. This could result in up to a week of Apple Bloom's memories being simply lost, as the page will not fill in. She won't remember anything of that part of her life. If too many pages are imperfect, then it could cause serious damage to her mind.”
I tapped my hooves together nervously. “That sounds really hard… and for that many pages, it would take forever.”
The alicorn lit her horn, and before me an enormous stack of paper appeared. “Yes, that is why we had one of our secretaries do of it for us. That would take forever, and the probability of one of you making a mistake is too high. Yesterday it's all I had them do. They got a bit of it done… but I had to finish most of it myself. Don't worry, I checked the pages they did as well.”
I marvelled at the blankness of the chalk white paper in front of me. If it was any more plain I would be tempted to reach out and touch it, if only to confirm that it wasn't some sort of illusion. I knew better however, and kept myself under control.
“What else do I have to do?” I asked.
“Each page will need Apple Bloom's name written on it. Then we have to inscribe a channeling spell onto each of the pages, on both sides each. By the end I'm sure you will be very good at writing out spells.”
I sighed, nodding. That meant she was about to launch into another three-hour long lecture on a new kind of magic. Then came the mandatory fourteen hours straight of constant practice before she would let me try what she had taught me for real. I emptied my head and prepared for her lesson, keeping Apple Bloom in my heart as I endured the alicorn's very dull form of teaching.
I walked back to my room hours later, levitating a notebook in front of me. I read while I trotted down the hall, thinking about Apple Bloom. It took forever to get from place to place in the castle just by walking. It gave me time to think. The only reason I didn't teleport was the time I got to spend alone with myself. The last three days had been nothing but a chore for me and my friends. I knew it would be worth it in the end, but I was starting to feel the stress. I needed to get better at magic for my friends, but it felt like no matter how hard I tried, I still had to learn more. There seemed to always be something that I would miss or a detail I didn't pick up on the first time.
As I arrived back at my room, I noticed the door was unlocked. I tilted my head to the side, knowing that most of the time the guards would walk along and check the doors, locking them if it was needed.. That meant somepony had arrived back in our room recently. I went inside to hear a bath running, the lamp next to the bed turned on. I looked into the bathroom, squinting to see through the bright light. Apple Bloom was sitting in the tub, her head resting on the side of it. She looked out at me, blinking. I shut our bedroom door, my horn lighting and shutting off the lamp out in the bedroom. Once that was done, I walked into the bathroom. I sat on the carpet next to the bath, taking a deep breath and letting it out. The dim crystal on wall in there gave her some light to see, and let me see her well enough in return.
“I'm tired, Belles… I'll be honest.” Apple Bloom sighed.
I nodded, looking to the side. It took a lot to get her to admit that. I could remember days when she would work out in the heat all day, and not once would she comment on it being hard, or being tired. It took a special kind of strain to bother her, one that wasn't physical.
“I know… Luna's pushing me hard too. I told her about Celestia and she said that we would do our best to speed through what she had to teach me. I feel like my brain is made of syrup now.”
My analogy earned me an odd look, but the farmhand didn't comment. She got what I was trying to say. “Yeah… Celestia wasn't jokin' about how rude some of them guards are. I mean, some of 'em are pretty nice. A few shared their lunches with me.”
I got up, jumping into the bath next to her. If I was going to sit there and talk to her, it was worth it to make use of the perfectly good bathwater. While I wet my mane I motioned for her to continue with her story. Listening to her vent was a bit relaxing after my long day. She seemed to question me being in the bath with her in the terms of our relationship, but then she shrugged and kept going.
“So anyways, I was working on the fourty-second guard bunk when all the sudden one of em' walks by and comments 'bout my freckles. 'Parently I got a freckle on my lower back leg now, and he turns to the guard mare next to him makes some comment about how in a few years I'll look like custard with pepper sprinkled on it. 'Course she laughs...”
I pushed down a smile, washing my mane while she spoke“You know they were just picking on you, right?”
“I know, but what if he's actually right about that?! I know the more I'm out in the sun, the more freckles I get. What if after ten years the skin under my coat is jus' a-”
I giggled, shaking my head. “Silly… you'll never get any more freckles once I make your book. It'll be fine. Anything else happen today?”
“Well… not really. I fixed three hundred and ten beds today, so it's a start. Then again, I wasn't really trying my hardest. Either way it was hard… and borin'.”
“I know how you feel…” I said, looking at the clock. “Shouldn't Scootaloo be back here by now? It's almost ten at night...”
“She did say that she might be a day late coming back if the weather was bad.” Apple Bloom shrugged.
I felt myself start to worry, but then I figured that Scootaloo could probably handle herself. She was fairly smart, and was more than capable of handling herself. Still, doubt clawed at the back of my mind. Seeing my look of worry, the farmhand leaned in and gave me a hug. I relaxed in her grip, letting the smell of the scented bath and my friend soothe my anxiety.
“All that'll be okay, Sweetie. She knows exactly what she's doing, and you know she's been just fine on her own for years before we even knew her.”
“Yeah… I guess so.”
We both heard a knock at the door. I quickly got out of the bath, tossing a towel over myself before walking out to answer it. The moment I unlocked it Twilight opened the door a crack, looking down at me.
“May I come in?” The lilac alicorn asked.
“Uh… sure, I guess.”
While she walked inside I used my magic to shut the bathroom door. The bookworm tapped her hooves on the carpet as she turned on the lamp and I oriented myself so that the light didn't hit me directly in the face. Once she could see, Twilight spoke.
“So how are you three doing?” She asked, looking around. “Where's Apple Bloom and Scootaloo?”
“Apple Bloom is in the bath, and Scootaloo hasn't come back yet.” I explained, jumping onto the bed so I could sit down and talk.
“That isn't good… do you have any idea where she might be?”
“Well, she was checking up on somepony for Celestia. Some village place that was really out there, down south. Way past Ponyville, almost into that swampy part of the Everfree Forest.”
“I hope she's okay… A pretty big storm blew across the Everfree Forest today, so maybe it shut the train down there. I hope she found someplace to stay where it's warm and dry, at least.”
I nodded, looking at my hooves. I felt the lingering doubts I had for the whole mission Celestia had given her creeping back in. I'd had a bad feeling about it since the sun princess had first mentioned it. Now she wasn't showing up. I felt tempted to go out and look for her. However, I didn't fancy the idea of footing the bill for my own train ticket, and if I got stuck out in the forest when the sun came up I would be in a horrible situation.
“Twilight, she'll be back in the morning right?” I asked.
“I'm sure she will be. She's a brave pony, and I'm sure she can take care of herself. If she isn't back here by tomorrow then I'll make sure somepony goes out to look for her.” Twilight rested a hoof on my shoulder.
I nodded and settled onto a blankets, shying away from her hoof. I was worried despite what she had said. Tomorrow was a lot of time for her situation to go from bad to worse. Apple Bloom walked out of the bathroom with a towel over herself, moving to our bed. She jumped onto it and covered herself in blankets, her damp fur in need of warmth in the cold room. I wished I could help her with that, but I didn't generate my own body heat anymore. Twilight stood up to leave, brushing off her wings with magic.
"Well... the only reason that I came in here was to tell the three of you about something you could help with. With one of you missing and you two looking dead tired, I don't think that it would do me any good. I'll see you both in the morning. Do either of you need anything before I go?”
“Nah, I'm fine.” Apple Bloom said.
Once I had shaken my head the alicorn left us both, turning tail to us and waving a wing goodbye. The moment that she had shut the door I flopped over onto my side. It felt horrible, not being able to do anything for Scootaloo. Apple Bloom wrapped her front hooves around me and settled in, putting the blanket over me as well. She shut her eyes, clearly exhausted from her day. I lit my horn and locked the door before resting my head on the farmhand's chest. Despite the chaos of my life, I still had the steady rhythm of her heartbeat to relax me after a long day.