27 - I was in Town
The next morning, there was a light knocking on the door. Silver closed his game and was on his hooves quickly, trotting to the door with a light, clumsy stumble. Maybe a month wasn't quite enough to work out all the kinks? He put the thought aside and opened the door, revealing a familiar face.
Nicole Foalman smiled down at him brightly, "Hello, little colt. Is David Silver in?"
Silver blinked but quickly recovered with a smile, "Right here, Nicky. How are the boys?"
Nicole tilted her head a little, "You didn't tell me humans could do this?" She entered and nudged the door shut with her magic, "Are you playing a joke on me?"
Celine trotted out from the back and looked up at Nicole, then at Silver, "Hello Nicole."
Nicole smiled winningly, "Hello little filly. Have you seen me before?"
Celine nodded, then nuzzled into Silver's side, making him blush.
Silver gestured at Celine with a hoof, "I've been busy since last we met. I'm kinda married now. Meet Celine."
Nicole leaned in closer, "And you're a unicorn? And a colt? This is becoming hard to believe." She looked over Celine, "Nice to meet you, Celine. Is this really David?"
Celine shook her head, "He was David, now he's Silver Lining, and my stallion. I am his first wife, so if you want him, you'll have to impress me first."
Nicole burst into a soft laughter, "Well! I'd better get my act together then." She reached for Silver, ruffling his mane, "I wanted to say hello, and thank you for your recommendation. Soft Blush is a very talented mare. She'll let some actors be almost as good as me at looking the part."
Silver smiled, "So she got the job?"
Nicole waved a hoof dismissively, "I could barely wait for the ink to dry. She's off to Warneigh Brothers where her talents will be put to work right away. So, are you going to tell me? How did you end up like this?"
Silver tapped his chin with a hoof, "I made a lot of stupid decisions, followed by a few good ones. I'm living life from the start basically." He turned and bumped his nose into Celine's cheek, "It's working out so far."
Nicole tilted her head one way, then the other, "You're cute for a colt, but I'll miss the big shaggy human." She rose up and began to turn, "Still, it's nice to know you're doing well. Do drop a letter once in a while, I don't bite unless you request it."
Celine grabbed the door in her magic, opening it for Nicole. "Have a nice day!"
Soon she was gone, and Silver looked at Celine, considering pouncing her for a change. He waited too long, and was bowled over by her. She soon had him in a strong hug, snuggling him into the ground. He gave a soft giggle and hugged back gently, "It'll be sad that she's gone, but I'm glad she got a nice job."
Celine tilted her head, "Life is change. She's an adult now. Your first real job is when you can stop being called a filly or a colt."
Silver raised an ear, "Is that how it works? So people just... stay in school until they find a job?"
Celine shrugged, letting Silver stand just to lean on him, "To a degree. Once in a while, a foal just never finds work, out of laziness, or indirection, disaster, or something. Thankfully that's rare." She nipped him on the cheek, "You have a job waiting for you."
Silver shivered softly at the nip, then pressed against Celine. She allowed him his victory, being laid out on her back as he slid in over her. She grinned up at him, "Are you going to do it, uh..." she looked thoughtful a moment, "Missionary? What does that mean? That's a strange name for this."
Silver flushed gently, "That wasn't the goal, not that I'd mind it, but not on the living room floor, sheesh." He snorted softly, "And stop digging through my memories for position names, that's creepy."
Celine twisted strongly, and soon Silver was pinned under her, "We can do it cowboy style instead?"
Silver wriggled under her, "You're impossible!" He stopped then and reached, putting a hoof on her belly, "So, uh, what about this? If we play like that, we'll make a foal, right? What are the rules about that? I don't want to be a deadbeat father, heck, am I old enough to make a foal?"
Celine wriggled her ears, looking thoughtful, "I can't think of a time a stallion without a cutie mark fathered a foal unless they just never got one." She pressed against him in a delightful fashion that made his heart start to pick up, "Though you are a special stallion, but you don't have your mark. We should get you one."
Silver tilted his head, "You say that like we should stop by the cutie mark store and pick up a nice one."
Celine giggled and silenced his questions with a kiss that seemed to go on forever. When she drew back, she ran her hooves down along his body, teasing over his blank flanks, "I have a pretty good idea what could bring your mark to you. It's still a guess, but I'm kind of in the best position to make that guess."
Silver shook his head, "How do you keep all of 'me' up there?"
Celine shook herself out from head to her dark tail, "Easy! When Luna split, she gave most of 'you' to me. 'You' are a big part of me. I think about 'you' a lot. Luna gets to be free of 'you' and your confusing human thoughts." She stuck out her tongue, "Everypony wins. I'm made for you, so having 'you' there is just... lovely for me."
Silver looked concerned with a soft frown, "Is that right? I mean... you don't have free will?"
Celine suddenly punched Silver in the belly, knocking the breath from him. "I am not your slave! You get that thought out of your head. If you start acting like a jerk, I'll stop liking you. It's not unconditional love."
Silver struggled to regain the breath violently torn from him, nodding, "Sorry... Please don't hit me like that." He flopped back, looking at the ceiling, "You can tell me I'm being a jerk, or stupid, but I... want to know you'll never hurt me."
Celine looked guilty, glancing left and right before she nodded, "I won't hurt you again, but no promises on tackling, nibbles, or tickling."
Silver smiled, "I can live with that, even if I cry like a filly." The moment passed in one another's forelegs, comfortably entangled.
"So," asked Celine, "Did you want to try?"
Silver raised an ear, "What do I have to do?"
Celine sat up on Silver, "Well... I'm not entirely sure, but I have a hunch you need to see magic, real magic, spells!"
Silver nodded lightly, "I've been trying to do that, but everypony insists I memorize those patterns first." He frowned sharply, "I hate it. I don't memorize that way, usually. I memorize by doing, and by using pieces in a system I can tinker with. Give me bits of game rules and I'll work them together. Give me shreds of a programming language and I'll make it bend backwards to do something it's not designed to do."
Celine looked thoughtful for a moment before she hopped off of Silver and trotted off. He quickly rolled over, following her, "Where are you going?"
Celine didn't answer as she stepped into the plushly-carpeted den and made her way over to the magic books. She reached for a book and an image of Trixie appeared, "You are either a thief, or my naughty colt. Either way, no book for you! The Great and Powerful Trixie has spoken." With the warning spoken, a field of force appeared over the books, barring the way. Celine's horn shone with a rapid pattern and she thrust a hoof through the field, knocking one of the books free. It was grabbed in her magic before it hit the ground and Celine trotted back to the surprised-looking Silver.
"Read this," she beckoned, flipping it open to the first page, the part Trixie had skipped.
Silver tilted his head a little before he flopped down and got to reading curiously. The book seemed to go over the flow of magic, from a high-level viewpoint. It talked about how the patterns came together to form spells and shape intent with a specific sort of syntax and phrasing. The more he read, the more it seemed to make sense. Though the entire first chapter had no specific facts that would allow a colt to cast a spell, likely why Trixie had skipped it, it made it all come into focus for Silver. "Magic is a programming language!" he exclaimed as he sat up.
Celine paused, digging through her borrowed memories to learn what that was, "Yes, sort of, though you're programming the universe, not any silly computer."
Silver thrust a hoof into the air, "I can get behind that! These patterns are just the primitives. Why am I memorizing primitives? I can reference those!" He snorted softly, "I'd rather get to work on a real spell." He flipped ahead to the basic alphabet and pointed, "Can you make copies of this? So I can have a reference chart?"
Celine's horn flashed with complex magic before copies of the pages floated up and bound together into a small leaflet of the alphabet.
Silver tilted his head, "Hrm, can you make it one big sheet of paper, so I can see them all at once?"
With some magical tinkering, the papers were reconfigured into a big sheet, all the information in one place. "Perfect! Thanks." He kissed her on the nose, then plopped back down in front of the book, flipping past the alphabet. "Simple spells for foals, now we're talking..."
"Silver Lining!" came the angry voice of Trixie from the open archway to the den. "What are you doing?" She trotted up, her magic slamming the book shut, "Trixie did not give permission to study the book today. How did you get this off the shelf?" She saw the big floating reference chart and blinked at it before waving it away, "Go study that, that's harmless." She shoved the book back into its original place, leaving a disappointed Silver there on the floor as she cast a different defensive ward and sat watching them, "Go on."
Silver only realized then that Celine wasn't in sight, though he could see a faint haze of her magic lingering. He sat up, "Uh... sorry."
Trixie pointed at him, "Go outside and play like a normal colt. You don't need to study over the weekend. You may be an adult inside, but that won't stop Trixie from tanning your bottom if you disobey her again. It's for your own good."
Silver's ears fell. He didn't want to be spanked, least of all by Trixie. He wondered a moment how hooves, or a furry rump, would work with that, but decided not to test Equestrian physics and dashed from the room and the potential pain. He was soon out of the house, head full of half-aborted glimpses of real magic.
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5724915 sd.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk/i/keep-calm-fuck-it-i-ll-do-what-i-want.png
The phrase "light clumsy stumble" sounds odd. I'd put a comma between "light" and "clumsy."
This seems like the beginning of a new sentence, so I'd capitalize "she."
There are two spaces between "Once" and "in."
I'm not sure if she's getting the name wrong for the purposes of humor, or if this is genuinely an error (since it's normally "cowgirl").
The use of "til" is odd there, as this doesn't seem to be the aphetic variant of "until" (which is typically written as "till" anyway). I'd just change that to "to."
The den is "plushly-carpeted."
Silver is "surprised-looking."
The viewpoint is "high-level."
5724970 All fixed! This chapter weaved differently than I intended (All I had planned at the start was Nicole shows up and say hi). How did you like it?
Ha! Trixie's Antiburglar/Childproofing spell
Sometimes it's easier to learn something through half finished samples rather than through the basics.
5724992 The Clever and Careful Trixie will not have her books rifled through, harumph.
5725001 How rude. It's not rifling. It's perusing.
5724989 Nicole's entry seemed odd in how perfunctory it was. She was referenced twice (once when Silver mentioned her to Soft Blush, and again when Soft was gushing about Nicole showing up), so having her appearance amount to little more than "Hi. Good to see you again. Well, take care of yourself! Bye now!" was rather anticlimactic. It's also sad to confirm that Soft Blush is gone; while I do think that it's still too soon to have another member of the herd, her demure and poised nature would have contrasted nicely with Celine's unabashedly amorous attitude.
That said, I'm given to wonder if there'll be fallout from Soft Blush's departure. Her parents were quite clearly not the most open-minded of ponies (pushing her to take those tests and telling her not to associate with Silver), so I can't help but wonder if (presuming she let it slip that Silver was involved) they're going to want to lash out at Silver in blame for their daughter "throwing her future away" or something ridiculous like that. Of course, having mini-Luna in the way is likely to blunt a lot of that...but somehow I suspect that will only make them dig their hooves in all the more.
In fact, the more I think about that, the more I wonder about the Canterlot nobility becoming the antagonists for at least part of this story. Silver shows up and smears Carrot Plate's good name, then encourages a respectable mare like Soft Blush to go perform some commoner's job, and now a low-born unicorn like him is actually married to a young alicorn princess! Why, he's even a member of the court, ahead of the noble families that are trying to get in there! Finding out that he supports colt cuddlers, of all things, is likely to be the last straw in provoking a full-on backlash against him. What that will be is likely to be more social than something like "kidnapping him when Celine is away," since scandal, rumor, and public-shaming can be devastating all on their own, but I seriously doubt they're going to keep letting his casual disdain for class roles slide. (Heck, they don't even need to start with him - just imagine what could happen to Fleur and Fancy Pants.)
The revelation about Celine being the repository for the knowledge that Luna gained from Silver was a surprise, and made for quite an interesting twist. It makes sense for Luna to divest herself of those thoughts, so having Celine be there makes even more sense now. A bit harsh of her to slug him for asking a perfectly-normal question though; a bit of an existential crisis on her part, mayhaps? Probably not, but still, that's the most we've ever seen her upset, even if it was light compared to her "mother."
I liked the part about magic as a programming language. I've learned just enough programming myself to appreciate the idea that seeing it as a whole, rather than learning individual "tags," is more informative.
5725023 As much as Celine adores Silver, she is still part of Luna, and can be just as fiery in her anger, which manifested in her slugging of him. The idea that she was just a mindless love automaton pushed all her wrong buttons at once and she reacted before she thought. She feels bad for hurting him though at least.
As for Nicole, I'm not sure what more she could do. He would mention the other changeling he ran into, but he remembers she's not exactly trying to meet more changelings. She left the door wide open for her to come back into the story, but she really has no part to play other than saying 'Hi', basically, and knowing that the unicorn colt is the David she knew from before. I thought it was nice to have at least one other pony express that old-dave wasn't a bad fellow, even if new-silver is cute.
Having the nobles strike at Silver, again (the first strike being trying to stop him from getting into a school), seems a likely thing, possibly only to intensify when he graduates and joins the court formally.
Question! Does the story end when he gets his cutie mark(and begin the sequel)?
5725023 Well, there is a trick with all those stuffy nobles:
"Ayy lmao fuck off ye cunts"
Yeah, he asked a legit question out of fear of abusing her possible lack of free will. And she hit him. For someone who knows literally everything what fills your head she acts incredibly shallow.
5725052 Quite possible. Those are like a tomes dividing his life. Human. Foal. Young adult and so forth.
5725052 I'm honestly not certain if his getting his cutie mark is where the current story should end, and a sequel begin.
The question I'd ask myself in this regard is "do the current adventures feel like they've concluded? Is there a narrative 'break' here that feels natural?" If most of the current arcs and plot threads have been resolved, then ending things here and starting a new story would feel natural; if not, then keep going until they do. Judging that, however, ultimately hinges on how conclusive the proposed ending feels, so it's hard to judge at this point.
5725074 If he gets his mark, which would likely imply he's gained some confidence in magic, basic symbols memorized or not, then he'd be off to magic school, which feels like a new part of things, putting grade school behind and becoming a young adult instead of a foal.
5725083 Hm, you know, if that provided enough of a change of venue, then I could see it. A new school, new friends, new antagonists...a new story might be the right vehicle for that.
5725160 Oh god, I just figured out how Lyra gets back into things.
5725163 Oh Lyra, don't you know that biped-loving is worse than colt cuddling? Or is it not quite as bad? Either way, you're going to make a perfect re-addition to Silver's ragtag band of social misfits (but poor Bon-Bon, dragged along for the ride).
5725182 It's hard to form as strong a societal frown at an imagined activity. Humans don't actually exist, they're just foal's tales.
And Silver isn't one of those anyway, he is clearly a unicorn.
5725198 I was referring to her history of going to those conventions, and probably similar activities - we even saw her in a biped costume at the last convention!
5725200 Now this is true. Dressing up as a minotaur? Unseemly. I heard she transformed some little colt into a biped and was holding him hostage with his dad right there!
5725206 Plus she's wearing a horn-blocker for some sort of illegal magical activity. Clearly she's a criminal and a deviant to boot!
5725206 Remember that 2k words thing? IIRC also not less than 24 hours between updates so it will get into the featured list. Don't get me wrong, I love 2 or sometimes even 3 chapters a day from you.
Love trixie's recorded message from that spell book xD lol
5725228 I was over 2k, non? But the new day starts at 12pm eastern it seems, so the late update made it pop early.
5725235 Not sure about when the day starts, but you can jump to irc chat for fimfiction and ask dudes there.
Trixie is training him wrong he may be a colt in body but he has the mind and thrust of a adult and the knowledge of years of programing.
given time and the proper training and silver will be stronger then most unicorns.
twilight is rated at a 6 before she ascended to alicorn, sunset is rated at a vary strong 5 all most a 6.
and if memory serves the grate and powerful Trixie is a strong 4.
I am going to lay money on silver being a strong 5 in the long run this is after he finds he calling / cutie mark.
Harts Fire
When a changeling thinks you're weird, that should give you pause.
extra space
remove "went"
You should definitely flag this story for sex.
5727778 Fixed right up! You are on an editing rampage.
In truth I am the same way as Silver when it come to a great interest in programming and things similar. Although I have yet to actually get to start to learn real coding; I am able to understand advanced patterns and systems easily. More often then not i am able to see things and understand that most of my peers and friends cannot.
In other words I would most likely if I was a unicorn pony have a cutie-mark based on some kind of magic coding/creation.
In conclusion I can a near mirror reflection of myself with Silver Lining.
6060577 Welcome my brother from another mother!
Celine wriggled her ears, looking thoughtful, "I can't think of a time a stallion without a cutie mark fathered a foal unless they just never got one." She pressed against him in a delightful fashion that made his heart start to pick up, "Though you are a special stallion, but you don't have your mark. We should get you one."
Silver tilted his head, "You say that like we should stop by the cutie mark store and pick up a nice one."
LOL
Let it be known that we as a species are primarily a hands-on or a "Do it" learner, and let it also be known that when we learn the rules and limitations of something, always expect us to find ways to bend or circumvent them to our will.
Magic is coming, and it shall be glorious
6726482 Insightful take on it.
6726482 yes it will. I can see it now.
Hmmmmm... Is Silver Lining a 'sorcerer,' and Trixie a 'wizard'? Different approaches to the same results, and all.
7739531 The idea feels right, but the specifics, unsure.
7739531
When u read 'sorcerer' I instantly thought of sorcerer supreme from doctor strange
This is exactly how I learned to program. I took apart video game source-codes and learnt things backwards. Polymorphism was so much fun to learn, haha!
8468511
A kindred soul.
8468561
Hmmm.... do you also use Linux? Not saying it's required, but Linux does tend towards that style.
Barely a month goes by where I don't tear apart my computer's software in an unnecessary attempt to "improve" it.
(There's a reason all my important data is on an external harddrive.)
I thought that was obvious
Not opcodes?
There! Now we are talking! "My little pony: Programming is magic"
!
I have not been disappointed
!
magic programming. Makes sense to me. Magic always seems to be a process of reshaping reality using various verbal and somatic to focus a mages ability to rearrange a metaphysical structure that is omnipresent in most cases, so the choices are generally either intent based with little true understanding of what's happening, or study into what movements/words/both do what and why they do it. basically wizards vs sorcerers. Cool to see this going with a more wizard based structure.
i'm skipping over so much content because of the sheer amount of second hand embarrassment i'm getting from this Celine stuf, i really hope it ends soon. if it doesn't, then ehhhh, it's gonna a really tough re-read from like chapter 25 for me.