Dreamstrider

by OkemosBrony

Chapter 6

When I dash into Princess Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns, I pull the scarf off my mouth and start brushing all the snow off myself. I like snow, but I never expected this much. I guess you’d get that living on a mountain.

“Hey, Aurora!” Glacial says, skipping straight past me and not even bothering to brush the snow off herself. She’s been getting really excited the further into winter it gets, which I guess fits her special talent. Last week she started talking about stuff like the deposition of water vapor as it passes over Mount Canter and how that makes the snow here apparently really good for certain spells but not good for others, but I didn’t catch half of what she said. I don’t really know why she’s here, because she probably knows a ton of stuff Miss Sparks doesn’t even know.

When I finish brushing all the snow off me, I walk into the classroom and sit down at my seat. Glacial and Dusty are already there, with Glacial looking at our homework and Dusty reading a book I can’t see. I pull my homework out and try to look at what Glacial wrote for a few of the questions.

“Glacial, what did you say for the question about the mare who want to know what her foals will be?” I ask, turning the paper and pointing at the blank space that’s supposed to have an answer there.

“Probably an earth pony,” she says, pointing at it. “It’s usually the same as the mother because the foals’ magic and the mother’s magic are the same for 11 months. And because she’s full earth pony, it’s less likely the foal would be a unicorn, even though the dad is a full unicorn.”

“Thanks,” I respond, quickly jotting down what she said. I knew the answer, but I didn’t know the reason why. She’s been a real lifesaver whenever I don’t know anything.

“Alright everypony, put your homework in the middle of your groups!” Miss Sparks announces, walking to the front of the classroom as Arcane Force sneaks in.

“Why are you so late?” I whisper to him as I put my homework in the middle.

“I...slept through my alarm,” he admits, brushing some snow out of his mane and onto his desk. Right before Miss Sparks comes by and gets our group’s homework, he slips it into the stack so it isn’t late.

“I know we’re almost to winter break, but we still have something more we need to do,” she announces with a small smile. “Instead of just doing some homework or a test, you will be doing a final project, which you will present to the class. I encourage you to be creative; divination is the study of ambient magic, which is a very vast field. There are many things you could do, from research papers to experiments. It has influence on almost every school of magic, so if you absolutely can’t think of anything, you can always do something on how your talent of magic interacts with the ambient magic surrounding us.”

There’s a soft roar as some of the ponies start talking about what they might do, but she puts up a hoof. “I’m not finished! This will be a group project, with your partner being whoever is currently sitting across from you in your group. Now you may discuss with your partner what you wish to do your project on, and come tell me your topic when you decide on it.”

Glacial quickly gets up and sits next to Arcane Force, and I look at Dusty, who just kind of looks at me. When he doesn’t move, I get up and walk around to his side. Come to think of it, I don’t really know the last time I talked with him. Usually when we do group work, Glacial and Arcane Force dominate the conversation because they both know a ton about magic. I never have anything to add, and I think he just doesn’t want to add anything.

“So do you have any ideas?” I ask to break the awkward silence between us.

“Yeah.” He pulls a book out of his saddlebags, then opens it and points to a picture of a cylinder with glass in the middle, showing a ton of wires and tubes. “I think we should make a siphon.”

“A siphon?” I ask. “Never heard of one of those.”

“They gather magic.” He flips the page and turns to some blueprints, most of which I don’t understand. “Then you can use them for a ton of stuff.”

“Sounds...interesting,” I say. It does actually sound kind of neat, but I’m not good with building things. Even those toy sets with the logs to make a cabin never seem to work out right.

“It doesn’t look hard,” he says, pointing at one of the blueprints. “I’m good with my hooves. And a lot of this stuff looks easy to get.”

“It looks kind of complicated,” I say, kind of uneasily.

“It’s easy,” he says, slamming the book shut. “I’ll go tell her.”

When he gets up and goes to tell Miss Sparks about our project, I sneak a peek at the book he put on his desk: Magical Engineering, Vol. 3. It looks kind of worn, like it’s been read over and over. Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever asked what type of magic his special talent is. It probably has something to do with engineering, I’d guess.

When he starts walking back, I quickly put the book back where it was. He sits down, then opens back up to the page on siphons and turns it to me. “Know a lot about mechanics?”

I shake my head. “I know which end of the hammer to use, but after that, not much.”

“Thought you said you were from a place with a lot of earth ponies?”

“Yeah,” I nod. “But I don’t really know tools and building things that well. What does me being from an earth pony town have to do with it?”

“I’m from Dodge Junction, we’re the only non-earth ponies there.” He shrugs. “Everypony there is good with tools. Figured it might be the same in other towns.”

“Nope.”

“Come to think of it, I probably have everything on this list,” he says, bringing his head closer to the page. “What do you say we meet tomorrow after school gets out and work on it? We might be able to get it all done then, even.”

“That would probably work. I’d have to ask permission, but otherwise it would work.”

“Cool,” he says, closing the book. He seems like he knows what he’s doing. I have a good feeling about this grade.

---

When the bell rings to signal the end of school, I put all my winter clothes on and walk over to Dusty’s desk. He puts his stuff in his bags, then looks up at me. “Ready?” he asks.

I nod and walk next to him. “You said you think you have everything we need, right?”

“Yeah. I like taking things apart, so I have plenty of scrap in my room. Should be able to get everything to work together.”

We walk outside in silence, then around the back of the school to one of the two towers. The one on the left has a big sign that says Star Prism Tower, and the one on the right that we go into has a sign saying Starswirl the Bearded Tower. Based on the names, I guess one’s for fillies and the other’s for colts.

I look around when we get inside, and it’s actually really nice in here. There’s some couches and other seats all around, a door to a cafeteria that’s empty right now, and a fireplace built into one of the walls with a really big fire roaring in it. Really cozy, actually.

“Come on,” he says, going to another door near the fireplace. We go through it and up a flight of stairs until we enter a long hallway with fake torches shining realistic fire brightly over the red carpet. All this stuff is way fancier than back home, even about as fancy as some areas in the castle. I guess if Princess Celestia runs this, it makes sense that it’s super fancy.

When we get to one of the numerous identical doors, he pulls a key out of his bags and unlocks the door and walks in. I feel weird going into a colt’s room, but I follow him in anyways. It sort of looks like any room, really. There’s a window at the back to look out over the snowy city, and one bed on each side of it. Two desks are also in here, one starting at each foot of the bed. The one on the right has papers and books all over it, and the one on the left looks like it hasn’t been used in a long time.

“Nice room,” I say, taking a few steps further in as he looks under the desk on the left. “Who’s your roommate?”

“Thunder Stone,” he replied, pulling a small toolbox out and setting it by my hooves. “He’s fine.”

“I can’t imagine what it would be like living with a roommate,” I nervously giggle as I look at Thunder Stone’s desk. “I never had to share a room with either of my sisters.” I look back down at him. “Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

“None,” he grunts while pulling a big box full of various parts out from under his desk. “We should probably go downstairs, to the lobby. Can work there.” He tries to lift the box with his magic, and when I see him struggling, I power up my own horn and help him carry it. We get a few looks as we walk it through the hallway and the stairs going down are definitely a challenge, but we manage to get everything into the lobby and set up.

“So what’s first?” I ask him eagerly, sitting down at the table. I have to admit, while I’ve never done anything like this, it might be kind of fun.

He rummages around in his box, then pulls out a ton of wires. “Know what nickel wire looks like?”

I shake my head. “Not at all.”

“We need gold and nickel wire for this one,” he says, leaning over and putting a hoof in the pile of wires. “Gold you can tell by looking at it, and nickel’s silver in color.” He grabs a few silver wires, then powers up his horn and holds each one up to it. After trying a few, he passes two to me. “Just try moving some magic through them. The nickel one will be easier to get it through.”

I do as he says, and when I put the first wire against my horn, it seems to kind of resist a little. I remove it and put the other one on my horn, and that one is a lot easier to get the magic in. “The second one’s nickel,” I proclaim.

“Yeah,” he nods. “Just pull out all the gold and nickel ones. I’ll try and find some of the other pieces.”

“Why do you have a box full of spare parts?” I ask as I start pulling every gold wire out of the bunch.

“Like I said, just like taking things apart.”

“Yeah, but how many things did you have to take apart to get that many?”

“You’d be surprised,” he says with a little excitement. Come to think of it, this is the first time I’ve ever heard him be excited about anything. “And this is all since I came here. Ponies sell broken-down stuff really cheap, so I just brought some bits with me and buy all the old stuff they just need to get off their hooves quickly. They’ll sell them dirt cheap because they would have otherwise just thrown it away, so they’re happy for any money.”

Makes sense. When I’m confident that I’ve sorted all the gold wires out, I power up my horn and start testing all the silver ones. “So what type of magic is your special talent in?”

“I don’t really know,” he admits. “Pretty sure it’s magical engineering, though I hardly see how that counts as magic.”

“If it makes a difference, nopony can ever see me perform dream magic,” I laugh. “At least you get to make things ponies can use.”

“What’s dream magic even like? Like, what do you do?”

“I’ve never been able to get it to work,” I say, my face probably turning red. “But when I close my eyes, I feel this pulling in my mind. The idea is I grab onto that, but I haven’t been able to get that down yet. It’s really frustrating because I’ve been at it so long, but Princess Luna says it takes a while to get going.” I sigh a little. “I just wish it could work. It’s really annoying having a Cutie Mark and not being able to do what it says you can do. Most of the stuff we do now isn’t even Dreamstriding, it’s exercises on magic so I can get a feel for what I need to do.”

“Did somepony teach Dreamstriding it to you?”

“Kinda. Like, I have to learn how to do it, but apparently the ability to Dreamstride is something you have to be born with. And nopony knows where it comes from, because no Dreamstrider has ever been documented as having a child who can Dreamstride. So it looks like it’s just completely random.”

“What’s Princess Luna like?”

“She’s really nice,” I smile. “Really patient with me not really making progress on Dreamstriding. And is always open to helping me whenever I need it. It’s nice having somepony here since my family’s all back at home.”

“Yeah,” he replies. It sounds like he’s kind of lonely, too. It must be hard being so far away from home and not having somepony look over you like I have.

“Any plans for Hearth’s Warming break?”

“Just going home.” He opens his toolbox and starts pulling out a few tools, some which I recognize and some which I don’t. “It always snow so much this far north? Hardly ever snows back in Dodge.”

“I wouldn’t really know,” I shrug. “Canterlot’s on a mountain, Coltlumbus isn’t. So I’m seeing more snow than normal, too.”

“Seen your family since coming here?”

I shake my head sadly as I put all the nickel wires into a small pile. “No. How about you?”

“My dad came up once,” he nods. “He works for the Trans-Equestrian Railroad, so he travels a lot.” He looks up at my wires, then grabs a tape measure out of his toolbox. “Start tying them together. We need half a meter of nickel wire, and three five centimeter pieces of gold.”

I fumble with the tape measure a little, but eventually get it to get out to half a meter and start tying wires together. I look over to him as I do it, and he’s already got the brass shell put together. He works really quickly.

Once I’m done with the nickel wires, I move onto the gold ones, but no matter how I work them, they’re never the right length. “Do they have to be exactly five centimeters?” I ask him, hopeful for the answer.

“One of them doesn’t.” He looks at my wires, then pulls some tool that looks like pliers out of his toolbox. “Ever use wire cutters?”

I shake my head. “Probably does exactly what it sounds like?”

He picks up some wire in the pile of ones we don’t need, then puts it between the two sides of the pliers and squeezes the handles to cut it in two. “Just like that. Really easy.”

I take the cutters from him and put line up one of the gold wires, and he watches me as I do so. When I cut it to the right length, I can’t help but smile. It feels kind of good to be getting better with tools.

“Yeah, good,” he says with a tiny smile starting to grow on his face. He’s really starting to open up; I guess he just doesn’t like being in class.

I finish up the others as he passes a couple small metal rods to me. “Alright, now you need to take a piece of gold wire and two posts. Wrap the wire around each post twice, ending up with a post on each end.”

Carefully, I do as he says, trying to make sure the coils are nice and tight. “This good?” I ask while holding up my finish product.

“Yeah,” he confirms. “Then, when you’re done, just connect them with the other piece you haven’t used.”

I start working on an identical piece to the one I just made, then link them together. It isn’t much, but I feel really good that I was able to make something. I’ve come a long way from struggling to make block towers taller than two blocks.