Ponyfinder: Potions and Swords

by David Silver

27 - Singing Talent

Jon took a firm step forward with an outstretched hand. "We're trying to get home, especially her to her home." He hiked a thumb towards Zecora, hand still even with Adagio. "I dragged her away from there on accident. Still my fault, so trying to fix that."

"I thought you were a bad boy." She was watching him intently. "But here you are, trying to be a good one. Hm. You're dressed like you're a local, but you don't sound like one..." She looked away from him, to the zebra he had showed. "For you. Zecora was your name, right?" She waited for the nod to come. "Tell me, since you're from Equestria, are the girls back there?"

Zecora frowned softly. "I have not heard of their presence. If they are there, they conceal their essence. Are you as talented as Twilight implied? Powerful mind wizards with green eyes."

Adagio raised a lone brow high. "My eyes are not green." She had brilliant brown eyes. "Oh! Wait... You're being symbolic." She made big quotes with her hooves, sinking into the water. "I'm not that either! Being in the army's taught a few things. I hated it at first, but I learned." She raised a hoof under her chin. "The queen gave me a favor I didn't ask for. Now why do you think I can help you get to Equestria?"

Sonja threw her head towards Adagio. "Word is you're from there."

"Valid." Adagio sat up on her powerful tail, water running free of her in streams. "But the queen doesn't want her prized tool wandering away, so they have not given me the ticket to splitting. Whatever, I've learned to like it here." Her eyes went to Jon with a renewed smirk. "I could tell you. You'd have to be a really naughty boy to get your hands on it." Her eyes went to his hands, mark of a humanoid. "You up for being a bad boy?"

The others looked guarded, but Jon didn't flinch away. "I'm ready to at least hear it. What way are you talking about?"

"You'd have to betray someone you owe no allegiance to, to start." Adagio clucked her tongue against her sharp teeth. "Break into a secret place... The queen keeps a collection of what you want, each to a different world. If there was anywhere you'd find one going to Equestria, it's there, right next to her."

Jon shrugged widely. "Like, what, keys?"

"Not keys." Adagio rolled her eyes. "Bad boys can be really dumb... Forks, tuning forks. Each vibrates with the song of a world. Find Equestria's and poof, home you go. You're not from there." She narrowed her eyes. "I'd remember if there were humans, and there are not. What world are you from, bad boy?"

Dark Thought looked between the zebra and human. "You two have been together as long as any of us have known you. Where did you meet, hmm?" He trailed off into a bit of a purr, watching them.

Adagio raised a hoof from the water. "I asked first, and I'm the one holding the cards, so shut up, cat." She pushed forward to the edge of the water. "Go on, tell me. Where are you from? You're not from Equestria High, are you? Oh, that'd be
funny..."

"No." That much he was fairly sure of. His High School had an entirely different name! And it wasn't horse flavored... "Earth."

Adagio put her brow back up. "Earth? Dirt? Doesn't tell me much. We got Equestria, land of ponies. We got Everglow, glowing with worlds brushing against each other and hey stay for our fey creatures. Plenty of glow." She clasped her hooves together. "But forget that, visit 'dirt pile'. You got a lot of dirt over there, boy?"

Jon tried to resist a sour face, but it was difficult to keep the frown off his face. "All kinds, but what we have is one race building cities big enough to put yours to shame and buildings taller than anything I've seen so far. We can talk to people on the other side of the planet without being super wizards or whatever. We got a lot going on, so we don't pay much attention to the world under us, so it got a boring name."

"Did I press a button?" She was leaning halfway from the water. "Good. A bad boy that can't be riled up isn't all that bad. Now, I'll tell you where to go, but I need a favor. Information isn't free! Besides, pretty sure she'd hate it if I said this." She didn't look all that worried about leaking that classified information. "The rest of you, shoo. I only need the bad boy here right now."

Sonja hopped to her hooves. "We're one firing squad. Take your shot with us here."

"Pass." Adagio waved Sonja away. "I can have you all removed. Just go. I won't hurt your bad boy too badly. I told you, I like those. Why hurt them?"

Dark Thought set a paw on Jon's leg. "We'll only go as far as we have to. You alright?"

"I'm fine." He was able to give the cat-pony a pat on the head without being rebuffed. "Thanks. I'll handle her."

Adagio burst into merry laughter. "You heard him. Shoo. He needs space to handle me. We'll see if he's up for the task." She waggled her brows at him suggestively. "Let's find out." Under her dark chortles, the others departed the room. "Good. I didn't want to sic the soldiers on them, but I would have. Being in charge has benefits." She pushed off the wall and slid to the far side of the floating pool. "Come here."

Jon took a few measured steps forward to set a hand on the edge of the floating pool. "This close enough?"

"I'm not feeling handled just yet. Come up here. What are you, afraid of water? You aren't a cat, so you won't melt."

He tightened his grip and pulled himself up to stand at the edge of the pool instead of below it. "Uh." From up there, he could see Adagio leaning back, arms crossed. She was showing nothing off, but the way she was showing nothing off seemed specific. "We don't know each other nearly well enough."

"What kind of male are you?" She raised a brow at him with a low chuckle. "As much as I'm enjoying this..." She trailed a hoof along a bright jewel in her chest. "I miss humanity a little."

"You used to be human?!" He got control of himself after the outburst. "What happened?" he asked far more calmly.

"You have the wrong idea." She rolled to her belly and easily swam closer, near to him at the pool's edge. "This is what I was born as, but more Equestrian. But I did a little planar travel, like you... At the end of it, I was human, and got used to it. Then I came here and got to go back to my roots." She splashed her powerful tail behind her. "And I like most of it, don't get me wrong..."

If one forgot the rest of her equine/aquatic makeup, her face was surprisingly comely, gazing at him with a smoldering passion that was inviting him to forget those little differences. "Right... so how can I help with that?" He went tense. "You aren't going to suck the humanity out of me?!"

Adagio laughed at his worry, chest heaving with the deep noise. "No! No... Wow... That would be kind of nice, come to think... Still, no... You get to keep right on humaning it up, promise. I just want to get in on the action." She waggled her brows. "You're acting like past me. Not everything is a zero sum game, bad boy. I can get something without you losing something. That's the kind of trade I'm looking for."

Stan let out his held breath. "Alright... Cool.. But you haven't told me what you do want. You want to go back to human, cool. It's a great place to be." He sat at the edge of the pool, watching her with a thumbs up. "How do you plan to do it? If you want me to cast a spell, I don't know that one."

"Oh, you know magic? Useful... What spells do you know?" She reached out a hoof to brush against him. "Oh powerful wizard."

"Not so much a wizard," he admitted awkwardly. "A few tricks that are great in a scrap. Not so useful here."

"Bah." She crossed her arms. "Fine. But you can cast spells, and read them?"

That was a thing he hadn't tried to do. Could he? "Got a scroll to look at?"

Her grin became all the more malicious. "Right answer." She pushed off the bottom, swimming quickly away and grabbing something in her teeth that became clearly a scroll tube as she returned with it. She dropped it next to him. "A simple spell, can you tell which is it? We'll start there." She waved a wet hoof at the dropped tube. "Take your time, bad boy."

He took the tube and popped off one of the metal caps. Its fastener wasn't metal. Ivory? He didn't think about that too long as he opened it and reached inside with a few fingers to draw the scroll free. He unfurled it properly and swept his vision over the dense matt of strange runes. They were alien and strange, not the language spoken, so far he could tell. He could read those!

He continued to study it anyway, doing his best to not let on that he'd failed at it to start. "Interesting." Yes, very interesting. Interestingly obscure! The letters changed depending on where he looked at them, as if... He moved the scroll to the left without following it with his eyes, there, the change. He drifted it towards the center as his eyes wandered off. Yes... So long as he wasn't trying to read it like English, he felt like he was getting closer. "It's been a while..." Quite a while, in fact!

"If you can't do it, just tell me." Adagio rolled her eyes. "Damn bad boys hate admitting when they mess up..."

Jon relaxed his gaze, almost looking past the page and it seemed to come a little closer to focus. "Just give me a moment."

"Yeah, a moment." That Adagio doubted him was not well hidden. "You get a minute. If you're still trying then, you get punished." She smiled wickedly. "We may both enjoy it, so go ahead and take your time."

He put aside her taunts as he did his best to relax. The meaning was coming closer... "Magical... sight? No... No! Sense. Sensing magic." Click. "Detect magic?"

Adagio burst into clops of her damp hooves. "Oh! I thought for sure you were just leading me along with promises. That is exactly what that is. Put that away." She waved at the scroll tube. "Nice and tight. It has to survive being underwater sometimes. I keep it around just for this kind of case, making sure people are being legit when they claim they're super cool spellcasters. They lie more often than you'd think."

The moment Jon got it bottled up, she grabbed the tube in her teeth. "Be right back." She was gone under the water, popping up on the far side of the pool and switching which tube she was holding. "This one." She popped up with a fresh tube. "This is the valuable one. The spell on it is way more complicated. Take a look, all the time you want this time. If it's past you, admit it. I don't want you burning it up messing up. I can wait until I find someone that can cast it properly."

John relaxed instead of focusing. Relaxing was an important part of getting it. There, words. "Many forms?"

Author's Note:

Adagio is up to something, but what? And why Jon?

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Comments

[Booster Spice]

Autosterographic nudge illusion runes?

Hmm.. been a few years since I last had a look at that tech, should be some new research available since.

Spike. To the laboratory.

Its time, for Research.

[Earthpatriot117]

Many forms? Interesting. Can't wait one day to learn what it is. Xd