Sunny waved to the foals behind her as she walked away. Never a dull moment with the little ones. Looking around, the pleasant scenery of the park soothed her mind. Such a good idea to have a park next to the orphanage. Foals always need space to move. Scanning the park for colts and fillies in need, she spotted one white and blue filly, sitting alone in the grass. Sunny altered her path, turning towards the filly. She took her time, meandering across paths towards the filly.
As she made her way, she idly noted a few scattered guards standing watch, and nodded to each as she passed them by. One large red guard stood nearby to the little filly. She also passed by a flowerbed on the side of the path. Sunny slowed to a stop and lowered her head. A collection of flowers greeted her eyes. Mostly poppies, with a few miscellaneous flowers mixed in. She nosed through the flowers and despite the abundance of poppies, she could smell the violet mixed in. One might say her nose scrunched up if someone looked closely. Wiping her face clean, she shifted her head to a different part and breathed in deeply. If only there was lavender...
Raising back up, she looked up and smiled. It may have been winter, but she rarely felt cold. She could tell that it was pleasantly warm, despite her inclination. She shuffled her large wings and continued on her path. When Sunny got closer, she saw that Aqua was wearing a striped blue and white scarf that was clearly too big. It almost looked like a blanket or an overcoat with its size. Sunny smiled. Must have been given to her by Cotton Ball. She should grow into it nicely, I hope. Like usual, there were a few objects floating around her. The pegasus shook her head lightly, confused. Getting close, Sunny waved to Solid Phalanx, and got a wave back, before approaching the filly.
Sunny called out, "Hello, little one."
Little Aqua jerked and dropped the magic-resistant training balls floating in her grip creating. Four muffled thuds sounded out as they hit the grass. "Huh? Who is it?"
"It's me, Sunny." A giggle from the pegasus. "How are you doing, little one?"
"Oh! Hey, Sunny. I'm doing okay, I suppose. I've been trying out a light spell my tutor tried to teach me." Aqua snorted. "Emphasis on tried. It hasn't been working out that well, so I decided to take a break and relax for a bit. How about you?" Aqua began feeling the ground around her, looking for the training balls.
"I'm quite good, thank you for asking. Do you mind if I sit next to you?" Sunny tilted her head.
"No, no problem. Feel free."
"Thank you. Also, relaxing?" Sunny looked at the spheres starting to float around Aqua.
"Uh... yeah? It is a nice day. I'm surprised how warm it is. It barely even feels like winter."
"It is a very nice day. I'm thankful for the weather ponies who scheduled a sunny day... Celestia's sun also helps."
Aqua mumbled to herself.
"Are you okay, little one?"
"Uh... Nothing. It's fine." The filly's muzzle faced the ground.
Before silence could develop between them, Sunny Disposition hummed. "When I asked about you relaxing, I was referring to the fact that you're practising your telekinesis as a..." She paused, a grin splitting her mouth, "Break."
"Oh, yeah..." The filly's brow wrinkled. "I assume... that with your reaction, this isn't normal?"
Sunny hummed aloud and nodded. "You would be correct. It has been a long while since I last checked any records, but the last pony that had a proficiency akin to yours with telekinesis was over five hundred years ago." She was so kind about it as well... "If nothing else, you are certainly unique, my little filly."
A silence grew between the two as Aqua looked down in contemplation. The sounds of birds singing, leaves rustling, and foals playing in the distance provided background noise.
They sat together under the sun for a long time. Neither counted the seconds, nor the minutes. Both soaking in what little sunlight there was.
Eventually, that silence was broken by Aqua.
"Y'know, I used to have some pretty bad eyesight. It's actually kinda funny actually that it got worse." Aqua giggled. "I used to basically require sunglasses when going outside, just so I could see. Still needed to squint even with them on but, hey, at least I could see..." Sunny watched the filly as Aqua's grin slowly changed to a sad smile. "It's ironic... Now that I'm blind, I can enjoy the sun better. Granted, I can't see the beautiful sights, but hey, who knows; Maybe I can feel the mountains in the distance." Aqua chuckled.
Sunny covered her mouth with a hoof and giggled. She then looked up in thought. ...believe that might be possible... but... She began to think for a minute, but was interrupted by a guard. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed one of the guards giving her a silent signal. Sunny deeply sighed and got up. Back to work...
"I'm sorry little one, but I must go. I wish you the best of luck in your endeavours of learning a light spell."
Aqua looked up at her. "Aw... Well, I suppose I'll see you around, Sunny. Have a good day."
"And you as well, my little pony."
Time to start her work.
So she's gonna start toph-ing it, huh? Or would it be more similar to daredevil?
Is Sunny Celestia? I know only she say little one or my little pony when talking to other ponies.
11290995
There's always a certain limit to one's concentration. Could you imagine holding more than 3 separate objects and then at the same time, concentrating on something like sonar? (bat-type, not navy type) I imagine, that unless someone can physically give themselves multiple brains, it would be physically impossible to do. But as we all know, spells don't come naturally.
11290996
Sunny Disposition has not been said to be Celestia in the story.
Wonder how many of the guards know who Sunny is.
11291115
I mean humans and ponies aren't adapted to handle multiple points of perspective, but brains are adaptive and neuroplasticity is a thing, especially in young ones. I expect that a good number of people could actually adapt to that
11291135
Probably not enough.
11291115
Well, you already gave her large ears and good hearing.
11291143
That's entirely fair. There are disabled people who are aware of more things than normal and healthy humans. But the difference is not just enhanced hearing for a blind person or a more pronounced subconscious awareness for some others. I can easily imagine humans could adapt to it, but only in a subconscious way. If one were to need to focus on it all at once, they might not go insane, Lovecraft style, but rather simply wouldn't be able to process all the information, and have it be a mostly useless information input to the brain. In contrast, proprioception, is a subconscious thing, that when focused on barely helps the one focusing.
The problem is if it can only be a subconscious thing for people, then there isn't enough use that can come from it, because of how much we, humans specifically, rely on conscious thought when we want to do something. For example, if you wanted to wiggle your eyebrows, you will suddenly be consciously aware of things nearby like your eyesight and all the eyelashes your brain normally tunes out. Or another example: you want to grab something in a specific way, your focus captures your hand and arm.
The only exception is the intents that are more instinctual, rather than learned. Walking, for example.
Granted, neuroscience is 100% not an exact science, and likely never will be and we will never truly know.
Thus, you shall have to wait and see. :)
11291151
You're right. I did. Bats can 'see' things via hearing. For bats, however, that is an instinctual thing, and even if Aqua attempted to learn how to do that, she likely wouldn't succeed.
But is it impossible to substitute instinct with magic?
Thank you for the chapter! Is there a chance that she could end up developing a kind of sonar spell? I doubt the would use it much for some reason or another, but it seems like a good emergancy spell
11291163
In fiction, there's always a chance.
I imagine there are many a reason to need a sonar spell or the likes of such. Not to mention the obvious, like sensing past sight range in water, it would allow you to know what's behind objects, know the consistency of a material, or...
11291162
Well, there are humans, blind and not blind alike, that have learned how to use echolocation in real life. So yes, without a doubt.
If she learns echolocation, I wonder if it would be a vague sense of distance, such as a wall a couple metres in front. Instead of a more daredevil type echolocation which is a bit OP
11291324
Huh. You're right. I actually didn't know that.
I think people who have learned that are because they were like that from birth but, I could be wrong.
Thanks for bringing that to my attention.
11291856
With how echolocation works, your hearing must be strong enough to tell the minute difference in volumes. Which, let's say that Aqua can, she would be able to tell where things are around her in decent detail. If something would be farther away, she would be able to know that there is something, but little about its shape. The better her ability to notice small differences in sound, the more detail she gets. One upside is that she would be able to hear around corners and be able to know about things that wouldn't be able to be seen. However, because the sound needs to bounce back to you from behind something, its detail would be lacking, but you would at least be able to tell something might be there.
A good comparison is a resolution on a tv or monitor. You can tell what something is, and most of its detail by being really close to it. But if something is far in the distance, it's just a few pixels wide. You might be able to tell that there is something there, but that's likely because of the colour or the tone of said object. Sadly though, unlike a tv, sonar isn't able to register colour nor tone.
11292057
I don't remember names off the top of my head but from what I remember most of the people went blind from an accident or medical issues around the age of 5-8. I could be wrong but that's what I remember.
11292622
I believe it.
If it's true, then it's extremely likely not an instinct thing but, instead a learned thing. Granted, learned through natural young trial and error, rather than by thinking it's cool and wanting to try it. Just as it would be easier for a 10-year-old to learn a new language than a 25-year-old.
11293316
Precisely.
11293710
I wouldn't be surprised if she eventually just applies a weak telekinetic force "bubble" around herself so she can "feel" things around her. She does, have some impressive sensitivity and control.
Nevermind on my previous theory.
I think Sunny is the Nightmare Moon herself disguising as sunny to take away this young souls and feed her ever expanding imperium of soul sucking Vhamphir.
11350130
...
11292057
Surprisingly, a lot of the cases who really got human echolocation moving in recent decades lost their sight as children (cancer or nerve atrophy, mainly). It seems to really help to already be used to that spatial perspective.