Cradle of Dreams

by AterHut

Chapter Eleven — More Practice

After cleaning and a good night's sleep I woke up early as usual.

To my surprise, Miss Velvet was already up and cooking something.

“Oh, morning! You’re an early bird, mm? Have a seat, your breakfast is almost ready.”

It felt strange to see a pony other than my parents or Waver’s cook making breakfast for me, but I couldn't complain here.

“Good morning, Miss Velvet. I didn't expect you to be up so early too.”

She giggled and stained her nose with flour, trying to cover her mouth with her hoof. Which made her laugh even more.

“Ha-ha, I own a bakery, remember? A good bakery always has everything fresh, so you have to get up early every day to prepare everything for baking!”

“I see.”

I washed my face while waiting for breakfast, but it still wasn’t ready, so I decided to start reading Twilight’s “Basics of Magic” while I waited. I don’t want to distract Miss Velvet and I don’t know what to talk about anyway.

“A magic book, hm?”

It’s not like I was trying to hide the fact I’m reading, but are you having eyes on your back or something?!

“Uh, yeah. I feel like I’m missing something important from the basics, so I thought I might find some tips in one of Twilight's books.”

“Ah, you mentioned something like that yesterday! Also seeing a unicorn using her magic but still getting close to objects she interacts with was pretty funny too, ha-ha!”

I’m still learning, okay?!

But the next second something unexpected happened.

“We still have some time before I open the bakery, wanna me teach you the basics a little?”

She gave me a soft smile.

“Huh?”

I got confused.

“Uh, sorry if I’m wrong, but aren’t you an… earthpony?”

An earthpony teaching unicorn magic sounds rather silly and embarrassing.

“I am, but the basics work the same way for everypony, you know? Don’t worry, I am quite experienced you could say!”

She proudly pressed her hoof to her chest, staining it with even more flour. Luckily, she was wearing an apron. I don't want to even think about how much time it would take to clean this mess off the coat.

Well, it won’t hurt, I guess. I can read those books later anyway.

“I'd love to then!”

. . .

As soon as I finished my breakfast and Miss Velvet had finished her things, we moved to the backyard of the bakery and walked about twenty metres away from it.

I hadn't paid attention to that before, but it's quite a large empty area. There must have been a big house before, but now it has been demolished. I noticed a few piles of building materials in the far corner, so maybe they're preparing that place for a new one.

Miss Velvet looked around and, after some wandering around with a bit of digging with her front hoof, finally chose the spot for… whatever she was up to.

“This place will do. Do you have a good reaction, Rettie?”

“Uh, what do you mean-”

“Jump on three.”

“Wait what?”

“One… Two…”

I don’t like it!

“Three!”

She stomped with her front hooves on the spot she marked earlier, I jumped at the same time and… nothing happened.

“Uh?”

“Alright, once again! One, two, three!”

Feeling like I’m getting pranked, I jumped as she stomped once again. Nothing happened again.

“Your reaction seems to be good enough, this time for real, so don’t mess up!”

For some reason this time I felt danger and tensed up.

“One, two, three!”

We repeated the same thing, but this time the ground around her hoof rose up and went in a wave for several metres, creating a circle of rocks around us!

“Hm, only about seven metres. Not the best result, but it will do.”

Excuse me? An earthquake with a radius of seven metres from the centre is "'will do"?! What the actual heck?! Besides, it was practically silent!

How come that earthponies can be so good at magic?!

“Now, come here Rettie! Yep, now sit right here and hold your horn over the centre! Mhm, like that! Now what will we use…”

Hold your horses! You don’t want me to repeat that spell, do you?! It doesn’t look like anything “basic” at all!

She chipped one of the rocks she made with that stomp and brought it to me.

“Now, take it, place it on the ground at the maximum range of your magic and make a circle!”

I drew an almost circular shape around myself.

“Yep, just like that! Now just repeat it and push it further and further until you get tired!”

“Uh, is that it?”

“Mhm, first of all you have to learn to feel your territory and how to use it properly!”

“Territory?”

“Um, zone? Area? What do they call it in modern schools?”

“Uh, sorry, I have no idea what you’re talking about…”

It sounds like something elementary but I don't understand.

Miss Velvet gave off a heavy sigh.

“What do they even teach you these days…”

I wish I knew.

“Territory is basically the maximum possible area your magic can reach. You can learn to sense everything within that area when you deploy it. That’s why we call it “territory” and not just "magic range", “area”, or something like that. And before you ask, “deploying territory” is basically using your magic in any way. It happens on its own and you don’t have to do anything for that.”

So I have to learn my magic range? That's easy enough, but...

“Feel?”

Another heavy sigh. I’m getting a lot of those lately, aren't I?

“You don’t have to look at your saddlebags to open them and take stuff out, do you? That’s because you can sense these objects within your territory. Just like the earthponies don’t have to see seeds to speed up their growth.”

“I see.”

I hadn't thought about it ever, but it makes sense.

“Well,I have to look after the bakery, so take your time and practise! I expect at least a fifteen metre radius circle from you by the end of the day!”

Fifteen metres?! At the end of the day?! Am I going to do this all day?!

“Have fun!”

With that she disappeared behind the bakery door.

“Oh well…”

Like she said, time to practise.

After what felt like forever, but actually was about three minutes, I had made several circles around myself. If Miss Velvet’s radius was about seven metres, my best was about five.

That was still good progress compared to what I was capable of a month ago, but it's still nowhere near fifteen metres Miss Velvet expects of me.

Thankfully, the local pegasi weather team decided that it should be cloudy today, so the sun wasn’t burning me and my horn to crisp.

“Learn to feel my territory, eh? I don't really "feel" anything when I use my magic.”

But she was right about me knowing what's in my saddlebags when I take stuff out of them.

Feel... You don’t “feel” with your eyes, right? So maybe I have to close them?

I closed my eyes and tried to feel my surroundings. No effect, but I still felt like I knew where the ground was, since my magic was pushing the rock against it. Besides I still had a sense of direction, so closing my eyes wouldn't hurt.

I pushed the rock as far as I could and made several circles around myself, then opened my eyes to see the result.

“Hey, that’s a tiny little bit further than the previous one!”

I got excited about instant progress, so I closed my eyes and started making circles again. And again. And again…

. . .

I had nothing to do after my shift at the cafe, so I decided it would be a good idea to visit Velvet’s bakery, because I could meet Rettie there.

“I won’t look annoying, will I?”

*Din~nng*

“Mmm? Oh, hello Teadrop! It’s rare to see you here. Looking for Rettie, aren't you?”

Velvet sees right through me as usual. That's one of the reasons why I don't like to visit this place, even if the sweets are fantastic.

“Um, yeah, I thought maybe she’s free and we could go for a walk or something…”

Is it supposed to feel so awkward to say it out loud?

“Ha-ha, she’s probably asleep in the backyard for a few hours by now! It's a good time to check on her anyway, so come with me.”

Looks like Velvet has Rettie working here as payment for food and roof over her head. No wonder she sleeps in random places now.

We walked through the bakery and out the back door, to our surprise, Rettie wasn’t sleeping.

Instead, she was doing… something? Is drawing circles with a boulder some kind of torture? The area around her looks more like a moat at this point!

“Um, what is she-”

“Hey you there! You weren’t supposed to practise for so long! At this rate, you won't have any magic left for tomorrow!

Velvet interrupted my question with a shout at Rettie, that she didn’t seem to react to.

“Seriously, this filly… Teadrop, could you fly up a bit and approach her slowly? About three metres above ground would be fine.”

It’s a strange thing to ask, but it doesn’t seem safe to try to approach her by the ground, with that seemingly sharp rock making circles around her.

I flew up about five metres and began to slowly fly closer to Rettie. What am I supposed to do when I fly closer tho? Boop her to wake her up? Or maybe like in old fairy tales…

I didn't get to finish my thought, because Rettie suddenly opened her eyes and looked straight into mine as I flew a little closer to her.

“Eeek!?”

“Uhh, Teadrop? Miss Velvet? Is something wrong?”

She had been sitting still until that moment, but now she sits swaying from side to side.

“Ohh, the world is spinning. I don’t feel well…”

“Because you have been spinning that rock in the same direction for what, ten hours or so by now? Why in the world did you decide that it would be a good idea?”

For HOW many hours?!

Rettie looked around in shock.

“Wha- It felt like half an hour! Also, didn't you tell me earlier that you expect at least a fifteen metre radius circle by the *end* of the day?”

I don’t think that somepony would mean that literally!

“Oh, for Luna’s sake… Do you use that thing at least sometimes?”

Velvet came closer to Rettie and gave her forehead a few rough taps with her hoof.

“Ouchouchouch!”

“That's exactly what happens when you use your magic for too long!”

She gave Rettie her last, seemingly harder, tap on the horn. This time it hurt just to look at it.

“OUCH!”

“That will be a good lesson for you not to overstress your horn again. Now, your friend has come to see you, so go and have a little rest with her before I change my mind and punish you even more.”

With that, Velvet threw Rettie a packet of sweets she had brought from the bakery.

Surprisingly Rettie caught it with her magic in time, before it hit her face.

“Ouchouchouchouchouch!”

It seemed to hurt to use her magic now, but she managed to put it in her saddlebags and put her saddlebags on.

“Impressive!” I couldn’t help but say it out loud.

“Impressive stupidity, I agree.”

“Hey, I’m trying my best here, okay?!”

“Try your best to leave this place and not fall, before I change my mind!”

“I’m going, I’m going! Geez!”

Rettie stood up and started to wind her way down the road to the stream, but stopped for a second and turned her head to me.

“Are you coming, Tea?”

She seemed to have a hard time focusing her eyes on me. Now it was obvious that Velvet had told her off for a reason.

Yet she still acted as if nothing was wrong and seemed to want to spend her time with me.

“Yeah!”

That makes me stupidly happy. It seems I was really lucky to get a friend like her.

. . .

When those two finally left, I could take my time to see how far Rettie managed to get today.

“Seriously… who else in the whole Equestria would literally spend a whole day practising her magic? Did she catch this stupidity from a single encounter with Ami or something?..”

I paced around, looking for the biggest circle she managed to make.

“About seven metres, huh? Well, it could be worse. It's honestly a miracle that she didn’t simply burnt her horn and made it this far without taking breaks.

But I still couldn’t see any sign of the “talent” that Mrs Wavers saw in Rettie, according to Rettie’s words. Just unbearable stupidity and stubbornness.

At the same time, I see no reason why either of them would lie about it. Nor can I imagine somepony like Mrs Wavers being wrong.

“Maybe I’m missing something?”

Speaking of missing, where’s that rock she was practising with?

I concentrated and deployed my own territory to find it. There was another trace of her magic a few metres from me. I went to it and, to my surprise, that rock was there.

“That's… twelve? No, almost thirteen metres?”

Well, now that’s the result that “talented” pony would show! But what triggered such a sudden spike in her magical abilities?

I kept thinking, as I erased every trace further than six metres, so she wouldn’t slack tomorrow.

Then it clicked.

“Was it because somepony entered her territory?..”

It would be strange, but I have seen enough in my life to believe this theory. It’s definitely something that I want to test tomorrow.

Comments

[ProgAltRocker]

Oh boy, Rettie is in for a surprise from Miss Velvet soon