Cradle of Dreams

by AterHut

Chapter Two — Failure After Failure

At the end of the day I barely had made anything.

I’m simply not able to use my horn for that long! Even with breaks literally each five minutes there’s just too much work!

And that’s only the first day!

Keep rambling stuff like that I closed the library and went home.

Well, it's more like servants' dormitory, but I’ll live here for pretty much the rest of my life, so I can call it “home”, right?

Just like last evening dad greeted me by ruffling my hair with his hoof.

It took some stress off, but it wasn’t as effective as last time.

“Feeling bit overwhelmed, don’t you?”

How does he manage to stay that calm, while looking at his exhausted daughter?

“Honestly - I barely feel anything.”

Especially my own horn. It feels like there’s some foreign object at the place where my horn is supposed to be. Even if the mirror shows otherwise.

“As long as you don’t feel like giving up - it’s fine. You will get used to it soon.”

He nodded to himself and, after another assault on my hairstyle (or better say at the mess that is left on my head after today), went back to his chair to continue filling some papers.

Only thing that I wanted more than sleep (excluding not having to go back to the library ever again) is to take a bath.

So I did. Then, after drying my coat and hair, finally went to bed and quickly fell asleep.

. . .

“Honey, did you notice how Rettie acts since she’s back?”

“Slow and tired? It’s hard to not notice that!”

“Not that, silly, I meant that she didn’t use her hoofs even at home, like she usually does. That’s a very quick change in behaviour.”

“Do you think she’s so exhausted that uses her magic unconsciously?”

“Or that, or she’s as persistent as her mother.”

“And how am I supposed to take that?!”

. . .

Even after a whole day of venting, the air in the library was dusty, making it barely possible to work inside. Thankfully, I don’t have anything to do outside. But at the same time…

“That’s… Problematic.”

My telekinesis range is quite low. My comfort zone is about 40cm from the tip of my horn and maximum is about 80cm. Enough to take and hold items. But not enough to not sneeze from sweeping dust off them.

“Why so?”

I’m sure there was no pony around a second ago!

“Can you stop sneaking up on me from behind?!”

“I’m not sneaking, Miss. I just fly.”

Fair enough, but…

“It doesn’t make your appearance less scary!”

“Thanks.”

“IT WASN’T A COMPLIMENT!”

Seriously, what’s wrong with that guy?..

“So, what kind of problem have you encountered?”

He simply ignores any of my complaints.

*sigh*

“I can’t breathe in all that dust. Even the mask simply gets all dusty and becomes useless. And my telekinesis range isn’t large enough to reach objects from afar.”

“Have you tried to use any tools?”

Am I an idiot?

“...To be honest I rely on my magic so much that I didn’t think about using anything but cloth and water.”

“There’s a shed full of tools behind the corner. Feel free to visit it.”

I quickly peek behind the corner, there’s actually a shed. It wasn’t in the best condition and was located in shadow, making it hard to notice.”

“It looks a bit scary honestly-”

When I turned back to complain, the pegasus had already disappeared.

“I swear, I’m starting to think that he uses some kind of teleportation…”

At least the shed didn’t magically disappear in thin air when I looked back at it.

“I wouldn’t mind if it’d disappear…”

It still look scary, but I didn’t have much choice.

“Only little fillies are afraid of weird old-looking buildings, right?”

Okay, that was a pretty bad attempt to calm myself down.

“Oh come on! I can do it! It's just an old shed! What can go wrong?”

As I came closer to the shed I started to hear some weird mechanical sounds from inside.

“It must be just some old generator, ha-ha…”

That attempt to calm myself down was better, yet still didn’t succeed. My heart started to pound like crazy and my mouth went dry. But I decided to go inside so I won't turn back!

I quickly reached the door and…

“It’s here, Miss-”

I can’t possibly describe all the range of emotions I’ve felt the second the black pegasus appeared in the doorway and started to talk to me. Even my scream got too scared to leave my throat.

While I tried to get back control on my heart rate and breath, pegasus quickly explained to me where and what tools were there and, with the usual bow, flew away, without any worry about me having a heart attack!

It took several minutes for me to be able to think straight again.

I swear one day that pegasus will pay for all those jokes-

But for now my main problem is that damn library.

. . .

Sadly, no tools in this dumb shed seemed to be useful for cleaning. Most of them were just garden and repair tools.

As if it wasn’t enough, the small generator in the corner of the shed died.

“Just like my motivation to do anything today, I guess?”

. . .

Even if I said so, in a few minutes I once again found myself in front of the library, staring at the dense layer of dust that was covering the whole interior.

“Oh, Celestia, help me to handle this…”

I had no choice but to get inside and start cleaning.

It was a brave act indeed. A brave act that ended in a minute with me running out from a cloud of dust after me. It haunted me as if it was unhappy with the fact that I disturbed its peace.

“I need to change my strategy as soon as possible, or one day that dust will chase and bury me.”

Alright, let’s see what options I do have.

Venting - My best decision so far, but it didn’t help much.

Tools - None to be found. None come to mind to make myself.

Mask - Good, but not enough to survive that dusty hell.

The last thing that I can do is get better myself.

“So, how in the world do you extend your telekinesis?”

That’s… a good question.

Usually I’d attend magic classes or ask someone for advice. Then I’d slowly practice and one day achieve a sufficient result.

But this time I had to do something about it very quickly, or I’d fail my task and ruin my family reputation.

"And will get even more work on my croup..."

In front of me was a library, possibly full of ancient knowledge, that could save me!

“As if…”

But what if!

“Ha-ha, it’d be too silly”

Or would it?!

I stood there for a few minutes arguing with myself and staring into the library, trying to read book titles.

“My eyesight is not that good.”

Even If it was, most names were covered in dust, so I had no chance to read it.

So I had to go in once again.

“Ughhh…”

“Alright, at least I won’t have to kick up dust, just gently brush some dust off the book spines to understand what it’s about.”
From now on, I started investigating the bookshelves along with cleaning.

The Wavers family is well known for their wide range of interests - every generation had their own business going on.

Around forty years ago it was alchemy, nowadays it’s trading. In a decade or two Wavers’ daughter (who went travelling a few months ago) will become the head of the family and their family business will change once again.

Because of that their family house library had an extremely large variety of books, making it even harder to find something magic-related.

Even when the current head of the family, Mrs Waver, is a unicorn too and, as I heard, enjoys studying magic as much as her trading things.

“I wonder why I've never seen her tho…”

Anyways. Magic. I need to focus on finding something that will help me to survive that hell.

“Baking… Cooking… Tea brewing… Gathering… Looks like I won’t find a thing in this part of the library.”

Half an hour after I had to leave, otherwise I’d suffocate in all that dust that was there.

“Seriously, how long this library hasn’t been unused?”

I got chills on my spine and quickly turned around, expecting to see the same old black pegasus, sneaking to scare me.

Thankfully, nopony was there-

“For about five years”

For Celestia’s sake!

“Didn’t I ask you to stop sneaking on me from behind?!”

“I’m not sneaking, I’m flying, Miss. And I have landed right in front of you the very second you’ve decided to suddenly turn around. You were looking worried. Is something bothering you?”

I laid on the ground and put my hoofs on my face.

“Just leave me alone, please.”

“Sure. Just checking on you. See you later.”

I really hope not…

. . .

Evening was around the corner, but still no luck in finding any magic-related books.

“Okay that’s weird.”

Had Mrs Waver ordered all the magic books to be moved to the mansion's library?

"That... Would make sense. But hey! There’s still two more sections that I haven’t checked yet!"

Both of those were located in the far corner of the library and were looking more like archives really, so I had very little hope to find anything decent there.

“Well, at the very least I can say that I’ve cleaned shelfs from dust today.”

Dad always says that positive thinking is very important. And I can’t just leave like this after all that hard work.

It’s getting dark, so this time I took a lantern from that dumb old shed and went to investigate those two sections.

To my surprise, they were way less dusty than other parts of the library.

“Meh. Bet I just can’t see all that dust in the dark.”

With those words I started to swipe dust from numerous books and folders. As I expected, there were some kinds of archives. First one, obviously, was the Wavers’ Family archive.

“I don’t think that Mr Waver will be glad if I rummage through their family documents…”

And, honestly, I had no interest in that at all. Both my horn and eyes felt too heavy after another day of hard work.

“Bet all this fatigue is bad for my health. Well, good news, there’s only one section to clean left, yay…”

Surprise me with even more Wavers’ family documents.

I was half right. It yet again was a family archive. But not the Wavers' one.

“Maregolds?..”

Wait. That’s our family! I mean, I should’ve expected to see that, since Maregolds were serving the Wavers for almost their whole history, but it still was a surprise to see our family archives here.

“I shouldn’t read Wavers’ family, but it’s natural to want to know more about my own, right?”

Why do I even excuse myself?

“Let’s see.”

. . .

Half Hour later I gave up. It was nothing but boring family archives. The only interesting thing that I’ve found were my great-grandpa photo.
"Hell, he lives up to his name! Being almost two times bigger than an earthpony! For an unicorn! A young one!

“Now I feel bad about being smaller than my peers…”

Not like I've seen many of them but still.

Actually I feel way worse for being so tired and still having a lot of work ahead. But that adds up, I guess?

“Also no luck in finding anything related to magic. Well, at least I’ve found “100 best tips and tricks for housewives”. Maybe I’ll find something useful there-”

I was about to put the documents back in place, but I lost concentration and dropped bunchof documents on the ground.

“Nghhhh!”

I didn't find anything better than pointlessly stomping on the spot out of anger and hopelessness.

“It can’t just get any worse!”

I swung my hoof and hit it on the shelf.

“OOOUCH!!!”

Okay, NOW it can’t get any worse.

Or so I thought, till I noticed that the shelf I’ve hit began to sway.

“Nonononono!-”

I’ve tried to prevent it from falling with my telekinesis, but it didn’t help much. I knew all this fatigue would get to me sooner or later!

Thankfully, the shelf didn't seem to be going to fall on me.

Bunch of books from the top shelf do tho.

“Ou. Oh! Auch!”

I instinctively covered my horn. It already hurts so I bet I’d pass out if any of those books would hit it.

"Alright. It's fine. I didn't got hurt... much."

On the other hoof, looking at the amount of stuff on the floor I have to clear now…

“Just kill me…”

It never felt so hard to simply pick up a book with telekinesis ever before. Well, maybe except the classes, when I was just learning how to use it.

Still, somehow I've managed to put everything on the nearby table.

“It’s too late. I’ll put everything on its place tomorrow.”

I left the library in a down-hearted state. When I got home, I sneaked into my room and passed out.

Comments

[ProgAltRocker]

Poor Rettie. That pegasus seems to have a subtle knack for being stealthy