Inkwell - Part 11

Inkwell - Part 11- A Certain Spell Index.

The group hug made Gem feel at peace.

“What about you, darling?” Rarity asked as the ponies broke off, leaving a content Gemini and a giggling pair of foals.

“Hmm… Nothing.” Gem replied.

“Oh come on, don’t be shy.” Dash said.

“I’m not being shy. I said ‘Nothing’.” Gem said, again in a neutral tone. “Since I am ‘Nothing’, ‘Anything’ can be made, and ‘Anything’ is taken in. Well, in theory, anyways.”

It came with the ‘mirror’ and ‘shadow’ territories. Any alignment, any element, any attribute, any mask, any aspect, any wish, heck, any personality if she so desired. Realistically speaking, there were limits both self-imposed and practical, as she had already said, but they had yet to catch on to just what was still permitted.

“What do you mean, ‘made’?” Twilight asked.

“Easy, I can change myself with just a thought. It can even inadvertently alter my personality a little if I change too often, so I just stay ‘river’, ‘cloud’, and ‘rain’. As I already said, things thrown my way… affect me.”

“And ‘taken in’?”

“Another easy one, I am great with cooperative actions.” Gem said more warmly, shaking her head to pry her braid from Pumpkin’s grabby little hooves. “Normally, it’s really hard, since synchronization can be tedious and requires lots of practice with each one of your partners, specially when it comes to magic spells… or absolute trust in that case, but that’s another type of magic; Aer called it ‘Silver Bonds’, and said it is the mark of love between the users.”

“Hmm… Cadence and Shining combined their magic to repel the changelings.” Twilight mused. “Would it be alright with you if…? I mean, you seem to know many exotic things…”

“Well, you are my friend, no? I’d love to tell you all I know.” Gemini said, then inhaled deeply just as Pound Cake started to flap his wings, her horn released a soft blue glow as she released her breath and a small blue wave washed over the miniature pegasus.

“Don’t go flying off young colt.” Gem playfully scolded the foal, who was happily buzzing his wings without actually taking off.

Pinkie’s jaw dropped to the floor as her mind made an acrobatic pirouette off the handle before making a break for the emergency escape exit.

She sat there for a few moments before speaking. “That’s convenient.”

“It would be even better if I was a pegasus, but yeah, I guess.” Gem chuckled. “Babysitting, possibly the most pedestrian use I’ve given that- wait, I have used it for cooking… never mind.”

’I have to be careful, though. I only have an E-class… it’s too frail for me to cast proper spells! At least keeping appearances counts as an emergency. I suppose I should be thankful that it is unaligned.’

“Hey, I wonder what the princesses would look like for you.” Spike said, rolling up the parchment.

“Ah, they are extra-special.” She said. “They are a lot of things simultaneously. At dawn, I saw a river of black and silver reach for and descend from the moon, representative of the concealing shadows and the lights that guide within… then, a claw of gold and faint black did the same for the sun, which would be both the light of life and the shadows of respite.”

“It must be beautiful.” Lyra said.

“And loud. What I don’t understand is how any pony can actually sleep through it.” She released the foals, who promptly began running about the place. “Their presence is just so… vast and strange. Did I tell you it can be felt all the way from here? But it’s almost imperceptible unless you are in the right frame of mind to ‘catch’ it the first time.”

“Frame of mind?”

“Clear like a mirror, a mind as serene and reflective as still water.” Gem said, and then her usual mirth began seeping back into her voice. “It’s in my nature! It can be used for almost anything!”

The thing was that all was bare to her. She could see when energy was clouded and tainted; she could thus see when someone had fears, or was burdened with guilt, or carrying shame, or suffering great pains… she could even see it on projected energies some times, and thus was able to determine the current frame of mind of the caster with consistency and accuracy. She wanted to give the princesses a hug.

“You know? I should totally write a book on magic. With all the things crammed into my head, it’ll be better warded than a king’s vault.”

Yes… some recursive wards, a few empathic seals, anti-tampering enchantments, some blood magic arrays, soul runes combined with regular runes, trap spells galore, curses, conductive sigils, a couple of spell-, force- and energy-absorbing seals, blessings for good measure, and a ‘little’ living magic to tie it all together, hidden under a simple, booby-trapped concealing spell, and she would have the most complicated, over-protected book she had ever heard about. And it would barely require power to shape, what with the oodles of the stuff flooding Equestria; her E-class filter would be well within safety parameters.

If she were (nearly) anything else, it would be easier to invade her mind.

*****

To all who find this book:

Do not open.

Seriously, hooves off.

Only my closest of friends are currently authorized to see its contents. That is to say, besides those who taught me the contents: Twilight Sparkle, Rarity, princess Celestia, princess Luna, (and, though they are uninterested in magic) Pinkie Pie, Applejack, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy. Twilight insisted on letting Cadence and Shining Armor see it too, so I added a little something so that Twilight’s family can use it – sorry, I don’t know you Cadence, so I couldn’t add you!

This book is protected by a great deal of enchantments, many of which comprise kinds of magic I have not seen any pony cast, so I am confident that it can’t be opened without setting off the wards. If you can open it without the key, then you already know anything I might have put in here, and thus it’s pointless to steal it.

If you do not believe in ‘curses’, then let me tell you that I use the word to refer to any negative self-renewing enchantment/effect; I added several of them besides the wards against attacks and tampering, and without the knowledge inside this book only the Elements of Harmony are able to safely remove them – though some of them only for a while.

No, I am not implying that the princesses can’t remove the spell-weave. I am stating it. They are awesome, yes, but they are mostly focused on pony magic! A single dragon- or fox-style Eastern seal will be an edgeless puzzle with half of the pieces missing. That and you need to peel away all of the layers at the same time, but without the key…

If you find this book, give it to any of the aforementioned ponies. Or try to steal its secrets for your own, at risk of a fox-curse of bad luck and many humiliating effects.

Oh, and even if you do open it, you’ll find out that they don’t look very readable! Only those who have seen Harmony through the soul of another may see the secrets within.

Shining Armor felt the hum of power fade from the air as the box left the guard’s possession and came to a rest on his own hoof; it kind of felt like a warning not to let it get away from him. The words on the box changed, now actually a reminder that the book was not yet finished, but the knowledge within was nonetheless enough to build up some skills and construct artifacts that, ‘according to Twilight’, had been unheard of in Equestria.

He removed the top of the box, the book within, and stared. The red cover didn’t look any different from any given book, and simply read ‘Index Rerum of Spells and Enchantments’. Never judge a book by its cover indeed; foreign magic and alternate methods as well as their combinations were hidden inside, just waiting for those allowed to look into its pages.

Each page was red, and nothing else. It did not seem to bother the Captain as his eyes scanned the ‘blank’ pages, horn glowing softly, and he quickly decided that no other ponies should know of the book. This foreign magic was… something else. What exotic lands did these come from? Some looked… rather risky to research. What kind of dangers would somepony have to go through to require that kind of focus or go in those directions? Some of the spells, once explained, seemed safe enough, but he was far from a fool! Some of the things described in the book didn’t leave much of an error margin; any experiments performed to reach the finished product appeared to be the result of desperation (but dang, that is one efficient armor enchantment).

There were instructions on the construction and enchantment of the many staves the author had come to be known for; basic runes, arrays, circles and spells would be described as normal, then it would develop into an artistic approach. As the message had warned, it lacked certain advanced instructions…

He had no doubt; Twilight, should she study this, would be able to bypass the security of the book, possibly within mere hours… given the entire day and the final edition, she would be able to make her own.

Heck, just some of the ‘starter’ tips showed promise to make his magic more effective; he had learned more in a few pages, than he had in entire books.

The book detailed the proper use of the staves. With the collection of them they had found on their possession…

“Anything else?” He asked the guard that brought the book.

“Everything is warded, and there are things, like a hat, that have a simple warning: ‘Touch and die’ – the many warnings say that nothing will be actually fatal, but that nonetheless will make life very difficult to thieves. The wards around the location recognize the armor of the guards and permit our passage, as do some others, but it appears objects of personal significance are ‘friends only’. There are several ongoing experiments, and the warnings against disturbances are clear – ‘move at your own risk’.”

A second guard, holding a folded cloth in his magic, spoke up.

“This was the only one that had finished by this point – the rest are expected to finish in the following days.”

The cloth looked to be a white cloak of sorts, with golden trimming, yet it was much heavier than it should be.

This could be the ‘robe’ armor the enchantment book read about. If magic and design could make silk that durable, what would it do to metal? Only one way to find out… he turned to the book once more.

She really must know something about the Phantom Thief: The dream catcher he or she reportedly used as a shield against magic once is described here – physical construction, enchantments, and way of use.

There is absolutely nothing on the strange weapon used to attempt to slay the monster, nor the shield attached to it.

*****

Carrot Cake found himself precariously balancing on a single hoof as he balanced several trays on his head, tail, and remaining hooves. The trays held their new breakfast butter rolls, made with a slightly modified recipe that called for a higher temperature and shorter time… it was a matter of precision - the goal was to make the water evaporate faster and produce a fluffy texture and a better flavor, but it just took a few extra seconds to dry it up and make it bland!

There were also a few special madeleines that agreed particularly well with tea and coffee.

The reason for his sudden feat of acrobatics being that Cup, bless her heart, was receiving a hug from who he could only guess was the pony in whose honor they broke out the experimental recipes.

*****

It seems there is a peculiar meaning attached to food in the culture she was raised in.

When somepony from outside offers food, it is taken as a sign of acceptance; repeat instances, or the recipient’s favorite, are offers of friendship.

She doesn’t ask for much, and yearns of having a filly she can claim is ‘of the blood’, possibly referring to her duplication ability. She described the house of her dreams, and would like to own a shop and do business trading exotic things, using her ability as an aid. Strangely enough, she makes no mention of finding a special somepony, and refers to her future heir as female almost exclusively.

These tranquil desires make remembering that she has trained for combat strange, especially being the smallest and possibly youngest among us. It is nearly impossible to link the soul-weary filly in front of me with anything related to danger; the signs are there, however; be it in the way her eyes dart towards the Cake twins at any loud noises, or the way the air around her changes when she holds one of them.

Her eyes undergo radical changes too; one minute she is a wide-eyed filly looking at pastries, the next there is sharpness like that of a steel sword. One moment she is all smiles and playfulness, and then I touch her and find out she is ready like a bow drawn taut or a coiled spring. She only relaxed in the bath or when in an embrace.

=====

She has a recipe for ‘herb cake’ (attached to this letter) that is more like a collection of herbs mashed, rolled into shape and baked in an oven, stuck together by their own saps. Apparently, and I quote, ‘so disgusting as to die, even by my standards’; it is, however, very nutritious and healthy so that it leaves anypony feeling much better… she breaks them up and makes them into capsules to be able to eat them without tasting them.

She is health-conscious on occasion, knowing just what needs to be done to balance out everything – down to the exercise required to burn the calories in a given amount of ice cream. She is of the opinion that nopony should harm her friends, not even themselves.

She much prefers her friends’ safety over their opinion of her. It saddens me to think about it, about how she has been persecuted because of superstitions and misunderstandings. It has made her very protective of what little she has left.

I shudder to think what fate would befall those that dare threaten the safety of her foals.

*****

She was dressed, clean, her skin was smooth and moist from the fragrant oils, her hair was silky and shiny from shampoo… much more enjoyable than in the middle of nowhere and having to use her energy to make sure she at least looked presentable.

And now, there was food and drink.

“Thank you again, Twilight, all of you.” She said with a smile despite the distant look in her eyes. “I’ve left so many friends behind… or they left me…”

Rainbow Dash scoffed, and was about to say something, but got interrupted.

“No, Rainbow, I can’t blame them.” Gemini nursed a cup of coffee. “There are many, many kinds of monsters that can fake being sentient, to varying degrees, and do many things to their victims. I have seen ten with my own eyes, and personally fought with seven of them. Besides, with so many different shape-shifting races, spells, glamour, and plain old disguises, who’s to say that the kid who just kicked down a wall isn’t dangerous?”

To be fair, she knew that she could very well become a monster – what irked her was the fact that everyone else quite conveniently forgot that they, too, could do so. Although…

She knew she had made mistakes – far be it for her to deny it! She knew she often lacked foresight like most like her, and knew she could have handled certain situations better. Nevertheless, she would never regret it; she had helped others, and that was what mattered.

’To restore peace to the world, to protect your smile… we move in the shadows and shine unexpectedly!’ The words echoed in her memory.

She couldn’t stop. She had blown her own ‘cover’… nearly every time to be honest, save for the precious few when she left before something had the chance. She would never regret it.

“I may be many things, but I’m not ignorant. I’m well aware that I’m a collection of conflicting natures, cultures, viewpoints, desires, instincts and impulses such that, skills or no, it’s nothing short of a miracle that I can function at all, let alone in society.” The madeleine in her grasp was softer than cotton and its taste tickled her tongue, keeping her focused. “Doesn’t help that the way my memory works means that trauma is quite difficult to handle. And that doesn’t even take into account any problems others could have with me or my powers.”

Her head thumped on the table. Being at peace with herself sadly didn’t help others being at peace with her.

“If you can face destiny head on with a laugh, don't worry... your story will never end.” She muttered, and let out a rueful chuckle. Twilight heard her, however.

“Gem, would you like to hear the story of how I met my friends?”

*****

A small jam-maker’s house – After Luna’s announcement.

Hugh Jelly was feeling conflicted.

On one side, there had been a monster attack on town, and a particularly dangerous one to boot. He was surprised that only one pony had gotten injured – sure, it was bad, really bad, but it seemed like she could pull through against all odds. There was also the support; that pony (Au-something) used some fancy spellwork and made a number on the street, while Rainbow Dash… whoa.

Kicked one of those blade things so hard it wouldn’t be inaccurate to say it blew up.

Still, it was a scary situation to face; one near-death experience in the Everfree when he was a little colt had been enough, thank you very much.

And that, or rather, the outcome of that, factored heavily on why he was still feeling a little happy overall.

Ugh! Alright, the rising feeling of heat across his skin and the soreness and tiny cramps lessened the joy; still, it wasn’t like he was running out of time.

No, he had a few hours at the least before the cramps started getting bad, further for the heat to make him sweat, and even then the real trouble wouldn’t start until days later. No reason to wait for that, though. As such, he quickly made his way to his medicine cabinet and took two things.

A hoof-full of the first, spread across chest, wait for it to absorb.

A mouthful of the second, relishing the taste for a moment before swallowing.

Already he could feel himself cooling down, and it wouldn’t be long before everything was back to ‘normal’.

Relatively, of course; he knew that –short of the princesses- only the… modified… however you pronounce her type had the actual ability to return him to actual, mint-condition normal.

Nah, the scars across his gut weren’t that noticeable from the excellent care he received, and it wasn’t like he was in danger of running out of either remedy anytime soon; the symptoms were just a side-effect from the method used to save him, and nothing he could not live with.

And it was the perfect excuse to show up out of the blue! ‘Hey, I’m almost dry again, so I came to see you’ and the little hamlet welcomed him warmly.

And her…

She was there, waiting for his next visit.

And- and the reason he was so darn happy right now was because he could be a father! Two days ago, the princess just showed up at his door, and offered to solve their problem!

Err, that would be theirs, not one of his pony princesses. Hmm. He’d never thought about how much pony royalty in Equestria could be addressed as ‘prince this’ or ‘princess that’ before… everypony just thought of Celestia or Luna by default. Though, to be fair, the Water Children (so much better a name) had never brought up their royalty other than in passing reference.

Though with a title/name combination that roughly means ‘living fragment of the shadow of all-that-is and all-that-will-be’, he made sure he remembered every tale. That name was on his danger list, right up there with ‘Nightmare Moon’, ‘Blade Baron’ and ‘Discord’. (Given the deal with the Nightmare, he wasn’t sure the Baron was ‘merely an old horror tale’ anymore).

And thus, having the aforementioned shadow princess stroll right in and announce the end of his problems was a little jarring; doubly so since he didn’t know that that was supposed to be her, with a disguise so good.

Mad props to her ‘sort of assistant, sort of charge, sort of servant’ for making it; that this one managed to also solve the issue of his parenthood only made him respect her more.

He just wondered… what would the foal be like? Dear goodness, what of the surges?! An Earth pony foal nigh-literally bounced off the walls! Drawing all that ambient energy in an unstable manner, mixing it with their supplies so abruptly regardless of how small it might be, and letting it flail about just as uncontrollably… it sent a shiver down his spine.

Still, was he not willing to go for it regardless? That was rhetorical - of course he wanted! That was the reason he read up so much on the subject! Even though he knew that she couldn’t… but now it seemed he was going to have a bundle of joy after all.

He wasn’t- well, he could adopt, but this would be something else. Besides, how would he get the mother here to Ponyville? He’d want the both of them raising the foal, and the other place… yeah; he wasn’t going making that trip with a foal under sixteen without some big escorts. Oh, if only he could get ponies to see things like he did, making them forget about paranoia; he would be able to get ponies like Twilight be those escorts – to magic every threat into submission.

One thing was for certain, though. He wasn’t sure he’d do well with one of theirs, since they require certain specialized care that he was unable to give and the way they grow up and mature was weird by Equestrian standards.

Come to think of it… he knew some of them could have foals with an Equestrian, like the princess and her servant; it was just an unfortunate twist of fate that his little darling couldn’t. Thing was, how would the whole thing play out? With the density of magic inside a pony, and… alright, he didn’t know how it all worked, but he did know that both kinds of magic in one foal would be quite an oddity.

Another worrying thought. This would be highly unusual, even taking into account hybrids like Kirins… it was hard to believe that ponies didn’t even know what they were supposed to be! Granted, he didn’t know either up until he read that old book, but still! Ugh, alright, the local library didn’t have it, but one would think the story would circulate at least.

A kid born of a dragon and a pony would make an interesting topic, given that there is a dragon living in Ponyville – ‘baby’ or not.

And now he was going for something even more uncommon.

Oh boy, did he have his hooves full now…