It felt good to have the gown off. It had been removed with all the care it deserved, placed back into its box with mothballs, sealed up, and placed inside of a wardrobe. It was something that Bucky knew he would treasure. Coco had done some of the stitches with strands of her and Rarity’s mane, now the signature of their work for special clients.

Sipping a glass of warm spiced sherry, Bucky reflected upon the day, which was not yet over. There was so much to do, but it was nice to take a break. Sitting in the nursery, curled up in the bowl shaped chair, Bucky listened to the sounds of Bell Heather and Cadance sleeping.

Beneath the crib, Sukari was eating some baby carrots that Bucky had set out for her. She had taken them, one by one, and dragged them beneath the crib to devour them, like some horrible beast dragging its prey back to its lair.

It was warm in the nursery.

Almost drowsing, Bucky enjoyed the time alone, or almost alone, a chance to collect his thoughts. Sentinel and Ripple were having a much deserved celebration and eating the leftover food with the Raptors. He took another sip of sherry, felt the warmth on his tongue, and the gentle burn in his throat.

He was snapped to reality by realising there were two blue eyes staring at him. He saw two little hooves braced against the edge of the chair cushion. Sukari’s face looked sad, but it always did.

“Want up here?”

The foal whimpered, her eyes darting around from nervous fear.

Bucky decided it was worth the risk. Extending his will, he scooped her up in his telekinesis and plopped her in the chair with him. Everything remained dry and Bucky felt a rush of relief.

The zebra filly tumbled down the incline of the bowl shaped cushion and ended up against Bucky’s side. She kicked and twisted around, fussed, let out a frustrated grunt, and then curled up in the fetal position, pressed up against Bucky’s ribs.

Finishing off his sherry, Bucky vanished the glass back into the kitchen. He pulled a blanket over himself and Sukari, dropped down his head, and closed his eyes.

“Baba?” Bucky asked.

“No,” Sukari replied.

“Maybe tomorrow.” Bucky felt the foal snuggle a little closer as sleep began to take him.

Feeling jubilant, Ripple lifted up a foamy mug of harder than soft and softer than hard cider, her hoof stuffed through the handle. She tilted it back and drank it down. She felt light headed, warm, almost sweaty.

Ripple belched.

“Losing ain’t so bad,” Grunion said. He ducked an empty mug thrown at him. “Why did Sentinel leave?”

“I think he went off to think about the lesson his father gave him,” Kiara replied. The griffoness hiccupped. “I think I drank too much. Grunion looks good. Nope.” She shook her head.

“Freyja and Callum are off preening one another and necking.” Brigid looked over at the pair and fluffed out. “Gofannon is off brushing his pretty little pegasus pony. I need to find love.”

Flench leaned over and placed his beak close to Brigid’s ear. “I have my eye on a pony. She’s pretty. She can tie herself into knots. She works with Stone Mother. She has the most wonderful squishy face and flappy lips. She is brave. A scrapper.”

“Why all of this pony love?” Brigid asked.

“Why not? Pony pretty. Griffoness pretty. Female pretty. Dick fits in both of them. If you like both, you double your chances,” Flench replied.

Rolling her eyes, Brigid squawked and shoved Flench away from her.

“Plus, ponies have big soft flabby sideways muffs on face. Might be nice to stick dick in.”

“Flench, I am ashamed to know you.” Brigid turned away from Flench and watched as Callum and Freyja continued necking.

“Going in is what a dick does. It goes in. A dick cannot deny its purpose. A hole is meant to be filled. Dick don’t know why it needs to go in hole. A hole don’t know why it opens to dick. But this is the nature of the universe. When the dick and the hole both fulfil their purpose, the dick hides and the hole swallows up the dick, life goes on and the universe continues.”

Brigid peeped and clacked her beak together in annoyance.

“I think the universe makes holes and dicks. See, the universe needs something to witness it. We have to look up and see stars. We have to feel water. Soft earth under claws. Lay in wet grass. If no one sees stars, if no one feels wet grass, if no dry dick goes into wet hole while laying in wet grass, if no one touches and feels… maybe universe stops existing because no one there to witness it existing and—”

Flench fell off of his chair and went silent, his eyes closed.

“Drunkard,” Brigid said in a low voice.

Looking down at the spidery letters that only creatures with working thaumaturgical systems could see, Dinky tried to understand the complexities of what she was reading. Magic was a language all its own. While some spells had regular words, simple words, words that anypony could read, other spells had spidery letters that no tongue could pronounce and had to be burned into the brain with repeated reading.

The spidery glyphs and symbols carried more information than any letter or word could say, they carried entire concepts. It was like reading a paragraph or an entire page in a book all at once, knowing every word, gaining every meaning, all just by glancing it.

Dinky was still learning how to read it. It took time, patience, and dedication. The brain didn’t want to take in knowledge in this way. It rebelled, trying to push the knowledge out, and so the glyphs and siguls had to be stared at until they burned their way in.

Not only could Dinky read these spider leg letters, she was learning how to write them, something so rare that very few adult unicorns could do it. She could burn the entire contents of a thought down upon a page and it would form the strange letters of magic.

Dinky understood that she had power. She understood her father’s fascination with magic. She understood why Twilight Sparkle had a look of bliss upon her face when she was lost in the act of spell casting.

Enchantment was taking these glyphs, these siguls, these concepts put into symbols, placing them on an object, and then making that object conform to the concept being imprinted upon it. Piña’s unspillable glass was, in the most simple of terms, a glass that had been told not to spill, and then the glass had been made to listen by giving it a single purposeful thought along with the ability to turn this thought into action.

I am not to spill.

And that was enchantment in the most simple of form.

But, as Dinky was discovering, enchantment was the most complex of all schools of magic. A simple golem needed to do more than just walk. A golem had to balance. Balance took hundreds, sometimes thousands of actions, each one of those actions required an entire book worth of thoughts. And then, the golem needed to balance while stepping on a stone, which required a whole new set of instructions.

But father made it seem so easy.

The day when Dinky realised that one of her father’s simple rotocopter golems required several million different instructions, and that was just to fly, she had lapsed into a depressed funk and had fretted all day that she would never have the mental capacity to do what her father did.

Sentinel’s self writing pen was mind boggling for its complexity. Each letter it produced took so many instructions, the pen had to balance while writing, it had to listen to what was being said, and it had to make sure not to leak ink.

Looking at her Daring Do doll, the one that her father had bought for her, Dinky gritted her teeth and told herself that one day, she was going to make that doll walk across her desk, and not fall off of the edge.

Sentinel watched what Sparkler was doing. Sitting on the back porch, having cleared some snow off of a wooden chair, he watched as Sparkler cleared snow from the lake behind the house, revealing the ice beneath.

She was already almost done.

Her scarf flapped in the breeze and her woollen cap sat upon her head at a jaunty angle. Her magic made short work of the snow. He watched as she approached the back porch, sliding along the ice.

Sparkler gave Sentinel a brilliant smile as she sat down and began strapping something to her hooves.

“What are you doing?” Sentinel asked.

“I’m about to ice skate,” Sparkler replied.

“Oh.”

The skates on Sparkler’s hooves had blades. They were shiny and looked sharp.

Sparkler lifted up four more skates. “Here, strap these on. It’s not hard.”

Doing as he was bid, Sentinel used his wings and his thumbs to slip the skates onto his hooves, tighten the straps, and then he wiggled each one to make certain they were secured.

“Now skate with me, little brother,” Sparkler said as she stepped out onto the ice.

Wobbling over to the ice, the blades under his hooves made it very difficult to walk. He stepped down, onto the ice, took a few steps, and then the horizon went crazy.

A moment later, Sentinel was laying on his back with four legs sticking up into the air. He heard Sparkler giggling.

“Ow.” Sentinel laid there for a moment as he tried to figure out what had went wrong. He then felt the warm tingle of magic as he was righted and placed upon his hooves. He heard laughter. Sparkler’s laughter.

“I’m probably going to fall too. Stupid Shivers. So you can laugh at me.” Sparkler smiled and shoved off, sliding with effortless ease over the ice.

Unfurling his wings for balance, Sentinel scrambled to stay on his hooves. Flapping, he started to slide over the ice, and after a moment, he sort of had his balance. He kept flapping and was soon moving at a decent speed.

“Pretty good!” Sparkler shouted.

This was great. Sentinel slid over the ice, using his wings for propulsion. He found that if he leaned off to one side, he’d turn in that direction. His troubles melted away as he skated across the lake.

“I can go backwards!” Sparkler cried, shooting backwards and moving with terrific speed.

Sentinel watched her go, admiring her grace and feeling a little jealous. “Show off!”

“You should see Dinky… she is an amazing skater… to be honest, I thought that Dinky would get ice skates as a cutie mark.” Sparkler lept, twirled through the air, and made a shaky landing. Recovering, she kept going.

Having fun, Sentinel let go. He wooshed along, learning to take turns better, how to bank, how to angle, this was a lot like flying. He chased after Sparkler and Sparkler chased after him.

Sentinel’s uptight and stuffy nature had been laid low by the ice skates.

It was rare for Sentinel to behave like a foal, but he was doing so now, making funny faces at Sparkler as he went shooting past her. As he went zipping past, Sparkler did a remarkable three hundred and sixty degree turn.

She landed and for a moment, Sentinel was certain she was going to fall. Her legs trembled and spasmed. At the last moment, she recovered and took off, a purple-pink streak.

Leaning way over, Sentinel turned, keeping his balance, tipping over as far as he dared, using momentum to keep going forward. There was a loud crack, like a thunderbolt or a tree branch breaking off in the storm.

Pulling up from his turn, Sentinel did not see Sparkler. Coasting along, he looked around. No sign of Sparkler anywhere. He began to wonder if Sparkler had teleported away, or was playing a prank on him. He coasted to a halt and saw a flash of colour.

It was Sparkler’s hat and it was floating in the water. Water. There was a hole in the ice.

Sentinel made a dreadful connection.

“Oh feck! Sparky!”

Not sparing a moment to think, Sentinel dove in.

Author's Notes:

Would he or wouldn't he? I bet you are asking yourself that right now. Chapter 600 is coming. Interesting things always happen in century chapters, right?