Meanwhile, back in the Ivory Gardens District of Canterlot, Bastian had just forked the last chunk of steak from his plate and into his mouth. He was unable to recall the last time he had enjoyed such a tender and delicious cut of meat and he chewed slowly, savoring its flavor and texture. It tasted a lot like beef but carried with it a faint wild gamey flavor as well, but it was pleasant and the mage had enjoyed every bite he took.

It is said that sometimes the simplest things in life are the greatest, and a T-bone steak cooked rare paired with an Equestrian zinfandel were indeed simple things, but to Bastian it was arguably even more enjoyable than the feast that had been thrown for him and his companions the night before, if not quite as grand in scale. For one, the meal included fresh meat. Secondly, there wasn’t a pink pony trying to blindfold him, arm him with a club, and make him assault a papier-mache construct shaped in the likeness of a giant cupcake.

Bastian’s only possible complaint, if he had one at all, was that he wished he had a bigger glass. The glass wine tumblers they had been provided with were attractive enough to look at but were simply much too small to slake a Nord’s thirst, let alone Bastian’s, but the mage simply couldn’t bring himself to voice his one and only concern through bites of food. Norma the Gryphon watched him eagerly from the side, awaiting his verdict on the meal. Bastian had been so in the zone he had barely acknowledged her as he ate but after he swallowed the final piece of meat and realized he was now out of food, he nodded at her.

“You know what Norma,” The mage said behind his napkin. “You were right, I think I will have that second steak, thank you.”

The Gryphoness laughed and clapped her claws together.

“I told you, darling, I told you! A growing boy needs protein in his diet!”

She gave his cheek an affectionate pinch which he endured with a tight polite smile before she returned to the kitchen, singing a song from the old country under her breath as she went.

It had been just over two hours since Princess Luna brought them to the modest trottoria and from the time they were seated by Nico, it had been a nonstop onslaught of delicious food and top-notch service to rival that of any one of Canterlot’s finest eating establishments. Nico and Norma were a friendly and endearing pair, and in addition to the food that their guests had ordered, they had also brought the party several samples of new recipes they were working on in an attempt to bring in new clientele. Bastian and Lielle, who had spent the past several years living as lean as paupers, strictly rationing out what little food they could find in the frigid north of Winterhold, offered no resistance apart from the “Oh no we couldn’t possibly” that the social contract demanded. In addition to her alfredo pasta, her share of the garlic bread and antipasto, two cups of delicious soup and a generous salad, Lielle had also devoured a generous serving of tiramisu and something called Zuppa Cavallo (a southern Gryphonian interpretation on a Canterlotian classic) for dessert and was now very close to entering a food coma along with Shining Armor who had discovered that challenging the hospitality of two Gryphons from the Southern Isles was a very silly thing to do.

“How?” Lielle groaned as she watched Bastian use a piece of bread to wipe up the red juice that lingered on his plate. “How do you have room for anything else? That steak was fit for a lord’s banquet.”

The ponies, save for Luna, grimaced a little as Bastian popped the “bloody” hunk of bread into his mouth.

“You had two pieces of cake.” The mage said defensively.

“There’s always room for dessert Bas, everyone knows that.”

The ponies nodded. Bastian drained his glass.

“I’m just trying to enjoy the flavor of an actual meal before it’s back to hardtack and tiukhkan rations.” He said.

“What’s T-Tiu- Teek- uh-” Spike asked trying to form the alien word in his mouth.

“Tee-Uhk-Can.” Bastian enunciated as he refilled his glass. “It’s Bosmer foodstuff made out of dried meat and animal fat that have been shaped into balls or cut into bricks. We make it out of whatever’s on hand. Bears, elk, sabercat, ho-” He bit his tongue and quickly drank his wine down in a manner that Rarity would find uncultured while Lielle shifted uncomfortably in her seat and tried to look innocent. Bastian cleared his throat and avoided Twilight’s puzzled expression. “Whatever we can hunt. We also add wild nuts and berries but it does little to improve the flavor.”

“I’ve tried making it into stews with onions and potatoes and things but…” Lielle shook her head and grimaced.

“How resourceful.” Princess Luna said suspiciously.

Lielle nervously drank from her glass of water and avoided Princess Luna’s gaze. As a young girl she grew up around horses on her grandfather’s farm in High Rock and she disliked the idea of having to eat horses as much as any pony in Equestria would, even if they were prepared with peppers and onions, but desperate times call for desperate measures and Lielle was ready to take that dark secret to her grave. She cleared her throat and changed the subject.

“Bastian what- what kind of meat was that anyway?” She asked.

“It tasted like beef but I don’t really care just so long as there’s more of it.” He replied.

Twilight levitated the menu into the air and turned it back to the “carnivore” section.

“According to the menu, their meat is imported from Gryphonstone where they raise livestock consisting of animals the original settlers brought with them from beyond the mountains. The bistecca fiorentina is made from the meat of uh... murus which are distant, nonsapient cousins of Equestrian cows.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Spike said throwing his little claws up. “You mean to tell me that they just raise animals to be killed?! And eaten?!”

“Well, um, yes,” Twilight said with an air of discomfort. “But Spike, they aren’t like the cows that live in Equestria. They can’t talk or reason and they aren’t magical so… so that makes it…” The mare couldn’t bring herself to say the word “okay”. Being an animal was one thing; a lion couldn’t help that it had to eat other animals to survive, but the thought that someone could consciously and willingly kill and eat other creatures was more than a little unsettling, even if their biology demanded it. Twilight didn’t like the thought of any living creature being hurt, much less cooked and devoured and the colors of her magical, technicolored talking pony world were starting to run gray, much to the young mare’s discomfort.

“They’re like the critters that Fluttershy takes care of.” She finally said.

“Hey, Mr. Cluckers is pretty smart!” Spike said in defense of his critter bros. “He can play tic tac toe and he beats me like, all the time!”

Twilight sighed and massaged her hoof against her head. She had been planning on spending the summer teaching Spike long division, not debating the ethics of carnivorism with the baby dragon.

“It- It just isn’t the same Spike.” She said. “Fluttershy can bond with animals on a level that the rest of us just can’t, not even the earth ponies. She taught Mr… Cluckers how to play tic tac toe just like she taught Mordecai and Rigby how to clean up litter. For carnivores and omnivores, it can't be helped.”

Bastian cleared his throat as he put his wine glass down.

“Miss Sparkle is right, young Spike. It’s naught but the circle of life.” Bastian said. “The races of men and mer alike subsist on the flesh of… “lesser creatures”. We die and our bodies are returned to the earth to sprout new life for those creatures to live on and so on and so forth… Though I suppose that this isn’t technically true… I mean, it’s not like we are letting animals wander into our graveyards to eat the grass growing around tombstones… actually, now that I think about it, it’s a stupid way to express it…”

“Well, we weren’t exactly sitting at the top of the food chain ourselves,” Lielle said helpfully. “Never mind the fact that a dragon could swallow a man whole, but wild boars could gore a man on their tusks and a nest of mudcrabs can strip a man’s body in a matter of hours.”

“Yes, but they’re just ill-tempered. They weren’t apex predators. They don’t actively hunt people to eat them.” Bastian countered.

“Frostbite spiders, sabercats, vargr,” Lielle said counting them off on her fingers.

“Trolls, migrating cliff racers, chauruses...” Bastian added. “Yes, as a general rule, if something tries to eat me I reserve the right to try and eat them back.”

“Fair… fair enough I guess?” Twilight said with an awkward smile.

“So something tries to take a bite out of you, you just try to take a bigger bite out of it?” Shining asked.

“Basically,” Bastian replied.

“With a few exceptions,” Lielle added hastily, ready to choose to starve to death over eating giant insects.

“Cool.” The stallion smiled. “I can dig it.”

“The aurochs, or as they are colloquially known as today, “murus” are but one example of the so-called “feral” creatures we spoke of earlier, and among those that thou hath our blessings to hunt for sustenance,” Princess Luna said. “Although it should be noted that while murus are not native to our shores, Everfree Forest is home to a wide variety of creatures that should be suitable for thy purposes, yet we still urge caution. Thou are already well aware that the forest can be treacherous to those unfamiliar with it. If thou find it agreeable, we shall send word to our sister’s rangers after we have finished dining to ask for their aid in familiarizing thy hunters with the lay of the land.”

“Whatever you think is best your majesty,” Bastian replied. “As always, we appreciate any and all help that Canterlot has to offer.”

“Thy appreciation is unnecessary," The Princess said dismissively. "As a Princess, it is our sworn duty to ensure the safety of our subjects. Thy praise and adoration be incidental. And if Miss Sparkle finds it agreeable we would also ask that she be of assistance to thy people should the need arise. So long as it does not interfere with her studies, of course.”

“Absolutely!” Twilight nodded. “I would be happy to help! Now that you’re the uh, “Jarl” I imagine that you’re going to need all the help you can get! There’s city planning, zoning, infrastructure, learning our culture and our ways of life and we still have to find time to teach you how to read!”

She clapped her hooves together and giggled excitedly as Shining Armor rolled his eyes, his lips curling into a slight smile. His sister was a major dork, no two ways around that, but so was he in his own right and that was fine. He worried about her for a long time when she was a filly. Young Twily wasn’t exactly what one would call a “social creature”. Even an O&O playing nerd like him had his close circle of friends that he studied with and hung out with on the weekends during his days at Canterlot Academy, some of them he’s even still in contact with, but Twilight never seemed to make those connections, even if they were the transient relationships of a school filly.

For a long time, it appeared that all she would ever be interested in was books. As Twilight and Bastian discussed what their first move should be, Shining’s mind wandered back to his little sister’s... fifth birthday? Fifth or sixth, he couldn't quite remember exactly which, but like most of Twily's birthdays, it was just a small family gathering of himself, Twilight, their mother and father, and both sets of grandparents. They cooked her favorite dinner (grilled mac and cheese sandwiches with carrot sticks), sang happy birthday, and ate plenty of cake and ice cream before little Twily opened her presents.

After their little party had ended their parents and grandparents were cleaning up in the kitchen and having coffee while little Twily retreated to her “hidey hole” as their father called it; her little tent made out of blankets and pillows in the living room where she could often be found reading. Tonight she had her new books arranged in a neat stack with her little smartypants doll sitting on top. Shining was listening to an episode of the Shadow Stallion on the radio when the Shadow Stallion got into a big fight with his on again off again marefriend and femme fatale Lady Nightshade. She left the Shadow Stallion alone in an alleyway and the word alone repeated in the hero’s head. Alone… alone… alone…

Twily looked up and noticed her big brother looking in on her from just outside her Fortress of Comfortude.

Alone.

“Hey!” She said beaming at him. “Thanks again for Iron Brand’s new book!”

“No problem.” He said smiling in return. “Anything for my favorite sister.”

“I’m your only sister.” She snorted.

“Right, right.” He nodded as he sat down next to her. “So, how is it?”

“It’s really great!” Twily said sitting up. “But... I don’t think I agree with everything she says…”

“Oh? Like what?”

“Well,” Little Twily began. “She believes in Objectivism, which means that what you see is what you get. There’s no point in trying to search for larger meaning in life through things like faith and the supernatural, which I can understand you know? Science and magic have rules that must be observed for them to function. But she also thinks that the Princess should keep her nose out of things like trade, to let the consumers speak for themselves. It’s called lazy fair cap-ita-lism, which is kind of weird since I think a lazy fair would be boring, don’t you?”

Shining Armor hid a snort behind his hoof, disguising it as a cough.

“Y-Yeah!” He agreed with a nod. “Who wants to see a bunch of sleeping lions and giraffes and clowns and stuff?”

“Right?” Twily nodded. “I figure that Iron Brand doesn’t know much about fairs. I don’t know if Princess Celestia does but she’s the smartest, most magical mare in Equestria, so if she made a fair, I bet that it would be better than Iron Brand’s lazy fair. I hear at Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns they get to have book fairs!”

“They still do book fairs at your school don’t they?”

“Yeah, but those are just foal’s books and stuff like that,” Twily said dismissively. “Like, okay we get it, the dish ran away with a spoon. I want to know what forced them to leave their home!”

Little Twily asking the real questions. And her six-year-old reasoning was rock solid. You wouldn’t be able to get your hooves on a collection of philosophical essays written by Iron Brand in Mrs. Blotter’s magic kindergarten class and that’s a fact. She went back to her book, using her magic to have her Smarty Pants doll take notes which she would later draft into her own five-page essay that she would mail to Iron Brand in response to her book. Shining watched her for a few minutes as she read and took her notes and then asked her a question that caught her off guard.

“Twily?”

“Yep?”

“Are you lonely?”

The tiny filly looked up at her brother with wide purple eyes, a confused expression on her tiny face.

“What?” She asked.

“Are you lonely? You know do you ever feel, like, you know… alone?”

His soft and concerned expression gave the filly pause.

Lonely?

Could a filly her age wrap her head around such a concept?

Unlike a pony that became blind later in life due to an unfortunate accident or a medical condition of some kind, a pony that was born blind had no concept of vision or sight, nothing to remember or compare it to. It was just the way things were. Twilight had never really made any friends nor did she have a desire to. At home, she had her mom, her dad, and Shiny, her big brother best friend forever. Her grandparents visited her all the time and they usually brought her gifts in the form of books and the occasional toy (which were almost always forgotten in the closet of her bedroom), along with the newspaper from the train they took to visit her and that was enough for the young filly. She found her schoolmates immature and annoying, her teacher patronizing and boring. She didn’t need them in her life any more than they already were. Twily looked up at her big brother and shook her head.

“No.” She replied.

He gave her a long hard look and then nodded.

“Okay.” He said simply.

He leaned forward into her fortress of comfort and nuzzled her affectionately before he started to return to the living room. For a reason she couldn’t quite grasp yet, Twily was filled with a sudden surge of love for her brother and she lunged forward and jumped onto his back.

“Pony back ride!” She cheered.

Shining laughed and trotted around the room, bouncing her lightly on his back, Twily laughing and clapping her hooves together in foal-like glee as their parents and grandparents watched from the kitchen, their hearts swelling with pride.

That felt like a lifetime ago. Before Twilight became the Princess’s most prized pupil. Before Shining met the mare that would become the love of his life and before Twilight was sent to Ponyville and made friends. She was happier now than Shining had ever seen her and for a bookworm that once had the entirety of the Canterlot Archives at her disposal, that was saying quite a lot. And Shining decided that even if things had gone differently, if Twilight was still the same old Twilight, that mare that always had her face buried in a book, Shining reasoned that that would be okay too, just as long as she was truly happy. She had changed so much Shining briefly considered the possibility of becoming an uncle in the future. He imagined giving a little colt or filly a pony back ride through the Canterlot Botanical Gardens while Twilight, her special somepony, and Cadence watched with amused expressions from a picnic blanket.

Cadence…

And that was the first time in their relationship that Shining saw their future together. I mean of course actually took the time to picture it in his mind’s eye. He had never really considered an alternative, his heart never wavering from the mare he loved for a second, and he didn’t think that she did either. He had known all along since the first time that they met that the two of them were destined to be together but this was the first time he had ever actually stopped to visualize it. It gave him a warm feeling that started in his heart, spread throughout his body, and brought a somewhat dopey smile to his face. He could see it as clear as a sunrise on a summer morning and the more he thought about it the clearer the picture became. They’d be married in the spring. That was Cadence’s favorite time of the year. They’d travel for their honeymoon, go to all of the places they talked about but were too busy to actually visit. She always said how much she wanted to visit Prance, a desire that still made him snort in amusement.

He thought back to one of his favorite memories he had with her. Not the day they met, they day they began dating, or even their first kiss. The day he was remembering in question, the two of them were sitting in the shade of a great oak tree in the Canterlot Botanical Gardens in relative silence, doing nothing in particular apart from enjoying each others company. Cadence was laying in the soft green grass, her legs folded under her as she read from a book of poetry by Briller Harpe while Shining enjoyed the warmth of her body next to him.

“You’ve been to Prance!” He laughed as she sighed dreamily at the passage she just read. “Just last week!”

“For work, Shiny!” She said in an annoyed, almost whining voice he found endearing, which was appropriate considering she only called him “Shiny” when she was trying to be endearing.

The adoptive niece of Princess Celestia, Princess Mi Amore Cadenza (or just Princess Cadence, please) was the most beautiful mare that Shining Armor had ever had the privilege to lay eyes on. Though she now bore the horn of an Alicorn, she had started life as a Pegasus pony, orphaned as an infant and raised by a pair of earth ponies named Goldenrod and Star Anise until Princess Celestia discovered her and her talent for spreading love wherever she went. The Princess of the Sun had seen something in her, exactly what it was even Cadence could not say, but Celestia adopted her all the same and moved her to Canterlot (with her guardian's permission of course) and gave her an education becoming of a royal princess.

Save for the horn, Cadence still looked quite like a Pegasus; her svelte frame built for flying through the infinite sky but she stood a little taller than was average for Peagasi and even most ponies. Her fur was light pink in hue and was as soft as silk to the touch. Her tri-colored mane cascaded down her elegant neck in long curling locks and looked as if it had been woven from strands of gold, sprigs of lavender and rose petals, its coloration reminding Shining of some kind of exotic ice cream. Her wings were nothing short of regal and felt to the touch as if they had been loaned to her from angels, giving her their own plumes of downy feathers so that she might grace the skies and they made any Pegasus mare that gazed upon them green with envy. Her amethyst eyes shined bright whenever Shining walked into a room and her smile alone was enough to rejuvenate him even after a long shift on the watch. And she was all his, just as much as he was hers.

“I want to visit as a guest, not a Princess.” She said wrapping a wing around him in an embrace.

“You’ll always be my princess.” He scoffed kissing her head just below her horn.

Yes, it was about thirty-seven kinds of cheesy, but luckily for Shining Armor, Cadence was a hopeless romantic and bucking LOVED that kind of cheese. She giggled and blushed like a school filly as their lips met and then they snuggled beneath the tree that had once been their favorite spot for after-school study sessions.

And nothing else.

Nearby, in total bold faced defiance of the curse that the Elements of Harmony placed upon him, the statue of Discord visibly rolled its eyes with a stony crack, his entombed spirit gagging at the sappy display he was being forced to bear awful witness to. He made a solemn vow that as soon as he was free he’d turn the pair of them into a couple of turtledoves, shove them into a cramped cage and suspend them over a vat of hungry feral cats. But the agonized retching and promises of vengeance fell on deaf ears as Shining and Cadence resumed with their romance of nuzzles and kisses.

He and Cadence would see the world together, of that Shining was certain. And they’d have two foals, a filly, and a colt. Yes, that sounded just fine. He pictured them nuzzled on a couch together. They had cocoa with marshmallows and their foals were in front of the fireplace, their daughter with a book that Aunt Twily gave her and their son playing with the same wooden soldiers that Shining played with when he was a colt. Cadence rested her head on his shoulder and hummed in content as he kissed the top of her head.

“Shining?”

“Huh?”

He blinked the daydream away and shook the goofy grin off of his face. His sister and their dining companions were staring at him.

“UH! Wh-what?” Shining stammered.

“I said don’t you think that would be a good idea?” Twilight said.

“Oh, uh, yeah. Totally!” He nodded enthusiastically, completely oblivious to whatever he had agreed to. All he knew was that his sister was smart, much more so than him, and whatever she said, it was probably a good idea.

Shining’s throat was incredibly dry and his face felt hot despite his placement underneath a fan in the restaurant. He took a quick sip of water, cleared his throat and then asked, “So, uh, Twilight, how’s- uh, how are your studies going anyway?”

Twilight’s cheeks pinkened and her ears folded down in embarrassment as Spike chuckled silently next to her.

“Not very good.” The pony admitted. “I started studying transmogrification magic and didn’t have much trouble turning a piece of hay into a needle but now I’m trying to turn an orange into an apple and haven’t had much luck with it.”

She levitated an orange from the fruit bowl in the center of the table and clenched her eyes shut in concentration. Her horn flashed with a twinkling magical light and the orange flashed with it. The orange had disappeared and in its place was a shiny red apple. She split it in half with her magic and revealed a juicy orange interior.

“See?” She sighed passing it over to him. “At least this time I got the skin right. Last time I tried it it just looked like an orange that was pressed into the approximate shape of an apple.”

“Hey, don’t get yourself down," Shining said placing a hoof on her shoulder. “You'll get it eventually. You can't expect to master everything right away.”

“I know, I know. Maybe I’ll take a break and come back to it.” Twilight sighed. “The great thing about being in Ponyville is that now I just study on my own time, whatever I want, whenever I want. As long as I keep Princess Celestia updated in my letters she doesn’t mind my independent study.”

“May I?” Bastian asked extending a gloved hand towards the fruit bowl.

“Oh, sure!” Twilight said, eager to see alien magic in action.

Bastian lazily twirled his hand and another orange from the fruit bowl shot up into the air. There was no magical glow or flash of light. It simply hung there as if gripped by an invisible hand. Bastian channeled his magicka and his eyes flashed green as he cast a spell. His lips parted and he spoke not in a mortal’s voice, but the voice of a Magi, a voice that could alter reality and defy nature.

“Ele ve’ amin ele, orvaho.”

There was no flash of light. No explosion of glitter or theatrics. If the effect could be observed by a mortal, Twilight missed it. The orange was simply gone and floating in its place was a shiny green apple. It dropped from its spot under the light fixture and into Bastian’s hand.

“Whoa,” Shining said as Bastian extended the apple to Twilight for inspection.

“I don’t like the red ones,” Bastian said as she levitated the apple out of his hand.

“That’s…. Wow!” She gasped.

Spike reached up and plucked the apple out of the air as Bastian took a drink of wine. Spike examined the apple thoughtfully.

“Well, sure, it looks like an apple, but can it pass the most important test of all?” He asked, ready to defend his mom/sister’s honor.

“And what might that be?” Bastian asked in vague amusement.

“The taste test!”

“Oh no…” Lielle said softly.

“Shh…” Bastian hushed as he eyed the tiny dragon, his green eyes flickering with mischief.

Spike opened his mouth wide, exposing his tiny teeth and took a large bite of the apple in his paw, spattering his cheeks with bits of white flesh and juice.

“Mm…” He chewed thoughtfully. “Mmhm. Not bad. Still getting an orangey aftertaste but it’s definitely more appley than orangey.”

“You did it,” Twilight said in awe staring at the bite mark on the apple. “You actually transformed it into a completely different fruit! That’s amazing!"

Bastian swallowed another mouthful of wine and began to pour himself a new glass.

“Did I?” He asked.

He glanced over to Spike and both the baby dragon and Twilight followed his gaze. The apple Spike had been holding in his claw was gone and in its place was an orange with a large bite mark in it. Suddenly, Spike’s taste buds were assaulted by the overwhelming flavor of citrus and the wee dragon erupted into a coughing fit, spitting a wad of chewed up orange onto the plate in front of him.

“Too- too much orange!” He gasped reaching for his water.

He drank it down as Bastian snorted into his glass and Lielle rolled her eyes. She had hoped that Princess Luna wouldn’t be offended that the Jarl of Whateverville had just trolled a baby dragon into regurgitating half of a chewed orange. That didn’t seem to be the case as she gave the Princess an anxious glance out of the corner of her eye. As usual, the Princess of the Night’s expression was difficult to read. The Princess reminded Lielle of Bastian in that regard. Completely neutral with eyes that weren’t exactly warm and friendly, what the kids might call “resting bitch face”. If Lielle had dared to give Luna a proper look, and not just a nervous sideways glance, she might have seen the corners of the Princess’s mouth tugging into the ghost of a smile that she was hiding quite well behind a sip of wine, as well as her eyebrows raised in mild surprise that the wizard’s illusion had even fooled her. Why hadn't I thought of that? The Princess thought to herself.

Twilight’s eyes bugged a bit and then she snorted and giggled as Spike spat a few more times and he began picking pieces of orange rind out of his teeth with a claw.

“Okay, fine, you got me!” She laughed. (“No, he got me!!!” Spike exclaimed.) “That’s a pretty neat trick Mr. Bellrend but it doesn’t count. After all, you didn’t actually turn it into an apple.”

“Didn’t I?” The mage asked.

He reclined back in his seat a bit, hands crossed over his lap. Frustrated with having to pour a new wine glass for every mouthful he drank, and suddenly remembering that he’s a goddamn wizard, the mage had simply cast a spell on the bottle and it now hovered near him, topping him off when he needed a refill.

“Well no,” Twilight said as the bottle bobbed in the air next to him. “Sure, it looked like an apple. Spike even took a bite out of it but it wasn’t really an apple. You just made it look like one.”

“And taste like one.” Bastian nodded. “You witnessed it yourself. Up until the illusion ended, young master Spike looked like he was ready to take another bite. He saw an apple. Felt an apple. Tasted an apple. Spike experienced an apple. So I ask you Miss Sparkle, what’s the difference?”

“The whole point was to actually turn the orange into an apple, not just fool someone into thinking they ate an apple!”

“Semantics.” The mage said with a lazy shrug as he held his glass off out to the side to be refilled.

Princess Luna found the flustered expression on Twilight’s face paired with the impassive, almost bored apathy of Bastian’s, incredibly amusing and she suppressed a snort by taking another sip from her wine glass. Bastian’s bewitched wine bottle floated over to her and offered itself to her.

“Okay then, fine!” Twilight said.

She levitated the last orange in the bowl towards him.

“So, can you do it for real or not?” She asked with a daring smirk. “Because if all you have are tricks at your disposal I’m going to be very disappointed.”

“That’s unfortunate." Bastian said. "It wasn’t my intention to disappoint you. Or impress you for that matter.”

He extended his free hand outwards and Twilight let the orange drop into his hand. “It would be easier if I had my staff or wand to better focus my magicka. It’s easier to convince you that I turned an orange into an apple than trying to convince the universe that the orange was an apple the whole time wearing a clever disguise.”

“So, in lieu of a horn, you must have to use a wand or a staff as a focus?” Twilight asked.

“Not necessarily,” Bastian replied slowly spinning the orange around in his hand, taking the time to get a good feel for it. “A wand makes for good practice, for focusing smaller amounts of magicka but more than you could naturally and much safer, and a channeling staff can focus even more but the ultimate desire is for the individual to become so powerful they do not require either.”

“Do you think that you can teach me?” Twilight asked eagerly. “I’d love for the chance to learn magic from another world!”

“Perhaps.” He replied. “I don’t want to make you any promises. And I have much more pressing matters on my mind right now.”

“Like what?” Twilight asked.

Ding ding. A bell tinkled from the kitchen.

“My food is done.” The mage said tossing Twilight an apple.

Author's Notes:

The words of the spell that Bastian cast translate to "See as I see, apple" or something like that. For the life of me, I can't find a full list of the Altmeri language, which was what I originally wanted to use as the language used by most wizards for their spells but it's likely that one doesn't exist, so I'm gonna cheat and use Tolkien's Sindarin and Quenya languages he invented for the Elves of Middle-Earth, the website I am using can be found here!

I know I haven't updated in awhile, I have no excuses other than I suck. Haven't even seen the MLP movie yet...

Happy Holidays, I will update when I can.